at them fitfully as
the humour moves.

--To return, I wonder, if I have to make a budget of such essays as I
dream, whether Seeley would publish them: I should give them unity, you
know, by the doctrinal essays; nor do I think these would be the least
agreeable. You must give me your advice and tell me whether I should
throw out this delicate feeler to R. S.[16]; or if not, what I am to say
to this "proposal" business.

I shall go to England or Wales, with parents, shortly: after which, dash
to Poland before setting in for the dismal session at Edinburgh.

Spirits good, with a general sense of hollowness underneath: wanity of
wanities etc.--Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--Parents capital; thanks principally to them; yours truly still
rather bitter, but less so.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The last paragraph of the following means that Dr. Appleton, the
amiable and indefatigable editor of the Academy, then recently
founded, had been a little disturbed in mind by some of the
contributions of his brilliant young friend, but allowed his academic
conscience to be salved by the fact of their signature.

[_Swanston, Summer 1874._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Am I mad? Have I lived thus long and have you known me
thus long, to no purpose? Do you imagine I could ever write an essay a
month, or promise an essay even every three months? I declare I would
rather die than enter into any such arrangement. The Essays must fall
from me, Essay by Essay, as they ripen; and all that my communication
with Seeley would effect would be to make him see more in them than mere
occasional essays; or at least _look_ far more faithfully, in which
spirit men rarely look in vain. You know both _Roads_ and my little
girls[17] are a part of the scheme which dates from early at Mentone. My
word to Seeley, therefore, would be to inform him of what I hope will
lie ultimately behind them, of how I regard them as contributions
towards a friendlier and more thoughtful way of looking about one, etc.
One other purpose of telling him would be that I should feel myself more
at liberty to write as I please, and not bound to drag in a tag about
Art every time to make it more suitable. Tying myself down to time is an
impossibility. You know my own description of myself as a person with a
poetic character and no poetic talent: just as my prose muse has all the
ways of a poetic one, and I must take my Essays as they come to me