[Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 16, 1882.]
DEAR MRS. GOSSE,—Thank you heartily for the Bible, which is exquisite. I thoroughly appreciate the whole; but have you done justice to the third lion in Daniel (like the third murderer in Macbeth)—a singular animal—study him well. The soldier in the fiery furnace beats me.
I enclose a programme of Lloyd’s new work. The work I shall send to-morrow, for the publisher is out and I dare not touch his “plant“: il m’en cuirait. The work in question I think a huge lark, but still droller is the author’s attitude. Not one incident holds with another from beginning to end; and whenever I discover a new inconsistency, Sam is the first to laugh—with a kind of humorous pride at the thing being so silly.
I saw the note, and I was so sorry my article had not come in time for the old lady. We should all hurry up and praise the living. I must praise Tupper. A propos, did you ever read him?—or know any one who had? That is very droll; but the truth is we all live in a clique, buy each other’s books and like each other’s books; and the great, gaunt, grey, gaping public snaps its big fingers and reads Talmage and Tupper—and Black Canyon.
My wife is better; I, for the moment, am but so-so myself; but the printer is in very—how shall we say?—large type at this present, and the sound of the press never ceases. Remember me to Weg.—Yours very truly,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
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