. I shall send with
this two new photographs of myself for your opinion. My father regards
this life "as a shambling sort of omnibus which is taking him to his
hotel." Is that not well said? It came out in a rather pleasant and
entirely amicable discussion which we had this afternoon on a walk. The
colouring of the world, to-day is of course hideous; we saw only one
pleasant sight, a couple of lovers under a thorn-tree by the wayside,
he with his arm about her waist: they did not seem to find it so cold as
we. I have made a lot of progress to-day with my Portfolio paper. I
think some of it should be nice, but it rambles a little; I like
rambling, if the country be pleasant; don't you?--Ever your faithful
friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL

_[October 27, 1874], Edinburgh, Thursday._

It is cold, but very sunshiny and dry; I wish you were here; it would
suit you and it doesn't suit me; if we could change? This is the Fast
day--Thursday preceding bi-annual Holy Sacrament that is--nobody does
any work, they go to Church twice, they read nothing secular (except the
newspapers, that is the nuance between Fast day and Sunday), they eat
like fighting-cocks. Behold how good a thing it is and becoming well to
fast in Scotland. I am progressing with _John Knox and Women No. 2_; I
shall finish it, I think, in a fortnight hence; and then I shall begin
to enjoy myself. _J. K. and W. No. 2_ is not uninteresting however; it
only bores me because I am so anxious to be at something else which I
like better. I shall perhaps go to Church this afternoon from a sort of
feeling that it is rather a wholesome thing to do of an afternoon; it
keeps one from work and it lets you out so late that you cannot weary
yourself walking and so spoil your evening's work.

_Friday._--I got your letter this morning, and whether owing to that, or
to the fact that I had spent the evening before in comparatively riotous
living, I managed to work five hours and a half well and without
fatigue; besides reading about an hour more at history. This is a thing
to be proud of.

We have had lately some of the most beautiful sunsets; our autumn
sunsets here are always admirable in colour. To-night there was just a
little lake of tarnished green deepening into a blood-orange at the
margins, framed above by dark clouds and below by the long roof-line of
the Egyptian buildings on what we call the Mound, the statues on the top
(of he