e_; and to be happy the
first step to being pious.

I have as good as finished my novel, and a hard job it has been--but now
practically over, _laus deo_! My financial prospects better than ever
before; my excellent wife a touch dolorous, like Mr. Tommy; my Bogue
quite converted, and myself in good spirits. O, send Curry Powder per
Baxter.

R. L. S.

TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_[La Solitude, Hyeres] last Sunday of '83._

MY DEAR MOTHER,--I give my father up. I give him a parable: that the
Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the tragic Life.
And he takes it backside foremost, and shakes his head, and is gloomier
than ever. Tell him that I give him up. I don't want no such a parent.
This is not the man for my money. I do not call that by the name of
religion which fills a man with bile. I write him a whole letter,
bidding him beware of extremes, and telling him that his gloom is
gallows-worthy; and I get back an answer--Perish the thought of it.

Here am I on the threshold of another year, when, according to all human
foresight, I should long ago have been resolved into my elements; here
am I, who you were persuaded was born to disgrace you--and, I will do
you the justice to add, on no such insufficient grounds--no very burning
discredit when all is done; here am I married, and the marriage
recognised to be a blessing of the first order, A1 at Lloyd's. There is
he, at his not first youth, able to take more exercise than I at
thirty-three, and gaining a stone's weight, a thing of which I am
incapable. There are you; has the man no gratitude? There is
Smeoroch[8]: is he blind? Tell him from me that all this is

NOT THE TRUE BLUE!

I will think more of his prayers when I see in him a spirit of _praise_.
Piety is a more childlike and happy attitude than he admits. Martha,
Martha, do you hear the knocking at the door? But Mary was happy. Even
the Shorter Catechism, not the merriest epitome of religion, and a work
exactly as pious although not quite so true as the multiplication
table--even that dry-as-dust epitome begins with a heroic note. What is
man's chief end? Let him study that; and ask himself if to refuse to
enjoy God's kindest gifts is in the spirit indicated. Up, Dullard! It is
better service to enjoy a novel than to mump.

I have been most unjust to the Shorter Catechism, I perceive. I wish to
say that I keenly admire its merits as a performance; and that all that
was