s of this kind? It is your kind. They mean
nothing; they are blankly insignificant; and impudently put one in the
wrong. One has learnt nothing; and forsooth one must reply.--Yours, the
Inexpressive Correspondent,

R. L. S.

Hey-ey-ey! Sold again. Hey-ey-ey!

Postscript: sold again.

TO W. H. LOW

In August of this year Stevenson made with his wife an excursion to
the west country (stopping at Dorchester on the way, for the pleasure
of seeing Mr. Thomas Hardy at home), and was detained for several
weeks at The New London inn, Exeter, by a bad fit of hemorrhage. His
correspondence is not resumed until the autumn.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 22, 1885._

MY DEAR LOW,--I trust you are not annoyed with me beyond forgiveness;
for indeed my silence has been devilish prolonged. I can only tell you
that I have been nearly six months (more than six) in a strange
condition of collapse, when it was impossible to do any work, and
difficult (more difficult than you would suppose) to write the merest
note. I am now better, but not yet my own man in the way of brains, and
in health only so-so. I suppose I shall learn (I begin to think I am
learning) to fight this vast, vague feather-bed of an obsession that now
overlies and smothers me; but in the beginnings of these conflicts, the
inexperienced wrestler is always worsted, and I own I have been quite
extinct. I wish you to know, though it can be no excuse, that you are
not the only one of my friends by many whom I have thus neglected; and
even now, having come so very late into the possession of myself, with a
substantial capital of debts, and my work still moving with a desperate
slowness--as a child might fill a sandbag with its little handfuls--and
my future deeply pledged, there is almost a touch of virtue in my
borrowing these hours to write to you. Why I said "hours" I know not; it
would look blue for both of us if I made good the word.

I was writing your address the other day, ordering a copy of my next,
_Prince Otto_, to go your way. I hope you have not seen it in parts; it
was not meant to be so read; and only my poverty (dishonourably)
consented to the serial evolution.

I will send you with this a copy of the English edition of the _Child's
Garden_. I have heard there is some vile rule of the post-office in the
States against inscriptions; so I send herewith a piece of doggerel
which Mr. Bunner may, if he thinks fit, copy