in my mind was its peculiarly unreligious and unmoral texture; from
which defect it can never, of course, exercise the least influence on
the minds of children. But they learn fine style and some austere
thinking unconsciously.--Ever your loving son,

R. L. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_La Solitude, Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var, January 1 (1884)._

MY DEAR PEOPLE,--A Good New Year to you. The year closes, leaving me
with L50 in the bank, owing no man nothing, L100 more due to me in a
week or so, and L150 more in the course of the month; and I can look
back on a total receipt of L465, 0s. 6d. for the last twelve months!

And yet I am not happy!

Yet I beg! Here is my beggary:--

1. Sellar's Trial.
2. George Borrow's Book about Wales.
3. My Grandfather's Trip to Holland.
4. And (but this is, I fear, impossible) the Bell Rock Book.

When I think of how last year began, after four months of sickness and
idleness, all my plans gone to water, myself starting alone, a kind of
spectre, for Nice--should I not be grateful? Come, let us sing unto the
Lord!

Nor should I forget the expected visit, but I will not believe in that
till it befall; I am no cultivator of disappointments, 'tis a herb that
does not grow in my garden; but I get some good crops both of remorse
and gratitude. The last I can recommend to all gardeners; it grows best
in shiny weather, but once well grown, is very hardy; it does not
require much labour; only that the husbandman should smoke his pipe
about the flower-plots and admire God's pleasant wonders. Winter green
(otherwise known as Resignation, or the "false gratitude plant") springs
in much the same soil; is little hardier, if at all; and requires to be
so dug about and dunged, that there is little margin left for profit.
The variety known as the Black Winter green (H. V. Stevensoniana) is
rather for ornament than profit.

"John, do you see that bed of resignation?"--"It's doin' bravely,
sir."--"John, I will not have it in my garden; it flatters not the eye
and comforts not the stomach; root it out."--"Sir, I ha'e seen o' them
that rase as high as nettles; gran' plants!"--"What then? Were they as
tall as alps, if still unsavoury and bleak, what matters it? Out with
it, then; and in its place put Laughter and a Good Conceit (that capital
home evergreen), and a bush of Flowering Piety--but see it be the
flowering sort--the other species is no ornament to any gen