rd to
agree to let us take it by the month just now, and let our month's rent
count for the year in case we take it on, you may expect to hear we are
again installed, and to receive a letter dated thus:--

La Solitude,
Hyeres-les-Palmiers,
Var.

If the man won't agree to that, of course I must just give it up, as the
house would be dear enough anyway at 2000 f. However, I hope we may get
it, as it is healthy, cheerful, and close to shops, and society, and
civilisation. The garden, which is above, is lovely, and will be cool in
summer. There are two rooms below with a kitchen, and four rooms above,
all told.--Ever your affectionate son, R. L. STEVENSON.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

"Cassandra" was a nickname of the elder Mr. Stevenson for his
daughter-in-law. The scheme of a play to be founded on _Great
Expectations_ was one of a hundred formed in these days and
afterwards given up.

_Hotel des Iles d'Or, but my address will be Chalet la Solitude,
Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var, France, March 17, 1883._

DEAR SIR,--Your undated favour from Eastbourne came to hand in course of
post, and I now hasten to acknowledge its receipt. We must ask you in
future, for the convenience of our business arrangements, to struggle
with and tread below your feet this most unsatisfactory and uncommercial
habit. Our Mr. Cassandra is better; our Mr. Wogg expresses himself
dissatisfied with our new place of business; when left alone in the
front shop, he bawled like a parrot; it is supposed the offices are
haunted.

To turn to the matter of your letter, your remarks on _Great
Expectations_ are very good. We have both re-read it this winter, and I,
in a manner, twice. The object being a play; the play, in its rough
outline, I now see: and it is extraordinary how much of Dickens had to
be discarded as unhuman, impossible, and ineffective: all that really
remains is the loan of a file (but from a grown-up young man who knows
what he was doing, and to a convict who, although he does not know it is
his father--the father knows it is his son), and the fact of the
convict-father's return and disclosure of himself to the son whom he has
made rich. Everything else has been thrown aside; and the position has
had to be explained by a prologue which is pretty strong. I have great
hopes of this piece, which is very amiable and, in places, very strong
indeed: but it was curious how Dickens had to be rol