Bucking up

{Photos by rocketlass.}

The past weekend saw Chicago weather take a turn for the mildly apocalyptic--not the seventh seal, mind you; more like the first seal. If I recall correctly, that one is to be accompanied by thunder, with which we were copiously graced during last night's winter storm, which resulted in sheets of ice calculated to make any sane person yearn for the South Seas. So that's where we turn in our January trawl through the writers' post office, to Robert Louis Stevenson, writing from his Hawaiian retreat on December 28, 1893 to friend and supporter Richard La Galliene:

And more than all this I had, and I have to thank you for, the intimate loyalty you have shown to myself; for the eager welcome to you give to what is good—for the courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects. I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy; — and I have written too many books. The world begins to be weary with the old booth; and, if not weary, familiar with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I do not know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I am sensitive indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read such criticism as yours, I am emboldened to go on and praise God.

I suspect the letter is as much a product of mood and health than of rational assessment, but let's be clear: anyone who can dash off a line like "I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy; -- and I have written too many books" is far from finished.