To Sidney Colvin
[Edinburgh] February 8, 1875.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Forgive my bothering you. Here is the proof of my second Knox. Glance it over, like a good fellow, and if there’s anything very flagrant send it to me marked. I have no confidence in myself; I feel such an ass. What have I been doing? As near as I can calculate, nothing. And yet I have worked all this month from three to five hours a day, that is to say, from one to three hours more than my doctor allows me; positively no result.
No, I can write no article just now; I am pioching, like a madman, at my stories, and can make nothing of them; my simplicity is tame and dull—my passion tinsel, boyish, hysterical. Never mind—ten years hence, if I live, I shall have learned, so help me God. I know one must work, in the meantime (so says Balzac) comme le mineur enfoui sous un éboulement.
J’y parviendrai, nom de nom de nom! But it’s a long look forward.—Ever yours,
R. L. S.
To Mrs. Sitwell
As the spring advanced Stevenson had again been much out of sorts, and had gone for a change, in the company of Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, on his first visit to the artist haunts of Fontainebleau which were afterwards so much endeared to him.
[Barbizon, April 1875.]