re like other folk, false enough, lazy enough, not heroes,
not saints--ordinary men damnably misused--are they to suffer because I
like Cedercrantz, and Cedercrantz has cut his lucky? This is a little
tragedy, observe well--a tragedy! I may be right, I may be wrong in my
judgment, but I am in treaty with my honour. I know not how it will seem
to-morrow. Lloyd thought the barrier of honour insurmountable, and it is
an ugly obstacle. He (Cedercrantz) will likely meet my wife three days
from now, may travel back with her, will be charming if he does; suppose
this, and suppose him to arrive and find that I have sprung a mine--or
the nearest approach to it I could find--behind his back? My position is
pretty. Yes, I am an aristocrat. I have the old petty, personal view of
honour? I should blush till I die if I do this; yet it is on the cards
that I may do it. So much I have written you in bed, as a man writes or
talks, in a _bittre Wahl_. Now I shall sleep, and see if I am more
clear. I will consult the missionaries at least--I place some reliance
in M. also--or I should if he were not a partisan; but a partisan he is.
There's a pity. To sleep! A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the
fed brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of politics! 'Tis
funny--'tis sad. Nobody but these cursed idiots could have so driven me;
I cannot bear idiots.

My dear Colvin, I must go to sleep; it is long past ten--a dreadful hour
for me. And here am I lingering (so I feel) in the dining-room at the
Monument, talking to you across the table, both on our feet, and only
the two stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked by dear
old George--to whom I wish my kindest remembrances--next morning. I look
round, and there is my blue room, and my long lines of shelves, and the
door gaping on a moonless night, and no word of S. C. but his twa
portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my dear fellow, and good-night. Queer
place the world!

_Monday._--No clearness of mind with the morning; I have no guess what I
should do. 'Tis easy to say that the public duty should brush aside
these little considerations of personal dignity; so it is that
politicians begin, and in a month you find them rat and flatter and
intrigue with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that a man's
first duty is to these little laws; the big he does not, he never will,
understand; I may be wrong about the Chief Justice and the Baron and the
state of Samoa; I c