to spread its boughs like the same monarch of the woods
(and the acorn, ay de mi! is not yet planted), I expect to be a prisoner
among the palms.

Yes, it is like old times to be writing you from the Riviera, and after
all that has come and gone, who can predict anything? How fortune
tumbles men about! Yet I have not found that they change their friends,
thank God.

Both of our loves to your sister and yourself. As for me, if I am here
and happy, I know to whom I owe it; I know who made my way for me in
life, if that were all, and I remain, with love, your faithful friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

"Gilder" in the following is of course the late R. W. Gilder, for
many years the admirable editor of the Century Magazine.

_Chalet la Solitude, Hyeres [April 1883]._

MY DEAR GOSSE,--I am very guilty; I should have written to you long ago;
and now, though it must be done, I am so stupid that I can only boldly
recapitulate. A phrase of three members is the outside of my syntax.

First, I like the _Rover_ better than any of your other verse. I believe
you are right, and can make stories in verse. The last two stanzas and
one or two in the beginning--but the two last above all--I thought
excellent. I suggest a pursuit of the vein. If you want a good story to
treat, get the _Memoirs of the Chevalier Johnstone_, and do his passage
of the Tay; it would be excellent: the dinner in the field, the woman he
has to follow, the dragoons, the timid boatmen, the brave lasses. It
would go like a charm; look at it, and you will say you owe me one.

Second, Gilder asking me for fiction, I suddenly took a great resolve,
and have packed off to him my new work, _The Silverado Squatters_. I do
not for a moment suppose he will take it; but pray say all the good
words you can for it. I should be awfully glad to get it taken. But if
it does not mean dibbs at once, I shall be ruined for life. Pray write
soon and beg Gilder your prettiest for a poor gentleman in pecuniary
sloughs.

Fourth, next time I am supposed to be at death's door write to me like
a Christian, and let not your correspondence attend on business.--Yours
ever,

R. L. S.

_P.S._--I see I have led you to conceive the _Squatters_ are fiction.
They are not, alas!

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_Chalet la Solitude, May 5 [1883]._

MY DEAREST PEOPLE,--I have had a great piece of news. There has been
offe