abassiere, Royat, July 1884._]

DEAR BOY,--I am glad that ---- ---- has disappointed you. Depend upon
it, nobody is so bad as to be worth scalping, except your dearest
friends and parents; and scalping them may sometimes be avoided by
scalping yourself. I grow daily more lymphatic and benign; bring me a
dynamiter, that I may embrace and bless him!--So, if I continue to evade
the friendly hemorrhage, I shall be spared in anger to pour forth senile
and insignificant volumes, and the clever lads in the journals, not
doubting of the eye of Nemesis, shall mock and gird at me.

All this seems excellent news of the _Deacon_. But O! that the last
tableau, on from Leslie's entrance, were re-written! We had a great
opening there and missed it. I read for the first time _Captain
Singleton_; it has points; and then I re-read _Colonel Jack_ with
ecstasy; the first part is as much superior to _Robinson Crusoe_ as
_Robinson_ is to--_The Inland Voyage_. It is pretty, good,
philosophical, dramatic, and as picturesque as a promontory goat in a
gale of wind. Get it and fill your belly with honey.

Fanny hopes to be in time for the _Deacon_. I was out yesterday, and
none the worse. We leave Monday.

R. L. S.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For many years fellow of and historical lecturer at Trinity
College, Cambridge.

[2] _Paillon._

[3] The name of the Delectable Land in one of Heine's _Lieder_.

[4] _Silverado Squatters_.

[5] The allusion is to a specimen I had been used to hear quoted of
the Duke of Wellington's table-talk in his latter years. He had said
that musk-rats were sometimes kept alive in bottles in India. Curate,
or other meek dependent: "I presume, your Grace, they are small rats
and large bottles." His Grace: "No, large rats, small bottles; large
rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles."

[6] _Croutes_: crude studies from nature.

[7] Mr. J. Comyns Carr, at this time editing the English Illustrated
Magazine.

[8] A favourite Skye terrier. Mr. Stevenson was a great lover of dogs.

[9] The essay so called, suggested by the death of J. W. Ferrier. See
_Memories and Portraits_.

VIII

LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH

SEPTEMBER 1884--AUGUST 1887

Arriving in England at the end of July 1884, Stevenson took up his
quarters first for a few weeks at Richmond. He was compelled to abandon
the hope of making his permanent home at Hyeres, partly by the renewed
failu