rtant, and you, if I gather rightly, so much
less so? You believe in the extreme moment of the facts that humanity
has acquired and is acquiring; I think them of moment, but still of much
less than those inherent or inherited brute principles and laws that sit
upon us (in the character of conscience) as heavy as a shirt of mail,
and that (in the character of the affections and the airy spirit of
pleasure) make all the light of our lives. The house is, indeed, a great
thing, and should be rearranged on sanitary principles; but my heart and
all my interest are with the dweller, that ancient of days and day-old
infant man.

R. L. S.

An excellent touch is p. 584. "By instinct or design he eschews what
demands constructive patience." I believe it is both; my theory is that
literature must always be most at home in treating movement and change;
hence I look for them.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 28, 1885._

MY DEAREST FATHER,--Get the November number of Time, and you will see a
review of me by a very clever fellow, who is quite furious at bottom
because I am too orthodox, just as Purcell was savage because I am not
orthodox enough. I fall between two stools. It is odd, too, to see how
this man thinks me a full-blooded fox-hunter, and tells me my philosophy
would fail if I lost my health or had to give up exercise!

An illustrated _Treasure Island_ will be out next month. I have had an
early copy, and the French pictures are admirable. The artist has got
his types up in Hogarth; he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can
compose, and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one or two
little accidents, such as making the _Hispaniola_ a brig. I would send
you my copy, _but I cannot_; it is my new toy, and I cannot divorce
myself from this enjoyment.

I am keeping really better, and have been out about every second day,
though the weather is cold and very wild.

I was delighted to hear you were keeping better; you and Archer would
agree, more shame to you! (Archer is my pessimist critic.) Good-bye to
all of you, with my best love. We had a dreadful overhauling of my
conduct as a son the other night; and my wife stripped me of my
illusions and made me admit I had been a detestable bad one. Of one
thing in particular she convicted me in my own eyes: I mean, a most
unkind reticence, which hung on me then, and I confess still hangs on me
now, when I try to assure