ole series. It is a rattling good series, even people whom you
would not expect came in quite the proper tone--Miss Braddon, for
instance, who was really one of the best where all are good--or all but
one!... In short, I fell in love with "The First Book" series, and
determined that it should be all our first books, and that I could not
hold back where the white plume of Conan Doyle waved gallantly in the
front. I hope they will republish them, though it's a grievous thought
to me that that effigy in the German cap--likewise the other effigy of
the noisome old man with the long hair, telling indelicate stories to a
couple of deformed negresses in a rancid shanty full of wreckage--should
be perpetuated. I may seem to speak in pleasantry--it is only a
seeming--that German cap, sir, would be found, when I come to die,
imprinted on my heart. Enough--my heart is too full. Adieu.--Yours very
truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
(in a German cap, damn 'em!).

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

[_Vailima, September 1894._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--This must be a very measly letter. I have been trying
hard to get along with _St. Ives_. I should now lay it aside for a year
and I dare say I should make something of it after all. Instead of that,
I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself, and spoil the book,
if there were anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I'm as sick
of the thing as ever any one can be; it's a rudderless hulk; it's a
pagoda, and you can just feel--or I can feel--that it might have been a
pleasant story, if it had been only blessed at baptism.

Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result is still doubtful.

_Sept. 10th._--I know I have something else to say to you, but
unfortunately I awoke this morning with colly-wobbles, and had to take a
small dose of laudanum with the usual consequences of dry throat,
intoxicated legs, partial madness and total imbecility; and for the
life of me I cannot remember what it is. I have likewise mislaid your
letter amongst the accumulations on my table, not that there was
anything in it. Altogether I am in a poor state. I forgot to tell Baxter
that the dummy had turned up and is a fine, personable-looking volume
and very good reading. Please communicate this to him.

I have just remembered an incident that I really must not let pass. You
have heard a great deal more than you wanted about our political
prisoners. Well, one day, about a fortnight ago, th