rivener's palsy; my hand got worse; and for the
first time, I received clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now. I
know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to correspondents; and
you would not believe the care with which this has been
written.--Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. A. BAKER

The next is in answer to a request for permission to print some of
the writings of R. L. S. in Braille type for the use of the blind.

_December 1893._

DEAR MADAM,--There is no trouble, and I wish I could help instead. As it
is, I fear I am only going to put you to trouble and vexation. This
Braille writing is a kind of consecration, and I would like if I could
to have your copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as Vols.
I. and II. of _The Adventures of David Balfour_. 1st, _Kidnapped_; 2nd,
_Catriona_. I am just sending home a corrected _Kidnapped_ for this
purpose to Messrs. Cassell, and in order that I may if possible be in
time, I send it to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted
the changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle Sauvage Yard,
Ludgate Hill.

I am writing to them by this mail to send you _Catriona_.

You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it is "a keen pleasure"
to you to bring my book within the reach of the blind.

Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me, sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

I was a barren tree before,
I blew a quenched coal,
I could not, on their midnight shore,
The lonely blind console.

A moment, lend your hand, I bring
My sheaf for you to bind,
And you can teach my words to sing
In the darkness of the blind.

R. L. S.

TO HENRY JAMES

_Apia, December, 1893._

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--The mail has come upon me like an armed man three
days earlier than was expected; and the Lord help me! It is impossible I
should answer anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over
_Catriona_ did me good, and still more the subtlety and truth of your
remark on the starving of the visual sense in that book. 'Tis true, and
unless I make the greater effort--and am, as a step to that, convinced
of its necessity--it will be more true I fear in the future. I _hear_
people talking, and I _feel_ them acting, and that seems to me to be
fiction. My two aims may be described as--

_1st._ War to the adjective.
_2