learn you are bad
yourself. Get your wife to send us a word how you are. I am better
decidedly. Bogue got his Christmas card, and behaved well for three days
after. It may interest the cynical to learn that I started my last
hemorrhage by too sedulous attentions to my dear Bogue. The stick was
broken; and that night Bogue, who was attracted by the extraordinary
aching of his bones, and is always inclined to a serious view of his own
ailments, announced with his customary pomp that he was dying. In this
case, however, it was not the dog that died. (He had tried to bite his
mother's ankles.) I have written a long and peculiarly solemn paper on
the technical elements of style. It is path-breaking and epoch-making;
but I do not think the public will be readily convoked to its perusal.
Did I tell you that S. C. had risen to the paper on James? At last! O
but I was pleased; he's (like Johnnie) been lang, lang o' comin', but
here he is. He will not object to my future manoeuvres in the same
field, as he has to my former. All the family are here; my father better
than I have seen him these two years; my mother the same as ever. I do
trust you are better, and I am yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO H. A. JONES

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 30, 1884._

DEAR SIR,--I am so accustomed to hear nonsense spoken about all the
arts, and the drama in particular, that I cannot refrain from saying
"Thank you" for your paper. In my answer to Mr. James, in the December
Longman, you may see that I have merely touched, I think in a
parenthesis, on the drama; but I believe enough was said to indicate our
agreement in essentials.

Wishing you power and health to further enunciate and to act upon these
principles, believe me, dear sir, yours truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Stevenson had begun with great eagerness to prepare material for a
volume on the Duke of Wellington for the series of _English Worthies_
published by Messrs. Longman and edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, but
beyond preparation the scheme never went.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Jan. 4, 1885._

DEAR S. C.,--I am on my feet again, and getting on my boots to do the
Iron Duke. Conceive my glee: I have refused the L100, and am to get some
sort of royalty, not yet decided, instead. 'Tis for Longman's _English
Worthies_, edited by A. Lang. Aw haw, haw!

Now, look here, could you get me a loan of the Despatches,