54, Bedford Gardens,

Kensington, W. [London]

Aug 23 ‘84

Dear Charlie: --

Yours of 3d July came a few days ago. I never knew a fellow named Ross Raymond. The nearest I ever came to it was knowing a man named Col. Reynolds and he is an old chap. I never heard of Raymond except in your letter.

Still I might have met him somewhere in the East and did not know his name – but I certainly never had any [page 2] acquaintance with a Raymond except John T. Raymond the actor.[1]

Well! I should think you would get tired of that distant island. Why you don’t come to one of the centres of civilization and pitch in and work with the rest of us I can never understand. In New York we has to work like blazes but after all I am never happy except I am working and I don’t believe you are. I can’t say anything about what there [page 3] is to do in New York in your line except I know that the magazines are always looking for a good short story 8 to 10 pages. I have one coming out in the Harper’s Christmas Magazine which I think you will care to read because you will recognize the background.

I would send you photographs but have none - neither has Lily [2] neither has the new baby – an Anglo-american boy just a month old. We spend our summers here now and I do lots of work and we both [page 4] lay in nervous strength enough to stand the wear and tear of a New York winter. We expect to be there about Nov. 15th to Nov. 1, then, our address is here. I do hope you will come East and go in with the rest and show them that you can do as good work as anybody. Lord save us we are getting old and must work! I joy [?] at it all the time and manage to run a little behind each year but still keep on hoping for better times.

Love to you old boy!

Yours always Frank

[Note in margin of letter] Lily sends regards.

Notes

1. According to Wikipedia, John T. Raymond (1836-1887), whose true name was John O'Brien, was an American stage actor, born in Buffalo, N. Y., on August 5, 1836; he died in Evansville, Indiana on April 10, 1887. He was married twice, the first marriage ending in divorce.
2. This is the first mention of Lily in the correspondence that exists between Millet and Stoddard. It is so casual a mention that one must wonder if an earlier letter announced the marriage or Millet's intentions to marry.