have to
do better than that, chieldy," and chuckled, chuckled. He is a strange
old figure, to be sure. He cannot endure Pirbright Smith--"a mere
aesthatic," he said. "Pooh!" "Fishin' and releegion--these are my
aysthatics," he wound up.

I thought this would interest you, so scribbled it down. I still hope to
get more out of him about Hazlitt, though he utterly pooh-poohed the
idea of writing H.'s life. "Ma life now," he said, "there's been queer
things in _it_." He is seventy-nine! but may well last to a
hundred!--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] In San Francisco.

[29] "The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes
and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in
Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons."--See
_Wandering Willie's Tale_ in _Redgauntlet_, borrowed perhaps from
_Christ's Kirk of the Green_.

[30] The Davoser Landwasser.

[31] In architecture, a series of piles to defend the pier of a bridge.

[32] The translator of Sophocles in Bohn's Classics.

[33] Anne Killigrew.

[34] Gentleman's library.

[35] _i.e._ breathed in, inhaled: a rare but legitimate use of the
word.

[36] _Parliament House._

[37] "He knew the rocks where angels haunt,
Upon the mountains visitant."

Wordsworth's _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_.

[38] Mr. Hamerton had been an unsuccessful candidate for the
Professorship of Fine Art at Edinburgh University.

[39] The Chalet am Stein (or Chalet Buol) at Davos.

[40] In the summer of 1870: see above, pp. 24-30, and the essay
_Memories of an Islet_ in _Memories and Portraits_.

[41] From Landor's _Gebir_: the line refers to Napoleon Bonaparte.

[42] The Editor's defence was in the following terms: "That which
you condemn is really the best story now appearing in the paper, and
the impress of an able writer is stamped on every paragraph of the
_Treasure Island_. You will probably share this opinion when you
have read a little more of it."

[43] I struggle as hard as I know how against both, but a judicious
postcard would sometimes save me the expense of the second.

END OF VOL. XXIII.

PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson -
Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25), by Ro