to it, as from light sleep, I wax
exclamatory, as you see.

Sursum Corda:
Heave ahead:
Here's luck.
Art and Blue Heaven,
April and God's Larks.
Green reeds and the sky-scattering river.
A stately music.
Enter God!

R. L. S.

Ay, but you know, until a man can write that "Enter God," he has made no
art! None! Come, let us take counsel together and make some!

TO TREVOR HADDON

During the height of the Provencal summer, for July and part of
August, Stevenson went with his wife to the Baths of Royat in
Auvergne (travelling necessarily by way of Clermont-Ferrand). His
parents joined them at Royat for part of their visit. This and
possibly the next following letters were written during the trip. The
news here referred to was that his correspondent had won a
scholarship at the Slade School.

_La Solitude, Hyeres. But just now writing from
Clermont-Ferrand, July 5, 1883._

DEAR MR. HADDON,--Your note with its piece of excellent news duly
reached me. I am delighted to hear of your success: selfishly so; for it
is pleasant to see that one whom I suppose I may call an admirer is no
fool. I wish you more and more prosperity, and to be devoted to your
art. An art is the very gist of life; it grows with you; you will never
weary of an art at which you fervently and superstitiously labour.
Superstitiously: I mean, think more of it than it deserves; be blind to
its faults, as with a wife or father; forget the world in a technical
trifle. The world is very serious; art is the cure of that, and must be
taken very lightly; but to take art lightly, you must first be stupidly
owlishly in earnest over it. When I made Casimir say "Tiens" at the end,
I made a blunder. I thought it was what Casimir would have said and I
put it down. As your question shows, it should have been left out. It
was a "patch" of realism, and an anti-climax. Beware of realism; it is
the devil; 'tis one of the means of art, and now they make it the end!
And such is the farce of the age in which a man lives, that we all, even
those of us who most detest it, sin by realism.

Notes for the student of any art.

1. Keep an intelligent eye upon _all_ the others. It is only by doing so
that you come to see what Art is: Art is the end common to them all, it
is none of the points by which they differ.

2. In this age beware of realism.

3. In your own art, bow your head over technique. Think of tec