"I've got the unfinished manuscript of his last
novel here beside me, a rollicking Irish tale, different
from anything he ever wrote before. Stephen
thought I was the only person who could finish it,
and he was too ill for me to refuse. I don't know
what to do about the matter, for I never could work
up another man's ideas. Even your vivid imagination
could hardly conjecture anything more ghastly
than the dying man, lying by an open window overlooking
the English channel, relating in a sepulchral
whisper the comic situations of his humorous hero
so that I might take up the thread of his story.
"From the window beside which I write this I
can see down in the valley Ravensbrook House,
where Crane used to live and where Harold Frederic,
he and I spent many a merry night together. When
the Romans occupied Britain, some of their legions,
parched with thirst, were wandering about these dry
hills with the chance of finding water or perishing.
They watched the ravens, and so came to the stream
which rises under my place and flows past Stephen's
former home; hence the name, Ravensbrook.
"It seems a strange coincidence that the greatest
modern writer on war should set himself down
where the greatest ancient warrior, Caesar, probably
stopped to quench his thirst.
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