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nd do not think I am thus justly to be called "horrible atheist." Now, what is to take place? What a curse I am to my parents! O Lord, what a pleasant thing it is to have just _damned_ the happiness of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world. What is my life to be at this rate? What, you rascal? Answer--I have a pistol at your throat. If all that I hold true and most desire to spread is to be such death, and worse than death, in the eyes of my father and mother, what the _devil_ am I to do? Here is a good heavy cross with a vengeance, and all rough with rusty nails that tear your fingers, only it is not I that have to carry it alone; I hold the light end, but the heavy burden falls on these two. Don't--I don't know what I was going to say. I am an abject idiot, which, all things considered, is not remarkable.--Ever your affectionate and horrible atheist, R. L. STEVENSON. FOOTNOTES: [3] It was the father who, from dislike of a certain Edinburgh Lewis, changed the sound and spelling of his son's second name to Louis (spoken always with the "s" sounded), and it was the son himself who about his eighteenth year dropped the use of his third name and initial altogether. [4] See a paper on _R. L. Stevenson in Wick_, by Margaret H. Roberton, in Magazine of Wick Literary Society, Christmas 1903. [5] Aikman's _Annals of the Persecution in Scotland_. [6] Thomas Stevenson. II STUDENT DAYS--_Continued_ NEW FRIENDSHIPS--ORDERED SOUTH JULY 1873-MAY 1874 The year 1873 was a critical one in Stevenson's life. Late in July he went for the second time to pay a visit to Cockfield Rectory, the pleasant Suffolk home of his cousin Mrs. Churchill Babington and her husband. Another guest at the same time was Mrs. Sitwell--now my wife--an intimate friend and connection by marriage of the hostess. I was shortly due to join the party, when Mrs. Sitwell wrote telling me of the "fine young spirit" she had found under her friend's roof, and suggesting that I should hasten my visit so as to make his acquaintance before he left. I came accordingly, and from that time on the fine young spirit became a leading interest both in her life and mine. He had thrown himself on her sympathies, in that troubled hour of his youth, with entire dependence almost from the first, and clung to her devotedly for the next two years as to an inspirer, consoler, and g
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