I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of Zero. TO W. H. LOW The late Sir Percy and Lady Shelley had in these days attached themselves warmly to R. L. S., and saw in his ways and character a living image of those of the poet, Sir Percy's father, as they imagined him. _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. Somethingorother-th, 1886._ MY DEAR LOW,--I send you two photographs: they are both done by Sir Percy Shelley, the poet's son, which may interest. The sitting down one is, I think, the best; but if they choose that, see that the little reflected light on the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be tragic. Don't forget "Baronet" to Sir Percy's name. We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my dedication.--Yours ever, R. L. STEVENSON. _P.S._--Apropos of the odd controversy about Shelley's nose: I have before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley's son: my nose is hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the accipitrine family in man: well, out of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood of light on calumnious man--and the scandal-mongering sun. For personally I cling to my curve. To continue the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all his sisters had noses like mine: Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the family had high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this turn-up (of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other _fatras_) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened in my photographs by his son? R. L. S. TO CHARLES J. GUTHRIE "The lad" is Lloyd Osbourne, at this time a student at Edinburgh University. _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 18th, 1886._ MY DEAR GUTHRIE,--I hear the lad has got into the Spec. and I write to thank you very warmly for the part you have played. I only wish we were both going there together to-morrow night, and you would be in the secretary's place (that so well became you, sir) and I were to open a debate or harry you on "Private Business," and Omond perhaps to read us a few glowing pages on--the siege of Saragossa, was it? or the Battle of Saratoga? my memory fails me, but I have not forgotten a certain white charger that careered over the fields of incoherent fight with a prodigious consequence of laughter: have you? I wonder, has Omond? Well, well, _perierunt_, but, I hope, _non imputantur_. We have had good fun. Again thanking you sincerely, I remain, my dear Guthrie, your old comrade, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. TO THOMAS STEVENSON _Kidnapped_ had at this time just been taken up again, and Stevenson explains the course of the story to his father, who had taken the deepest interest in it since they visited together the scene of the Appin murder. [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 25, 1886._]