not
done for long. I do not suppose my doctor knows any least thing about
it. He says it is a nerve that I struck, but I assure you he does not
know.

I have just finished a paper, _A Gossip on Romance_, in which I have
tried to do, very popularly, about one-half of the matter you wanted me
to try. In a way, I have found an answer to the question. But the
subject was hardly fit for so chatty a paper, and it is all loose ends.
If ever I do my book on the Art of Literature, I shall gather them
together and be clear.

To-morrow, having once finished off the touches still due on this, I
shall tackle _San Francisco_ for you. Then the tide of work will fairly
bury me, lost to view and hope. You have no idea what it costs me to
wring out my work now. I have certainly been a fortnight over this
_Romance_, sometimes five hours a day; and yet it is about my usual
length--eight pages or so, and would be a d----d sight the better for
another curry. But I do not think I can honestly re-write it all; so I
call it done, and shall only straighten words in a revision currently.

I had meant to go on for a great while, and say all manner of
entertaining things. But all's gone. I am now an idiot.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO W. E. HENLEY

The following flight of fancy refers to supposed errors of judgment
on the part of an eminent firm of publishers, with whom Stevenson had
at this time no connection. Very soon afterwards he entered into
relations with them which proved equally pleasant and profitable to
both parties, and were continued on the most cordial terms until his
death.

[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 1882._]

MY DEAR HENLEY,--Last night we had a dinner-party, consisting of the
John Addington, curry, onions (lovely onions), and beefsteak. So
unusual is any excitement, that F. and I feel this morning as if we had
been to a coronation. However I must, I suppose, write.

I was sorry about your female contributor squabble. 'Tis very comic, but
really unpleasant. But what care I? Now that I illustrate my own books,
I can always offer you a situation in our house--S. L. Osbourne and Co.
As an author gets a halfpenny a copy of verses, and an artist a penny a
cut, perhaps a proof-reader might get several pounds a year.

O that Coronation! What a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a
firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and
that great hall where we feast