_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [July 1881]._
MY DEAR MR. HAMMERTON,--(There goes the second M.; it is a certainty.)
Thank you for your prompt and kind answer, little as I deserved it,
though I hope to show you I was less undeserving than I seemed. But just
might I delete two words in your testimonial? The two words "and legal"
were unfortunately winged by chance against my weakest spot, and would
go far to damn me.
It was not my bliss that I was interested in when I was married; it was
a sort of marriage _in extremis_; and if I am where I am, it is thanks
to the care of that lady who married me when I was a mere complication
of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a
bridegroom.
I had a fair experience of that kind of illness when all the women (God
bless them!) turn round upon the streets and look after you with a look
that is only too kind not to be cruel. I have had nearly two years of
more or less prostration. I have done no work whatever since the
February before last until quite of late. To be precise, until the
beginning of last month, exactly two essays. All last winter I was at
Davos; and indeed I am home here just now against the doctor's orders,
and must soon be back again to that unkindly haunt "upon the mountains
visitant"--there goes no angel there but the angel of death.[37] The
deaths of last winter are still sore spots to me.... So, you see, I am
not very likely to go on a "wild expedition," cis-Stygian at least. The
truth is, I am scarce justified in standing for the chair, though I hope
you will not mention this; and yet my health is one of my reasons, for
the class is in summer.
I hope this statement of my case will make my long neglect appear less
unkind. It was certainly not because I ever forgot you, or your unwonted
kindness; and it was not because I was in any sense rioting in
pleasures.
I am glad to hear the catamaran is on her legs again; you have my
warmest wishes for a good cruise down the Saone; and yet there comes
some envy to that wish, for when shall I go cruising? Here a sheer hulk,
alas! lies R. L. S. But I will continue to hope for a better time,
canoes that will sail better to the wind, and a river grander than the
Saone.
I heard, by the way, in a letter of counsel from a well-wisher, one
reason of my town's absurdity about the chair of Art:[38] I fear it is
characteristic of her manners. It was because you did not call upon the
electors!
Will you remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your son?--And believe me,
etc., etc.,