o detestable and one
contemptible--chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative
force and vividness of the treatment.

_[Vailima] 23rd August._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your pleasing letter _re The Ebb Tide_, to hand. I
propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd's name. He has nothing
to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning
of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather
unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work.
Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me
the most ugly and cynical of all.

You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not
because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that
surround me and that I choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer
and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white
to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on.
Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an
ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still
believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the
missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy
devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is....

Well, _il faut cultiver son jardin_. That last expression of poor,
unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to _St. Ives_.

_24th Aug._--And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep
ultimately and "a' the clouds has blawn away." "Be sure we'll have some
pleisand weather, When a' the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away."
Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe
had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a
most excellent humour.

I am deep in _St. Ives_ which, I believe, will be the next novel done.
But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw
in your face the very last thing you expect--or I expect. _St. Ives_
will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny
style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to
some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. _St. Ives_ is
unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the
adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story.
Speed his wings!

_Sunday night._--_De coeur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher
confrere