. I pray God I may be
in one at the end, if I am to make a mucker. The best way to make a
mucker is to have your back set against a wall and a few lead pellets
whiffed into you in a moment, while yet you are all in a heat and a fury
of combat, with drums sounding on all sides, and people crying, and a
general smash like the infernal orchestration at the end of the
_Huguenots_....

Please pardon me for having been so long of writing, and show your
pardon by writing soon to me; it will be a kindness, for I am sometimes
very dull. Edinburgh is much changed for the worse by the absence of
Bob; and this damned weather weighs on me like a curse. Yesterday, or
the day before, there came so black a rain squall that I was
frightened--what a child would call frightened, you know, for want of a
better word--although in reality it has nothing to do with fright. I lit
the gas and sat cowering in my chair until it went away again.--Ever
yours,

R. L. S.

O, I am trying my hand at a novel just now; it may interest you to know,
I am bound to say I do not think it will be a success. However, it's an
amusement for the moment, and work, work is your only ally against the
"bearded people" that squat upon their hams in the dark places of life
and embrace people horribly as they go by. God save us from the bearded
people! to think that the sun is still shining in some happy places!

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

[_Edinburgh, January 1876._]

... OUR weather continues as it was, bitterly cold, and raining often.
There is not much pleasure in life certainly as it stands at present.
_Nous n'irons plus au bois, helas!_

I meant to write some more last night, but my father was ill and it put
it out of my way. He is better this morning.

If I had written last night, I should have written a lot. But this
morning I am so dreadfully tired and stupid that I can say nothing. I
was down at Leith in the afternoon. God bless me, what horrid women I
saw; I never knew what a plain-looking race it was before. I was sick at
heart with the looks of them. And the children, filthy and ragged! And
the smells! And the fat black mud!

My soul was full of disgust ere I got back. And yet the ships were
beautiful to see, as they are always; and on the pier there was a clean
cold wind that smelt a little of the sea, though it came down the Firth,
and the sunset had a certain _eclat_ and warmth. Perhaps if I could get
more work done, I