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Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25)
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Release Date: January 8, 2010 [EBook #30894]
Language: English
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THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SWANSTON EDITION
VOLUME XXIII
_Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
Copies are for sale._
_This is No._ .......
[Illustration: (signed)]
THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
VOLUME TWENTY-THREE
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII
_For permission to use the_ LETTERS _in the_
SWANSTON EDITION OF STEVENSON'S WORKS
_the Publishers are indebted to the kindness of_
MESSRS. METHUEN & CO., LTD.
_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_
THE LETTERS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
EDITED BY
SIDNEY COLVIN
PARTS I--VI
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xvii
I.--STUDENT DAYS AT EDINBURGH
TRAVELS AND EXCURSIONS
INTRODUCTORY 3
LETTERS--
To Thomas Stevenson 13
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 14
To the Same 15
To the Same 17
To the Same 19
To the Same 21
To the Same 24
To Mrs. Churchill Babington 30
To Alison Cunningham 32
To Charles Baxter 33
To the Same 35
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 36
To the Same 38
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 39
To Thomas Stevenson 42
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 44
To Charles Baxter 46
To Charles Baxter 49
To the Same 52
II.--STUDENT DAYS--_continued_
NEW FRIENDSHIPS--ORDERED SOUTH
INTRODUCTORY 54
LETTERS--
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 56
To Mrs. Sitwell 57
To the Same 58
To the Same 61
To the Same 63
To the Same 66
To the Same 68
To the Same 71
To the Same 74
To Sidney Colvin 76
To the Same 76
To Mrs. Sitwell 77
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 81
To Mrs. Sitwell 83
To the Same 83
To the Same 86
To Charles Baxter 89
To Mrs. Sitwell 91
To the Same 93
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 94
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 96
To the Same 97
To the Same 99
To Mrs. Sitwell 101
To the Same 103
To the Same 104
To Sidney Colvin 105
To the Same 106
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 107
To Sidney Colvin 108
To Mrs. Sitwell 110
To Thomas Stevenson 111
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 112
To Thomas Stevenson 113
To Mrs. Sitwell 115
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 116
To the Same 117
To the Same 118
To the Same 118
To the Same 120
To Mrs. Sitwell 121
III.--STUDENT DAYS--_concluded_
HOME AGAIN--LITERATURE AND LAW
INTRODUCTORY 123
LETTERS--
To Sidney Colvin 124
To Mrs. Sitwell 125
To Sidney Colvin 127
To Mrs. Sitwell 127
To Sidney Colvin 129
To Mrs. Sitwell 131
To the Same 133
To the Same 137
To the Same 139
To Sidney Colvin 140
To Mrs. Sitwell 140
To Sidney Colvin 141
To the Same 143
To Mrs. Sitwell 144
To the Same 148
To the Same 149
To the Same 151
To the Same 153
To the Same 155
To the Same 156
To Sidney Colvin 157
To Mrs. Sitwell 158
To the Same 161
To the Same 164
To the Same 166
To Sidney Colvin 167
To Mrs. Sitwell 168
To Sidney Colvin 169
To Mrs. Sitwell 171
To Sidney Colvin 173
To Mrs. Sitwell 174
To the Same 174
To the Same 175
To the Same 177
To Sidney Colvin 178
To the Same 178
To Mrs. Sitwell 179
To the Same 180
To the Same 181
IV.--ADVOCATE AND AUTHOR
EDINBURGH--PARIS--FONTAINEBLEAU
INTRODUCTORY 182
LETTERS--
To Sidney Colvin 186
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 187
To Mrs. Sitwell 187
To the Same 189
To Sidney Colvin 191
To Charles Baxter 193
To Sidney Colvin 195
To the Same 196
To Mrs. Sitwell 197
To the Same 198
To Mrs. de Mattos 199
To Mrs. Sitwell 200
To Sidney Colvin 201
To the Same 202
To Mrs. Sitwell 203
To W. E. Henley 204
To Mrs. Sitwell 205
To Sidney Colvin 206
To Mrs. Sitwell 207
To A. Patchett Martin 208
To the Same 209
To Sidney Colvin 211
To the Same 212
To Thomas Stevenson 213
To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 215
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 215
To the Same 216
To W. E. Henley 217
To Charles Baxter 217
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 218
To W. E. Henley 219
To Edmund Gosse 219
To W. E. Henley 221
To Miss Jane Balfour 223
To Edmund Gosse 224
To Sidney Colvin 225
To Edmund Gosse 226
V.--THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT
_S.S. DEVONIA_--MONTEREY AND SAN FRANCISCO--MARRIAGE
INTRODUCTORY 228
LETTERS--
To Sidney Colvin 230
To the Same 232
To W. E. Henley 233
To Sidney Colvin 234
To the Same 235
To Edmund Gosse 236
To W. E. Henley 238
To the Same 238
To Sidney Colvin 241
To P. G. Hamerton 242
To Edmund Gosse 243
To Sidney Colvin 244
To Edmund Gosse 245
To Sidney Colvin 247
To W. E. Henley 249
To Sidney Colvin 251
To the Same 253
To W. E. Henley 255
To the Same 256
To Sidney Colvin 258
To Edmund Gosse 260
To Charles Baxter 262
To Professor Meiklejohn 263
To W. E. Henley 265
To Sidney Colvin 267
To the Same 269
To J. W. Ferrier 269
To Edmund Gosse 271
To Dr. W. Bamford 272
To Sidney Colvin 272
To the Same 273
To the Same 274
To C. W. Stoddard 275
To Sidney Colvin 276
VI.--ALPINE WINTERS AND HIGHLAND SUMMERS
INTRODUCTORY 279
LETTERS--
To Sidney Colvin 284
To Charles Baxter 285
To Isobel Strong 286
To A. G. Dew-Smith 287
To Thomas Stevenson 290
To Sidney Colvin 291
To Edmund Gosse 292
To the Same 293
To Charles Warren Stoddard 294
To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 296
To Sidney Colvin 297
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 298
To Sidney Colvin 300
To Horatio F. Brown 303
To the Same 303
To the Same 304
To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 305
To Edmund Gosse 306
To Sidney Colvin 308
To Professor Æneas Mackay 309
To the Same 309
To Sidney Colvin 310
To Edmund Gosse 311
To Charles J. Guthrie 312
To the Same 312
To Edmund Gosse 313
To P. G. Hamerton 314
To Sidney Colvin 316
To W. E. Henley 317
To the Same 319
To Sidney Colvin 320
To Dr. Alexander Japp 321
To Mrs. Sitwell 323
To Edmund Gosse 324
To the Same 325
To the Same 325
To W. E. Henley 326
To Dr. Alexander Japp 327
To W. E. Henley 328
To the Same 330
To Thomas Stevenson 331
To Edmund Gosse 332
To W. E. Henley 333
To P. G. Hamerton 335
To Charles Baxter 336
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 337
To Edmund Gosse 338
To Sidney Colvin 339
To Alison Cunningham 340
To Charles Baxter 341
To W. E. Henley 341
To the Same 342
To Alexander Ireland 345
To Mrs. Gosse 347
To Sidney Colvin 349
To Edmund Gosse 350
To Dr. Alexander Japp 351
To the Same 351
To W. E. Henley 352
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 354
To R. A. M. Stevenson 356
To Trevor Haddon 357
To Edmund Gosse 359
To Trevor Haddon 360
To Edmund Gosse 360
To W. E. Henley 361
INTRODUCTION
The circumstances which have made me responsible for selecting and
editing the correspondence of Robert Louis Stevenson are the following.
He was for many years my closest friend. We first met in 1873, when he
was in his twenty-third year and I in my twenty-ninth, at the place and
in the manner mentioned at page 54 of this volume. It was my good
fortune then to be of use to him, partly by such technical hints as even
the most brilliant beginner may take from an older hand, partly by
recommending him to editors--first, if I remember right, to Mr. Hamerton
and Mr. Richmond Seeley, of the Portfolio, then in succession to Mr.
George Grove (Macmillan's Magazine), Mr. Leslie Stephen (Cornhill), and
Dr. Appleton (the Academy); and somewhat, lastly, by helping to raise
him in the estimation of parents who loved but for the moment failed to
understand him. It belonged to the richness of his nature to repay in
all things much for little, [Greek: hekatomboi enneaboiôn], and from
these early relations sprang the affection and confidence, to me
inestimable, of which the following correspondence bears evidence.
One day in the autumn of 1888, in the island of Tahiti, during an
illness which he supposed might be his last, Stevenson put into the
hands of his stepson, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, a sealed paper with a request
that it might be opened after his death. He recovered, and had strength
enough to enjoy six years more of active life and work in the Pacific
Islands. When the end came, the paper was opened and found to contain,
among other things, the expression of his wish that I should prepare for
publication "a selection of his letters and a sketch of his life." I had
already, in 1892, when he was anxious--needlessly, as it turned out--as
to the provision he might be able to leave for his family, received from
him a suggestion that "some kind of a book" might be made out of the
monthly journal-letters which he had been in the habit of writing me
from Samoa: letters begun at first with no thought of publication and
simply in order to maintain our intimacy, so far as might be,
undiminished by separation. This part of his wishes I was able to carry
out promptly, and the result appeared under the title _Vailima Letters_
in the autumn following his death (1895). Lack of leisure delayed the
execution of the remaining part. For one thing, the body of
correspondence which came in from various quarters turned out much
larger than had been anticipated. He did not love writing letters, and
will be found somewhere in the following pages referring to himself as
one "essentially and originally incapable of the art epistolary." That
he was a bad correspondent had come to be an accepted view among his
friends; but in truth it was only during one period of his life that he
at all deserved such a reproach.[1] At other times, as became apparent
after his death, he had shown a degree of industry and spirit in
letter-writing extraordinary considering his health and his occupations.
It was indeed he and not his friends, as will abundantly appear in the
course of these volumes, who oftenest had cause to complain of answers
neglected or delayed. His letters, it is true, were often the most
informal in the world, and he generally neglected to date them, a habit
which is the despair of editors: but after his own whim and fashion he
wrote a vast number, so that the work of sifting, copying, and arranging
was long and laborious. It was not until the autumn of 1899 that the
_Letters to his Family and Friends_ were ready for publication, and in
the meantime the task of writing the _Life_ had been taken over by his
cousin and my friend, Mr. Graham Balfour, who completed it two years
later.
"In considering the scale and plan on which my friend's instruction
should be carried out" (I quote, with the change of a word or two, from
my Introduction of 1899), "it seemed necessary to take into account, not
his own always modest opinion of himself, but the place which he seemed
likely to take ultimately in the world's regard. The four or five years
following the death of a writer much applauded in his lifetime are
generally the years when the decline of his reputation begins, if it is
going to suffer decline at all. At present, certainly, Stevenson's name
seems in no danger of going down. On the stream of daily literary
reference and allusion it floats more actively than ever. In another
sense its vitality is confirmed by the material test of continued sales
and of the market. Since we have lost him other writers, whose
beginnings he watched with sympathetic interest, have come to fill a
greater immediate place in public attention; but none has exercised
Stevenson's peculiar and personal power to charm, to attach, and to
inspirit. By his study of perfection in form and style--qualities for
which his countrymen in general have been apt to care little--he might
seem destined to give pleasure chiefly to the fastidious and the
artistically minded. But as to its matter, the main appeal of his work
is not to any mental tastes and fashions of the few; it is rather to
universal, hereditary instincts, to the primitive sources of imaginative
excitement and entertainment in the race.
"The voice of the _advocatus diaboli_ has been heard against him, as it
is right and proper that it should be heard against any man before his
reputation can be held fully established. One such advocate in this
country has thought to dispose of him by the charge of 'externality.'
But the reader who remembers things like the sea-frenzy of Gordon
Darnaway, or the dialogue of Markheim with his other self in the house
of murder, or the re-baptism of the spirit of Seraphina in the forest
dews, or the failure of Herrick to find in the waters of the island
lagoon a last release from dishonour, or the death of Goguelat, or the
appeal of Kirstie Elliot in the midnight chamber--such a reader can only
smile at a criticism like this and put it by. These and a score of other
passages breathe the essential poetry and significance of things as they
reveal themselves to true masters only: they are instinct at once with
the morality and the romance which lie deep together at the soul of
nature and experience. Not in vain had Stevenson read the lesson of the
Lantern-Bearers, and hearkened to the music of the pipes of Pan. He was
feeling his way all his life towards a fuller mastery of his means,
preferring always to leave unexpressed what he felt that he could not
express adequately; and in much of his work was content merely to amuse
himself and others. But even when he is playing most fancifully with his
art and his readers, as in the shudders, tempered with laughter, of the
_Suicide Club_, or the airy sentimental comedy of _Providence and the
Guitar_, or the schoolboy historical inventions of Dickon Crookback and
the old sailor Arblaster, a writer of his quality cannot help striking
notes from the heart of life and the inwardness of things deeper than
will ever be struck, or even apprehended, by another who labours, with
never a smile either of his own or of his reader's, upon the most solemn
enterprises of realistic fiction, but is born without the magician's
touch and insight.
"Another advocate on the same side, in the United States, has made much
of the supposed dependence of this author on his models, and classed him
among writers whose inspiration is imitative and second-hand. But this
is to be quite misled by the well-known passage of Stevenson's own, in
which he speaks of himself as having in his prentice years played the
'sedulous ape' to many writers of different styles and periods. In doing
this he was not seeking inspiration, but simply practising the use of
the tools which were to help him to express his own inspirations. Truly
he was always much of a reader: but it was life, not books, that always
in the first degree allured and taught him.
'He loved of life the myriad sides,
Pain, prayer, or pleasure, act or sleep,
As wallowing narwhals love the deep'--
so with just self-knowledge he wrote of himself; and the books which he
most cared for and lived with were those of which the writers seemed--to
quote again a phrase of his own--to have been 'eavesdropping at the door
of his heart': those which told of experiences or cravings after
experience, pains, pleasures, or conflicts of the spirit, which in the
eagerness of youthful living and thinking had already been his own. No
man, in fact, was ever less inclined to take anything at second-hand.
The root of all originality was in him, in the shape of an extreme
natural vividness of perception, imagination, and feeling. An
instinctive and inbred unwillingness to accept the accepted and conform
to the conventional was of the essence of his character, whether in life
or art, and was a source to him both of strength and weakness. He would
not follow a general rule--least of all if it was a prudential rule--of
conduct unless he was clear that it was right according to his private
conscience; nor would he join, in youth, in the ordinary social
amusements of his class when he had once found out that they did not
amuse _him_; nor wear their clothes if he could not feel at ease and be
himself in them; nor use, whether in speech or writing, any trite or
inanimate form of words that did not faithfully and livingly express his
thought. A readier acceptance alike of current usages and current
phrases might have been better for him, but was simply not in his
nature. No reader of this book will close it, I am sure, without feeling
that he has been throughout in the company of a spirit various indeed
and many-mooded, but profoundly sincere and real. Ways that in another
might easily have been mere signs of affectation were in him the true
expression of a nature ten times more spontaneously itself and
individually alive than that of others. Self-consciousness, in many
characters that possess it, deflects and falsifies conduct; and so does
the dramatic instinct. Stevenson was self-conscious in a high degree,
but only as a part of his general activity of mind; only in so far as he
could not help being an extremely intelligent spectator of his own
doings and feelings: these themselves came from springs of character and
impulse much too deep and strong to be diverted. He loved also, with a
child's or actor's gusto, to play a part and make a drama out of life:
but the part was always for the moment his very own: he had it not in
him to pose for anything but what he truly was.
"When a man so constituted had once mastered his craft of letters, he
might take up whatever instrument he pleased with the instinctive and
just confidence that he would play upon it to a tune and with a manner
of his own. This is indeed the true mark and test of his originality. He
has no need to be, or to seem, especially original in the form and mode
of literature which he attempts. By his choice of these he may at any
time give himself and his reader the pleasure of recalling, like a
familiar air, some strain of literary association; but in so doing he
only adds a secondary charm to his work; the vision, the temperament,
the mode of conceiving and handling, are in every case personal to
himself. He may try his hand in youth at a _Sentimental Journey_, but R.
L. S. cannot choose but be at the opposite pole of human character and
feeling from Laurence Sterne. In tales of mystery, allegorical or other,
he may bear in mind the precedent of Edgar Poe, and yet there is nothing
in style and temper much wider apart than _Markheim_ and _Jekyll and
Hyde_ are from the _Murders in the Rue Morgue_ or _William Wilson_. He
may set out to tell a pirate story for boys 'exactly in the ancient
way,' and it will come from him not in the ancient way at all, but
re-minted; marked with a sharpness and saliency in the characters, a
private stamp of buccaneering ferocity combined with smiling humour, an
energy of vision and happy vividness of presentment, which are shiningly
his own. Another time, he may desert the paths of Kingston and
Ballantyne for those of Sir Walter Scott; but literature presents few
stronger contrasts than between any scene of _Waverley_ or _Redgauntlet_
and any scene of the _Master of Ballantrae_ or _Catriona_, whether in
their strength or weakness: and it is the most loyal lovers of the older
master who take the greatest pleasure in reading the work of the
younger, so much less opulently gifted as is probable--though we must
remember that Stevenson died at the age when Scott wrote _Waverley_--so
infinitely more careful of his gift. Stevenson may even blow upon the
pipe of Burns and yet his tune will be no echo, but one which utters the
heart and mind of a Scots maker who has his own outlook on life, his own
special and profitable vein of smiling or satirical contemplation.
"Not by reason, then, of 'externality,' for sure, nor yet of
imitativeness, will this writer lose his hold on the attention and
regard of his countrymen. The debate, before his place in literature is
settled, must rather turn on other points: as whether the genial
essayist and egoist or the romantic inventor and narrator was the
stronger in him--whether the Montaigne and Pepys elements prevailed in
his literary composition or the Scott and Dumas elements--a question
indeed which among those who care for him most has always been at issue.
Or again, what degree of true inspiring and illuminating power belongs
to the gospel, or gospels, airily encouraging or gravely didactic, which
are set forth in the essays with so captivating a grace? Or whether in
romance and tale he had a power of inventing and constructing a whole
fable comparable to his admitted power of conceiving and presenting
single scenes and situations in a manner which stamps them indelibly on
the reader's mind? And whether his figures are sustained continuously by
the true spontaneous breath of creation, or are but transitorily
animated at happy moments by flashes of spiritual and dramatic insight,
aided by the conscious devices of his singularly adroit and spirited
art? These are questions which no criticism but that of time can solve.
To contend, as some do, that strong creative impulse and so keen an
artistic self-consciousness as Stevenson's was cannot exist together, is
quite idle. The truth, of course, is that the deep-seated energies of
imaginative creation are found sometimes in combination, and sometimes
not in combination, with an artistic intelligence thus keenly conscious
of its own purpose and watchful of its own working.
"Once more, it may be questioned whether, among the many varieties of
work which Stevenson has left, all distinguished by a grace and
precision of workmanship which are the rarest qualities in English art,
there are any which can be pointed to as absolute masterpieces, such as
the future cannot be expected to let die. Let the future decide. What is
certain is that posterity must either be very well or very ill occupied
if it can consent to give up so much sound entertainment, and better
than entertainment, as this writer afforded his contemporaries. In the
meantime, among judicious readers on both sides of the Atlantic,
Stevenson stands, I think it may safely be said, as a true master of
English prose; scarcely surpassed for the union of lenity and lucidity
with suggestive pregnancy and poetic animation; for harmony of cadence
and the well-knit structure of sentences; and for the art of imparting
to words the vital quality of things, and making them convey the
precise--sometimes, let it be granted, the too curiously
precise--expression of the very shade and colour of the thought,
feeling, or vision in his mind. He stands, moreover, as the writer who,
in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, has handled with the most
of freshness and inspiriting power the widest range of established
literary forms--the moral, critical, and personal essay, travels
sentimental and other, romances and short tales both historical and
modern, parables and tales of mystery, boys' stories of adventure,
memoirs--nor let lyrical and meditative verse both English and Scottish,
and especially nursery verse, a new vein for genius to work in, be
forgotten. To some of these forms Stevenson gave quite new life; through
all alike he expressed vividly an extremely personal way of seeing and
being, a sense of nature and romance, of the aspects of human existence
and problems of human conduct, which was essentially his own. And in so
doing he contrived to make friends and even lovers of his readers. Those
whom he attracts at all (and there is no writer who attracts every one)
are drawn to him over and over again, finding familiarity not lessen but
increase the charm of his work, and desiring ever closer intimacy with
the spirit and personality which they divine behind it.
"As to the fitting scale, then, on which to treat the memory of a man
who fills five years after his death such a place as this in the general
regard, and who has desired that a selection from his letters shall be
made public, the word 'selection' has evidently to be given a pretty
liberal interpretation. Readers, it must be supposed, will scarce be
content without the opportunity of a fairly ample intercourse with such
a man as he was accustomed to reveal himself in writing to his
familiars. In choosing from among the material before me" (I still quote
from the Introduction of 1899), "I have used the best discretion that I
could. Stevenson's feelings and relations throughout life were in almost
all directions so warm and kindly, that very little had to be suppressed
from fear of giving pain.[2] On the other hand, he drew people towards
him with so much confidence and affection, and met their openness with
so much of his own, that an editor could not but feel the frequent risk
of inviting readers to trespass too far on purely private affairs and
feelings, including those of the living. This was a point upon which in
his lifetime he felt strongly. That excellent critic, Mr. Walter
Raleigh, has noticed, as one of the merits of Stevenson's personal
essays and accounts of travel, that few men have written more or more
attractively of themselves without ever taking the public unduly into
familiarity or overstepping proper bounds of reticence. Public prying
into private lives, the propagation of gossip by the press, and printing
of private letters during the writer's lifetime, were things he hated.
Once, indeed, he very superfluously gave himself a dangerous cold, by
dancing before a bonfire in his garden at the news of a 'society' editor
having been committed to prison; and the only approach to a difference
he ever had with one of his lifelong friends arose from the publication,
without permission, of one of his letters written during his first
Pacific voyage.
"How far, then, must I regard his instructions about publication as
authorising me to go after his death beyond the limits which he had been
so careful in observing and desiring others to observe in life? How much
may now fairly become public of that which had been held sacred and
hitherto private among his friends? To cut out all that is strictly
personal and intimate were to leave his story untold and half the charm
of his character unrevealed: to put in too much were to break all bonds
of that privacy which he so carefully regarded while he lived. I know
not if I have at all been able to hit the mean, and to succeed in making
these letters, as it has been my object to make them, present, without
offence or intrusion, a just, a living, and proportionate picture of the
man as far as they will yield it. There is one respect in which his own
practice and principle has had to be in some degree violated, if the
work was to be done at all. Except in the single case of the essay
_Ordered South_, he would never in writing for the public adopt the
invalid point of view, or invite any attention to his infirmities. 'To
me,' he says, 'the medicine bottles on my chimney and the blood on my
handkerchief are accidents; they do not colour my view of life; and I
should think myself a trifler and in bad taste if I introduced the world
to these unimportant privacies.' But from his letters to his family and
friends these matters could not possibly be left out. The tale of his
life, in the years when he was most of a correspondent, was in truth a
tale of daily and nightly battle against weakness and physical distress
and danger. To those who loved him, the incidents of this battle were
communicated, sometimes gravely, sometimes laughingly. I have greatly
cut down such bulletins, but could not possibly omit them altogether."
In 1911, twelve years after the above words were written, the estimate
expressed in them of Stevenson's qualities as a writer, and of the place
he seemed likely to maintain in the affections of English readers all
the world over, had been amply confirmed by the lapse of time. The sale
of his works kept increasing rather than diminishing. Editions kept
multiplying. A new generation of readers had found life and letters,
nature and human nature, touched by him at so many points with so
vivifying and illuminating a charm that it had become scarcely possible
to take up any newspaper or magazine and not find some reference to his
work and name. Both series of letters--even one mainly concerned, as the
_Vailima Letters_ are, with matters of interest both remote and
transitory--had been read in edition after edition: and readers had been
and were continually asking for more. The time was thought to have come
for a new and definitive edition, in which the two series of letters
already published should be thrown into one, and as much new material
added as could be found suitable. The task of carrying out this scheme
fell again upon me. The new edition constituted in effect a nearly
complete epistolary autobiography. It contained not less than a hundred
and fifty of Stevenson's letters hitherto unpublished. They dated from
all periods of his life, those written in the brilliant and troubled
days of his youth predominating, and giving a picture, perhaps unique in
its kind, of a character and talent in the making. The present edition
is a reprint of the edition of 1911, with a few errors of transcription
and one or two of date corrected, and with a very few new letters added.
Much, of course, remains and ought to remain unprinted. Some of the
outpourings of the early time are too sacred and intimate for publicity.
Many of the letters of his maturer years are dry business letters of no
general interest: many others are mere scraps tossed in jest to his
familiars and full of catchwords and code-words current in their talk
but meaningless to outsiders. Above all, many have to be omitted because
they deal with the intimate affairs of private persons. Stevenson has
been sometimes called an egoist, as though he had been one in the
practical sense as well as in the sense of taking a lively interest in
his own moods and doings. Nothing can be more untrue. The letters
printed in these volumes are indeed for the most part about himself: but
it was of himself that his correspondents of all things most cared to
hear. If the letters concerned with the private affairs of other people
could be printed, as of course they cannot, the balance would come more
than even. We should see him throwing himself with sympathetic ardour
and without thought of self into the cares and interests of his
correspondents, and should learn to recognise him as having been truly
the helper in many a relation where he might naturally have been taken
for the person helped.
As to the form in which the Letters are now presented, they fill three
volumes instead of the four of the 1911 edition, the division into
fourteen sections according to date being retained. As to the text, it
is faithful to the original except in so far as I have freely used the
editorial privilege of omission when I thought it desirable, and as I
have not felt myself bound to reproduce slips and oddities, however
characteristic, of spelling. In formal matters like the use of
quote-marks, italics, and so forth, I have adopted a more uniform
practice than his, which was very casual and variable.
To some readers, perhaps--(from this point I again resume my
Introduction of 1899, but with more correction and abridgment)--to some,
perhaps, the very lack of art as a correspondent to which Stevenson, as
above quoted, pleads guilty may give the reading an added charm and
flavour. What he could do as an artist in letters we know. I remember
Sir John Millais, a shrewd and very independent judge of books, calling
across to me at a dinner-table, "You know Stevenson, don't you?" and
then going on, "Well, I wish you would tell him from me, if he cares to
know, that to my mind he is the very first of living artists. I don't
mean writers merely, but painters and all of us. Nobody living can see
with such an eye as that fellow, and nobody is such a master of his
tools." But in his letters, excepting a few written in youth and having
more or less the character of exercises, and a few in after years which
were intended for the public eye, Stevenson the deliberate artist is
scarcely forthcoming at all. He does not care a fig for order or logical
sequence or congruity, or for striking a key of expression and keeping
it, but becomes simply the most spontaneous and unstudied of human
beings. He has at his command the whole vocabularies of the English and
Scottish languages, classical and slang, with good stores of the French,
and tosses and tumbles them about irresponsibly to convey the impression
or affection, the mood or freak of the moment; pouring himself out in
all manner of rhapsodical confessions and speculations, grave or gay,
notes of observation and criticism, snatches of remembrance and
autobiography, moralisings on matters uppermost for the hour in his
mind, comments on his own work or other people's, or mere idle fun and
foolery.
By this medley of moods and manners, Stevenson's letters at their best
come nearer than anything else to the full-blooded charm and variety of
his conversation. Nearer, yet not quite near; for it was in company only
that his genial spirit rose to his very best. Few men probably have had
in them such a richness and variety of human nature; and few can ever
have been better gifted than he was to express the play of being that
was in him by means of the apt, expressive word and the animated look
and gesture. _Divers et ondoyant_, in the words of Montaigne, beyond
other men, he seemed to contain within himself a whole troop of
singularly assorted characters. Though prose was his chosen medium of
expression, he was by temperament a born poet, to whom the world was
full of enchantment and of latent romance, only waiting to take shape
and substance in the forms of art. It was his birthright--
"to hear
The great bell beating far and near--
The odd, unknown, enchanted gong
That on the road hales men along,
That from the mountain calls afar,
That lures the vessel from a star,
And with a still, aerial sound
Makes all the earth enchanted ground."
He had not only the poet's mind but the poet's senses: in youth ginger
was only too hot in his mouth, and the chimes at midnight only too
favourite a music. At the same time he was not less a born preacher and
moralist and son of the Covenanters after his fashion. He had about him,
as has been said, little spirit of social or other conformity; but an
active and searching private conscience kept him for ever calling in
question both the grounds of his own conduct and the validity of the
accepted codes and compromises of society. He must try to work out a
scheme of morality suitable to his own case and temperament, which found
the prohibitory law of Moses chill and uninspiring, but in the Sermon on
the Mount a strong incentive to all those impulses of pity and charity
to which his heart was prone. In early days his sense of social
injustice and the inequalities of human opportunity made him inwardly
much of a rebel, who would have embraced and acted on theories of
socialism or communism, could he have found any that did not seem to him
at variance with ineradicable instincts of human nature. All his life
the artist and the moralist in him alike were in rebellion against the
bourgeois spirit,--against timid, negative, and shuffling substitutes
for active and courageous well-doing,--and declined to worship at the
shrine of what he called the bestial goddesses Comfort and
Respectability. The moralist in him helped the artist by backing with
the force of a highly sensitive conscience his instinctive love of
perfection in his work. The artist qualified the moralist by
discountenancing any preference for the harsh, the sour, or the
self-mortifying forms of virtue, and encouraging the love for all tender
or heroic, glowing, generous, and cheerful forms.
Above all things, perhaps, Stevenson was by instinct an adventurer and
practical experimentalist in life. Many poets are content to dream, and
many, perhaps most, moralists to preach: Stevenson must ever be doing
and undergoing. He was no sentimentalist, to pay himself with fine
feelings whether for mean action or slack inaction. He had an insatiable
zest for all experiences, not the pleasurable only, but including the
more harsh and biting--those that bring home to a man the pinch and
sting of existence as it is realised by the disinherited of the world,
and excluding only what he thought the prim, the conventional, the
dead-alive, and the cut-and-dry. On occasion the experimentalist and man
of adventure in him would enter into special partnership with the
moralist and man of conscience: he was prone to plunge into difficult
social passes and ethical dilemmas, which he might sometimes more wisely
have avoided, for the sake of trying to behave in them to the utmost
according to his own personal sense of the obligations of honour, duty,
and kindness. In yet another part of his being he cherished, as his
great countryman Scott had done before him, an intense underlying
longing for the life of action, danger and command. "Action, Colvin,
action," I remember his crying eagerly to me with his hand on my arm as
we lay basking for his health's sake in a boat off the scented shores of
the Cap Martin. Another time--this was on his way to a winter cure at
Davos--some friend had given him General Hamley's _Operations of
War_:--"in which," he writes to his father, "I am drowned a thousand
fathoms deep, and O that I had been a soldier is still my cry."
Fortunately, with all these ardent and divers instincts, there were
present two invaluable gifts besides: that of humour, which for all his
stress of being and vivid consciousness of self saved him from ever
seeing himself for long together out of a just proportion, and kept
wholesome laughter always ready at his lips; and that of a most tender
and loyal heart, which through all his experiments and agitations made
the law of kindness the one ruling law of his life. In the end, lack of
health determined his career, giving the chief part in his life to the
artist and man of imagination, and keeping the man of action a prisoner
in the sickroom until, by a singular turn of destiny, he was able to
wring a real prolonged and romantically successful adventure out of that
voyage to the Pacific which had been, in its origin, the last despairing
resource of the invalid.
Again, it was characteristic of this multiple personality that he never
seemed to be cramped like the rest of us, at any given time of life,
within the limits of his proper age, but to be child, boy, young man,
and old man all at once. There was never a time in his life when
Stevenson had to say with St. Augustine, "Behold! my childhood is dead,
but I am alive." The child lived on always in him, not in memory only,
but in real survival, with all its freshness of perception unimpaired,
and none of its play instincts in the least degree extinguished or made
ashamed. As for the perennial boy in Stevenson, that is too apparent to
need remark. It was as a boy for boys that he wrote the best known of
his books, _Treasure Island_, and with all boys that he met, provided
they were really boys and not prigs nor puppies, he was instantly and
delightedly at home. At the same time, even when I first knew him, he
showed already surprising occasional traits and glimpses of old
sagacity, of premature life-wisdom and experience.
Once more, it is said that in every poet there must be something of the
woman. If to be quick in sympathy and feeling, ardent in attachment, and
full of pity for the weak and suffering, is to be womanly, Stevenson was
certainly all those; he was even like a woman in being [Greek:
artidakrus], easily moved to tears at the touch of pity or affection, or
even at any specially poignant impression of art or beauty. But yet, if
any one word were to be chosen for the predominant quality of his
character and example, I suppose that word would be manly. In his gentle
and complying nature there were strains of iron tenacity and will:
occasionally even, let it be admitted, of perversity and Scottish
"thrawnness." He had both kinds of physical courage--the active,
delighting in danger, and the passive, unshaken in endurance. In the
moral courage of facing situations and consequences, of readiness to pay
for faults committed, of outspokenness, admitting no ambiguous relations
and clearing away the clouds from human intercourse, I have not known
his equal. The great Sir Walter himself, as this book will prove, was
not more manfully free from artistic jealousy or irritability under
criticism, or more unfeignedly inclined to exaggerate the qualities of
other people's work and to underrate those of his own. Of the humorous
and engaging parts of vanity and egoism, which led him to make infinite
talk and fun about himself, and use his own experiences as a key for
unlocking the confidences of others, Stevenson had plenty; but of the
morose and fretful parts never a shade. "A little Irish girl," he wrote
once during a painful crisis of his life, "is now reading my book aloud
to her sister at my elbow; they chuckle, and I feel flattered.--Yours,
R. L. S. _P.S._--Now they yawn, and I am indifferent. Such a wisely
conceived thing is vanity." If only vanity so conceived were commoner!
And whatever might be the abstract and philosophical value of that
somewhat grimly stoical conception of the universe, of conduct and duty,
at which in mature years he had arrived, want of manliness is certainly
not its fault. Take the kind of maxims which he was accustomed to forge
for his own guidance:--"Acts may be forgiven; not even God can forgive
the hanger-back." "Choose the best, if you can; or choose the worst;
that which hangs in the wind dangles from a gibbet." "'Shall I?' said
Feeble-mind; and the echo said, 'Fie!'" "'Do I love?' said Loveless; and
the echo laughed." "A fault known is a fault cured to the strong; but to
the weak it is a fetter riveted." "The mean man doubts, the
great-hearted is deceived." "Great-heart was deceived. 'Very well,' said
Great-heart." "'I have not forgotten my umbrella,' said the careful man;
but the lightning struck him." "Shame had a fine bed, but where was
slumber? Once he was in jail he slept." With this moralist maxims meant
actions; and where shall we easily find a much manlier spirit of wisdom
than this?
There was yet another and very different side to Stevenson which struck
others more than it struck myself, namely, that of the freakish or
elvish, irresponsible madcap or jester which sometimes appeared in him.
It is true that his demoniac quickness of wit and intelligence suggested
occasionally a "spirit of air and fire" rather than one of earth; that
he was abundantly given to all kinds of quirk and laughter; and that
there was no jest (saving the unkind) he would not make and relish. The
late Mr. J. A. Symonds always called him Sprite; qualifying the name,
however, by the epithets "most fantastic, but most human." To me the
essential humanity was always the thing most apparent. In a fire well
nourished of seasoned ship-timber, the flames glance fantastically and
of many colours, but the glow at heart is ever deep and strong; it was
at such a glow that the friends of Stevenson were accustomed to warm
their hands, while they admired and were entertained by the shifting
lights.
It was only in company, as I have said, that all these many lights and
colours could be seen in full play. He would begin no matter
how--perhaps with a jest at some absurd adventure of his own, perhaps
with the recitation, in his vibrating voice and full Scotch accent, of
some snatch of poetry that was haunting him, perhaps with a rhapsody of
analytic delight over some minute accident of beauty or expressiveness
that had struck him in man, woman, child, or external nature. And
forthwith the floodgates would be opened, and the talk would stream on
in endless, never importunate, flood and variety. A hundred fictitious
characters would be invented and launched on their imaginary careers; a
hundred ingenious problems of conduct and cases of honour would be set
and solved; romantic voyages would be planned and followed out in
vision, with a thousand incidents; the possibilities of life and art
would be illuminated with search-lights of bewildering range and
penetration, sober argument and high poetic eloquence alternating with
coruscations of insanely apposite slang--the earthiest jape anon
shooting up into the empyrean and changing into the most ethereal
fantasy--the stalest and most vulgarised forms of speech gaining
brilliancy and illuminating power from some hitherto undreamt-of
application--and all the while an atmosphere of goodwill diffusing
itself from the speaker, a glow of eager benignity and affectionate
laughter emanating from his presence, till every one about him seemed to
catch something of his own gift and inspiration. This sympathetic power
of inspiring others was the special and distinguishing note of
Stevenson's conversation. He would keep a houseful or a single companion
entertained all day, and day after day and half the nights, yet never
seemed to monopolise the talk or absorb it; rather he helped every one
about him to discover and to exercise unexpected powers of their own.
Imagine all this helped by the most speaking of presences: a steady,
penetrating fire in the brown, wide-set eyes, a compelling power and
richness in the smile; courteous, waving gestures of the arms and long,
nervous hands, a lit cigarette generally held between the fingers;
continual rapid shiftings and pacings to and fro as he conversed: rapid,
but not flurried nor awkward, for there was a grace in his attenuated
but well-carried figure, and his movements were light, deft, and full of
spring. There was something for strangers, and even for friends, to get
over in the queer garments which in youth it was his whim to wear--the
badge, as they always seemed to me, partly of a genuine carelessness,
certainly of a genuine lack of cash (the little he had was always
absolutely at the disposal of his friends), partly of a deliberate
detachment from any particular social class or caste, partly of his love
of pickles and adventures, which he thought befel a man thus attired
more readily than another. But this slender, slovenly, nondescript
apparition, long-visaged and long-haired, had only to speak in order to
be recognised in the first minute for a witty and charming gentleman,
and within the first five for a master spirit and man of genius. There
were, indeed, certain stolidly conventional and superciliously official
kinds of persons, both at home and abroad, who were incapable of looking
beyond the clothes, and eyed him always with frozen suspicion. This
attitude used sometimes in youth to drive him into fits of flaming
anger, which put him helplessly at a disadvantage unless, or until, he
could call the sense of humour to his help. Apart from these his human
charm was the same for all kinds of people, without distinction of class
or caste; for worldly-wise old great ladies, whom he reminded of famous
poets in their youth; for his brother artists and men of letters,
perhaps, above all; for the ordinary clubman; for his physicians, who
could never do enough for him; for domestic servants, who adored him;
for the English policeman even, on whom he often tried, quite in vain,
to pass himself as one of the criminal classes; for the shepherd, the
street arab, or the tramp, the common seaman, the beach-comber, or the
Polynesian high-chief. Even in the imposed silence and restraint of
extreme sickness the power and attraction of the man made themselves
felt, and there seemed to be more vitality and fire of the spirit in
him as he lay exhausted and speechless in bed than in an ordinary
roomful of people in health.
But I have strayed from my purpose, which was only to indicate that in
the best of these letters of Stevenson's you have some echo, far away
indeed, but yet the nearest, of his talk--talk which could not possibly
be taken down, and of which nothing remains save in the memory of his
friends an impression magical and never to be effaced.
SIDNEY COLVIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] From 1876 to 1879--see p. 185.
[2] The point was one on which Stevenson himself felt strongly. In a
letter of instructions to his wife found among his posthumous papers
he writes: "It is never worth while to inflict pain upon a snail for
any literary purpose; and where events may appear to be favourable
to me and contrary to others, I would rather be misunderstood than
cause a pang to any one whom I have known, far less whom I have
loved." Whether an editor or biographer would be justified in
carrying out this principle to the full may perhaps be doubted.
THE LETTERS
OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
1868-1882
THE LETTERS
OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
I
STUDENT DAYS AT EDINBURGH
TRAVELS AND EXCURSIONS
1868-1873
The following section consists chiefly of extracts from the
correspondence and journals addressed by Louis Stevenson, as a lad of
eighteen to twenty-two, to his father and mother during summer
excursions to the Scottish coast or to the Continent. There exist enough
of them to fill a volume; but it is not in letters of this kind to his
family that a young man unbosoms himself most freely, and these are
perhaps not quite devoid of the qualities of the guide-book and the
descriptive exercise. Nevertheless they seem to me to contain enough
signs of the future master-writer, enough of character, observation, and
skill in expression, to make a certain number worth giving by way of an
opening chapter to the present book. Among them are interspersed four or
five of a different character addressed to other correspondents, and
chiefly to his lifelong friend and intimate, Mr. Charles Baxter.
On both sides of the house Stevenson came of interesting stock. His
grandfather was Robert Stevenson, civil engineer, highly distinguished
as the builder of the Bell Rock lighthouse. By this Robert Stevenson,
his three sons, and two of his grandsons now living, the business of
civil engineers in general, and of official engineers to the
Commissioners of Northern Lights in particular, has been carried on at
Edinburgh with high credit and public utility for almost a century.
Thomas Stevenson, the youngest of the three sons of the original Robert,
was Robert Louis Stevenson's father. He was a man not only of mark,
zeal, and inventiveness in his profession, but of a strong and singular
personality; a staunch friend and sagacious adviser, trenchant in
judgment and demonstrative in emotion, outspoken, dogmatic,--despotic,
even, in little things, but withal essentially chivalrous and
soft-hearted; apt to pass with the swiftest transition from moods of
gloom or sternness to those of tender or freakish gaiety, and commanding
a gift of humorous and figurative speech second only to that of his more
famous son.
Thomas Stevenson was married to Margaret Isabella, youngest daughter of
the Rev. Lewis Balfour, for many years minister of the parish of
Colinton in Midlothian. This Mr. Balfour (described by his grandson in
the essay called _The Manse_) was of the stock of the Balfours of
Pilrig, and grandson to that James Balfour, professor first of moral
philosophy and afterwards of the law of nature and of nations, who was
held in particular esteem as a philosophical controversialist by David
Hume. His wife, Henrietta Smith, a daughter of the Rev. George Smith of
Galston, to whose gift as a preacher Burns refers scoffingly in the
_Holy Fair_, is said to have been a woman of uncommon beauty and charm
of manner. Their daughter, Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, suffered in early and
middle life from chest and nerve troubles, and her son may have
inherited from her some of his constitutional weakness. Capable,
cultivated, companionable, affectionate, she was a determined looker at
the bright side of things, and hence better skilled, perhaps, to shut
her eyes to troubles or differences among those she loved than
understandingly to compose or heal them. Conventionally minded one might
have thought her, but for the surprising readiness with which in later
life she adapted herself to conditions of life and travel the most
unconventional possible. The son and only child of these two, Robert
Louis (baptized Robert Lewis Balfour[3]), was born on November 13, 1850,
at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh. His health was infirm from the first, and
he was with difficulty kept alive by the combined care of his mother and
a most devoted nurse, Alison Cunningham; to whom his lifelong gratitude
will be found touchingly expressed in the course of the following
letters. In 1858 he was near dying of a gastric fever, and was at all
times subject to acute catarrhal and bronchial affections and extreme
nervous excitability.
In January 1853 Stevenson's parents moved to Inverleith Terrace, and in
May 1857 to 17 Heriot Row, which continued to be their Edinburgh home
until the death of Thomas Stevenson in 1887. Much of the boy's time was
also spent in the manse of Colinton on the Water of Leith, the home of
his maternal grandfather. Ill-health prevented him getting much regular
or continuous schooling. He attended first (1858-61) a preparatory
school kept by a Mr. Henderson in India Street; and next (at intervals
for some time after the autumn of 1861) the Edinburgh Academy.
Schooling was interrupted in the end of 1862 and first half of 1863 by
excursions with his parents to Germany, the Riviera, and Italy. The love
of wandering, which was a rooted passion in Stevenson's nature, thus
began early to find satisfaction. For a few months in the autumn of
1863, when his parents had been ordered for a second time to Mentone for
the sake of his mother's health, he was sent to a boarding-school kept
by a Mr. Wyatt at Spring Grove, near London. It is not my intention to
treat the reader to the series of childish and boyish letters of these
days which parental fondness has preserved. But here is one written from
his English school when he was about thirteen, which is both amusing in
itself and had a certain influence on his destiny, inasmuch as his
appeal led to his being taken out to join his parents on the French
Riviera; which from these days of his boyhood he never ceased to love,
and for which the longing, amid the gloom of Edinburgh winters, often
afterwards gripped him by the heart.
_Spring Grove School, 12th November 1863._
MA CHERE MAMAN,--Jai recu votre lettre Aujourdhui et comme le jour
prochaine est mon jour de naisance je vous écrit ce lettre. Ma grande
gatteaux est arrivé il leve 12 livres et demi le prix etait 17
shillings. Sur la soirée de Monseigneur Faux il y etait quelques belles
feux d'artifice. Mais les polissons entrent dans notre champ et nos feux
d'artifice et handkerchiefs disappeared quickly, but we charged them out
of the field. Je suis presque driven mad par une bruit terrible tous les
garcons kik up comme grand un bruit qu'il est possible. I hope you will
find your house at Mentone nice. I have been obliged to stop from
writing by the want of a pen, but now I have one, so I will continue.
My dear papa, you told me to tell you whenever I was miserable. I do not
feel well, and I wish to get home. Do take me with you.
R. STEVENSON.
This young French scholar has yet, it will be discerned, a good way to
travel; in later days he acquired a complete reading and speaking, with
a less complete writing, mastery of the language, and was as much at
home with French ways of thought and life as with English.
For one more specimen of his boyish style, it may be not amiss to give
the text of another appeal which dates from two and a half years later,
and is also typical of much in his life's conditions both then and
later:--
_2 Sulgarde Terrace, Torquay, Thursday [April 1866]._
RESPECTED PATERNAL RELATIVE,--I write to make a request of the most
moderate nature. Every year I have cost you an enormous--nay,
elephantine--sum of money for drugs and physician's fees, and the most
expensive time of the twelve months was March.
But this year the biting Oriental blasts, the howling tempests, and the
general ailments of the human race have been successfully braved by
yours truly.
Does not this deserve remuneration?
I appeal to your charity, I appeal to your generosity, I appeal to your
justice, I appeal to your accounts, I appeal, in fine, to your purse.
My sense of generosity forbids the receipt of more--my sense of justice
forbids the receipt of less--than half-a-crown.--Greeting from, Sir,
your most affectionate and needy son,
R. STEVENSON.
From 1864 to 1867 Stevenson's education was conducted chiefly at Mr.
Thomson's private school in Frederick Street, Edinburgh, and by private
tutors in various places to which he travelled for his own or his
parents' health. These travels included frequent visits to such Scottish
health resorts as Bridge of Allan, Dunoon, Rothesay, North Berwick,
Lasswade, and Peebles, and occasional excursions with his father on his
nearer professional rounds to the Scottish coasts and lighthouses. From
1867 the family life became more settled between Edinburgh and Swanston
Cottage, Lothianburn, a country home in the Pentlands which Mr.
Stevenson first rented in that year, and the scenery and associations of
which sank deeply into the young man's spirit, and vitally affected his
after thoughts and his art.
By this time Louis Stevenson seemed to show signs of outgrowing his
early infirmities of health. He was a lover, to a degree even beyond his
strength, of outdoor life and exercise (though not of sports), and it
began to be hoped that as he grew up he would be fit to enter the family
profession of civil engineer. He was accordingly entered as a student at
Edinburgh University, and for several winters attended classes there
with such regularity as his health and inclinations permitted. This was
in truth but small. The mind on fire with its own imaginations, and
eager to acquire its own experiences in its own way, does not take
kindly to the routine of classes and repetitions, nor could the
desultory mode of schooling enforced upon him by ill-health answer much
purpose by way of discipline. According to his own account he was at
college, as he had been at school, an inveterate idler and truant. But
outside the field of school and college routine he showed an eager
curiosity and activity of mind. "He was of a conversable temper," so he
says of himself, "and insatiably curious in the aspects of life, and
spent much of his time scraping acquaintance with all classes of men and
womenkind." Of one class indeed, and that was his own, he had soon had
enough, at least in so far as it was to be studied at the dinners,
dances, and other polite entertainments of ordinary Edinburgh society.
Of these he early wearied. At home he made himself pleasant to all
comers, but for his own resort chose out a very few houses, mostly those
of intimate college companions, into which he could go without
constraint, and where his inexhaustible flow of poetic, imaginative, and
laughing talk seems generally to have rather puzzled his hearers than
impressed them. On the other hand, during his endless private rambles
and excursions, whether among the streets and slums, the gardens and
graveyards of the city, or farther afield among the Pentland hills or on
the shores of Forth, he was never tired of studying character and
seeking acquaintance among the classes more nearly exposed to the pinch
and stress of life.
In the eyes of anxious elders, such vagrant ways naturally take on the
colours of idleness and a love of low company. Stevenson was, however,
in his own fashion an eager student of books as well as of man and
nature. He read precociously and omnivorously in the _belles-lettres_,
including a very wide range of English poetry, fiction, and essays, and
a fairly wide range of French; and was a genuine student of Scottish
history, especially from the time of the persecutions down, and to some
extent of history in general. The art of literature was already his
private passion, and something within him even already told him that it
was to be his life's work. On all his truantries he went pencil and
copybook in hand, trying to fit his impression of the scene to words, to
compose original rhymes, tales, dialogues, and dramas, or to imitate the
style and cadences of the author he at the moment preferred. For three
or four years, nevertheless, he tried dutifully, if half-heartedly, to
prepare himself for the family profession. In 1868, the year when the
following correspondence opens, he went to watch the works of the firm
in progress first at Anstruther on the coast of Fife, and afterwards at
Wick. In 1869 he made the tour of the Orkneys and Shetlands on board the
steam yacht of the Commissioners of Northern Lights, and in 1870 the
tour of the Western Islands, preceded by a stay on the isle of Earraid,
where the works of the Dhu Heartach lighthouse were then in progress. He
was a favourite, although a very irregular, pupil of the professor of
engineering, Fleeming Jenkin, whose friendship and that of Mrs. Jenkin
were of great value to him, and whose life he afterwards wrote; and must
have shown some aptitude for the family calling, inasmuch as in 1871 he
received the silver medal of the Edinburgh Society of Arts for a paper
on a suggested improvement in lighthouse apparatus. The outdoor and
seafaring parts of an engineer's life were in fact wholly to his taste.
But he looked instinctively at the powers and phenomena of waves and
tide, of storm and current, reef, cliff, and rock, with the eye of the
poet and artist, and not those of the practician and calculator. For
desk work and office routine he had an unconquerable aversion; and his
physical powers, had they remained at their best, must have proved quite
unequal to the workshop training necessary to the practical engineer.
Accordingly in 1871 it was agreed, not without natural reluctance on his
father's part, that he should give up the hereditary vocation and read
for the bar: literature, on which his heart was set, and in which his
early attempts had been encouraged, being held to be by itself no
profession, or at least one altogether too irregular and undefined. For
the next several years, therefore, he attended law classes instead of
engineering and science classes in the University, giving to the subject
a certain amount of serious, although fitful, attention until he was
called to the bar in 1875.
So much for the course of Stevenson's outward life during these days at
Edinburgh. To tell the story of his inner life would be a far more
complicated task, and cannot here be attempted even briefly. The ferment
of youth was more acute and more prolonged in him than in most men even
of genius. In the Introduction I have tried to give some notion of the
many various strains and elements which met in him, and which were in
these days pulling one against another in his half-formed being, at a
great expense of spirit and body. Add the storms, which from time to
time attacked him, of shivering repulsion from the climate and
conditions of life in the city which he yet deeply and imaginatively
loved; the moods of spiritual revolt against the harsh doctrines of the
creed in which he had been brought up, and to which his parents were
deeply, his father even passionately, attached; the seasons of
temptation, to which he was exposed alike by temperament and
circumstance, to seek solace among the crude allurements of the city
streets.
In the later and maturer correspondence which will appear in these
volumes, the agitations of the writer's early days are often enough
referred to in retrospect. In the boyish letters to his parents, which
make up the chief part of this first section, they naturally find no
expression at all; nor will these letters be found to differ much in
any way from those of any other lively and observant lad who is also
something of a reader and has some natural gift of writing. At the end
of the section I have indeed printed one cry of the heart, written not
to his parents, but about them, and telling of the strain which matters
of religious difference for a while brought into his home relations. The
attachment between the father and son from childhood was exceptionally
strong. But the father was staunchly wedded to the hereditary creeds and
dogmas of Scottish Calvinistic Christianity; while the course of the
young man's reading, with the spirit of the generation in which he grew
up, had loosed him from the bonds of that theology, and even of dogmatic
Christianity in general, and had taught him to respect all creeds alike
as expressions of the cravings and conjectures of the human spirit in
face of the unsolved mystery of things, rather than to cling to any one
of them as a revelation of ultimate truth. The shock to the father was
great when his son's opinions came to his knowledge; and there ensued a
time of extremely painful discussion and private tension between them.
In due time this cloud upon a family life otherwise very harmonious and
affectionate passed quite away. But the greater the love, the greater
the pain; when I first knew Stevenson this trouble gave him no peace,
and it has left a strong trace upon his mind and work. See particularly
the parable called "The House of Eld," in his collection of _Fables_,
and the many studies of difficult paternal and filial relations which
are to be found in _The Story of a Lie_, _The Misadventures of John
Nicholson_, _The Wrecker_, and _Weir of Hermiston_.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
In July 1868 R. L. S. went to watch the harbour works at Anstruther
and afterwards those at Wick. Of his private moods and occupations in
the Anstruther days he has told in retrospect in the essay _Random
Memories: the Coast of Fife_. Here are some passages from letters
written at the time to his parents. "Travellers" and "jennies" are,
of course, terms of engineering.
_'Kenzie House or whatever it is called, Anstruther. [July 1868.]_
First sheet: Thursday.
Second sheet: Friday.
MY DEAR FATHER,--My lodgings are very nice, and I don't think there are
any children. There is a box of mignonette in the window and a factory
of dried rose-leaves, which make the atmosphere a trifle heavy, but very
pleasant.
When you come, bring also my paint-box--I forgot it. I am going to try
the travellers and jennies, and have made a sketch of them and begun the
drawing. After that I'll do the staging.
Mrs. Brown "has suffered herself from her stommick, and that makes her
kind of think for other people." She is a motherly lot. Her mothering
and thought for others displays itself in advice against hard-boiled
eggs, well-done meat, and late dinners, these being my only requests.
Fancy--I am the only person in Anstruther who dines in the afternoon.
If you could bring me some wine when you come, 'twould be a good move: I
fear _vin d'Anstruther_; and having procured myself a severe attack of
gripes by two days' total abstinence on chilly table beer I have been
forced to purchase Green Ginger ("Somebody or other's 'celebrated'"),
for the benefit of my stomach, like St. Paul.
There is little or nothing doing here to be seen. By heightening the
corner in a hurry to support the staging they have let the masons get
ahead of the divers and wait till they can overtake them. I wish you
would write and put me up to the sort of things to ask and find out. I
received your registered letter with the £5; it will last for ever.
To-morrow I will watch the masons at the pier-foot and see how long they
take to work that Fifeness stone you ask about; they get sixpence an
hour; so that is the only datum required.
It is awful how slowly I draw, and how ill: I am not nearly done with
the travellers, and have not thought of the jennies yet. When I'm
drawing I find out something I have not measured, or, having measured,
have not noted, or, having noted, cannot find; and so I have to trudge
to the pier again ere I can go farther with my noble design.
Love to all.--Your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_'Kenzie House, Anstruther [later in July, 1868]._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--To-night I went with the youngest M. to see a strolling
band of players in the townhall. A large table placed below the gallery
with a print curtain on either side of the most limited dimensions was
at once the scenery and the proscenium. The manager told us that his
scenes were sixteen by sixty-four, and so could not be got in. Though I
knew, or at least felt sure, that there were no such scenes in the poor
man's possession, I could not laugh, as did the major part of the
audience, at this shift to escape criticism. We saw a wretched farce,
and some comic songs were sung. The manager sang one, but it came grimly
from his throat. The whole receipt of the evening was 5s. and 3d., out
of which had to come room, gas, and town drummer. We left soon; and I
must say came out as sad as I have been for ever so long: I think that
manager had a soul above comic songs. I said this to young M., who is a
"Phillistine" (Matthew Arnold's Philistine you understand), and he
replied, "How much happier would he be as a common working-man!" I told
him I thought he would be less happy earning a comfortable living as a
shoemaker than he was starving as an actor, with such artistic work as
he had to do. But the Phillistine wouldn't see it. You observe that I
spell Philistine time about with one and two l's.
As we went home we heard singing, and went into the porch of the
schoolhouse to listen. A fisherman entered and told us to go in. It was
a psalmody class. One of the girls had a glorious voice. We stayed for
half an hour.
_Tuesday._--I am utterly sick of this grey, grim, sea-beaten hole. I
have a little cold in my head, which makes my eyes sore; and you can't
tell how utterly sick I am, and how anxious to get back among trees and
flowers and something less meaningless than this bleak fertility.
Papa need not imagine that I have a bad cold or am stone-blind from this
description, which is the whole truth.
Last night Mr. and Mrs. Fortune called in a dog-cart, Fortune's beard
and Mrs. F.'s brow glittering with mist-drops, to ask me to come next
Saturday. Conditionally, I accepted. Do you think I can cut it? I am
only anxious to go slick home on the Saturday. Write by return of post
and tell me what to do. If possible, I should like to cut the business
and come right slick out to Swanston.--I remain, your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
An early Portfolio paper On _the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places_, as
well as the second part of the _Random Memories_ essay, written
twenty years later, refer to the same experiences as the following
letters. Stevenson lodged during his stay at Wick in a private hotel
on the Harbour Brae, kept by a Mr. Sutherland.[4]
_Wick, Friday, September 11, 1868._
MY DEAR MOTHER,-- ... Wick lies at the end or elbow of an open
triangular bay, hemmed on either side by shores, either cliff or steep
earth-bank, of no great height. The grey houses of Pulteney extend along
the southerly shore almost to the cape; and it is about half-way down
this shore--no, six-sevenths way down--that the new breakwater extends
athwart the bay.
Certainly Wick in itself possesses no beauty: bare, grey shores, grim
grey houses, grim grey sea; not even the gleam of red tiles; not even
the greenness of a tree. The southerly heights, when I came here, were
black with people, fishers waiting on wind and night. Now all the S.Y.S.
(Stornoway boats) have beaten out of the bay, and the Wick men stay
indoors or wrangle on the quays with dissatisfied fish-curers, knee-high
in brine, mud, and herring refuse. The day when the boats put out to go
home to the Hebrides, the girl here told me there was "a black wind";
and on going out, I found the epithet as justifiable as it was
picturesque. A cold, _black_ southerly wind, with occasional rising
showers of rain; it was a fine sight to see the boats beat out a-teeth
of it.
In Wick I have never heard any one greet his neighbour with the usual
"Fine day" or "Good morning." Both come shaking their heads, and both
say, "Breezy, breezy!" And such is the atrocious quality of the climate,
that the remark is almost invariably justified by the fact.
The streets are full of the Highland fishers, lubberly, stupid,
inconceivably lazy and heavy to move. You bruise against them, tumble
over them, elbow them against the wall--all to no purpose; they will not
budge; and you are forced to leave the pavement every step.
To the south, however, is as fine a piece of coast scenery as I ever
saw. Great black chasms, huge black cliffs, rugged and over-hung
gullies, natural arches, and deep green pools below them, almost too
deep to let you see the gleam of sand among the darker weed: there are
deep caves too. In one of these lives a tribe of gipsies. The men are
_always_ drunk, simply and truthfully always. From morning to evening
the great villainous-looking fellows are either sleeping off the last
debauch, or hulking about the cove "in the horrors." The cave is deep,
high, and airy, and might be made comfortable enough. But they just live
among heaped boulders, damp with continual droppings from above, with no
more furniture than two or three tin pans, a truss of rotten straw, and
a few ragged cloaks. In winter the surf bursts into the mouth and often
forces them to abandon it.
