MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am seedy--very seedy, I may say. I am quite unfit for any work or any pleasure; and generally very sick. I am going away next week on Wednesday for my cruise which I hope will set me up again. I should like a proof here up to Wednesday morning, or at Greenock, Tontine Hotel, up to Friday morning, as I don't quite know my future address. I hope you are better, and that it was not that spell of work you had that did the harm. It is to my spurt of work that I am _redevable_ for my harm. Walt Whitman is at the bottom of it all, _'cré nom_! What a pen I have!--a new pen, God be praised, how smoothly it functions! Would that I could work as well. Chorus--Would that both of us could work as well--would that all of us could work as well!--Ever yours, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _P.S._--Bob is better; but he might be better yet. All goes smoothly except my murrained health. TO MRS. SITWELL _Swanston [Summer 1874]._ MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am back again here, as brown as a berry with sun, and in good form. I have been and gone and lost my portmanteau, with _Walt Whitman_ in it and a lot of notes. This is a nuisance. However, I am pretty happy, only wearying for news of you and for your address. _Friday._--_À la bonne heure!_ I hear where you are and that you are apparently fairish well. That is good at least. I am full of Reformation work; up to the eyes in it; and begin to feel learned. A beautiful day outside, though something cold. R. L. S. TO SIDNEY COLVIN Of the projects here mentioned, that of the little book of essays on the enjoyment of the world never took shape, nor were those contributions towards it which he printed in the Portfolio ever re-published until after the writer's death. _The Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland_ was printed in 1874, published as a pamphlet in February 1875, and attracted, I believe, no attention whatever. The "fables" must have been some of the earliest numbers of the series continued at odd times till near the date of his death and published posthumously: I do not know which, but should guess _The House of Eld_, _Yellow Paint_, and perhaps those in the vein of Celtic mystery, _The Touchstone_, _The Poor Thing_, _The Song of To-morrow_. _[Swanston, Summer 1874], Tuesday._