of all. The old boyish idea of the march on
Paradise being now out of season, and all plans and ideas that I hear
debated being built on a superb indifference to the first principles of
human character, a helpless desire to acquiesce in anything of which I
know the worst assails me. Fundamental errors in human nature of two
sorts stand on the skyline of all this modern world of aspirations.
First, that it is happiness that men want; and second, that happiness
consists of anything but an internal harmony. Men do not want, and I do
not think they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry,
effort, success--the elements our friends wish to eliminate. And, on the
other hand, happiness is a question of morality--or of immorality, there
is no difference--and conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his
worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I suppose, in his
ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy in the detested camp; Pepys was
pretty happy, and I am pretty happy on the whole, because we both
somewhat crowingly accepted a _via media_, both liked to attend to our
affairs, and both had some success in managing the same. It is quite an
open question whether Pepys and I ought to be happy; on the other hand,
there is no doubt that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he
said it) that he was _la misere humaine_, cureless misery--unless perhaps
by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had
justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece
ornaments, the bourgeois (_quorum pars_), and their cowardly dislike of
dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly
they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment
and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two
flaunting emblems of their hollowness.

God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch.

Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I
have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle.
Pray don't fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment,
now it has been spoken of, if you do,--Yours ever,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO F. W. H. MYERS

In reply to a paper of criticisms on _Jekyll and Hyde_.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1st, 1886._

MY DEAR SIR,--I know not how to thank you: this is as handsome as it is
clever. With almost every word I