An _émeute_ of disappointed fishers was feared, and two ships of war are
in the bay to render assistance to the municipal authorities. This is
the ides; and, to all intents and purposes, said ides are passed. Still
there is a good deal of disturbance, many drunk men, and a double supply
of police. I saw them sent for by some people and enter an inn, in a
pretty good hurry: what it was for I do not know.
You would see by papa's letter about the carpenter who fell off the
staging: I don't think I was ever so much excited in my life. The man
was back at his work, and I asked him how he was; but he was a
Highlander, and--need I add it?--dickens a word could I understand of
his answer. What is still worse, I find the people here-about--that is
to say, the Highlanders, not the northmen--don't understand _me_.
I have lost a shilling's worth of postage stamps, which has damped my
ardour for buying big lots of 'em: I'll buy them one at a time as I want
'em for the future.
The Free Church minister and I got quite thick. He left last night about
two in the morning, when I went to turn in. He gave me the enclosed.--I
remain your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Wick, September 5, 1868. Monday._
MY DEAR MAMMA,--This morning I got a delightful haul: your letter of the
fourth (surely mis-dated); papa's of same day; Virgil's _Bucolics_,
very thankfully received; and Aikman's _Annals_,[5] a precious and most
acceptable donation, for which I tender my most ebullient thanksgivings.
I almost forgot to drink my tea and eat mine egg.
It contains more detailed accounts than anything I ever saw, except
Wodrow, without being so portentously tiresome and so desperately
overborne with footnotes, proclamations, acts of Parliament, and
citations as that last history.
I have been reading a good deal of Herbert. He's a clever and a devout
cove; but in places awfully twaddley (if I may use the word). Oughtn't
this to rejoice papa's heart--
"Carve or discourse; do not a famine fear.
Who carves is kind to two, who talks to all."
You understand? The "fearing a famine" is applied to people gulping down
solid vivers without a word, as if the ten lean kine began to-morrow.
Do you remember condemning something of mine for being too obtrusively
didactic. Listen to Herbert--
"Is it not verse except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
_Must all be veiled, while he that reads divines
Catching the sense at two removes_?"
You see, "except" was used for "unless" before 1630.
_Tuesday._--The riots were a hum. No more has been heard; and one of the
war-steamers has deserted in disgust.
The _Moonstone_ is frightfully interesting: isn't the detective prime?
Don't say anything about the plot; for I have only read on to the end of
Betteredge's narrative, so don't know anything about it yet.
I thought to have gone on to Thurso to-night, but the coach was full;
so I go to-morrow instead.
To-day I had a grouse: great glorification.
There is a drunken brute in the house who disturbed my rest last night.
He's a very respectable man in general, but when on the "spree" a most
consummate fool. When he came in he stood on the top of the stairs and
preached in the dark with great solemnity and no audience from 12 P.M.
to half-past one. At last I opened my door. "Are we to have no sleep at
all for that _drunken brute?_" I said. As I hoped, it had the desired
effect. "Drunken brute!" he howled, in much indignation; then after a
pause, in a voice of some contrition, "Well, if I am a drunken brute,
it's only once in the twelvemonth!" And that was the end of him; the
insult rankled in his mind; and he retired to rest. He is a fish-curer,
a man over fifty, and pretty rich too. He's as bad again to-day; but
I'll be shot if he keeps me awake, I'll douse him with water if he makes
a row.--Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
To MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The Macdonald father and son here mentioned were engineers attached
to the Stevenson firm and in charge of the harbour works.
_Wick, September 1868. Saturday, 10 A.M._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--The last two days have been dreadfully hard, and I was
so tired in the evenings that I could not write. In fact, last night I
went to sleep immediately after dinner, or very nearly so. My hours have
been 10-2 and 3-7 out in the lighter or the small boat, in a long, heavy
roll from the nor'-east. When the dog was taken out, he got awfully ill;
one of the men, Geordie Grant by name and surname, followed _shoot_ with
considerable _éclat_; but, wonderful to relate! I kept well. My hands
are all skinned, blistered, discoloured, and engrained with tar, some
of which latter has established itself under my nails in a position of
such natural strength that it defies all my efforts to dislodge it. The
worst work I had was when David (Macdonald's eldest) and I took the
charge ourselves. He remained in the lighter to tighten or slacken the
guys as we raised the pole towards the perpendicular, with two men. I
was with four men in the boat. We dropped an anchor out a good bit, then
tied a cord to the pole, took a turn round the sternmost thwart with it,
and pulled on the anchor line. As the great, big, wet hawser came in it
soaked you to the skin: I was the sternest (used, by way of variety, for
sternmost) of the lot, and had to coil it--a work which involved, from
_its_ being so stiff and _your_ being busy pulling with all your might,
no little trouble and an extra ducking. We got it up; and, just as we
were going to sing "Victory!" one of the guys slipped in, the pole
tottered--went over on its side again like a shot, and behold the end of
our labour.
You see, I have been roughing it; and though some parts of the letter
may be neither very comprehensible nor very interesting to _you_, I
think that perhaps it might amuse Willie Traquair, who delights in all
such dirty jobs.
The first day, I forgot to mention, was like mid-winter for cold, and
rained incessantly so hard that the livid white of our cold-pinched
faces wore a sort of inflamed rash on the windward side.
I am not a bit the worse of it, except fore-mentioned state of hands, a
slight crick in my neck from the rain running down, and general
stiffness from pulling, hauling, and tugging for dear life.
We have got double weights at the guys, and hope to get it up like a
shot.
What fun you three must be having! I hope the cold don't disagree with
you.--I remain, my dear mother, your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The following will help the reader to understand the passage
referring to this undertaking in Stevenson's biographical essay on
his father where he has told how in the end "the sea proved too
strong for men's arts, and after expedients hitherto unthought of,
and on a scale hyper-Cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now
stands a ruin in that bleak, God-forsaken bay." The Russels herein
mentioned are the family of Sheriff Russel. The tombstone of Miss
Sara Russel is to be seen in Wick cemetery.
_Pulteney, Wick, Sunday, September 1868._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--Another storm: wind higher, rain thicker: the wind
still rising as the night closes in and the sea slowly rising along with
it; it looks like a three days' gale.
Last week has been a blank one: always too much sea.
I enjoyed myself very much last night at the Russels'. There was a
little dancing, much singing and supper.
Are you not well that you do not write? I haven't heard from you for
more than a fortnight.
The wind fell yesterday and rose again to-day; it is a dreadful evening;
but the wind is keeping the sea down as yet. Of course, nothing more has
been done to the poles; and I can't tell when I shall be able to leave,
not for a fortnight yet, I fear, at the earliest, for the winds are
persistent. Where's Murra? Is Cummy struck dumb about the boots? I wish
you would get somebody to write an interesting letter and say how you
are, for you're on the broad of your back I see. There hath arrived an
inroad of farmers to-night; and I go to avoid them to Macdonald if he's
disengaged, to the Russels if not.
_Sunday_ (_later_).--Storm without: wind and rain: a confused mass of
wind-driven rain-squalls, wind-ragged mist, foam, spray, and great, grey
waves. Of this hereafter; in the meantime let us follow the due course
of historic narrative.
Seven P.M. found me at Breadalbane Terrace, clad in spotless blacks,
white tie, shirt, et cætera, and finished off below with a pair of
navvies' boots. How true that the devil is betrayed by his feet! A
message to Cummy at last. Why, O treacherous woman! were my dress boots
withheld?
Dramatis personæ: père Russel, amusing, long-winded, in many points like
papa; mère Russel, nice, delicate, likes hymns, knew Aunt Margaret
('t'ould man knew Uncle Alan); fille Russel, nominée Sara (no h), rather
nice, lights up well, good voice, _interested_ face; Miss L., nice also,
washed out a little, and, I think, a trifle sentimental; fils Russel, in
a Leith office, smart, full of happy epithet, amusing. They are very
nice and very kind, asked me to come back--"any night you feel dull: and
any night doesn't mean no night: we'll be so glad to see you." _C'est la
mère qui parle._
I was back there again to-night. There was hymn-singing, and general
religious controversy till eight, after which talk was secular. Mrs.
Sutherland was deeply distressed about the boot business. She consoled
me by saying that many would be glad to have such feet whatever shoes
they had on. Unfortunately, fishers and seafaring men are too facile to
be compared with! This looks like enjoyment! better speck than Anster.
I have done with frivolity. This morning I was awakened by Mrs.
Sutherland at the door. "There's a ship ashore at Shaltigoe!" As my
senses slowly flooded, I heard the whistling and the roaring of wind,
and the lashing of gust-blown and uncertain flaws of rain. I got up,
dressed, and went out. The mizzled sky and rain blinded you.
She was a Norwegian: coming in she saw our first gauge-pole, standing at
point E. Norse skipper thought it was a sunk smack, and dropped his
anchor in full drift of sea: chain broke: schooner came ashore. Insured:
laden with wood: skipper owner of vessel and cargo: bottom out.
I was in a great fright at first lest we should be liable; but it seems
that's all right.
[Illustration]
C D is the new pier.
A the schooner ashore. B the salmon house.
Some of the waves were twenty feet high. The spray rose eighty feet at
the new pier. Some wood has come ashore, and the roadway seems carried
away. There is something fishy at the far end where the cross wall is
building; but till we are able to get along, all speculation is vain.
I am so sleepy I am writing nonsense.
I stood a long while on the cope watching the sea below me; I hear its
dull, monotonous roar at this moment below the shrieking of the wind;
and there came ever recurring to my mind the verse I am so fond of:--
"But yet the Lord that is on high
Is more of might by far
Than noise of many waters is
Or great sea-billows are."
The thunder at the wall when it first struck--the rush along ever
growing higher--the great jet of snow-white spray some forty feet above
you--and the "noise of many waters," the roar, the hiss, the "shrieking"
among the shingle as it fell head over heels at your feet. I watched if
it threw the big stones at the wall; but it never moved them.
_Monday._--The end of the work displays gaps, cairns of ten ton blocks,
stones torn from their places and turned right round. The damage above
water is comparatively little: what there may be below, on _ne sait pas
encore_. The roadway is torn away, cross-heads, broken planks tossed
here and there, planks gnawn and mumbled as if a starved bear had been
trying to eat them, planks with spates lifted from them as if they had
been dressed with a rugged plane, one pile swaying to and fro clear of
the bottom, the rails in one place sunk a foot at least. This was not a
great storm, the waves were light and short. Yet when we are standing at
the office, I felt the ground beneath me _quail_ as a huge roller
thundered on the work at the last year's cross wall.
How could _noster amicus Q. maximus_ appreciate a storm at Wick? It
requires a little of the artistic temperament, of which Mr. T. S.,[6]
C.E., possesses some, whatever he may say. I can't look at it
practically however: that will come, I suppose, like grey hair or coffin
nails.
Our pole is snapped: a fortnight's work and the loss of the Norse
schooner all for nothing!--except experience and dirty clothes.--Your
affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
I omit the letters of 1869, which describe at great length, and not
very interestingly, a summer trip on board the lighthouse steamer to
the Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Fair Isle. The following of 1870 I
give (by consent of the lady who figures as a youthful character in
the narrative) both for the sake of its lively social
sketches--including that of the able painter and singular personage,
the late Sam Bough,--and because it is dated from the Isle of
Earraid, celebrated alike in _Kidnapped_ and in the essay _Memoirs of
an Islet_.
_Earraid, Thursday, August 5th, 1870._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have so much to say, that needs must I take a large
sheet; for the notepaper brings with it a chilling brevity of style.
Indeed, I think pleasant writing is proportional to the size of the
material you write withal.
From Edinburgh to Greenock, I had the ex-secretary of the E.U.
Conservative Club, Murdoch. At Greenock I spent a dismal evening, though
I found a pretty walk. Next day on board the _Iona_, I had Maggie
Thomson to Tarbet; Craig, a well-read, pleasant medical, to Ardrishaig;
and Professor, Mrs., and all the little Fleeming Jenkinseses to Oban.
At Oban, that night, it was delicious. Mr. Stephenson's yacht lay in the
bay, and a splendid band on board played delightfully. The waters of the
bay were as smooth as a mill-pond; and, in the dusk, the black shadows
of the hills stretched across to our very feet and the lights were
reflected in long lines. At intervals, blue lights were burned on the
water; and rockets were sent up. Sometimes great stars of clear fire
fell from them, until the bay received and quenched them. I hired a boat
and skulled round the yacht in the dark. When I came in, a very pleasant
Englishman on the steps fell into talk with me, till it was time to go
to bed.
Next morning I slept on or I should have gone to Glencoe. As it was, it
was blazing hot; so I hired a boat, pulled all forenoon along the coast
and had a delicious bathe on a beautiful white beach. Coming home, I
_cotogai'd_ my Englishman, lunched alongside of him and his sister, and
took a walk with him in the afternoon, during which I find that he was
travelling with a servant, kept horses, _et cetera_. At dinner he wished
me to sit beside him and his sister; but there was no room. When he came
out he told me why he was so _empressé_ on this point. He had found out
my name, and that I was connected with lighthouses, and his sister
wished to know if I were any relative of the Stevenson in Ballantyne's
_Lighthouse_. All evening, he, his sister, I, and Mr. Hargrove, of
Hargrove and Fowler, sate in front of the hotel. I asked Mr. H. if he
knew who my friend was. "Yes," he said; "I never met him before: but my
partner knows him. He is a man of old family; and the solicitor of
highest standing about Sheffield." At night he said, "Now if you're down
in my neighbourhood, you must pay me a visit. I am very fond of young
men about me; and I should like a visit from you very much. I can take
you through any factory in Sheffield and I'll drive you all about the
_Dookeries_." He then wrote me down his address; and we parted huge
friends, he still keeping me up to visiting him.
Hitherto, I had enjoyed myself amazingly; but to-day has been the crown.
In the morning I met Bough on board, with whom I am both surprised and
delighted. He and I have read the same books, and discuss Chaucer,
Shakespeare, Marlowe, Fletcher, Webster, and all the old authors. He can
quote verses by the page, and has really a very pretty literary taste.
Altogether, with all his roughness and buffoonery, a more pleasant,
clever fellow you may seldom see. I was very much surprised with him;
and he with me. "Where the devil did you read all these books?" says he;
and in my heart, I echo the question. One amusing thing I must say. We
were both talking about travelling; and I said I was so fond of
travelling alone, from the people one met and grew friendly with. "Ah,"
says he, "but you've such a pleasant manner, you know--quite captivated
my old woman, you did--she couldn't talk of anything else." Here was a
compliment, even in Sam Bough's sneering tones, that rather tickled my
vanity; and really, my social successes of the last few days, the best
of which is yet to come, are enough to turn anybody's head. To continue,
after a little go in with Samuel, he going up on the bridge, I looked
about me to see who there was; and mine eye lighted on two girls, one of
whom was sweet and pretty, talking to an old gentleman. "_Eh bien_,"
says I to myself, "that seems the best investment on board." So I sidled
up to the old gentleman, got into conversation with him and so with the
damsel; and thereupon, having used the patriarch as a ladder, I kicked
him down behind me. Who should my damsel prove, but Amy Sinclair,
daughter of Sir Tollemache. She certainly was the simplest, most naïve
specimen of girlhood ever I saw. By getting brandy and biscuit and
generally coaching up her cousin, who was sick, I ingratiated myself;
and so kept her the whole way to Iona, taking her into the cave at
Staffa and generally making myself as gallant as possible. I was never
so much pleased with anything in my life, as her amusing absence of
_mauvaise honte_: she was so sorry I wasn't going on to Oban again:
didn't know how she could have enjoyed herself if I hadn't been there;
and was so sorry we hadn't met on the Crinan. When we came back from
Staffa, she and her aunt went down to have lunch; and a minute after up
comes Miss Amy to ask me if I wouldn't think better of it, and take some
lunch with them. I couldn't resist that, of course; so down I went; and
there she displayed the full extent of her innocence. I must be sure to
come to Thurso Castle the next time I was in Caithness, and Upper
Norwood (whence she would take me all over the Crystal Palace) when I
was near London; and (most complete of all) she offered to call on us in
Edinburgh! Wasn't it delicious?--she is a girl of sixteen or seventeen,
too, and the latter I think. I never yet saw a girl so innocent and
fresh, so perfectly modest without the least trace of prudery.
Coming off Staffa, Sam Bough (who had been in huge force the whole time,
drawing in Miss Amy's sketchbook and making himself agreeable or
otherwise to everybody) pointed me out to a parson and said, "That's
him." This was Alexander Ross and his wife.
The last stage of the steamer now approached, Miss Amy and I lamenting
pathetically that Iona was so near. "People meet in this way," quoth
she, "and then lose sight of one another so soon." We all landed
together, Bough and I and the Rosses with our baggage; and went
together over the ruins. I was here left with the cousin and the aunt,
during which I learned that said cousin sees me _every Sunday_ in St.
Stephen's. Oho! thought I, at the "every." The aunt was very anxious to
know who that strange, wild man was? (didn't I wish Samuel in Tophet!).
Of course, in reply, I drew it strong about eccentric genius and my
never having known him before, and a good deal that was perhaps
"strained to the extremest limit of the fact."
The steamer left, and Miss Amy and her cousin waved their handkerchiefs,
until my arm in answering them was nearly broken. I believe women's arms
must be better made for this exercise: mine ache still; and I regretted
at the time that the handkerchief had seen service. Altogether, however,
I was left in a pleasant frame of mind.
Being thus left alone, Bough, I, the Rosses, Professor Blackie, and an
Englishman called M----: these people were going to remain the night,
except the Professor, who is resident there at present. They were going
to dine _en compagnie_ and wished us to join the party; but we had
already committed ourselves by mistake to the wrong hotel, and besides,
we wished to be off as soon as wind and tide were against us to Earraid.
We went up; Bough selected a place for sketching and blocked in the
sketch for Mrs. R.; and we all talked together. Bough told us his family
history and a lot of strange things about old Cumberland life; among
others, how he had known "John Peel" of pleasant memory in song, and of
how that worthy hunted. At five, down we go to the Argyll Hotel, and
wait dinner. Broth--"nice broth"--fresh herrings, and fowl had been
promised. At 5.50, I get the shovel and tongs and drum them at the
stair-head till a response comes from below that the nice broth is at
hand. I boast of my engineering, and Bough compares me to the Abbot of
Arbroath who originated the Inchcape Bell. At last, in comes the tureen
and the hand-maid lifts the cover. "Rice soup!" I yell; "O no! none o'
that for me!"--"Yes," says Bough savagely; "but Miss Amy didn't take
_me_ downstairs to eat salmon." Accordingly he is helped. How his face
fell. "I imagine myself in the accident ward of the Infirmary," quoth
he. It was, purely and simply, rice and water. After this, we have
another weary pause, and then herrings in a state of mash and potatoes
like iron. "Send the potatoes out to Prussia for grape-shot," was the
suggestion. I dined off broken herrings and dry bread. At last "the
supreme moment comes," and the fowl in a lordly dish is carried in. On
the cover being raised, there is something so forlorn and miserable
about the aspect of the animal that we both roar with laughter. Then
Bough, taking up knife and fork, turns the "swarry" over and over,
shaking doubtfully his head. "There's an aspect of quiet resistance
about the beggar," says he, "that looks bad." However, to work he falls
until the sweat stands on his brow and a dismembered leg falls, dull and
leaden-like, on to my dish. To eat it was simply impossible. I did not
know before that flesh could be so tough. "The strongest jaws in
England," says Bough piteously, harpooning his dry morsel, "couldn't eat
this leg in less than twelve hours." Nothing for it now, but to order
boat and bill. "That fowl," says Bough to the landlady, "is of a breed I
know. I knew the cut of its jib whenever it was put down. That was the
grandmother of the cock that frightened Peter."--"I thought it was a
historical animal," says I. "What a shame to kill it. It's as bad as
eating Whittington's cat or the Dog of Montargis."--"Na--na, it's no so
old," says the landlady, "but it eats hard."--"Eats!" I cry, "where do
you find that? Very little of that verb with us." So with more raillery,
we pay six shillings for our festival and run over to Earraid, shaking
the dust of the Argyll Hotel from off our feet.
I can write no more just now, and I hope you will be able to decipher
so much; for it contains matter. Really, the whole of yesterday's work
would do in a novel without one little bit of embellishment; and,
indeed, few novels are so amusing. Bough, Miss Amy, Mrs. Ross, Blackie,
M---- the parson--all these were such distinct characters, the incidents
were so entertaining, and the scenery so fine, that the whole would have
made a novelist's fortune.
MY DEAR FATHER,--No landing to-day, as the sea runs high on the rock.
They are at the second course of the first story on the rock. I have as
yet had no time here; so this is [Greek: a] and [Greek: ô] of my
business news.--Your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. CHURCHILL BABINGTON
This is addressed to a favourite cousin of the Balfour clan, married
to a Cambridge colleague of mine, Professor Churchill Babington of
learned and amiable memory, whose home was at the college living of
Cockfield near Bury St. Edmunds. Here Stevenson had visited them in
the previous year. "Mrs. Hutchinson" is, of course, Lucy Hutchinson's
famous _Life_ of her husband the regicide.
[_Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Summer 1871._]
MY DEAR MAUD,--If you have forgotten the handwriting--as is like
enough--you will find the name of a former correspondent (don't know how
to spell that word) at the end. I have begun to write to you before now,
but always stuck somehow, and left it to drown in a drawerful of like
fiascos. This time I am determined to carry through, though I have
nothing specially to say.
We look fairly like summer this morning; the trees are blackening out of
their spring greens; the warmer suns have melted the hoarfrost of
daisies of the paddock; and the blackbird, I fear, already beginning to
"stint his pipe of mellower days"--which is very apposite (I can't spell
anything to-day--_one_ p or _two_?) and pretty. All the same, we have
been having shocking weather--cold winds and grey skies.
I have been reading heaps of nice books; but I can't go back so far. I
am reading Clarendon's _Hist. Rebell._ at present, with which I am more
pleased than I expected, which is saying a good deal. It is a pet idea
of mine that one gets more real truth out of one avowed partisan than
out of a dozen of your sham impartialists--wolves in sheep's
clothing--simpering honesty as they suppress documents. After all, what
one wants to know is not what people did, but why they did it--or
rather, why they _thought_ they did it; and to learn that, you should go
to the men themselves. Their very falsehood is often more than another
man's truth.
I have possessed myself of Mrs. Hutchinson, which, of course, I admire,
etc. But is there not an irritating deliberation and correctness about
her and everybody connected with her? If she would only write bad
grammar, or forget to finish a sentence, or do something or other that
looks fallible, it would be a relief. I sometimes wish the old Colonel
had got drunk and beaten her, in the bitterness of my spirit. I know I
felt a weight taken off my heart when I heard he was extravagant. It is
quite possible to be too good for this evil world; and unquestionably,
Mrs. Hutchinson was. The way in which she talks of herself makes one's
blood run cold. There--I am glad to have got that out--but don't say it
to anybody--seal of secrecy.
Please tell Mr. Babington that I have never forgotten one of his
drawings--a Rubens, I think--a woman holding up a model ship. That woman
had more life in her than ninety per cent. of the lame humans that you
see crippling about this earth.
By the way, that is a feature in art which seems to have come in with
the Italians. Your old Greek statues have scarce enough vitality in them
to keep their monstrous bodies fresh withal. A shrewd country attorney,
in a turned white neckcloth and rusty blacks, would just take one of
these Agamemnons and Ajaxes quietly by his beautiful, strong arm, trot
the unresisting statue down a little gallery of legal shams, and turn
the poor fellow out at the other end, "naked, as from the earth he
came." There is more latent life, more of the coiled spring in the
sleeping dog, about a recumbent figure of Michael Angelo's than about
the most excited of Greek statues. The very marble seems to wrinkle with
a wild energy that we never feel except in dreams.
I think this letter has turned into a sermon, but I had nothing
interesting to talk about.
I do wish you and Mr. Babington would think better of it and come north
this summer. We should be so glad to see you both. _Do_ reconsider
it.--Believe me, my dear Maud, ever your most affectionate cousin,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
The following is the first which has been preserved of many letters
to the admirable nurse whose care, during his ailing childhood, had
done so much both to preserve Stevenson's life and awaken his love of
tales and poetry, and of whom until his death he thought with the
utmost constancy of affection. The letter bears no sign of date or
place, but by the handwriting would seem to belong to this year:--
1871?
MY DEAR CUMMY,--I was greatly pleased by your letter in many ways. Of
course, I was glad to hear from you; you know, you and I have so many
old stories between us, that even if there was nothing else, even if
there was not a very sincere respect and affection, we should always be
glad to pass a nod. I say, "even if there was not." But you know right
well there is. Do not suppose that I shall ever forget those long,
bitter nights, when I coughed and coughed and was so unhappy, and you
were so patient and loving with a poor, sick child. Indeed, Cummy, I
wish I might become a man worth talking of, if it were only that you
should not have thrown away your pains.
Happily, it is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and
noble, but the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us to
do them. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these."
My dear old nurse, and you know there is nothing a man can say nearer
his heart except his mother or his wife--my dear old nurse, God will
make good to you all the good that you have done, and mercifully forgive
you all the evil. And next time when the spring comes round, and
everything is beginning once again, if you should happen to think that
you might have had a child of your own, and that it was hard you should
have spent so many years taking care of some one else's prodigal, just
you think this--you have been for a great deal in my life; you have made
much that there is in me, just as surely as if you had conceived me; and
there are sons who are more ungrateful to their own mothers than I am to
you. For I am not ungrateful, my dear Cummy, and it is with a very
sincere emotion that I write myself your little boy,
LOUIS.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
After a winter of troubled health, Stevenson had gone to Dunblane for
a change in early spring; and thence writes to his college companion
and lifelong friend, Mr. Charles Baxter:--
_Dunblane, Friday, 5th March 1872._
MY DEAR BAXTER,--By the date you may perhaps understand the purport of
my letter without any words wasted about the matter. I cannot walk with
you to-morrow, and you must not expect me. I came yesterday afternoon to
Bridge of Allan, and have been very happy ever since, as every place is
sanctified by the eighth sense, Memory. I walked up here this morning
(three miles, _tu-dieu!_ a good stretch for me), and passed one of my
favourite places in the world, and one that I very much affect in spirit
when the body is tied down and brought immovably to anchor on a sickbed.
It is a meadow and bank on a corner on the river, and is connected in my
mind inseparably with Virgil's _Eclogues. Hic corulis mistos inter
consedimus ulmos_, or something very like that, the passage begins (only
I know my short-winded Latinity must have come to grief over even this
much of quotation); and here, to a wish, is just such a cavern as
Menalcas might shelter himself withal from the bright noon, and, with
his lips curled backward, pipe himself blue in the face, while
_Messieurs les Arcadiens_ would roll out those cloying hexameters that
sing themselves in one's mouth to such a curious lilting chant.
In such weather one has the bird's need to whistle; and I, who am
specially incompetent in this art, must content myself by chattering
away to you on this bit of paper. All the way along I was thanking God
that he had made me and the birds and everything just as they are and
not otherwise; for although there was no sun, the air was so thrilled
with robins and blackbirds that it made the heart tremble with joy, and
the leaves are far enough forward on the underwood to give a fine
promise for the future. Even myself, as I say, I would not have had
changed in one _iota_ this forenoon, in spite of all my idleness and
Guthrie's lost paper, which is ever present with me--a horrible phantom.
No one can be alone at home or in a quite new place. Memory and you must
go hand in hand with (at least) decent weather if you wish to cook up a
proper dish of solitude. It is in these little flights of mine that I
get more pleasure than in anything else. Now, at present, I am supremely
uneasy and restless--almost to the extent of pain; but O! how I enjoy
it, and how I _shall_ enjoy it afterwards (please God), if I get years
enough allotted to me for the thing to ripen in. When I am a very old
and very respectable citizen with white hair and bland manners and a
gold watch, I shall hear three crows cawing in my heart, as I heard them
this morning: I vote for old age and eighty years of retrospect. Yet,
after all, I dare say, a short shrift and a nice green grave are about
as desirable.
Poor devil! how I am wearying you! Cheer up. Two pages more, and my
letter reaches its term, for I have no more paper. What delightful
things inns and waiters and bagmen are! If we didn't travel now and
then, we should forget what the feeling of life is. The very cushion of
a railway carriage--"the things restorative to the touch." I can't
write, confound it! That's because I am so tired with my walk....
Believe me, ever your affectionate friend,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The "Spec." is, of course, the famous and historical debating society
(the Speculative Society) of Edinburgh University, to which Stevenson
had been elected on the strength of his conversational powers, and to
whose meetings he contributed several essays.
_Dunblane, Tuesday, 9th April 1872._
MY DEAR BAXTER,--I don't know what you mean. I know nothing about the
Standing Committee of the Spec., did not know that such a body existed,
and even if it doth exist, must sadly repudiate all association with
such "goodly fellowship." I am a "Rural Voluptuary" at present. _That_
is what is the matter with me. The Spec. may go whistle. As for "C.
Baxter, Esq.," who is he? "One Baxter, or Bagster, a secretary," I say
to mine acquaintance, "is at present disquieting my leisure with certain
illegal, uncharitable, unchristian, and unconstitutional documents
called _Business Letters: The affair is in the hands of the Police_." Do
you hear _that_, you evildoer? Sending business letters is surely a far
more hateful and slimy degree of wickedness than sending threatening
letters; the man who throws grenades and torpedoes is less malicious;
the Devil in red-hot hell rubs his hands with glee as he reckons up the
number that go forth spreading pain and anxiety with each delivery of
the post.
I have been walking to-day by a colonnade of beeches along the brawling
Allan. My character for sanity is quite gone, seeing that I cheered my
lonely way with the following, in a triumphant chaunt: "Thank God for
the grass, and the fir-trees, and the crows, and the sheep, and the
sunshine, and the shadows of the fir-trees." I hold that he is a poor
mean devil who can walk alone, in such a place and in such weather, and
doesn't set up his lungs and cry back to the birds and the river.
Follow, follow, follow me. Come hither, come hither, come hither--here
shall you see--no enemy--except a very slight remnant of winter and its
rough weather. My bedroom, when I awoke this morning, was full of
bird-songs, which is the greatest pleasure in life. Come hither, come
hither, come hither, and when you come bring the third part of the
_Earthly Paradise_; you can get it for me in Elliot's for two and
tenpence (2s. 10d.) (_business habits_). Also bring an ounce of honeydew
from Wilson's.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
In the previous year, 1871, it had become apparent that Stevenson was
neither fitted by bodily health nor by inclination for the family
profession of civil engineer. Accordingly his summer excursions were
no longer to the harbour works and lighthouses of Scotland, but to
the ordinary scenes of holiday travel abroad.
_Brussels, Thursday, 25th July 1872._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am here at last, sitting in my room, without coat or
waistcoat, and with both window and door open, and yet perspiring like a
terra-cotta jug or a Gruyère cheese.
We had a very good passage, which we certainly deserved, in
compensation for having to sleep on the cabin floor, and finding
absolutely nothing fit for human food in the whole filthy embarkation.
We made up for lost time by sleeping on deck a good part of the
forenoon. When I woke, Simpson was still sleeping the sleep of the just,
on a coil of ropes and (as appeared afterwards) his own hat; so I got a
bottle of Bass and a pipe and laid hold of an old Frenchman of somewhat
filthy aspect (_fiat experimentum in corpore vili_) to try my French
upon. I made very heavy weather of it. The Frenchman had a very pretty
young wife; but my French always deserted me entirely when I had to
answer her, and so she soon drew away and left me to her lord, who
talked of French politics, Africa, and domestic economy with great
vivacity. From Ostend a smoking-hot journey to Brussels. At Brussels we
went off after dinner to the Parc. If any person wants to be happy, I
should advise the Parc. You sit drinking iced drinks and smoking penny
cigars under great old trees. The band place, covered walks, etc., are
all lit up. And you can't fancy how beautiful was the contrast of the
great masses of lamplit foliage and the dark sapphire night sky with
just one blue star set overhead in the middle of the largest patch. In
the dark walks, too, there are crowds of people whose faces you cannot
see, and here and there a colossal white statue at the corner of an
alley that gives the place a nice, _artificial_, eighteenth century
sentiment. There was a good deal of summer lightning blinking overhead,
and the black avenues and white statues leapt out every minute into
short-lived distinctness.
I get up to add one thing more. There is in the hotel a boy in whom I
take the deepest interest. I cannot tell you his age, but the very first
time I saw him (when I was at dinner yesterday) I was very much struck
with his appearance. There is something very leonine in his face, with a
dash of the negro especially, if I remember aright, in the mouth. He has
a great quantity of dark hair, curling in great rolls, not in little
corkscrews, and a pair of large, dark, and very steady, bold, bright
eyes. His manners are those of a prince. I felt like an overgrown
ploughboy beside him. He speaks English perfectly, but with, I think,
sufficient foreign accent to stamp him as a Russian, especially when his
manners are taken into account. I don't think I ever saw any one who
looked like a hero before. After breakfast this morning I was talking to
him in the court, when he mentioned casually that he had caught a snake
in the Riesengebirge. "I have it here," he said; "would you like to see
it?" I said yes; and putting his hand into his breast-pocket, he drew
forth not a dried serpent skin, but the head and neck of the reptile
writhing and shooting out its horrible tongue in my face. You may
conceive what a fright I got. I send off this single sheet just now in
order to let you know I am safe across; but you must not expect letters
often.
R. L. STEVENSON.
_P.S._--The snake was about a yard long, but harmless, and now, he
says, quite tame.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Hotel Landsberg, Frankfurt, Monday, 29th July 1872._
... Last night I met with rather an amusing adventurette. Seeing a
church door open, I went in, and was led by most importunate
finger-bills up a long stair to the top of the tower. The father smoking
at the door, the mother and the three daughters received me as if I was
a friend of the family and had come in for an evening visit. The
youngest daughter (about thirteen, I suppose, and a pretty little girl)
had been learning English at the school, and was anxious to play it off
upon a real, veritable Englander; so we had a long talk, and I was shown
photographs, etc., Marie and I talking, and the others looking on with
evident delight at having such a linguist in the family. As all my
remarks were duly translated and communicated to the rest, it was quite
a good German lesson. There was only one contretemps during the whole
interview--the arrival of another visitor, in the shape (surely) the
last of God's creatures, a wood-worm of the most unnatural and hideous
appearance, with one great striped horn sticking out of his nose like a
boltsprit. If there are many wood-worms in Germany, I shall come home.
The most courageous men in the world must be entomologists. I had rather
be a lion-tamer.
To-day I got rather a curiosity--_Lieder und Balladen von Robert Burns_,
translated by one Silbergleit, and not so ill done either. Armed with
which, I had a swim in the Main, and then bread and cheese and Bavarian
beer in a sort of café, or at least the German substitute for a café;
but what a falling off after the heavenly forenoons in Brussels!
I have bought a meerschaum out of local sentiment, and am now very low
and nervous about the bargain, having paid dearer than I should in
England, and got a worse article, if I can form a judgment.
Do write some more, somebody. To-morrow I expect I shall go into
lodgings, as this hotel work makes the money disappear like butter in a
furnace.--Meanwhile believe me, ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Hotel Landsberg, Thursday, 1st August 1872._
... Yesterday I walked to Eckenheim, a village a little way out of
Frankfurt, and turned into the alehouse. In the room, which was just
such as it would have been in Scotland, were the landlady, two
neighbours, and an old peasant eating raw sausage at the far end. I soon
got into conversation; and was astonished when the landlady, having
asked whether I were an Englishman, and received an answer in the
affirmative, proceeded to inquire further whether I were not also a
Scotchman. It turned out that a Scotch doctor--a professor--a poet--who
wrote books--_gross wie das_--had come nearly every day out of Frankfurt
to the _Eckenheimer Wirthschaft_, and had left behind him a most savoury
memory in the hearts of all its customers. One man ran out to find his
name for me, and returned with the news that it was _Cobie_ (Scobie, I
suspect); and during his absence the rest were pouring into my ears the
fame and acquirements of my countryman. He was, in some undecipherable
manner, connected with the Queen of England and one of the Princesses.
He had been in Turkey, and had there married a wife of immense wealth.
They could find apparently no measure adequate to express the size of
his books. In one way or another, he had amassed a princely fortune, and
had apparently only one sorrow, his daughter to wit, who had absconded
into a _Kloster_, with a considerable slice of the mother's _Geld_. I
told them we had no Klosters in Scotland, with a certain feeling of
superiority. No more had they, I was told--"_Hier ist unser Kloster!_"
and the speaker motioned with both arms round the taproom. Although the
first torrent was exhausted, yet the Doctor came up again in all sorts
of ways, and with or without occasion, throughout the whole interview;
as, for example, when one man, taking his pipe out of his mouth and
shaking his head, remarked _àpropos_ of nothing and with almost defiant
conviction, "_Er war ein feiner Mann, der Herr Doctor_," and was
answered by another with "_Yaw, yaw, und trank immer rothen Wein_."
Setting aside the Doctor, who had evidently turned the brains of the
entire village, they were intelligent people. One thing in particular
struck me, their honesty in admitting that here they spoke bad German,
and advising me to go to Coburg or Leipsic for German.--"_Sie sprechen
da_ _rein_" (clean), said one; and they all nodded their heads together
like as many mandarins, and repeated _rein, so rein_ in chorus.
Of course we got upon Scotland. The hostess said, "_Die Schottländer
trinken gern Schnapps_," which may be freely translated, "Scotchmen are
horrid fond of whisky." It was impossible, of course, to combat such a
truism; and so I proceeded to explain the construction of toddy,
interrupted by a cry of horror when I mentioned the _hot_ water; and
thence, as I find is always the case, to the most ghastly romancing
about Scottish scenery and manners, the Highland dress, and everything
national or local that I could lay my hands upon. Now that I have got my
German Burns, I lean a good deal upon him for opening a conversation,
and read a few translations to every yawning audience that I can gather.
I am grown most insufferably national, you see. I fancy it is a
punishment for my want of it at ordinary times. Now, what do you think,
there was a waiter in this very hotel, but, alas! he is now gone, who
sang (from morning to night, as my informant said with a shrug at the
recollection) what but _'s ist lange her_, the German version of Auld
Lang Syne; so you see, madame, the finest lyric ever written _will_ make
its way out of whatsoever corner of patois it found its birth in.
"_Mein Herz ist im Hochland, mein Herz ist nicht hier,
Mein Herz ist im Hochland im grünen Revier.
Im grünen Reviere zu jagen das Reh;
Mein Herz ist im Hochland, wo immer ich geh._"
I don't think I need translate that for you.
There is one thing that burthens me a good deal in my patriotic
garrulage, and that is the black ignorance in which I grope about
everything, as, for example, when I gave yesterday a full and, I fancy,
a startlingly incorrect account of Scotch education to a very stolid
German on a garden bench: he sat and perspired under it, however, with
much composure. I am generally glad enough to fall back again, after
these political interludes, upon Burns, toddy, and the Highlands.
I go every night to the theatre, except when there is no opera. I cannot
stand a play yet; but I am already very much improved, and can
understand a good deal of what goes on.
_Friday, August 2, 1872._--In the evening, at the theatre, I had a great
laugh. Lord Allcash in _Fra Diavolo_, with his white hat, red
guide-books, and bad German, was the _pièce-de-résistance_ from a
humorous point of view; and I had the satisfaction of knowing that in my
own small way I could minister the same amusement whenever I chose to
open my mouth.
I am just going off to do some German with Simpson.--Your affectionate
son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
_Frankfurt, Rosengasse 13, August 4, 1872._
MY DEAR FATHER,--You will perceive by the head of this page that we have
at last got into lodgings, and powerfully mean ones too. If I were to
call the street anything but _shady_, I should be boasting. The people
sit at their doors in shirt-sleeves, smoking as they do in Seven Dials
of a Sunday.
Last night we went to bed about ten, for the first time _householders_
in Germany--real Teutons, with no deception, spring, or false bottom.
About half-past one there began such a trumpeting, shouting, pealing of
bells, and scurrying hither and thither of feet as woke every person in
Frankfurt out of their first sleep with a vague sort of apprehension
that the last day was at hand. The whole street was alive, and we could
hear people talking in their rooms, or crying to passers-by from their
windows, all around us. At last I made out what a man was saying in the
next room. It was a fire in Sachsenhausen, he said (Sachsenhausen is the
suburb on the other side of the Main), and he wound up with one of the
most tremendous falsehoods on record, "_Hier alles ruht_--here all is
still." If it can be said to be still in an engine factory, or in the
stomach of a volcano when it is meditating an eruption, he might have
been justified in what he said, but not otherwise. The tumult continued
unabated for near an hour; but as one grew used to it, it gradually
resolved itself into three bells, answering each other at short
intervals across the town, a man shouting at ever shorter intervals and
with superhuman energy, "_Feuer--im Sachsenhausen_," and the almost
continuous winding of all manner of bugles and trumpets, sometimes in
stirring flourishes, and sometimes in mere tuneless wails. Occasionally
there was another rush of feet past the window, and once there was a
mighty drumming, down between us and the river, as though the soldiery
were turning out to keep the peace. This was all we had of the fire,
except a great cloud, all flushed red with the glare, above the roofs on
the other side of the Gasse; but it was quite enough to put me entirely
off my sleep and make me keenly alive to three or four gentlemen who
were strolling leisurely about my person, and every here and there
leaving me somewhat as a keepsake.... However, everything has its
compensation, and when day came at last, and the sparrows awoke with
trills and _carol-ets_, the dawn seemed to fall on me like a sleeping
draught. I went to the window and saw the sparrows about the eaves, and
a great troop of doves go strolling up the paven Gasse, seeking what
they may devour. And so to sleep, despite fleas and fire-alarms, and
clocks chiming the hours out of neighbouring houses at all sorts of odd
times and with the most charming want of unanimity.
We have got settled down in Frankfurt, and like the place very much.
Simpson and I seem to get on very well together. We suit each other
capitally; and it is an awful joke to be living (two would-be
advocates, and one a baronet) in this supremely mean abode.
The abode is, however, a great improvement on the hotel, and I think we
shall grow quite fond of it.--Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_13 Rosengasse, Frankfurt, Tuesday Morning, August 1872._
... Last night I was at the theatre and heard _Die Judin_ (_La Juive_),
and was thereby terribly excited. At last, in the middle of the fifth
act, which was perfectly beastly, I had to slope. I could stand even
seeing the cauldron with the sham fire beneath, and the two hateful
executioners in red; but when at last the girl's courage breaks down,
and, grasping her father's arm, she cries out--O so shudderfully!--I
thought it high time to be out of that _galère_, and so I do not know
yet whether it ends well or ill; but if I ever afterwards find that they
do carry things to the extremity, I shall think more meanly of my
species. It was raining and cold outside, so I went into a _Bierhalle_,
and sat and brooded over a _Schnitt_ (half-glass) for nearly an hour. An
opera is far more _real_ than real life to me. It seems as if stage
illusion, and particularly this hardest to swallow and most conventional
illusion of them all--an opera--would never stale upon me. I wish that
life was an opera. I should like to _live_ in one; but I don't know in
what quarter of the globe I shall find a society so constituted.
Besides, it would soon pall: imagine asking for three-kreuzer cigars in
recitative, or giving the washerwoman the inventory of your dirty
clothes in a sustained and _flourishous_ aria.
I am in a right good mood this morning to sit here and write to you; but
not to give you news. There is a great stir of life, in a quiet, almost
country fashion, all about us here. Some one is hammering a beef-steak
in the _rez-de-chaussée_: there is a great clink of pitchers and noise
of the pump-handle at the public well in the little square-kin round the
corner. The children, all seemingly within a month, and certainly none
above five, that always go halting and stumbling up and down the
roadway, are ordinarily very quiet, and sit sedately puddling in the
gutter, trying, I suppose, poor little devils! to understand their
_Muttersprache_; but they, too, make themselves heard from time to time
in little incomprehensible antiphonies, about the drift that comes down
to them by their rivers from the strange lands higher up the Gasse.
Above all, there is here such a twittering of canaries (I can see twelve
out of our window), and such continual visitation of grey doves and
big-nosed sparrows, as make our little bye-street into a perfect aviary.
I look across the Gasse at our opposite neighbour, as he dandles his
baby about, and occasionally takes a spoonful or two of some pale slimy
nastiness that looks like _dead porridge_, if you can take the
conception. These two are his only occupations. All day long you can
hear him singing over the brat when he is not eating; or see him eating
when he is not keeping baby. Besides which, there comes into his house a
continual round of visitors that puts me in mind of the luncheon hour at
home. As he has thus no ostensible avocation, we have named him "the
W.S." to give a flavour of respectability to the street.
Enough of the Gasse. The weather is here much colder. It rained a good
deal yesterday; and though it is fair and sunshiny again to-day, and we
can still sit, of course, with our windows open, yet there is no more
excuse for the siesta; and the bathe in the river, except for
cleanliness, is no longer a necessity of life. The Main is very swift.
In one part of the baths it is next door to impossible to swim against
it, and I suspect that, out in the open, it would be quite
impossible.--Adieu, my dear mother, and believe me, ever your
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
(_Rentier_).
TO CHARLES BAXTER
On the way home with Sir Walter Simpson from Germany. The L.J.R.
herein mentioned was a short-lived Essay Club of only six members;
its meetings were held in a public-house in Advocate's Close; the
meaning of its initials (as recently divulged by Mr. Baxter) was
Liberty, Justice, Reverence; no doubt understood by the members in
some fresh and esoteric sense of their own.
_Boulogne Sur Mer, Wednesday, 3rd or 4th September 1872._
Blame me not that this epistle
Is the first you have from me.
Idleness has held me fettered,
But at last the times are bettered
And once more I wet my whistle
Here, in France beside the sea.
All the green and idle weather
I have had in sun and shower,
Such an easy warm subsistence,
Such an indolent existence
I should find it hard to sever
Day from day and hour from hour.
Many a tract-provided ranter
May upbraid me, dark and sour,
Many a bland Utilitarian
Or excited Millenarian,
--"_Pereunt et imputantur_
You must speak to every hour."
But (the very term's deceptive)
You at least, my friend, will see,
That in sunny grassy meadows
Trailed across by moving shadows
To be actively receptive
Is as much as man can be.
He that all the winter grapples
Difficulties, thrust and ward--
Needs to cheer him thro' his duty
Memories of sun and beauty
Orchards with the russet apples
Lying scattered on the sward.
Many such I keep in prison,
Keep them here at heart unseen,
Till my muse again rehearses
Long years hence, and in my verses
You shall meet them rearisen
Ever comely, ever green.
You know how they never perish,
How, in time of later art,
Memories consecrate and sweeten
These defaced and tempest-beaten
Flowers of former years we cherish,
Half a life, against our heart.
Most, those love-fruits withered greenly,
Those frail, sickly amourettes,
How they brighten with the distance
Take new strength and new existence
Till we see them sitting queenly
Crowned and courted by regrets!
All that loveliest and best is,
Aureole-fashion round their head,
They that looked in life but plainly,
How they stir our spirits vainly
When they come to us Alcestis-
like returning from the dead!
Not the old love but another,
Bright she comes at Memory's call
Our forgotten vows reviving
To a newer, livelier living,
As the dead child to the mother
Seems the fairest child of all.
Thus our Goethe, sacred master,
Travelling backward thro' his youth,
Surely wandered wrong in trying
To renew the old, undying
Loves that cling in memory faster
Than they ever lived in truth.
So; _en voilà assez de mauvais vers._ Let us finish with a word or two
in honest prose, tho' indeed I shall so soon be back again and, if you
be in town as I hope, so soon get linked again down the Lothian road by
a cigar or two and a liquor, that it is perhaps scarce worth the postage
to send my letter on before me. I have just been long enough away to be
satisfied and even anxious to get home again and talk the matter over
with my friends. I shall have plenty to tell you; and principally plenty
that I do not care to write; and I daresay, you, too, will have a lot of
gossip. What about Ferrier? Is the L.J.R. think you to go naked and
unashamed this winter? He with his charming idiosyncrasy was in my eyes
the vine-leaf that preserved our self-respect. All the rest of us are
such shadows, compared to his full-flavoured personality; but I must not
spoil my own _début_. I am trenching upon one of the essayettes which I
propose to introduce as a novelty this year before that august assembly.
For we must not let it die. It is a sickly baby, but what with nursing,
and pap, and the like, I do not see why it should not have a stout
manhood after all, and perhaps a green old age. Eh! when we are old (if
we ever should be) that too will be one of those cherished memories I
have been so rhapsodizing over. We must consecrate our room. We must
make it a museum of bright recollections; so that we may go back there
white-headed, and say "Vixi." After all, new countries, sun, music, and
all the rest can never take down our gusty, rainy, smoky, grim old city
out of the first place that it has been making for itself in the bottom
of my soul, by all pleasant and hard things that have befallen me for
these past twenty years or so. My heart is buried there--say, in
Advocate's Close!
Simpson and I got on very well together, and made a very suitable pair.
I like him much better than I did when I started which was almost more
than I hoped for.
If you should chance to see Bob, give him my news or if you have the
letter about you, let him see it.--Ever your Affct. friend,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Through the jesting tenor of this letter is to be discerned a vein of
more than half serious thinking very characteristic of R. L. S. alike
as youth and man.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, October 1872._
MY DEAR BAXTER,--I am gum-boiled and face swollen to an unprecedented
degree. It is very depressing to suffer from gibber that cannot be
brought to a head. I cannot speak it, because my face is so swollen and
stiff that enunciation must be deliberate--a thing your true gibberer
cannot hold up his head under; and writ gibber is somehow not gibber at
all, it does not come forth, does not _flow_, with that fine irrational
freedom that it loves in speech--it does not afford relief to the packed
bosom.
Hence I am suffering from _suppressed gibber_--an uneasy complaint; and
like all cases of suppressed humours, this hath a nasty tendency to the
brain. Therefore (the more confused I get, the more I lean on Thus's and
Hences and Therefores) you must not be down upon me, most noble Festus,
altho' this letter should smack of some infirmity of judgment. I speak
the words of soberness and truth; and would you were not almost but
altogether as I am, except this swelling. Lord, Lord, if we could change
personalities how we should hate it. How I should rebel at the office,
repugn under the Ulster coat, and repudiate your monkish humours thus
unjustly and suddenly thrust upon poor, infidel me! And as for you--why,
my dear Charles, "a mouse that hath its lodging in a cat's ear" would
not be so uneasy as you in your new conditions. I do not see how your
temperament would come thro' the feverish longings to do things that
cannot then (or perhaps ever) be accomplished, the feverish unrests and
damnable indecisions, that it takes all my easy-going spirits to come
through. A vane can live out anything in the shape of a wind; and that
is how I can be, and am, a more serious person than you. Just as the
light French seemed very serious to Sterne, light L. Stevenson can
afford to bob about over the top of any deep sea of prospect or
retrospect, where ironclad C. Baxter would incontinently go down with
all hands. A fool is generally the wisest person out. The wise man must
shut his eyes to all the perils and horrors that lie round him; but the
cap and bells can go bobbing along the most slippery ledges and the
bauble will not stir up sleeping lions. Hurray! for motley, for a good
sound _insouciance_, for a healthy philosophic carelessness!
My dear Baxter, a word in your ear--"DON'T YOU WISH YOU WERE A FOOL?"
How easy the world would go on with you--literally on castors. The only
reason a wise man can assign for getting drunk is that he wishes to
enjoy for a while the blessed immunities and sunshiny weather of the
land of fooldom. But a fool, who dwells ever there, has no excuse at
all. _That_ is a happy land, if you like--and not so far away either.
Take a fool's advice and let us strive without ceasing to get into it.
Hark in your ear again: "THEY ALLOW PEOPLE TO REASON IN THAT LAND." I
wish I could take you by the hand and lead you away into its pleasant
boundaries. There is no custom-house on the frontier, and you may take
in what books you will. There are no manners and customs; but men and
women grow up, like trees in a still, well-walled garden, "at their own
sweet will." There is no prescribed or customary folly--no motley, cap,
or bauble: out of the well of each one's own innate absurdity he is
allowed and encouraged freely to draw and to communicate; and it is a
strange thing how this natural fooling comes so nigh to one's better
thoughts of wisdom; and stranger still, that all this discord of people
speaking in their own natural moods and keys, masses itself into a far
more perfect harmony than all the dismal, official unison in which they
sing in other countries. Part-singing seems best all the world over.
I who live in England must wear the hackneyed symbols of the profession,
to show that I have (at least) consular immunities, coming as I do out
of another land, where they are not so wise as they are here, but fancy
that God likes what he makes and is not best pleased with us when we
deface and dissemble all that he has given us and put about us to one
common standard of----Highty-Tighty!--when was a jester obliged to
finish his sentence? I cut so strong a pirouette that all my bells
jingle, and come down in an attitude, with one hand upon my hip. The
evening's entertainment is over,--"and if our kyind friends----"
Hurrah! I feel relieved. I have put out my gibber, and if you have read
thus far, you will have taken it in. I wonder if you will ever come this
length. I shall try a trap for you, and insult you here, on this last
page. "O Baxter what a damned humbug you are!" There,--shall this insult
bloom and die unseen, or will you come toward me, when next we meet,
with a face deformed with anger and demand speedy and bloody
satisfaction. _Nous verrons_, which is French.
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
In the winter of 1872-73 Stevenson was out of health again; and by
the beginning of spring there began the trouble which for the next
twelve months clouded his home life. The following shows exactly in
what spirit he took it:--
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, Sunday, February 2, 1873._
MY DEAR BAXTER,--The thunderbolt has fallen with a vengeance now. On
Friday night after leaving you, in the course of conversation, my father
put me one or two questions as to beliefs, which I candidly answered. I
really hate all lying so much now--a new found honesty that has somehow
come out of my late illness--that I could not so much as hesitate at the
time; but if I had foreseen the real hell of everything since, I think I
should have lied, as I have done so often before. I so far thought of my
father, but I had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both
silent, both as down in the mouth as if--I can find no simile. You may
fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could
almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am
I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than
hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my
game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not (as they call me) a
careless infidel. I believe as much as they do, only generally in the
inverse ratio: I am, I think, as honest as they can be in what I hold. I
have not come hastily to my views. I reserve (as I told them) many
points until I acquire fuller information, and do not think I am thus
justly to be called "horrible atheist."
Now, what is to take place? What a curse I am to my parents! O Lord,
what a pleasant thing it is to have just _damned_ the happiness of
(probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world.
What is my life to be at this rate? What, you rascal? Answer--I have a
pistol at your throat. If all that I hold true and most desire to spread
is to be such death, and worse than death, in the eyes of my father and
mother, what the _devil_ am I to do?
Here is a good heavy cross with a vengeance, and all rough with rusty
nails that tear your fingers, only it is not I that have to carry it
alone; I hold the light end, but the heavy burden falls on these two.
Don't--I don't know what I was going to say. I am an abject idiot,
which, all things considered, is not remarkable.--Ever your affectionate
and horrible atheist,
R. L. STEVENSON.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] It was the father who, from dislike of a certain Edinburgh
Lewis, changed the sound and spelling of his son's second name to
Louis (spoken always with the "s" sounded), and it was the son
himself who about his eighteenth year dropped the use of his third
name and initial altogether.
[4] See a paper on _R. L. Stevenson in Wick_, by Margaret H. Roberton,
in Magazine of Wick Literary Society, Christmas 1903.
[5] Aikman's _Annals of the Persecution in Scotland_.
[6] Thomas Stevenson.
II
STUDENT DAYS--_Continued_
NEW FRIENDSHIPS--ORDERED SOUTH
JULY 1873-MAY 1874
The year 1873 was a critical one in Stevenson's life. Late in July he
went for the second time to pay a visit to Cockfield Rectory, the
pleasant Suffolk home of his cousin Mrs. Churchill Babington and her
husband. Another guest at the same time was Mrs. Sitwell--now my
wife--an intimate friend and connection by marriage of the hostess. I
was shortly due to join the party, when Mrs. Sitwell wrote telling me of
the "fine young spirit" she had found under her friend's roof, and
suggesting that I should hasten my visit so as to make his acquaintance
before he left. I came accordingly, and from that time on the fine young
spirit became a leading interest both in her life and mine. He had
thrown himself on her sympathies, in that troubled hour of his youth,
with entire dependence almost from the first, and clung to her devotedly
for the next two years as to an inspirer, consoler, and guide. Under her
influence he began for the first time to see his way in life, and to
believe hopefully and manfully in his own powers and future. To
encourage such hopes further, and to lend what hand one could towards
their fulfilment, became quickly one of the first of cares and
pleasures. It was impossible not to recognise, in this very
un-academical type of Scottish youth, a spirit the most interesting and
full of promise. His social charm was already at its height, and quite
irresistible; but inwardly he was full of trouble and self-doubt. If he
could steer himself or be steered safely through the difficulties of
youth, and if he could learn to write with half the charm and genius
that shone from his presence and conversation, there seemed room to hope
for the highest from him. He went back to Edinburgh in the beginning of
September full of new hope and heart. It had been agreed that while
still reading, as his parents desired, for the bar, he should try
seriously to get ready for publication some essays which he had already
on hand--one on Walt Whitman, one on John Knox, one on Roads and the
Spirit of the Road--and should so far as possible avoid topics of
dispute in the home circle.
But after a while the news of him was not favourable. Those differences
with his father, which had been weighing almost morbidly upon his
high-strung nature, were renewed. By mid-October his letters told of
failing health. He came to London, and instead of presenting himself, as
had been proposed, to be examined for admission to one of the London
Inns of Court, he was forced to consult the late Sir Andrew Clark, who
found him suffering from acute nerve exhaustion, with some threat of
danger to the lungs. He was ordered to break at once with Edinburgh for
a time, and to spend the winter in a more soothing climate and
surroundings. He went accordingly to Mentone, a place he had delighted
in as a boy ten years before, and during a stay of six months made a
slow, but for the time being a pretty complete, recovery. I visited him
twice during the winter, and the second time found him coming fairly to
himself again in the southern peace and sunshine. He was busy with the
essay _Ordered South_, and with that on _Victor Hugo's Romances_, which
was afterwards his first contribution to the Cornhill Magazine; was full
of a thousand dreams and projects for future work; and was passing his
invalid days pleasantly meanwhile in the companionship of two kind and
accomplished Russian ladies, who took to him warmly, and of their
children. The following record of the time is drawn from his
correspondence partly with his parents and partly with myself, but
chiefly from the journal-letters, containing a full and intimate record
of his daily moods and doings, which he was accustomed to send off
weekly or oftener to Mrs. Sitwell.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
This is from his cousin's house in Suffolk. Some of the impressions
then received of the contrasts between Scotland and England were
later worked out in the essay _The Foreigner at Home_, printed at the
head of _Memories and Portraits_:--
_Cockfield Rectory, Sudbury, Suffolk, Tuesday, July 28, 1873._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am too happy to be much of a correspondent. Yesterday
we were away to Melford and Lavenham, both exceptionally placid,
beautiful old English towns. Melford scattered all round a big green,
with an Elizabethan Hall and Park, great screens of trees that seem
twice as high as trees should seem, and everything else like what ought
to be in a novel, and what one never expects to see in reality, made me
cry out how good we were to live in Scotland, for the many hundredth
time. I cannot get over my astonishment--indeed, it increases every
day--at the hopeless gulf that there is between England and Scotland,
and English and Scotch. Nothing is the same; and I feel as strange and
outlandish here as I do in France or Germany. Everything by the
wayside, in the houses, or about the people, strikes me with an
unexpected unfamiliarity: I walk among surprises, for just where you
think you have them, something wrong turns up.
I got a little Law read yesterday, and some German this morning, but on
the whole there are too many amusements going for much work; as for
correspondence, I have neither heart nor time for it to-day.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
After leaving Cockfield Stevenson spent a few days in London and a
few with me in a cottage I then had at Norwood. This and the
following letters were written in the next days after his return
home. "Bob" in the last paragraph is Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson,
an elder cousin to whom Louis had been from boyhood devotedly
attached: afterwards known as the brilliant painter-critic and author
of _Velasquez_, etc.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, Monday, September 1st, 1873._
I have arrived, as you see, without accident; but I never had a more
wretched journey in my life. I could not settle to read anything; I
bought Darwin's last book in despair, for I knew I could generally read
Darwin, but it was a failure. However, the book served me in good stead;
for when a couple of children got in at Newcastle, I struck up a great
friendship with them on the strength of the illustrations. These two
children (a girl of nine and a boy of six) had never before travelled in
a railway, so that everything was a glory to them, and they were never
tired of watching the telegraph posts and trees and hedges go racing
past us to the tail of the train; and the girl I found quite entered
into the most daring personifications that I could make. A little way
on, about Alnmouth, they had their first sight of the sea; and it was
wonderful how loath they were to believe that what they saw was water;
indeed it was very still and grey and solid-looking under a sky to
match. It was worth the fare, yet a little farther on, to see the
delight of the girl when she passed into "another country," with the
black Tweed under our feet, crossed by the lamps of the passenger
bridge. I remember the first time I had gone into "another country,"
over the same river from the other side.
