oes, and leaves behind him a prodigy--
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.

Please, my dear Brown, forgive my horrid delay. Symonds overworked and
knocked up. I off my sleep; my wife gone to Paris. Weather
lovely.--Yours ever,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Monte Generoso in May; here, I think, till the end of April; write
again, to prove you are forgiving.

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

Monte Generoso was given up; and on the way home to Scotland
Stevenson had stopped for a while at Fontainebleau, and then in
Paris; whence, finding himself unpleasantly affected by the climate,
he presently took refuge at St. Germain.

_Hotel du Pavillon Henry IV., St. Germain-en-Laye, Sunday, May 1st,
1881._

MY DEAR PEOPLE,--A week in Paris reduced me to the limpness and lack of
appetite peculiar to a kid glove, and gave Fanny a jumping sore throat.
It's my belief there is death in the kettle there; a pestilence or the
like. We came out here, pitched on the _Star and Garter_ (they call it
Somebody's pavilion), found the place a bed of lilacs and nightingales
(first time I ever heard one), and also of a bird called the _piasseur_,
cheerfulest of sylvan creatures, an ideal comic opera in itself. "Come
along, what fun, here's Pan in the next glade at picnic, and this-yer's
Arcadia, and it's awful fun, and I've had a glass, I will not deny, but
not to see it on me," that is his meaning as near as I can gather. Well,
the place (forest of beeches all new-fledged, grass like velvet, fleets
of hyacinth) pleased us and did us good. We tried all ways to find a
cheaper place, but could find nothing safe; cold, damp, brick-floored
rooms and sich; we could not leave Paris till your seven days' sight on
draft expired; we dared not go back to be miasmatised in these homes of
putridity; so here we are till Tuesday in the _Star and Garter_. My
throat is quite cured, appetite and strength on the mend. Fanny seems
also picking up.

If we are to come to Scotland, I _will_ have fir-trees, and I want a
burn, the firs for my physical, the water for my moral health.--Ever
affectionate son,

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

At Pitlochry, Stevenson was for some weeks in good health and working
order. The inquiries about the later life of Jean Cavalier, the
Protestant leader in the Cevennes, refer to a litera