TO MRS. SITWELL [_Swanston Cottage_, _Lothianburn_, _July_ 1876.] . . . I HAVE the strangest repugnance for writing; indeed, I have nearly got myself persuaded into the notion that letters don’t arrive, in order to salve my conscience for never sending them off. I’m reading a great deal of fifteenth century: _Trial of Joan of Arc_, _Paston Letters_, _Basin_, etc., also _Boswell_ daily by way of a Bible; I mean to read _Boswell_ now until the day I die. And now and again a bit of _Pilgrim’s Progress_. Is that all? Yes, I think that’s all. I have a thing in proof for the _Cornhill_ called _Virginibus Puerisque_. ‘Charles of Orleans’ is again laid aside, but in a good state of furtherance this time. A paper called ‘A Defence of Idlers’ (which is really a defence of R. L. S.) is in a good way. So, you see, I am busy in a tumultuous, knotless sort of fashion; and as I say, I take lots of exercise, and I’m as brown a berry. This is the first letter I’ve written for—O I don’t know how long. * * * * * _July_ 30_th_.—This is, I suppose, three weeks after I began. Do, please, forgive me. To the Highlands, first, to the Jenkins’, then to Antwerp; thence, by canoe with Simpson, to Paris and Grez (on the Loing, and an old acquaintance of mine on the skirts of Fontainebleau) to complete our cruise next spring (if we’re all alive and jolly) by Loing and Loire, Saone and Rhone to the Mediterranean. It should make a jolly book of gossip, I imagine. God bless you. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _P.S._—_Virginibus Puerisque_ is in August _Cornhill_. ‘Charles of Orleans’ is finished, and sent to Stephen; ‘Idlers’ ditto, and sent to Grove; but I’ve no word of either. So I’ve not been idle. R. L. S. TO W. E. HENLEY _Chauny_, _Aisne_ [_September_ 1876]. MY DEAR HENLEY,—Here I am, you see; and if you will take to a map, you will observe I am already more than two doors from Antwerp, whence I started. I have fought it through under the worst weather I ever saw in France; I have been wet through nearly every day of travel since the second (inclusive); besides this, I have had to fight against pretty mouldy health; so that, on the whole, the essayist and reviewer has shown, I think, some pluck. Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from being miserably drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of friends and the permanent impoverishment of British Essayism and Reviewery. My boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in a very rapid current; and I was a good while before I got on to the outside of that fallen tree; rather a better while than I cared about. When I got up, I lay some time on my belly, panting, and exuded fluid. All my symptoms _jusqu’ ici_ are trifling. But I’ve a damned sore throat.—Yours ever,