Bob was not at the station when I arrived; but a friend of his brought
me a letter; and he is to be in the first thing to-morrow. Do you know,
I think yesterday and the day before were the two happiest days of my
life? I would not have missed last month for eternity.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The paper on _Roads_ herein mentioned had been planned during walks
at Cockfield; was offered to and rejected by the Saturday Review and
ultimately accepted by Mr. Hamerton for the Portfolio; and was the
first regular or paid contribution of Stevenson to periodical
literature.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, Saturday, September 6, 1873._
I have been to-day a very long walk with my father through some of the
most beautiful ways hereabouts; the day was cold with an iron, windy
sky, and only glorified now and then with autumn sunlight. For it is
fully autumn with us, with a blight already over the greens, and a keen
wind in the morning that makes one rather timid of one's tub when it
finds its way indoors.
I was out this evening to call on a friend, and, coming back through the
wet, crowded, lamp-lit streets, was singing after my own fashion, "_Du
hast Diamanten und Perlen_," when I heard a poor cripple man in the
gutter wailing over a pitiful Scotch air, his club-foot supported on the
other knee, and his whole woebegone body propped sideways against a
crutch. The nearest lamp threw a strong light on his worn, sordid face
and the three boxes of lucifer matches that he held for sale. My own
false notes stuck in my chest. How well off I am! is the burthen of my
songs all day long--"_Drum ist so wohl mir in der Welt!_" and the ugly
reality of the cripple man was an intrusion on the beautiful world in
which I was walking. He could no more sing than I could; and his voice
was cracked and rusty, and altogether perished. To think that that wreck
may have walked the streets some night years ago, as glad at heart as I
was, and promising himself a future as golden and honourable!
_Sunday_, 11.20 _a.m._--I wonder what you are doing now?--in church
likely, at the _Te Deum_. Everything here is utterly silent. I can hear
men's footfalls streets away; the whole life of Edinburgh has been
sucked into sundry pious edifices; the gardens below my windows are
steeped in a diffused sunlight, and every tree seems standing on
tiptoes, strained and silent, as though to get its head above its
neighbour's and _listen_. You know what I mean, don't you? How trees do
seem silently to assert themselves on an occasion! I have been trying to
write _Roads_ until I feel as if I were standing on my head; but I mean
_Roads_, and shall do something to them.
I wish I could make you feel the hush that is over everything, only made
the more perfect by rare interruptions; and the rich, placid light, and
the still autumnal foliage. Houses, you know, stand all about our
gardens: solid, steady blocks of houses; all look empty and asleep.
_Monday night._--The drums and fifes up in the castle are sounding the
guard-call through the dark, and there is a great rattle of carriages
without. I have had (I must tell you) my bed taken out of this room, so
that I am alone in it with my books and two tables, and two chairs, and
a coal-skuttle (or _scuttle_) (?) and a _débris_ of broken pipes in a
corner, and my old school play-box, so full of papers and books that the
lid will not shut down, standing reproachfully in the midst. There is
something in it that is still a little gaunt and vacant; it needs a
little populous disorder over it to give it the feel of homeliness, and
perhaps a bit more furniture, just to take the edge off the sense of
illimitable space, eternity, and a future state, and the like, that is
brought home to one, even in this small attic, by the wide, empty floor.
You would require to know, what only I can ever know, many grim and many
maudlin passages out of my past life to feel how great a change has been
made for me by this past summer. Let me be ever so poor and thread-paper
a soul, I am going to try for the best.
These good booksellers of mine have at last got a _Werther_ without
illustrations. I want you to like Charlotte. Werther himself has every
feebleness and vice that could tend to make his suicide a most virtuous
and commendable action; and yet I like Werther too--I don't know why,
except that he has written the most delightful letters in the world.
Note, by the way, the passage under date June 21st not far from the
beginning; it finds a voice for a great deal of dumb, uneasy,
pleasurable longing that we have all had, times without number. I looked
that up the other day for _Roads_, so I know the reference; but you will
find it a garden of flowers from beginning to end. All through the
passion keeps steadily rising, from the thunderstorm at the
country-house--there was thunder in that story too--up to the last wild
delirious interview; either Lotte was no good at all, or else Werther
should have remained alive after that; either he knew his woman too
well, or else he was precipitate. But an idiot like that is hopeless;
and yet, he wasn't an idiot--I make reparation, and will offer eighteen
pounds of best wax at his tomb. Poor devil! he was only the weakest--or,
at least, a very weak strong man.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, Friday, September 12, 1873._
... I was over last night, contrary to my own wish, in Leven, Fife; and
this morning I had a conversation of which, I think, some account might
interest you. I was up with a cousin who was fishing in a mill-lade, and
a shower of rain drove me for shelter into a tumble-down steading
attached to the mill. There I found a labourer cleaning a byre, with
whom I fell into talk. The man was to all appearance as heavy, as
_hébété_, as any English clodhopper; but I knew I was in Scotland, and
launched out forthright into Education and Politics and the aims of
one's life. I told him how I had found the peasantry in Suffolk, and
added that their state had made me feel quite pained and down-hearted.
"It but to do that," he said, "to onybody that thinks at a'!" Then,
again, he said that he could not conceive how anything could daunt or
cast down a man who had an aim in life. "They that have had a guid
schoolin' and do nae mair, whatever they do, they have done; but him
that has aye something ayont need never be weary." I have had to
mutilate the dialect much, so that it might be comprehensible to you;
but I think the sentiment will keep, even through a change of words,
something of the heartsome ring of encouragement that it had for me: and
that from a man cleaning a byre! You see what John Knox and his schools
have done.
_Saturday._--This has been a charming day for me from morning to now (5
P.M.). First, I found your letter, and went down and read it on a seat
in those Public Gardens of which you have heard already. After lunch, my
father and I went down to the coast and walked a little way along the
shore between Granton and Cramond. This has always been with me a very
favourite walk. The Firth closes gradually together before you, the
coast runs in a series of the most beautifully moulded bays, hill after
hill, wooded and softly outlined, trends away in front till the two
shores join together. When the tide is out there are great, gleaming
flats of wet sand, over which the gulls go flying and crying; and every
cape runs down into them with its little spit of wall and trees. We lay
together a long time on the beach; the sea just babbled among the
stones; and at one time we heard the hollow, sturdy beat of the paddles
of an unseen steamer somewhere round the cape. I am glad to say that the
peace of the day and scenery was not marred by any unpleasantness
between us two.
I am, unhappily, off my style, and can do nothing well; indeed, I fear I
have marred _Roads_ finally by patching at it when I was out of the
humour. Only, I am beginning to see something great about John Knox and
Queen Mary; I like them both so much, that I feel as if I could write
the history fairly.
_Sunday._--It has rained and blown chilly out of the East all day. This
was my first visit to church since the last Sunday at Cockfield. I was
alone, and read the minor prophets and thought of the past all the time;
a sentimental Calvinist preached--a very odd animal, as you may
fancy--and to him I did not attend very closely. All afternoon I worked
until half-past four, when I went out under an umbrella, and cruised
about the empty, wet, glimmering streets until near dinner time.
I have finished _Roads_ to-day, and send it off to you to see. The Lord
knows whether it is worth anything!--some of it pleases me a good deal,
but I fear it is quite unfit for any possible magazine. However, I wish
you to see it, as you know the humour in which it was conceived, walking
alone and very happily about the Suffolk highways and byeways on several
splendid sunny afternoons.--Believe me, ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_Monday._--I have looked over _Roads_ again, and I am aghast at its
feebleness. It is the trial of a very "'prentice hand" indeed. Shall I
ever learn to do anything _well_? However, it shall go to you, for the
reasons given above.
TO MRS SITWELL
After an outpouring about difficulties at home.
_Edinburgh, Tuesday, September 16, 1873._
... I must be very strong to have all this vexation and still to be
well. I was weighed the other day, and the gross weight of my large
person was eight stone six! Does it not seem surprising that I can keep
the lamp alight, through all this gusty weather, in so frail a lantern?
And yet it burns cheerily.
My mother is leaving for the country this morning, and my father and I
will be alone for the best part of the week in this house. Then on
Friday I go south to Dumfries till Monday. I must write small, or I
shall have a tremendous budget by then.
7.20 _p.m._--I must tell you a thing I saw to-day. I was going down to
Portobello in the train, when there came into the next compartment
(third class) an artisan, strongly marked with smallpox, and with
sunken, heavy eyes--a face hard and unkind, and without anything lovely.
There was a woman on the platform seeing him off. At first sight, with
her one eye blind and the whole cast of her features strongly plebeian,
and even vicious, she seemed as unpleasant as the man; but there was
something beautifully soft, a sort of light of tenderness, as on some
Dutch Madonna, that came over her face when she looked at the man. They
talked for a while together through the window; the man seemed to have
been asking money. "Ye ken the last time," she said, "I gave ye two
shillin's for your ludgin', and ye said----" it died off into whisper.
Plainly Falstaff and Dame Quickly over again. The man laughed
unpleasantly, even cruelly, and said something; and the woman turned
her back on the carriage and stood a long while so, and, do what I
might, I could catch no glimpse of her expression, although I thought I
saw the heave of a sob in her shoulders. At last, after the train was
already in motion, she turned round and put two shillings into his hand.
I saw her stand and look after us with a perfect heaven of love on her
face--this poor one-eyed Madonna--until the train was out of sight; but
the man, sordidly happy with his gains, did not put himself to the
inconvenience of one glance to thank her for her ill-deserved kindness.
I have been up at the Spec. and looked out a reference I wanted. The
whole town is drowned in white, wet vapour off the sea. Everything drips
and soaks. The very statues seem wet to the skin. I cannot pretend to be
very cheerful; I did not see one contented face in the streets; and the
poor did look so helplessly chill and dripping, without a stitch to
change, or so much as a fire to dry themselves at, or perhaps money to
buy a meal, or perhaps even a bed. My heart shivers for them.
_Dumfries, Friday._--All my thirst for a little warmth, a little sun, a
little corner of blue sky avails nothing. Without, the rain falls with a
long drawn _swish_, and the night is as dark as a vault. There is no
wind indeed, and that is a blessed change after the unruly, bedlamite
gusts that have been charging against one round street corners and
utterly abolishing and destroying all that is peaceful in life. Nothing
sours my temper like these coarse termagant winds. I hate practical
joking; and your vulgarest practical joker is your flaw of wind.
I have tried to write some verses; but I find I have nothing to say that
has not been already perfectly said and perfectly sung in _Adelaïde_. I
have so perfect an idea out of that song! The great Alps, a wonder in
the star-light--the river, strong from the hills, and turbulent, and
loudly audible at night--the country, a scented _Frühlingsgarten_ of
orchards and deep wood where the nightingales harbour--a sort of German
flavour over all--and this love-drunken man, wandering on by sleeping
village and silent town, pours out of his full heart, _Einst, O Wunder,
einst_, etc. I wonder if I am wrong about this being the most beautiful
and perfect thing in the world--the only marriage of really accordant
words and music--both drunk with the same poignant, unutterable
sentiment.
To-day in Glasgow my father went off on some business, and my mother and
I wandered about for two hours. We had lunch together, and were very
merry over what the people at the restaurant would think of us--mother
and son they could not suppose us to be.
_Saturday._--And to-day it came--warmth, sunlight, and a strong, hearty
living wind among the trees. I found myself a new being. My father and I
went off a long walk, through a country most beautifully wooded and
various, under a range of hills. You should have seen one place where
the wood suddenly fell away in front of us down a long, steep hill
between a double row of trees, with one small fair-haired child framed
in shadow in the foreground; and when we got to the foot there was the
little kirk and kirkyard of Irongray, among broken fields and woods by
the side of the bright, rapid river. In the kirkyard there was a
wonderful congregation of tombstones, upright and recumbent on four legs
(after our Scotch fashion), and of flat-armed fir-trees. One gravestone
was erected by Scott (at a cost, I learn, of £70) to the poor woman who
served him as heroine in the _Heart of Midlothian_, and the inscription
in its stiff, Jedediah Cleishbotham fashion is not without something
touching.[7] We went up the stream a little further to where two
Covenanters lie buried in an oak-wood; the tombstone (as the custom is)
containing the details of their grim little tragedy in funnily bad
rhyme, one verse of which sticks in my memory:--
"We died, their furious rage to stay,
Near to the kirk of Iron-gray."
We then fetched a long compass round about through Holywood Kirk and
Lincluden ruins to Dumfries. But the walk came sadly to grief as a
pleasure excursion before our return....
_Sunday._--Another beautiful day. My father and I walked into Dumfries
to church. When the service was done I noted the two halberts laid
against the pillar of the churchyard gate; and as I had not seen the
little weekly pomp of civic dignitaries in our Scotch country towns for
some years, I made my father wait. You should have seen the provost and
three bailies going stately away down the sunlit street, and the two
town servants strutting in front of them, in red coats and cocked hats,
and with the halberts most conspicuously shouldered. We saw Burns's
house--a place that made me deeply sad--and spent the afternoon down the
banks of the Nith. I had not spent a day by a river since we lunched in
the meadows near Sudbury. The air was as pure and clear and sparkling as
spring water; beautiful, graceful outlines of hill and wood shut us in
on every side; and the swift, brown river fled smoothly away from before
our eyes, rippled over with oily eddies and dimples. White gulls had
come up from the sea to fish, and hovered and flew hither and thither
among the loops of the stream. By good fortune, too, it was a dead calm
between my father and me. Do you know, I find these rows harder on me
than ever. I get a funny swimming in the head when they come on that I
had not before--and the like when I think of them.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Edinburgh], Monday, 22nd September 1873._
I have just had another disagreeable to-night. It is difficult indeed to
steer steady among the breakers: I am always touching ground; generally
it is my own blame, for I cannot help getting friendly with my father
(whom I _do_ love), and so speaking foolishly with my mouth. I have yet
to learn in ordinary conversation that reserve and silence that I must
try to unlearn in the matter of the feelings.
The news that _Roads_ would do reached me in good season; I had begun
utterly to despair of doing anything. Certainly I do not think I should
be in a hurry to commit myself about the Covenanters; the whole subject
turns round about me and so branches out to this side and that, that I
grow bewildered; and one cannot write discreetly about any one little
corner of an historical period, until one has an organic view of the
whole. I have, however--given life and health--great hope of my
Covenanters; indeed, there is a lot of precious dust to be beaten out of
that stack even by a very infirm hand.
_Much later._--I can scarcely see to write just now; so please excuse.
We have had an awful scene. All that my father had to say has been put
forth--not that it was anything new; only it is the devil to hear. I
don't know what to do--the world goes hopelessly round about me; there
is no more possibility of doing, living, being anything but a _beast_,
and there's the end of it.
It is eleven, I think, for a clock struck. O Lord, there has been a deal
of time through our hands since I went down to supper! All this has come
from my own folly; I somehow could not think the gulf so impassable, and
I read him some notes on the Duke of Argyll[8]--I thought he would agree
so far, and that we might have some rational discussion on the rest. And
now--after some hours--he has told me that he is a weak man, and that I
am driving him too far, and that I know not what I am doing. O dear God,
this is bad work!
I have lit a pipe and feel calmer. I say, my dear friend, I am killing
my father--he told me to-night (by the way) that I alienated utterly my
mother--and this is the result of my attempt to start fair and fresh
and to do my best for all of them.
I must wait till to-morrow ere I finish. I am to-night too excited.
_Tuesday._--The sun is shining to-day, which is a great matter, and
altogether the gale having blown off again, I live in a precarious lull.
On the whole I am not displeased with last night; I kept my eyes open
through it all, and, I think, not only avoided saying anything that
could make matters worse in the future, but said something that _may_ do
good. But a little better or a little worse is a trifle. I lay in bed
this morning awake, for I was tired and cold and in no special hurry to
rise, and heard my father go out for the papers; and then I lay and
wished--O, if he would only _whistle_ when he comes in again! But of
course he did not. I have stopped that pipe.
Now, you see, I have written to you this time and sent it off, for both
of which God forgive me.--Ever your faithful friend, R. L. S.
My father and I together can put about a year through in half an hour.
Look here, you mustn't take this too much to heart. I shall be all right
in a few hours. It's impossible to depress me. And of course, when you
can't do anything, there's no need of being depressed. It's all waste
tissue.
L.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Edinburgh], Wednesday, September 24th 1873._
I have found another "flowering isle." All this beautiful, quiet, sunlit
day, I have been out in the country; down by the sea on my favourite
coast between Granton and Queensferry. There was a delicate, delicious
haze over the firth and sands on one side, and on the other was the
shadow of the woods all riven with great golden rifts of sunshine. A
little faint talk of waves upon the beach; the wild strange crying of
seagulls over the sea; and the hoarse wood-pigeons and shrill, sweet
robins full of their autumn love-making among the trees, made up a
delectable concerto of peaceful noises. I spent the whole afternoon
among these sights and sounds with Simpson. And we came home from
Queensferry on the outside of the coach and four, along a beautiful way
full of ups and downs among woody, uneven country, laid out (fifty years
ago, I suppose) by my grandfather, on the notion of Hogarth's line of
beauty. You see my taste for roads is hereditary.
_Friday._--I was wakened this morning by a long flourish of bugles and a
roll upon the drums--the _réveillé_ at the Castle. I went to the window;
it was a grey, quiet dawn, a few people passed already up the street
between the gardens, already I heard the noise of an early cab somewhere
in the distance, most of the lamps had been extinguished but not all,
and there were two or three lit windows in the opposite façade that
showed where sick people and watchers had been awake all night and knew
not yet of the new, cool day. This appealed to me with a special
sadness: how often in the old times my nurse and I had looked across at
these, and sympathised!
I wish you would read Michelet's _Louis Quatorze et la Révocation de
l'Édit de Nantes_. I read it out in the garden, and the autumnal trees
and weather, and my own autumnal humour, and the pitiable prolonged
tragedies of Madame and of Molière, as they look, darkling and sombre,
out of their niches in the great gingerbread façade of the _Grand Âge_,
go wonderfully hand in hand.
I wonder if my revised paper has pleased the Saturday? If it has not, I
shall be rather sorry--no, very sorry indeed--but not surprised and
certainly not hurt. It will be a great disappointment; but I am glad to
say that, among all my queasy, troublesome feelings, I have not a
sensitive vanity. Not that I am not as conceited as you know me to be;
only I go easy over the coals in that matter.
I have been out reading Hallam in the garden; and have been talking with
my old friend the gardener, a man of singularly hard favour and few
teeth. He consulted me this afternoon on the choice of books, premising
that his taste ran mainly on war and travel. On travel I had to own at
once my ignorance. I suggested Kinglake, but he had read that; and so,
finding myself here unhorsed, I turned about and at last recollected
Southey's _Lives of the Admirals_, and the volumes of Macaulay
containing the wars of William. Can you think of any other for this
worthy man? I believe him to hold me in as high an esteem as any one can
do; and I reciprocate his respect, for he is quite an intelligent
companion.
On Saturday morning I read Morley's article aloud to Bob in one of the
walks of the public garden. I was full of it and read most excitedly;
and we were ever, as we went to and fro, passing a bench where a man sat
reading the Bible aloud to a small circle of the devout. This man is
well known to me, sits there all day, sometimes reading, sometimes
singing, sometimes distributing tracts. Bob laughed much at the
opposition preachers--I never noticed it till he called my attention to
the other; but it did not seem to me like opposition--does it to
you?--each in his way was teaching what he thought best.
Last night, after reading Walt Whitman a long while for my attempt to
write about him, I got _tête-montée_, rushed out up to M. S., came in,
took out _Leaves of Grass_, and without giving the poor unbeliever time
to object, proceeded to wade into him with favourite passages. I had at
least this triumph, that he swore he must read some more of him.--Ever
your faithful friend,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
On the question of the authorship of the _Ode to the Cuckoo_, which
Burke thought the most beautiful lyric in our language, the debate
was between the claims of John Logan, minister of South Leith
(1745-1785), and his friend and fellow-worker Michael Bruce. Those of
Logan have, I believe, been now vindicated past doubt.
_[Edinburgh], Saturday, October 4, 1873._
It is a little sharp to-day; but bright and sunny with a sparkle in the
air, which is delightful after four days of unintermitting rain. In the
streets I saw two men meet after a long separation, it was plain. They
came forward with a little run and _leaped_ at each other's hands. You
never saw such bright eyes as they both had. It put one in a good humour
to see it.
_8 p.m._--I made a little more out of my work than I have made for a
long while back; though even now I cannot make things fall into
sentences--they only sprawl over the paper in bald orphan clauses. Then
I was about in the afternoon with Baxter; and we had a good deal of fun,
first rhyming on the names of all the shops we passed, and afterwards
buying needles and quack drugs from open-air vendors, and taking much
pleasure in their inexhaustible eloquence. Every now and then as we
went, Arthur's Seat showed its head at the end of a street. Now, to-day
the blue sky and the sunshine were both entirely wintry; and there was
about the hill, in these glimpses, a sort of thin, unreal, crystalline
distinctness that I have not often seen excelled. As the sun began to go
down over the valley between the new town and the old, the evening grew
resplendent; all the gardens and low-lying buildings sank back and
became almost invisible in a mist of wonderful sun, and the Castle stood
up against the sky, as thin and sharp in outline as a castle cut out of
paper. Baxter made a good remark about Princes Street, that it was the
most elastic street for length that he knew; sometimes it looks, as it
looked to-night, interminable, a way leading right into the heart of
the red sundown; sometimes, again, it shrinks together, as if for
warmth, on one of the withering, clear east-windy days, until it seems
to lie underneath your feet.
I want to let you see these verses from an _Ode to the Cuckoo_ written
by one of the ministers of Leith in the middle of last century--the
palmy days of Edinburgh--who was a friend of Hume and Adam Smith and the
whole constellation. The authorship of these beautiful verses has been
most truculently fought about; but whoever wrote them (and it seems as
if this Logan had) they are lovely--
"What time the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fliest the vocal vale,
An annual guest, in other lands
Another spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.
O could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make on joyful wing
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring."
_Sunday._--I have been at church with my mother, where we heard "Arise,
shine," sung excellently well, and my mother was so much upset with it
that she nearly had to leave church. This was the antidote, however, to
fifty minutes of solid sermon, varra heavy. I have been sticking in to
Walt Whitman; nor do I think I have ever laboured so hard to attain so
small a success. Still, the thing is taking shape, I think; I know a
little better what I want to say all through; and in process of time,
possibly I shall manage to say it. I must say I am a very bad workman,
_mais j'ai du courage_: I am indefatigable at rewriting and bettering,
and surely that humble quality should get me on a little.
_Monday, October 6._--It is a magnificent glimmering moonlight night,
with a wild, great west wind abroad, flapping above one like an immense
banner, and every now and again swooping furiously against my windows.
The wind is too strong perhaps, and the trees are certainly too leafless
for much of that wide rustle that we both remember; there is only a
sharp, angry, sibilant hiss, like breath drawn with the strength of the
elements through shut teeth, that one hears between the gusts only. I am
in excellent humour with myself, for I have worked hard and not
altogether fruitlessly; and I wished before I turned in just to tell you
that things were so. My dear friend, I feel so happy when I think that
you remember me kindly. I have been up to-night lecturing to a friend on
life and duties and what a man could do; a coal off the altar had been
laid on my lips, and I talked quite above my average, and hope I spread,
what you would wish to see spread, into one person's heart; and with a
new light upon it.
I shall tell you a story. Last Friday I went down to Portobello, in the
heavy rain, with an uneasy wind blowing _par rafales_ off the sea (or
"_en rafales_" should it be? or what?). As I got down near the beach a
poor woman, oldish, and seemingly, lately at least, respectable,
followed me and made signs. She was drenched to the skin, and looked
wretched below wretchedness. You know, I did not like to look back at
her; it seemed as if she might misunderstand and be terribly hurt and
slighted; so I stood at the end of the street--there was no one else
within sight in the wet--and lifted up my hand very high with some money
in it. I heard her steps draw heavily near behind me, and, when she was
near enough to see, I let the money fall in the mud and went off at my
best walk without ever turning round. There is nothing in the story; and
yet you will understand how much there is, if one chose to set it
forth. You see, she was so ugly; and you know there is something
terribly, miserably pathetic in a certain smile, a certain sodden aspect
of invitation on such faces. It is so terrible, that it is in a way
sacred; it means the outside of degradation and (what is worst of all in
life) false position. I hope you understand me rightly.--Ever your
faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Edinburgh], Tuesday, October 14, 1873._
My father has returned in better health, and I am more delighted than I
can well tell you. The one trouble that I can see no way through is that
his health, or my mother's, should give way. To-night, as I was walking
along Princes Street, I heard the bugles sound the recall. I do not
think I had ever remarked it before; there is something of unspeakable
appeal in the cadence. I felt as if something yearningly cried to me out
of the darkness overhead to come thither and find rest; one felt as if
there must be warm hearts and bright fires waiting for one up there,
where the buglers stood on the damp pavement and sounded their friendly
invitation forth into the night.
_Wednesday._--I may as well tell you exactly about my health. I am not
at all ill; have quite recovered; only I am what _MM. les médecins_ call
below par; which, in plain English, is that I am weak. With tonics,
decent weather, and a little cheerfulness, that will go away in its
turn, and I shall be all right again.
I am glad to hear what you say about the Exam.; until quite lately I
have treated that pretty cavalierly, for I say honestly that I do not
mind being plucked; I shall just have to go up again. We travelled with
the Lord Advocate the other day, and he strongly advised me in my
father's hearing to go to the English Bar; and the Lord Advocate's
advice goes a long way in Scotland. It is a sort of special legal
revelation. Don't misunderstand me. I don't, of course, want to be
plucked; but so far as my style of knowledge suits them, I cannot make
much betterment on it in a month. If they wish scholarship more exact, I
must take a new lease altogether.
_Thursday._--My head and eyes both gave in this morning, and I had to
take a day of complete idleness. I was in the open air all day, and did
no thought that I could avoid, and I think I have got my head between my
shoulders again; however, I am not going to do much. I don't want you to
run away with any fancy about my being ill. Given a person weak and in
some trouble, and working longer hours than he is used to, and you have
the matter in a nutshell. You should have seen the sunshine on the hill
to-day; it has lost now that crystalline clearness, as if the medium
were spring-water (you see, I am stupid!); but it retains that wonderful
thinness of outline that makes the delicate shape and hue savour better
in one's mouth, like fine wine out of a finely-blown glass. The birds
are all silent now but the crows. I sat a long time on the stairs that
lead down to Duddingston Loch--a place as busy as a great town during
frost, but now solitary and silent; and when I shut my eyes I heard
nothing but the wind in the trees; and you know all that went through
me, I dare say, without my saying it.
11.--I am now all right. I do not expect any tic to-night, and shall be
at work again to-morrow. I have had a day of open air, only a little
modified by _Le Capitaine Fracasse_ before the dining-room fire. I must
write no more, for I am sleepy after two nights, to quote my book,
"_sinon blanches, du moins grises_"; and so I must go to bed and
faithfully, hoggishly slumber.--Your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
On the advice of the Lord Advocate it had been agreed that Stevenson
should present himself for admission as a student at one of the
London Inns of Court and should come to town after the middle of
October to be examined for that purpose. The following two letters
refer to this purpose and to the formalities required for effecting
it:--
_[Edinburgh, Oct. 15, 1873], Wednesday._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Of course I knew as well as you that I was merely
running before an illness; but I thought I should be in time to escape.
However I was knocked over on Monday night with a bad sore throat,
fever, rheumatism, and a threatening of pleurisy, which last is, I
think, gone. I still hope to be able to get away early next week, though
I am not very clear as to how I shall manage the journey. If I don't get
away on Wednesday at latest, I lose my excuse for going at all, and I do
wish to escape a little while.
I shall see about the form when I get home, which I hope will be
to-morrow (I was taken ill in a friend's house and have not yet been
moved).
How could a broken-down engineer expect to make anything of _Roads_.
Requiescant. When we get well (and if we get well), we shall do
something better.--Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Ye couche of pain.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Edinburgh, October 16, 1873], Thursday._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am at my wits' end about this abominable form of
admission. I don't know what the devil it is; I haven't got one even if
I did, and so can't sign.
Monday night is the very earliest on which (even if I go on mending at
the very great pace I have made already) I can hope to be in London
myself. But possibly it is only intimation that requires to be made on
Tuesday morning; and one may possess oneself of a form of admission up
to the eleventh hour. I send herewith a letter which I must ask you to
cherish, as I count it a sort of talisman. Perhaps you may understand
it, I don't.
If you don't understand it, please do not trouble and we must just hope
that Tuesday morning will be early enough to do all. Of course I fear
the exam. will spin me; indeed after this bodily and spiritual crisis I
should not dream of coming up at all; only that I require it as a
pretext for a moment's escape, which I want much.
I am so glad that _Roads_ has got in. I had almost as soon have it in
the Portfolio as the Saturday; the P. is so nicely printed and I am
_gourmet_ in type. I don't know how to thank you for your continual
kindness to me; and I am afraid I do not even feel grateful enough--you
have let your kindnesses come on me so easily.--Yours sincerely,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
When Stevenson a few days later came to London, it was before the
physicians and not the lawyers that he must present himself; and the
result of an examination by Sir Andrew Clark was his prompt and
peremptory despatch to Mentone for a winter's rest and sunshine at a
distance from all causes of mental agitation. This episode of his
life gave occasion to the essay _Ordered South_, the only one of his
writings in which he took the invalid point of view or allowed his
health troubles in any degree to colour his work. Travelling south by
slow stages, he wrote on the way a long diary-letter from which
extracts follow:--
_Avignon [November 1873]._
I have just read your letter upon the top of the hill beside the church
and castle. The whole air was filled with sunset and the sound of bells;
and I wish I could give you the least notion of the _southernness_ and
_Provençality_ of all that I saw.
I cannot write while I am travelling; _c'est un défaut_; but so it is. I
must have a certain feeling of being at home, and my head must have time
to settle. The new images oppress me, and I have a fever of restlessness
on me. You must not be disappointed at such shabby letters; and besides,
remember my poor head and the fanciful crawling in the spine.
I am back again in the stage of thinking there is nothing the matter
with me, which is a good sign; but I am wretchedly nervous. Anything
like rudeness I am simply babyishly afraid of; and noises, and
especially the sounds of certain voices, are the devil to me. A blind
poet whom I found selling his immortal works in the streets of Sens,
captivated me with the remarkable equable strength and sweetness of his
voice; and I listened a long while and bought some of the poems; and now
this voice, after I had thus got it thoroughly into my head, proved
false metal and a really bad and horrible voice at bottom. It haunted me
some time, but I think I am done with it now.
I hope you don't dislike reading bad style like this as much as I do
writing it: it hurts me when neither words nor clauses fall into their
places, much as it would hurt you to sing when you had a bad cold and
your voice deceived you and missed every other note. I do feel so
inclined to break the pen and write no more; and here _àpropos_ begins
my back.
_After dinner._--It blows to-night from the north down the valley of the
Rhone, and everything is so cold that I have been obliged to indulge in
a fire. There is a fine crackle and roar of burning wood in the chimney
which is very homely and companionable, though it does seem to postulate
a town all white with snow outside.
I have bought Sainte-Beuve's Chateaubriand and am immensely delighted
with the critic. Chateaubriand is more antipathetic to me than anyone
else in the world.
I begin to wish myself arrived to-night. Travelling, when one is not
quite well, has a good deal of unpleasantness. One is easily upset by
cross incidents, and wants that _belle humeur_ and spirit of adventure
that makes a pleasure out of what is unpleasant.
_Tuesday, November 11th._--There! There's a date for you. I shall be in
Mentone for my birthday, with plenty of nice letters to read. I went
away across the Rhone and up the hill on the other side that I might see
the town from a distance. Avignon followed me with its bells and drums
and bugles; for the old city has no equal for multitude of such noises.
Crossing the bridge and seeing the brown turbid water foam and eddy
about the piers, one could scarce believe one's eyes when one looked
down upon the stream and saw the smooth blue mirroring tree and hill.
Over on the other side, the sun beat down so furiously on the white road
that I was glad to keep in the shadow and, when the occasion offered, to
turn aside among the olive-yards. It was nine years and six months since
I had been in an olive-yard. I found myself much changed, not so gay,
but wiser and more happy. I read your letter again, and sat awhile
looking down over the tawny plain and at the fantastic outline of the
city. The hills seemed just fainting into the sky; even the great peak
above Carpentras (Lord knows how many metres above the sea) seemed
unsubstantial and thin in the breadth and potency of the sunshine.
I should like to stay longer here but I can't. I am driven forward by
restlessness, and leave this afternoon about two. I am just going out
now to visit again the church, castle, and hill, for the sake of the
magnificent panorama, and besides, because it is the friendliest spot in
all Avignon to me.
_Later._--You cannot picture to yourself anything more steeped in hard
bright sunshine than the view from the hill. The immovable inky shadow
of the old bridge on the fleeting surface of the yellow river seemed
more solid than the bridge itself. Just in the place where I sat
yesterday evening a shaven man in a velvet cap was studying
music--evidently one of the singers for _La Muette de Portici_ at the
theatre to-night. I turned back as I went away: the white Christ stood
out in strong relief on his brown cross against the blue sky, and the
four kneeling angels and lanterns grouped themselves about the foot with
a symmetry that was almost laughable; the musician read on at his music,
and counted time with his hand on the stone step.
_Menton, November 12th._--My first enthusiasm was on rising at Orange
and throwing open the shutters. Such a great living flood of sunshine
poured in upon me, that I confess to having danced and expressed my
satisfaction aloud; in the middle of which the boots came to the door
with hot water, to my great confusion.
To-day has been one long delight, coming to a magnificent climax on my
arrival here. I gave up my baggage to an hotel porter and set off to
walk at once. I was somewhat confused as yet as to my directions, for
the station of course was new to me, and the hills had not sufficiently
opened out to let me recognise the peaks. Suddenly, as I was going
forward slowly in this confusion of mind, I was met by a great volley of
odours out of the lemon and orange gardens, and the past linked on to
the present, and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole
scene fell before me into order, and I was at home. I nearly danced
again.
I suppose I must send off this to-night to notify my arrival in safety
and good-humour and, I think, in good health, before relapsing into the
old weekly vein. I hope this time to send you a weekly dose of sunshine
from the south, instead of the jet of _snell_ Edinburgh east wind that
used to was.--Ever your faithful friend,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Hôtel du Pavillon, Menton, November 13, 1873._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--The _Place_ is not where I thought; it is about where
the old Post Office was. The Hôtel de Londres is no more an hotel. I
have found a charming room in the Hôtel du Pavillon, just across the
road from the Prince's Villa; it has one window to the south and one to
the east, with a superb view of Mentone and the hills, to which I move
this afternoon. In the old great _Place_ there is a kiosque for the sale
of newspapers; a string of omnibuses (perhaps thirty) go up and down
under the plane-trees of the Turin Road on the occasion of each train;
the Promenade has crossed both streams, and bids fair to reach the Cap
Martin. The old chapel near Freeman's house at the entrance to the
Gorbio valley is now entirely submerged under a shining new villa, with
pavilion annexed; over which, in all the pride of oak and chestnut and
divers coloured marbles, I was shown this morning by the obliging
proprietor. The Prince's Palace itself is rehabilitated, and shines afar
with white window-curtains from the midst of a garden, all trim borders
and greenhouses and carefully kept walks. On the other side, the villas
are more thronged together, and they have arranged themselves, shelf
after shelf, behind each other. I see the glimmer of new buildings, too,
as far eastward as Grimaldi; and a viaduct carries (I suppose) the
railway past the mouth of the bone caves. F. Bacon (Lord Chancellor)
made the remark that "Time was the greatest innovator"; it is perhaps as
meaningless a remark as was ever made; but as Bacon made it, I suppose
it is better than any that I could make. Does it not seem as if things
were fluid? They are displaced and altered in ten years so that one has
difficulty, even with a memory so very vivid and retentive for that sort
of thing as mine, in identifying places where one lived a long while in
the past, and which one has kept piously in mind during all the
interval. Nevertheless, the hills, I am glad to say, are unaltered;
though I dare say the torrents have given them many a shrewd scar, and
the rains and thaws dislodged many a boulder from their heights, if one
were only keen enough to perceive it. The sea makes the same noise in
the shingle; and the lemon and orange gardens still discharge in the
still air their fresh perfume; and the people have still brown comely
faces; and the Pharmacie Gros still dispenses English medicines; and the
invalids (eheu!) still sit on the promenade and trifle with their
fingers in the fringes of shawls and wrappers; and the shop of Pascal
Amarante still, in its present bright consummate flower of
aggrandisement and new paint, offers everything that it has entered into
people's hearts to wish for in the idleness of a sanatorium; and the
"Château des Morts" is still at the top of the town; and the fort and
the jetty are still at the foot, only there are now two jetties; and--I
am out of breath. (To be continued in our next.)
For myself, I have come famously through the journey; and as I have
written this letter (for the first time for ever so long) with ease and
even pleasure, I think my head must be better. I am still no good at
coming down hills or stairs; and my feet are more consistently cold than
is quite comfortable. But, these apart, I feel well; and in good spirits
all round.
I have written to Nice for letters, and hope to get them to-night.
Continue to address Poste Restante. Take care of yourselves.
This is my birthday, by the way--O, I said that before. Adieu.--Ever
your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL,
_Menton, November 13, 1873._
I must pour out my disgust at the absence of a letter; my birthday
nearly gone, and devil a letter--I beg pardon. After all, now I think of
it, it is only a week since I left.
I have here the nicest room in Mentone. Let me explain. Ah! there's the
bell for the _table d'hôte_. Now to see if there is anyone conversable
within these walls.
In the interval my letters have come; none from you, but one from Bob,
which both pained and pleased me. He cannot get on without me at all, he
writes; he finds that I have been the whole world for him; that he only
talked to other people in order that he might tell me afterwards about
the conversation. Should I--I really don't know quite what to feel; I am
so much astonished, and almost more astonished that he should have
expressed it than that he should feel it; he never would have _said_ it,
I know. I feel a strange sense of weight and responsibility.--Ever your
faithful friend, R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
In the latter part of this letter will be found the germ of the essay
_Ordered South_.
_Menton, Sunday [November 23, 1873]._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I sat a long while up among the olive yards to-day at a
favourite corner, where one has a fair view down the valley and on to
the blue floor of the sea. I had a Horace with me, and read a little;
but Horace, when you try to read him fairly under the open heaven,
sounds urban, and you find something of the escaped townsman in his
descriptions of the country, just as somebody said that Morris's
sea-pieces were all taken from the coast. I tried for long to hit upon
some language that might catch ever so faintly the indefinable shifting
colour of olive leaves; and, above all, the changes and little
silverings that pass over them, like blushes over a face, when the wind
tosses great branches to and fro; but the Muse was not favourable. A few
birds scattered here and there at wide intervals on either side of the
valley sang the little broken songs of late autumn; and there was a
great stir of insect life in the grass at my feet. The path up to this
coign of vantage, where I think I shall make it a habit to ensconce
myself a while of a morning, is for a little while common to the peasant
and a little clear brooklet. It is pleasant, in the tempered grey
daylight of the olive shadows, to see the people picking their way among
the stones and the water and the brambles; the women especially, with
the weights poised on their heads and walking all from the hips with a
certain graceful deliberation.
_Tuesday._--I have been to Nice to-day to see Dr. Bennet; he agrees with
Clark that there is no disease; but I finished up my day with a
lamentable exhibition of weakness. I could not remember French, or at
least I was afraid to go into any place lest I should not be able to
remember it, and so could not tell when the train went. At last I
crawled up to the station and sat down on the steps, and just steeped
myself there in the sunshine until the evening began to fall and the air
to grow chilly. This long rest put me all right; and I came home here
triumphantly and ate dinner well. There is the full, true, and
particular account of the worst day I have had since I left London. I
shall not go to Nice again for some time to come.
_Thursday._--I am to-day quite recovered, and got into Mentone to-day
for a book, which is quite a creditable walk. As an intellectual being I
have not yet begun to re-exist; my immortal soul is still very nearly
extinct; but we must hope the best. Now, do take warning by me. I am
set up by a beneficent providence at the corner of the road, to warn you
to flee from the hebetude that is to follow. Being sent to the South is
not much good unless you take your soul with you, you see; and my soul
is rarely with me here. I don't see much beauty. I have lost the key; I
can only be placid and inert, and see the bright days go past uselessly
one after another; therefore don't talk foolishly with your mouth any
more about getting liberty by being ill and going south _viâ_ the
sickbed. It is not the old free-born bird that gets thus to freedom; but
I know not what manacled and hide-bound spirit, incapable of pleasure,
the clay of a man. Go south! Why, I saw more beauty with my eyes
healthfully alert to see in two wet windy February afternoons in
Scotland than I can see in my beautiful olive gardens and grey hills in
a whole week in my low and lost estate, as the Shorter Catechism puts it
somewhere. It is a pitiable blindness, this blindness of the soul; I
hope it may not be long with me. So remember to keep well; and remember
rather anything than not to keep well; and again I say, _anything_
rather than not to keep well.
Not that I am unhappy, mind you. I have found the words already--placid
and inert, that is what I am. I sit in the sun and enjoy the tingle all
over me, and I am cheerfully ready to concur with any one who says that
this is a beautiful place, and I have a sneaking partiality for the
newspapers, which would be all very well, if one had not fallen from
heaven and were not troubled with some reminiscence of the _ineffable
aurore_.
To sit by the sea and to be conscious of nothing but the sound of the
waves, and the sunshine over all your body, is not unpleasant; but I was
an Archangel once.
_Friday._--If you knew how old I felt! I am sure this is what age brings
with it--this carelessness, this disenchantment, this continual bodily
weariness. I am a man of seventy: O Medea, kill me, or make me young
again![9]
To-day has been cloudy and mild; and I have lain a great while on a
bench outside the garden wall (my usual place now) and looked at the
dove-coloured sea and the broken roof of cloud, but there was no seeing
in my eye. Let us hope to-morrow will be more profitable.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The history of the scruples and ideas of duty in regard to money
expressed in the following letter is set forth and further explained
in retrospect in the fragment called _Lay Morals_, written in 1879.
The Walt Whitman essay here mentioned is not that afterwards printed
in _Men and Books_, but an earlier and more enthusiastic version. Mr.
Dowson (of whom Stevenson lost sight after these Riviera days) was
the father of the unfortunate poet Ernest Dowson. His acquaintance
was the first result of Stevenson's search for "anyone conversable"
in the hotel.
_Menton, Sunday [November 30, 1873]._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--To-day is as hot as it has been in the sun; and as I
was a little tired and seedy, I went down and just drank in sunshine. A
strong wind has risen out of the west; the great big dead leaves from
the roadside planes scuttled about and chased one another over the
gravel round me with a noise like little waves under the keel of a boat,
and jumped up sometimes on to my lap and into my face. I lay down on my
back at last, and looked up into the sky. The white corner of the hotel,
with a wide projection at the top, stood out in dazzling relief; and
there was nothing else, save a few of the plane leaves that had got up
wonderfully high and turned and eddied and flew here and there like
little pieces of gold leaf, to break the extraordinary sea of blue. It
was bluer than anything in the world here; wonderfully blue, and
looking deeply peaceful, although in truth there was a high wind
blowing.
I am concerned about the plane leaves. Hitherto it has always been a
great feature to see these trees standing up head and shoulders and
chest--head and body, in fact--above the wonderful blue-grey-greens of
the olives, in one glory of red gold. Much more of this wind, and the
gold, I fear, will be all spent.
9.20.--I must write you another little word. I have found here a new
friend, to whom I grow daily more devoted--George Sand. I go on from one
novel to another and think the last I have read the most sympathetic and
friendly in tone, until I have read another. It is a life in dreamland.
Have you read _Mademoiselle Merquem_?
_Monday._--I did not quite know last night what to say to you about
_Mlle. Merquem_. If you want to be unpleasantly moved, read it.
I am gloomy and out of spirits to-night in consequence of a ridiculous
scene at the _table d'hôte_, where a parson whom I rather liked took
offence at something I said and we had almost a quarrel. It was mopped
up and stifled, like spilt wine with a napkin; but it leaves an
unpleasant impression.
I have again ceased all work, because I felt that it strained my head a
little, and so I have resumed the tedious task of waiting with folded
hands for better days. But thanks to George Sand and the sunshine, I am
very jolly.
That last word was so much out of key that I could sit no longer, and
went away to seek out my clergyman and apologise to him. He was gone to
bed. I don't know what makes me take this so much to heart. I suppose
it's nerves or pride or something; but I am unhappy about it. I am going
to drown my sorrows in _Consuelo_ and burn some incense in my pipe to
the god of Contentment and Forgetfulness.
I do not know, but I hope, if I can only get better, I shall be a help
to you soon in every way and no more a trouble and burthen. All my
difficulties about life have so cleared away; the scales have fallen
from my eyes, and the broad road of my duty lies out straight before me
without cross or hindrance. I have given up all hope, all fancy rather,
of making literature my hold: I see that I have not capacity enough. My
life shall be, if I can make it, my only business. I am desirous to
practise now, rather than to preach, for I know that I should ever
preach badly, and men can more easily forgive faulty practice than dull
sermons. If Colvin does not think that I shall be able to support myself
soon by literature, I shall give it up and go (horrible as the thought
is to me) into an office of some sort: the first and main question is,
that I must live by my own hands; after that come the others.
You will not regard me as a madman, I am sure. It is a very rational
aberration at least to try to put your beliefs into practice. Strangely
enough, it has taken me a long time to see this distinctly with regard
to my whole creed; but I have seen it at last, praised be my sickness
and my leisure! I have seen it at last; the sun of my duty has risen; I
have enlisted for the first time, and after long coquetting with the
shilling, under the banner of the Holy Ghost![10]
8.15.--If you had seen the moon last night! It was like transfigured
sunshine; as clear and mellow, only showing everything in a new
wonderful significance. The shadows of the leaves on the road were so
strangely black that Dowson and I had difficulty in believing that they
were not solid, or at least pools of dark mire. And the hills and the
trees, and the white Italian houses with lit windows! O! nothing could
bring home to you the keenness and the reality and the wonderful
_Unheimlichkeit_ of all these. When the moon rises every night over the
Italian coast, it makes a long path over the sea as yellow as gold.
How I happened to be out in the moonlight yesterday, was that Dowson and
I spent the evening with an odd man called Bates, who played Italian
music to us with great feeling; all which was quite a dissipation in my
still existence.
_Friday._--I cannot endure to be dependent much longer, it stops my
mouth. Something I must find shortly. I mean when I am able for
anything. However I am much better already; and have been writing not
altogether my worst although not very well. Walt Whitman is stopped. I
have bemired it so atrociously by working at it when I was out of humour
that I must let the colour dry; and alas! what I have been doing in its
place doesn't seem to promise any money. However it is all practice and
it interests myself extremely. I have now received £80, some £55 of
which still remain; all this is more debt to civilisation and my
fellowmen. When shall I be able to pay it back? You do not know how much
this money question begins to take more and more importance in my eyes
every day. It is an old phrase of mine that money is the _atmosphere_ of
civilised life, and I do hate to take the breath out of other people's
nostrils. I live here at the rate of more than £3 a week and I do
nothing for it. If I didn't hope to get well and do good work yet and
more than repay my debts to the world, I should consider it right to
invest an extra franc or two in laudanum. But I _will_ repay it.--Always
your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Menton, December, 1873._]
MY DEAR BAXTER,--At last, I must write. I must say straight out that I
am not recovering as I could wish. I am no stronger than I was when I
came here, and I pay for every walk, beyond say a quarter of a mile in
length, by one or two, or even three, days of more or less prostration.
Therefore let nobody be down upon me for not writing. I was very
thankful to you for answering my letter; and for the princely action of
Simpson in writing to me, I mean before I had written to him, I was
ditto to an almost higher degree. I hope one or another of you will
write again soon; and, remember, I still live in hope of reading Grahame
Murray's address.
I have not made a joke, upon my living soul, since I left London. O!
except one, a very small one, that I had made before, and that I very
timidly repeated in a half-exhilarated state towards the close of
dinner, like one of those dead-alive flies that we see pretending to be
quite light and full of the frivolity of youth in the first sunshiny
days. It was about mothers' meetings, and it was damned small, and it
was my ewe lamb--the Lord knows I couldn't have made another to save my
life--and a clergyman quarrelled with me, and there was as nearly an
explosion as could be. This has not fostered my leaning towards
pleasantry. I felt that it was a very cold, hard world that night.
My dear Charles, is the sky blue at Mentone? Was that your question?
Well, it depends upon what you call blue; it's a question of taste, I
suppose. Is the sky blue? You poor critter, you never saw blue sky worth
being called blue in the same day with it. And I should rather fancy
that the sun did shine I should. And the moon doesn't shine either. O
no! (This last is sarcastic.) Mentone is one of the most beautiful
places in the world, and has always had a very warm corner in my heart
since first I knew it eleven years ago.
_11th December._--I live in the same hotel with Lord X. He has black
whiskers, and has been successful in raising some kids; rather a
melancholy success; they are weedy looking kids in Highland clo'. They
have a tutor with them who respires Piety and that kind of humble
your-lordship's-most-obedient sort of gentlemanliness that noblemen's
tutors have generally. They all get livings, these men, and silvery hair
and a gold watch from their attached pupil; and they sit in the porch
and make the watch repeat for their little grandchildren, and tell them
long stories, beginning, "When I was private tutor in the family of,"
etc., and the grandchildren cock snooks at them behind their backs and
go away whenever they can to get the groom to teach them bad words.
Sidney Colvin will arrive here on Saturday or Sunday; so I shall have
someone to jaw with. And, seriously, this is a great want. I have not
been all these weeks in idleness, as you may fancy, without much
thinking as to my future; and I have a great deal in view that may or
may not be possible (that I do not yet know), but that is at least an
object and a hope before me. I cannot help recurring to seriousness a
moment before I stop; for I must say that living here a good deal alone,
and having had ample time to look back upon my past, I have become very
serious all over. If I can only get back my health, by God! I shall not
be as useless as I have been.--Ever yours, _mon vieux_,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Menton, December, 1873], Sunday._
The first violet. There is more sweet trouble for the heart in the
breath of this small flower than in all the wines of all the vineyards
of Europe. I cannot contain myself. I do not think so small a thing has
ever given me such a princely festival of pleasure. I feel as if my
heart were a little bunch of violets in my bosom; and my brain is
pleasantly intoxicated with the wonderful odour. I suppose I am writing
nonsense, but it does not seem nonsense to me. Is it not a wonderful
odour? is it not something incredibly subtle and perishable? It is like
a wind blowing to one out of fairyland. No one need tell me that the
phrase is exaggerated if I say that this violet _sings_; it sings with
the same voice as the March blackbird; and the same adorable tremor goes
through one's soul at the hearing of it.
_Monday._--All yesterday I was under the influence of opium. I had been
rather seedy during the night and took a dose in the morning, and for
the first time in my life it took effect upon me. I had a day of
extraordinary happiness; and when I went to bed there was something
almost terrifying in the pleasures that besieged me in the darkness.
Wonderful tremors filled me; my head swam in the most delirious but
enjoyable manner; and the bed softly oscillated with me, like a boat in
a very gentle ripple. It does not make me write a good style apparently,
which is just as well, lest I should be tempted to renew the experiment;
and some verses which I wrote turn out on inspection to be not quite
equal to _Kubla Khan_. However, I was happy, and the recollection is not
troubled by any reaction this morning.
_Wednesday._--Do you know, I think I am much better. I really enjoy
things, and I really feel dull occasionally, neither of which was
possible with me before; and though I am still tired and weak, I almost
think I feel a stirring among the dry bones. O, I should like to
recover, and be once more well and happy and fit for work! And then to
be able to begin really to my life; to have done, for the rest of time,
with preluding and doubting; and to take hold of the pillars strongly
with Samson--to burn my ships with (whoever did it). O, I begin to feel
my spirits come back to me again at the thought!
_Thursday._--I sat along the beach this morning under some reeds (or
canes--I know not which they are): everything was so tropical; nothing
visible but the glaring white shingle, the blue sea, the blue sky, and
the green plumes of the canes thrown out against the latter some ten or
fifteen feet above my head. The noise of the surf alone broke the quiet.
I had somehow got _Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh_ into my head; and I was
happy for I do not know how long, sitting there and repeating to myself
these lines. It is wonderful how things somehow fall into a full
satisfying harmony, and out of the fewest elements there is established
a sort of small perfection. It was so this morning. I did not want
anything further.
TO MRS. SITWELL
In the third week of December I went out to join my friend for a part
of the Christmas vacation, and found him without tangible disease,
but very weak and ailing: ill-health and anxiety, however, neither
then nor at any time diminished his charm as a companion. He left
Mentone to meet me at the old town of Monaco, where we spent a few
days and from whence these stray notes of nature and human nature
were written.
_Monaco, Tuesday [December 1873]._
We have been out all day in a boat; lovely weather and almost dead calm,
only the most infinitesimal and indeterminate of oscillations moved us
hither and thither; the sails were duly set, and flapped about idly
overhead. Our boatman was a man of a delightful humour, who told us many
tales of the sea, notably one of a doctor, who was an Englishman, and
who seemed almost an epitome of vices--drunken, dishonest, and utterly
without faith; and yet he was a _charmant garçon_. He told us many
amusing circumstances of the doctor's incompetence and dishonesty, and
imitated his accent with a singular success. I couldn't quite see that
he was a charming _garçon_--"_O, oui_--_comme caractère, un charmant
garçon_." We landed on that Cap Martin, the place of firs and rocks and
myrtle and rosemary of which I spoke to you. As we pulled along in the
fresh shadow, the wonderfully clean scents blew out upon us, as if from
islands of spice--only how much better than cloves and cinnamon!
_Friday._--Colvin and I are sitting on a seat on the battlemented
gardens of Old Monaco. The day is grey and clouded, with a little red
light on the horizon, and the sea, hundreds of feet below us, is a sort
of purple dove-colour. Shrub-geraniums, firs, and aloes cover all
available shelves and terraces, and where these become impossible, the
prickly pear precipitates headlong downwards its bunches of oval plates;
so that the whole face of the cliff is covered with an arrested fall
(please excuse clumsy language), a sort of fall of the evil angels
petrified midway on its career. White gulls sail past below us every now
and then, sometimes singly, sometimes by twos and threes, and sometimes
in a great flight. The sharp perfume of the shrub-geraniums fills the
air.
I cannot write, in any sense of the word; but I am as happy as can be,
and wish to notify the fact, before it passes. The sea is blue, grey,
purple and green; very subdued and peaceful; earlier in the day it was
marbled by small keen specks of sun and larger spaces of faint
irradiation; but the clouds have closed together now, and these
appearances are no more. Voices of children and occasional crying of
gulls; the mechanical noise of a gardener somewhere behind us in the
scented thicket; and the faint report and rustle of the waves on the
precipice far below, only break in upon the quietness to render it more
complete and perfect.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
After spending a few days in one of the more retired hotels of Monte
Carlo, we went on to Mentone and settled at the Hotel Mirabeau, long
since, I believe, defunct, near the eastern extremity of the town.
The little American girl mentioned in the last paragraph is the same
we shall meet later under her full name of Marie Johnstone.
_[Hotel Mirabeau, Menton], January 2nd, 1874._
Here I am over in the east bay of Mentone, where I am not altogether
sorry to find myself. I move so little that I soon exhaust the
immediate neighbourhood of my dwelling places. Our reason for coming
here was however very simple. Hobson's choice. Mentone during my absence
has filled marvellously.
Continue to address P. R.[11] Menton; and try to conceive it as possible
that I am not a drivelling idiot. When I wish an address changed, it is
quite on the cards that I shall be able to find language explicit enough
to express the desire. My whole desire is to avoid complication of
addresses. It is quite fatal. If two P. R.'s have contradictory orders
they will continue to play battledoor and shuttlecock with an unhappy
epistle, which will never get farther afield but perish there miserably.
You act too much on the principle that whatever I do is done unwisely;
and that whatever I do not, has been culpably forgotten. This is
wounding to my nat'ral vanity.
I have not written for three days I think; but what days! They were very
cold; and I must say I was able thoroughly to appreciate the blessings
of Mentone. Old Smoko this winter would evidently have been very summary
with me. I could not stand the cold at all. I exhausted all my own and
all Colvin's clothing; I then retired to the house, and then to bed; in
a condition of sorrow for myself unequalled. The sun is forth again
(laus Deo) and the wind is milder, and I am greatly re-established. A
certain asperity of temper still lingers, however, which Colvin supports
with much mildness.
In this hotel, I have a room on the first floor! Luxury, however, is not
altogether regardless of expense. We only pay 13 francs per day--3-1/2
more than at the Pavillon on the third floor.--And beggars must not be
choosers. We were very nearly houseless, the night we came. And it is
rarely that such winds of adversity blow men into king's Palaces.
Looking over what has gone before, it seems to me that it is not
strictly polite. I beg to withdraw all that is offensive.
At _table d'hôte_, we have some people who amuse us much; two Americans,
who would try to pass for French people, and their daughter, the most
charming of little girls. Both Colvin and I have planned an abduction
already. The whole hotel is devoted to her; and the waiters continually
do smuggle out comfits and fruit and pudding to her.
All well.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The M'Laren herein mentioned was of course the distinguished Scotch
politician and social reformer, Duncan M'Laren, for sixteen years
M.P. for Edinburgh.
_[Menton], Sunday, January 4, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--We have here fallen on the very pink of hotels. I do
not say that it is more pleasantly conducted than the Pavillon, for that
were impossible; but the rooms are so cheery and bright and new, and
then the food! I never, I think, so fully appreciated the phrase "the
fat of the land" as I have done since I have been here installed. There
was a dish of eggs at _déjeûner_ the other day, over the memory of which
I lick my lips in the silent watches.
Now that the cold has gone again, I continue to keep well in body, and
already I begin to walk a little more. My head is still a very feeble
implement, and easily set a-spinning; and I can do nothing in the way of
work beyond reading books that may, I hope, be of some use to me
afterwards.
I was very glad to see that M'Laren was sat upon, and principally for
the reason why. Deploring as I do much of the action of the Trades
Unions, these conspiracy clauses and the whole partiality of the Master
and Servant Act are a disgrace to our equal laws. Equal laws become a
byeword when what is legal for one class becomes a criminal offence for
another. It did my heart good to hear that man tell M'Laren how, as he
had talked much of getting the franchise for working men, he must now be
content to see them use it now they had got it. This is a smooth stone
well planted in the foreheads of certain dilettanti radicals, after
M'Laren's fashion, who are willing to give the working men words and
wind, and votes and the like, and yet think to keep all the advantages,
just or unjust, of the wealthier classes without abatement. I do hope
wise men will not attempt to fight the working men on the head of this
notorious injustice. Any such step will only precipitate the action of
the newly enfranchised classes, and irritate them into acting hastily;
when what we ought to desire should be that they should act warily and
little for many years to come, until education and habit may make them
the more fit.
All this (intended for my father) is much after the fashion of his own
correspondence. I confess it has left my own head exhausted; I hope it
may not produce the same effect on yours. But I want him to look really
into this question (both sides of it, and not the representations of
rabid middle-class newspapers, sworn to support all the little tyrannies
of wealth), and I know he will be convinced that this is a case of
unjust law; and that, however desirable the end may seem to him, he will
not be Jesuit enough to think that any end will justify an unjust law.
