ave a bad habit which is to be comminated in my
theory of letters. Same page, two lines lower: "But the vulture's track"
is surely as fine to the ear as "But vulture's track," and this latter
version has a dreadful baldness. The reader goes on with a sense of
impoverishment, of unnecessary sacrifice; he has been robbed by
footpads, and goes scouting for his lost article! Again, in the second
Epode, these fine verses would surely sound much finer if they began,
"As a hardy climber who has set his heart," than with the jejune "As
hardy climber." I do not know why you permit yourself this licence with
grammar; you show, in so many pages, that you are superior to the paltry
sense of rhythm which usually dictates it--as though some poetaster had
been suffered to correct the poet's text. By the way, I confess to a
heartfelt weakness for _Auriculas_.--Believe me the very grateful and
characteristic pick-thank, but still sincere and affectionate,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. H. LOW

_Vailima, January 15th, 1894._

MY DEAR LOW,-- ... Pray you, stoop your proud head, and sell yourself to
some Jew magazine, and make the visit out. I assure you, this is the
spot for a sculptor or painter. This, and no other--I don't say to stay
there, but to come once and get the living colour into them. I am used
to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections
of Scotland; but there it is, and every morning is a thing to give
thanks for, and every night another--bar when it rains, of course.

About _The Wrecker_--rather late days, and I still suspect I had somehow
offended you; however, all's well that ends well, and I am glad I am
forgiven--did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and there is an
undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then the problem that Pinkerton
laid down: why the artist can _do nothing else_? is one that continually
exercises myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And Montaigne.
And Julius Caesar. And many more. And why can't R. L. S.? Does it not
amaze you? It does me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their
all-round human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable smallness
of the field in which we labour and in which we do so little. I think
_David Balfour_ a nice little book, and very artistic, and just the
thing to occupy the leisure of a busy man; but for the top flower of a
man