to Sidney Colvin

[San Francisco, April 1880.]

MY DEAR COLVIN,—You must be sick indeed of my demand for books, for you have seemingly not yet sent me one.  Still, I live on promises: waiting for Penn, for H. James’s Hawthorne, for my Burns, etc.; and now, to make matters worse, pending your Centuries, etc., I do earnestly desire the best book about mythology (if it be German, so much the worse; send a bunctionary along with it, and pray for me).  This is why.  If I recover, I feel called on to write a volume of gods and demi-gods in exile: Pan, Jove, Cybele, Venus, Charon, etc.; and though I should like to take them very free, I should like to know a little about ’em to begin with.  For two days, till last night, I had no night sweats, and my cough is almost gone, and I digest well; so all looks hopeful.  However, I was near the other side of Jordan.  I send the proof of Thoreau to you, so that you may correct and fill up the quotation from Goethe.  It is a pity I was ill, as, for matter, I think I prefer that to any of my essays except Burns; but the style, though quite manly, never attains any melody or lenity.  So much for consumption: I begin to appreciate what the Emigrant must be.  As soon as I have done the last few pages of the Emigrant they shall go to you.  But when will that be?  I know not quite yet—I have to be so careful.—Ever yours,

R. L. S.