My dear Colvin,—I have been long without writing to you, but am not to blame. I had some little annoyances quite for a private eye, but they ran me so hard that I could not write without lugging them in, which (for several reasons) I did not choose to do. Fanny is off to San Francisco, and next week I myself flit to New York: address Scribners. Where we shall go I know not, nor (I was going to say) care; so bald and bad is my frame of mind. Do you know our—ahem!—fellow clubman, Colonel Majendie? I had such an interesting letter from him. Did you see my sermon? [Pulvis et Umbra] It has evoked the worst feeling: I fear people don't care for the truth, or else I don't tell it. Suffer me to wander without purpose. I have sent off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck over a twenty-first, and taken a copy of one which was on business, and corrected several galleys of proof, and sorted about a bushel of old letters; so if any one has a right to be romantically stupid it is I—and I am. Really deeply stupid, and at that stage when in old days I used to pour out words without any meaning whatever and with my mind taking no part in the performance. I suspect that is now the case. I am reading with extraordinary pleasure the life of Lord Lawrence: Lloyd and I have a mutiny novel—

(Next morning, after twelve other letters)—mutiny novel on hand—The White Nigger—a tremendous work—so we are all at Indian books. The idea of the novel is Lloyd's: I call it a novel. 'Tis a tragic romance, of the most tragic sort: I believe the end will be almost too much for human endurance—when the White Nigger was thrown to the ground with one of his own (Sepoy) soldier's knees upon his chest, and the cries begin in the Beebeeghar. Oh, truly, you know it is a howler! The whole last part is—well the difficulty is that, short of resuscitating Shakespeare, I don't know who is to write it.

I still keep wonderful. I am a great performer before the Lord on a penny whistle. Dear sir, sincerely yours,

Andrew Jackson.

[Saranac Lake, April, 1888.]

My dear Gamekeeper,—Your p. c. (proving you a good student of Micawber) has just arrived, and it paves the way to something I am anxious to say. I wrote a paper the other day—Pulvis et Umbra;—I wrote it with great feeling and conviction; to me it seemed bracing and healthful; it is in such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad to fight out my battle, and see some fine sunsets, and hear some excellent jests between whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it. And I could wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it troubles folks too much: all have not the same digestion, nor the same sight of things. And it came over to me with special pain that perhaps this article (which I was at the pains to send to her) might give dismalness to my Gamekeeper at Home. Well, I cannot take back what I have said; but yet I may add this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that it may be—to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth—surely of all things it makes this world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral side—but the great battle and the breathing-times with their refreshments. I see no more and no less. And if you look again, it is not ugly, and it is filled with promise.

Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology. My wife is away off to the uttermost parts of the States, all by herself. I shall be off, I hope, in a week; but where? Ah! that I know not. I keep wonderful, and my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing. We now perform duets on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to make the bass; I think I must really send you one, which I wish you would correct....

I may be said to live for these instrumental labours now; but I have always some childishness on hand.—I am, dear Gamekeeper, your indulgent, but intemperate Squire,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

[On the 16th of April Stevenson and his party left Saranac. After spending a fortnight in New York, where, as always in cities, his health quickly flagged again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters at Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, for the sake of fresh air and boating. Here he enjoyed the society of some of his New York friends, including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the meantime Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco, to see whether a sailing yacht was to be found available for a few months' cruise in the Pacific. The Casco, Captain Otis, was found accordingly; Stevenson signified by telegraph his assent to the arrangement; determined to risk in the adventure the sum of £2,000, of which his father's death had put him in possession, hoping to recoup himself by a book of Letters recounting his experiences; and on the 2d of June started with his mother and stepson for San Francisco, and thence for that island cruise from which he was never to return.]