rvous, you must recollect a bad
hemorrhage is always on the cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and
horror for those who are beside me.

Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it.

If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, I believe the
trip might do me good, and I feel sure that, working together, we might
produce a fine book. The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have
adored it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train.

Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. I have stood the
winter hitherto with some credit, but the dreadful weather still
continues, and I cannot holloa till I am through the wood.

Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I embrace the prospect
with glorious feelings.

I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no circumstance of
pleasure except your letter. That, however, counts for much. I am glad
you liked the doggerel: I have already had a liberal cheque, over which
I licked my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to make
money by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is only too welcome
in my handsome but impecunious house.

Let me know soon what is to be expected--as far as it does not hang by
that inconstant quantity, my want of health. Remember me to Madam with
the best thanks and wishes; and believe me your friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Written just before a visit to London; not, this time, as my guest at
the British Museum, but to stay with his father at an hotel in
Fitzroy Square.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been reading the Vth and VIth Aeneid--the latter
for the first time--and am overpowered. That is one of the most
astonishing pieces of literature, or rather it contains the best, I ever
met with. We are all damned small fry, and Virgil is one of the tops of
human achievement; I never appreciated this; you should have a certain
age to feel this; it is no book for boys, who grind under the lack of
enterprise and dash, and pass ignorantly over miracles of performance
that leave an old hoary-headed practitioner like me stricken down with
admiration. Even as a boy, the Sibyl would have bust me; but I never
read the VIth till I began it two days ago; it is all fresh and
wonderful; do you envy me? If only I knew any Latin! if you had a decent
edition with notes--many notes--I should like well to have it; mine