My Essays are going through the press, and should be out in January or February.—Ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
To Sidney Colvin
[Hotel Belvedere, Davos, December 1880]
MY DEAR COLVIN,—I feel better, but variable. I see from the doctor’s report that I have more actual disease than I supposed; but there seems little doubt of my recovery. I like the place and shall like it much better when you come at Christmas. That is written on my heart: S. C. comes at Christmas: so if you play me false, I shall have a lie upon my conscience. I like Symonds very well, though he is much, I think, of an invalid in mind and character. But his mind is interesting, with many beautiful corners, and his consumptive smile very winning to see. We have had some good talks; one went over Zola, Balzac, Flaubert, Whitman, Christ, Handel, Milton, Sir Thomas Browne; do you see the liaison?—in another, I, the Bohnist, the un-Grecian, was the means of his conversion in the matter of the Ajax. It is truly not for nothing that I have read my Buckley.[32]
To-day the south wind blows; and I am seedy in consequence.
Later.—I want to know when you are coming, so as to get you a room. You will toboggan and skate your head off, and I will talk it off, and briefly if you don’t come pretty soon, I will cut you off with a shilling.
It would be handsome of you to write. The doctor says I may be as well as ever; but in the meantime I go slow and am fit for little.—Ever yours,
R. L. S.
To Edmund Gosse