Please write to me, although I deserve it so little, and show a Christian spirit.--Ever your faithful friend, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. TO SIDNEY COLVIN [_Edinburgh, August 1877._] MY DEAR COLVIN,--I'm to be whipped away to-morrow to Penzance, where at the post-office a letter will find me glad and grateful. I am well, but somewhat tired out with overwork. I have only been home a fortnight this morning, and I have already written to the tune of forty-five Cornhill pages and upwards. The most of it was only very laborious re-casting and re-modelling, it is true; but it took it out of me famously, all the same. Temple Bar appears to like my _Villon_, so I may count on another market there in the future, I hope. At least, I am going to put it to the proof at once, and send another story, _The Sire de Malétroit's Mousetrap_: a true novel, in the old sense; all unities preserved moreover, if that's anything, and I believe with some little merits; not so _clever_ perhaps as the last, but sounder and more natural. My _Villon_ is out this month; I should so much like to know what you think of it. Stephen has written to me à propos of _Idlers_, that something more in that vein would be agreeable to his views. From Stephen I count that a devil of a lot. I am honestly so tired this morning that I hope you will take this for what it's worth and give me an answer in peace.--Ever yours, LOUIS STEVENSON. TO MRS. SITWELL Neither _The Stepfather's Story_ nor the _St. Michael's Mounts_ essay here mentioned ever, to my knowledge, came into being. [_Penzance, August 1877._] ... You will do well to stick to your burn, that is a delightful life you sketch, and a very fountain of health. I wish I could live like that, but, alas! it is just as well I got my "Idlers" written and done with, for I have quite lost all power of resting. I have a goad in my flesh continually, pushing me to work, work, work. I have an essay pretty well through for Stephen; a story, _The Sire de Malétroit's Mousetrap_, with which I shall try Temple Bar; another story, in the clouds, _The Stepfather's Story_, most pathetic work of a high morality or immorality, according to point of view; and lastly, also in the clouds, or perhaps a little farther away, an essay on _The Two St. Michael's Mounts_, historical and picturesque; perhaps if it didn't come too long, I might throw in the _Bass Rock_, and call it _Three Sea Fortalices_, or something of that kind. You see how work keeps bubbling in my mind. Then I shall do another fifteenth century paper this autumn--La Sale and _Petit Jehan de Saintré_, which is a kind of fifteenth century _Sandford and Merton_, ending in horrid immoral cynicism, as if the author had got tired of being didactic, and just had a good wallow in the mire to wind up with and indemnify himself for so much restraint.