Yes, you are lucky to have a bag that holds you comfortably. Mine is a strange contrivance; I don’t die, damme, and I can’t get along on both feet to save my soul; I am a chronic sickist; and my work cripples along between bed and the parlour, between the medicine bottle and the cupping glass. Well, I like my life all the same; and should like it none the worse if I could have another talk with you, though even my talks now are measured out to me by the minute hand like poisons in a minim glass.
A photograph will be taken of my ugly mug and sent to you for ulterior purposes: I have another thing coming out, which I did not put in the way of the Scribners, I can scarce tell how; but I was sick and penniless and rather back on the world, and mismanaged it. I trust they will forgive me.
I am sorry to hear of Mrs. Low’s illness, and glad to hear of her recovery. I will announce the coming Lamia to Bob: he steams away at literature like smoke. I have a beautiful Bob on my walls, and a good Sargent, and a delightful Lemon; and your etching now hangs framed in the dining-room. So the arts surround me.—Yours,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES
[xv] Vailima Letters: Methuen and Co., 1895.
[xxi] Compare Virginibus Puerisque: the essay on ‘The English Admirals.’
[xxx] The fragment called Lay Morals, at present only printed in the Edinburgh edition (Miscellanies, vol. iv.), contains the pith of his mental history on these subjects.
[17] Aikman’s Annals of the Persecution in Scotland.
[24] Thomas Stevenson.