y intriguing at Rome
was too much.

R. L. S.

TO MR. DICK

This correspondent was for many years head clerk and confidential
assistant in the family firm at Edinburgh.

_La Solitude, Hyeres, 12th March 1884._

MY DEAR MR. DICK,--I have been a great while owing you a letter; but I
am not without excuses, as you have heard. I overworked to get a piece
of work finished before I had my holiday, thinking to enjoy it more; and
instead of that, the machinery near hand came sundry in my hands! like
Murdie's uniform. However, I am now, I think, in a fair way of recovery;
I think I was made, what there is of me, of whipcord and thorn-switches;
surely I am tough! But I fancy I shall not overdrive again, or not so
long. It is my theory that work is highly beneficial, but that it
should, if possible, and certainly for such partially broken-down
instruments as the thing I call my body, be taken in batches, with a
clear break and breathing space between. I always do vary my work,
laying one thing aside to take up another, not merely because I believe
it rests the brain, but because I have found it most beneficial to the
result. Reading, Bacon says, makes a full man, but what makes me full on
any subject is to banish it for a time from all my thoughts. However,
what I now propose is, out of every quarter to work two months, and rest
the third. I believe I shall get more done, as I generally manage, on my
present scheme, to have four months' impotent illness and two of
imperfect health--one before, one after, I break down. This, at least,
is not an economical division of the year.

I re-read the other day that heartbreaking book, the _Life of Scott_.
One should read such works now and then, but O, not often. As I live, I
feel more and more that literature should be cheerful and
brave-spirited, even if it cannot be made beautiful and pious and
heroic. We wish it to be a green place; the Waverley Novels are better
to re-read than the over-true _Life_, fine as dear Sir Walter was. The
Bible, in most parts, is a cheerful book; it is our little piping
theologies, tracts, and sermons that are dull and dowie; and even the
Shorter Catechism, which is scarcely a work of consolation, opens with
the best and shortest and completest sermon ever written--upon Man's
chief end.--Believe me, my dear Mr. Dick, very sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--You see I have changed my hand. I was threatened