Here ends the political sermon of your affectionate (and somewhat
dogmatical) son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
In the first week of January I went for some necessary work to Paris,
with the intention of returning towards the end of the month. The
following letter introduces the Russian sisters, Madame Zassetsky
and Madame Garschine, whose society and that of their children was to
do so much to cheer Stevenson during his remaining months on the
Riviera. The French painter Robinet (sometimes in his day known as
_le Raphael des cailloux_, from the minuteness of detail which he put
into his Provençal coast landscapes) was a chivalrous and
affectionate soul, in whom R. L. S. delighted in spite of his fervent
clerical and royalist opinions.
_[Menton], January 7, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I received yesterday two most charming letters--the
nicest I have had since I left--December 26th and January 1st: this
morning I got January 3rd.
Into the bargain with Marie, the American girl, who is grace itself, and
comes leaping and dancing simply like a wave--like nothing else, and who
yesterday was Queen out of the Epiphany cake and chose Robinet (the
French painter) as her _favori_ with the most pretty confusion
possible--into the bargain with Marie, we have two little Russian girls,
with the youngest of whom, a little polyglot button of a three-year old,
I had the most laughable little scene at lunch to-day. I was watching
her being fed with great amusement, her face being as broad as it is
long, and her mouth capable of unlimited extension; when suddenly, her
eye catching mine, the fashion of her countenance was changed, and
regarding me with a really admirable appearance of offended dignity, she
said something in Italian which made everybody laugh much. It was
explained to me that she had said I was very _polisson_ to stare at her.
After this she was somewhat taken up with me, and after some examination
she announced emphatically to the whole table, in German, that I was a
_Mädchen_; which word she repeated with shrill emphasis, as though
fearing that her proposition would be called in question--_Mädchen,
Mädchen, Mädchen, Mädchen_. This hasty conclusion as to my sex she was
led afterwards to revise, I am informed; but her new opinion (which
seems to have been something nearer the truth) was announced in a third
language quite unknown to me, and probably Russian. To complete the
scroll of her accomplishments, she was brought round the table after the
meal was over, and said good-bye to me in very commendable English.
The weather I shall say nothing about, as I am incapable of explaining
my sentiments upon that subject before a lady. But my health is really
greatly improved: I begin to recognise myself occasionally now and
again, not without satisfaction.
Please remember me very kindly to Professor Swan; I wish I had a story
to send him; but story, Lord bless you, I have none to tell, sir, unless
it is the foregoing adventure with the little polyglot. The best of that
depends on the significance of _polisson_, which is beautifully out of
place.
_Saturday, 10th January._--The little Russian kid is only two and a
half: she speaks six languages. She and her sister (æt. 8) and May
Johnstone (æt. 8) are the delight of my life. Last night I saw them all
dancing--O it was jolly; kids are what is the matter with me. After the
dancing, we all--that is the two Russian ladies, Robinet the French
painter, Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, two governesses, and fitful kids
joining us at intervals--played a game of the stool of repentance in the
Gallic idiom.
O--I have not told you that Colvin is gone; however, he is coming back
again; has left clothes in pawn to me.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton], Sunday, 11th January 1874._
In many ways this hotel is more amusing than the Pavillon. There are the
children, to begin with; and then there are games every evening--the
stool of repentance, question and answer, etc.; and then we speak
French, although that is not exactly an advantage in so far as personal
brilliancy is concerned.
I am in lovely health again to-day: I-walked as far as the Pont St.
Louis very nearly, besides walking and knocking about among the olives
in the afternoon. I do not make much progress with my French; but I do
make a little, I think. I was pleased with my success this evening,
though I do not know if others shared the satisfaction.
The two Russian ladies are from Georgia all the way. They do not at all
answer to the description of Georgian slaves however, being graceful and
refined, and only good-looking after you know them a bit.
Please remember me very kindly to the Jenkins, and thank them for having
asked about me. Tell Mrs. J. that I am engaged perfecting myself in the
"Gallic idiom," in order to be a worthier Vatel for the future. Monsieur
Folleté, our host, is a Vatel by the way. He cooks himself, and is not
insensible to flattery on the score of his table. I began, of course, to
complain of the wine (part of the routine of life at Mentone); I told
him that where one found a kitchen so exquisite, one astonished oneself
that the wine was not up to the same form. "Et voilà précisément mon
côté faible, monsieur," he replied, with an indescribable amplitude of
gesture. "Que voulez-vous? Moi, je suis cuisinier!" It was as though
Shakespeare, called to account for some such peccadillo as the Bohemian
seaport, should answer magnificently that he was a poet. So Folleté
lives in a golden zone of a certain sort--a golden, or rather torrid
zone, whence he issues twice daily purple as to his face--and all these
clouds and vapours and ephemeral winds pass far below him and disturb
him not.
He has another hobby however--his garden, round which it is his highest
pleasure to lead the unwilling guest. Whenever he is not in the kitchen,
he is hanging round loose, seeking whom he may show his garden to. Much
of my time is passed in studiously avoiding him, and I have brought the
art to a very extreme pitch of perfection. The fox, often hunted,
becomes wary.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Menton], Tuesday, 13th January 1874._
... I lost a Philipine to little Mary Johnstone last night; so to-day I
sent her a rubbishing doll's toilet, and a little note with it, with
some verses telling how happy children made every one near them happy
also, and advising her to keep the lines, and some day, when she was
"grown a stately demoiselle," it would make her "glad to know she gave
pleasure long ago," all in a very lame fashion, with just a note of
prose at the end, telling her to mind her doll and the dog, and not
trouble her little head just now to understand the bad verses; for some
time when she was ill, as I am now, they would be plain to her and make
her happy. She has just been here to thank me, and has left me very
happy. Children are certainly too good to be true.
Yesterday I walked too far, and spent all the afternoon on the outside
of my bed; went finally to rest at nine, and slept nearly twelve hours
on the stretch. Bennet (the doctor), when told of it this morning,
augured well for my recovery; he said youth must be putting in strong;
of course I ought not to have slept at all. As it was, I dreamed
_horridly_; but not my usual dreams of social miseries and
misunderstandings and all sorts of crucifixions of the spirit; but of
good, cheery, physical things--of long successions of vaulted, dimly lit
cellars full of black water, in which I went swimming among toads and
unutterable, cold, blind fishes. Now and then these cellars opened up
into sort of domed music-hall places, where one could land for a little
on the slope of the orchestra, but a sort of horror prevented one from
staying long, and made one plunge back again into the dead waters. Then
my dream changed, and I was a sort of Siamese pirate, on a very high
deck with several others. The ship was almost captured, and we were
fighting desperately. The hideous engines we used and the perfectly
incredible carnage that we effected by means of them kept me cheery, as
you may imagine; especially as I felt all the time my sympathy with the
boarders, and knew that I was only a prisoner with these horrid Malays.
Then I saw a signal being given, and knew they were going to blow up the
ship. I leaped right off, and heard my captors splash in the water after
me as thick as pebbles when a bit of river bank has given way beneath
the foot. I never heard the ship blow up; but I spent the rest of the
night swimming about some piles with the whole sea full of Malays,
searching for me with knives in their mouths. They could swim any
distance under water, and every now and again, just as I was beginning
to reckon myself safe, a cold hand would be laid on my ankle--ugh!
However, my long sleep, troubled as it was, put me all right again, and
I was able to work acceptably this morning and be very jolly all day.
This evening I have had a great deal of talk with both the Russian
ladies; they talked very nicely, and are bright, likable women both.
They come from Georgia.
_Wednesday, 10.30._--We have all been to tea to-night at the Russians'
villa. Tea was made out of a samovar, which is something like a small
steam engine, and whose principal advantage is that it burns the fingers
of all who lay their profane touch upon it. After tea Madame Z. played
Russian airs, very plaintive and pretty; so the evening was Muscovite
from beginning to end. Madame G.'s daughter danced a tarantella, which
was very pretty.
Whenever Nelitchka cries--and she never cries except from pain--all that
one has to do is to start "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." She cannot
resist the attraction; she is drawn through her sobs into the air; and
in a moment there is Nellie singing, with the glad look that comes into
her face always when she sings, and all the tears and pain forgotten.
It is wonderful, before I shut this up, how that child remains ever
interesting to me. Nothing can stale her infinite variety; and yet it is
not very various. You see her thinking what she is to do or to say next,
with a funny grave air of reserve, and then the face breaks up into a
smile, and it is probably "Berecchino!" said with that sudden little
jump of the voice that one knows in children, as the escape of a
jack-in-the-box, and, somehow, I am quite happy after that!
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Menton, January 1874], Wednesday._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--It is still so cold, I cannot tell you how miserable
the weather is. I have begun my "Walt Whitman" again seriously. Many
winds have blown since I last laid it down, when sickness took me in
Edinburgh. It seems almost like an ill-considered jest to take up these
old sentences, written by so different a person under circumstances so
different, and try to string them together and organise them into
something anyway whole and comely; it is like continuing another man's
book. Almost every word is a little out of tune to me now but I shall
pull it through for all that and make something that will interest you
yet on this subject that I had proposed to myself and partly planned
already, before I left for Cockfield last July.
I am very anxious to hear how you are. My own health is quite very good;
I am a healthy octogenarian; very old, I thank you and of course not so
active as a young man, but hale withal: a lusty December. This is so;
such is R. L. S.
I am a little bothered about Bob, a little afraid that he is living too
poorly. The fellow he chums with spends only two francs a day on food,
with a little excess every day or two to keep body and soul together,
and though Bob is not so austere I am afraid he draws it rather too fine
himself.
_Friday._--We have all got our photographs; it is pretty fair, they say,
of me and as they are particular in the matter of photographs, and
besides partial judges I suppose I may take that for proven. Of Nellie
there is one quite adorable. The weather is still cold. My "Walt
Whitman" at last looks really well: I think it is going to get into
shape in spite of the long gestation.
_Sunday._--Still cold and grey, and a high imperious wind off the sea. I
see nothing particularly _couleur de rose_ this morning: but I am trying
to be faithful to my creed and hope. O yes, one can do something to make
things happier and better; and to give a good example before men and
show them how goodness and fortitude and faith remain undiminished after
they have been stripped bare of all that is formal and outside. We must
do that; you have done it already; and I shall follow and shall make a
worthy life, and you must live to approve of me.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The following are two different impressions of the Mediterranean,
dated on two different Mondays in January:--
Yes, I am much better; very much better I think I may say. Although it
is funny how I have ceased to be able to write with the improvement of
my health. Do you notice how for some time back you have had no
descriptions of anything? The reason is that I can't describe anything.
No words come to me when I see a thing. I want awfully to tell you
to-day about a little "_piece_" of green sea, and gulls, and clouded sky
with the usual golden mountain-breaks to the southward. It was
wonderful, the sea near at hand was living emerald; the white breasts
and wings of the gulls as they circled above--high above even--were dyed
bright green by the reflection. And if you could only have seen or if
any right word would only come to my pen to tell you how wonderfully
these illuminated birds floated hither and thither under the grey
purples of the sky!
* * * * *
To-day has been windy but not cold. The sea was troubled and had a fine
fresh saline smell like our own seas, and the sight of the breaking
waves, and above all the spray that drove now and again in my face,
carried me back to storms that I have enjoyed, O how much! in other
places. Still (as Madame Zassetsky justly remarked) there is something
irritating in a stormy sea whose waves come always to the same spot and
never farther: it looks like playing at passion: it reminds one of the
loathsome sham waves in a stage ocean.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Menton, January 1874._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I write to let you know that my cousin may possibly
come to Paris before you leave; he will likely look you up to hear about
me, etc. I want to tell you about him before you see him, as I am tired
of people misjudging him. You know _me_ now. Well, Bob is just such
another mutton, only somewhat farther wandered. He has all the same
elements of character that I have: no two people were ever more alike,
only that the world has gone more unfortunately for him although more
evenly. Besides which, he is really a gentleman, and an admirable true
friend, which is not a common article. I write this as a letter of
introduction in case he should catch you ere you leave.
_Monday._--No letters to-day. _Sacré chien, Dieu de Dieu_--and I have
written with exemplary industry. But I am hoping that no news is good
news and shall continue so to hope until all is blue.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
It had been a very cold Christmas at Monaco and Monte Carlo, and
Stevenson had no adequate overcoat, so it was agreed that when I went
to Paris I should try and find him a warm cloak or wrap. I amused
myself looking for one suited to his taste for the picturesque and
piratical in apparel, and found one in the style of 1830-40, dark
blue and flowing, and fastening with a snake buckle.
_[Menton, January 1874], Friday._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thank you very much for your note. This morning I am
stupid again; can do nothing at all; am no good "comme plumitif." I
think it must be the cold outside. At least that would explain my addled
head and intense laziness.
O why did you tell me about that cloak? Why didn't you buy it? Isn't it
in _Julius Cæsar_ that Pompey blames--no not Pompey but a friend of
Pompey's--well, Pompey's friend, I mean the friend of Pompey--blames
somebody else who was his friend--that is who was the friend of Pompey's
friend--because he (the friend of Pompey's friend) had not done
something right off, but had come and asked him (Pompey's friend)
whether he (the friend of Pompey's friend) ought to do it or no? There I
fold my hands with some complacency: that's a piece of very good
narration. I am getting into good form. These classical instances are
always distracting. I was talking of the cloak. It's awfully dear. Are
there no cheap and nasty imitations? Think of that--if, however, it were
the opinion (ahem) of competent persons that the great cost of the
mantle in question was no more than proportionate to its durability; if
it were to be a joy for ever; if it would cover my declining years and
survive me in anything like integrity for the comfort of my executors;
if--I have the word--if the price indicates (as it seems) the quality of
_perdurability_ in the fabric; if, in fact, it would not be extravagant,
but only the leariest economy to lay out £5 .. 15 .. in a single mantle
without seam and without price, and if--and if--it really fastens with
an agrafe--I would BUY it. But not unless. If not a cheap imitation
would be the move.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The following is in answer to a set of numbered questions, of which
the first three are of no general interest.
_[Menton], Monday, January 19th, 1874._
ANSWERS to a series of questions.
* * * * *
4. Nelitchka, or Nelitska, as you know already by this time, is my
adorable kid's name. Her laugh does more good to one's health than a
month at the seaside: as she said to-day herself, when asked whether she
was a boy or a girl, after having denied both with gravity, she is an
angel.
5. O no, her brain is not in a chaos; it is only the brains of those who
hear her. It is all plain sailing for her. She wishes to refuse or deny
anything, and there is the English "No fank you" ready to her hand; she
wishes to admire anything, and there is the German "schön"; she wishes
to sew (which she does with admirable seriousness and clumsiness), and
there is the French "coudre"; she wishes to say she is ill, and there is
the Russian "bulla"; she wishes to be down on any one, and there is the
Italian "Berecchino"; she wishes to play at a railway train, and there
is her own original word "Collie" (say the o with a sort of Gaelic
twirl). And all these words are equally good.
7. I am called M. Stevenson by everybody except Nelitchka, who calls me
M. Berecchino.
8. The weather to-day is no end: as bright and as warm as ever. I have
been out on the beach all afternoon with the Russians. Madame Garschine
has been reading Russian to me; and I cannot tell prose from verse in
that delectable tongue, which is a pity. Johnson came out to tell us
that Corsica was visible, and there it was over a white, sweltering sea,
just a little darker than the pallid blue of the sky, and when one
looked at it closely, breaking up into sun-brightened peaks.
I may mention that Robinet has never heard an Englishman with so little
accent as I have--ahem--ahem--eh?--What do you say to that? I don't
suppose I have said five sentences in English to-day; all French; all
bad French, alas!
I am thought to be looking better. Madame Zassetsky said I was all green
when I came here first, but that I am all right in colour now, and she
thinks fatter. I am very partial to the Russians; I believe they are
rather partial to me. I am supposed to be an _esprit observateur! À mon
age, c'est étonnant comme je suis observateur!_
The second volume of _Clément Marot_ has come. Where and O where is the
first?--Ever your affectionate
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_The Bottle_ here mentioned is a story that had been some time in
hand called _The Curate of Anstruther's Bottle_; afterwards abandoned
like so many early attempts of the same kind.
[_Menton, January 1874._]
MY DEAR S. C.,--I suppose this will be my last note then. I think you
will find everything very jolly here, I am very jolly myself. I worked
six hours to-day. I am occupied in transcribing _The Bottle_, which is
pleasant work to me; I find much in it that I still think excellent and
much that I am doubtful about; my convention is so terribly difficult
that I have to put out much that pleases me, and much that I still
preserve I only preserve with misgiving. I wonder if my convention is
not a little too hard and too much in the style of those decadent
curiosities, poems without the letter E, poems going with the alphabet
and the like. And yet the idea, if rightly understood and treated as a
convention always and not as an abstract principle, should not so much
hamper one as it seems to do. The idea is not, of course, to put in
nothing but what would naturally have been noted and remembered and
handed down, but not to put in anything that would make a person stop
and say--how could this be known? Without doubt it has the advantage of
making one rely on the essential interest of a situation and not cocker
up and validify feeble intrigue with incidental fine writing and
scenery, and pyrotechnic exhibitions of inappropriate cleverness and
sensibility. I remember Bob once saying to me that the quadrangle of
Edinburgh University was a good thing and our having a talk as to how it
could be employed in different arts. I then stated that the different
doors and staircases ought to be brought before a reader of a story not
by mere recapitulation but by the use of them, by the descent of
different people one after another by each of them. And that the grand
feature of shadow and the light of the one lamp in the corner should
also be introduced only as they enabled people in the story to see one
another or prevented them. And finally that whatever could not thus be
worked into the evolution of the action had no right to be commemorated
at all. After all, it is a story you are telling; not a place you are to
describe; and everything that does not attach itself to the story is out
of place.
This is a lecture not a letter, and it seems rather like sending coals
to Newcastle to write a lecture to a subsidised professor. I hope you
have seen Bob by this time. I know he is anxious to meet you and I am in
great anxiety to know what you think of his prospects--frankly, of
course: as for his person, I don't care a damn what you think of it: I
am case-hardened in that matter.
I wrote a French note to Madame Zassetsky the other day, and there were
no errors in it. The complete Gaul, as you may see.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Menton, January, 1874._]
... Last night I had a quarrel with the American on politics. It is odd
how it irritates you to hear certain political statements made. He was
excited, and he began suddenly to abuse our conduct to America. I, of
course, admitted right and left that we had behaved disgracefully (as we
had); until somehow I got tired of turning alternate cheeks and getting
duly buffeted; and when he said that the Alabama money had not wiped out
the injury, I suggested, in language (I remember) of admirable
directness and force, that it was a pity they had taken the money in
that case. He lost his temper at once, and cried out that his dearest
wish was a war with England; whereupon I also lost my temper, and,
thundering at the pitch of my voice, I left him and went away by myself
to another part of the garden. A very tender reconciliation took place,
and I think there will come no more harm out of it. We are both of us
nervous people, and he had had a very long walk and a good deal of beer
at dinner: that explains the scene a little. But I regret having
employed so much of the voice with which I have been endowed, as I fear
every person in the hotel was taken into confidence as to my
sentiments, just at the very juncture when neither the sentiments nor
(perhaps) the language had been sufficiently considered.
_Friday._--You have not yet heard of my book?--_Four Great
Scotsmen_--John Knox, David Hume, Robert Burns, Walter Scott. These,
their lives, their work, the social media in which they lived and
worked, with, if I can so make it, the strong current of the race making
itself felt underneath and throughout--this is my idea. You must tell me
what you think of it. The Knox will really be new matter, as his life
hitherto has been disgracefully written, and the events are romantic and
rapid; the character very strong, salient, and worthy; much interest as
to the future of Scotland, and as to that part of him which was truly
modern under his Hebrew disguise. Hume, of course, the urbane, cheerful,
gentlemanly, letter-writing eighteenth century, full of attraction, and
much that I don't yet know as to his work. Burns, the sentimental side
that there is in most Scotsmen, his poor troubled existence, how far his
poems were his personally, and how far national, the question of the
framework of society in Scotland, and its fatal effect upon the finest
natures. Scott again, the ever delightful man, sane, courageous,
admirable; the birth of Romance, in a dawn that was a sunset; snobbery,
conservatism, the wrong thread in History, and notably in that of his
own land. _Voilà, madame, le menu. Comment le trouvez-vous? Il y a de la
bonne viande, si on parvient à la cuire convenablement._
R. L. S.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton], Monday, January 26th, 1874._
MY DEAR FATHER,--Heh! Heh! business letter finished. Receipt
acknowledged without much ado, and I think with a certain commercial
decision and brevity. The signature is good but not original.
I should rather think I _had_ lost my heart to the wee princess. Her
mother demanded the other day "_À quand les noces?_" which Mrs.
Stevenson will translate for you in case you don't see it yourself.
I had a political quarrel last night with the American; it was a real
quarrel for about two minutes; we relieved our feelings and separated;
but a mutual feeling of shame led us to a most moving reconciliation, in
which the American vowed he would shed his best blood for England. In
looking back upon the interview, I feel that I have learned something; I
scarcely appreciated how badly England had behaved, and how well she
deserves the hatred the Americans bear her. It would have made you laugh
if you could have been present and seen your unpatriotic son thundering
anathemas in the moonlight against all those that were not the friend of
England. Johnson being nearly as nervous as I, we were both very ill
after it, which added a further pathos to the reconciliation.
There is no good in sending this off to-day, as I have sent another
letter this morning already.
O, a remark of the Princess's amused me the other day. Somebody wanted
to give Nelitchka garlic as a medicine. "_Quoi? Une petite amour comme
ça, qu'on ne pourrait pas baiser? Il n'y a pas de sens en cela!_"
I am reading a lot of French histories just now, and the spelling keeps
one in a good humour all day long--I mean the spelling of English
names.--Your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton, January 29, 1874], Thursday._
_Marot_ vol. 1 arrived. The post has been at its old games. A letter of
the 31st and one of the 2nd arrive at the same moment.
I have had a great pleasure. Mrs. Andrews had a book of Scotch airs,
which I brought over here, and set Madame Z. to work upon. They are so
like Russian airs that they cannot contain their astonishment. I was
quite out of my mind with delight. "The Flowers of the Forest"--"Auld
Lang Syne"--"Scots wha hae"--"Wandering Willie"--"Jock o'
Hazeldean"--"My Boy Tammie," which my father whistles so often--I had no
conception how much I loved them. The air which pleased Madame Zassetsky
the most was "Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin yet?" It is certainly no
end. And I was so proud that they were appreciated. No triumph of my
own, I am sure, could ever give me such vain-glorious satisfaction. You
remember, perhaps, how conceited I was to find "Auld Lang Syne" popular
in its German dress; but even that was nothing to the pleasure I had
yesterday at the success of our dear airs.
The edition is called _The Songs of Scotland without Words for the
Pianoforte_, edited by J. T. Surenne, published by Wood in George
Street. As these people have been so kind to me, I wish you would get a
copy of this and send it out. If that should be too dear, or anything,
Mr. Mowbray would be able to tell you what is the best substitute, would
he not? _This_ I really would like you to do, as Madame proposes to hire
a copyist to copy those she likes, and so it is evident she wants
them.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
With reference to the political allusions in the following it will be
remembered that this was the date of Mr. Gladstone's dissolution,
followed by his defeat at the polls notwithstanding his declared
intention of abolishing the income-tax.
_[Menton], February 1st, 1874._
I am so sorry to hear of poor Mr. M.'s death. He was really so amiable
and kind that no one could help liking him, and carrying away a
pleasant recollection of his simple, happy ways. I hope you will
communicate to all the family how much I feel with them.
Madame Zassetsky is Nelitchka's mamma. They have both husbands, and they
are in Russia, and the ladies are both here for their health. They make
it very pleasant for me here. To-day we all went a drive to the Cap
Martin, and the Cap was adorable in the splendid sunshine.
I read J. H. A. Macdonald's speech with interest; his sentiments are
quite good, I think. I would support him against M'Laren at once. What
has disgusted me most as yet about this election is the detestable
proposal to do away with the income tax. Is there no shame about the
easy classes? Will those who have nine hundred and ninety-nine
thousandths of the advantage of our society, never consent to pay a
single tax unless it is to be paid also by those who have to bear the
burthen and heat of the day, with almost none of the reward? And the
selfishness here is detestable, because it is so deliberate. A man may
not feel poverty very keenly and may live a quiet self-pleasing life in
pure thoughtlessness; but it is quite another matter when he knows
thoroughly what the issues are, and yet wails pitiably because he is
asked to pay a little more, even if it does fall hardly sometimes, than
those who get almost none of the benefit. It is like the healthy child
crying because they do not give him a goody, as they have given to his
sick brother to take away the taste of the dose. I have not expressed
myself clearly; but for all that, you ought to understand, I think.
_Friday, February 6th._--The wine has arrived, and a dozen of it has
been transferred to me; it is much better than Folleté's stuff. We had a
masquerade last night at the Villa Marina; Nellie in a little red satin
cap, in a red satin suit of boy's clothes, with a funny little black
tail that stuck out behind her, and wagged as she danced about the room,
and gave her a look of Puss in Boots; Pella as a contadina; Monsieur
Robinet as an old woman, and Mademoiselle as an old lady with blue
spectacles.
Yesterday we had a visit from one of whom I had often heard from Mrs.
Sellar--Andrew Lang. He is good-looking, delicate, Oxfordish, etc.
My cloak is the most admirable of all garments. For warmth, unequalled;
for a sort of pensive, Roman stateliness, sometimes warming into
Romantic guitarism, it is simply without concurrent; it starts alone. If
you could see me in my cloak, it would impress you. I am hugely better,
I think: I stood the cold these last few days without trouble, instead
of taking to bed, as I did at Monte Carlo. I hope you are going to send
the Scotch music.
I am stupid at letter-writing again; I don't know why. I hope it may not
be permanent; in the meantime, you must take what you can get and be
hopeful. The Russian ladies are as kind and nice as ever.--Ever your
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Menton, February 6, 1874], Friday._
Last night we had a masquerade at the Villa Marina. Pella was dressed as
a contadina and looked beautiful; and little Nellie, in red satin cap
and wonderful red satin jacket and little breeches as of a nondescript
impossible boy; to which Madame Garschine had slily added a little black
tail that wagged comically behind her as she danced about the room, and
got deliriously tilted up over the middle bar of the back of her chair
as she sat at tea, with an irresistible suggestion of Puss in
Boots--well, Nellie thus masqueraded (to get back to my sentence again)
was all that I could have imagined. She held herself so straight and
stalwart, and had such an infinitesimal dignity of carriage; and then
her big baby face, already quite definitely marked with her sex, came in
so funnily atop that she got clear away from all my power of similes
and resembled nothing in the world but Nellie in masquerade. Then there
was Robinet in a white night gown, old woman's cap (_mutch_, in my
vernacular), snuff-box and crutch doubled up and yet leaping and
gyrating about the floor with incredible agility; and lastly,
Mademoiselle in a sort of elderly walking-dress and with blue
spectacles. And all this incongruous impossible world went tumbling and
dancing and going hand in hand, in flying circles to the music; until it
was enough to make one forget one was in this wicked world, with
Conservative majorities and Presidents MacMahon and all other
abominations about one.
Also last night will be memorable to me for another reason, Madame
Zassetsky having given me a light as to my own intellect. They were
talking about things in history remaining in their minds because they
had assisted them to generalisations. And I began to explain how things
remained in my mind yet more vividly for no reason at all. She got
interested, and made me give her several examples; then she said, with
her little falsetto of discovery, "Mais c'est que vous êtes tout
simplement enfant!" This _mot_ I have reflected on at leisure and there
is some truth in it. Long may I be so. Yesterday too I finished _Ordered
South_ and at last had some pleasure and contentment with it. S. C. has
sent it off to Macmillan's this morning and I hope it may be accepted; I
don't care whether it is or no except for the all-important lucre; the
end of it is good, whether the able editor sees it or no.--Ever your
faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton], February 22nd, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am glad to hear you are better again: nobody can
expect to be _quite_ well in February, that is the only consolation I
can offer you.
Madame Garschine is ill, I am sorry to say, and was confined to bed all
yesterday, which made a great difference to our little society. À propos
of which, what keeps me here is just precisely the said society. These
people are so nice and kind and intelligent, and then as I shall never
see them any more I have a disagreeable feeling about making the move.
With ordinary people in England, you have more or less chance of
re-encountering one another; at least you may see their death in the
papers; but with these people, they die for me and I die for them when
we separate.
Andrew Lang, O you of little comprehension, called on Colvin.
You had not told me before about the fatuous person who thought _Roads_
like Ruskin--surely the vaguest of contemporaneous humanity. Again my
letter writing is of an enfeebled sort.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton], March 1st, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--The weather is again beautiful, soft, warm, cloudy and
soft again, in provincial sense. Very interesting, I find Robertson; and
Dugald Stewart's life of him a source of unquenchable laughter. Dugald
Stewart is not much better than M^cCrie,[12] and puts me much in mind of
him. By the way, I want my father to find out whether any more of Knox's
Works was ever issued than the five volumes, as I have them. There are
some letters that I am very anxious to see, not printed in any of the
five, and perhaps still in MS.
I suppose you are now home again in Auld Reekie: that abode of bliss
does not much attract me yet a bit.
Colvin leaves at the end of this week, I fancy.
How badly yours sincerely writes. O! Madame Zassetsky has a theory that
"Dumbarton Drums" is an epitome of my character and talents. She plays
it, and goes into ecstasies over it, taking everybody to witness that
each note, as she plays it, is the moral of Berecchino. Berecchino is my
stereotype name in the world now. I am announced as M. Berecchino; a
German hand-maiden came to the hotel, the other night, asking for M.
Berecchino; said hand-maiden supposing in good faith that sich was my
name.
Your letter come. O, I am all right now about the parting, because it
will not be death, as we are to write. Of course the correspondence will
drop off: but that's no odds, it breaks the back of the trouble.--Ever
your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton], Monday, March 9th, 1874._
We have all been getting photographed, and the proofs are to be seen
to-day. How they will look I know not. Madame Zassetsky arranged me for
mine, and then said to the photographer: "_C'est mon fils. Il vient
d'avoir dix-neuf ans. Il est tout fier de sa jeune moustache. Tâchez de
la faire paraître_," and then bolted leaving me solemnly alone with the
artist. The artist was quite serious, and explained that he would try to
"_faire ressortir ce que veut Madame la Princesse_" to the best of his
ability; he bowed very much to me, after this, in quality of Prince you
see. I bowed in return and handled the flap of my cloak after the most
princely fashion I could command.--Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_[Menton], March 20, 1874._
I. _My Cloak._--An exception occurs to me to the frugality described a
letter (or may be two) ago; my cloak: it would certainly have been
possible to have got something less expensive; still it is a fine
thought for absent parents that their son possesses simply THE GREATEST
vestment in Mentone. It is great in size, and unspeakably great in
design; _qua_ raiment, it has not its equal.
III. _About Spain._--Well, I don't know about _me_ and Spain. I am
certainly in no humour and in no state of health for voyages and
travels. Towards the end of May (see end), up to which time I seem to
see my plans, I might be up to it, or I might not; I think _not_ myself.
I have given up all idea of going on to Italy, though it seems a pity
when one is so near; and Spain seems to me in the same category. But for
all that, it need not interfere with your voyage thither: I would not
lose the chance, if I wanted.
IV. _Money._--I am much obliged. That makes £180 now. This money irks
me, one feels it more than when living at home. However, if I have
health, I am in a fair way to make a bit of a livelihood for myself. Now
please don't take this up wrong; don't suppose I am thinking of the
transaction between you and me; I think of the transaction between me
and mankind. I think of all this money wasted in keeping up a structure
that may never be worth it--all this good money sent after bad. I shall
be seriously angry if you take me up wrong.
V. _Roads._--The familiar false concord is not certainly a form of
colloquialism that I should feel inclined to encourage. It is very odd;
I wrote it very carefully, and you seem to have read it very carefully,
and yet none of us found it out. The Deuce is in it.
VI. _Russian Prince._--A cousin of these ladies is come to stay with
them--Prince Léon Galitzin. He is the image of--whom?--guess now--do you
give it up?--Hillhouse.
VII. _Miscellaneous._--I send you a pikler of me in the cloak. I think
it is like a hunchback. The moustache is clearly visible to the naked
eye--O diable! what do I hear in my lug? A mosquito--the first of the
season. Bad luck to him!
Good nicht and joy be wi' you a'. I am going to bed.--Ever your
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_Note to III._--I had counted on being back at Embro' by the last week
or so of May.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
This describes another member of the Russian party, recently arrived
at Mentone, who did his best, very nearly with success, to persuade
Stevenson to join him in the study of law for some terms under the
celebrated Professor Jhering at Göttingen.
_[Menton], March 28, 1874._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--Beautiful weather, perfect weather; sun, pleasant
cooling winds; health very good; only incapacity to write.
The only new cloud on my horizon (I mean this in no menacing sense) is
the Prince, I have philosophical and artistic discussions with the
Prince. He is capable of talking for two hours upon end, developing his
theory of everything under Heaven from his first position, which is that
there is no straight line. Doesn't that sound like a game of my
father's--I beg your pardon, you haven't read it--I don't mean _my_
father, I mean Tristram Shandy's. He is very clever, and it is an
immense joke to hear him unrolling all the problems of life--philosophy,
science, what you will--in this charmingly cut-and-dry,
here-we-are-again kind of manner. He is better to listen to than to
argue withal. When you differ from him, he lifts up his voice and
thunders; and you know that the thunder of an excited foreigner often
miscarries. One stands aghast, marvelling how such a colossus of a man,
in such a great commotion of spirit, can open his mouth so much and
emit such a still small voice at the hinder end of it all. All this
while he walks about the room, smokes cigarettes, occupies divers chairs
for divers brief spaces, and casts his huge arms to the four winds like
the sails of a mill. He is a most sportive Prince.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Menton, April 1874], Monday._
My last night at Mentone. I cannot tell how strange and sad I feel. I
leave behind me a dear friend whom I have but little hope of seeing
again between the eyes.
To-day, I hadn't arranged all my plans till five o'clock: I hired a poor
old cabman, whose uncomfortable vehicle and sorry horse make everyone
despise him, and set off to get money and say farewells. It was a dark
misty evening; the mist was down over all the hills; the peach-trees in
beautiful pink bloom. Arranged my plans; that merits a word by the way
if I can be bothered. I have half arranged to go to Göttingen in summer
to a course of lectures. Galitzin is responsible for this. He tells me
the professor is to law what Darwin has been to Natural History, and I
should like to understand Roman Law and a knowledge of law is so
necessary for all I hope to do.
My poor old cabman; his one horse made me three-quarters of an hour too
late for dinner, but I had not the heart to discharge him and take
another. Poor soul, he was so pleased with his pourboire, I have made
Madame Zassetsky promise to employ him often; so he will be something
the better for me, little as he will know it.
I have read _Ordered South_; it is pretty decent I think, but poor,
stiff, limping stuff at best--not half so well straightened up as
_Roads_. However the stuff is good.
God help us all, this is a rough world: address Hotel St. Romain, rue
St. Roch, Paris. I draw the line: a chapter finished.--Ever your
faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The line.
_______________________________
That bit of childishness has made me laugh, do you blame me?
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See Scott himself, in the preface to the Author's edition.
[8] _i.e._ on his book, _The Reign of Law_.
[9] Compare the paragraph in _Ordered South_ describing the state of
mind of the invalid doubtful of recovery, and ending: "He will pray
for Medea; when she comes, let her either rejuvenate or slay."
[10] Alluding to Heine's _Ritter von dem heiligen Geist_.
[11] _Poste Restante_
[12] Thomas M^cCrie, D.D., author of the _Life of John Knox_, _Life
of Andrew Melville_, etc.
III
STUDENT DAYS--_Concluded_
HOME AGAIN--LITERATURE AND LAW
MAY 1874--JUNE 1875
Returning to Edinburgh by way of Paris in May 1874, Stevenson went to
live with his parents at Swanston and Edinburgh and resumed his reading
for the Bar. Illness and absence had done their work, and the old
harmony of the home was henceforth quite re-established. In his spare
time during the next year he worked hard at his chosen art, trying his
hand at essays, short stories, criticisms, and prose poems. In all this
experimental writing he had neither the aims nor the facility of the
journalist, but strove always after the higher qualities of literature,
and was never satisfied with what he had done. To find for all he had to
say words of vital aptness and animation--to communicate as much as
possible of what he has somewhere called "the incommunicable thrill of
things"--was from the first his endeavour in literature, nay more, it
was the main passion of his life: and the instrument that should serve
his purpose could not be forged in haste. Neither was it easy for this
past master of the random, the unexpected, the brilliantly back-foremost
and topsy-turvy in talk, to learn in writing the habit of orderly
arrangement and organic sequence which even the lightest forms of
literature cannot lack.
In the course of this summer Stevenson's excursions included a week or
two spent with me at Hampstead, during which he joined the Savile Club
and made some acquaintance with London literary society; a yachting trip
with his friend Sir Walter Simpson in the western islands of Scotland; a
journey to Barmouth and Llandudno with his parents; and in the late
autumn a walking tour in Buckinghamshire. The Scottish winter (1874-75)
tried him severely, as Scottish winters always did, but was enlivened by
a new and what was destined to be a very fruitful and intimate
friendship, the origin of which was described in the following letters,
namely that of Mr. W. E. Henley. In April 1875 he made his first visit,
in the company of his cousin R. A. M. Stevenson to the artist haunts of
the forest of Fontainebleau, whence he returned to finish his reading
for the Scottish Bar and face the examination which was before him in
July. During all this year, as will be seen, his chief, almost his
exclusive, correspondents and confidants continued to be the same as in
the preceding winter.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Written in Paris on his way home to Edinburgh. Some of our talk at
Mentone had run on the scheme of a spectacle play on the story of the
burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus by Herostratus, the type of
insane vanity _in excelsis_.
[_Hôtel St. Romain, Paris, end of April 1874._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am a great deal better, but still have to take care.
I have got quite a lot of Victor Hugo done; and not I think so badly:
pitching into this work has straightened me up a good deal. It is the
devil's own weather but that is a trifle. I must know when Cornhill must
see it. I can send some of it in a week easily, but I still have to
read _The Laughing Man_,[13] and I mean to wait until I get to London
and have the loan of that from you. If I buy anything more this
production will not pay itself. The first part is not too well written,
though it has good stuff in it.
My people have made no objection to my going to Göttingen; but my body
has made I think very strong objections. And you know if it is cold
here, it must be colder there. It is a sore pity; that was a great
chance for me and it is gone. I know very well that between Galitzin and
this swell professor I should have become a good specialist in law and
how that would have changed and bettered all my work it is easy to see;
however I must just be content to live as I have begun, an ignorant,
_chic-y_ penny-a-liner. May the Lord have mercy on my soul!
Going home not very well is an astonishing good hold for me. I shall
simply be a prince.
Have you had any thought about Diana of the Ephesians? I will straighten
up a play for you, but it may take years. A play is a thing just like a
story, it begins to disengage itself and then unrolls gradually in
block. It will disengage itself some day for me and then I will send you
the nugget and you will see if you can make anything out of it.--Ever
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
This and the following letters were written after Stevenson's return
to Scotland. The essay _Ordered South_ appeared in Macmillan's
Magazine at this date; that on Victor Hugo's romances in the Cornhill
a little later.
_[Swanston], May 1874, Monday._
We are now at Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Edinburgh. The garden is
but little clothed yet, for, you know, here we are six hundred feet
above the sea. It is very cold, and has sleeted this morning. Everything
wintry. I am very jolly, however, having finished Victor Hugo, and just
looking round to see what I should next take up. I have been reading
Roman Law and Calvin this morning.
_Evening._--I went up the hill a little this afternoon. The air was
invigorating, but it was so cold that my scalp was sore. With this high
wintry wind, and the grey sky, and faint northern daylight, it was quite
wonderful to hear such a clamour of blackbirds coming up to me out of
the woods, and the bleating of sheep being shorn in a field near the
garden, and to see golden patches of blossom already on the furze, and
delicate green shoots upright and beginning to frond out, among last
year's russet bracken. Flights of crows were passing continually between
the wintry leaden sky and the wintry cold-looking hills. It was the
oddest conflict of seasons. A wee rabbit--this year's making, beyond
question--ran out from under my feet, and was in a pretty perturbation,
until he hit upon a lucky juniper and blotted himself there promptly.
Evidently this gentleman had not had much experience of life.
I have made an arrangement with my people: I am to have £84 a year--I
only asked for £80 on mature reflection--and as I should soon make a
good bit by my pen, I shall be very comfortable. We are all as jolly as
can be together, so that is a great thing gained.
_Wednesday._--Yesterday I received a letter that gave me much pleasure
from a poor fellow-student of mine, who has been all winter very ill,
and seems to be but little better even now. He seems very much pleased
with _Ordered South_. "A month ago," he says, "I could scarcely have
ventured to read it; to-day I felt on reading it as I did on the first
day that I was able to sun myself a little in the open air." And much
more to the like effect. It is very gratifying.--Ever your faithful
friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Mr. John Morley had asked for a notice by R. L. S. for the
Fortnightly Review, which he was then editing, of Lord Lytton's newly
published volume, _Fables in Song._
_Swanston, Lothianburn, Edinburgh [May 1874]._
All right. I'll see what I can do. Before I could answer I had to see
the book; and my good father, after trying at all our libraries, bought
it for me. I like the book; that is some of it and I'll try to lick up
four or five pages for the Fortnightly.
It is still as cold as cold, hereaway. And the Spring hammering away at
the New Year in despite. Poor Spring, scattering flowers with red hands
and preparing for Summer's triumphs all in a shudder herself. Health
still good, and the humour for work enduring.
Jenkin wrote to say he would second me in such a kind little notelet. I
shall go in for it (the Savile I mean) whether _Victor Hugo_ is accepted
or not, being now a man of means. Have I told you by the way that I have
now an income of £84, or as I prefer to put it for dignity's sake, two
thousand one hundred francs, a year.
In lively hope of better weather and your arrival hereafter.--I remain,
yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_Swanston, Wednesday, May 1874._
Struggling away at _Fables in Song_. I am much afraid I am going to make
a real failure; the time is so short, and I am so out of the humour.
Otherwise very calm and jolly: cold still _impossible_.
_Thursday._--I feel happier about the _Fables_, and it is warmer a bit;
but my body is most decrepit, and I can just manage to be cheery and
tread down hypochondria under foot by work. I lead such a funny life,
utterly without interest or pleasure outside of my work: nothing,
indeed, but work all day long, except a short walk alone on the cold
hills, and meals, and a couple of pipes with my father in the evening.
It is surprising how it suits me, and how happy I keep.
_Friday._--"My dear Stevenson how do you do? do you annoying yourself or
no? when we go to the Olivses it allways rememberse us you. Nelly and my
aunt went away. And when the organ come and play the Soldaten it mak us
think of Nelly. It is so sad I allmoste went away. I make my baths; and
then we go to Franzensbad; will you come to see us?"
There is Pella's letter facsimile, punctuation, spelling and all. Mme.
Garschine's was rather sad and gave me the blues a bit; I think it very
likely I may run over to Franzensbad for a week or so this autumn, if I
am wanted that is to say: I shall be able to afford it easily.
I have got on rather better with the _Fables_; perhaps it won't be a
failure, though I fear. To-day the sun shone brightly although the wind
was cold: I was up the hill a good time. It is very solemn to see the
top of one hill steadfastly regarding you over the shoulder of another:
I never before to-day fully realised the haunting of such a gigantic
face, as it peers over into a valley and seems to command all corners. I
had a long talk with the shepherd about foreign lands, and sheep. A
Russian had once been on the farm as a pupil; he told me that he had the
utmost pity for the Russian's capacities, since (dictionary and all) he
had never managed to understand him; it must be remembered that my
friend the shepherd spoke Scotch of the broadest and often enough
employs words which I do not understand myself.
_Saturday._--I have received such a nice long letter (four sides) from
Leslie Stephen to-day about my _Victor Hugo_. It is accepted. This ought
to have made me gay, but it hasn't. I am not likely to be much of a
tonic to-night. I have been very cynical over myself to-day, partly,
perhaps, because I have just finished some of the deedest rubbish about
Lord Lytton's _Fables_ that an intelligent editor ever shot into his
wastepaper basket. If Morley prints it I shall be glad, but my respect
for him will be shaken.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Enclosing Mr. Leslie Stephen's letter accepting the article on Victor
Hugo: the first of Stevenson's many contributions to the Cornhill
Magazine.
[_Edinburgh, May 1874._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I send you L. Stephen's letter which is certainly very
kind and jolly to get[14]. I wrote some stuff about Lord Lytton, but I
had not the heart to submit it to you. I sent it direct to Morley, with
a Spartan billet. God knows it is bad enough; but it cost me labour
incredible. I was so out of the vein, it would have made you weep to see
me digging the rubbish out of my seven wits with groanings unutterable.
I certainly mean to come to London, and likely before long if all goes
well; so on that ground, I cannot force you to come to Scotland. Still,
the weather is now warm and jolly, and of course it would not be
expensive to live here so long as that did not bore you. If you could
see the hills out of my window to-night, you would start incontinent.
However do as you will, and if the mountain will not come to Mahomet
Mahomet will come to the mountain in due time, Mahomet being me and the
mountain you, Q.E.D., F.R.S.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Swanston, May 1874], Tuesday._
Another cold day; yet I have been along the hillside, wondering much at
idiotic sheep, and raising partridges at every second step. One little
plover is the object of my firm adherence. I pass his nest every day,
and if you saw how he flies by me, and almost into my face, crying and
flapping his wings, to direct my attention from his little treasure, you
would have as kind a heart to him as I. To-day I saw him not, although I
took my usual way; and I am afraid that some person has abused his
simple wiliness and harried (as we say in Scotland) the nest. I feel
much righteous indignation against such imaginary aggressor. However,
one must not be too chary of the lower forms. To-day I sat down on a
tree-stump at the skirt of a little strip of planting, and thoughtlessly
began to dig out the touchwood with an end of twig. I found I had
carried ruin, death, and universal consternation into a little community
of ants; and this set me a-thinking of how close we are environed with
frail lives, so that we can do nothing without spreading havoc over all
manner of perishable homes and interests and affections; and so on to my
favourite mood of an holy terror for all action and all inaction
equally--a sort of shuddering revulsion from the necessary
responsibilities of life. We must not be too scrupulous of others, or we
shall die. Conscientiousness is a sort of moral opium; an excitant in
small doses, perhaps, but at bottom a strong narcotic.
_Saturday._--I have been two days in Edinburgh, and so had not the
occasion to write to you. Morley has accepted the _Fables_, and I have
seen it in proof, and think less of it than ever. However, of course, I
shall send you a copy of the magazine without fail, and you can be as
disappointed as you like, or the reverse if you can. I would willingly
recall it if I could.
Try, by way of change, Byron's _Mazeppa_; you will be astonished. It is
grand and no mistake, and one sees through it a fire, and a passion, and
a rapid intuition of genius, that makes one rather sorry for one's own
generation of better writers, and--I don't know what to say; I was going
to say "smaller men"; but that's not right; read it, and you will feel
what I cannot express. Don't be put out by the beginning; persevere, and
you will find yourself thrilled before you are at an end with it.
_Sunday._--The white mist has obliterated the hills and lies heavily
round the cottage, as though it were laying siege to it; the trees wave
their branches in the wind, with a solemn melancholy manner, like
people swaying themselves to and fro in pain. I am alone in the house,
all the world being gone to church; and even in here at the side of the
fire, the air clings about one like a wet blanket. Yet this morning,
when I was just awake, I had thought it was going to be a fine day.
First, a cock crew, loudly and beautifully and often; then followed a
long interval of silence and darkness, the grey morning began to get
into my room; and then from the other side of the garden, a blackbird
executed one long flourish, and in a moment as if a spring had been
touched or a sluice-gate opened, the whole garden just brimmed and ran
over with bird-songs.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
For a part of June Stevenson had come south, spending most of his
time in lodgings with me at Hampstead (where he got the idea for part
of his essay _Notes on the Movements of Young Children_) and making
his first appearance at the Savile Club. Trouble awaited him after
his return.
_[Swanston, June 1874], Wednesday._
News reaches me that Bob is laid down with diphtheria; and you know what
that means.
_Night._--I am glad to say that I have on the whole a good account of
Bob and I do hope he may pull through in spite of all. I went down and
saw the doctor; but it is not thought right that I should go in to see
him in case of contagion: you know it is a very contagious malady.
_Thursday._--It is curious how calm I am in such a case. I wait with
perfect composure for farther news; I can do nothing; why should I
disturb myself? And yet if things go wrong I shall be in a fine way I
can tell you.
How curiously we are built up into our false positions. The other day,
having toothache and the black dog on my back generally, I was rude to
one of the servants at the dinner-table. And nothing of course can be
more disgusting than for a man to speak harshly to a young woman who
will lose her place if she speak back to him; and of course I determined
to apologise. Well, do you know, it was perhaps four days before I found
courage enough, and I felt as red and ashamed as could be. Why? because
I had been rude? not a bit of it; because I was doing a thing that would
be called ridiculous in thus apologising. I did not know I had so much
respect of middle-class notions before; this is my right hand which I
must cut off. Hold the arm please: once--twice--thrice: the offensive
member is amputated: let us hope I shall never be such a cad any more as
to be ashamed of being a gentleman.
_Night._--I suppose I must have been more affected than I thought; at
least I found I could not work this morning and had to go out. The whole
garden was filled with a high westerly wind, coming straight out of the
hills and richly scented with furze--or whins, as we would say. The
trees were all in a tempest and roared like a heavy surf; the paths all
strewn with fallen apple-blossom and leaves. I got a quiet seat behind a
yew and went away into a meditation. I was very happy after my own
fashion, and whenever there came a blink of sunshine or a bird whistled
higher than usual, or a little powder of white apple-blossom came over
the hedge and settled about me in the grass, I had the gladdest little
flutter at my heart and stretched myself for very voluptuousness. I
wasn't altogether taken up with my private pleasures, however, and had
many a look down ugly vistas in the future, for Bob and others. But we
must all be content and brave, and look eagerly for these little
passages of happiness by the wayside, and go on afterwards, savouring
them under the tongue.
_Friday._--Our garden has grown beautiful at last, beautiful with fresh
foliage and daisied grass. The sky is still cloudy and the day perhaps
even a little gloomy; but under this grey roof, in this shaded
temperate light, how delightful the new summer is.
When I shall come to London must always be problematical like all my
movements, and of course this sickness of Bob's makes it still more
uncertain. If all goes well I may have to go to the country and take
care of him in his convalescence. But I shall come shortly. Do not hurry
to write to me; I had rather _you_ had ten minutes more of good,
friendly sleep, than I a longer letter; and you know I am rather partial
to your letters. Yesterday, by the bye, I received the proof of _Victor
Hugo_; it is not nicely written, but the stuff is capital, I think.
Modesty is my most remarkable quality, I may remark in passing.
1.30.--I was out, behind the yew hedge, reading the _Comtesse de
Rudolstadt_ when I found my eyes grow weary, and looked up from the
book. O the rest of the quiet greens and whites, of the daisied surface!
I was very peaceful, but it began to sprinkle rain and so I fain to come
in for a moment and chat with you. By the way, I must send you
_Consuelo_; you said you had quite forgotten it if I remember aright;
and surely a book that could divert me, when I thought myself on the
very edge of the grave, from the work that I so much desired and was yet
unable to do, and from many painful thoughts, should somewhat support
and amuse you under all the hard things that may be coming upon you. If
you should wonder why I am writing to you so voluminously, know that it
is because I am not suffering myself to work, and in idleness, as in
death, etc.
_Saturday._--I have had a very cruel day. I heard this morning that
yesterday Bob had been very much worse and I went down to Portobello
with all sorts of horrible presentiments. I was glad when I turned the
corner and saw the blinds still up. He was definitely better, if the
word definitely can be used about such a detestably insidious complaint.
I have ordered _Consuelo_ for you, and you should have it soon this
week; I mean next week of course; I am thinking when you will receive
this letter, not of now when I am writing it.
I am so tired; but I am very hopeful. All will be well some time, if it
be only when we are dead. One thing I see so clearly. Death is the end
neither of joy nor sorrow. Let us pass into the clods and come up again
as grass and flowers; we shall still be this wonderful, shrinking,
sentient matter--we shall still thrill to the sun and grow relaxed and
quiet after rain, and have all manner of pains and pleasures that we
know not of now. Consciousness, and ganglia, and suchlike, are after all
but theories. And who knows? This God may not be cruel when all is done;
he may relent and be good to us _à la fin des fins_. Think of how he
tempers our afflictions to us, of how tenderly he mixes in bright joys
with the grey web of trouble and care that we call our life. Think of
how he gives, who takes away. Out of the bottom of the miry clay I write
this; and I look forward confidently; I have faith after all; I believe,
I hope, I _will_ not have it reft from me; there _is_ something good
behind it all, bitter and terrible as it seems. The infinite majesty (as
it will be always in regard to us the bubbles of an hour) the infinite
majesty must have moments, if it were no more, of greatness; must
sometimes be touched with a feeling for our infirmities, must sometimes
relent and be clement to those frail playthings that he has made, and
made so bitterly alive. Must it not be so, my dear friend, out of the
depths I cry? I feel it, now when I am most painfully conscious of his
cruelty. He must relent. He must reward. He must give some indemnity, if
it were but in the quiet of a daisy, tasting of the sun and the soft
rain and the sweet shadow of trees, for all the dire fever that he makes
us bear in this poor existence. We make too much of this human life of
ours. It may be that two clods together, two flowers together, two grown
trees together touching each other deliciously with their spread leaves,
it may be that these dumb things have their own priceless sympathies,
surer and more untroubled than ours.
I don't know quite whether I have wandered. Forgive me, I feel as if I
had relieved myself; so perhaps it may not be unpleasant for you
either.--Believe me, ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL,
_Swanston, Sunday (June 1874)._
DEAR FRIEND,--I fear to have added something to your troubles by telling
you of the grief in which I find myself; but one cannot always come to
meet a friend smiling, although we should try for the best cheer
possible. All to-day I have been very weary, resting myself after the
trouble and fatigue of yesterday. The day was warm enough, but it blew a
whole gale of wind; and the noise and the purposeless rude violence of
it somehow irritated and depressed me. There was good news however,
though the anxiety must still be long. O peace, peace, whither are you
fled and where have you carried my old quiet humour? I am so bitter and
disquiet and speak even spitefully to people. And somehow, though I
promise myself amendment, day after day finds me equally rough and sour
to those about me. But this would pass with good health and good
weather; and at bottom I am not unhappy; the soil is still good although
it bears thorns; and the time will come again for flowers.
_Wednesday._--I got your letter this morning and have to thank you so
much for it. Bob is much better; and I do hope out of danger. To-day has
been more glorious than I can tell you. It has been the first day of
blue sky that we have had; and it was happiness for a week to see the
clear bright outline of the hills and the glory of sunlit foliage and
the darkness of green shadows, and the big white clouds that went
voyaging overhead deliberately. My two cousins from Portobello were
here; and they and I and Maggie ended the afternoon by lying half an
hour together on a shawl. The big cloud had all been carded out into a
thin luminous white gauze, miles away; and miles away too seemed the
little black birds that passed between this and us as we lay with faces
upturned. The similarity of what we saw struck in us a curious
similarity of mood; and in consequence of the small size of the shawl,
we all lay so close that we half pretended, half felt, we had lost our
individualities and had become merged and mixed up in a quadruple
existence. We had the shadow of an umbrella over ourselves, and when any
one reached out a brown hand into the golden sunlight overhead we all
feigned that we did not know whose hand it was, until at last I don't
really think we quite did. Little black insects also passed over us and
in the same half wanton manner we pretended we could not distinguish
them from the birds. There was a splendid sunlit silence about us, and
as Katharine said the heavens seemed to be dropping oil on us, or
honey-dew--it was all so bland.
_Thursday evening_.--I have seen Bob again, and I am charmed at his
convalescence. Le bon Dieu has been _so_ bon this time: here's his
health! Still the danger is not over by a good way; it is so miserable a
thing for reverses.
I hear the wind outside roaring among our leafy trees as the surf on
some loud shore. The hill-top is whelmed in a passing rain-shower and
the mist lies low in the valleys. But the night is warm and in our
little sheltered garden it is fair and pleasant, and the borders and
hedges and evergreens and boundary trees are all distinct in an equable
diffusion of light from the buried moon and the day not altogether
passed away. My dear friend, as I hear the wind rise and die away in
that tempestuous world of foliage, I seem to be conscious of I know not
what breath of creation. I know what this warm wet wind of the west
betokens, I know how already, in this morning's sunshine, we could see
all the hills touched and accentuated with little delicate golden
patches of young fern; how day by day the flowers thicken and the leaves
unfold; how already the year is a-tip-toe on the summit of its finished
youth; and I am glad and sad to the bottom of my heart at the knowledge.
If you knew how different I am from what I was last year; how the
knowledge of you has changed and finished me, you would be glad and sad
also.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The strain of anxiety recorded in the two last letters had given a
shake to Stevenson's own health, and it was agreed that he should go
for a yachting tour with Sir Walter Simpson in the Inner Hebrides.
_[Edinburgh, June 1874], Thursday._
I have been made so miserable by Chopin's _Marche funèbre_. Try two of
Schubert's songs, "_Ich unglückselige Atlas_" and "_Du schönes
Fischermädchen_"--they are very jolly. I have read aloud my death-cycle
from Walt Whitman this evening. I was very much affected myself, never
so much before, and it fetched the auditory considerable. Reading these
things that I like aloud when I am painfully excited is the keenest
artistic pleasure I know. It does seem strange that these dependent
arts--singing, acting, and in its small way reading aloud seem the best
rewarded of all arts. I am sure it is more exciting for me to read than
it was for W. W. to write; and how much more must this be so with
singing.
_Friday._--I am going in the yacht on Wednesday. I am not right yet, and
I hope the yacht will set me up. I am too tired to-night to make more of
it. Good-bye.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Edinburgh, June 1874], Friday._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am seedy--very seedy, I may say. I am quite unfit for
any work or any pleasure; and generally very sick. I am going away next
week on Wednesday for my cruise which I hope will set me up again. I
should like a proof here up to Wednesday morning, or at Greenock,
Tontine Hotel, up to Friday morning, as I don't quite know my future
address. I hope you are better, and that it was not that spell of work
you had that did the harm. It is to my spurt of work that I am
_redevable_ for my harm. Walt Whitman is at the bottom of it all, _'cré
nom_! What a pen I have!--a new pen, God be praised, how smoothly it
functions! Would that I could work as well. Chorus--Would that both of
us could work as well--would that all of us could work as well!--Ever
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Bob is better; but he might be better yet. All goes smoothly
except my murrained health.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_Swanston [Summer 1874]._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am back again here, as brown as a berry with sun, and
in good form. I have been and gone and lost my portmanteau, with _Walt
Whitman_ in it and a lot of notes. This is a nuisance. However, I am
pretty happy, only wearying for news of you and for your address.
_Friday._--_À la bonne heure!_ I hear where you are and that you are
apparently fairish well. That is good at least. I am full of Reformation
work; up to the eyes in it; and begin to feel learned. A beautiful day
outside, though something cold.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Of the projects here mentioned, that of the little book of essays on
the enjoyment of the world never took shape, nor were those
contributions towards it which he printed in the Portfolio ever
re-published until after the writer's death. _The Appeal to the
Clergy of the Church of Scotland_ was printed in 1874, published as a
pamphlet in February 1875, and attracted, I believe, no attention
whatever. The "fables" must have been some of the earliest numbers of
the series continued at odd times till near the date of his death and
published posthumously: I do not know which, but should guess _The
House of Eld_, _Yellow Paint_, and perhaps those in the vein of
Celtic mystery, _The Touchstone_, _The Poor Thing_, _The Song of
To-morrow_.
_[Swanston, Summer 1874], Tuesday._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--What is new with you? There is nothing new with me:
Knox and his females begin to get out of restraint altogether; the
subject expands so damnably, I know not where to cut it off. I have
another paper for the PTFL[15] on the stocks: a sequel to the two
others; also, that is to say, a word in season as to contentment and a
hint to the careless to look around them for disregarded pleasures.
