ornaments, the bourgeois (_quorum pars_), and their cowardly dislike of dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two flaunting emblems of their hollowness. God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch. Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle. Pray don't fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment now it has been spoken of, if you do.—Yours ever, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. * * * * * [Mr. Locker-Lampson, better known as Frederick Locker, the friend of Tennyson and most accomplished writer of _vers de société_ in his time, had asked Stevenson, through their common friend Mr. Andrew Lang, for a set of verses, and he had sent those beginning: Not roses to the rose, I trow, The thistle sends, nor to the bee Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now Should Locker ask a verse from me? To Mr. Locker's acknowledgment Stevenson replied as follows, asking for that gentleman's help in trying to get a nomination to Christ's Hospital (the historic Bluecoat School) for the son of a friend who had shown him kindness at Hyères:] BOURNEMOUTH, September, 1886. DEAR LOCKER,—You take my verses too kindly, but you will admit, for such a bluebottle of a versifier to enter the house of Gertrude, where her necklace hangs, was not a little brave. Your kind invitation, I fear, must remain unaccepted; and yet—if I am very well—perhaps next Spring—(for I mean to be very well)—my wife might.... But all that is in the clouds with my better health. And now look here: you are a rich man and know many people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of Christ's Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in which I would (if I could) do anything. To approach you in this way, is not decent; and you may therefore judge by my doing it, how near this matter lies to my heart. I enclose you a list of the Governors, which I beg you to return, whether or not you shall be able to do anything to help me. The boy's name is ——, he and his mother are very poor. It may interest you in her cause if I tell you this: that when I was dangerously ill at Hyères, this brave lady, who had then a sick husband of her own (since dead) and a house to keep and a family of four to cook for, all with her own hands, for they could not afford a servant, yet took watch-about with my wife, and contributed not only to my comfort, but to my recovery, in a degree that I am not able to limit. You can conceive how much I suffer from my impotence to help her, and indeed I have already shown myself a thankless friend. Let not my cry go up before you in vain. Yours in hope, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. * * * * *