amn
bad.

I am half asleep and can no more discourse. Say to your friends, "Look
here, some friends of mine are bringing out a play; it has some stuff;
suppose you go and see it." But I know I am a cold, unbelieving fellow,
incapable of those hot claps that honour you and Henley and therefore--I
am asleep. _Child's Garden_ (first instalment) come. Fanny ill; self
asleep.

R. L. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_Hotel Chabassiere, Royat [July 1884]._

MY DEAR PEOPLE,--The weather has been demoniac; I have had a skiff of
cold, and was finally obliged to take to bed entirely; to-day, however,
it has cleared, the sun shines, and I begin to

* * * * *

_Several days after._--I have been out once, but now am back in bed. I
am better, and keep better, but the weather is a mere injustice. The
imitation of Edinburgh is, at times, deceptive; there is a note among
the chimney pots that suggests Howe Street; though I think the shrillest
spot in Christendom was not upon the Howe Street side, but in front,
just under the Miss Graemes' big chimney stack. It had a fine alto
character--a sort of bleat that used to divide the marrow in my
joints--say in the wee, slack hours. That music is now lost to us by
rebuilding; another air that I remember, not regret, was the solo of the
gas-burner in the little front room; a knickering, flighty, fleering,
and yet spectral cackle. I mind it above all on winter afternoons, late,
when the window was blue and spotted with rare rain-drops, and, looking
out, the cold evening was seen blue all over, with the lamps of Queen's
and Frederick's Street dotting it with yellow, and flaring eastward in
the squalls. Heavens, how unhappy I have been in such circumstances--I,
who have now positively forgotten the colour of unhappiness; who am full
like a fed ox, and dull like a fresh turf, and have no more spiritual
life, for good or evil, than a French bagman.

We are at Chabassiere's, for of course it was nonsense to go up the hill
when we could not walk.

The child's poems in a far extended form are likely soon to be heard
of--which Cummy I dare say will be glad to know. They will make a book
of about one hundred pages.--Ever your affectionate,

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

I had reported to Stevenson a remark made by one of his greatest
admirers, Sir E. Burne-Jones, on some particular analogy, I forget
what, between a p