Seeley wrote to me asking me "to propose" something: I suppose he
means--well, I suppose I don't know what he means. But I shall write to
him (if you think it wise) when I send him this paper, saying that my
writing is more a matter of God's disposition than of man's proposal;
that I had from _Roads_ upward ever intended to make a little budget of
little papers all with this intention before them, call it ethical or
æsthetic as you will; and thus I shall leave it to him (if he likes) to
regard this little budget, as slowly they come forth, as a unity in its
own small way. Twelve or twenty such essays, some of them mainly ethical
and expository, put together in a little book with narrow print in each
page, antique, vine leaves about, and the following title.
XII (OR XX) ESSAYS ON THE ENJOYMENT OF THE WORLD:
By Robert Louis Stevenson
(_A motto in italics_)
Publisher
Place and date
You know the class of old book I have in my head. I smack my lips; would
it not be nice! I am going to launch on Scotch ecclesiastical affairs,
in a tract addressed to the Clergy; in which doctrinal matters being
laid aside, I contend simply that they should be just and dignified men
at a certain crisis: this for the honour of humanity. Its authorship
must, of course, be secret or the publication would be useless. You
shall have a copy of course, and may God help you to understand it.
I have done no more to my fables. I find I must let things take their
time. I am constant to my schemes; but I must work at them fitfully as
the humour moves.
--To return, I wonder, if I have to make a budget of such essays as I
dream, whether Seeley would publish them: I should give them unity, you
know, by the doctrinal essays; nor do I think these would be the least
agreeable. You must give me your advice and tell me whether I should
throw out this delicate feeler to R. S.[16]; or if not, what I am to say
to this "proposal" business.
I shall go to England or Wales, with parents, shortly: after which, dash
to Poland before setting in for the dismal session at Edinburgh.
Spirits good, with a general sense of hollowness underneath: wanity of
wanities etc.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Parents capital; thanks principally to them; yours truly still
rather bitter, but less so.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The last paragraph of the following means that Dr. Appleton, the
amiable and indefatigable editor of the Academy, then recently
founded, had been a little disturbed in mind by some of the
contributions of his brilliant young friend, but allowed his academic
conscience to be salved by the fact of their signature.
[_Swanston, Summer 1874._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Am I mad? Have I lived thus long and have you known me
thus long, to no purpose? Do you imagine I could ever write an essay a
month, or promise an essay even every three months? I declare I would
rather die than enter into any such arrangement. The Essays must fall
from me, Essay by Essay, as they ripen; and all that my communication
with Seeley would effect would be to make him see more in them than mere
occasional essays; or at least _look_ far more faithfully, in which
spirit men rarely look in vain. You know both _Roads_ and my little
girls[17] are a part of the scheme which dates from early at Mentone. My
word to Seeley, therefore, would be to inform him of what I hope will
lie ultimately behind them, of how I regard them as contributions
towards a friendlier and more thoughtful way of looking about one, etc.
One other purpose of telling him would be that I should feel myself more
at liberty to write as I please, and not bound to drag in a tag about
Art every time to make it more suitable. Tying myself down to time is an
impossibility. You know my own description of myself as a person with a
poetic character and no poetic talent: just as my prose muse has all the
ways of a poetic one, and I must take my Essays as they come to me. If I
got 12 of 'em done in two years, I should be pleased. Never, please, let
yourself imagine that I am fertile; I am constipated in the brains.
Look here, Appleton dined here last night and was delightful after the
manner of our Appleton: I was none the less pleased, because I was
somewhat amused, to hear of your kind letter to him in defence of my
productions. I was amused at the tranquil dishonesty with which he told
me that I must put my name to all I write and then all will be
well.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
Written on an expedition to Wales with his parents.
_Train between Edinburgh and Chester, August 8, 1874._
My father and mother reading. I think I shall talk to you for a moment
or two. This morning at Swanston, the birds, poor creatures, had the
most troubled hour or two; evidently there was a hawk in the
neighbourhood; not one sang; and the whole garden thrilled with little
notes of warning and terror. I did not know before that the voice of
birds could be so tragically expressive. I had always heard them before
express their trivial satisfaction with the blue sky and the return of
daylight. Really, they almost frightened me; I could hear mothers and
wives in terror for those who were dear to them; it was easy to
translate, I wish it were as easy to write; but it is very hard in this
flying train, or I would write you more.
_Chester._--I like this place much; but somehow I feel glad when I get
among the quiet eighteenth century buildings, in cosy places with some
elbow room about them, after the older architecture. This other is
bedevilled and furtive; it seems to stoop; I am afraid of trap-doors,
and could not go pleasantly into such houses. I don't know how much of
this is legitimately the effect of the architecture; little enough
possibly; possibly far the most part of it comes from bad historical
novels and the disquieting statuary that garnishes some façades.
On the way, to-day, I passed through my dear Cumberland country. Nowhere
to as great a degree can one find the combination of lowland and
highland beauties; the outline of the blue hills is broken by the
outline of many tumultuous tree-clumps; and the broad spaces of moorland
are balanced by a network of deep hedgerows that might rival Suffolk, in
the foreground.--How a railway journey shakes and discomposes one, mind
and body! I grow blacker and blacker in humour as the day goes on; and
when at last I am let out, and have the fresh air about me, it is as
though I were born again, and the sick fancies flee away from my mind
like swans in spring.
I want to come back on what I have said about eighteenth century and
middle-age houses: I do not know if I have yet explained to you the sort
of loyalty, of urbanity, that there is about the one to my mind; the
spirit of a country orderly and prosperous, a flavour of the presence of
magistrates and well-to-do merchants in bag-wigs, the clink of glasses
at night in fire-lit parlours, something certain and civic and domestic,
is all about these quiet, staid, shapely houses, with no character but
their exceeding shapeliness, and the comely external utterance that they
make of their internal comfort. Now the others are, as I have said, both
furtive and bedevilled; they are sly and grotesque; they combine their
sort of feverish grandeur with their sort of secretive baseness, after
the manner of a Charles the Ninth. They are peopled for me with persons
of the same fashion. Dwarfs and sinister people in cloaks are about
them; and I seem to divine crypts, and, as I said, trap-doors. O God be
praised that we live in this good daylight and this good peace.
_Barmouth, August 9th._--To-day we saw the cathedral at Chester; and,
far more delightful, saw and heard a certain inimitable verger who took
us round. He was full of a certain recondite, far-away humour that did
not quite make you laugh at the time, but was somehow laughable to
recollect. Moreover, he had so far a just imagination, and could put one
in the right humour for seeing an old place, very much as, according to
my favourite text, Scott's novels and poems do for one. His account of
the monks in the Scriptorium, with their cowls over their heads, in a
certain sheltered angle of the cloister where the big cathedral building
kept the sun off the parchments, was all that could be wished; and so
too was what he added of the others pacing solemnly behind them and
dropping, ever and again, on their knees before a little shrine there is
in the wall, "to keep 'em in the frame of mind." You will begin to think
me unduly biassed in this verger's favour if I go on to tell you his
opinion of me. We got into a little side chapel, whence we could hear
the choir children at practice, and I stopped a moment listening to
them, with, I dare say, a very bright face, for the sound was delightful
to me. "Ah," says he, "you're _very_ fond of music." I said I was. "Yes,
I could tell that by your head," he answered. "There's a deal in that
head." And he shook his own solemnly. I said it might be so, but I found
it hard, at least, to get it out. Then my father cut in brutally, said
anyway I had no ear, and left the verger so distressed and shaken in the
foundations of his creed that, I hear, he got my father aside afterwards
and said he was sure there was something in my face, and wanted to know
what it was, if not music. He was relieved when he heard that I occupied
myself with literature (which word, note here, I do now spell
correctly). Good-night, and here's the verger's health!
_Friday._--Yesterday received the letter you know of. I have finished my
Portfolio paper, not very good but with things in it: I don't know if
they will take it; and I have got a good start made with my _John Knox_
articles. The weather here is rainy and miserable and windy: it is warm
and not over boisterous for a certain sort of pleasure. This place, as
I have made my first real inquisition into it to-night is curious
enough; all the days I have been here, I have been at work, and so I was
quite new to it.
_Saturday._--A most beautiful day. We took a most beautiful drive, also
up the banks of the river. The heather and furze are in flower at once
and make up a splendid richness of colour on the hills; the trees were
beautiful; there was a bit of winding road with larches on one hand and
oaks on the other; the oaks were in shadow and printed themselves off at
every corner on the sunlit background of the larches. We passed a little
family of children by the roadside. The youngest of all sat a good way
apart from the others on the summit of a knoll; it was ensconced in an
old tea-box, out of which issued its head and shoulders in a blue cloak
and scarlet hat. O if you could have seen its dignity! It was
deliciously humorous: and this little piece of comic self-satisfaction
was framed in wonderfully by the hills and the sunlit estuary. We saw
another child in a cottage garden. She had been sick, it seemed, and was
taking the air quietly for health's sake. Over her pale face, she had
decorated herself with all available flowers and weeds; and she was
driving one chair as a horse, sitting in another by way of carriage. We
cheered her as we passed, and she acknowledged the compliment like a
queen. I like children better every day, I think, and most other things
less. _John Knox_ goes on, and a horrible story of a nurse which I think
almost too cruel to go on with: I wonder why my stories are always so
nasty.[18] I am still well, and in good spirits. I say, by the way, have
you any means of finding Madame Garschine's address. If you have,
communicate with me. I fear my last letter has been too late to catch
her at Franzensbad; and so I shall have to go without my visit
altogether, which would vex me.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Barmouth, September 1874], Tuesday._
I wonder if you ever read Dickens' Christmas books? I don't know that I
would recommend you to read them, because they are too much perhaps. I
have only read two of them yet, and feel so good after them and would do
anything, yes and shall do everything, to make it a little better for
people. I wish I could lose no time; I want to go out and comfort some
one; I shall never listen to the nonsense they tell one about not giving
money--I _shall_ give money; not that I haven't done so always, but I
shall do it with a high hand now.
It is raining here; and I have been working at John Knox, and at the
horrid story I have in hand, and walking in the rain. Do you know this
story of mine is horrible; I only work at it by fits and starts, because
I feel as if it were a sort of crime against humanity--it is so cruel.
_Wednesday._--I saw such nice children again to-day; one little fellow
alone by the roadside, putting a stick into a spout of water and singing
to himself--so wrapt up that we had to poke him with our umbrellas to
attract his attention; and again, two solid, fleshly, grave,
double-chinned burgomasters in black, with black hats on 'em, riding
together in what they call, I think, a double perambulator. My father is
such fun here. He is always skipping about into the drawing-room, and
speaking to all the girls, and telling them God knows what about us all.
My mother and I are the old people who sit aloof, receive him as a sort
of prodigal when he comes back to us, and listen indulgently to what he
has to tell.
_Llandudno, Thursday._--A cold bleak place of stucco villas with wide
streets to let the wind in at you. A beautiful journey, however, coming
hither.
_Friday._--Seeley has taken my paper, which is, as I now think, not to
beat about the bush, bad. However, there are pretty things in it, I
fancy; we shall see what you shall say.
_Sunday._--I took my usual walk before turning in last night, and
dallied over it a little. It was a cool, dark, solemn night, starry, but
the sky charged with big black clouds. The lights in house windows you
could see, but the houses themselves were lost in the general blackness.
A church clock struck eleven as I went past, and rather startled me. The
whiteness of the road was all I had to go by. I heard an express train
roaring away down the coast into the night, and dying away sharply in
the distance; it was like the noise of an enormous rocket, or a shot
world, one would fancy. I suppose the darkness made me a little
fanciful; but when at first I was puzzled by this great sound in the
night, between sea and hills, I thought half seriously that it might be
a world broken loose--this world to wit. I stood for I suppose five
seconds with this looking-for of destruction in my head, not exactly
frightened but put out; and I wanted badly not to be overwhelmed where I
was, unless I could cry out a farewell with a great voice over the ruin
and make myself heard.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
"John Knox" and "J. K." herein mentioned are the two papers on _John
Knox and His Relations with Women_, first printed in Macmillan's
Magazine and afterwards in _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_.
_Swanston, Wednesday [Autumn], 1874._
I have been hard at work all yesterday, and besides had to write a long
letter to Bob, so I found no time until quite late, and then was sleepy.
Last night it blew a fearful gale; I was kept awake about a couple of
hours, and could not get to sleep for the horror of the wind's noise;
the whole house shook; and, mind you, our house is a house, a great
castle of jointed stone that would weigh up a street of English houses;
so that when it quakes, as it did last night, it means something. But
the quaking was not what put me about; it was the horrible howl of the
wind round the corner; the audible haunting of an incarnate anger about
the house; the evil spirit that was abroad; and, above all, the
shuddering silent pauses when the storm's heart stands dreadfully still
for a moment. O how I hate a storm at night! They have been a great
influence in my life, I am sure; for I can remember them so far
back--long before I was six at least, for we left the house in which I
remember listening to them times without number when I was six. And in
those days the storm had for me a perfect impersonation, as durable and
unvarying as any heathen deity. I always heard it, as a horseman riding
past with his cloak about his head, and somehow always carried away, and
riding past again, and being baffled yet once more, _ad infinitum_, all
night long. I think I wanted him to get past, but I am not sure; I know
only that I had some interest either for or against in the matter; and I
used to lie and hold my breath, not quite frightened, but in a state of
miserable exaltation.
My first _John Knox_ is in proof, and my second is on the anvil. It is
very good of me so to do; for I want so much to get to my real tour and
my sham tour, the real tour first; it is always working in my head, and
if I can only turn on the right sort of style at the right moment, I am
not much afraid of it. One thing bothers me; what with hammering at this
J. K., and writing necessary letters, and taking necessary exercise
(that even not enough, the weather is so repulsive to me, cold and
windy), I find I have no time for reading except times of fatigue, when
I wish merely to relax myself. O--and I read over again for this purpose
Flaubert's _Tentation de St. Antoine_; it struck me a good deal at
first, but this second time it has fetched me immensely. I am but just
done with it, so you will know the large proportion of salt to take
with my present statement, that it's the finest thing I ever read! Of
course, it isn't that, it's full of _longueurs_, and is not quite "redd
up," as we say in Scotland, not quite articulated; but there are
splendid things in it.
I say, _do_ take your macaroni with oil: _do, please_. It's _beastly_
with butter.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
Mr. (later Sir) George Grove was for some years before and after this
date the editor of Macmillan's Magazine (but the true monument to his
memory is of course his _Dictionary of Music_). After the Knox
articles no more contributions from R. L. S. appeared in this
magazine, partly, I think, because Mr. Alexander Macmillan
disapproved of his essay on Burns published the following year. The
Portfolio paper here mentioned is that entitled _On the Enjoyment of
Unpleasant Places_.
_[Swanston, Autumn 1874], Thursday._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have another letter from Grove, about my _John Knox_,
which is flattering in its way: he is a very gushing and spontaneous
person. I am busy with another Portfolio paper for which I can find no
name; I think I shall require to leave it without.
I am afraid I shall not get to London on my way to Poland, but I must
try to manage it on my way back; I must see you anyway, before I tackle
this sad winter work, just to get new heart. As it is, I am as jolly as
three, in good health, fairish working trim and on good, very good,
terms with my people.
Look here, I must have people well. If they will keep well, I am all
right: if they won't--well I'll do as well as I can, and forgive them,
and try to be something of a comfortable thought in spite. So with that
cheerful sentiment, good-night dear friend and good health to you.
_Saturday._--Your letter to-day. Thank you. It is a horrid day, outside.
You talk of my setting to a book, as if I could; don't you know that
things must _come_ to me? I can do but little; I mostly wait and look
out. I am struggling with a Portfolio paper just now, which will not
come straight somehow and _will_ get too gushy; but a little patience
will get it out of the kink and sober it down I hope. I have been
thinking over my movements, and am not sure but that I may get to London
on my way to Poland after all. Hurrah! But we must not halloo till we
are out of the wood; this may be only a clearing.
God help us all, it is a funny world. To see people skipping all round
us with their eyes sealed up with indifference, knowing nothing of the
earth or man or woman, going automatically to offices and saying they
are happy or unhappy out of a sense of duty, I suppose, surely at least
from no sense of happiness or unhappiness, unless perhaps they have a
tooth that twinges, is it not like a bad dream? Why don't they stamp
their foot upon the ground and awake? There is the moon rising in the
east, and there is a person with their heart broken and still glad and
conscious of the world's glory up to the point of pain; and behold they
know nothing of all this! I should like to kick them into consciousness,
for damp gingerbread puppets as they are. S. C. is down on me for being
bitter; who can help it sometimes, especially after they have slept ill?
I am going to have a lot of lunch presently; and then I shall feel all
right again, and the loneliness will pass away as often before. It is
the flesh that is weak. Already I have done myself all the good in the
world by this scribble, and feel alive again and pretty jolly.
_Sunday._--What a day! Cold and dark as mid-winter. I shall send with
this two new photographs of myself for your opinion. My father regards
this life "as a shambling sort of omnibus which is taking him to his
hotel." Is that not well said? It came out in a rather pleasant and
entirely amicable discussion which we had this afternoon on a walk. The
colouring of the world, to-day is of course hideous; we saw only one
pleasant sight, a couple of lovers under a thorn-tree by the wayside,
he with his arm about her waist: they did not seem to find it so cold as
we. I have made a lot of progress to-day with my Portfolio paper. I
think some of it should be nice, but it rambles a little; I like
rambling, if the country be pleasant; don't you?--Ever your faithful
friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[October 27, 1874], Edinburgh, Thursday._
It is cold, but very sunshiny and dry; I wish you were here; it would
suit you and it doesn't suit me; if we could change? This is the Fast
day--Thursday preceding bi-annual Holy Sacrament that is--nobody does
any work, they go to Church twice, they read nothing secular (except the
newspapers, that is the nuance between Fast day and Sunday), they eat
like fighting-cocks. Behold how good a thing it is and becoming well to
fast in Scotland. I am progressing with _John Knox and Women No. 2_; I
shall finish it, I think, in a fortnight hence; and then I shall begin
to enjoy myself. _J. K. and W. No. 2_ is not uninteresting however; it
only bores me because I am so anxious to be at something else which I
like better. I shall perhaps go to Church this afternoon from a sort of
feeling that it is rather a wholesome thing to do of an afternoon; it
keeps one from work and it lets you out so late that you cannot weary
yourself walking and so spoil your evening's work.
_Friday._--I got your letter this morning, and whether owing to that, or
to the fact that I had spent the evening before in comparatively riotous
living, I managed to work five hours and a half well and without
fatigue; besides reading about an hour more at history. This is a thing
to be proud of.
We have had lately some of the most beautiful sunsets; our autumn
sunsets here are always admirable in colour. To-night there was just a
little lake of tarnished green deepening into a blood-orange at the
margins, framed above by dark clouds and below by the long roof-line of
the Egyptian buildings on what we call the Mound, the statues on the top
(of her Britannic Majesty and diverse nondescript Sphinxes) printing
themselves off black against the lit space.
_Saturday._--It has been colder than ever; and to-night there is a
truculent wind about the house, shaking the windows and making a hollow
inarticulate grumbling in the chimney. I cannot say how much I hate the
cold. It makes my scalp so tight across my head and gives me such a
beastly rheumatism about my shoulders, and wrinkles and stiffens my
face; O I have such a _Sehnsucht_ for Mentone, where the sun is shining
and the air still, and (a friend writes to me) people are complaining of
the heat.
_Sunday._--I was chased out by my lamp again last night; it always goes
out when I feel in the humour to write to you. To-day I have been to
Church, which has not improved my temper I must own. The clergyman did
his best to make me hate him, and I took refuge in that admirable poem
the Song of Deborah and Barak; I should like to make a long scroll of
painting (say to go all round a cornice) illustrative of this poem; with
the people seen in the distance going stealthily on footpaths while the
great highways go vacant; with the archers besetting the draw-wells;
with the princes in hiding on the hills among the bleating sheep-flocks;
with the overthrow of Sisera, the stars fighting against him in their
courses and that ancient river, the river Kishon, sweeping him away in
anger; with his mother looking and looking down the long road in the red
sunset, and never a banner and never a spear-clump coming into sight,
and her women with white faces round her, ready with lying comfort. To
say nothing of the people on white asses.
O, I do hate this damned life that I lead. Work--work--work; that's all
right, it's amusing; but I want women about me and I want pleasure. John
Knox had a better time of it than I, with his godly females all leaving
their husbands to follow after him; I would I were John Knox; I hate
living like a hermit. Write me a nice letter if ever you are in the
humour to write to me, and it doesn't hurt your head. Good-bye.--Ever
your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL.
The projected visit to his Russian friend in Poland did not come off,
and shortly after the preceding letter Stevenson went for a few days'
walking tour in the Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire, as recorded in
his essay _An Autumn Effect_. He then came on for a visit to London.
[_London, November 1874._]
When I left you I found an organ-grinder in Russell Square playing to a
child; and the simple fact that there was a child listening to him, that
he was giving this pleasure, entitled him, according to my theory, as
you know, to some money; so I put some coppers on the ledge of his
organ, without so much as looking at him, and I was going on when a
woman said to me: "Yes, sir, he do look bad, don't he? scarcely fit like
to be working." And then I looked at the man, and O! he was so ill, so
yellow and heavy-eyed and drooping. I did not like to go back somehow,
and so I gave the woman a shilling and asked her to give it to him for
me. I saw her do so and walked on; but the face followed me, and so when
I had got to the end of the division, I turned and came back as hard as
I could and filled his hand with money--ten to thirteen shillings, I
should think. I was sure he was going to be ill, you know, and he was a
young man; and I dare say he was alone, and had no one to love him.
I had my reward; for a few yards farther on, here was another
organ-grinder playing a dance tune, and perhaps a dozen children all
dancing merrily to his music, singly, and by twos and threes, and in
pretty little figures together. Just what my organ-grinder in my story
wanted to have happen to him! It was so gay and pleasant in the twilight
under the street lamp.
I am very well, have eaten well, and am so sleepy I can write no more.
This I write to let you know I am no worse; all the better.--Ever your
faithful friend,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_[Edinburgh, November 1874], Sunday._
I was never more sorry to leave you, but I never left you with a better
heart, than last night. I had a long journey and a cold one; but never
was sick nor sorry the whole way. It was a long one because when we got
to Berwick, we had to go round through the hills by Kelso, as there was
a block on the main line. I knew nothing of this, and you may imagine my
bewilderment when I came to myself, the train standing and whistling
dismally in the black morning, before a little vacant half-lit station,
with a name up that I had never heard before. My fellow-traveller woke
up and wanted to know what was wrong. "O, it's nothing," I said,
"nothing at all, it's an evil dream." However we had the thing explained
to us at the end of ends, and trailed on in the dark among the snowy
hills, stopping every now and again and whistling in an appealing kind
of way, as much as to say, "God knows where we are, for God's sake don't
run into us"; until at last we came to a dead standstill and remained so
for perhaps an hour and a quarter. This wakened us up for a little; and
we managed, at last, to attract the attention of one of the officials
whom we could see picking their way about the snow with lanterns. This
man (very wide awake, and hale, and lusty) informed us we were waiting
for another conductor, as our own guard did not know the line. "Where
is the new guard coming from?" we ask. "O, close by; only--he, he--he
was married last night." And immediately we heard much hoarse laughter
in the dark about us; and the moving lanterns were shaken to and fro, as
if in a wind. This poor conductor! However, I recomposed myself for
slumber, and did not re-awake much before Edinburgh, where I was
discharged three hours too late and found my father waiting for me in
the snow, with a very long face.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I forget what the Japanese prints were which I had been sending to
Stevenson at his wish, but they sound like specimens of Hiroshigé and
Kuniyoshi. The taste for these things was then quite new and had laid
hold on him strongly.
[_Edinburgh, November 1874._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thank you, and God bless you for ever: this is a far
better lot than the last; I have chosen four complete sets out of it for
setting, quite admirable: the others are not quite one's taste; I find
the colour far from always being agreeable, it is a great toss up. They
have sent me duplicates of first a mad little scene with a white horse,
a red monarch and a blue arm of the sea in it; and second of a night
scene with water, flowers and a black and white umbrella and a wonderful
grey distance and a wonderful general effect--one of my best in fact. Do
not now force yourself to make any more purchases for me; but if ever
you see a thing you would like to lecture off, remember I am the person
who is ready to buy it and let you have the use of it: keep this in view
_always_.
I am working very hard (for me) and am very happy over my picters.
Goodbye, _mon vieux_.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
P.S.--In fact if ever you see anything exceptionally fine, purchase for
R. L. S. I owe you lots of money besides this, don't I? _John Knox_ is
red and sparkling on the anvil and the hammer goes about six hours on
him.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
During his days in London Stevenson had gone with Mrs. Sitwell to
revisit the Elgin marbles, and had carried off photographs of them to
put up in his room at Edinburgh. _King Matthias's Hunting Horn_ has
perished like so many other stories of this time.
_[Edinburgh, November 1874], Tuesday._
Well, I've got some women now, and they're better than nothing. Three,
without heads, who have been away getting framed. And you know they are
more to me, after a fashion, than they can be to you, because, after a
fashion also, they are women. I have come now to think the sitting
figure in spite of its beautiful drapery rather a blemish, rather an
interruption to the sentiment. The two others are better than one has
ever dreamed; I think these two women are the only things in the world
that have been better than, in Bible phrase, it had entered into my
heart to conceive. Who made them? Was it Pheidias? or do they not know?
It is wonderful what company they are--noble company. And then I have
now three Japanese pictures that are after my own heart, and I get up
from time to time and turn a bit of favourite colour over and over, roll
it under my tongue, savour it till it gets all through me; and then back
to my chair and to work.
This afternoon about six there was a small orange moon, lost in a great
world of blue evening. A few leafless boughs, and a bit of garden
railing, criss-cross its face; and below it there was blueness and the
spread lights of Leith, lost in blue haze. To the east, the town, also
subdued to the same blue, piled itself up, with here and there a lit
window, until it could print off its outline against a faint patch of
green and russet that remained behind the sunset.
I must tell you about my way of life, which is regular to a degree.
Breakfast 8.30; during breakfast and my smoke afterwards till ten, when
I begin work, I read Reformation; from ten, I work until about a quarter
to one; from one until two, I lunch and read a book on Schopenhauer or
one on Positivism; two to three work, three to six anything; if I am in
before six, I read about Japan: six, dinner and a pipe with my father
and coffee until 7.30; 7.30 to 9.30, work; after that either supper and
a pipe at home, or out to Simpson's or Baxter's: bed between eleven and
twelve.
_Wednesday._--Two good things have arrived to me to-day: your letter for
one, and the end of _John Knox_ for another. I cannot write English
because I have been speaking French all evening with some French people
of my knowledge. It's a sad thing the state I get into, when I cannot
remember English and yet do not know French! And it is worse when it is
complicated, as at present, with a pen that will not write! If you knew
how I have to paint and how I have to manoeuvre to get the stuff legible
at all.
_Thursday._--I have said the Fates are only women after a fashion; and
that is one of the strangest things about them. They are wonderfully
womanly--they are more womanly than any woman--and those girt draperies
are drawn over a wonderful greatness of body instinct with sex; I do not
see a line in them that could be a line in a man. And yet, when all is
said, they are not women for us; they are of another race, immortal,
separate; one has no wish to look at them with love, only with a sort of
lowly adoration, physical, but wanting what is the soul of all love,
whether admitted to oneself or not, hope; in a word "the desire of the
moth for the star." O great white stars of eternal marble, O shapely,
colossal women, and yet not women. It is not love that we seek from
them, we do not desire to see their great eyes troubled with our
passions, or the great impassive members contorted by any hope or pain
or pleasure; only now and again, to be conscious that they exist, to
have knowledge of them far off in cloudland or feel their steady eyes
shining, like quiet watchful stars, above the turmoil of the earth.
I write so ill; so cheap and miserable and penny-a-linerish is this
_John Knox_ that I have just sent, that I am low. Only I keep my heart
up by thinking of you. And if all goes to the worst, shall I not be able
to lay my head on the great knees of the middle Fate--O these great
knees--I know all Baudelaire meant now with his _géante_--to lay my head
on her great knees and go to sleep.
_Friday._--I have finished _The Story of King Matthias' Hunting Horn_,
whereof I spoke to you, and I think it should be good. It excites me
like wine, or fire, or death, or love, or something; nothing of my own
writing ever excited me so much; it does seem to me so weird and
fantastic.
_Saturday._--I know now that there is a more subtle and dangerous sort
of selfishness in habit than there ever can be in disorder. I never
ceased to be generous when I was most _déréglé_; now when I am beginning
to settle into habits, I see the danger in front of me--one might cease
to be generous and grow hard and sordid in time and trouble. However,
thank God it is life I want, and nothing posthumous, and for two good
emotions I would sacrifice a thousand years of fame. Moreover I know so
well that I shall never be much as a writer that I am not very sorely
tempted.
My only chance is in my stories; and so you will forgive me if I
postpone everything else to copy out _King Matthias_; I have learned by
experience that a story should be copied out and finished fairly off at
the first heat if ever. I am even thinking of finishing up half-a-dozen
perhaps and trying the publishers? what do you say? Give me your
advice?
_Sunday._--Good-bye. A long story to tell but no time to tell it: well
and happy. Adieu.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_Edinburgh [Sunday, November 1874]._
Here is my long story: yesterday night, after having supped, I grew so
restless that I was obliged to go out in search of some excitement.
There was a half-moon lying over on its back, and incredibly bright in
the midst of a faint grey sky set with faint stars: a very inartistic
moon, that would have damned a picture.
At the most populous place of the city I found a little boy, three years
old perhaps, half frantic with terror, and crying to every one for his
"Mammy." This was about eleven, mark you. People stopped and spoke to
him, and then went on, leaving him more frightened than before. But I
and a good-humoured mechanic came up together; and I instantly developed
a latent faculty for setting the hearts of children at rest. Master
Tommy Murphy (such was his name) soon stopped crying, and allowed me to
take him up and carry him; and the mechanic and I trudged away along
Princes Street to find his parents. I was soon so tired that I had to
ask the mechanic to carry the bairn; and you should have seen the
puzzled contempt with which he looked at me, for knocking in so soon. He
was a good fellow, however, although very impracticable and sentimental;
and he soon bethought him that Master Murphy might catch cold after his
excitement, so we wrapped him up in my greatcoat. "Tobauga (Tobago)
Street" was the address he gave us; and we deposited him in a little
grocer's shop and went through all the houses in the street without
being able to find any one of the name of Murphy. Then I set off to the
head police office, leaving my greatcoat in pawn about Master Murphy's
person. As I went down one of the lowest streets in the town, I saw a
little bit of life that struck me. It was now half-past twelve, a little
shop stood still half-open, and a boy of four or five years old was
walking up and down before it imitating cockcrow. He was the only living
creature within sight.
At the police offices no word of Master Murphy's parents; so I went back
empty-handed. The good groceress, who had kept her shop open all this
time, could keep the child no longer; her father, bad with bronchitis,
said he must forth. So I got a large scone with currants in it, wrapped
my coat about Tommy, got him up on my arm, and away to the police office
with him: not very easy in my mind, for the poor child, young as he
was--he could scarce speak--was full of terror for the "office," as he
called it. He was now very grave and quiet and communicative with me;
told me how his father thrashed him, and divers household matters.
Whenever he saw a woman on our way he looked after her over my shoulder
and then gave his judgment: "That's no _her_," adding sometimes, "She
has a wean wi' her." Meantime I was telling him how I was going to take
him to a gentleman who would find out his mother for him quicker than
ever I could, and how he must not be afraid of him, but be brave, as he
had been with me. We had just arrived at our destination--we were just
under the lamp--when he looked me in the face and said appealingly,
"He'll no put me in the office?" And I had to assure him that he would
not, even as I pushed open the door and took him in.
The serjeant was very nice, and I got Tommy comfortably seated on a
bench, and spirited him up with good words and the scone with the
currants in it; and then, telling him I was just going out to look for
Mammy, I got my greatcoat and slipped away.
Poor little boy! he was not called for, I learn, until ten this morning.
This is very ill written, and I've missed half that was picturesque in
it; but to say truth, I am very tired and sleepy: it was two before I
got to bed. However, you see, I had my excitement.
_Monday._--I have written nothing all morning; I cannot settle to it.
Yes--I _will_ though.
10.45.--And I did. I want to say something more to you about the three
women. I wonder so much why they should have been _women_, and halt
between two opinions in the matter. Sometimes I think it is because they
were made by a man for men; sometimes, again, I think there is an
abstract reason for it, and there is something more substantive about a
woman than ever there can be about a man. I can conceive a great
mythical woman, living alone among inaccessible mountain-tops or in some
lost island in the pagan seas, and ask no more. Whereas if I hear of a
Hercules, I ask after Iole or Dejanira. I cannot think him a man without
women. But I can think of these three deep-breasted women, living out
all their days on remote hilltops, seeing the white dawn and the purple
even, and the world outspread before them for ever, and no more to them
for ever than a sight of the eyes, a hearing of the ears, a far-away
interest of the inflexible heart, not pausing, not pitying, but austere
with a holy austerity, rigid with a calm and passionless rigidity; and I
find them none the less women to the end.
And think, if one could love a woman like that once, see her once grow
pale with passion, and once wring your lips out upon hers, would it not
be a small thing to die? Not that there is not a passion of a quite
other sort, much less epic, far more dramatic and intimate, that comes
out of the very frailty of perishable women; out of the lines of
suffering that we see written about their eyes, and that we may wipe out
if it were but for a moment; out of the thin hands, wrought and tempered
in agony to a fineness of perception, that the indifferent or the merely
happy cannot know; out of the tragedy that lies about such a love, and
the pathetic incompleteness. This is another thing, and perhaps it is a
higher. I look over my shoulder at the three great headless Madonnas,
and they look back at me and do not move; see me, and through and over
me, the foul life of the city dying to its embers already as the night
draws on; and over miles and miles of silent country, set here and there
with lit towns, thundered through here and there with night expresses
scattering fire and smoke; and away to the ends of the earth, and the
furthest star, and the blank regions of nothing; and they are not moved.
My quiet, great-kneed, deep-breasted, well-draped ladies of Necessity, I
give my heart to you!
R. L. S.
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. The
little booths that hucksters set up round the edge were marked each one
by its little lamp. There were some fires too; and the light, and the
shadows of the people who stood round them to warm themselves, made a
strange pattern all round on the snow-covered ice. A few people with
torches began to travel up and down the ice, a lit circle travelling
along with them over the snow. A gigantic moon rose, meanwhile, over the
trees and the kirk on the promontory among perturbed and vacillating
clouds.
The walk home was very solemn and strange. Once, through a broken gorge,
we had a glimpse of a little space of mackerel sky, moon-litten, on the
other side of the hill; the broken ridges standing grey and spectral
between; and the hilltop over all, snow-white, and strangely magnified
in size.
This must go to you to-morrow, so that you may read it on Christmas Day
for company. I hope it may be good company to you.
_Thursday._--Outside, it snows thick and steadily. The gardens before
our house are now a wonderful fairy forest. And O, this whiteness of
things, how I love it, how it sends the blood about my body! Maurice de
Guérin hated snow; what a fool he must have been! Somebody tried to put
me out of conceit with it by saying that people were lost in it. As if
people don't get lost in love, too, and die of devotion to art; as if
everything worth were not an occasion to some people's end.
What a wintry letter this is! Only I think it is winter seen from the
inside of a warm greatcoat. And there is, at least, a warm heart about
it somewhere. Do you know, what they say in Xmas stories is true. I
think one loves their friends more dearly at this season.--Ever your
faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The Portfolio article here mentioned is _An Autumn Effect_ (see
_Essays of Travel_). The Italian story so delightedly begun was by
and by condemned and destroyed like all the others of this time.
_[Edinburgh, January 1875], Monday._
Have come from a concert. Sinico sang, _tant bien que mal_, "Ah perfido
spergiuro!"; and then we had the Eroica symphony (No. 3). I can, and
need, say no more; I am rapt out of earth by it; Beethoven is certainly
the greatest man the world has yet produced. I wonder, is there anything
so superb--I can find no word for it more specific than superb--all I
know is that all my knowledge is transcended. I finished to-day and sent
off (and a mighty mean detail it is, to set down after Beethoven's grand
passion) my Portfolio article about Buckinghamshire. In its own way I
believe it to be a good thing; and I hope you will find something in it
to like; it touches, in a dry enough manner, upon most things under
heaven, and if you like me, I think you ought to like this
intellectual--no, I withdraw the word--this artistic dog of mine.
Thaw--thaw--thaw, up here; and farewell skating, and farewell the clear
dry air and the wide, bright, white snow-surface, and all that was so
pleasant in the past.
_Wednesday._--Yesterday I wasn't well and to-night I have been ever so
busy. There came a note from the Academy, sent by John H. Ingram, the
editor of the edition of Poe's works I have been reviewing, challenging
me to find any more faults. I have found nearly sixty; so I may be
happy; but that makes me none the less sleepy; so I must go to bed.
_Friday._--I am awfully out of the humour to write; I am very inert
although quite happy; I am informed by those who are more expert that I
am bilious. _Bien_; let it be so; I am still content; and though I can
do no original work, I get forward making notes for my Knox at a good
trot.
_Saturday._--I am so happy. I am no longer here in Edinburgh. I have
been all yesterday evening and this forenoon in Italy, four hundred
years ago, with one Sannazzaro, a sculptor, painter, poet, etc., and one
Ippolita, a beautiful Duchess. O I like it badly! I wish you could hear
it at once; or rather I wish you could see it immediately in beautiful
type on such a page as it ought to be, in my first little volume of
stories. What a change this is from collecting dull notes for _John
Knox_, as I have been all the early part of the week--the difference
between life and death.--I am quite well again and in such happy
spirits, as who would not be, having spent so much of his time at that
convent on the hills with these sweet people. _Vous verrez_, and if you
don't like this story--well, I give it up if you don't like it. Not but
what there's a long way to travel yet; I am no farther than the
threshold; I have only set the men, and the game has still to be played,
and a lot of dim notions must become definite and shapely, and a deal be
clear to me that is anything but clear as yet. The story shall be
called, I think, _When the Devil was well_, in allusion to the old
proverb.
Good-bye.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [January 1875]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have worked too hard; I have given myself one day of
rest, and that was not enough; so I am giving myself another. I shall go
to bed again likewise so soon as this is done, and slumber most
potently.
9 P.M.--Slept all afternoon like a lamb.
About my coming south, I think the still small unanswerable voice of
coins will make it impossible until the session is over (end of March);
but for all that, I think I shall hold out jolly. I do not want you to
come and bother yourself; indeed, it is still not quite certain whether
my father will be quite fit for you, although I have now no fear of that
really. Now don't take up this wrongly; I wish you could come; and I do
not know anything that would make me happier, but I see that it is wrong
to expect it, and so I resign myself: some time after. I offered
Appleton a series of papers on the modern French school--the
Parnassiens, I think they call them--de Banville, Coppée, Soulary, and
Sully Prudhomme. But he has not deigned to answer my letter.
I shall have another Portfolio paper so soon as I am done with this
story, that has played me out; the story is to be called _When the Devil
was well_: scene, Italy, Renaissance; colour, purely imaginary of
course, my own unregenerate idea of what Italy then was. O, when shall I
find the story of my dreams, that shall never halt nor wander nor step
aside, but go ever before its face, and ever swifter and louder, until
the pit receives it, roaring? The Portfolio paper will be about Scotland
and England.--Ever yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Edinburgh, January 1875._]
I wish I could write better letters to you. Mine must be very dull. I
must try to give you news. Well, I was at the annual dinner of my old
Academy schoolfellows last night. We sat down ten, out of seventy-two!
The others are scattered all over the places of the earth, some in San
Francisco, some in New Zealand, some in India, one in the backwoods--it
gave one a wide look over the world to hear them talk so. I read them
some verses. It is great fun; I always read verses, and in the vinous
enthusiasm of the moment they always propose to have them printed; _Ce
qui n'arrive jamais du reste_: in the morning, they are more calm.
_Sunday._--It occurs to me that one reason why there is no news in my
letters is because there is so little in my life. I always tell you of
my concerts: I was at another yesterday afternoon: a recital of Hallé
and Norman Neruda. I went in the evening to the pantomime with the
Mackintoshes--cousins of mine. Their little boy, aged four, was there
for the first time. To see him with his eyes fixed and open like
saucers, and never varying his expression save in so far as he might
sometimes open his mouth a little wider, was worth the money. He laughed
only once--when the giant's dwarf fed his master as though he were a
child. Coming home, he was much interested as to who made the fairies,
and wanted to know if they were like _berries_. I should like to know
how much this question was due to the idea of their coming up from under
the stage, and how much to a vague idea of rhyme. When he was told that
they were not like berries, he then asked if they had not been flowers
before they were fairies. It was a good deal in the vein of Herbert
Spencer's primitive man all this.
I am pretty well but have not got back to work much since Tuesday. I
work far too hard at the story; but I wish I had finished it before I
stopped as I feel somewhat out of the swing now.--Ever your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Another of the literary projects which came to naught, no one of the
stories mentioned having turned out according to Stevenson's dream
and desire at its first conception, or even having been preserved for
use afterwards as the foundation of riper work. "Clytie" is of course
the famous Roman bust from the Townley collection in the British
Museum.
[_Edinburgh, January 1875._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thanks for your letter, I too am in such a state of
business that I know not when to find the time to write. Look
here--Seeley does not seem to me to have put that paper of mine in this
month; so I remain unable to pay you; which is a sad pity and must be
forgiven me.
What am I doing? Well I wrote my second _John Knox_, which is not a bad
piece of work for me; begun and finished ready for press in nine days.
Then I have since written a story called _King Matthias's Hunting Horn_,
and I am engaged in finishing another called _The Two Falconers of
Cairnstane_. I find my stories affect me rather more perhaps than is
wholesome. I have only been two hours at work to-day, and yet I have
been crying and am shaking badly, as you can see in my handwriting, and
my back is a bit bad. They give me pleasure though, quite worth all
results. However I shall work no more to-day.
I am to get £1000 when I pass Advocate, it seems; which is good.
O I say, will you kindly tell me all about the bust of Clytie.
* * * * *
Then I had the wisdom to stop and look over Japanese picture books until
lunch time.
Well, tell me all about Clytie, how old is it, who did it, what's it
about, etc. Send it on a sheet that I can forward without indiscretion
to another, as I desire the information for a friend whom I wish to
please.
Now, look here. When I have twelve stories ready--these twelve--
A / I. The Devil on Cramond Sands
l | (needs copying about half).
l |
| II. The Curate of Anstruther's Bottle
S | (needs copying altogether).
c <
o | III. The Two Falconers of Cairnstane
t | (wants a few pages).
c |
h | IV. Strange Adventures of Mr. Nehemiah Solny
. \ (wants reorganisation).
V. King Matthias's Hunting Horn (all ready).
VI. Autolycus at Court (in gremio).
VII. The Family of Love (in gremio).
VIII. The Barrel Organ (all ready).
IX. The Last Sinner (wants copying).
X. Margery Bonthron (wants a few pages).
XI. Martin's Madonna (in gremio).
XII. Life and Death (all ready).
--when I have these twelve ready, should I not do better to try to get a
publisher for them, call them _A Book of Stories_ and put a good
dedicatory letter at the fore end of them. I should get less coin than
by going into magazines perhaps; but I should also get more notice,
should I not? and so, do better for myself in the long run. Now, should
I not? Besides a book with boards is a book with boards, even if it
bain't a very fat one and has no references to Ammianus Marcellinus and
German critics at the foot of the pages. On all this, I shall want your
serious advice. I am sure I shall stand or fall by the stories; and
you'll think so too, when you see those poor excrescences the two John
Knox and Women games. However, judge for yourself and be prudent on my
behalf, like a good soul.
Yes, I'll come to Cambridge then or thereabout, if God doesn't put a
real tangible spoke in my wheel.
My terms with my parents are admirable; we are a very united family.
Good-bye, _mon cher, je ne puis plus écrire_. I have not quite got over
a damned affecting part in my story this morning. O cussed stories, they
will never affect any one but me I fear.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
In the following is related Stevenson's first introduction to Mr. W.
E. Henley. The acquaintance thus formed ripened quickly, as is well
known, into a close and stimulating friendship. Of the story called
_A Country Dance_ no trace remains.
_Edinburgh, Tuesday [February 1875]._
I got your nice long gossiping letter to-day--I mean by that that there
was more news in it than usual--and so, of course, I am pretty jolly. I
am in the house, however, with such a beastly cold in the head. Our east
winds begin already to be very cold.
O, I have such a longing for children of my own; and yet I do not think
I could bear it if I had one. I fancy I must feel more like a woman than
like a man about that. I sometimes hate the children I see on the
street--you know what I mean by hate--wish they were somewhere else, and
not there to mock me; and sometimes, again, I don't know how to go by
them for the love of them, especially the very wee ones.
_Thursday._--I have been still in the house since I wrote, and I _have_
worked. I finished the Italian story; not well, but as well as I can
just now; I must go all over it again, some time soon, when I feel in
the humour to better and perfect it. And now I have taken up an old
story, begun years ago; and I have now re-written all I had written of
it then, and mean to finish it. What I have lost and gained is odd. As
far as regards simple writing, of course, I am in another world now; but
in some things, though more clumsy, I seem to have been freer and more
plucky: this is a lesson I have taken to heart. I have got a jolly new
name for my old story. I am going to call it _A Country Dance_; the two
heroes keep changing places, you know; and the chapter where the most of
this changing goes on is to be called "Up the middle, down the middle."
It will be in six or (perhaps) seven chapters. I have never worked
harder in my life than these last four days. If I can only keep it up.
_Saturday._--Yesterday, Leslie Stephen, who was down here to lecture,
called on me and took me up to see a poor fellow, a sort of poet who
writes for him, and who has been eighteen months in our infirmary, and
may be, for all I know, eighteen months more. It was very sad to see him
there, in a little room with two beds, and a couple of sick children in
the other bed; a girl came in to visit the children, and played dominoes
on the counterpane with them; the gas flared and crackled, the fire
burned in a dull economical way; Stephen and I sat on a couple of
chairs, and the poor fellow sat up in his bed with his hair and beard
all tangled, and talked as cheerfully as if he had been in a King's
palace, or the great King's palace of the blue air. He has taught
himself two languages since he has been lying there. I shall try to be
of use to him.
We have had two beautiful spring days, mild as milk, windy withal, and
the sun hot. I dreamed last night I was walking by moonlight round the
place where the scene of my story is laid; it was all so quiet and
sweet, and the blackbirds were singing as if it was day; it made my
heart very cool and happy.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Edinburgh] February 8, 1875._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Forgive my bothering you. Here is the proof of my
second _Knox_. Glance it over, like a good fellow, and if there's
anything very flagrant send it to me marked. I have no confidence in
myself; I feel such an ass. What have I been doing? As near as I can
calculate, nothing. And yet I have worked all this month from three to
five hours a day, that is to say, from one to three hours more than my
doctor allows me; positively no result.
No, I can write no article just now; I am _pioching_, like a madman, at
my stories, and can make nothing of them; my simplicity is tame and
dull--my passion tinsel, boyish, hysterical. Never mind--ten years
hence, if I live, I shall have learned, so help me God. I know one must
work, in the meantime (so says Balzac) _comme le mineur enfoui sous un
éboulement_.
_J'y parviendrai, nom de nom de nom!_ But it's a long look
forward.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
As the spring advanced Stevenson had again been much out of sorts,
and had gone for a change, in the company of Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson,
on his first visit to the artist haunts of Fontainebleau which were
afterwards so much endeared to him.
[_Barbizon, April 1875._]
MY DEAR FRIEND,--This is just a line to say I am well and happy. I am
here in my dear forest all day in the open air. It is very be--no, not
beautiful exactly, just now, but very bright and living. There are one
or two song birds and a cuckoo; all the fruit-trees are in flower, and
the beeches make sunshine in a shady place. I begin to go all right; you
need not be vexed about my health; I really was ill at first, as bad as
I have been for nearly a year; but the forest begins to work, and the
air, and the sun, and the smell of the pines. If I could stay a month
here, I should be as right as possible. Thanks for your letter.--Your
faithful
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Swanston, Tuesday, April 1875._]
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have been so busy, away to Bridge of Allan with my
father first, and then with Simpson and Baxter out here from Saturday
till Monday. I had no time to write, and, as it is, am strangely
incapable. Thanks for your letter. I have been reading such lots of law,
and it seems to take away the power of writing from me. From morning to
night, so often as I have a spare moment, I am in the embrace of a law
book--barren embraces. I am in good spirits; and my heart smites me as
usual, when I am in good spirits, about my parents. If I get a bit dull,
I am away to London without a scruple; but so long as my heart keeps up,
I am all for my parents.
What do you think of Henley's hospital verses?[19] They were to have
been dedicated to me, but Stephen wouldn't allow it--said it would be
pretentious.
_Wednesday._--I meant to have made this quite a decent letter this
morning, but listen. I had pain all last night, and did not sleep well,
and now am cold and sickish, and strung up ever and again with another
flash of pain. Will you remember me to everybody? My principal
characteristics are cold, poverty, and Scots Law--three very bad things.
Oo, how the rain falls! The mist is quite low on the hill. The birds are
twittering to each other about the indifferent season. O, here's a gem
for you. An old godly woman predicted the end of the world, because the
seasons were becoming indistinguishable; my cousin Dora objected that
last winter had been pretty well marked. "Yes, my dear," replied the
soothsayeress; "but I think you'll find the summer will be rather
co-amplicated."--Ever your faithful
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The rehearsals were those of Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ for
amateur theatricals at Professor Fleeming Jenkin's, in which
Stevenson played the part of Orsino.
_[Edinburgh, April 1875] Saturday._
I am getting on with my rehearsals, but I find the part very hard. I
rehearsed yesterday from a quarter to seven, and to-day from four (with
interval for dinner) to eleven. You see the sad strait I am in for
ink.--_À demain._
_Sunday._--This is the third ink-bottle I have tried, and still it's
nothing to boast of. My journey went off all right, and I have kept ever
in good spirits. Last night, indeed, I did think my little bit of gaiety
was going away down the wind like a whiff of tobacco smoke, but to-day
it has come back to me a little. The influence of this place is
assuredly all that can be worst against one; _mais il faut lutter_. I
was haunted last night when I was in bed by the most cold, desolate
recollections of my past life here; I was glad to try and think of the
forest, and warm my hands at the thought of it. O the quiet, grey
thickets, and the yellow butterflies, and the woodpeckers, and the
outlook over the plain as it were over a sea! O for the good, fleshly
stupidity of the woods, the body conscious of itself all over and the
mind forgotten, the clean air nestling next your skin as though your
clothes were gossamer, the eye filled and content, the whole MAN HAPPY!
Whereas here it takes a pull to hold yourself together; it needs both
hands, and a book of stoical maxims, and a sort of bitterness at the
heart by way of armour.--Ever your faithful R. L. S.
_Wednesday._--I am so played out with a cold in my eye that I cannot see
to write or read without difficulty. It is swollen _horrible_; so how I
shall look as Orsino, God knows! I have my fine clothes tho'. Henley's
sonnets have been taken for the Cornhill. He is out of hospital now, and
dressed, but still not too much to brag of in health, poor fellow, I am
afraid.
_Sunday._--So. I have still rather bad eyes, and a nasty sore throat. I
play Orsino every day, in all the pomp of Solomon, splendid Francis the
First clothes, heavy with gold and stage jewellery. I play it ill
enough, I believe; but me and the clothes, and the wedding wherewith the
clothes and me are reconciled, produce every night a thrill of
admiration. Our cook told my mother (there is a servants' night, you
know) that she and the housemaid were "just prood to be able to say it
was oor young gentleman." To sup afterwards with these clothes on, and a
wonderful lot of gaiety and Shakespearean jokes about the table, is
something to live for. It is so nice to feel you have been dead three
hundred years, and the sound of your laughter is faint and far off in
the centuries.--Ever your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Edinburgh, April 1875._]
_Wednesday._--A moment at last. These last few days have been as jolly
as days could be, and by good fortune I leave to-morrow for Swanston, so
that I shall not feel the whole fall back to habitual self. The pride of
life could scarce go further. To live in splendid clothes, velvet and
gold and fur, upon principally champagne and lobster salad, with a
company of people nearly all of whom are exceptionally good talkers;
when your days began about eleven and ended about four--I have lost that
sentence; I give it up; it is very admirable sport, any way. Then both
my afternoons have been so pleasantly occupied--taking Henley drives. I
had a business to carry him down the long stair, and more of a business
to get him up again, but while he was in the carriage it was splendid.
It is now just the top of spring with us. The whole country is mad with
green. To see the cherry-blossom bitten out upon the black firs, and the
black firs bitten out of the blue sky, was a sight to set before a king.
You may imagine what it was to a man who has been eighteen months in an
hospital ward. The look of his face was a wine to me. He plainly has
been little in the country before. Imagine this: I always stopped him on
the Bridges to let him enjoy the great _cry_ of green that goes up to
Heaven out of the river beds, and he asked (more than once) "What noise
is that?"--"The water."--"O!" almost incredulously; and then quite a
long while after: "Do you know the noise of the water astonished me very
much?" I was much struck by his putting the question _twice_; I have
lost the sense of wonder of course; but there must be something to
wonder at, for Henley has eyes and ears and an immortal soul of his own.
I shall send this off to-day to let you know of my new
address--Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Edinburgh. Salute the faithful
in my name. Salute Priscilla, salute Barnabas, salute Ebenezer--O no,
he's too much, I withdraw Ebenezer; enough of early Christians.--Ever
your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Edinburgh, May or June 1875._]
I say, we have a splendid picture here in Edinburgh. A Ruysdael of which
one can never tire: I think it is one of the best landscapes in the
world: a grey still day, a grey still river, a rough oak wood on one
shore, on the other chalky banks with very complicated footpaths, oak
woods, a field where a man stands reaping, church towers relieved
against the sky and a beautiful distance, neither blue nor green. It is
so still, the light is so cool and temperate, the river woos you to
bathe in it. O I like it!
I say, I wonder if our Scottish Academy's exhibition is going to be done
at all for Appleton or whether he does not care for it. It might amuse
me, although I am not fit for it. Why and O why doesn't Grove publish
me?--Ever yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I was at this time, if I remember rightly, preparing some lectures on
Hogarth for a course at Cambridge.
[_Swanston, June 1875._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am a devil certainly; but write I cannot. Look here,
you had better get hold of G. C. Lichtenberg's _Ausfürliche Erklarung
der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche_: Göttingen, 1794 to 1816 (it was
published in numbers seemingly). Douglas the publisher lent it to me:
and tho' I hate the damned tongue too cordially to do more than dip into
it, I have seen some shrewd things. If you cannot get it for yourself,
(it seems scarce), I dare say I could negotiate with Douglas for a loan.
This adorable spring has made me quite drunken, drunken with green
colour and golden sound. We have the best blackbird here that we have
had for years; we have two; but the other is but an average performer.
Anything so rich and clear as the pipe of our first fiddle, it never
entered into the heart of man to fancy. How the years slip away, Colvin;
and we walk little cycles, and turn in little abortive spirals, and come
out again, hot and weary, to find the same view before us, the same hill
barring the road. Only, bless God for it, we have still the same eye to
see with, and if the scene be not altogether unsightly, we can enjoy it
whether or no. I feel quite happy, but curiously inert and passive,
something for the winds to blow over, and the sun to glimpse on and go
off again, as it might be a tree or a gravestone. All this willing and
wishing and striving leads a man nowhere after all. Here I am back again
in my old humour of a sunny equanimity; to see the world fleet about me;
and the days chase each other like sun patches, and the nights like
cloud-shadows, on a windy day; content to see them go and no wise
reluctant for the cool evening, with its dew and stars and fading strain
of tragic red. And I ask myself why I ever leave this humour? What I
have gained? And the winds blow in the trees with a sustained "Pish"!
and the birds answer me in a long derisive whistle.
So that for health, happiness, and indifferent literature, apply
to--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
"_Burns_" means the article on Burns which R. L. S. had been
commissioned to write for the Encyclopædia Britannica. The "awfully
nice man" was the Hon. J. Seed, formerly Secretary to the Customs and
Marine Department of New Zealand; and it was from his conversation
that the notion of the Samoan Islands as a place of refuge for the
sick and world-worn first entered Stevenson's mind, to lie dormant (I
never heard him speak of it) and be revived thirteen years later.
[_Edinburgh, June 1875._]
Simply a scratch. All right, jolly, well, and through with the
difficulty. My father pleased about the _Burns_. Never travel in the
same carriage with three able-bodied seamen and a fruiterer from Kent;
the A.-B.'s speak all night as though they were hailing vessels at sea;
and the fruiterer as if he were crying fruit in a noisy
market-place--such, at least, is my _funeste_ experience. I wonder if a
fruiterer from some place else--say Worcestershire--would offer the same
phenomena? insoluble doubt.
R. L. S.
_Later._--Forgive me, couldn't get it off. Awfully nice man here
to-night. Public servant--New Zealand. Telling us all about the South
Sea Islands till I was sick with desire to go there: beautiful places,
green for ever; perfect climate; perfect shapes of men and women, with
red flowers in their hair; and nothing to do but to study oratory and
etiquette, sit in the sun, and pick up the fruits as they fall.
Navigator's Island is the place; absolute balm for the weary.--Ever your
faithful friend,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The examination for the Bar at Edinburgh was approaching.
_Fontainebleau_ is the paper called _Forest Notes_, afterwards
printed in the Cornhill Magazine. The church is Glencorse Church in
the Pentlands, to the thoughts of which Stevenson reverted in his
last days with so much emotion (see _Weir of Hermiston_, chap. v.).
[_Swanston. End of June 1875._]
_Thursday._--This day fortnight I shall fall or conquer. Outside the
rain still soaks; but now and again the hilltop looks through the mist
vaguely. I am very comfortable, very sleepy, and very much satisfied
with the arrangements of Providence.
_Saturday--no, Sunday_, 12.45.--Just been--not grinding, alas!--I
couldn't--but doing a bit of _Fontainebleau_. I don't think I'll be
plucked. I am not sure though--I am so busy, what with this d----d law,
and this _Fontainebleau_ always at my elbow, and three plays (three,
think of that!) and a story, all crying out to me, "Finish, finish, make
an entire end, make us strong, shapely, viable creatures!" It's enough
to put a man crazy. Moreover, I have my thesis given out now, which is a
fifth (is it fifth? I can't count) incumbrance.
_Sunday._--I've been to church, and am not depressed--a great step. I
was at that beautiful church my _petit poëme en prose_ was about. It is
a little cruciform place, with heavy cornices and string course to
match, and a steep slate roof. The small kirkyard is full of old
gravestones. One of a Frenchman from Dunkerque--I suppose he died
prisoner in the military prison hard by--and one, the most pathetic
memorial I ever saw, a poor school-slate, in a wooden frame, with the
inscription cut into it evidently by the father's own hand. In church,
old Mr. Torrence preached--over eighty, and a relic of times forgotten,
with his black thread gloves and mild old foolish face. One of the
nicest parts of it was to see John Inglis, the greatest man in Scotland,
our Justice-General, and the only born lawyer I ever heard, listening to
the piping old body, as though it had all been a revelation, grave and
respectful.--Ever your faithful
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Edinburgh, July 15, 1875._]
PASSED.
Ever your
R.
L.
S.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] _L'Homme qui rit._
[14] This letter, accepting the first contribution of R. L. S., has
by an accident been preserved, and is so interesting, both for its
occasion and for the light it throws on the writer's care and
kindness as an editor, that by permission of his representatives I
here print it. '93 stands, of course, for the novel _Quatre-vingt
Treize_.
_15 Waterloo Place, S. W., 15/5/74_
DEAR SIR,--I have read with great interest your article on Victor
Hugo and also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan. I
shall be happy to accept Hugo, and if I have been rather long in
answering you, it is only because I wished to give a second reading
to the article, and have lately been very much interrupted.
I will now venture to make a few remarks, and by way of preface I
must say that I do not criticise you because I take a low view of
your powers: but for the very contrary reason. I think very highly
of the promise shown in your writings and therefore think it worth
while to write more fully than I can often to contributors. Nor do I
set myself up as a judge--I am very sensible of my own failings in
the critical department and merely submit what has occurred to me
for your consideration.
I fully agree with the greatest portion of your opinions and think
them very favourably expressed. The following points struck me as
doubtful when I read and may perhaps be worth notice.
