This was to Stevenson a year of great and various productiveness. Besides six or eight characteristic essays of the _Virginibus Puerisque_ series, there appeared in London the set of fantastic modern tales called the _New Arabian Nights_, conceived and written in an entirely different key from any of his previous work, as well as the kindly, sentimental comedy of French artist life, _Providence and the Guitar_; and in the Portfolio the _Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh_, republished at the end of the year in book form. During the autumn and winter of this year he wrote _Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes_, and was much and eagerly engaged in the planning of plays in collaboration with Mr. Henley; of which one, _Deacon Brodie_, was finished in the spring of 1879. In the same spring he drafted in Edinburgh, but afterwards laid by, four chapters on ethics, a study of which he once spoke as being always his "veiled mistress," under the name of _Lay Morals_. But abounding in good work as this period was, and momentous as it was in regard to Stevenson's future life, it is a period which figures but meagrely in his correspondence, and in this book must fill disproportionately little space. Without the least breach of friendship, or even of intimate confidence on occasion, Stevenson had begun, as was natural and necessary, to wean himself from his entire dependence on his friend and counsellor of the last two years; to take his life more into his own hands; and to intermit the regularity of his correspondence with her. A few new correspondents appear; but to none of us in these days did he write more than scantily. Partly his growing absorption by the complications of his life and the interests of his work left him little time or inclination for letter-writing; partly his greater freedom of movement made it unnecessary. On his way backwards and forwards between Scotland and France, his friends in London had the chance of seeing him much more frequently than of yore. He avoided formal and dress-coated society; but in the company of congenial friends, whether men or women, and in places like the Savile Club (his favourite haunt), he was as brilliant and stimulating as ever, and however acute his inward preoccupations, his visits were always a delight. TO SIDNEY COLVIN [_Edinburgh, end of July 1875._]