R. L. S. O, I am trying my hand at a novel just now; it may interest you to know, I am bound to say I do not think it will be a success. However, it's an amusement for the moment, and work, work is your only ally against the "bearded people" that squat upon their hams in the dark places of life and embrace people horribly as they go by. God save us from the bearded people! to think that the sun is still shining in some happy places! R. L. S. TO MRS. SITWELL [_Edinburgh, January 1876._] ... OUR weather continues as it was, bitterly cold, and raining often. There is not much pleasure in life certainly as it stands at present. _Nous n'irons plus au bois, hélas!_ I meant to write some more last night, but my father was ill and it put it out of my way. He is better this morning. If I had written last night, I should have written a lot. But this morning I am so dreadfully tired and stupid that I can say nothing. I was down at Leith in the afternoon. God bless me, what horrid women I saw; I never knew what a plain-looking race it was before. I was sick at heart with the looks of them. And the children, filthy and ragged! And the smells! And the fat black mud! My soul was full of disgust ere I got back. And yet the ships were beautiful to see, as they are always; and on the pier there was a clean cold wind that smelt a little of the sea, though it came down the Firth, and the sunset had a certain _éclat_ and warmth. Perhaps if I could get more work done, I should be in a better trim to enjoy filthy streets and people and cold grim weather; but I don't much feel as if it was what I would have chosen. I am tempted every day of my life to go off on another walking tour. I like that better than anything else that I know.--Ever your faithful friend, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. TO SIDNEY COLVIN _Fontainebleau_ is the paper called _Forest Notes_ which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine in May of this year (reprinted in _Essays of Travel_). The _Winter's Walk_, as far as it goes one of the most charming of his essays of the Road, was for some reason never finished; reprinted _ibidem_. [_Edinburgh, February 1876._] MY DEAR COLVIN,--_1st_. I have sent _Fontainebleau_ long ago, long ago. And Leslie Stephen is worse than tepid about it--liked "some parts" of it "very well," the son of Belial. Moreover, he proposes to shorten it; and I, who want _money_, and money soon, and not glory and the illustration of the English language, I feel as if my poverty were going to consent. _2nd._ I'm as fit as a fiddle after my walk. I am four inches bigger about the waist than last July! There, that's your prophecy did that. I am on _Charles of Orleans_ now, but I don't know where to send him. Stephen obviously spews me out of his mouth, and I spew him out of mine, so help me! A man who doesn't like my _Fontainebleau_! His head must be turned.