d.--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

_Monterey, 8th October 1879._

MY DEAR WEG,--I know I am a rogue and the son of a dog. Yet let me tell
you, when I came here I had a week's misery and a fortnight's illness,
and since then I have been more or less busy in being content. This is a
kind of excuse for my laziness. I hope you will not excuse yourself. My
plans are still very uncertain, and it is not likely that anything will
happen before Christmas. In the meanwhile, I believe I shall live on
here "between the sandhills and the sea," as I think Mr. Swinburne hath
it. I was pretty nearly slain; my spirit lay down and kicked for three
days; I was up at an Angora goat-ranche in the Santa Lucia Mountains,
nursed by an old frontiersman, a mighty hunter of bears, and I scarcely
slept, or ate, or thought for four days. Two nights I lay out under a
tree in a sort of stupor, doing nothing but fetch water for myself and
horse, light a fire and make coffee, and all night awake hearing the
goat-bells ringing and the tree-frogs singing when each new noise was
enough to set me mad. Then the bear-hunter came round, pronounced me
"real sick," and ordered me up to the ranche.

It was an odd, miserable piece of my life; and according to all rule, it
should have been my death; but after a while my spirit got up again in a
divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward
with great emphasis and success.

My new book, _The Amateur Emigrant_, is about half drafted. I don't know
if it will be good, but I think it ought to sell in spite of the deil
and the publishers; for it tells an odd enough experience, and one, I
think, never yet told before. Look for my _Burns_ in the Cornhill, and
for my _Story of a Lie_ in Paul's withered babe, the New Quarterly. You
may have seen the latter ere this reaches you; tell me if it has any
interest, like a good boy, and remember that it was written at sea in
great anxiety of mind. What is your news? Send me your works, like an
angel, _au fur et a mesure_ of their apparation, for I am naturally
short of literature, and I do not wish to rust.

I fear this can hardly be called a letter. To say truth, I feel already
a difficulty of approach; I do not know if I am the same man I was in
Europe, perhaps I can hardly claim acquaintance with you. My head went
round and looks another way now; for when I found myself over here in a
new land, and all the past uprooted