Letter from Rudyard Kipling, London, to W. E. Henley, 1890 January 31 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying "Thank you. It came yesterday. I'd like the book better had I not read it before. How in the world was I to know that you wrote 'A book of verses'? I read all the Hospital Sketches in India and also that maddening 'Made in the hot weather' wh. shld be read with the therm. at 104° in the shade - to the greater glory of the author. Since we be only islands shouting misunderstandings to each other across seas of speech or writing I am going to say nothing. I take off my hat and drop my sword point. You have been where I have yet to go so I dare not ask you why you are so tired. When you get my stuff you will see how far I've walked and where. Yes, men tell me I am young in this country but I have put seven years of India behind me and they do not make a man younger or more cheerful. Also, luckily they don't lead him to believe the protestations of the disinterested publisher or the blandishments of the people to whom a new writer man is as a new purple monkey on a yellow stick. I live very largely alone and my wants are limited to a new fly-rod and some flies. But, you can do me immense service by sending in a memo of reminder if it seems to you that I am spinning out my guts too swiftly, at any time. To a young man the temptation is strong and it is to no body's interest to tell him to go slow. Rather they want all he has at once and then he can go to the deuce, being squeezed dry. I've treated men in the same way when I was an Editor. I see now I was unkind. I am ordered off for a month's idleness now 'cause of my head. If it is written I come to Edinburgh ere long and then I shall see you and - this is business - if you think it worth while you shall give me my riding orders by word of mouth and we will elaborate a Line of Work. At present I am divided between the broken top-joint of my rod and a reel that won't croon properly. Literature is a weariness of the flesh - all books are wicked and the only real thing in the world is a four pound bass coming up with the tide at the mouth of the Torridge. My hook in the right hand top angle of his mouth."