First, you seem to make the distinction between dramatic and
novelistic art coincide with the distinction between romantic and
18th century. This strikes me as doubtful, as at least to require
qualification. To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than
Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well)
a use of scenery and background which would hardly be admissible in
drama. I am not able--I fairly confess--to define the dramatic
element in Hugo or to say why I think it absent from Fielding and
Richardson. Yet surely Hugo's own dramas are a sufficient proof that
a drama may be romantic as well as a novel: though, of course, the
pressure of the great moral forces, etc., must be indicated by
different means. The question is rather a curious one and too wide
to discuss in a letter. I merely suggest what seems to me to be an
obvious criticism on your argument.
Secondly, you speak very sensibly of the melodramatic and clap-trap
element in Hugo. I confess that it seems to me to go deeper into his
work than you would apparently allow. I think it, for example, very
palpable even in _Notre Dame_, and I doubt the historical fidelity
though my ignorance of mediæval history prevents me from putting my
finger on many faults. The consequence is that in my opinion you are
scarcely just to Scott or Fielding as compared with Hugo. Granting
fully his amazing force and fire, he seems to me to be deficient
often in that kind of healthy realism which is so admirable in
Scott's best work. For example, though my Scotch blood (for I can
boast of some) may prejudice me I am profoundly convinced that
Balfour of Burley would have knocked M. Lantenac into a cocked hat
and stormed la Tourgue if it had been garrisoned by 19 x 19 French
spouters of platitude in half the time that Gauvain and Cimourdain
took about it. In fact, Balfour seems to me to be flesh and blood
and Gauvain & Co. to be too often mere personified bombast: and
therefore I fancy that _Old Mortality_ will outlast '93, though
_Notre Dame_ is far better than _Quentin Durward_, and _Les
Misérables_, perhaps, better than any. This is, of course, fair
matter of opinion.
Thirdly, I don't think that you quite bring out your meaning in
saying that '93 is a decisive symptom. I confess that I don't quite
see in what sense it decides precisely what question. A sentence or
so would clear this up.
Fourthly, as a matter of form, I think (but I am very doubtful) that
it might possibly have been better not to go into each novel in
succession; but to group the substance of your remarks a little
differently. Of course I don't want you to alter the form, I merely
notice the point as suggesting a point in regard to any future
article.
Many of your criticisms in detail strike me as very good. I was much
pleased by your remarks on the storm in the _Travailleurs_. There
was another very odd storm, as it struck me on a hasty reading in
'93, where there is mention of a beautiful summer evening and yet
the wind is so high that you can't hear the tocsin. You do justice
also and more than justice to Hugo's tenderness about children.
That, I think, points to one great source of his power.
It would be curious to compare Hugo to a much smaller man, Chas.
Reade, who is often a kind of provincial or Daily Telegraph Hugo.
However that would hardly do in the Cornhill. I shall send your
article to the press and hope to use it in July. Any alterations can
be made when the article is in type, if any are desirable. I cannot
promise definitely in advance; but at any rate it shall appear as
soon as may be.
Excuse this long rigmarole and believe me to be, yours very truly,
LESLIE STEPHEN.
I shall hope to hear from you again. If ever you come to town you
will find me at 8 Southwell Gardens (close to the Gloucester Road
Station of the Underground). I am generally at home, except from 3
to 5.
[15] Portfolio.
[16] Richmond Seeley.
[17] The essay _Notes on the Movements of Young Children_.
[18] I remember nothing of either the title or the tenor of this story.
[19] Printed by Mr. Leslie Stephen in the Cornhill.
IV
ADVOCATE AND AUTHOR
EDINBURGH--PARIS--FONTAINEBLEAU
JULY 1875-JULY 1879
Having on the 14th of July 1875 passed with credit his examination for
the Bar at Edinburgh, Stevenson thenceforth enjoyed whatever status and
consideration attaches to the title of Advocate. But he made no serious
attempt to practise, and by the 25th of the same month had started with
Sir Walter Simpson for France. Here he lived and tramped for several
weeks among the artist haunts of Fontainebleau and the neighbourhood,
occupying himself chiefly with studies of the French poets and poetry of
the fifteenth century, which afterwards bore fruit in his papers on
Charles of Orleans and François Villon. Thence he travelled to join his
parents at Wiesbaden and Homburg. Returning in the autumn to Scotland,
he made, to please them, an effort to live the ordinary life of an
Edinburgh advocate--attending trials and spending his mornings in wig
and gown at the Parliament House. But this attempt was before long
abandoned as tending to waste of time and being incompatible with his
real occupation of literature. Through the next winter and spring he
remained in Edinburgh, except for a short winter walking tour in
Ayrshire and Galloway, and a month spent among his friends in London. In
the late summer of 1876, after a visit to the West Highlands, he made
the canoe trip with Sir Walter Simpson which furnished the subject of
the _Inland Voyage_, followed by a prolonged autumn stay at Grez and
Barbizon. The life, atmosphere, and scenery of these forest haunts had
charmed and soothed him, as we have seen, since he was first introduced
to them by his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, in the spring of 1875. An
unfettered, unconventional, open-air existence, passed face to face with
nature and in the company of congenial people engaged, like himself, in
grappling with the problems and difficulties of an art, had been what he
had longed for most consistently through all the agitations of his
youth. And now he had found just such an existence, and with it, as he
thought, peace of mind, health, and the spirit of unimpeded work.
But peace of mind was not to be his for long. What indeed awaited him in
the forest was something different and more momentous: it was his fate:
the romance which decided his life, and the companion whom he resolved
to make his own at all hazards. But of this hereafter. To continue
briefly the annals of the time: the year 1877 was again spent between
Edinburgh, London, the Fontainebleau region, and several different
temporary abodes in the artists' and other quarters of Paris; with an
excursion in the company of his parents to the Land's End in August. In
1878 a similar general mode of life was varied by a visit with his
parents in March to Burford Bridge, where he made warm friends with a
senior to whom he had long looked up from a distance, Mr. George
Meredith; by a spell of secretarial work under Professor Fleeming
Jenkin, who was serving as a juror on the Paris Exhibition; and lastly,
by the autumn tramp through the Cévennes, afterwards recounted with so
much charm in _Travels with a Donkey_. The first half of 1879 was again
spent between London, Scotland, and France.
During these four years, it should be added, Stevenson's health was very
passable. It often, indeed, threatened to give way after any prolonged
residence in Edinburgh, but was generally soon restored by open-air
excursions (during which he was capable of fairly vigorous and sustained
daily exercise), or by a spell of life among the woods of Fontainebleau.
They were also the years in which he settled for good into his chosen
profession of letters. He worked rather desultorily for the first twelve
months after his call to the Bar, but afterwards with ever-growing
industry and success, winning from the critical a full measure of
recognition, though relatively little, so far, from the general public.
In 1875 and 1876 he contributed as a journalist, though not frequently,
to the Academy and Vanity Fair, and in 1877 more abundantly to London, a
weekly review founded by Mr. Glasgow Brown, an acquaintance of Edinburgh
Speculative days, and carried on, after the failure of that gentleman's
health, by Mr. Henley. But he had no great gift or liking for
journalism, or for any work not calling for the best literary form and
finish he could give. Where he found special scope for such work was in
the Cornhill Magazine under the editorship of Mr. Leslie Stephen. Here
he continued his critical papers on men and books, already begun in 1874
with _Victor Hugo_, and began in 1876 the series of papers afterwards
collected in _Virginibus Puerisque_. They were continued in 1877, and in
greater number throughout 1878. His first published stories appeared as
follows:--_A Lodging for the Night_, Temple Bar, October 1877; _The Sire
de Malétroit's Door_, Temple Bar, January 1878; and _Will o' the Mill_,
Cornhill Magazine, January 1878. In May 1878 followed his first travel
book, _The Inland Voyage_, containing the account of his canoe trip from
Antwerp to Grez. This was to Stevenson a year of great and various
productiveness. Besides six or eight characteristic essays of the
_Virginibus Puerisque_ series, there appeared in London the set of
fantastic modern tales called the _New Arabian Nights_, conceived and
written in an entirely different key from any of his previous work, as
well as the kindly, sentimental comedy of French artist life,
_Providence and the Guitar_; and in the Portfolio the _Picturesque Notes
on Edinburgh_, republished at the end of the year in book form. During
the autumn and winter of this year he wrote _Travels with a Donkey in
the Cévennes_, and was much and eagerly engaged in the planning of plays
in collaboration with Mr. Henley; of which one, _Deacon Brodie_, was
finished in the spring of 1879. In the same spring he drafted in
Edinburgh, but afterwards laid by, four chapters on ethics, a study of
which he once spoke as being always his "veiled mistress," under the
name of _Lay Morals_.
But abounding in good work as this period was, and momentous as it was
in regard to Stevenson's future life, it is a period which figures but
meagrely in his correspondence, and in this book must fill
disproportionately little space. Without the least breach of friendship,
or even of intimate confidence on occasion, Stevenson had begun, as was
natural and necessary, to wean himself from his entire dependence on his
friend and counsellor of the last two years; to take his life more into
his own hands; and to intermit the regularity of his correspondence with
her. A few new correspondents appear; but to none of us in these days
did he write more than scantily. Partly his growing absorption by the
complications of his life and the interests of his work left him little
time or inclination for letter-writing; partly his greater freedom of
movement made it unnecessary. On his way backwards and forwards between
Scotland and France, his friends in London had the chance of seeing him
much more frequently than of yore. He avoided formal and dress-coated
society; but in the company of congenial friends, whether men or women,
and in places like the Savile Club (his favourite haunt), he was as
brilliant and stimulating as ever, and however acute his inward
preoccupations, his visits were always a delight.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Edinburgh, end of July 1875._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Herewith you receive the rest of Henley's hospital
work. He was much pleased by what you said of him, and asked me to
forward these to you for your opinion. One poem, the _Spring Sorrow_,
seems to me the most beautiful. I thank God for this _petit bout de
consolation_, that by Henley's own account, this one more lovely thing
in the world is not altogether without some trace of my influence: let
me say that I have been something sympathetic which the mother found and
contemplated while she yet carried it in her womb. This, in my profound
discouragement, is a great thing for me; if I cannot do good with
myself, at least, it seems, I can help others better inspired; I am at
least a skilful accoucheur. My discouragement is from many causes: among
others the re-reading of my Italian story. Forgive me, Colvin, but I
cannot agree with you; it seems green fruit to me, if not really
unwholesome; it is profoundly feeble, damn its weakness! Moreover I
stick over my _Fontainebleau_, it presents difficulties to me that I
surmount slowly.
I am very busy with Béranger for the Britannica. Shall be up in town on
Friday or Saturday.--Ever yours,
R. L. S., _Advocate_.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
[_Chez Siron, Barbizon, Seine et Marne, August 1875._]
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have been three days at a place called Grez, a pretty
and very melancholy village on the plain. A low bridge of many arches
choked with sedge; great fields of white and yellow water-lilies;
poplars and willows innumerable; and about it all such an atmosphere of
sadness and slackness, one could do nothing but get into the boat and
out of it again, and yawn for bedtime.
Yesterday Bob and I walked home; it came on a very creditable
thunderstorm; we were soon wet through; sometimes the rain was so heavy
that one could only see by holding the hand over the eyes; and to crown
all, we lost our way and wandered all over the place, and into the
artillery range, among broken trees, with big shot lying about among the
rocks. It was near dinner-time when we got to Barbizon; and it is
supposed that we walked from twenty-three to twenty-five miles, which is
not bad for the Advocate, who is not tired this morning. I was very glad
to be back again in this dear place, and smell the wet forest in the
morning.
Simpson and the rest drove back in a carriage, and got about as wet as
we did.
Why don't you write? I have no more to say.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
At this time Stevenson was much occupied, as were several young
writers his contemporaries, with imitating the artificial forms of
early French verse. Only one of his attempts, I believe, has been
preserved, besides the two contained in this letter. The second is a
variation on a theme of Banville's.
_Château Renard, Loiret, August 1875._
I have been walking these last days from place to place; and it does
make it hot for walking with a sack in this weather. I am burned in
horrid patches of red; my nose, I fear, is going to take the lead in
colour; Simpson is all flushed, as if he were seen by a sunset. I send
you here two rondeaux; I don't suppose they will amuse anybody but me;
but this measure, short and yet intricate, is just what I desire; and I
have had some good times walking along the glaring roads, or down the
poplar alley of the great canal, pitting my own humour to this old
verse.
Far have you come, my lady, from the town,
And far from all your sorrows, if you please,
To smell the good sea-winds and hear the seas,
And in green meadows lay your body down.
To find your pale face grow from pale to brown,
Your sad eyes growing brighter by degrees;
Far have you come, my lady, from the town,
And far from all your sorrows, if you please.
Here in this seaboard land of old renown,
In meadow grass go wading to the knees;
Bathe your whole soul a while in simple ease;
There is no sorrow but the sea can drown;
Far have you come, my lady, from the town.
_Nous n'irons plus au bois_
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire,
To weep for old desire
And things that are no more.
The woods are spoiled and hoar,
The ways are full of mire;
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire.
We loved, in days of yore,
Love, laughter, and the lyre.
Ah God, but death is dire,
And death is at the door--
We'll walk the woods no more.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The special mood or occasion of unaccustomed bitterness which
prompted this rhapsody has passed from memory beyond recall. The date
must be after his return from his second excursion to Fontainebleau.
_[Swanston, late Summer 1875] Thursday._
I have been staying in town, and could not write a word. It is a fine
strong night, full of wind; the trees are all crying out in the
darkness; funny to think of the birds asleep outside, on the tossing
branches, the little bright eyes closed, the brave wings folded, the
little hearts that beat so hard and thick (so much harder and thicker
than ever human heart) all stilled and quieted in deep slumber, in the
midst of this noise and turmoil. Why, it will be as much as I can do to
sleep in here in my walled room; so loud and jolly the wind sounds
through the open window. The unknown places of the night invite the
travelling fancy; I like to think of the sleeping towns and sleeping
farm-houses and cottages, all the world over, here by the white road
poplar-lined, there by the clamorous surf. Isn't that a good dormitive?
_Saturday._--I cannot tell how I feel, who can ever? I feel like a
person in a novel of George Sand's; I feel I desire to go out of the
house, and begin life anew in the cool blue night; never to come back
here; never, never. Only to go on for ever by sunny day and grey day, by
bright night and foul, by high-way and by-way, town and hamlet, until
somewhere by a road-side or in some clean inn clean death opened his
arms to me and took me to his quiet heart for ever. If soon, good; if
late, well then, late--there would be many a long bright mile behind me,
many a goodly, many a serious sight; I should die ripe and perfect, and
take my garnered experience with me into the cool, sweet earth. For I
have died already and survived a death; I have seen the grass grow
rankly on my grave; I have heard the train of mourners come weeping and
go laughing away again. And when I was alone there in the kirk-yard, and
the birds began to grow familiar with the grave-stone, I have begun to
laugh also, and laughed and laughed until night-flowers came out above
me. I have survived myself, and somehow live on, a curious changeling, a
merry ghost; and do not mind living on, finding it not unpleasant; only
had rather, a thousandfold, died and been done with the whole damned
show for ever. It is a strange feeling at first to survive yourself, but
one gets used to that as to most things. _Et puis_, is it not one's own
fault? Why did not one lie still in the grave? Why rise again among
men's troubles and toils, where the wicked wag their shock beards and
hound the weary out to labour? When I was safe in prison, and stone
walls and iron bars were an hermitage about me, who told me to burst the
mild constraint and go forth where the sun dazzles, and the wind
pierces, and the loud world sounds and jangles all through the weary
day? I mind an old print of a hermit coming out of a great wood towards
evening and shading his bleared eyes to see all the kingdoms of the
earth before his feet, where towered cities and castled hills, and
stately rivers, and good corn lands made one great chorus of temptation
for his weak spirit, and I think I am the hermit, and would to God I had
dwelt ever in the wood of penitence[20]----
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The _Burns_ herein mentioned is an article undertaken in the early
summer of the same year for the Encyclopædia Britannica. In the end
Stevenson's work was thought to convey a view of the poet too frankly
critical, and too little in accordance with the accepted Scotch
tradition; and the publishers, duly paying him for his labours,
transferred the task to Professor Shairp. The volume here announced
on the three Scottish eighteenth-century poets unfortunately never
came into being. The _Charles of Orleans_ essay appeared in the
Cornhill Magazine for December of the following year; that on Villon
(with the story on the same theme, _A Lodging for the Night_) not
until the autumn of 1877. The essay on Béranger referred to at the
end of the letter was one commissioned and used by the editor of the
Encyclopædia; _Spring_ was a prose poem, of which the manuscript,
sent to me at Cambridge, was unluckily lost in the confusion of a
change of rooms.
[_Edinburgh, Autumn 1875._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thanks for your letter and news. No--my _Burns_ is not
done yet, it has led me so far afield that I cannot finish it; every
time I think I see my way to an end, some new game (or perhaps wild
goose) starts up, and away I go. And then, again, to be plain, I shirk
the work of the critical part, shirk it as a man shirks a long jump. It
is awful to have to express and differentiate _Burns_ in a column or
two. O golly, I say, you know, it _can't_ be done at the money. All the
more as I'm going to write a book about it. _Ramsay, Fergusson, and
Burns: an Essay_ (or _a critical essay?_ but then I'm going to give
lives of the three gentlemen, only the gist of the book is the
criticism) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate. How's that for cut and
dry? And I _could_ write this book. Unless I deceive myself, I could
even write it pretty adequately. I feel as if I was really in it, and
knew the game thoroughly. You see what comes of trying to write an essay
on Burns in ten columns.
Meantime, when I have done Burns, I shall finish Charles of Orleans (who
is in a good way, about the fifth month, I should think, and promises to
be a fine healthy child, better than any of his elder brothers for a
while); and then perhaps a Villon, for Villon is a very essential part
of my _Ramsay-Fergusson-Burns_; I mean, is a note in it, and will recur
again and again for comparison and illustration; then, perhaps, I may
try Fontainebleau, by the way. But so soon as Charles of Orleans is
polished off, and immortalised for ever, he and his pipings, in a solid
imperishable shrine of R. L. S., my true aim and end will be this little
book. Suppose I could jerk you out 100 Cornhill pages; that would easy
make 200 pages of decent form; and then thickish paper--eh? would that
do? I dare say it could be made bigger; but I know what 100 pages of
copy, bright consummate copy, imply behind the scenes of weary
manuscribing; I think if I put another nothing to it, I should not be
outside the mark; and 100 Cornhill pages of 500 words means, I fancy
(but I never was good at figures), means 50,000 words. There's a
prospect for an idle young gentleman who lives at home at ease! The
future is thick with inky fingers. And then perhaps nobody would
publish. _Ah nom de dieu!_ What do you think of all this? will it
paddle, think you?
I hope this pen will write; it is the third I have tried.
About coming up, no, that's impossible; for I am worse than a bankrupt.
I have at the present six shillings and a penny; I have a sounding lot
of bills for Christmas; new dress suit, for instance, the old one having
gone for Parliament House; and new white shirts to live up to my new
profession; I'm as gay and swell and gummy as can be; only all my boots
leak; one pair water, and the other two simple black mud; so that my rig
is more for the eye than a very solid comfort to myself. That is my
budget. Dismal enough, and no prospect of any coin coming in; at least
for months. So that here I am, I almost fear, for the winter; certainly
till after Christmas, and then it depends on how my bills "turn out"
whether it shall not be till spring. So, meantime, I must whistle in my
cage. My cage is better by one thing; I am an Advocate now. If you ask
me why that makes it better, I would remind you that in the most
distressing circumstances a little consequence goes a long way, and even
bereaved relatives stand on precedence round the coffin. I idle finely.
I read Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, Martin's _History of France_, _Allan
Ramsay_, _Olivier Basselin_, all sorts of rubbish _àpropos_ of _Burns_,
_Commines_, _Juvénal des Ursins_, etc. I walk about the Parliament House
five forenoons a week, in wig and gown; I have either a five or six mile
walk, or an hour or two hard skating on the rink, every afternoon,
without fail.
I have not written much; but, like the seaman's parrot in the tale, I
have thought a deal. You have never, by the way, returned me either
_Spring_ or _Béranger_, which is certainly a d----d shame. I always
comforted myself with that when my conscience pricked me about a letter
to you. "Thus conscience"--O no, that's not appropriate in this
connection.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I say, is there any chance of your coming north this year? Mind you that
promise is now more respectable for age than is becoming.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following epistle in verse, with its mixed flavour of Burns and
Horace, gives a lively picture of winter forenoons spent in the
Parliament House:--
[_Edinburgh, October 1875._]
Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,
Red are the bonny woods o' Dean,
An' here we're back in Embro, freen',
To pass the winter.
Whilk noo, wi' frosts afore, draws in,
An' snaws ahint her.
I've seen's hae days to fricht us a',
The Pentlands poothered weel wi' snaw,
The ways half-smoored wi' liquid thaw,
An' half-congealin',
The snell an' scowtherin' norther blaw
Frae blae Brunteelan'.
I've seen's been unco sweir to sally,
And at the door-cheeks daff an' dally,
Seen's daidle thus an' shilly-shally
For near a minute--
Sae cauld the wind blew up the valley,
The deil was in it!--
Syne spread the silk an' tak the gate
In blast an' blaudin' rain, deil hae't!
The hale toon glintin', stane an' slate,
Wi' cauld an' weet,
An' to the Court, gin we'se be late,
Bicker oor feet.
And at the Court, tae, aft I saw
Whaur Advocates by twa an' twa
Gang gesterin' end to end the ha'
In weeg an' goon,
To crack o' what ye wull but Law
The hale forenoon.
That muckle ha', maist like a kirk,
I've kent at braid mid-day sae mirk
Ye'd seen white weegs an' faces lurk
Like ghaists frae Hell,
But whether Christian ghaists or Turk
Deil ane could tell.
The three fires lunted in the gloom,
The wind blew like the blast o' doom,
The rain upo' the roof abune
Played Peter Dick----
Ye wad nae'd licht enough i' the room
Your teeth to pick!
But, freend, ye ken how me an' you,
The ling-lang lanely winter through,
Keep'd a guid speerit up, an' true
To lore Horatian,
We aye the ither bottle drew
To inclination.
Sae let us in the comin' days
Stand sicker on our auncient ways--
The strauchtest road in a' the maze
Since Eve ate apples;
An' let the winter weet our cla'es--
We'll weet our thrapples.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The two following letters refer to the essay on the Spirit of Spring
which I was careless enough to lose in the process of a change of
rooms at Cambridge. _The Petits Poèmes en Prose_ were attempts, not
altogether successful, in the form though not in the spirit of
Baudelaire.
_Swanston [Autumn 1875]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thanks. Only why don't you tell me if I can get my
_Spring_ printed? I want to print it; because it's nice, and genuine to
boot, and has got less side on than my other game. Besides I want coin
badly.
I am writing _Petits Poèmes en Prose_. Their principal resemblance to
Baudelaire's is that they are rather longer and not quite so good. They
are ve-ry cle-ver (words of two syllables), O so aw-ful-ly cle-ver
(words of three), O so dam-na-bly cle-ver (words of a devil of a number
of syllables). I have written fifteen in a fortnight. I have also
written some beautiful poetry. I would like a cake and a cricket-bat;
and a pass-key to Heaven if you please, and as much money as my friend
the Baron Rothschild can spare. I used to look across to Rothschild of a
morning when we were brushing our hair, and say--(this is quite true,
only we were on the opposite side of the street, and though I used to
look over I cannot say I ever detected the beggar, he feared to meet my
eagle eye)--well, I used to say to him, "Rothschild, old man, lend us
five hundred francs," and it is characteristic of Rothy's dry humour
that he used never to reply when it was a question of money. He was a
very humorous dog indeed, was Rothy. Heigh-ho! those happy old days.
Funny, funny fellow, the dear old Baron.
How's that for genuine American wit and humour? Take notice of this in
your answer; say, for instance, "Even although the letter had been
unsigned, I could have had no difficulty in guessing who was my dear,
_lively_, _witty_ correspondent. Yours, Letitia Languish."
O!--my mind has given way. I have gone into a mild, babbling, sunny
idiocy. I shall buy a Jew's harp and sit by the roadside with a woman's
bonnet on my manly head begging my honest livelihood. Meantime, adieu.
I would send you some of these _PP. Poèmes_ of mine, only I know you
would never acknowledge receipt or return them.--Yours, and
Rothschild's,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Edinburgh, Autumn 1875._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--_Fous ne me gombrennez pas._ Angry with you? No. Is the
thing lost? Well, so be it. There is one masterpiece fewer in the world.
The world can ill spare it, but I, sir, I (and here I strike my hollow
bosom so that it resounds) I am full of this sort of bauble; I am made
of it; it comes to me, sir, as the desire to sneeze comes upon poor
ordinary devils on cold days, when they should be getting out of bed and
into their horrid cold tubs by the light of a seven o'clock candle, with
the dismal seven o'clock frost-flowers all over the window.
Show Stephen what you please; if you could show him how to give me
money, you would oblige, sincerely yours, R. L. S.
I have a scroll of _Springtime_ somewhere, but I know that it is not in
very good order, and do not feel myself up to very much grind over it. I
am damped about _Springtime_, that's the truth of it. It might have been
four or five quid!
Sir, I shall shave my head, if this goes on. All men take a pleasure to
gird at me. The laws of nature are in open war with me. The wheel of a
dog-cart took the toes off my new boots. Gout has set in with extreme
rigour, and cut me out of the cheap refreshment of beer. I leant my back
against an oak, I thought it was a trusty tree, but first it bent, and
syne--it lost the Spirit of Springtime, and so did Professor Sidney
Colvin, Trinity College, to me.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Along with this, I send you some _P.P.P._'s; if you lose them, you need
not seek to look upon my face again. Do, for God's sake, answer me about
them also; it is a horrid thing for a fond architect to find his
monuments received in silence.--Yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Edinburgh, November 12, 1875._]
MY DEAR FRIEND,--Since I got your letter I have been able to do a little
more work, and I have been much better contented with myself; but I
can't get away, that is absolutely prevented by the state of my purse
and my debts, which, I may say, are red like crimson. I don't know how
I am to clear my hands of them, nor when, not before Christmas anyway.
Yesterday I was twenty-five; so please wish me many happy
returns--directly. This one was not unhappy anyway. I have got back a
good deal into my old random, little-thought way of life, and do not
care whether I read, write, speak, or walk, so long as I do something. I
have a great delight in this wheel-skating; I have made great advance in
it of late, can do a good many amusing things (I mean amusing in _my_
sense--amusing to do). You know, I lose all my forenoons at Court! So it
is, but the time passes; it is a great pleasure to sit and hear cases
argued or advised. This is quite autobiographical, but I feel as if it
was some time since we met, and I can tell you, I am glad to meet you
again. In every way, you see, but that of work the world goes well with
me. My health is better than ever it was before; I get on without any
jar, nay, as if there never had been a jar, with my parents. If it
weren't about that work, I'd be happy. But the fact is, I don't
think--the fact is, I'm going to trust in Providence about work. If I
could get one or two pieces I hate out of my way all would be well, I
think; but these obstacles disgust me, and as I know I ought to do them
first, I don't do anything. I must finish this off, or I'll just lose
another day. I'll try to write again soon.--Ever your faithful friend,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
The review of Robert Browning's _Inn Album_ here mentioned appears in
Vanity Fair, Dec. 11, 1875. The matter of the poem is praised; the
"slating" is only for the form and metres.
[_Edinburgh, December 1875._]
Well, I am hardy! Here I am in the midst of this great snowstorm,
sleeping with my window open and _smoking_ in my cold tub in the morning
so as it would do your heart good to see. Moreover I am in pretty good
form otherwise. Fontainebleau lags; it has turned out more difficult
than I expected in some places, but there is a deal of it ready, and (I
think) straight.
I was at a concert on Saturday and heard Hallé and Norman Neruda play
that Sonata of Beethoven's you remember, and I felt very funny. But I
went and took a long spanking walk in the dark and got quite an appetite
for dinner. I did; that's not bragging.
As you say, a concert wants to be gone to _with_ someone, and I know
who. I have done rather an amusing paragraph or two for Vanity Fair on
the _Inn Album_. I have slated R. B. pretty handsomely. I am in a
desperate hurry; so good-bye.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. DE MATTOS
The state of health and spirits mentioned in the last soon gave way
to one of the fits of depression, frequent with him in Edinburgh
winters. In the following letter he unbosoms himself to a favourite
cousin (sister to R. A. M. Stevenson).
_Edinburgh, January 1876._
MY DEAR KATHARINE,--The prisoner reserved his defence. He has been
seedy, however; principally sick of the family evil, despondency; the
sun is gone out utterly; and the breath of the people of this city lies
about as a sort of damp, unwholesome fog, in which we go walking with
bowed hearts. If I understand what is a contrite spirit, I have one; it
is to feel that you are a small jar, or rather, as I feel myself, a very
large jar, of pottery work rather _mal réussi_, and to make every
allowance for the potter (I beg pardon; Potter with a capital P.) on his
ill-success, and rather wish he would reduce you as soon as possible to
potsherds. However, there are many things to do yet before we go
_Grossir la pâte universelle
Faite des formes que Dieu fond._
For instance, I have never been in a revolution yet. I pray God I may be
in one at the end, if I am to make a mucker. The best way to make a
mucker is to have your back set against a wall and a few lead pellets
whiffed into you in a moment, while yet you are all in a heat and a fury
of combat, with drums sounding on all sides, and people crying, and a
general smash like the infernal orchestration at the end of the
_Huguenots_....
Please pardon me for having been so long of writing, and show your
pardon by writing soon to me; it will be a kindness, for I am sometimes
very dull. Edinburgh is much changed for the worse by the absence of
Bob; and this damned weather weighs on me like a curse. Yesterday, or
the day before, there came so black a rain squall that I was
frightened--what a child would call frightened, you know, for want of a
better word--although in reality it has nothing to do with fright. I lit
the gas and sat cowering in my chair until it went away again.--Ever
yours,
R. L. S.
O, I am trying my hand at a novel just now; it may interest you to know,
I am bound to say I do not think it will be a success. However, it's an
amusement for the moment, and work, work is your only ally against the
"bearded people" that squat upon their hams in the dark places of life
and embrace people horribly as they go by. God save us from the bearded
people! to think that the sun is still shining in some happy places!
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Edinburgh, January 1876._]
... OUR weather continues as it was, bitterly cold, and raining often.
There is not much pleasure in life certainly as it stands at present.
_Nous n'irons plus au bois, hélas!_
I meant to write some more last night, but my father was ill and it put
it out of my way. He is better this morning.
If I had written last night, I should have written a lot. But this
morning I am so dreadfully tired and stupid that I can say nothing. I
was down at Leith in the afternoon. God bless me, what horrid women I
saw; I never knew what a plain-looking race it was before. I was sick at
heart with the looks of them. And the children, filthy and ragged! And
the smells! And the fat black mud!
My soul was full of disgust ere I got back. And yet the ships were
beautiful to see, as they are always; and on the pier there was a clean
cold wind that smelt a little of the sea, though it came down the Firth,
and the sunset had a certain _éclat_ and warmth. Perhaps if I could get
more work done, I should be in a better trim to enjoy filthy streets and
people and cold grim weather; but I don't much feel as if it was what I
would have chosen. I am tempted every day of my life to go off on
another walking tour. I like that better than anything else that I
know.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Fontainebleau_ is the paper called _Forest Notes_ which appeared in
the Cornhill Magazine in May of this year (reprinted in _Essays of
Travel_). The _Winter's Walk_, as far as it goes one of the most
charming of his essays of the Road, was for some reason never
finished; reprinted _ibidem_.
[_Edinburgh, February 1876._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--_1st_. I have sent _Fontainebleau_ long ago, long ago.
And Leslie Stephen is worse than tepid about it--liked "some parts" of
it "very well," the son of Belial. Moreover, he proposes to shorten it;
and I, who want _money_, and money soon, and not glory and the
illustration of the English language, I feel as if my poverty were going
to consent.
_2nd._ I'm as fit as a fiddle after my walk. I am four inches bigger
about the waist than last July! There, that's your prophecy did that. I
am on _Charles of Orleans_ now, but I don't know where to send him.
Stephen obviously spews me out of his mouth, and I spew him out of mine,
so help me! A man who doesn't like my _Fontainebleau_! His head must be
turned.
_3rd._ If ever you do come across my _Spring_ (I beg your pardon for
referring to it again, but I don't want you to forget) send it off at
once.
_4th._ I went to Ayr, Maybole, Girvan, Ballantrae, Stranraer, Glenluce,
and Wigton. I shall make an article of it some day soon, _A Winter's
Walk in Carrick and Galloway_. I had a good time.--Yours,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
"Baynes" in the following is Stevenson's good friend and mine, the
late Professor Spencer Baynes, who was just relinquishing the
editorship of the Encyclopædia Britannica by reason of ill-health.
[_Swanston, July 1876._]
Here I am, here, and very well too. I am glad you liked _Walking Tours_;
I like it, too; I think it's prose; and I own with contrition that I
have not always written prose. However, I am "endeavouring after new
obedience" (Scot. Shorter Catechism). You don't say aught of _Forest
Notes_, which is kind. There is one, if you will, that was too sweet to
be wholesome.
I am at Charles d'Orléans. About fifteen Cornhill pages have already
coulé'd from under my facile plume--no, I mean eleven, fifteen of
MS.--and we are not much more than half-way through, Charles and I; but
he's a pleasant companion. My health is very well; I am in a fine
exercisy state. Baynes is gone to London; if you see him, inquire about
my _Burns_. They have sent me £5, 5s. for it, which has mollified me
horrid. £5, 5s. is a good deal to pay for a read of it in MS.; I can't
complain.--Yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
This dates from just before the canoeing trip recounted in the
_Inland Voyage_.
[_Swanston, July 1876._]
Well, here I am at last; it is a Sunday, blowing hard, with a grey sky
with the leaves flying; and I have nothing to say. I ought to have no
doubt; since it's so long since last I wrote; but there are times when
people's lives stand still. If you were to ask a squirrel in a
mechanical cage for his autobiography, it would not be very gay. Every
spin may be amusing in itself, but is mighty like the last; you see I
compare myself to a lighthearted animal; and indeed I have been in a
very good humour. For the weather has been passable; I have taken a deal
of exercise, and done some work. But I have the strangest repugnance for
writing; indeed, I have nearly got myself persuaded into the notion that
letters don't arrive, in order to salve my conscience for never sending
them off. I'm reading a great deal of fifteenth century: _Trial of Joan
of Arc_, _Paston Letters_, _Basin_,[21] etc., also Boswell daily by way
of a Bible; I mean to read Boswell now until the day I die. And now and
again a bit of _Pilgrim's Progress_. Is that all? Yes, I think that's
all. I have a thing in proof for the Cornhill called _Virginibus
Puerisque_. _Charles of Orleans_ is again laid aside, but in a good
state of furtherance this time. A paper called _A Defence of Idlers_
(which is really a defence of R. L. S.) is in a good way. So, you see, I
am busy in a tumultuous, knotless sort of fashion; and as I say, I take
lots of exercise, and I'm as brown as a berry.
This is the first letter I've written for--O I don't know how long.
_July 30th._--This is, I suppose, three weeks after I began. Do, please,
forgive me.
To the Highlands, first, to the Jenkins'; then to Antwerp; thence, by
canoe with Simpson, to Paris and Grez (on the Loing, and an old
acquaintance of mine on the skirts of Fontainebleau) to complete our
cruise next spring (if we're all alive and jolly) by Loing and Loire,
Saone and Rhone to the Mediterranean. It should make a jolly book of
gossip, I imagine.
God bless you.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--_Virginibus Puerisque_ is in August Cornhill. _Charles of
Orleans_ is finished, and sent to Stephen; _Idlers_ ditto, and sent to
Grove; but I've no word of either. So I've not been idle.
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
In a well-known passage of the _Inland Voyage_ the following incident
is related to the same purport, but in another style:--
_Chauny, Aisne [September 1876]._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Here I am, you see; and if you will take to a map, you
will observe I am already more than two doors from Antwerp, whence I
started. I have fought it through under the worst weather I ever saw in
France; I have been wet through nearly every day of travel since the
second (inclusive); besides this, I have had to fight against pretty
mouldy health; so that, on the whole, the essayist and reviewer has
shown, I think, some pluck. Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from
being miserably drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of
friends and the permanent impoverishment of British Essayism and
Reviewery. My boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in a very rapid
current; and I was a good while before I got on to the outside of that
fallen tree; rather a better while than I cared about. When I got up, I
lay some time on my belly, panting, and exuded fluid. All my symptoms
_jusqu' ici_ are trifling. But I've a damned sore throat.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
Part of _The Hair Trunk_ still exists in MS. It contains some
tolerable fooling, but is chiefly interesting from the fact that the
seat of the proposed Bohemian colony from Cambridge is to be in the
Navigator Islands; showing the direction which had been given to
Stevenson's thoughts by the conversation of the New Zealand official,
Mr. Seed, two years before.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, May 1877._
... A perfect chorus of repudiation is sounding in my ears; and although
you say nothing, I know you must be repudiating me, all the same. Write
I cannot--there's no good mincing matters, a letter frightens me worse
than the devil; and I am just as unfit for correspondence as if I had
never learned the three R.'s.
Let me give my news quickly before I relapse into my usual idleness. I
have a terror lest I should relapse before I get this finished. Courage,
R. L. S.! On Leslie Stephen's advice, I gave up the idea of a book of
essays. He said he didn't imagine I was rich enough for such an
amusement; and moreover, whatever was worth publication was worth
republication. So the best of those I had already, _An Apology for
Idlers_, is in proof for the Cornhill. I have Villon to do for the same
magazine, but God knows when I'll get it done, for drums, trumpets--I'm
engaged upon--trumpets, drums--a novel! "The Hair Trunk; or, the Ideal
Commonwealth." It is a most absurd story of a lot of young Cambridge
fellows who are going to found a new society, with no ideas on the
subject, and nothing but Bohemian tastes in the place of ideas; and who
are--well, I can't explain about the trunk--it would take too long--but
the trunk is the fun of it--everybody steals it; burglary, marine fight,
life on desert island on west coast of Scotland, sloops, etc. The first
scene where they make their grand schemes and get drunk is supposed to
be very funny, by Henley. I really saw him laugh over it until he cried.
Please write to me, although I deserve it so little, and show a
Christian spirit.--Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Edinburgh, August 1877._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I'm to be whipped away to-morrow to Penzance, where at
the post-office a letter will find me glad and grateful. I am well, but
somewhat tired out with overwork. I have only been home a fortnight this
morning, and I have already written to the tune of forty-five Cornhill
pages and upwards. The most of it was only very laborious re-casting and
re-modelling, it is true; but it took it out of me famously, all the
same.
Temple Bar appears to like my _Villon_, so I may count on another market
there in the future, I hope. At least, I am going to put it to the proof
at once, and send another story, _The Sire de Malétroit's Mousetrap_: a
true novel, in the old sense; all unities preserved moreover, if that's
anything, and I believe with some little merits; not so _clever_ perhaps
as the last, but sounder and more natural.
My _Villon_ is out this month; I should so much like to know what you
think of it. Stephen has written to me à propos of _Idlers_, that
something more in that vein would be agreeable to his views. From
Stephen I count that a devil of a lot.
I am honestly so tired this morning that I hope you will take this for
what it's worth and give me an answer in peace.--Ever yours,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
Neither _The Stepfather's Story_ nor the _St. Michael's Mounts_ essay
here mentioned ever, to my knowledge, came into being.
[_Penzance, August 1877._]
... You will do well to stick to your burn, that is a delightful life
you sketch, and a very fountain of health. I wish I could live like
that, but, alas! it is just as well I got my "Idlers" written and done
with, for I have quite lost all power of resting. I have a goad in my
flesh continually, pushing me to work, work, work. I have an essay
pretty well through for Stephen; a story, _The Sire de Malétroit's
Mousetrap_, with which I shall try Temple Bar; another story, in the
clouds, _The Stepfather's Story_, most pathetic work of a high morality
or immorality, according to point of view; and lastly, also in the
clouds, or perhaps a little farther away, an essay on _The Two St.
Michael's Mounts_, historical and picturesque; perhaps if it didn't come
too long, I might throw in the _Bass Rock_, and call it _Three Sea
Fortalices_, or something of that kind. You see how work keeps bubbling
in my mind. Then I shall do another fifteenth century paper this
autumn--La Sale and _Petit Jehan de Saintré_, which is a kind of
fifteenth century _Sandford and Merton_, ending in horrid immoral
cynicism, as if the author had got tired of being didactic, and just had
a good wallow in the mire to wind up with and indemnify himself for so
much restraint.
Cornwall is not much to my taste, being as bleak as the bleakest parts
of Scotland, and nothing like so pointed and characteristic. It has a
flavour of its own, though, which I may try and catch, if I find the
space, in the proposed article. _Will o' the Mill_ I sent, red hot, to
Stephen in a fit of haste, and have not yet had an answer. I am quite
prepared for a refusal. But I begin to have more hope in the story line,
and that should improve my income anyway. I am glad you liked _Villon_;
some of it was not as good as it ought to be, but on the whole it seems
pretty vivid, and the features strongly marked. Vividness and not style
is now my line; style is all very well, but vividness is the real line
of country; if a thing is meant to be read, it seems just as well to try
and make it readable. I am such a dull person now, I cannot keep off my
own immortal works. Indeed, they are scarcely ever out of my head. And
yet I value them less and less every day. But occupation is the great
thing; so that a man should have his life in his own pocket, and never
be thrown out of work by anything. I am glad to hear you are better. I
must stop--going to Land's End.--Always your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO A. PATCHETT MARTIN
This correspondent, living at the time in Australia, was, I believe,
the first to write and seek Stevenson's acquaintance from admiration
of his work, meaning especially the Cornhill essays of the
_Virginibus Puerisque_ series so far as they had yet appeared. The
"present" herein referred to is Mr. Martin's volume called _A Sweet
Girl Graduate and other Poems_ (Melbourne, 1876).
[1877]
DEAR SIR,--It would not be very easy for me to give you any idea of the
pleasure I found in your present. People who write for the magazines
(probably from a guilty conscience) are apt to suppose their works
practically unpublished. It seems unlikely that any one would take the
trouble to read a little paper buried among so many others; and reading
it, read it with any attention or pleasure. And so, I can assure you,
your little book, coming from so far, gave me all the pleasure and
encouragement in the world.
I suppose you know and remember Charles Lamb's essay on distant
correspondents? Well, I was somewhat of his way of thinking about my
mild productions. I did not indeed imagine they were read, and (I
suppose I may say) enjoyed right round upon the other side of the big
Football we have the honour to inhabit. And as your present was the
first sign to the contrary, I feel I have been very ungrateful in not
writing earlier to acknowledge the receipt. I dare say, however, you
hate writing letters as much as I can do myself (for if you like my
article, I may presume other points of sympathy between us); and on this
hypothesis you will be ready to forgive me the delay.
I may mention with regard to the piece of verses called _Such is Life_
that I am not the only one on this side of the Football aforesaid to
think it a good and bright piece of work, and recognised a link of
sympathy with the poets who "play in hostelries at euchre."--Believe me,
dear sir, yours truly,
R. L. S.
TO A. PATCHETT MARTIN
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [December 1877]._
MY DEAR SIR,--I am afraid you must already have condemned me for a very
idle fellow truly. Here it is more than two months since I received your
letter; I had no fewer than three journals to acknowledge; and never a
sign upon my part. If you have seen a Cornhill paper of mine upon
idling, you will be inclined to set it all down to that. But you will
not be doing me justice. Indeed, I have had a summer so troubled that I
have had little leisure and still less inclination to write letters. I
was keeping the devil at bay with all my disposable activities; and more
than once I thought he had me by the throat. The odd conditions of our
acquaintance enable me to say more to you than I would to a person who
lived at my elbow. And besides, I am too much pleased and flattered at
our correspondence not to go as far as I can to set myself right in your
eyes.
In this damnable confusion (I beg pardon) I have lost all my
possessions, or near about, and quite lost all my wits. I wish I could
lay my hands on the numbers of the Review, for I know I wished to say
something on that head more particularly than I can from memory; but
where they have escaped to, only time or chance can show. However, I can
tell you so far, that I was very much pleased with the article on Bret
Harte; it seemed to me just, clear, and to the point. I agreed pretty
well with all you said about George Eliot: a high, but, may we not
add?--a rather dry lady. Did you--I forget--did you have a kick at the
stern works of that melancholy puppy and humbug Daniel Deronda
himself?--the Prince of Prigs; the literary abomination of desolation in
the way of manhood; a type which is enough to make a man forswear the
love of women, if that is how it must be gained.... Hats off all the
same, you understand: a woman of genius.
Of your poems I have myself a kindness for _Noll and Nell_, although I
don't think you have made it as good as you ought: verse five is surely
not _quite melodious_. I confess I like the Sonnet in the last number of
the Review--the _Sonnet to England_.
Please, if you have not, and I don't suppose you have, already read it,
institute a search in all Melbourne for one of the rarest and certainly
one of the best of books--_Clarissa Harlowe_. For any man who takes an
interest in the problems of the two sexes, that book is a perfect mine
of documents. And it is written, sir, with the pen of an angel. Miss
Howe and Lovelace, words cannot tell how good they are! And the scene
where Clarissa beards her family, with her fan going all the while; and
some of the quarrel scenes between her and Lovelace; and the scene where
Colonel Marden goes to Mr. Hall, with Lord M. trying to compose matters,
and the Colonel with his eternal "finest woman in the world," and the
inimitable affirmation of Mobray--nothing, nothing could be better! You
will bless me when you read it for this recommendation; but, indeed, I
can do nothing but recommend Clarissa. I am like that Frenchman of the
eighteenth century who discovered Habakkuk, and would give no one peace
about that respectable Hebrew. For my part, I never was able to get over
his eminently respectable name; Isaiah is the boy, if you must have a
prophet, no less. About Clarissa, I meditate a choice work: _A Dialogue
on Man, Woman, and "Clarissa Harlowe."_ It is to be so clever that no
array of terms can give you any idea; and very likely that particular
array in which I shall finally embody it, less than any other.
Do you know, my dear sir, what I like best in your letter? The egotism
for which you thought necessary to apologise. I am a rogue at egotism
myself; and to be plain, I have rarely or never liked any man who was
not. The first step to discovering the beauties of God's universe is
usually a (perhaps partial) apprehension of such of them as adorn our
own characters. When I see a man who does not think pretty well of
himself, I always suspect him of being in the right. And besides, if he
does not like himself, whom he has seen, how is he ever to like one whom
he never can see but in dim and artificial presentments?
I cordially reciprocate your offer of a welcome; it shall be at least a
warm one. Are you not my first, my only, admirer--a dear tie? Besides,
you are a man of sense, and you treat me as one by writing to me as you
do, and that gives me pleasure also. Please continue to let me see your
work. I have one or two things coming out in the Cornhill: a story
called _The Sire de Malétroit's Door_ in Temple Bar; and a series of
articles on Edinburgh in the Portfolio; but I don't know if these last
fly all the way to Melbourne.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The _Inland Voyage_, it must be remembered, at this time just put
into the publisher's hands, was the author's first book. The "Crane
sketch" mentioned in the second of the following notes to me was the
well-known frontispiece to that book on which Mr. Walter Crane was
then at work. The essay _Pan's Pipes_, reprinted in _Virginibus
Puerisque_, was written about this time.
_Hôtel des Étrangers, Dieppe, January 1, 1878._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am at the _Inland Voyage_ again: have finished
another section, and have only two more to execute. But one at least of
these will be very long--the longest in the book--being a great
digression on French artistic tramps. I only hope Paul may take the
thing; I want coin so badly, and besides it would be something
done--something put outside of me and off my conscience; and I should
not feel such a muff as I do, if once I saw the thing in boards with a
ticket on its back. I think I shall frequent circulating libraries a
good deal. The Preface shall stand over, as you suggest, until the last,
and then, sir, we shall see. This to be read with a big voice.
This is New Year's Day: let me, my dear Colvin, wish you a very good
year, free of all misunderstanding and bereavement, and full of good
weather and good work. You know best what you have done for me, and so
you will know best how heartily I mean this.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I had had business in Edinburgh, and had stayed with Stevenson's
parents in his absence.
[_Paris, January or February 1878._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Many thanks for your letter. I was much interested by
all the Edinburgh gossip. Most likely I shall arrive in London next
week. I think you know all about the Crane sketch; but it should be a
river, not a canal, you know, and the look should be "cruel, lewd, and
kindly," all at once. There is more sense in that Greek myth of Pan than
in any other that I recollect except the luminous Hebrew one of the
Fall: one of the biggest things done. If people would remember that all
religions are no more than representations of life, they would find
them, as they are, the best representations, licking Shakespeare.
What an inconceivable cheese is Alfred de Musset! His comedies are, to
my view, the best work of France this century: a large order. Did you
ever read them? They are real, clear, living work.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
_Café de la Source, Bd. St. Michel, Paris, 15th Feb. 1878._
MY DEAR FATHER,--A thought has come into my head which I think would
interest you. Christianity is among other things, a very wise, noble,
and strange doctrine of life. Nothing is so difficult to specify as the
position it occupies with regard to asceticism. It is not ascetic.
Christ was of all doctors (if you will let me use the word) one of the
least ascetic. And yet there is a theory of living in the Gospels which
is curiously indefinable, and leans towards asceticism on one side,
although it leans away from it on the other. In fact, asceticism is used
therein as a means, not as an end. The wisdom of this world consists in
making oneself very little in order to avoid many knocks; in preferring
others, in order that, even when we lose, we shall find some pleasure in
the event; in putting our desires outside of ourselves, in another ship,
so to speak, so that, when the worst happens, there will be something
left. You see, I speak of it as a doctrine of life, and as a wisdom for
this world. People must be themselves, I suppose. I feel every day as if
religion had a greater interest for me; but that interest is still
centred on the little rough-and-tumble world in which our fortunes are
cast for the moment. I cannot transfer my interests, not even my
religious interest, to any different sphere.... I have had some sharp
lessons and some very acute sufferings in these last seven-and-twenty
years--more even than you would guess. I begin to grow an old man; a
little sharp, I fear, and a little close and unfriendly; but still I
have a good heart, and believe in myself and my fellow-men and the God
who made us all.... There are not many sadder people in this world,
perhaps, than I. I have my eye on a sickbed;[22] I have written letters
to-day that it hurt me to write, and I fear it will hurt others to
receive; I am lonely and sick and out of heart. Well, I still hope; I
still believe; I still see the good in the inch, and cling to it. It is
not much, perhaps, but it is always something.
I find I have wandered a thousand miles from what I meant. It was this:
of all passages bearing on Christianity in that form of a worldly
wisdom, the most Christian, and so to speak, the key of the whole
position, is the Christian doctrine of revenge. And it appears that this
came into the world through Paul! There is a fact for you. It was to
speak of this that I began this letter; but I have got into deep seas
and must go on.
There is a fine text in the Bible, I don't know where, to the effect
that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord.
Strange as it may seem to you, everything has been, in one way or the
other, bringing me a little nearer to what I think you would like me to
be. 'Tis a strange world, indeed, but there is a manifest God for those
who care to look for him.
This is a very solemn letter for my surroundings in this busy café; but
I had it on my heart to write it; and, indeed, I was out of the humour
for anything lighter.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--While I am writing gravely, let me say one word more. I have
taken a step towards more intimate relations with you. But don't expect
too much of me. Try to take me as I am. This is a rare moment, and I
have profited by it; but take it as a rare moment. Usually I hate to
speak of what I really feel, to that extent that when I find myself
_cornered_, I have a tendency to say the reverse.
R. L. S.
TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Paris, 44 Bd. Haussmann, Friday, February 21, 1878._
MY DEAR PEOPLE,--Do you know who is my favourite author just now? How
are the mighty fallen! Anthony Trollope. I batten on him; he is so
nearly wearying you, and yet he never does; or rather, he never does,
until he gets near the end, when he begins to wean you from him, so that
you're as pleased to be done with him as you thought you would be sorry.
I wonder if it's old age? It is a little, I am sure. A young person
would get sickened by the dead level of meanness and cowardliness; you
require to be a little spoiled and cynical before you can enjoy it. I
have just finished the _Way of the World_; there is only one person in
it--no, there are three--who are nice: the wild American woman, and two
of the dissipated young men, Dolly and Lord Nidderdale. All the heroes
and heroines are just ghastly. But what a triumph is Lady Carbury! That
is real, sound, strong, genuine work: the man who could do that, if he
had had courage, might have written a fine book; he has preferred to
write many readable ones. I meant to write such a long, nice letter, but
I cannot hold the pen.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The following refers to the newspaper criticisms on the _Inland
Vogage_:--
_Hôtel du Val de Grâce, Rue St. Jacques, Paris, Sunday [June 1878]._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--About criticisms, I was more surprised at the tone of
the critics than I suppose any one else. And the effect it has produced
in me is one of shame. If they liked that so much, I ought to have given
them something better, that's all. And I shall try to do so. Still, it
strikes me as odd; and I don't understand the vogue. It should sell the
thing.--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
This letter tells of the progress of the Portfolio papers called
_Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh_, and of preparations for the walking
tour narrated in _Travels with a Donkey_. The late Philip Gilbert
Hamerton, editor of the Portfolio and author of _A Painter's Camp in
the Highlands_ and of many well-known works on art, landscape, and
French social life, was at this time and for many years living at a
small chateau near Autun; and the visit here proposed was actually
paid and gave great pleasure alike to host and guest (see _P. G.
Hamerton, an Autobiography_, etc., p. 451).
_Monastier, September 1878._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--You must not expect to hear much from me for the next
two weeks; for I am near starting. Donkey purchased--a love--price, 65
francs and a glass of brandy. My route is all pretty well laid out; I
shall go near no town till I get to Alais. Remember, Poste Restante,
Alais, Gard. Greyfriars will be in October. You did not say whether you
liked September; you might tell me that at Alais. The other No.'s of
Edinburgh are: Parliament Close, Villa Quarters (which perhaps may not
appear), Calton Hill, Winter and New Year, and to the Pentland Hills.
'Tis a kind of book nobody would ever care to read; but none of the
young men could have done it better than I have, which is always a
consolation. I read _Inland Voyage_ the other day: what rubbish these
reviewers did talk! It is not badly written, thin, mildly cheery, and
strained. _Selon moi._ I mean to visit Hamerton on my return journey;
otherwise, I should come by sea from Marseilles. I am very well known
here now; indeed, quite a feature of the place.--Your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
The Engineer is the Conductor of Roads and Bridges; then I have the
Receiver of Registrations, the First Clerk of Excise, and the Perceiver
of the Impost. That is our dinner party. I am a sort of hovering
government official, as you see. But away--away from these great
companions!
TO W. E. HENLEY
[_Monastier, September 1878._]
DEAR HENLEY,--I hope to leave Monastier this day (Saturday) week;
thenceforward Poste Restante, Alais, Gard, is my address. _Travels with
a Donkey in the French Highlands._ I am no good to-day. I cannot work,
nor even write letters. A colossal breakfast yesterday at Puy has, I
think, done for me for ever; I certainly ate more than ever I ate before
in my life--a big slice of melon, some ham and jelly, a _filet_, a
helping of gudgeons, the breast and leg of a partridge, some green peas,
eight crayfish, some Mont d'Or cheese, a peach, and a handful of
biscuits, macaroons, and things. It sounds Gargantuan: it cost three
francs a head. So that it was inexpensive to the pocket, although I fear
it may prove extravagant to the fleshly tabernacle. I can't think how I
did it or why. It is a new form of excess for me; but I think it pays
less than any of them.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Monastier, at Morel's [September 1878]._
Lud knows about date, _vide_ postmark.
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Yours (with enclosures) of the 16th to hand. All work
done. I go to Le Puy to-morrow to dispatch baggage, get cash, stand
lunch to engineer, who has been very jolly and useful to me, and hope by
five o'clock on Saturday morning to be driving Modestine towards the
Gévaudan. Modestine is my ânesse; a darling, mouse-colour, about the
size of a Newfoundland dog (bigger, between you and me), the colour of a
mouse, costing 65 francs and a glass of brandy. Glad you sent on all the
coin; was half afraid I might come to a stick in the mountains, donkey
and all, which would have been the devil. Have finished _Arabian Nights_
and Edinburgh book, and am a free man. Next address, Poste Restante,
Alais, Gard. Give my servilities to the family. Health bad; spirits, I
think, looking up.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Paris, October 1878._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have seen Hamerton; he was very kind, all his family
seemed pleased to see an _Inland Voyager_, and the book seemed to be
quite a household word with them. P. G. himself promised to help me in
my bargains with publishers, which, said he, and I doubt not very
truthfully, he could manage to much greater advantage than I. He is also
to read an _Inland Voyage_ over again, and send me his cuts and cuffs in
private, after having liberally administered his kisses _coram publico_.
I liked him very much. Of all the pleasant parts of my profession, I
think the spirit of other men of letters makes the pleasantest.
Do you know, your sunset was very good? The "attack" (to speak
learnedly) was so plucky and odd. I have thought of it repeatedly since.
I have just made a delightful dinner by myself in the Café Félix, where
I am an old established beggar, and am just smoking a cigar over my
coffee. I came last night from Autun, and I am muddled about my plans.
The world is such a dance!--Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
Stevenson, hard at work upon _Providence and the Guitar_, _New
Arabian Nights_, and _Travels with a Donkey_, was at this time
occupying for a few days my rooms at Trinity in my absence. The
college buildings and gardens, the ideal setting and careful tutelage
of English academic life--in these respects so strongly contrasted
with the Scottish--affected him always with a sense of unreality. The
gyp mentioned is the present head porter of the college.
[_Trinity College, Cambridge, Autumn 1878._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Here I am living like a fighting-cock, and have not
spoken to a real person for about sixty hours. Those who wait on me are
not real. The man I know to be a myth, because I have seen him acting so
often in the Palais Royal. He plays the Duke in _Tricoche et Cacolet_; I
knew his nose at once. The part he plays here is very dull for him, but
conscientious. As for the bedmaker, she's a dream, a kind of cheerful,
innocent nightmare; I never saw so poor an imitation of humanity. I
cannot work--_cannot_. Even the _Guitar_ is still undone; I can only
write ditch-water. 'Tis ghastly; but I am quite cheerful, and that is
more important. Do you think you could prepare the printers for a
possible breakdown this week? I shall try all I know on Monday; but if I
can get nothing better than I got this morning, I prefer to drop a week.
Telegraph to me if you think it necessary. I shall not leave till
Wednesday at soonest. Shall write again.
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
The matter of the loan and its repayment, here touched on, comes up
again in Stevenson's last letter of all, that which closes the book.
Stevenson and Mr. Gosse had planned a joint book of old murder
stories retold, and had been to visit the scene of one famous murder
together.
_[Edinburgh, April 16, 1879] Pool of Siloam, by El Dorado,
Delectable Mountains, Arcadia._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--Herewith of the dibbs--a homely fiver. How, and why, do
you continue to exist? I do so ill, but for a variety of reasons. First,
I wait an angel to come down and trouble the waters; second, more
angels; third--well, more angels. The waters are sluggish; the
angels--well, the angels won't come, that's about all. But I sit waiting
and waiting, and people bring me meals, which help to pass time (I'm
sure it's very kind of them), and sometimes I whistle to myself; and as
there's a very pretty echo at my pool of Siloam, the thing's agreeable
to hear. The sun continues to rise every day, to my growing wonder. "The
moon by night thee shall not smite." And the stars are all doing as well
as can be expected. The air of Arcady is very brisk and pure, and we
command many enchanting prospects in space and time. I do not yet know
much about my situation; for, to tell the truth, I only came here by the
run since I began to write this letter; I had to go back to date it; and
I am grateful to you for having been the occasion of this little outing.
What good travellers we are, if we had only faith; no man need stay in
Edinburgh but by unbelief; my religious organ has been ailing for a
while past, and I have lain a great deal in Edinburgh, a sheer hulk in
consequence. But I got out my wings, and have taken a change of air.
