eap sheets illustrating the popular dramas and melodramas of the
day, will need no explanation to readers familiar with the essay _A
Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured_.

_La Solitude, Hyeres, April 23rd, 1884._

DEAR MR. HADDON,--I am pleased to see your hand again, and, waiting my
wife's return, to guess at some of the contents. For various things have
befallen me of late. First, as you see, I had to change my hand; lastly
I have fallen into a kind of blindness, and cannot read. This more
inclines me for something to do, to answer your letter before I have
read it, a safe plan familiar to diplomatists.

I gather from half shut eyes that you were a Skeltist; now seriously
that is a good beginning; there is a deal of romance (cheap) in Skelt.
Look at it well, and you will see much of Dickens. And even Skelt is
better than conscientious, grey back-gardens, and conscientious, dull
still lives. The great lack of art just now is a spice of life and
interest; and I prefer galvanism to acquiescence in the grave. All do
not; 'tis an affair of tastes; and mine are young. Those who like death
have their innings to-day with art that is like mahogany and horse-hair
furniture, solid, true, serious and as dead as Caesar. I wish I could
read _Treasure Island_; I believe I should like it. But work done, for
the artist, is the Golden Goose killed; you sell its feathers and lament
the eggs. To-morrow the fresh woods!

I have been seriously ill, and do not pick up with that finality that I
should like to see. I linger over and digest my convalescence like a
favourite wine; and what with blindness, green spectacles, and
seclusion, cut but a poor figure in the world.

I made out at the end that you were asking some advice--but what, my
failing eyes refuse to inform me. I must keep a sheet for the answer;
and Mrs. Stevenson still delays, and still I have no resource against
tedium but the waggling of this pen.

You seem to me to be a pretty lucky young man; keep your eyes open to
your mercies. That part of piety is eternal; and the man who forgets to
be grateful has fallen asleep in life. Please to recognise that you are
unworthy of all that befalls you--unworthy, too, I hear you wail, of
this terrible sermon; but indeed we are not worthy of our fortunes; love
takes us in a counterfeit, success comes to us at play, health stays
with us while we abuse her; and even when we gird at our fellow-men, we
should remember that it is