e thing--health. But though you will
be angry to hear it, I believe, for myself at least, what is is best. I
believed it all through my worst days, and I am not ashamed to profess
it now.

Landor has just turned up; but I had read him already. I like him
extremely; I wonder if the "cuts" were perhaps not advantageous. It
seems quite full enough; but then you know I am a compressionist.

If I am to criticise, it is a little staid; but the classical is apt to
look so. It is in curious contrast to that inexpressive, unplanned
wilderness of Forster's; clear, readable, precise, and sufficiently
human. I see nothing lost in it, though I could have wished, in my
Scotch capacity, a trifle clearer and fuller exposition of his moral
attitude, which is not quite clear "from here."

He and his tyrannicide! I am in a mad fury about these explosions. If
that is the new world! Damn O'Donovan Rossa; damn him behind and before,
above, below, and roundabout; damn, deracinate, and destroy him, root
and branch, self and company, world without end. Amen. I write that for
sport if you like, but I will pray in earnest, O Lord, if you cannot
convert, kindly delete him!

Stories naturally at halt. Henley has seen one and approves. I believe
it to be good myself, even real good. He has also seen and approved one
of Fanny's. It will make a good volume. We have now

Thrawn Janet (with Stephen), proof to-day.
The Shadow on the Bed (Fanny's copying).
The Merry Men (scrolled).
The Body Snatchers (scrolled).

_In germis_

The Travelling Companion.
The Torn Surplice (_not final title_).

Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP

Dr. Japp (known in literature at this date and for some time
afterwards under his pseudonym H. A. Page; later under his own name
the biographer of De Quincey) had written to R. L. S. criticising
statements of fact and opinion in his essay on Thoreau, and
expressing the hope that they might meet and discuss their
differences. In the interval between the last letter and this
Stevenson with all his family had moved to Braemar.

_The Cottage, Castleton of Braemar, Sunday [August 1881]._

MY DEAR SIR,--I should long ago have written to thank you for your kind
and frank letter; but in my state of health papers are apt to get
mislaid, and your letter has been vainly hunted for until this (Sunday)
morning.

I regret I shall not be able to see you in Edinburgh;