Autograph letter signed : London, to Dr. Baldwin, 1891 Oct. 19.

Discussing the London reception of his play and his sister's failing health; apologizing for his delay in replying and thanking him for his letters with their "...delightful whiff of Florence & Italy - & yourself (to say nothing of Taccini)...You are a generous friend to take up valuable hours in so vividly covering paper for one who makes you such poor returns. When there isn't one reason for my epistolary feebleness, there is sure to be another & this time I have, for the last three weeks, been infinitely preoccupied & worried. I am happy to say the phase is passing but I have been learning what it is to bring out a play for the 1st time - to take the plunge - the very formidable plunge - of a dramatic author, at a time of the year when London is too empty of the upper-class of playgoers & when the 'critics' have a free field to be stupidly cross with me for doing something totally different from all I have done before. This state of things & with some others begotten of inevitable inexperience has given me plenty to bother my head & break my heart about - & you would have had a 2nd nervous patient on your hands if (happily for you) you had not been at a safe distance. To finish this subject let me say simply that though my drama is in its 4th week, it is still rather too early to say how it's going. What is apparent - seemingly - however is that each week it does better, that people are returning to town, & that after a difficult infancy, better days or rather nights, may very well be in store for it. It only wants to catch on; when it once does so it will stay on. Unfortunately much of the interpretation [illegible] to be desired. The rest of the acting is very good. C.F.W. has seen it, I believe, 5 times - there's friendship for you! - My sister grows weaker & weaker, but you have, thank heaven, put her pain very much into the background. Lately she has had a good deal of irregularity of the heart - a condition that Katherine Loring will have described to you. How good are your expressions of regret at our remoteness - & all your generous expressions of readiness to serve and help! Thank you, my dear Baldwin, a 1000 times. Very well do I picture to myself what a little painted paradise Florence must have seemed to you on your return - & how greasily-greenbacky much of American life must look to you in your retrospect. I don't know what is to become of us - we're too big & booming & brassy to live...adding, in a postscript, "Everything sometimes seems to me a miracle - a miracle of commonplace - We live in tornadoes & tempests here; & I gnash my teeth when I think of your golden Arnoside."