to the notes that Meredith has found, Evan and the
postillion, Evan and Rose, Harry in Germany. And to me these things are
the good; beauty, touched with sex and laughter; beauty with God's earth
for the background. Tragedy does not seem to me to come off; and when it
does, it does so by the heroic illusion; the anti-masque has been
omitted; laughter, which attends on all our steps in life, and sits by
the deathbed, and certainly redacts the epitaph, laughter has been lost
from these great-hearted lies. But the comedy which keeps the beauty and
touches the terrors of our life (laughter and tragedy-in-a-good-humour
having kissed), that is the last word of moved representation; embracing
the greatest number of elements of fate and character; and telling its
story, not with the one eye of pity, but with the two of pity and mirth.

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

Early in May Stevenson again fell very dangerously ill with
hemorrhage of the lungs, and lay for several weeks between life and
death, until towards the end of June he was brought sufficiently
round to venture by slow stages on the journey to England, staying
for two or three weeks at Royat on the way. His correspondent had
lately been appointed Clark Reader in English Literature at Trinity
College, Cambridge.

_[La Solitude, Hyeres] From my bed, May 29, 1884._

DEAR GOSSE,--The news of the Professorate found me in the article
of--well, of heads or tails; I am still in bed, and a very poor person.
You must thus excuse my damned delay; but, I assure you, I was
delighted. You will believe me the more, if I confess to you that my
first sentiment was envy; yes, sir, on my blood-boltered couch I envied
the professor. However, it was not of long duration; the double thought
that you deserved and that you would thoroughly enjoy your success fell
like balsam on my wounds. How came it that you never communicated my
rejection of Gilder's offer for the Rhone? But it matters not. Such
earthly vanities are over for the present. This has been a fine
well-conducted illness. A month in bed; a month of silence; a fortnight
of not stirring my right hand; a month of not moving without being
lifted. Come! _Ca y est_: devilish like being dead.--Yours, dear
Professor, academically,

R. L. S.

I am soon to be moved to Royat; an invalid valet goes with me! I got him
cheap--second-hand.

In turning over my late friend Ferrier's commonplace