I read your book with great interest, and ought long ago to have told
you so. An ordinary man would say that he had been waiting till he could
pay his debts.... The book is good reading. Your personal notes of those
you saw struck me as perhaps most sharp and "best held." See as many
people as you can, and make a book of them before you die. That will be
a living book, upon my word. You have the touch required. I ask you to
put hands to it in private already. Think of what Carlyle's caricature
of old Coleridge is to us who never saw S. T. C. With that and _Kubla
Khan_, we have the man in the fact. Carlyle's picture, of course, is not
of the author of _Kubla_, but of the author of that surprising _Friend_
which has knocked the breath out of two generations of hopeful youth.
Your portraits would be milder, sweeter, more true perhaps, and perhaps
not so truth-_telling_--if you will take my meaning.
I have to thank you for an introduction to that beautiful--no, that's
not the word--that jolly, with an Arcadian jollity--thing of
Vogelweide's. Also for your preface. Some day I want to read a whole
book in the same picked dialect as that preface. I think it must be one
E. W. Gosse who must write it. He has got himself into a fix with me by
writing the preface; I look for a great deal, and will not be easily
pleased.
I never thought of it, but my new book, which should soon be out,
contains a visit to a murder scene, but not done as we should like to
see them, for, of course, I was running another hare.
If you do not answer this in four pages, I shall stop the enclosed fiver
at the bank, a step which will lead to your incarceration for life. As
my visits to Arcady are somewhat uncertain, you had better address 17
Heriot Row, Edinburgh, as usual. I shall walk over for the note if I am
not yet home.--Believe me, very really yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I charge extra for a flourish when it is successful; this isn't, so you
have it gratis. Is there any news in Babylon the Great? My
fellow-creatures are electing school boards here in the midst of the
ages. It is very composed of them. I can't think why they do it. Nor why
I have written a real letter. If you write a real letter back, damme,
I'll try to _correspond_ with you. A thing unknown in this age. It is a
consequence of the decay of faith; we cannot believe that the fellow
will be at the pains to read us.
TO W. E. HENLEY
This is in reply to some technical criticisms of his correspondent on
the poem _Our Lady of the Snows_, referring to the Trappist
monastery in the Cévennes so called, and afterwards published in
_Underwoods_.
_Edinburgh [April 1879]._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Heavens! have I done the like? "Clarify and strain,"
indeed? "Make it like Marvell," no less. I'll tell you what--you may go
to the devil; that's what I think. "Be eloquent" is another of your
pregnant suggestions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for that one.
Portrait of a person about to be eloquent at the request of a literary
friend. You seem to forget, sir, that rhyme is rhyme, sir, and--go to
the devil.
I'll try to improve it, but I shan't be able to--O go to the devil.
Seriously, you're a cool hand. And then you have the brass to ask me
_why_ "my steps went one by one"? Why? Powers of man! to rhyme with
_sun_, to be sure. Why else could it be? And you yourself have been a
poet! G-r-r-r-r-r! I'll never be a poet any more. Men are so d----d
ungrateful and captious, I declare I could weep.
O Henley, in my hours of ease
You may say anything you please,
But when I join the Muse's revel,
Begad, I wish you at the devil!
In vain my verse I plane and bevel,
Like Banville's rhyming devotees;
In vain by many an artful swivel
Lug in my meaning by degrees;
I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil;
And grovelling prostrate on my knees,
Devote his body to the seas,
His correspondence to the devil!
Impromptu poem.
I'm going to Shandon Hydropathic _cum parentibus_. Write here. I heard
from Lang. Ferrier prayeth to be remembered; he means to write, likes
his Tourgenieff greatly. Also likes my _What was on the Slate_, which,
under a new title, yet unfound, and with a new and, on the whole,
kindly _dénouement_, is going to shoot up and become a star....
I see I must write some more to you about my Monastery. I am a weak
brother in verse. You ask me to re-write things that I have already
managed just to write with the skin of my teeth. If I don't re-write
them, it's because I don't see how to write them better, not because I
don't think they should be. But, curiously enough, you condemn two of my
favourite passages, one of which is J. W. Ferrier's favourite of the
whole. Here I shall think it's you who are wrong. You see, I did not try
to make good verse, but to say what I wanted as well as verse would let
me. I don't like the rhyme "ear" and "hear." But the couplet, "My
undissuaded heart I hear Whisper courage in my ear," is exactly what I
want for the thought, and to me seems very energetic as speech, if not
as verse. Would "daring" be better than "courage"? _Je me le demande._
No, it would be ambiguous, as though I had used it licentiously for
"daringly," and that would cloak the sense.
In short, your suggestions have broken the heart of the scald. He
doesn't agree with them all; and those he does agree with, the spirit
indeed is willing, but the d----d flesh cannot, cannot, cannot, see its
way to profit by. I think I'll lay it by for nine years, like Horace. I
think the well of Castaly's run out. No more the Muses round my pillow
haunt. I am fallen once more to the mere proser. God bless you.
R. L. S.
TO MISS JANE BALFOUR
This correspondent, the long-lived spinster among the Balfour sisters
(died 1907, aged 91) and the well-beloved "auntie" of a numerous clan
of nephews and nieces, is the subject of the set of verses, _Auntie's
Skirts_, in the _Child's Garden_. She had been reading _Travels with
a Donkey_ on its publication.
[_Swanston, June 1879._]
MY DEAR AUNTIE,--If you could only think a little less of me and others,
and a great deal more of your delightful self, you would be as nearly
perfect as there is any need to be. I think I have travelled with
donkeys all my life; and the experience of this book could be nothing
new to me. But if ever I knew a real donkey, I believe it is yourself.
You are so eager to think well of everybody else (except when you are
angry on account of some third person) that I do not believe you have
ever left yourself time to think properly of yourself. You never
understand when other people are unworthy, nor when you yourself are
worthy in the highest degree. Oblige us all by having a guid conceit o'
yoursel and despising in the future the whole crowd, including your
affectionate nephew,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
This letter is contemporary with the much-debated Cornhill essay _On
some Aspects of Burns_, afterwards published in _Familiar Studies of
Men and Books_. "Meredith's story" is probably the _Tragic
Comedians_.
_Swanston, July 24, 1879._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have greatly enjoyed your article, which seems to me
handsome in tone, and written like a fine old English gentleman. But is
there not a hitch in the sentence at foot of page 153? I get lost in it.
Chapters VIII. and IX. of Meredith's story are very good, I think. But
who wrote the review of my book? Whoever he was, he cannot write; he is
humane, but a duffer; I could weep when I think of him; for surely to be
virtuous and incompetent is a hard lot. I should prefer to be a bold
pirate, the gay sailor-boy of immorality, and a publisher at once. My
mind is extinct; my appetite is expiring; I have fallen altogether into
a hollow-eyed, yawning way of life, like the parties in Burne Jones's
pictures.... Talking of Burns. (Is this not sad, Weg? I use the term of
reproach not because I am angry with you this time, but because I am
angry with myself and desire to give pain.) Talking, I say, of Robert
Burns, the inspired poet is a very gay subject for study. I made a kind
of chronological table of his various loves and lusts, and have been
comparatively speechless ever since. I am sorry to say it, but there was
something in him of the vulgar, bagmanlike, professional
seducer.--Oblige me by taking down and reading, for the hundredth time,
I hope, his _Twa Dogs_ and his _Address to the Unco Guid_. I am only a
Scotchman, after all, you see; and when I have beaten Burns, I am driven
at once, by my parental feelings, to console him with a sugar-plum. But
hang me if I know anything I like so well as the _Twa Dogs_. Even a
common Englishman may have a glimpse, as it were from Pisgah, of its
extraordinary merits.
"_English, The_:--a dull people, incapable of comprehending the Scottish
tongue. Their history is so intimately connected with that of Scotland,
that we must refer our readers to that heading. Their literature is
principally the work of venal Scots."--Stevenson's _Handy Cyclopædia_.
Glescow: Blaikie & Bannock.
Remember me in suitable fashion to Mrs. Gosse, the offspring, and the
cat.--And believe me ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Rembrandt_ refers to an article in the Edinburgh Review. "Bummkopf"
was Stevenson's name for the typical pedant, German or other, who
cannot clear his edifice of its scaffolding, nor set forth the
results of research without intruding on the reader all its
processes, evidences, and supports. _Burns_ is the aforesaid Cornhill
essay: not the rejected Encyclopædia article.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [July 28, 1879]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am just in the middle of your _Rembrandt_. The taste
for Bummkopf and his works is agreeably dissembled so far as I have
gone; and the reins have never for an instant been thrown upon the neck
of that wooden Pegasus; he only perks up a learned snout from a footnote
in the cellarage of a paragraph; just, in short, where he ought to be,
to inspire confidence in a wicked and adulterous generation. But, mind
you, Bummkopf is not human; he is Dagon the fish god, and down he will
come, sprawling on his belly or his behind, with his hands broken from
his helpless carcase, and his head rolling oft into a corner. Up will
rise on the other side, sane, pleasurable, human knowledge: a thing of
beauty and a joy, etc.
I'm three parts through _Burns_; long, dry, unsympathetic, but sound
and, I think, in its dry way, interesting. Next I shall finish the
story, and then perhaps Thoreau. Meredith has been staying with Morley,
has been cracking me up, he writes, to that literary Robespierre; and he
(the L. R.) is about, it is believed, to write to me on a literary
scheme. Is it Keats, hope you? My heart leaps at the thought.--Yours
ever,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
With reference to the "term of reproach," it must be explained that
Mr. Gosse, who now signs with only one initial, used in these days to
sign with two, E. W. G. The nickname Weg was fastened on him by
Stevenson, partly under a false impression as to the order of these
initials, partly in friendly derision of a passing fit of lameness,
which called up the memory of Silas Wegg, the immortal literary
gentleman "_with_ a wooden leg" of _Our Mutual Friend_.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [July 29, 1879]._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--Yours was delicious; you are a young person of wit; one
of the last of them; wit being quite out of date, and humour confined to
the Scotch Church and the _Spectator_ in unconscious survival. You will
probably be glad to hear that I am up again in the world; I have
breathed again, and had a frolic on the strength of it. The frolic was
yesterday, Sawbath; the scene, the Royal Hotel, Bathgate; I went there
with a humorous friend to lunch. The maid soon showed herself a lass of
character. She was looking out of window. On being asked what she was
after, "I'm lookin' for my lad," says she. "Is that him?" "Weel, I've
been lookin' for him a' my life, and I've never seen him yet," was the
response. I wrote her some verses in the vernacular; she read them.
"They're no bad for a beginner," said she. The landlord's daughter, Miss
Stewart, was present in oil colour; so I wrote her a declaration in
verse, and sent it by the handmaid. She (Miss S.) was present on the
stair to witness our departure, in a warm, suffused condition. Damn it,
Gosse, you needn't suppose that you're the only poet in the world.
Your statement about your initials, it will be seen, I pass over in
contempt and silence. When once I have made up my mind, let me tell you,
sir, there lives no pock-pudding who can change it. Your anger I defy.
Your unmanly reference to a well-known statesman I puff from me, sir,
like so much vapour. Weg is your name; Weg. W E G.
My enthusiasm has kind of dropped from me. I envy you your wife, your
home, your child--I was going to say your cat. There would be cats in my
home too if I could but get it. I may seem to you "the impersonation of
life," but my life is the impersonation of waiting, and that's a poor
creature. God help us all, and the deil be kind to the hindmost! Upon my
word, we are a brave, cheery crew, we human beings, and my admiration
increases daily--primarily for myself, but by a roundabout process for
the whole crowd; for I dare say they have all their poor little secrets
and anxieties. And here am I, for instance, writing to you as if you
were in the seventh heaven, and yet I know you are in a sad anxiety
yourself. I hope earnestly it will soon be over, and a fine pink Gosse
sprawling in a tub, and a mother in the best of health and spirits, glad
and tired, and with another interest in life. Man, you are out of the
trouble when this is through. A first child is a rival, but a second is
only a rival to the first; and the husband stands his ground and may
keep married all his life--a consummation heartily to be desired.
Good-bye, Gosse. Write me a witty letter with good news of the mistress.
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] The letter breaks off here.
[21] Thomas Basin or Bazin, the historian of Charles VIII. and Louis XI.
[22] R. Glasgow Brown lay dying in the Riviera.
V
THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT
S.S. DEVONIA--MONTEREY AND SAN FRANCISCO--MARRIAGE
July 1879-July 1880
In France, as has been already indicated, Stevenson had met the American
lady, Mrs. Osbourne, who was afterwards to become his wife. Her domestic
relations had not been fortunate; to his chivalrous nature her
circumstances appealed no less than her person; and almost from their
first meeting, which befell at Grez, immediately after the canoe voyage
of 1876, he conceived for her an attachment which was to transform and
determine his life. On her return to America with her children in the
autumn of 1878, she determined to seek a divorce from her husband.
Hearing of her intention, together with very disquieting news of her
health, and hoping that after she had obtained the divorce he might make
her his wife, Stevenson suddenly started for California at the beginning
of August 1879.
For what he knew must seem to his friends, and especially to his father,
so wild an errand, he would ask for no supplies from home; but resolved,
risking his whole future on the issue, to test during this adventure his
power of supporting himself, and eventually others, by his own labours
in literature. In order from the outset to save as much as possible, he
made the journey in the steerage and the emigrant train. With this
prime motive of economy was combined a second--that of learning for
himself the pinch of life as it is felt by the unprivileged and the poor
(he had long ago disclaimed for himself the character of a "consistent
first-class passenger in life")--and also, it should be added, a third,
that of turning his experiences to literary account. On board ship he
took daily notes with this intent, and wrote moreover _The Story of a
Lie_ for an English magazine. Arrived at his destination, he found his
health, as was natural, badly shaken by the hardships of the journey;
tried his favourite open-air cure for three weeks at an Angora
goat-ranche some twenty miles from Monterey; and then lived from
September to December in that old Californian coast-town itself, under
the conditions set forth in the earlier of the following letters, and
under a heavy combined strain of personal anxiety and literary effort.
From the notes taken on board ship and in the emigrant train he drafted
an account of his journey, intending to make a volume matching in form,
though in contents much unlike, the earlier _Inland Voyage_ and _Travels
with a Donkey_. He wrote also the essays on Thoreau and the Japanese
reformer, Yoshida Torajiro, afterwards published in _Familiar Studies of
Men and Books_; one of the most vivid of his shorter tales, _The
Pavilion on the Links_, hereinafter referred to as a "blood and
thunder," as well as a great part of another and longer story drawn from
his new experiences and called _A Vendetta in the West_; but this did
not satisfy him, and was never finished. He planned at the same time, in
the spirit of romantic comedy, that tale which took final shape four
years later as _Prince Otto_. Towards the end of December 1879 Stevenson
moved to San Francisco, where he lived for three months in a workman's
lodging, leading a life of frugality amounting, it will be seen, to
self-imposed penury, and working always with the same intensity of
application, until his health utterly broke down. One of the causes
which contributed to his illness was the fatigue he underwent in helping
to watch beside the sickbed of a child, the son of his landlady. During
a part of March and April he lay at death's door--his first really
dangerous sickness since childhood--and was slowly tended back to life
by the joint ministrations of his future wife and the physician to whom
his letter of thanks will be found below. His marriage ensued in May
1880; immediately afterwards, to try and consolidate his recovery, he
moved to a deserted mining-camp in the Californian coast range; and has
recorded the aspects and humours of his life there with a master's touch
in the _Silverado Squatters_.
The news of his dangerous illness and approaching marriage had in the
meantime unlocked the parental heart and purse; supplies were sent
ensuring his present comfort, with the promise of their continuance for
the future, and of a cordial welcome for the new daughter-in-law in his
father's house. The following letters, chosen from among those written
during the period in question, depict his way of life, and reflect at
once the anxiety of his friends and the strain of the time upon himself.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The story mentioned at the beginning of this letter is _The Story of a
Lie_.
_On board s.s. "Devonia," an hour or two out of New York [August
1879]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have finished my story. The handwriting is not good
because of the ship's misconduct: thirty-one pages in ten days at sea is
not bad.
I shall write a general procuration about this story on another bit of
paper. I am not very well; bad food, bad air, and hard work have brought
me down. But the spirits keep good. The voyage has been most
interesting, and will make, if not a series of _Pall Mall_ articles, at
least the first part of a new book. The last weight on me has been
trying to keep notes for this purpose. Indeed, I have worked like a
horse, and am now as tired as a donkey. If I should have to push on far
by rail, I shall bring nothing but my fine bones to port.
Good-bye to you all. I suppose it is now late afternoon with you and all
across the seas. What shall I find over there? I dare not wonder.--Ever
yours,
R. L. S.
_P.S._--I go on my way to-night, if I can; if not, to-morrow; emigrant
train ten to fourteen days' journey; warranted extreme discomfort. The
only American institution which has yet won my respect is the rain. One
sees it is a new country, they are so free with their water. I have been
steadily drenched for twenty-four hours; water-proof wet through;
immortal spirit fitfully blinking up in spite. Bought a copy of my own
work, and the man said "by Stevenson."--"Indeed," says I.--"Yes, sir,"
says he.--Scene closes.
I am not beaten yet, though disappointed. If I am, it's for good this
time; you know what "for good" means in my vocabulary--something inside
of 12 months perhaps; but who knows? At least, if I fail in my great
purpose, I shall see some wild life in the West and visit both Florida
and Labrador ere I return. But I don't yet know if I have the courage to
stick to life without it. Man, I was sick, sick, sick of this last year.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_In the Emigrant Train from New York to San Francisco, August
1879._]
DEAR COLVIN,--I am in the cars between Pittsburgh and Chicago, just now
bowling through Ohio. I am taking charge of a kid, whose mother is
asleep, with one eye, while I write you this with the other. I reached
N. Y. Sunday night; and by five o'clock Monday was under way for the
West. It is now about ten on Wednesday morning, so I have already been
about forty hours in the cars. It is impossible to lie down in them,
which must end by being very wearying.
I had no idea how easy it was to commit suicide. There seems nothing
left of me; I died a while ago; I do not know who it is that is
travelling.
Of where or how, I nothing know;
And why, I do not care;
Enough if, even so,
My travelling eyes, my travelling mind can go
By flood and field and hill, by wood and meadow fair,
Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.
I think, I hope, I dream no more
The dreams of otherwhere,
The cherished thoughts of yore;
I have been changed from what I was before;
And drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air
Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.
Unweary God me yet shall bring
To lands of brighter air,
Where I, now half a king,
Shall with enfranchised spirit loudlier sing,
And wear a bolder front than that which now I wear
Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.
Exit Muse, hurried by child's games....
Have at you again, being now well through Indiana. In America you eat
better than anywhere else: fact, The food is heavenly.
No man is any use until he has dared everything; I feel just now as if I
had, and so might become a man. "If ye have faith like a grain of
mustard seed." That is so true! Just now I have faith as big as a
cigar-case; I will not say die, and do not fear man nor fortune.
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Crossing Nebraska [Saturday, August 23, 1879]._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--I am sitting on the top of the cars with a mill party
from Missouri going west for his health. Desolate flat prairie upon all
hands. Here and there a herd of cattle, a yellow butterfly or two; a
patch of wild sunflowers; a wooden house or two; then a wooden church
alone in miles of waste; then a windmill to pump water. When we stop,
which we do often, for emigrants and freight travel together, the kine
first, the men after, the whole plain is heard singing with cicadae.
This is a pause, as you may see from the writing. What happened to the
old pedestrian emigrants, what was the tedium suffered by the Indians
and trappers of our youth, the imagination trembles to conceive. This is
now Saturday, 23rd, and I have been steadily travelling since I parted
from you at St. Pancras. It is a strange vicissitude from the Savile
Club to this; I sleep with a man from Pennsylvania who has been in the
States Navy, and mess with him and the Missouri bird already alluded to.
We have a tin wash-bowl among four. I wear nothing but a shirt and a
pair of trousers, and never button my shirt. When I land for a meal, I
pass my coat and feel dressed. This life is to last till Friday,
Saturday, or Sunday next. It is a strange affair to be an emigrant, as
I hope you shall see in a future work. I wonder if this will be
legible; my present station on the waggon roof, though airy compared to
the cars, is both dirty and insecure. I can see the track straight
before and straight behind me to either horizon. Peace of mind I enjoy
with extreme serenity; I am doing right; I know no one will think so;
and don't care. My body, however, is all to whistles; I don't eat; but,
man, I can sleep. The car in front of mine is chock full of Chinese.
_Monday._--What it is to be ill in an emigrant train let those declare
who know. I slept none till late in the morning, overcome with laudanum,
of which I had luckily a little bottle. All to-day I have eaten nothing,
and only drunk two cups of tea, for each of which, on the pretext that
the one was breakfast, and the other dinner, I was charged fifty cents.
Our journey is through ghostly deserts, sage brush and alkali, and
rocks, without form or colour, a sad corner of the world. I confess I am
not jolly, but mighty calm, in my distresses. My illness is a subject of
great mirth to some of my fellow-travellers, and I smile rather sickly
at their jests.
We are going along Bitter Creek just now, a place infamous in the
history of emigration, a place I shall remember myself among the
blackest. I hope I may get this posted at Ogden, Utah.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Coast Line Mountains, California, September, 1879._]
Here is another curious start in my life. I am living at an Angora
goat-ranche, in the Coast Line Mountains, eighteen miles from Monterey.
I was camping out, but got so sick that the two rancheros took me in and
tended me. One is an old bear-hunter, seventy-two years old, and a
captain from the Mexican war; the other a pilgrim, and one who was out
with the bear flag and under Fremont when California was taken by the
States. They are both true frontiersmen, and most kind and pleasant.
Captain Smith, the bear-hunter, is my physician, and I obey him like an
oracle.
The business of my life stands pretty nigh still. I work at my notes of
the voyage. It will not be very like a book of mine; but perhaps none
the less successful for that. I will not deny that I feel lonely to-day;
but I do not fear to go on, for I am doing right. I have not yet had a
word from England, partly, I suppose, because I have not yet written for
my letters to New York; do not blame me for this neglect; if you knew
all I have been through, you would wonder I had done so much as I have.
I teach the ranche children reading in the morning, for the mother is
from home sick.--Ever your affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Monterey, California, October 1879._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I received your letter with delight; it was the first
word that reached me from the old country. I am in good health now; I
have been pretty seedy, for I was exhausted by the journey and anxiety
below even my point of keeping up; I am still a little weak, but that is
all; I begin to ingrease,[23] it seems, already. My book is about half
drafted: the _Amateur Emigrant_, that is. Can you find a better name? I
believe it will be more popular than any of my others; the canvas is so
much more popular and larger too. Fancy, it is my fourth. That
voluminous writer. I was vexed to hear about the last chapter of _The
Lie_, and pleased to hear about the rest; it would have been odd if it
had no birthmark, born where and how it was. It should by rights have
been called the _Devonia_, for that is the habit with all children born
in a steerage.
I write to you, hoping for more. Give me news of all who concern me,
near or far, or big or little. Here, sir, in California you have a
willing hearer.
Monterey is a place where there is no summer or winter, and pines and
sand and distant hills and a bay all filled with real water from the
Pacific. You will perceive that no expense has been spared. I now live
with a little French doctor; I take one of my meals in a little French
restaurant; for the other two, I sponge. The population of Monterey is
about that of a dissenting chapel on a wet Sunday in a strong church
neighbourhood. They are mostly Mexican and Indian--mixed.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Monterey, 8th October 1879._
MY DEAR WEG,--I know I am a rogue and the son of a dog. Yet let me tell
you, when I came here I had a week's misery and a fortnight's illness,
and since then I have been more or less busy in being content. This is a
kind of excuse for my laziness. I hope you will not excuse yourself. My
plans are still very uncertain, and it is not likely that anything will
happen before Christmas. In the meanwhile, I believe I shall live on
here "between the sandhills and the sea," as I think Mr. Swinburne hath
it. I was pretty nearly slain; my spirit lay down and kicked for three
days; I was up at an Angora goat-ranche in the Santa Lucia Mountains,
nursed by an old frontiersman, a mighty hunter of bears, and I scarcely
slept, or ate, or thought for four days. Two nights I lay out under a
tree in a sort of stupor, doing nothing but fetch water for myself and
horse, light a fire and make coffee, and all night awake hearing the
goat-bells ringing and the tree-frogs singing when each new noise was
enough to set me mad. Then the bear-hunter came round, pronounced me
"real sick," and ordered me up to the ranche.
It was an odd, miserable piece of my life; and according to all rule, it
should have been my death; but after a while my spirit got up again in a
divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward
with great emphasis and success.
My new book, _The Amateur Emigrant_, is about half drafted. I don't know
if it will be good, but I think it ought to sell in spite of the deil
and the publishers; for it tells an odd enough experience, and one, I
think, never yet told before. Look for my _Burns_ in the Cornhill, and
for my _Story of a Lie_ in Paul's withered babe, the New Quarterly. You
may have seen the latter ere this reaches you; tell me if it has any
interest, like a good boy, and remember that it was written at sea in
great anxiety of mind. What is your news? Send me your works, like an
angel, _au fur et à mesure_ of their apparation, for I am naturally
short of literature, and I do not wish to rust.
I fear this can hardly be called a letter. To say truth, I feel already
a difficulty of approach; I do not know if I am the same man I was in
Europe, perhaps I can hardly claim acquaintance with you. My head went
round and looks another way now; for when I found myself over here in a
new land, and all the past uprooted in the one tug, and I neither
feeling glad nor sorry, I got my last lesson about mankind; I mean my
latest lesson, for of course I do not know what surprises there are yet
in store for me. But that I could have so felt astonished me beyond
description. There is a wonderful callousness in human nature which
enables us to live. I had no feeling one way or another from New York to
California, until, at Dutch Flat, a mining camp in the Sierra, I heard a
cock crowing with a home voice; and then I fell to hope and regret both
in the same moment.
Is there a boy or a girl? and how is your wife? I thought of you more
than once, to put it mildly.
I live here comfortably enough; but I shall soon be left all alone,
perhaps till Christmas. Then you may hope for correspondence--and may
not I?--Your friend,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
[_Monterey, October 1879._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Herewith the _Pavilion on the Links_, grand carpentry
story in nine chapters, and I should hesitate to say how many tableaux.
Where is it to go? God knows. It is the dibbs that are wanted. It is not
bad, though I say it; carpentry, of course, but not bad at that; and who
else can carpenter in England, now that Wilkie Collins is played out? It
might be broken for magazine purposes at the end of Chapter IV. I send
it to you, as I dare say Payn may help, if all else fails. Dibbs and
speed are my mottoes.
Do acknowledge the _Pavilion_ by return. I shall be so nervous till I
hear, as of course I have no copy except of one or two places where the
vein would not run. God prosper it, poor _Pavilion_! May it bring me
money for myself and my sick one, who may read it, I do not know how
soon.
Love to your wife, Anthony, and all. I shall write to Colvin to-day or
to-morrow.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The story spoken of in these letters as A _Vendetta in the West_ was
three parts written and then given up and destroyed.
[_Monterey, October 1879._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Many thanks for your good letter, which is the best way
to forgive you for your previous silence. I hope Colvin or somebody has
sent me the Cornhill and the New Quarterly, though I am trying to get
them in San Francisco. I think you might have sent me (1) some of your
articles in the P. M. G.[24]; (2) a paper with the announcement of
second edition; and (3) the announcement of the essays in Athenæum. This
to prick you in the future. Again, choose, in your head, the best volume
of Labiche there is, and post it to Jules Simoneau, Monterey, Monterey
Co., California: do this at once, as he is my restaurant man, a most
pleasant old boy with whom I discuss the universe and play chess daily.
He has been out of France for thirty-five years, and never heard of
Labiche. I have eighty-three pages written of a story called _A Vendetta
in the West_, and about sixty pages of the first draft of the _Amateur
Emigrant_. They should each cover from 130 to 150 pages when done. That
is all my literary news. Do keep me posted, won't you? Your letter and
Bob's made the fifth and sixth I have had from Europe in three months.
At times I get terribly frightened about my work, which seems to advance
too slowly. I hope soon to have a greater burden to support, and must
make money a great deal quicker than I used. I may get nothing for the
_Vendetta_; I may only get some forty quid for the _Emigrant_; I cannot
hope to have them both done much before the end of November.
O, and look here, why did you not send me the Spectator which slanged
me? Rogues and rascals, is that all you are worth?
Yesterday I set fire to the forest, for which, had I been caught, I
should have been hung out of hand to the nearest tree, Judge Lynch being
an active person hereaway. You should have seen my retreat (which was
entirely for strategical purposes). I ran like hell. It was a fine
sight. At night I went out again to see it; it was a good fire, though I
say it that should not. I had a near escape for my life with a revolver:
I fired six charges, and the six bullets all remained in the barrel,
which was choked from end to end, from muzzle to breach, with solid
lead; it took a man three hours to drill them out. Another shot, and
I'd have gone to kingdom come.
This is a lovely place, which I am growing to love. The Pacific licks
all other oceans out of hand; there is no place but the Pacific Coast to
hear eternal roaring surf. When I get to the top of the woods behind
Monterey, I can hear the seas breaking all round over ten or twelve
miles of coast from near Carmel on my left, out to Point Pinas in front,
and away to the right along the sands of Monterey to Castroville and the
mouth of the Salinas. I was wishing yesterday that the world could
get--no, what I mean was that you should be kept in suspense like
Mahomet's coffin until the world had made half a revolution, then
dropped here at the station as though you had stepped from the cars; you
would then comfortably enter Walter's waggon (the sun has just gone
down, the moon beginning to throw shadows, you hear the surf rolling,
and smell the sea and the pines). That shall deposit you at Sanchez's
saloon, where we take a drink; you are introduced to Bronson, the local
editor ("I have no brain music," he says; "I'm a mechanic, you see," but
he's a nice fellow); to Adolpho Sanchez, who is delightful. Meantime I
go to the P. O. for my mail; thence we walk up Alvarado Street together,
you now floundering in the sand, now merrily stumping on the wooden
side-walks; I call at Hadsell's for my paper; at length behold us
installed in Simoneau's little white-washed back-room, round a dirty
tablecloth, with François the baker, perhaps an Italian fisherman,
perhaps Augustin Dutra, and Simoneau himself. Simoneau, François, and I
are the three sure cards; the others mere waifs. Then home to my great
airy rooms with five windows opening on a balcony; I sleep on the floor
in my camp blankets; you instal yourself abed; in the morning coffee
with the little doctor and his little wife; we hire a waggon and make a
day of it; and by night, I should let you up again into the air, to be
returned to Mrs. Henley in the forenoon following. By God, you would
enjoy yourself. So should I. I have tales enough to keep you going till
five in the morning, and then they would not be at an end. I forget if
you asked me any questions, and I sent your letter up to the city to one
who will like to read it. I expect other letters now steadily. If I have
to wait another two months, I shall begin to be happy. Will you remember
me most affectionately to your wife? Shake hands with Anthony from me;
and God bless your mother.
God bless Stephen! Does he not know that I am a man, and cannot live by
bread alone, but must have guineas into the bargain. _Burns_, I believe,
in my own mind, is one of my high-water marks; Meiklejohn flames me a
letter about it, which is so complimentary that I must keep it or get it
published in the Monterey Californian. Some of these days I shall send
an exemplaire of that paper; it is huge.--Ever your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Monterey, 21st October [1879]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Although you have absolutely disregarded my plaintive
appeals for correspondence, and written only once as against God knows
how many notes and notikins of mine--here goes again. I am now all alone
in Monterey, a real inhabitant, with a box of my own at the P. O. I have
splendid rooms at the doctor's, where I get coffee in the morning (the
doctor is French), and I mess with another jolly old Frenchman, the
stranded fifty-eight-year-old wreck of a good-hearted, dissipated, and
once wealthy Nantais tradesman. My health goes on better; as for work,
the draft of my book was laid aside at p. 68 or so; and I have now, by
way of change, more than seventy pages of a novel, a one-volume novel,
alas! to be called either _A Chapter in the Experience of Arizona_
_Breckonridge_ or _A Vendetta in the West_, or a combination of the
two. The scene from Chapter IV. to the end lies in Monterey and the
adjacent country; of course, with my usual luck, the plot of the story
is somewhat scandalous, containing an illegitimate father for piece of
resistance.... Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO P.G. HAMERTON
The following refers to Mr. Hamerton's candidature, which was not
successful, for the Professorship of Fine Art at Edinburgh:--
_Monterey [November 1879]._
MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--Your letter to my father was forwarded to me by
mistake, and by mistake I opened it. The letter to myself has not yet
reached me. This must explain my own and my father's silence. I shall
write by this or next post to the only friends I have who, I think,
would have an influence, as they are both professors. I regret
exceedingly that I am not in Edinburgh, as I could perhaps have done
more, and I need not tell you that what I might do for you in the matter
of the election is neither from friendship nor gratitude, but because
you are the only man (I beg your pardon) worth a damn. I shall write to
a third friend, now I think of it, whose father will have great
influence.
I find here (of all places in the world) your _Essays on Art_, which I
have read with signal interest. I believe I shall dig an essay of my own
out of one of them, for it set me thinking; if mine could only produce
yet another in reply, we could have the marrow out between us.
I hope, my dear sir, you will not think badly of me for my long silence.
My head has scarce been on my shoulders. I had scarce recovered from a
long fit of useless ill-health than I was whirled over here double-quick
time and by cheapest conveyance.
I have been since pretty ill, but pick up, though still somewhat of a
mossy ruin. If you would view my countenance aright, come--view it by
the pale moonlight. But that is on the mend. I believe I have now a
distant claim to tan.
A letter will be more than welcome in this distant clime, where I have a
box at the post-office--generally, I regret to say, empty. Could your
recommendation introduce me to an American publisher? My next book I
should really try to get hold of here, as its interest is international,
and the more I am in this country the more I understand the weight of
your influence. It is pleasant to be thus most at home abroad, above
all, when the prophet is still not without honour in his own land....
TO EDMUND GOSSE
The copy of the Monterey paper here mentioned never came to hand, nor
have the contributions of R. L. S. to that journal ever been traced.
_Monterey, 15th November 1879._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--Your letter was to me such a bright spot that I answer
it right away to the prejudice of other correspondents or -dants (don't
know how to spell it) who have prior claims.... It is the history of our
kindnesses that alone makes this world tolerable. If it were not for
that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters,
multiplying, spreading, making one happy through another and bringing
forth benefits, some thirty, some fifty, some a thousandfold, I should
be tempted to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible
spirit. So your four pages have confirmed my philosophy as well as
consoled my heart in these ill hours.
Yes, you are right; Monterey is a pleasant place; but I see I can write
no more to-night. I am tired and sad, and being already in bed, have no
more to do but turn out the light.--Your affectionate friend, R. L. S.
I try it again by daylight. Once more in bed however; for to-day it is
_mucho frio, as_ we Spaniards say; and I had no other means of keeping
warm for my work. I have done a good spell, 9-1/2 foolscap pages; at
least 8 of Cornhill; ah, if I thought that I could get eight guineas for
it. My trouble is that I am all too ambitious just now. A book whereof
70 out of 120 are scrolled. A novel whereof 85 out of, say 140, are
pretty well nigh done. A short story of 50 pp., which shall be finished
to-morrow, or I'll know the reason why. This may bring in a lot of
money: but I dread to think that it is all on three chances. If the
three were to fail, I am in a bog. The novel is called _A Vendetta in
the West_. I see I am in a grasping, dismal humour, and should, as we
Americans put it, quit writing. In truth, I am so haunted by anxieties
that one or other is sure to come up in all that I write.
I will send you herewith a Monterey paper where the works of R. L. S.
appear, nor only that, but all my life on studying the advertisements
will become clear. I lodge with Dr. Heintz; take my meals with Simoneau;
have been only two days ago shaved by the tonsorial artist Michaels;
drink daily at the Bohemia saloon; get my daily paper from Hadsell's;
was stood a drink to-day by Albano Rodriguez; in short, there is scarce
a person advertised in that paper but I know him, and I may add scarce a
person in Monterey but is there advertised. The paper is the marrow of
the place. Its bones--pooh, I am tired of writing so sillily.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Monterey, December 1879._]
TO-DAY, my dear Colvin, I send you the first part of the _Amateur
Emigrant_, 71 pp., by far the longest and the best of the whole. It is
not a monument of eloquence; indeed, I have sought to be prosaic in view
of the nature of the subject; but I almost think it is interesting.
Whatever is done about any book publication, two things remember: I
must keep a royalty; and, second, I must have all my books advertised,
in the French manner, on the leaf opposite the title. I know from my own
experience how much good this does an author with book _buyers_.
The entire _A. E._ will be a little longer than the two others, but not
very much. Here and there, I fancy, you will laugh as you read it; but
it seems to me rather a _clever_ book than anything else: the book of a
man, that is, who has paid a great deal of attention to contemporary
life, and not through the newspapers.
I have never seen my _Burns!_ the darling of my heart! I await your
promised letter. Papers, magazines, articles by friends; reviews of
myself, all would be very welcome. I am reporter for the Monterey
Californian, at a salary of two dollars a week! _Comment trouvez-vous
ça?_ I am also in a conspiracy with the American editor, a French
restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against the Padre. The enclosed
poster is my last literary appearance. It was put up to the number of
200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed
by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. _Dos
Reales; deux réaux_; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but
in practice it is worth from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses
of beer would cost two bits. The Italian fisherman, an old Garibaldian,
is a splendid fellow.
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
The following is in acknowledgment of Mr. Gosse's volume called _New
Poems_:--
_Monterey, Dec. 8, 1879._
MY DEAR WEG,--I received your book last night as I lay abed with a
pleurisy, the result, I fear, of overwork, gradual decline of appetite,
etc. You know what a wooden-hearted curmudgeon I am about contemporary
verse. I like none of it, except some of my own. (I look back on that
sentence with pleasure; it comes from an honest heart.) Hence you will
be kind enough to take this from me in a kindly spirit; the piece "To my
daughter" is delicious. And yet even here I am going to pick holes. I am
a _beastly_ curmudgeon. It is the last verse. "Newly budded" is off the
venue; and haven't you gone ahead to make a poetry daybreak instead of
sticking to your muttons, and comparing with the mysterious light of
stars the plain, friendly, perspicuous, human day? But this is to be a
beast. The little poem is eminently pleasant, human, and original.
I have read nearly the whole volume, and shall read it nearly all over
again; you have no rivals!
Bancroft's _History of the United States_, even in a centenary edition,
is essentially heavy fare; a little goes a long way; I respect Bancroft,
but I do not love him; he has moments when he feels himself inspired to
open up his improvisations upon universal history and the designs of
God; but I flatter myself I am more nearly acquainted with the latter
than Mr. Bancroft. A man, in the words of my Plymouth Brother, "who
knows the Lord," must needs, from time to time, write less emphatically.
It is a fetter dance to the music of minute guns--not at sea, but in a
region not a thousand miles from the Sahara. Still, I am half-way
through volume three, and shall count myself unworthy of the name of an
Englishman if I do not see the back of volume six. The countryman of
Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Drake, Cook, etc.!
I have been sweated not only out of my pleuritic fever, but out of all
my eating cares, and the better part of my brains (strange
coincidence!), by aconite. I have that peculiar and delicious sense of
being born again in an expurgated edition which belongs to
convalescence. It will not be for long; I hear the breakers roar; I
shall be steering head first for another rapid before many days; _nitor
aquis_, said a certain Eton boy, translating for his sins a part of the
_Inland Voyage_ into Latin elegiacs; and from the hour I saw it, or
rather a friend of mine, the admirable Jenkin, saw and recognised its
absurd appropriateness, I took it for my device in life. I am going for
thirty now; and unless I can snatch a little rest before long, I have, I
may tell you in confidence, no hope of seeing thirty-one. My health
began to break last winter, and has given me but fitful times since
then. This pleurisy, though but a slight affair in itself, was a huge
disappointment to me, and marked an epoch. To start a pleurisy about
nothing, while leading a dull, regular life in a mild climate, was not
my habit in past days; and it is six years, all but a few months, since
I was obliged to spend twenty-four hours in bed. I may be wrong, but if
the niting is to continue, I believe I must go. It is a pity in one
sense, for I believe the class of work I _might_ yet give out is better
and more real and solid than people fancy. But death is no bad friend; a
few aches and gasps, and we are done; like the truant child, I am
beginning to grow weary and timid in this big jostling city, and could
run to my nurse, even although she should have to whip me before putting
me to bed.
Will you kiss your little daughter from me, and tell her that her father
has written a delightful poem about her? Remember me, please, to Mrs.
Gosse, to Middlemore, to whom some of these days I will write, to ----,
to ----, yes, to ----, and to ----. I know you will gnash your teeth at
some of these; wicked, grim, catlike old poet. If I were God, I would
sort you--as we say in Scotland.--Your sincere friend,
R. L. S.
"Too young to be our child": blooming good.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Monterey [December 1879]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been down with pleurisy but now convalesce; it
was a slight attack, but I had a hot fever; pulse 150; and the thing
reminds me of my weakness. These miseries tell on me cruelly. But things
are not so hopeless as they might be so I am far from despair. Besides I
think I may say I have some courage for life.
But now look here:
Fables and Tales
Story of a Lie 100 pp. like the Donkey.
Providence and the Guitar 52
Will o' the Mill 45
A Lodging for the Night 40 (about)
Sieur de Malétroit's Door 42
---
say 280 pp. in all.
Here is my scheme. Henley already proposed that Caldecott should
illustrate _Will o' the Mill_. The _Guitar_ is still more suited to him;
he should make delicious things for that. And though the _Lie_ is not
much in the way for pictures, I should like to see my dear Admiral in
the flesh. I love the Admiral; I give my head, that man's alive. As for
the other two they need not be illustrated at all unless he likes.
Is this a dream altogether? I would if necessary ask nothing down for
the stories, and only a small royalty but to begin _from the first copy
sold_.
I hate myself for being always on business. But I cannot help my fears
and anxieties about money; even if all came well, it would be many a
long day before we could afford to leave this coast. Is it true that the
_Donkey_ is in a second edition? That should bring some money, too, ere
long, though not much I dare say. You will see the _Guitar_ is made for
Caldecott; moreover it's a little thing I like. I am no lover of either
of the things in Temple Bar; but they will make up the volume, and
perhaps others may like them better than I do. They say republished
stories do not sell. Well, that is why I am in a hurry to get this out.
The public must be educated to buy mine or I shall never make a cent. I
have heaps of short stories in view. The next volume will probably be
called _Stories_ or A _Story-Book_, and contain quite a different lot:
_The Pavilion on the Links_: _Professor Rensselaer_: _The Dead Man's
Letter_: _The Wild Man of the Woods_: _The Devil on Cramond Sands_. They
would all be carpentry stories; pretty grim for the most part; but of
course that's all in the air as yet.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Monterey, December 11th, 1879._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Many, many thanks for your long letter. And now to
rectifications:--
1. You are wrong about the _Lie_, from choosing a wrong standard.
Compare it with my former stories, not with Scott, or Fielding, or
Balzac, or Charles Reade, or even Wilkie Collins; and where will you
find anything half or a tenth part as good as the Admiral, or even Dick,
or even the Squire, or even Esther. If you had thought of that, you
would have complimented me for advance. But you were not quite sincere
with yourself: you were seeking arguments to make me devote myself to
plays, unbeknown, of course, to yourself.
2. Plays, dear boy, are madness for me just now. The best play is
hopeless before six months, and more likely eighteen for outsiders like
you and me. And understand me, I have to get money _soon_, or it has no
further interest for me; I am nearly through my capital; with what pluck
I can muster against great anxieties and in a very shattered state of
health, I am trying to do things that will bring in money soon; and I
could not, if I were not mad, step out of my way to work at what might
perhaps bring me in more but months ahead. Journalism, you know well, is
not my forte; yet if I could only get a roving commission from a paper,
I should leap at it and send them goodish (no more than that) goodish
stuff.
As for my poor literature, dear Henley, you must expect for a time to
find it worse and worse. Perhaps, if God favours me a little at last, it
will pick up again. Now I am fighting with both hands, a hard battle,
and my work, while it will be as good as I can make it, will probably be
worth twopence. If you despised the _Donkey_, dear boy, you should have
told me so at the time, not reserved it for a sudden revelation just now
when I am down in health, wealth, and fortune. But I am glad you have
said so at last. Never, please, delay such confidences any more. If they
come quickly, they are a help; if they come after long silence, they
feel almost like a taunt.
Now, to read all this, any one would think you had written unkindly,
which is not so, as God who made us knows. But I wished to put myself
right ere I went on to state myself. Nothing has come but the volume of
Labiche; the _Burns_ I have now given up; the P.O. authorities plainly
regard it as contraband; make no further efforts in that direction. But,
please, if anything else of mine appears, _see that my people have a
copy_. I hoped and supposed my own copy would go as usual to the old
address, and, let me use Scotch, I was fair affrontit when I found this
had not been done.
You have not told me how you are and I heard you had not been well.
Please remedy this.
The end of life? Yes, Henley, I can tell you what that is. How old are
all truths, and yet how far from commonplace; old, strange, and
inexplicable, like the Sphinx. So I learn day by day the value and high
doctrinality of suffering. Let me suffer always; not more than I am able
to bear, for that makes a man mad, as hunger drives the wolf to sally
from the forest; but still to suffer some, and never to sink up to my
eyes in comfort and grow dead in virtues and respectability. I am a bad
man by nature, I suppose; but I cannot be good without suffering a
little. And the end of life, you will ask? The pleasurable death of
self: a thing not to be attained, because it is a thing belonging to
Heaven. All this apropos of that good, weak, feverish, fine spirit, ----
----. We have traits in common; we have almost the same strength and
weakness intermingled; and if I had not come through a very hot
crucible, I should be just as feverish. My sufferings have been
healthier than his; mine have been always a choice, where a man could be
manly; his have been so too, if he knew it, but were not so upon the
face; hence a morbid strain, which his wounded vanity has helped to
embitter.
I wonder why I scratch every one to-day. And I believe it is because I
am conscious of so much truth in your strictures on my damned stuff. I
don't care; there is something in me worth saying, though I can't find
what it is just yet; and ere I die, if I do not die too fast, I shall
write something worth the boards, which with scarce an exception I have
not yet done. At the same time, dear boy, in a matter of vastly more
importance than Opera Omnia Ludovici Stevenson, I mean my life, I have
not been a perfect cad; God help me to be less and less so as the days
go on.
The _Emigrant_ is not good, and will never do for P.M.G., though it must
have a kind of rude interest. R. L. S.
I am now quite an American--yellow envelopes.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco [December 26, 1879]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am now writing to you in a café waiting for some
music to begin. For four days I have spoken to no one but to my landlady
or landlord or to restaurant waiters. This is not a gay way to pass
Christmas, is it? and I must own the guts are a little knocked out of
me. If I could work, I could worry through better. But I have no style
at command for the moment, with the second part of the _Emigrant_, the
last of the novel, the essay on Thoreau, and God knows all, waiting for
me. But I trust something can be done with the first part, or, by God,
I'll starve here....[25]
O Colvin, you don't know how much good I have done myself. I feared to
think this out by myself. I have made a base use of you, and it comes
out so much better than I had dreamed. But I have to stick to work now;
and here's December gone pretty near useless. But, Lord love you,
October and November saw a great harvest. It might have affected the
price of paper on the Pacific coast. As for ink, they haven't any, not
what I call ink; only stuff to write cookery-books with, or the works of
Hayley, or the pallid perambulations of the--I can find nobody to beat
Hayley. I like good, knock-me-down black-strap to write with; that makes
a mark and done with it.--By the way, I have tried to read the
_Spectator_,[26] which they all say I imitate, and--it's very wrong of
me, I know--but I can't. It's all very fine, you know, and all that, but
it's vapid. They have just played the overture to _Norma_, and I know
it's a good one, for I bitterly wanted the opera to go on; I had just
got thoroughly interested--and then no curtain to rise.
I have written myself into a kind of spirits, bless your dear heart, by
your leave. But this is wild work for me, nearly nine and me not back!
What will Mrs. Carson think of me! Quite a night-hawk, I do declare. You
are the worst correspondent in the world--no, not that, Henley is
that--well, I don't know, I leave the pair of you to him that made
you--surely with small attention. But here's my service, and I'll away
home to my den O! much the better for this crack, Professor Colvin.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco [January 10, 1880]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is a circular letter to tell my estate fully. You
have no right to it, being the worst of correspondents; but I wish to
efface the impression of my last, so to you it goes.
Any time between eight and half-past nine in the morning, a slender
gentleman in an ulster, with a volume buttoned into the breast of it,
may be observed leaving No. 608 Bush and descending Powell with an
active step. The gentleman is R. L. S.; the volume relates to Benjamin
Franklin, on whom he meditates one of his charming essays. He descends
Powell, crosses Market, and descends in Sixth on a branch of the
original Pine Street Coffee House, no less; I believe he would be
capable of going to the original itself, if he could only find it. In
the branch he seats himself at a table covered with wax-cloth, and a
pampered menial, of High-Dutch extraction and, indeed, as yet only
partially extracted, lays before him a cup of coffee, a roll and a pat
of butter, all, to quote the deity, very good. A while ago and R. L. S.
used to find the supply of butter insufficient; but he has now learned
the art to exactitude, and butter and roll expire at the same moment.
For this refection he pays ten cents, or five pence sterling (£0, 0s.
5d.).
Half an hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observe the same
slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his little
hatchet, splitting, kindling, and breaking coal for his fire. He does
this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not to be
attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain of his
prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an axe), and
daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason is this:
that the sill is a strong, supporting beam, and that blows of the same
emphasis in other parts of his room might knock the entire shanty into
hell. Thenceforth, for from three to four hours, he is engaged darkly
with an ink bottle. Yet he is not blacking his boots, for the only pair
that he possesses are innocent of lustre and wear the natural hue of the
material turned up with caked and venerable slush. The youngest child of
his landlady remarks several times a day, as this strange occupant
enters or quits the house, "Dere's de author." Can it be that this
bright-haired innocent has found the true clue to the mystery? The being
in question is, at least, poor enough to belong to that honourable
craft.
His next appearance is at the restaurant of one Donadieu, in Bush
Street, between Dupont and Kearney, where a copious meal, half a bottle
of wine, coffee and brandy may be procured for the sum of four bits,
_alias_ fifty cents, £0, 2s. 2d. sterling. The wine is put down in a
whole bottleful, and it is strange and painful to observe the greed with
which the gentleman in question seeks to secure the last drop of his
allotted half, and the scrupulousness with which he seeks to avoid
taking the first drop of the other. This is partly explained by the fact
that if he were to go over the mark--bang would go a tenpence. He is
again armed with a book, but his best friends will learn with pain that
he seems at this hour to have deserted the more serious studies of the
morning. When last observed, he was studying with apparent zest the
exploits of one Rocambole by the late Viscomte Ponson du Terrail. This
work, originally of prodigious dimensions, he had cut into liths or
thicknesses apparently for convenience of carriage.
Then the being walks, where is not certain. But by about half-past four,
a light beams from the windows of 608 Bush, and he may be observed
sometimes engaged in correspondence, sometimes once again plunged in the
mysterious rites of the forenoon. About six he returns to the Branch
Original, where he once more imbrues himself to the worth of fivepence
in coffee and roll. The evening is devoted to writing and reading, and
by eleven or half-past darkness closes over this weird and truculent
existence.
As for coin, you see I don't spend much, only you and Henley both seem
to think my work rather bosh nowadays, and I do want to make as much as
I was making, that is £200; if I can do that, I can swim: last year with
my ill health I touched only £109; that would not do, I could not fight
it through on that; but on £200, as I say, I am good for the world, and
can even in this quiet way save a little, and that I must do. The worst
is my health; it is suspected I had an ague chill yesterday; I shall
know by to-morrow, and you know if I am to be laid down with ague the
game is pretty well lost. But I don't know; I managed to write a good
deal down in Monterey, when I was pretty sickly most of the time, and,
by God, I'll try, ague and all. I have to ask you frankly, when you
write, to give me any good news you can, and chat a little, but _just in
the meantime_, give me no bad. If I could get _Thoreau_, _Emigrant_ and
_Vendetta_ all finished and out of my hand, I should feel like a man who
had made half a year's income in a half year; but until the two last are
_finished_, you see, they don't fairly count.
I am afraid I bore you sadly with this perpetual talk about my affairs;
I will try and stow it; but you see, it touches me nearly. I'm the miser
in earnest now: last night, when I felt so ill, the supposed ague chill,
it seemed strange not to be able to afford a drink. I would have walked
half a mile, tired as I felt, for a brandy and soda.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, January 1880._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--You have got a letter ahead of me, owing to the Alpine
accumulation of ill news I had to stagger under. I will stand no
complaints of my correspondence from England, I having written near half
as many letters again as I have received.
Do not damp me about my work; _qu'elle soit bonne ou mauvaise_, it has
to be done. You know the wolf is at the door, and I have been seriously
ill. I am now at Thoreau. I almost blame myself for persevering in
anything so difficult under the circumstances: but it may set me up
again in style, which is the great point. I have now £80 in the world
and two houses to keep up for an indefinite period. It is odd to be on
so strict a regimen; it is a week for instance since I have bought
myself a drink, and unless times change, I do not suppose I shall ever
buy myself another. The health improves. The Pied Piper is an idea; it
shall have my thoughts, and so shall you. The character of the P. P.
would be highly comic, I seem to see. Had you looked at the _Pavilion_,
I do not think you would have sent it to Stephen; 'tis a mere story, and
has no higher pretension: Dibbs is its name, I wish it was its nature
also. The _Vendetta_, at which you ignorantly puff out your lips, is a
real novel, though not a good one. As soon as I have found strength to
finish the _Emigrant_, I shall also finish the _Vend._ and draw a
breath--I wish I could say, "and draw a cheque." My spirits have risen
_contra fortunam_; I will fight this out, and conquer. You are all
anxious to have me home in a hurry. There are two or three objections to
that; but I shall instruct you more at large when I have time, for
to-day I am hunted, having a pile of letters before me. Yet it is
already drawing into dusk.--Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The Dook de Karneel (= Cornhill) and Marky de Stephen is of course
Mr. Leslie Stephen. The "blood and thunder" is _The Pavilion on the
Links. Hester Noble_ and _Don Juan_ were the titles of two plays
planned and begun with W. E. Henley the previous winter. They were
never finished. The French novels mentioned are by Joseph Méry. The
_Dialogue on Character and Destiny_ still exists in a fragmentary
condition. George the Pieman is a character in _Deacon Brodie_.
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, January 23rd, 1880._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--That was good news. The Dook de Karneel, K.C.B., taken
a blood and thunder! Well, I _thought_ it had points; now, I know it.
And I'm to see a proof once more! O Glory Hallelujah, how beautiful is
proof, And how distressed that author man who dwells too far aloof. His
favourite words he always finds his friends misunderstand, With oaths,
he reads his articles, moist brow and clenchéd hand. Impromtoo. The last
line first-rate. When may I hope to see the _Deacon_? I pine for the
_Deacon_, for proofs of the _Pavilion_--O and for a categorical
confession from you that the second edition of the _Donkey_ was a false
alarm, which I conclude from hearing no more.
I have twice written to the Marky de Stephen; each time with one of my
bright papers, so I should hear from him soon. How are Baron Payn, Sir
Robert de Bob, and other members of the Aristocracy?
Here's breid an' wine an' kebbuck an' canty cracks at e'en
To the folks that mind o' me when I'm awa',
But them that hae forgot me, O ne'er to be forgi'en--
They may a' gae tapsalteerie in a raw!
I have mighty little to say, dear boy, to seem worth 2-1/2d. I have
thought of the Piper, but he does not seem to come as yet; I get him too
metaphysical. I shall make a shot for _Hester_, as soon as I have
finished the _Emigrant_ and the _Vendetta_ and perhaps my _Dialogue on
Character and Destiny_. Hester and Don Juan are the two that smile on
me; but I will touch nothing in the shape of a play until I have made my
year's income sure. You understand, and you see that I am right?
I have read _M. Auguste_ and the _Crime inconnu_, being now abonné to a
library, and found them very readable, highly ingenious, and so French
that I could not keep my gravity. The _Damned Ones of the Indies_ now
occupy my attention; I have myself already damned them repeatedly. I am,
as you know, the original person the wheels of whose chariot tarried;
but though I am so slow, I am rootedly tenacious. Do not despair.
_Hester_ and the _Don_ are sworn in my soul; and they shall be.
Is there no _news_? Real news, newsy news. Heavenly blue, this is
strange. Remember me to the lady of the Cawstle, my toolip, and ever
was,
GEORGE THE PIEMAN.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
With reference to the following, it must be explained that the first
draft of the first part of the _Amateur Emigrant_, when it reached me
about Christmas, had seemed to me, compared to his previous travel
papers, a somewhat wordy and spiritless record of squalid
experiences, little likely to advance his still only half-established
reputation; and I had written to him to that effect, inopportunely
enough, with a fuller measure even than usual of the frankness which
always marked our intercourse.
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, California [January 1880]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I received this morning your long letter from Paris.
Well, God's will be done; if it's dull, it's dull; it was a fair fight,
and it's lost, and there's an end. But, fortunately, dulness is not a
fault the public hates; perhaps they may like this vein of dulness. If
they don't, damn them, we'll try them with another. I sat down on the
back of your letter, and wrote twelve Cornhill pages this day as ever
was of that same despised _Emigrant_; so you see my moral courage has
not gone down with my intellect. Only, frankly, Colvin, do you think it
a good plan to be so eminently descriptive, and even eloquent in
dispraise? You rolled such a lot of polysyllables over me that a better
man than I might have been disheartened.--However, I was not, as you
see, and am not. The _Emigrant_ shall be finished and leave in the
course of next week. And then, I'll stick to stories. I am not
frightened. I know my mind is changing; I have been telling you so for
long; and I suppose I am fumbling for the new vein. Well, I'll find it.
The _Vendetta_ you will not much like, I dare say: and that must be
finished next; but I'll knock you with _The Forest State: A Romance_.
I'm vexed about my letters; I know it is painful to get these
unsatisfactory things; but at least I have written often enough. And not
one soul ever gives me any _news_, about people or things; everybody
writes me sermons; it's good for me, but hardly the food necessary for a
man who lives all alone on forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less,
with quantities of hard work and many heavy thoughts. If one of you
could write me a letter with a jest in it, a letter like what is written
to real people in this world--I am still flesh and blood--I should enjoy
it. Simpson did, the other day, and it did me as much good as a bottle
of wine. A lonely man gets to feel like a pariah after awhile--or no,
not that, but like a saint and martyr, or a kind of macerated clergyman
with pebbles in his boots, a pillared Simeon, I'm damned if I know what,
but, man alive, I want gossip.
My health is better, my spirits steadier, I am not the least cast down.
If the _Emigrant_ was a failure, the _Pavilion_, by your leave, was not:
it was a story quite adequately and rightly done, I contend; and when I
find Stephen, for whom certainly I did not mean it, taking it in, I am
better pleased with it than before. I know I shall do better work than
ever I have done before; but, mind you, it will not be like it. My
sympathies and interests are changed. There shall be no more books of
travel for me. I care for nothing but the moral and the dramatic, not a
jot for the picturesque or the beautiful, other than about people. It
bored me hellishly to write the _Emigrant_; well, it's going to bore
others to read it; that's only fair.
I should also write to others; but indeed I am jack-tired, and must go
to bed to a French novel to compose myself for slumber.--Ever your
affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, California, Jan. 23, 1880._
MY DEAR AND KIND WEG,--It was a lesson in philosophy that would have
moved a bear, to receive your letter in my present temper. For I am now
well and well at my ease, both by comparison. First, my health has
turned a corner; it was not consumption this time, though consumption it
has to be some time, as all my kind friends sing to me, day in, day out.
