t do anything. I must finish this off, or I'll just lose
another day. I'll try to write again soon.--Ever your faithful friend,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

The review of Robert Browning's _Inn Album_ here mentioned appears in
Vanity Fair, Dec. 11, 1875. The matter of the poem is praised; the
"slating" is only for the form and metres.

[_Edinburgh, December 1875._]

Well, I am hardy! Here I am in the midst of this great snowstorm,
sleeping with my window open and _smoking_ in my cold tub in the morning
so as it would do your heart good to see. Moreover I am in pretty good
form otherwise. Fontainebleau lags; it has turned out more difficult
than I expected in some places, but there is a deal of it ready, and (I
think) straight.

I was at a concert on Saturday and heard Halle and Norman Neruda play
that Sonata of Beethoven's you remember, and I felt very funny. But I
went and took a long spanking walk in the dark and got quite an appetite
for dinner. I did; that's not bragging.

As you say, a concert wants to be gone to _with_ someone, and I know
who. I have done rather an amusing paragraph or two for Vanity Fair on
the _Inn Album_. I have slated R. B. pretty handsomely. I am in a
desperate hurry; so good-bye.--Ever your faithful friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. DE MATTOS

The state of health and spirits mentioned in the last soon gave way
to one of the fits of depression, frequent with him in Edinburgh
winters. In the following letter he unbosoms himself to a favourite
cousin (sister to R. A. M. Stevenson).

_Edinburgh, January 1876._

MY DEAR KATHARINE,--The prisoner reserved his defence. He has been
seedy, however; principally sick of the family evil, despondency; the
sun is gone out utterly; and the breath of the people of this city lies
about as a sort of damp, unwholesome fog, in which we go walking with
bowed hearts. If I understand what is a contrite spirit, I have one; it
is to feel that you are a small jar, or rather, as I feel myself, a very
large jar, of pottery work rather _mal reussi_, and to make every
allowance for the potter (I beg pardon; Potter with a capital P.) on his
ill-success, and rather wish he would reduce you as soon as possible to
potsherds. However, there are many things to do yet before we go

_Grossir la pate universelle
Faite des formes que Dieu fond._

For instance, I have never been in a revolution yet