from
time to time that keep us nose to nose with fact; though I think such
reading may be abused, and that a great deal of life is better spent in
reading of a light and yet chivalrous strain. Thus, no Waverley novel
approaches in power, blackness, bitterness, and moral elevation to the
diary and Lockhart's narrative of the end; and yet the Waverley novels
are better reading for every day than the Life. You may take a tonic
daily, but not phlebotomy.

The great double danger of taking life too easily, and taking it too
hard, how difficult it is to balance that! But we are all too little
inclined to faith; we are all, in our serious moments, too much inclined
to forget that all are sinners, and fall justly by their faults, and
therefore that we have no more to do with that than with the
thundercloud; only to trust, and do our best, and wear as smiling a face
as may be for others and ourselves. But there is no royal road among
this complicated business. Hegel the German got the best word of all
philosophy with his antinomies: the contrary of everything is its
postulate. That is, of course, grossly expressed, but gives a hint of
the idea, which contains a great deal of the mysteries of religion, and
a vast amount of the practical wisdom of life. For your part, there is
no doubt as to your duty--to take things easy and be as happy as you
can, for your sake, and my mother's, and that of many besides. Excuse
this sermon.--Ever your loving son,

R. L. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_La Solitude, December 25, 1883._

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--This it is supposed will reach you about
Christmas, and I believe I should include Lloyd in the greeting. But I
want to lecture my father; he is not grateful enough; he is like Fanny;
his resignation is not the "true blue." A man who has gained a stone;
whose son is better, and, after so many fears to the contrary, I dare to
say, a credit to him; whose business is arranged; whose marriage is a
picture--what I should call resignation in such a case as his would be
to "take down his fiddle and play as lood as ever he could." That and
nought else. And now, you dear old pious ingrate, on this Christmas
morning, think what your mercies have been; and do not walk too far
before your breakfast--as far as to the top of India Street, then to the
top of Dundas Street, and then to your ain stair heid; and do not forget
that even as _laborare_, so _joculari_, _est orar