DEAR GOSSE,--The news of the Professorate found me in the article of--well, of heads or tails; I am still in bed, and a very poor person. You must thus excuse my damned delay; but, I assure you, I was delighted. You will believe me the more, if I confess to you that my first sentiment was envy; yes, sir, on my blood-boltered couch I envied the professor. However, it was not of long duration; the double thought that you deserved and that you would thoroughly enjoy your success fell like balsam on my wounds. How came it that you never communicated my rejection of Gilder's offer for the Rhone? But it matters not. Such earthly vanities are over for the present. This has been a fine well-conducted illness. A month in bed; a month of silence; a fortnight of not stirring my right hand; a month of not moving without being lifted. Come! _Ca y est_: devilish like being dead.--Yours, dear Professor, academically, R. L. S. I am soon to be moved to Royat; an invalid valet goes with me! I got him cheap--second-hand. In turning over my late friend Ferrier's commonplace book, I find three poems from _Viol and Flute_ copied out in his hand: "When Flower-time," "Love in Winter," and "Mistrust." They are capital too. But I thought the fact would interest you. He was no poetist either; so it means the more. "Love in W.!" I like the best. TO SIDNEY COLVIN Enclosing some supplementary verses for the _Child's Garden_. _Marseilles, June 1884._ DEAR S. C.,--Are these four in time? No odds about order. I am at Marseille and stood the journey wonderfully. Better address Hotel Chabassiere, Royat, Puy de Dome. You see how this d--d poeshie flows from me in sickness: Are they good or bad? Wha kens? But I like the _Little Land_, I think, as well as any. As time goes on I get more fancy in. We have no money, but a valet and a maid. The valet is no end; how long can you live on a valet? Vive le valet! I am tempted to call myself a valetudinarian. I love my love with a V because he is a Valetudinarian; I took him to Valetta or Valais, gave him his Vails and tenderly addressed him with one word, Vale. _P.S._--It does not matter of course about order. As soon as I have all the slips I shall organise the book for the publisher. A set of 8 will be put together under the title _An Only Child_; another cycle of 10 will be called _In the Garden_, and other six called _Bedtime_ to end all up. It will now make quite a little volume of a good way upwards of 100 pp. Will you instruct Bain to send me a Bible; of a type that I can read without blindness; the better if with notes; there is a Clarendon Press Bible, pray see it yourself. I also want Ewald's History in a translation. R. L. S. TO SIDNEY COLVIN The play of _Deacon Brodie_, the joint work of R. L. S. and W. E. H., was to be performed in London early in July. [_Hotel Chabassiere, Royat, July 1884._]