O dear God,
this is bad work!

I have lit a pipe and feel calmer. I say, my dear friend, I am killing
my father--he told me to-night (by the way) that I alienated utterly my
mother--and this is the result of my attempt to start fair and fresh
and to do my best for all of them.

I must wait till to-morrow ere I finish. I am to-night too excited.

_Tuesday._--The sun is shining to-day, which is a great matter, and
altogether the gale having blown off again, I live in a precarious lull.
On the whole I am not displeased with last night; I kept my eyes open
through it all, and, I think, not only avoided saying anything that
could make matters worse in the future, but said something that _may_ do
good. But a little better or a little worse is a trifle. I lay in bed
this morning awake, for I was tired and cold and in no special hurry to
rise, and heard my father go out for the papers; and then I lay and
wished--O, if he would only _whistle_ when he comes in again! But of
course he did not. I have stopped that pipe.

Now, you see, I have written to you this time and sent it off, for both
of which God forgive me.--Ever your faithful friend, R. L. S.

My father and I together can put about a year through in half an hour.
Look here, you mustn't take this too much to heart. I shall be all right
in a few hours. It's impossible to depress me. And of course, when you
can't do anything, there's no need of being depressed. It's all waste
tissue.

L.

TO MRS. SITWELL

_[Edinburgh], Wednesday, September 24th 1873._

I have found another "flowering isle." All this beautiful, quiet, sunlit
day, I have been out in the country; down by the sea on my favourite
coast between Granton and Queensferry. There was a delicate, delicious
haze over the firth and sands on one side, and on the other was the
shadow of the woods all riven with great golden rifts of sunshine. A
little faint talk of waves upon the beach; the wild strange crying of
seagulls over the sea; and the hoarse wood-pigeons and shrill, sweet
robins full of their autumn love-making among the trees, made up a
delectable concerto of peaceful noises. I spent the whole afternoon
among these sights and sounds with Simpson. And we came home from
Queensferry on the outside of the coach and four, along a beautiful way
full of ups and downs among woody, uneven country, laid out (fifty years
ago, I suppose) by my grandfather, on the notion of Hogarth's line of
beaut