roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to
dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I
was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary
drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are
going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with
the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true
course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but love-stories.
This must repose upon some curious distinction of temperaments. I gather
from a phrase, boldly autobiographical, that you are--well, not
precisely growing thin. Can that be the difference?

It is rather funny that this matter should come up just now, as I am at
present engaged in treating a severe case of middle age in one of my
stories--"The Justice-Clerk." The case is that of a woman, and I think
that I am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe, to see
the difference in our treatments. _Secreta Vitae_ comes nearer to the
case of my poor Kirstie. Come to think of it, Gosse, I believe the main
distinction is that you have a family growing up around you, and I am a
childless, rather bitter, very clear-eyed, blighted youth. I have, in
fact, lost the path that makes it easy and natural for you to descend
the hill. I am going at it straight. And where I have to go down it is a
precipice.

I must not forget to give you a word of thanks for _An English Village_.
It reminds me strongly of Keats, which is enough to say; and I was
particularly pleased with the petulant sincerity of the concluding
sentiment.

Well, my dear Gosse, here's wishing you all health and prosperity, as
well as to the mistress and the bairns. May you live long, since it
seems as if you would continue to enjoy life. May you write many more
books as good as this one--only there's one thing impossible, you can
never write another dedication that can give the same pleasure to the
vanished

TUSITALA.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] This question is with a view to the adventures of the hero in
_St. Ives_, who according to Stevenson's original plan was to have
been picked up from his foundered balloon by an American privateer.

[75] As to admire _The Black Arrow_.

[76] The suppressed first part of the _Amateur Emigrant_, written in
San Francisco in 1879, which it was proposed now to condense and to
some extent recast for the Edinburgh Edition.

[77] Word omitte