sides disgusting,
like a grimace, may do harm. Nothing that I have ever seen yet speaks
directly and efficaciously to young men; and I do hope I may find the
art and wisdom to fill up a gap. The great point, as I see it, is to ask
as little as possible, and meet, if it may be, every view or absence of
view; and it should be, must be, easy. Honesty is the one desideratum;
but think how hard a one to meet. I think all the time of Ferrier and
myself; these are the pair that I address. Poor Ferrier, so much a
better man than I, and such a temporal wreck. But the thing of which we
must divest our minds is to look partially upon others; all is to be
viewed; and the creature judged, as he must be by his Creator, not
dissected through a prism of morals, but in the unrefracted ray. So
seen, and in relation to the almost omnipotent surroundings, who is to
distinguish between F. and such a man as Dr. Candlish, or between such a
man as David Hume and such an one as Robert Burns? To compare my poor
and good Walter with myself is to make me startle; he, upon all grounds
above the merely expedient, was the nobler being. Yet wrecked utterly
ere the full age of manhood; and the last skirmishes so well fought, so
humanly useless, so pathetically brave, only the leaps of an expiring
lamp. All this is a very pointed instance. It shuts the mouth. I have
learned more, in some ways, from him than from any other soul I ever
met; and he, strange to think, was the best gentleman, in all kinder
senses, that I ever knew.--Ever your affectionate son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. H. LOW

The paper referred to at the beginning of the second paragraph is one
on R. L. S. in the Century Magazine, the first seriously critical
notice, says Mr. Low, which appeared of him in the States.

[_La Solitude, Hyeres, Oct. 23, 1883._]

MY DEAR LOW,--_C'est d'un bon camarade_; and I am much obliged to you
for your two letters and the inclosure. Times are a lityle changed with
all of us since the ever memorable days of Lavenue: hallowed be his
name! hallowed his old Fleury!--of which you did not see--I think--as I
did--the glorious apotheosis: advanced on a Tuesday to three francs, on
the Thursday to six, and on Friday swept off, holus bolus, for the
proprietor's private consumption. Well, we had the start of that
proprietor. Many a good bottle came our way, and was, I think, worthily
made welcome.

I am pleased that Mr. Gilder sh