to Sidney Colvin

[Edinburgh, Autumn 1875.]

MY DEAR COLVIN,—Fous ne me gombrennez pas.  Angry with you?  No.  Is the thing lost?  Well, so be it.  There is one masterpiece fewer in the world.  The world can ill spare it, but I, sir, I (and here I strike my hollow bosom so that it resounds) I am full of this sort of bauble; I am made of it; it comes to me, sir, as the desire to sneeze comes upon poor ordinary devils on cold days, when they should be getting out of bed and into their horrid cold tubs by the light of a seven o’clock candle, with the dismal seven o’clock frost-flowers all over the window.

Show Stephen what you please; if you could show him how to give me money, you would oblige, sincerely yours,

R. L. S.

I have a scroll of Springtime somewhere, but I know that it is not in very good order, and do not feel myself up to very much grind over it.  I am damped about Springtime, that’s the truth of it.  It might have been four or five quid!

Sir, I shall shave my head, if this goes on.  All men take a pleasure to gird at me.  The laws of nature are in open war with me.  The wheel of a dog-cart took the toes off my new boots.  Gout has set in with extreme rigour, and cut me out of the cheap refreshment of beer.  I leant my back against an oak, I thought it was a trusty tree, but first it bent, and syne—it lost the Spirit of Springtime, and so did Professor Sidney Colvin, Trinity College, to me.—Ever yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

Along with this, I send you some P.P.P’s; if you lose them, you need not seek to look upon my face again.  Do, for God’s sake, answer me about them also; it is a horrid thing for a fond architect to find his monuments received in silence.—Yours,

R. L. S.