ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL



[EDINBURGH], DECEMBER 23, 1874.

MONDAY. - I have come from a concert, and the concert was rather a
disappointment. Not so my afternoon skating - Duddingston, our big
loch, is bearing; and I wish you could have seen it this afternoon,
covered with people, in thin driving snow flurries, the big hill
grim and white and alpine overhead in the thick air, and the road
up the gorge, as it were into the heart of it, dotted black with
traffic. Moreover, I CAN skate a little bit; and what one can do
is always pleasant to do.

TUESDAY. - I got your letter to-day, and was so glad thereof. It
was of good omen to me also. I worked from ten to one (my classes
are suspended now for Xmas holidays), and wrote four or five
Portfolio pages of my Buckinghamshire affair. Then I went to
Duddingston and skated all afternoon. If you had seen the moon
rising, a perfect sphere of smoky gold, in the dark air above the
trees, and the white loch thick with skaters, and the great hill,
snow-sprinkled, overhead! It was a sight for a king.

WEDNESDAY. - I stayed on Duddingston to-day till after nightfall.