In the course of this summer Stevenson's excursions included a week or two spent with me at Hampstead, during which he joined the Savile Club and made some acquaintance with London literary society; a yachting trip with his friend Sir Walter Simpson in the western islands of Scotland; a journey to Barmouth and Llandudno with his parents; and in the late autumn a walking tour in Buckinghamshire. The Scottish winter (1874-75) tried him severely, as Scottish winters always did, but was enlivened by a new and what was destined to be a very fruitful and intimate friendship, the origin of which was described in the following letters, namely that of Mr. W. E. Henley. In April 1875 he made his first visit, in the company of his cousin R. A. M. Stevenson to the artist haunts of the forest of Fontainebleau, whence he returned to finish his reading for the Scottish Bar and face the examination which was before him in July. During all this year, as will be seen, his chief, almost his exclusive, correspondents and confidants continued to be the same as in the preceding winter. TO SIDNEY COLVIN Written in Paris on his way home to Edinburgh. Some of our talk at Mentone had run on the scheme of a spectacle play on the story of the burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus by Herostratus, the type of insane vanity _in excelsis_. [_Hôtel St. Romain, Paris, end of April 1874._] MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am a great deal better, but still have to take care. I have got quite a lot of Victor Hugo done; and not I think so badly: pitching into this work has straightened me up a good deal. It is the devil's own weather but that is a trifle. I must know when Cornhill must see it. I can send some of it in a week easily, but I still have to read _The Laughing Man_,[13] and I mean to wait until I get to London and have the loan of that from you. If I buy anything more this production will not pay itself. The first part is not too well written, though it has good stuff in it. My people have made no objection to my going to Göttingen; but my body has made I think very strong objections. And you know if it is cold here, it must be colder there. It is a sore pity; that was a great chance for me and it is gone. I know very well that between Galitzin and this swell professor I should have become a good specialist in law and how that would have changed and bettered all my work it is easy to see; however I must just be content to live as I have begun, an ignorant, _chic-y_ penny-a-liner. May the Lord have mercy on my soul! Going home not very well is an astonishing good hold for me. I shall simply be a prince.