Consumption! how I hate that word; yet it can sound innocent, as,
_e.g._, consumption of military stores. What was wrong with me, apart
from colds and little pleuritic flea-bites, was a lingering malaria; and
that is now greatly overcome, I eat once more, which is a great
amusement and, they say, good for the health. Second, many of the
thunderclouds that were overhanging me when last I wrote, have silently
stolen away like Longfellow's Arabs: and I am now engaged to be married
to the woman whom I have loved for three years and a half. I do not yet
know when the marriage can come off; for there are many reasons for
delay. But as few people before marriage have known each other so long
or made more trials of each other's tenderness and constancy, I permit
myself to hope some quiet at the end of all. At least I will boast
myself so far; I do not think many wives are better loved than mine will
be. Third and last, in the order of what has changed my feelings, my
people have cast me off, and so that thundercloud, as you may almost
say, has overblown. You know more than most people whether or not I
loved my father.[27] These things are sad; nor can any man forgive
himself for bringing them about; yet they are easier to meet in fact
than by anticipation. I almost trembled whether I was doing right, until
I was fairly summoned; then, when I found that I was not shaken one jot,
that I could grieve, that I could sharply blame myself, for the past,
and yet never hesitate one second as to my conduct in the future, I
believed my cause was just and I leave it with the Lord. I certainly
look for no reward, nor any abiding city either here or hereafter, but I
please myself with hoping that my father will not always think so badly
of my conduct nor so very slightingly of my affection as he does at
present.
You may now understand that the quiet economical citizen of San
Francisco who now addresses you, a bonhomme given to cheap living, early
to bed though scarce early to rise in proportion (que diable! let us
have style, anyway), busied with his little bits of books and essays and
with a fair hope for the future, is no longer the same desponding,
invalid son of a doubt and an apprehension who last wrote to you from
Monterey. I am none the less warmly obliged to you and Mrs. Gosse for
your good words. I suppose that I am the devil (hearing it so often),
but I am not ungrateful. Only please, Weg, do not talk of genius about
me; I do not think I want for a certain talent, but I am heartily
persuaded I have none of the other commodity; so let that stick to the
wall: you only shame me by such friendly exaggerations.
When shall I be married? When shall I be able to return to England? When
shall I join the good and blessed in a forced march upon the New
Jerusalem? That is what I know not in any degree; some of them, let us
hope, will come early, some after a judicious interval. I have three
little strangers knocking at the door of Leslie Stephen: _The Pavilion
on the Links_, a blood and thunder story, _accepted_; _Yoshida
Torajiro_, a paper on a Japanese hero who will warm your blood,
_postulant_; and _Henry David Thoreau_: _his character and
opinions_--postulant also. I give you these hints knowing you to love
the best literature, that you may keep an eye at the mast-head for these
little tit-bits. Write again, and soon, and at greater length to your
friend.--Your friend,
(signed) R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, Jan. 26, '80._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have to drop from a 50 cent to a 25 cent dinner;
to-day begins my fall. That brings down my outlay in food and drink to
45 cents or 1s. 10-1/2d. per day. How are the mighty fallen! Luckily,
this is such a cheap place for food; I used to pay as much as that for
my first breakfast in the Savile in the grand old palmy days of yore. I
regret nothing, and do not even dislike these straits, though the flesh
will rebel on occasion. It is to-day bitter cold, after weeks of lovely
warm weather, and I am all in a chitter. I am about to issue for my
little shilling and halfpenny meal, taken in the middle of the day, the
poor man's hour; and I shall eat and drink to your prosperity.--Ever
yours,
R. L. S.
TO PROFESSOR MEIKLEJOHN
One day at the Savile Club, Stevenson, hearing a certain laugh, cried
out that he must know the laugher, who turned out to be a
fellow-countryman, the late John Meiklejohn, the well-known
educational authority and professor at St. Andrews University.
Stevenson introduced himself, and the two became firm friends.
Allusion was made a few pages back to a letter from Professor
Meiklejohn about the _Burns_ essay.
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, California, Feb. 1st, 1880._
MY DEAR MEIKLEJOHN,--You must think me a thankless fellow by this time;
but if you knew how harassed and how sick I had been, and how I have
twice begun to write to you already, you might condescend to forgive the
puir gangrel body. To tell you what I have been doing, thinking, and
coming through these six or seven months would exhilarate nobody: least
of all me. _Infandum jubes_, so I hope you won't. I have done a great
deal of work, but perhaps my health of mind and body should not let me
expect much from what I have done. At least I have turned the corner; my
feet are on the rock again, I believe, and I shall continue to pour
forth pure and wholesome literature for the masses as per invoice.
I am glad you liked _Burns_; I think it is the best thing I ever did.
Did not the national vanity exclaim? Do you know what Shairp thought? I
think I let him down gently, did I not?
I have done a _Thoreau_, which I hope you may like, though I have a
feeling that perhaps it might be better. Please look out for a little
paper called _Yoshida Torajiro_, which, I hope, will appear in Cornhill
ere very long; the subject, at least, will interest you. I am to appear
in the same magazine with a real "blood and bones in the name of God"
story. Why Stephen took it, is to me a mystery; anyhow, it was fun to
write, and if you can interest a person for an hour and a half, you have
not been idle. When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them
like opium; and I consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of
the mind. And frankly, Meiklejohn, it is not Shakespeare we take to,
when we are in a hot corner; nor, certainly, George Eliot--no, nor even
Balzac. It is Charles Reade, or old Dumas, or the Arabian Nights, or the
best of Walter Scott; it is stories we want, not the high poetic
function which represents the world; we are then like the Asiatic with
his improvisatore or the middle-agee with his trouvère. We want
incident, interest, action: to the devil with your philosophy. When we
are well again, and have an easy mind, we shall peruse your important
work; but what we want now is a drug. So I, when I am ready to go beside
myself, stick my head into a story-book, as the ostrich with her bush;
let fate and fortune meantime belabour my posteriors at their will.
I have not seen the Spectator article; nobody sent it to me. If you had
an old copy lying by you, you would be very good to despatch it to me. A
little abuse from my grandmamma would do me good in health, if not in
morals.
This is merely to shake hands with you and give you the top of the
morning in 1880. But I look to be answered; and then I shall promise to
answer in return. For I am now, so far as that can be in this world, my
own man again, and when I have heard from you, I shall be able to write
more naturally and at length.
At least, my dear Meiklejohn, I hope you will believe in the sincerely
warm and friendly regard in which I hold you, and the pleasure with
which I look forward, not only to hearing from you shortly, but to
seeing you again in the flesh with another good luncheon and good talk.
Tell me when you don't like my work.--Your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The essays here mentioned on Benjamin Franklin and William Penn were
projects long cherished but in the end abandoned: _The Forest State_
came to maturity three years later as _Prince Otto_.
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, Cal., February 1880._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Before my work or anything I sit down to answer your
long and kind letter.
I am well, cheerful, busy, hopeful; I cannot be knocked down; I do not
mind about the _Emigrant_. I never thought it a masterpiece. It was
written to sell, and I believe it will sell; and if it does not, the
next will. You need not be uneasy about my work; I am only beginning to
see my true method.
(1) As to _Studies_. There are two more already gone to Stephen.
_Yoshida Torajiro_, which I think temperate and adequate; and _Thoreau_,
which will want a really Balzacian effort over the proofs. But I want
_Benjamin Franklin and the Art of Virtue_ to follow; and perhaps also
_William Penn_, but this last may be perhaps delayed for another
volume--I think not, though. The _Studies_ will be an intelligent
volume, and in their latter numbers more like what I mean to be my
style, or I mean what my style means to be, for I am passive. (2) The
Essays. Good news indeed. I think _Ordered South_ must be thrown in. It
always swells the volume, and it will never find a more appropriate
place. It was May 1874, Macmillan, I believe. (3) Plays. I did not
understand you meant to try the draft. I shall make you a full scenario
as soon as the _Emigrant_ is done. (4) _Emigrant._ He shall be sent off
next week. (5) Stories. You need not be alarmed that I am going to
imitate Meredith. You know I was a story-teller ingrain; did not that
reassure you? The _Vendetta_, which falls next to be finished, is not
entirely pleasant. But it has points. _The Forest State_ or _The
Greenwood State: A Romance_, is another pair of shoes. It is my old
Semiramis, our half-seen Duke and Duchess, which suddenly sprang into
sunshine clearness as a story the other day. The kind, happy
_dénouement_ is unfortunately absolutely undramatic, which will be our
only trouble in quarrying out the play. I mean we shall quarry from it.
_Characters_--Otto Frederick John, hereditary Prince of Grünwald; Amelia
Seraphina, Princess; Conrad, Baron Gondremarck, Prime Minister;
Cancellarius Greisengesang; Killian Gottesacker, Steward of the River
Farm; Ottilie, his daughter; the Countess von Rosen. Seven in all. A
brave story, I swear; and a brave play too, if we can find the trick to
make the end. The play, I fear, will have to end darkly, and that spoils
the quality as I now see it of a kind of crockery, eighteenth century,
high-life-below-stairs life, breaking up like ice in spring before the
nature and the certain modicum of manhood of my poor, clever,
feather-headed Prince, whom I love already. I see Seraphina too.
Gondremarck is not quite so clear. The Countess von Rosen, I have; I'll
never tell you who she is; it's a secret; but I have known the countess;
well, I will tell you; it's my old Russian friend, Madame Zassetsky.
Certain scenes are, in conception, the best I have ever made, except for
_Hester Noble_. Those at the end, Von Rosen and the Princess, the Prince
and Princess, and the Princess and Gondremarck, as I now see them from
here, should be nuts, Henley, nuts. It irks me not to go to them
straight. But the _Emigrant_ stops the way; then a reassured scenario
for _Hester_; then the _Vendetta_; then two (or three) essays--_Benjamin
Franklin_, _Thoughts on Literature as an Art_, _Dialogue on Character
and Destiny between two Puppets_, _The Human Compromise_; and then, at
length--come to me, my Prince. O Lord, it's going to be courtly! And
there is not an ugly person nor an ugly scene in it. The _Slate_ both
Fanny and I have damned utterly; it is too morbid, ugly, and unkind;
better starvation.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I had written proposing that a collected volume of his short stories
should be published with illustrations by Caldecott. At the end of
this letter occurs his first allusion to his now famous _Requiem_.
[_608 Bush Street, San Francisco, February 1880._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I received a very nice letter from you with two
enclosures. I am still unable to finish the _Emigrant_, although there
are only some fifteen pages to do. The _Vendetta_ is, I am afraid,
scarce Fortnightly form, though after the _Pavilion_ being taken by
Stephen, I am truly at sea about all such matters. I dare say my _Prince
of Grünewald_--the name still uncertain--would be good enough for
anything if I could but get it done: I believe that to be a really good
story. The _Vendetta_ is somewhat cheap in motive; very rum and unlike
the present kind of novels both for good and evil in writing; and on the
whole, only remarkable for the heroine's character, and that I believe
to be in it.
I am not well at all. But hope to be better. You know I have been hawked
to death these last months. And then I lived too low, I fear; and any
way I have got pretty low and out at elbows in health. I wish I could
say better,--but I cannot. With a constitution like mine, you never
know--to-morrow I may be carrying topgallant sails again: but just at
present I am scraping along with a jurymast and a kind of amateur
rudder. Truly I have some misery, as things go; but these things are
mere detail. However, I do not want to _crever_, _claquer_, and cave in
just when I have a chance of some happiness; nor do I mean to. All the
same, I am more and more in a difficulty how to move every day. What a
day or an hour might bring forth, God forbid that I should prophesy.
Certainly, do what you like about the stories; _Will o' the Mill_, or
not. It will be Caldecott's book or nobody's. I am glad you liked the
_Guitar_: I always did: and I think C. could make lovely pikters to it:
it almost seems as if I must have written it for him express.
I have already been a visitor at the Club for a fortnight; but that's
over, and I don't much care to renew the period. I want to be married,
not to belong to all the Clubs in Christendie.... I half think of
writing up the Sand-lot agitation for Morley; it is a curious business;
were I stronger, I should try to sugar in with some of the leaders: a
chield amang 'em takin' notes; one, who kept a brothel, I reckon, before
she started socialist, particularly interests me. If I am right as to
her early industry, you know she would be sure to adore me. I have been
all my days a dead hand at a harridan, I never saw the one yet that
could resist me. When I die of consumption, you can put that upon my
tomb.
* * * * *
Sketch of my tomb follows:--
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
born 1850, of a family of engineers,
died ...
"Nitor aquis."
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
You, who pass this grave, put aside hatred; love kindness; be all
services remembered in your heart and all offences pardoned; and as you
go down again among the living, let this be your question: can I make
some one happier this day before I lie down to sleep? Thus the dead man
speaks to you from the dust: you will hear no more from him.
Who knows, Colvin, but I may thus be of more use when I am buried than
ever when I was alive? The more I think of it, the more earnestly do I
desire this. I may perhaps try to write it better some day; but that is
what I want in sense. The verses are from a beayootiful poem by me.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_608 Bush Street, San Francisco [March 1880]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--My landlord and landlady's little four-year-old child
is dying in the house; and O, what he has suffered! It has really
affected my health. O never, never any family for me! I am cured of
that.
I have taken a long holiday--have not worked for three days, and will
not for a week; for I was really weary. Excuse this scratch; for the
child weighs on me, dear Colvin. I did all I could to help; but all
seems little, to the point of crime, when one of these poor innocents
lies in such misery.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO J. W. FERRIER
In the interval between this letter and the last, the writer had been
down with an acute and dangerous illness. _Forester_, here mentioned,
was an autobiographical paper by J. W. F. on his own boyhood.
_P.O. San Francisco, April 8th, 1880._
MY DEAR FERRIER,--Many thanks for your letter, and the instalment of
_Forester_ which accompanied it, and which I read with amusement and
pleasure. I fear Somerset's letter must wait; for my dear boy, I have
been very nearly on a longer voyage than usual; I am fresh from giving
Charon a quid instead of an obolus: but he, having accepted the payment,
scorned me, and I had to make the best of my way backward through the
mallow-wood, with nothing to show for this displacement but the fatigue
of the journey. As soon as I feel fit, you shall have the letter, trust
me. But just now even a note such as I am now writing takes it out of
me. I have, truly, been very sick; I fear I am a vain man, for I thought
it a pity I should die. I could not help thinking that a good many would
be disappointed; but for myself, although I still think life a business
full of agreeable features I was not entirely unwilling to give it up.
It is so difficult to behave well; and in that matter, I get more
dissatisfied with myself, because more exigent, every day. I shall be
pleased to hear again from you soon. I shall be married early in May and
then go to the mountains, a very withered bridegroom. I think your MS.
Bible, if that were a specimen, would be a credit to humanity. Between
whiles, collect such thoughts both from yourself and others: I somehow
believe every man should leave a Bible behind him,--if he is unable to
leave a jest book. I feel fit to leave nothing but my benediction. It is
a strange thing how, do what you will, nothing seems accomplished. I
feel as far from having paid humanity my board and lodging as I did six
years ago when I was sick at Mentone. But I dare say the devil would
keep telling me so, if I had moved mountains, and at least I have been
very happy on many different occasions, and that is always something. I
can read nothing, write nothing; but a little while ago and I could eat
nothing either; but now that is changed. This is a long letter for me;
rub your hands, boy, for 'tis an honour.--Yours, from Charon's strand,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
A poetical counterpart to this letter will be found in the piece
beginning 'Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert,' which was
composed at the same time and is printed in _Underwoods_.
_San Francisco, April 16 [1880]._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--You have not answered my last; and I know you will
repent when you hear how near I have been to another world. For about
six weeks I have been in utter doubt; it was a toss-up for life or death
all that time; but I won the toss, sir, and Hades went off once more
discomfited. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that I
have a friendly game with that gentleman. I know he will end by cleaning
me out; but the rogue is insidious, and the habit of that sort of
gambling seems to be a part of my nature; it was, I suspect, too much
indulged in youth; break your children of this tendency, my dear Gosse,
from the first. It is, when once formed, a habit more fatal than
opium--I speak, as St. Paul says, like a fool. I have been very very
sick; on the verge of a galloping consumption, cold sweats, prostrating
attacks of cough, sinking fits in which I lost the power of speech,
fever, and all the ugliest circumstances of the disease; and I have
cause to bless God, my wife that is to be, and one Dr. Bamford (a name
the Muse repels), that I have come out of all this, and got my feet once
more upon a little hilltop, with a fair prospect of life and some new
desire of living. Yet I did not wish to die, neither; only I felt unable
to go on farther with that rough horseplay of human life: a man must be
pretty well to take the business in good part. Yet I felt all the time
that I had done nothing to entitle me to an honourable discharge; that I
had taken up many obligations and begun many friendships which I had no
right to put away from me; and that for me to die was to play the cur
and slinking sybarite, and desert the colours on the eve of the decisive
fight. Of course I have done no work for I do not know how long; and
here you can triumph. I have been reduced to writing verses for
amusement. A fact. The whirligig of time brings in its revenges, after
all. But I'll have them buried with me, I think, for I have not the
heart to burn them while I live. Do write. I shall go to the mountains
as soon as the weather clears; on the way thither, I marry myself; then
I set up my family altar among the pine-woods, 3,000 feet, sir, from the
disputatious sea.--I am, dear Weg, most truly yours,
R. L. S.
TO DR. W. BAMFORD
With a copy of _Travels with a Donkey_.
[_San Francisco, April 1880._]
My dear Sir,--Will you let me offer you this little book? If I had
anything better, it should be yours. May you not dislike it, for it will
be your own handiwork if there are other fruits from the same tree! But
for your kindness and skill, this would have been my last book, and now
I am in hopes that it will be neither my last nor my best.
You doctors have a serious responsibility. You recall a man from the
gates of death, you give him health and strength once more to use or to
abuse. I hope I shall feel your responsibility added to my own, and seek
in the future to make a better profit of the life you have renewed to
me.--I am, my dear sir, gratefully yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_San Francisco, April 1880._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You must be sick indeed of my demand for books, for you
have seemingly not yet sent me one. Still, I live on promises: waiting
for Penn, for H. James's _Hawthorne_, for my _Burns_, etc.; and now, to
make matters worse, pending your Centuries, etc., I do earnestly desire
the best book about mythology (if it be German, so much the worse; send
a bunctionary along with it, and pray for me). This is why. If I
recover, I feel called on to write a volume of gods and demi-gods in
exile: Pan, Jove, Cybele, Venus, Charon, etc.; and though I should like
to take them very free, I should like to know a little about 'em to
begin with. For two days, till last night, I had no night sweats, and my
cough is almost gone, and I digest well; so all looks hopeful. However,
I was near the other side of Jordan. I send the proof of _Thoreau_ to
you, so that you may correct and fill up the quotation from Goethe. It
is a pity I was ill, as, for matter, I think I prefer that to any of my
essays except _Burns_; but the style, though quite manly, never attains
any melody or lenity. So much for consumption: I begin to appreciate
what the _Emigrant_ must be. As soon as I have done the last few pages
of the _Emigrant_ they shall go to you. But when will that be? I know
not quite yet--I have to be so careful.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_San Francisco, April 1880._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--My dear people telegraphed me in these words: "Count on
250 pounds annually." You may imagine what a blessed business this was.
And so now recover the sheets of the _Emigrant_, and post them
registered to me. And now please give me all your venom against it; say
your worst, and most incisively, for now it will be a help, and I'll
make it right or perish in the attempt. Now, do you understand why I
protested against your depressing eloquence on the subject? When I _had_
to go on any way, for dear life, I thought it a kind of pity and not
much good to discourage me. Now all's changed. God only knows how much
courage and suffering is buried in that MS. The second part was written
in a circle of hell unknown to Dante--that of the penniless and dying
author. For dying I was, although now saved. Another week, the doctor
said, and I should have been past salvation. I think I shall always
think of it as my best work. There is one page in Part II., about having
got to shore, and sich, which must have cost me altogether six hours of
work as miserable as ever I went through. I feel sick even to think of
it.--Ever your friend,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_San Francisco, May 1880._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I received your letter and proof to-day, and was
greatly delighted with the last.
I am now out of danger; in but a short while (_i.e._ as soon as the
weather is settled), F. and I marry and go up to the hills to look for a
place; "I to the hills will lift mine eyes, from whence doth come mine
aid": once the place found, the furniture will follow. There, sir, in, I
hope, a ranche among the pine-trees and hard by a running brook, we are
to fish, hunt, sketch, study Spanish, French, Latin, Euclid, and
History; and, if possible, not quarrel. Far from man, sir, in the virgin
forest. Thence, as my strength returns, you may expect works of genius.
I always feel as if I must write a work of genius some time or other;
and when is it more likely to come off, than just after I have paid a
visit to Styx and go thence to the eternal mountains? Such a revolution
in a man's affairs, as I have somewhere written, would set anybody
singing. When we get installed, Lloyd and I are going to print my
poetical works; so all those who have been poetically addressed shall
receive copies of their addresses. They are, I believe, pretty correct
literary exercises, or will be, with a few filings; but they are not
remarkable for white-hot vehemence of inspiration; tepid works!
respectable versifications of very proper and even original sentiments:
kind of Hayleyistic, I fear--but no, this is morbid self-depreciation.
The family is all very shaky in health, but our motto is now _Al Monte_!
in the words of Don Lope, in the play the sister and I are just beating
through with two bad dictionaries and an insane grammar. I to the
hills.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO C. W. STODDARD
This correspondent is the late Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, author of
_Summer Cruising in the South Seas_, etc., with whom Stevenson had
made friends in the manner and amid the scenes faithfully described
in _The Wrecker_, in the chapter called "Faces on the City Front."
_East Oakland, Cal., May 1880._
MY DEAR STODDARD,--I am guilty in thy sight and the sight of God.
However, I swore a great oath that you should see some of my manuscript
at last; and though I have long delayed to keep it, yet it was to be.
You re-read your story and were disgusted; that is the cold fit
following the hot. I don't say you did wrong to be disgusted, yet I am
sure you did wrong to be disgusted altogether. There was, you may depend
upon it, some reason for your previous vanity, as well as your present
mortification. I shall hear you, years from now, timidly begin to retrim
your feathers for a little self-laudation, and trot out this misdespised
novelette as not the worst of your performances. I read the album
extracts with sincere interest; but I regret that you spared to give the
paper more development; and I conceive that you might do a great deal
worse than expand each of its paragraphs into an essay or sketch, the
excuse being in each case your personal intercourse; the bulk, when that
would not be sufficient, to be made up from their own works and stories.
Three at least--Menken, Yelverton, and Keeler--could not fail of a vivid
human interest. Let me press upon you this plan; should any document be
wanted from Europe, let me offer my services to procure it. I am
persuaded that there is stuff in the idea.
Are you coming over again to see me some day soon? I keep returning, and
now hand over fist, from the realms of Hades; I saw that gentleman
between the eyes, and fear him less after each visit. Only Charon, and
his rough boatmanship, I somewhat fear.
I have a desire to write some verses for your album; so, if you will
give me the entry among your gods, goddesses, and godlets, there will be
nothing wanting but the Muse. I think of the verses like Mark Twain;
sometimes I wish fulsomely to belaud you; sometimes to insult your city
and fellow-citizens; sometimes to sit down quietly, with the slender
reed, and troll a few staves of Panic ecstasy--but fy! fy! as my
ancestors observed, the last is too easy for a man of my feet and
inches.
At least, Stoddard, you now see that, although so costive, when I once
begin I am a copious letter-writer. I thank you, and _au revoir_.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_San Francisco, May 1880._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--It is a long while since I have heard from you; nearly
a month, I believe; and I begin to grow very uneasy. At first I was
tempted to suppose that I had been myself to blame in some way; but now
I have grown to fear lest some sickness or trouble among those whom you
love may not be the impediment. I believe I shall soon hear; so I wait
as best I can. I am, beyond a doubt, greatly stronger, and yet still
useless for any work, and, I may say, for any pleasure. My affairs and
the bad weather still keep me here unmarried; but not, I earnestly hope,
for long. Whenever I get into the mountain, I trust I shall rapidly pick
up. Until I get away from these sea fogs and my imprisonment in the
house, I do not hope to do much more than keep from active harm. My
doctor took a desponding fit about me, and scared Fanny into blue fits;
but I have talked her over again. It is the change I want, and the
blessed sun, and a gentle air in which I can sit out and see the trees
and running water: these mere defensive hygienics cannot advance one,
though they may prevent evil. I do nothing now, but try to possess my
soul in peace, and continue to possess my body on any terms.
_Calistoga, Napa County, California._--All which is a fortnight old and
not much to the point nowadays. Here we are, Fanny and I, and a certain
hound, in a lovely valley under Mount Saint Helena, looking around, or
rather wondering when we shall begin to look around, for a house of our
own. I have received the first sheets of the _Amateur Emigrant_; not yet
the second bunch, as announced. It is a pretty heavy, emphatic piece of
pedantry; but I don't care; the public, I verily believe, will like it.
I have excised all you proposed and more on my own movement. But I have
not yet been able to rewrite the two special pieces which, as you said,
so badly wanted it; it is hard work to rewrite passages in proof; and
the easiest work is still hard to me. But I am certainly recovering
fast; a married and convalescent being.
Received James's _Hawthorne_, on which I meditate a blast, Miss Bird,
Dixon's _Penn_, a _wrong_ Cornhill (like my luck) and _Coquelin_: for
all which, and especially the last, I tender my best thanks. I have
opened only James; it is very clever, very well written, and out of
sight the most inside-out thing in the world; I have dug up the hatchet;
a scalp shall flutter at my belt ere long. I think my new book should be
good; it will contain our adventures for the summer, so far as these are
worth narrating; and I have already a few pages of diary which should
make up bright. I am going to repeat my old experiment, after
buckling-to a while to write more correctly, lie down and have a
wallow. Whether I shall get any of my novels done this summer I do not
know; I wish to finish the _Vendetta_ first, for it really could not
come after _Prince Otto_. Lewis Campbell has made some noble work in
that Agamemnon; it surprised me. We hope to get a house at Silverado, a
deserted mining-camp eight miles up the mountain, now solely inhabited
by a mighty hunter answering to the name of Rufe Hansome, who slew last
year a hundred and fifty deer. This is the motto I propose for the new
volume: "_Vixerunt nonnulli in agris, delectati re sua familiari. His
idem propositum fuit quod regibus, ut ne qua re egerent, ne cui
parerent, libertate uterentur; cujus proprium est sic vivere ut velis._"
I always have a terror lest the wish should have been father to the
translation, when I come to quote; but that seems too plain sailing. I
should put _regibus_ in capitals for the pleasantry's sake. We are in
the Coast range, that being so much cheaper to reach; the family, I
hope, will soon follow. Love to all.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] _Engraisser_, grow fat.
[24] Pall Mall Gazette.
[25] Here follows a long calculation of ways and means.
[26] Addison's.
[27] In reference to the father's estrangement at this time, Sir James
Dewar, an old friend of the elder Stevenson, tells a story which
would have touched R. L. S. infinitely had he heard it. Sir James
(then Professor) Dewar and Mr. Thomas Stevenson were engaged
together on some official scientific work near Duns in Berwickshire.
"Spending the evening together," writes Sir James, "at an hotel in
Berwick-on-Tweed, the two, after a long day's work, fell into close
fireside talk over their toddy, and Mr. Stevenson opened his heart
upon what was to him a very sore grievance. He spoke with anger and
dismay of his son's journey and intentions, his desertion of the old
firm, and taking to the devious and barren paths of literature. The
Professor took up the cudgels in the son's defence, and at last, by
way of ending the argument, half jocularly offered to wager that in
ten years from that moment R. L. S. would be earning a bigger income
than the old firm had ever commanded. To his surprise, the father
became furious, and repulsed all attempts at reconciliation. But six
and a half years later, Mr. Stevenson, broken in health, came to
London to seek medical advice, and although so feeble that he had to
be lifted out and into his cab, called at the Royal Institute to see
the Professor. He said: "I am here to consult a doctor, but I
couldna be in London without coming to shake your hand and confess
that you were richt after a' about Louis, and I was wrang." The
frail old frame shook with emotion, and he muttered, "I ken this is
my last visit to the south." A few weeks later he was dead.
VI
ALPINE WINTERS AND HIGHLAND SUMMERS
AUGUST 1880-OCTOBER 1882
After spending the months of June and July 1880 in the rough Californian
mountain quarters described in the _Silverado Squatters_, Stevenson took
passage with his wife and young stepson from New York on the 7th of
August, and arrived on the 17th at Liverpool, where his parents and I
were waiting to meet him. Of her new family, the Mrs. Robert Louis
Stevenson brought thus strangely and from far into their midst made an
immediate conquest. To her husband's especial happiness, there sprang up
between her and his father the closest possible affection and
confidence. Parents and friends--if it is permissible to one of the
latter to say as much--rejoiced to recognise in Stevenson's wife a
character as strong, interesting, and romantic almost as his own; an
inseparable sharer of all his thoughts and staunch companion of all his
adventures; the most open-hearted of friends to all who loved him; the
most shrewd and stimulating critic of his work; and in sickness, despite
her own precarious health, the most devoted and most efficient of
nurses.
From Liverpool the Stevenson party went on to make a stay in Scotland,
first at Edinburgh, and afterwards for a few weeks at Strathpeffer,
resting at Blair Athol on the way. It was now, in his thirtieth year,
among the woods of Tummelside and under the shoulder of Ben Wyvis, that
Stevenson acknowledged for the first time the full power and beauty of
the Highland scenery, which in youth, with his longings fixed ever upon
the South, he had been accustomed to think too bleak and desolate. In
the history of the country and its clans, on the other hand, and
especially of their political and social transformation during the
eighteenth century, he had been always keenly interested. In
conversations with Principal Tulloch at Strathpeffer this interest was
now revived, and he resolved to attempt a book on the subject, his
father undertaking to keep him supplied with books and authorities; for
it had quickly become apparent that he could not winter in Scotland. The
state of his health continued to be very threatening. He suffered from
acute chronic catarrh, accompanied by disquieting lung symptoms and
great weakness; and was told accordingly that he must go for the winter,
and probably for several succeeding winters, to the mountain valley of
Davos in Switzerland, which within the last few years had been coming
into repute as a place of recovery, or at least of arrested mischief,
for lung patients. Thither he and his wife and stepson travelled
accordingly at the end of October. Nor must another member of the party
be forgotten, a black thoroughbred Skye terrier, the gift of Sir Walter
Simpson. This creature was named, after his giver, Walter--a name
subsequently corrupted into Wattie, Woggie, Wogg, Woggin, Bogie, Bogue,
and a number of other affectionate diminutives which will be found
occurring often enough in the following pages. He was a remarkably
pretty, engaging, excitable, ill-behaved little specimen of his race,
the occasion of infinite anxiety and laughing care to his devoted
master and mistress until his death six years later.
The Davos of 1880, approached by an eight-hours' laborious drive up the
valley of the Prättigau, was a very different place from the extended
and embellished Davos of to-day, with its railway, its modern shops, its
electric lighting, and its crowd of winter visitors bent on outdoor and
indoor entertainment. The Stevensons' quarters for the first winter were
at the Hotel Belvedere, then a mere nucleus of the huge establishment it
has since become. Besides the usual society of an invalid hotel, with
its mingled tragedies and comedies, they had there the great advantage
of the presence, in a neighbouring house, of an accomplished man of
letters and one of the most charming of companions, John Addington
Symonds, with his family. Mr. Symonds, whose health had been desperate
before he tried the place, was a living testimony to its virtues, and
was at this time engaged in building the chalet which became his home
until he died fourteen years later. During Stevenson's first season at
Davos, though his mind was full of literary enterprises, he was too ill
to do much actual work. For the Highland history he read much, but
composed little or nothing, and eventually this history went to swell
the long list of his unwritten books. He saw through the press his first
volume of collected essays, _Virginibus Puerisque_, which came out early
in 1881; wrote the essays _Samuel Pepys_ and _The Morality of the
Profession of Letters_, for the Cornhill and the Fortnightly Review
respectively, and sent to the Pall Mall Gazette the papers on the life
and climate of Davos, posthumously reprinted in _Essays of Travel_.
Beyond this, he only amused himself with verses, some of them afterwards
published in _Underwoods_. Leaving the Alps at the end of April 1881,
he returned, after a short stay in France (at Fontainebleau, Paris, and
St. Germain), to his family in Edinburgh. Thence the whole party again
went to the Highlands, this time to Pitlochry and Braemar.
During the summer Stevenson heard of the intended retirement of
Professor Æneas Mackay from the chair of History and Constitutional Law
at Edinburgh University. He determined, with the encouragement of the
outgoing professor and of several of his literary friends, to become a
candidate for the post, which had to be filled by the Faculty of
Advocates from among their own number. The duties were limited to the
delivery of a short course of lectures in the summer term, and Stevenson
thought that he might be equal to them, and might prove, though
certainly a new, yet perhaps a stimulating, type of professor. But
knowing the nature of his public reputation, especially in Edinburgh,
where the recollection of his daft student days was as yet stronger than
the impression made by his recent performances in literature, he was
well aware that his candidature must seem paradoxical, and stood little
chance of success. The election took place in the late autumn of the
same year, and he was defeated, receiving only three votes.
At Pitlochry Stevenson was for a while able to enjoy his life and to
work well, writing two of the strongest of his short stories of Scottish
life and superstition, _Thrawn Janet_ and _The Merry Men_, originally
designed to form part of a volume to be written by himself and his wife
in collaboration. At Braemar he made a beginning of the nursery verses
which afterwards grew into the volume called _The Child's Garden_, and
conceived and half executed the fortunate project of _Treasure Island_,
the book which was destined first to make him famous. But one of the
most inclement of Scottish summers had before long undone all the good
gained in the previous winter at Davos, and in the autumn of the year
1881 he repaired thither again.
This time his quarters were in a small chalet belonging to the
proprietors of the Buol Hotel, the Chalet am Stein, or Chalet Buol, in
the near neighbourhood of the Symonds's house. The beginning of his
second stay was darkened by the serious illness of his wife;
nevertheless the winter was one of much greater literary activity than
the last. A Life of Hazlitt was projected, and studies were made for it,
but for various reasons the project was never carried out. _Treasure
Island_ was finished; the greater part of the _Silverado Squatters_
written; so were the essays _Talk and Talkers_, _A Gossip on Romance_,
and several other of his best papers for magazines. By way of whim and
pastime he occupied himself, to his own and his stepson's delight, with
a little set of woodcuts and verses printed by the latter at his toy
press--"The Davos Press," as they called it--as well as with mimic
campaigns carried on between the man and boy with armies of lead
soldiers in the spacious loft which filled the upper floor of the
chalet. For the first and almost the only time in his life there awoke
in him during these winters in Davos the spirit of lampoon; and he
poured forth sets of verses, not without touches of a Swiftean fire,
against commercial frauds in general, and those of certain local
tradesmen in particular, as well as others in memory of a defunct
publican of Edinburgh who had been one of his butts in youth
(_Casparidea_ and _Brashiana_, both unpublished: see pp. 14, 15, 38 in
vol. 24 of the present edition). Finally, much revived in health by the
beneficent air of the Alpine valley, he left it again in mid-spring of
1882, to return once more to Scotland, and to be once more thrown back
to, or below, the point whence he had started. After a short excursion
from Edinburgh into the Appin country, where he made inquiries on the
spot into the traditions concerning the murder of Campbell of Glenure,
his three resting-places in Scotland during this summer were Stobo Manse
near Peebles, Lochearnhead, and Kingussie. At Stobo the dampness of the
season and the place quickly threw him again into a very low state of
health, from which three subsequent weeks of brilliant sunshine in
Speyside did but little to restore him. In spite of this renewed
breakdown, when autumn came he would not face the idea of returning for
a third season to Davos. He had himself felt deeply the austerity and
monotony of the white Alpine world in winter; and though he had
unquestionably gained in health there, his wife on her part had suffered
much. So he made up his mind once again to try the Mediterranean coast
of France, and Davos knew him no more.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I forget what were the two sets of verses (apparently satirical) here
mentioned. The volume of essays must be _Virginibus Puerisque_,
published the following spring; but it is dedicated in prose to W. E.
Henley.
_Ben Wyvis Hotel, Strathpeffer [July 1880]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--One or two words. We are here: all goes exceeding well
with the wife and with the parents. Near here is a valley; birch woods,
heather, and a stream; I have lain down and died; no country, no place,
was ever for a moment so delightful to my soul. And I have been a
Scotchman all my life, and denied my native land! Away with your gardens
of roses, indeed! Give me the cool breath of Rogie waterfall,
henceforth and for ever, world without end.
I enclose two poems of, I think, a high order. One is my dedication for
my essays; it was occasioned by that delicious article in the Spectator.
The other requires no explanation; c'est tout bonnement un petit chef
d'oeuvre de grâce, de délicatesse, et de bon sens humanitaire. Celui qui
ne s'en sent pas touché jusqu'aux larmes--celui-là n'a pas vécu. I wish
both poems back, as I am copyless: but they might return _via_ Henley.
My father desires me still to withdraw the _Emigrant_. Whatever may be
the pecuniary loss, he is willing to bear it; and the gain to my
reputation will be considerable.
I am writing against time and the post runner. But you know what kind
messages we both send to you. May you have as good a time as possible so
far from Rogie!
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
A further stay at Strathpeffer led to disenchantment, not with
outdoor nature but with human nature as there represented, and he
relieves his feelings as follows:--
_Ben Wyvis Hotel, Strathpeffer, July 1880._
MY DEAR CHERLS,--I am well but have a little over-tired myself which is
disgusting. This is a heathenish place near delightful places, but
inhabited, alas! by a wholly bestial crowd.
ON SOME GHOSTLY COMPANIONS AT A SPA
I had an evil day when I
To Strathpeffer drew anigh,
For there I found no human soul,
But Ogres occupied the whole.
They had at first a human air
In coats and flannel underwear.
They rose and walked upon their feet
And filled their bellies full of meat,
Then wiped their lips when they had done--
But they were ogres every one.
Each issuing from his secret bower
I marked them in the morning hour.
By limp and totter, list and droop,
I singled each one from the group.
Detected ogres, from my sight
Depart to your congenial night
From these fair vales: from this fair day
Fleet, spectres, on your downward way,
Like changing figures in a dream
To Muttonhole and Pittenweem!
Or, as by harmony divine
The devils quartered in the swine,
If any baser place exist
In God's great registration list--
Some den with wallow and a trough--
Find it, ye ogres, and be off!
Yours, R. L. S.
TO ISOBEL STRONG
Further letters from Scotland during these months are lacking. The
next was written, in answer to an inquiry from his stepdaughter at
San Francisco, on the second day after his arrival at Davos.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, November 1880._
No my che-ild--not Kamschatka this trip, only the top of the Alps, or
thereby; up in a little valley in a wilderness of snowy mountains; the
Rhine not far from us, quite a little highland river; eternal snow-peaks
on every hand. Yes; just this once I should like to go to the Vienna
gardens[28] with the family and hear Tweedledee and drink something and
see Germans--though God knows we have seen Germans enough this while
back. Naturally some in the Customs House on the Alsatian frontier, who
would have made one die from laughing in a theatre, and provoked a
smile from us even in that dismal juncture. To see them, big, blond,
sham-Englishmen, but with an unqualifiable air of not quite fighting the
sham through, diving into old women's bags and going into paroxysms of
arithmetic in white chalk, three or four of them (in full uniform) in
full cry upon a single sum, with their brows bent and a kind of
arithmetical agony upon their mugs. Madam, the diversion of
cock-fighting has been much commended, but it was not a circumstance to
that Custom House. They only opened one of our things: a basket. But
when they met from within the intelligent gaze of _Woggs_, they all lay
down and died. Woggs is a fine dog....
God bless you! May coins fall into your coffee and the finest wines and
wittles lie smilingly about your path, with a kind of dissolving view of
fine scenery by way of background; and may all speak well of you--and me
too for that matter--and generally all things be ordered unto you
totally regardless of expense and with a view to nothing in the world
but enjoyment, edification, and a portly and honoured age.--Your dear
papa,
R. L. S.
TO A. G. DEW-SMITH
This, from the same place and about the same date, is addressed by
way of thanks to a friend at Cambridge, the late Mr. A. G. Dew-Smith,
who had sent him a present of a box of cigarettes. Mr. Dew-Smith, a
man of fine artistic tastes and mechanical genius, with a silken,
somewhat foreign, urbanity of bearing, was the original, so far as
concerns manner and way of speech, of Attwater in the _Ebb-Tide_.
[_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, November 1880_].
Figure me to yourself, I pray--
A man of my peculiar cut--
Apart from dancing and deray,[29]
Into an Alpine valley shut;
Shut in a kind of damned Hotel,
Discountenanced by God and man;
The food?--Sir, you would do as well
To cram your belly full of bran.
The company? Alas, the day
That I should dwell with such a crew,
With devil anything to say,
Nor any one to say it to!
The place? Although they call it Platz,
I will be bold and state my view;
It's not a place at all--and that's
The bottom verity, my Dew.
There are, as I will not deny,
Innumerable inns; a road;
Several Alps indifferent high;
The snow's inviolable abode;
Eleven English parsons, all
Entirely inoffensive; four
True human beings--what I call
Human--the deuce a cipher more;
A climate of surprising worth;
Innumerable dogs that bark;
Some air, some weather, and some earth;
A native race--God save the mark!--
A race that works, yet cannot work,
Yodels, but cannot yodel right,
Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk,
I vow that I could wholly smite.
A river[30] that from morn to night
Down all the valley plays the fool;
Not once she pauses in her flight,
Nor knows the comfort of a pool;
But still keeps up, by straight or bend,
The selfsame pace she hath begun--
Still hurry, hurry, to the end--
Good God, is that the way to run?
If I a river were, I hope
That I should better realise
The opportunities and scope
Of that romantic enterprise.
I should not ape the merely strange,
But aim besides at the divine;
And continuity and change
I still should labour to combine.
Here should I gallop down the race,
Here charge the sterling[31] like a bull;
There, as a man might wipe his face,
Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.
But what, my Dew, in idle mood,
What prate I, minding not my debt?
What do I talk of bad or good?
The best is still a cigarette.
Me whether evil fate assault,
Or smiling providences crown--
Whether on high the eternal vault
Be blue, or crash with thunder down--
I judge the best, whate'er befall,
Is still to sit on one's behind,
And, having duly moistened all,
Smoke with an unperturbed mind.
R. L. S.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
R. L. S. here sketches for his father the plan of the work on
Highland history which they had discussed together in the preceding
summer, and which Principal Tulloch had urged him to attempt.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos [December 12, 1880]._
MY DEAR FATHER,--Here is the scheme as well as I can foresee. I begin
the book immediately after the '15, as then began the attempt to
suppress the Highlands.
I. THIRTY YEARS' INTERVAL
(1) Rob Roy.
(2) The Independent Companies: the Watches.
(3) Story of Lady Grange.
(4) The Military Roads, and Disarmament: Wade and
(5) Burt.
II. THE HEROIC AGE
(1) Duncan Forbes of Culloden.
(2) Flora Macdonald.
(3) The Forfeited Estates; including Hereditary Jurisdictions; and the
admirable conduct of the tenants.
III. LITERATURE HERE INTERVENES
(1) The Ossianic Controversy.
(2) Boswell and Johnson.
(3) Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
IV. Economy
(1) Highland Economics.
(2) The Reinstatement of the Proprietors.
(3) The Evictions.
(4) Emigration.
(5) Present State.
V. RELIGION
(1) The Catholics, Episcopals, and Kirk, and Soc. Prop. Christ.
Knowledge.
(2) The Men.
(3) The Disruption.
All this, of course, will greatly change in form, scope, and order; this
is just a bird's-eye glance. Thank you for _Burt_, which came, and for
your Union notes. I have read one-half (about 900 pages) of Wodrow's
_Correspondence_, with some improvement, but great fatigue. The doctor
thinks well of my recovery, which puts me in good hope for the future. I
should certainly be able to make a fine history of this.
My Essays are going through the press, and should be out in January or
February.--Ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, December 1880_]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I feel better, but variable. I see from the doctor's
report that I have more actual disease than I supposed; but there seems
little doubt of my recovery. I like the place and shall like it much
better when you come at Christmas. That is written on my heart: S. C.
comes at Christmas: so if you play me false, I shall have a lie upon my
conscience. I like Symonds very well, though he is much, I think, of an
invalid in mind and character. But his mind is interesting, with many
beautiful corners, and his consumptive smile very winning to see. We
have had some good talks; one went over Zola, Balzac, Flaubert, Whitman,
Christ, Handel, Milton, Sir Thomas Browne; do you see the _liaison_?--in
another, I, the Bohnist, the un-Grecian, was the means of his conversion
in the matter of the Ajax. It is truly not for nothing that I have read
my Buckley.[32]
To-day the south wind blows; and I am seedy in consequence.
_Later._--I want to know when you are coming, so as to get you a room.
You will toboggan and skate your head off, and I will talk it off, and
briefly if you don't come pretty soon, I will cut you off with a
shilling.
It would be handsome of you to write. The doctor says I may be as well
as ever; but in the meantime I go slow and am fit for little.--Ever
yours,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
The suggestions contained in the following two letters to Mr. Gosse
refer to the collection of English Odes which that gentleman was then
engaged in editing (Kegan Paul, 1881).
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [Dec. 6, 1880]._
MY DEAR WEG,--I have many letters that I ought to write in preference to
this; but a duty to letters and to you prevails over any private
consideration. You are going to collect odes; I could not wish a better
man to do so; but I tremble lest you should commit two sins of omission.
You will not, I am sure, be so far left to yourself as to give us no
more of Dryden than the hackneyed St. Cecilia; I know you will give us
some others of those surprising masterpieces where there is more
sustained eloquence and harmony of English numbers than in all that has
been written since; there is a machine about a poetical young lady,[33]
and another about either Charles or James, I know not which; and they
are both indescribably fine. (Is Marvell's Horatian Ode good enough? I
half think so.) But my great point is a fear that you are one of those
who are unjust to our old Tennyson's Duke of Wellington. I have just
been talking it over with Symonds; and we agreed that whether for its
metrical effects, for its brief, plain, stirring words of portraiture,
as--he "that never lost an English gun," or--the soldier salute; or for
the heroic apostrophe to Nelson; that ode has never been surpassed in
any tongue or time. Grant me the Duke, O Weg! I suppose you must not put
in yours about the warship; you will have to admit worse ones,
however.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, Dec. 19, 1880._
This letter is a report of a long sederunt, also steterunt, in small
committee at Davos Platz, Dec. 15, 1880. Its results are
unhesitatingly shot at your head.
MY DEAR WEG,--We both insist on the Duke of Wellington. Really it cannot
be left out. Symonds said you would cover yourself with shame, and I
add, your friends with confusion, if you leave it out. Really, you know
it is the only thing you have, since Dryden, where that irregular odic,
odal, odous (?) verse is used with mastery and sense. And it's one of
our few English blood-boilers.
(2) Byron: if anything: _Prometheus_.
(3) Shelley (1) _The World's Great Age_ from Hellas; we are both dead
on. After that you have, of course, _The West Wind_ thing. But we think
(1) would maybe be enough; no more than two any way.
(4) Herrick. _Meddowes_ and _Come, my Corinna_. After that _Mr. Wickes_:
two any way.
(5) Leave out stanza 3rd of Congreve's thing, like a dear; we can't
stand the "sigh" nor the "peruke."
(6) Milton. _Time_ and the _Solemn Music_. We both agree we would rather
go without L'Allegro and Il Penseroso than these; for the reason that
these are not so well known to the brutish herd.
(7) Is the _Royal George_ an ode, or only an elegy? It's so good.
(8) We leave Campbell to you.
(9) If you take anything from Clough, but we don't either of us fancy
you will, let it be _Come back_.
(10) Quite right about Dryden. I had a hankering after _Threnodia
Augustalis_; but I find it long and with very prosaic holes: though, O!
what fine stuff between whiles.
(11) Right with Collins.
(12) Right about Pope's Ode. But what can you give? _The Dying
Christian?_ or one of his inimitable courtesies? These last are fairly
odes, by the Horatian model, just as my dear _Meddowes_ is an ode in the
name and for the sake of Bandusia.
(13) Whatever you do, you'll give us the Greek Vase.
(14) Do you like Jonson's "loathed stage"? Verses 2, 3, and 4 are so
bad, also the last line. But there is a fine movement and feeling in the
rest.
We will have the Duke of Wellington by God. Pro Symonds and Stevenson.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
The prospect here alluded to of a cheap edition of the little
travel-books did not get realised. The volume of essays in the
printer's hands was _Virginibus Puerisque_. I do not know what were
the pages in broad Scots copied by way of enclosure.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [December 1880]._
DEAR CHARLES WARREN STODDARD,--Many thanks to you for the letter and the
photograph. Will you think it mean if I ask you to wait till there
appears a promised cheap edition? Possibly the canny Scot does feel
pleasure in the superior cheapness; but the true reason is this, that I
think to put a few words, by way of notes, to each book in its new form,
because that will be the Standard Edition, without which no g.'s l.[34]
will be complete. The edition, briefly, _sine qua non_. Before that, I
shall hope to send you my essays, which are in the printer's hands. I
look to get yours soon. I am sorry to hear that the Custom House has
proved fallible, like all other human houses and customs. Life consists
of that sort of business, and I fear that there is a class of man, of
which you offer no inapt type, doomed to a kind of mild, general
disappointment through life. I do not believe that a man is the more
unhappy for that. Disappointment, except with one's self, is not a very
capital affair; and the sham beatitude, "Blessed is he that expecteth
little," one of the truest, and in a sense, the most Christlike things
in literature.
Alongside of you, I have been all my days a red cannon ball of
dissipated effort; here I am by the heels in this Alpine valley, with
just so much of a prospect of future restoration as shall make my
present caged estate easily tolerable to me--shall or should, I would
not swear to the word before the trial's done. I miss all my objects in
the meantime; and, thank God, I have enough of my old, and maybe
somewhat base philosophy, to keep me on a good understanding with myself
and Providence.
The mere extent of a man's travels has in it something consolatory. That
he should have left friends and enemies in many different and distant
quarters gives a sort of earthly dignity to his existence. And I think
the better of myself for the belief that I have left some in California
interested in me and my successes. Let me assure you, you who have made
friends already among such various and distant races, that there is a
certain phthisical Scot who will always be pleased to hear good news of
you, and would be better pleased by nothing than to learn that you had
thrown off your present incubus, largely consisting of letters I
believe, and had sailed into some square work by way of change.
And by way of change in itself, let me copy on the other pages some
broad Scotch I wrote for you when I was ill last spring in Oakland. It
is no muckle worth: but ye should na look a gien horse in the
moo'.--Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The verses here mentioned to Dr. John Brown (the admired author of
_Rab and his Friends_) were meant as a reply to a letter of
congratulation on the _Inland Voyage_ received from him the year
before. They are printed in _Underwoods_.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, December 21, 1880._
MY DEAR PEOPLE,--I do not understand these reproaches. The letters come
between seven and nine in the evening; and every one about the books was
answered that same night, and the answer left Davos by seven o'clock
next morning. Perhaps the snow delayed them; if so, 'tis a good hint to
you not to be uneasy at apparent silences. There is no hurry about my
father's notes; I shall not be writing anything till I get home again, I
believe. Only I want to be able to keep reading _ad hoc_ all winter, as
it seems about all I shall be fit for. About John Brown, I have been
breaking my heart to finish a Scotch poem to him. Some of it is not
really bad, but the rest will not come, and I mean to get it right
before I do anything else.
The bazaar is over, £160 gained, and everybody's health lost:
altogether, I never had a more uncomfortable time; apply to Fanny for
further details of the discomfort.
We have our Wogg in somewhat better trim now, and vastly better
spirits. The weather has been bad--for Davos, but indeed it is a
wonderful climate. It never feels cold; yesterday, with a little, chill,
small, northerly draught, for the first time, it was pinching. Usually,
it may freeze, or snow, or do what it pleases, you feel it not, or
hardly any.
Thanks for your notes; that fishery question will come in, as you
notice, in the Highland Book, as well as under the Union; it is very
important. I hear no word of Hugh Miller's _Evictions_; I count on that.
What you say about the old and new Statistical is odd. It seems to me
very much as if I were gingerly embarking on a _History of Modern
Scotland_. Probably Tulloch will never carry it out. And, you see, once
I have studied and written these two vols., _The Transformation of the
Scottish Highlands_ and _Scotland and the Union_, I shall have a good
ground to go upon. The effect on my mind of what I have read has been to
awaken a livelier sympathy for the Irish; although they never had the
remarkable virtues, I fear they have suffered many of the injustices, of
the Scottish Highlanders. Ruedi has seen me this morning; he says the
disease is at a standstill, and I am to profit by it to take more
exercise. Altogether, he seemed quite hopeful and pleased.--I am your
ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [Christmas 1880]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thanks for yours; I waited, as I said I would. I now
expect no answer from you, regarding you as a mere dumb cock-shy, or a
target, at which we fire our arrows diligently all day long, with no
anticipation it will bring them back to us. We are both sadly mortified
you are not coming, but health comes first; alas, that man should be so
crazy. What fun we could have, if we were all well, what work we could
do, what a happy place we could make it for each other! If I were able
to do what I want; but then I am not, and may leave that vein.
No. I do not think I shall require to know the Gaelic; few things are
written in that language, or ever were; if you come to that, the number
of those who could write, or even read it, through almost all my period,
must, by all accounts, have been incredibly small. Of course, until the
book is done, I must live as much as possible in the Highlands, and that
suits my book as to health. It is a most interesting and sad story, and
from the '45 it is all to be written for the first time. This, of
course, will cause me a far greater difficulty about authorities; but I
have already learned much, and where to look for more. One pleasant
feature is the vast number of delightful writers I shall have to deal
with: Burt, Johnson, Boswell, Mrs. Grant of Laggan, Scott. There will be
interesting sections on the Ossianic controversy and the growth of the
taste for Highland scenery. I have to touch upon Rob Roy, Flora
Macdonald, the strange story of Lady Grange, the beautiful story of the
tenants on the Forfeited Estates, and the odd, inhuman problem of the
great evictions. The religious conditions are wild, unknown, very
surprising. And three out of my five parts remain hitherto entirely
unwritten. Smack!--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [December 26, 1880]. Christmas Sermon._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I was very tired yesterday and could not write;
tobogganed so furiously all morning; we had a delightful day, crowned by
an incredible dinner--more courses than I have fingers on my hands. Your
letter arrived duly at night, and I thank you for it as I should. You
need not suppose I am at all insensible to my father's extraordinary
kindness about this book; he is a brick; I vote for him freely.
... The assurance you speak of is what we all ought to have, and might
have, and should not consent to live without. That people do not have it
more than they do is, I believe, because persons speak so much in
large-drawn, theological similitudes, and won't say out what they mean
about life, and man, and God, in fair and square human language. I
wonder if you or my father ever thought of the obscurities that lie upon
human duty from the negative form in which the Ten Commandments are
stated, or of how Christ was so continually substituting affirmations.
"Thou shalt not" is but an example; "Thou shalt" is the law of God. It
was this that seems meant in the phrase that "not one jot nor tittle of
the law should pass." But what led me to the remark is this: A kind of
black, angry look goes with that statement of the law of negatives. "To
love one's neighbour as oneself" is certainly much harder, but states
life so much more actively, gladly, and kindly, that you can begin to
see some pleasure in it; and till you can see pleasure in these hard
choices and bitter necessities, where is there any Good News to men? It
is much more important to do right than not to do wrong; further, the
one is possible, the other has always been and will ever be impossible;
and the faithful _design to do right_ is accepted by God; that seems to
me to be the Gospel, and that was how Christ delivered us from the Law.
After people are told that, surely they might hear more encouraging
sermons. To blow the trumpet for good would seem the Parson's business;
and since it is not in our own strength, but by faith and perseverance
(no account made of slips), that we are to run the race, I do not see
where they get the material for their gloomy discourses. Faith is not to
believe the Bible, but to believe in God; if you believe in God (or, for
it's the same thing, have that assurance you speak about), where is
there any more room for terror? There are only three possible
attitudes--Optimism, which has gone to smash; Pessimism, which is on the
rising hand, and very popular with many clergymen who seem to think they
are Christians. And this Faith, which is the Gospel. Once you hold the
last, it is your business (1) to find out what is right in any given
case, and (2) to try to do it; if you fail in the last, that is by
commission, Christ tells you to hope; if you fail in the first, that is
by omission, his picture of the last day gives you but a black lookout.
The whole necessary morality is kindness; and it should spring, of
itself, from the one fundamental doctrine, Faith. If you are sure that
God, in the long run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if
happy, surely you should be kind.
I beg your pardon for this long discourse; it is not all right, of
course, but I am sure there is something in it. One thing I have not got
clearly; that about the omission and the commission; but there is truth
somewhere about it, and I have no time to clear it just now. Do you
know, you have had about a Cornhill page of sermon? It is, however,
true.
Lloyd heard with dismay Fanny was not going to give me a present; so F.
and I had to go and buy things for ourselves, and go through a
representation of surprise when they were presented next morning. It
gave us both quite a Santa Claus feeling on Xmas Eve to see him so
excited and hopeful; I enjoyed it hugely.--Your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I did go out to Davos after all in January, and found Stevenson
apparently little improved in health, and depressed by a sad turn of
destiny which had brought out his old friend Mrs. Sitwell to the same
place, at the same time, to watch beside the deathbed of her son--the
youth commemorated in the verses headed _F. A. S., In Memoriam_,
afterwards published in _Underwoods_. The following letter refers to
a copy of Carlyle's _Reminiscences_ which I had sent him some time
after I came back to England.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [Spring 1881]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--My health is not just what it should be; I have lost
weight, pulse, respiration, etc., and gained nothing in the way of my
old bellows. But these last few days, with tonic, cod-liver oil, better
wine (there is some better now), and perpetual beef-tea, I think I have
progressed. To say truth, I have been here a little over long. I was
reckoning up, and since I have known you, already quite a while, I have
not, I believe, remained so long in any one place as here in Davos. That
tells on my old gipsy nature; like a violin hung up, I begin to lose
what music there was in me; and with the music, I do not know what
besides, or do not know what to call it, but something radically part of
life, a rhythm, perhaps, in one's old and so brutally over-ridden
nerves, or perhaps a kind of variety of blood that the heart has come to
look for.
I purposely knocked myself off first. As to F. A. S., I believe I am no
sound authority; I alternate between a stiff disregard and a kind of
horror. In neither mood can a man judge at all. I know the thing to be
terribly perilous, I fear it to be now altogether hopeless. Luck has
failed; the weather has not been favourable; and in her true heart, the
mother hopes no more. But--well, I feel a great deal, that I either
cannot or will not say, as you well know. It has helped to make me more
conscious of the wolverine on my own shoulders, and that also makes me a
poor judge and poor adviser. Perhaps, if we were all marched out in a
row, and a piece of platoon firing to the drums performed, it would be
well for us; although, I suppose--and yet I wonder!--so ill for the poor
mother and for the dear wife. But you can see this makes me morbid.
_Sufficit; explicit_.
You are right about the Carlyle book; F. and I are in a world not ours;
but pardon me, as far as sending on goes, we take another view: the
first volume, _à la bonne_ _heure!_ but not--never--the second. Two
hours of hysterics can be no good matter for a sick nurse, and the
strange, hard, old being in so lamentable and yet human a
desolation--crying out like a burnt child, and yet always wisely and
beautifully--how can that end, as a piece of reading, even to the
strong--but on the brink of the most cruel kind of weeping? I observe
the old man's style is stronger on me than ever it was, and by rights,
too, since I have just laid down his most attaching book. God rest the
baith o' them I But even if they do not meet again, how we should all be
strengthened to be kind, and not only in act, in speech also, that so
much more important part. See what this apostle of silence most regrets,
not speaking out his heart.
I was struck as you were by the admirable, sudden, clear sunshine upon
Southey--even on his works. Symonds, to whom I repeated it, remarked at
once, a man who was thus respected by both Carlyle and Landor must have
had more in him than we can trace. So I feel with true humility.
It was to save my brain that Symonds proposed reviewing. He and, it
appears, Leslie Stephen fear a little some eclipse: I am not quite
without sharing the fear. I know my own languor as no one else does; it
is a dead down-draught, a heavy fardel. Yet if I could shake off the
wolverine aforesaid, and his fangs are lighter, though perhaps I feel
them more, I believe I could be myself again a while. I have not written
any letter for a great time; none saying what I feel, since you were
here, I fancy. Be duly obliged for it, and take my most earnest thanks
not only for the books but for your letter.--Your affectionate,
R. L. S.
The effect of reading this on Fanny shows me I must tell you I am very
happy, peaceful, and jolly, except for questions of work and the states
of other people.
Woggin sends his love.
TO HORATIO F. BROWN
A close intimate of J. A. Symonds, and frequent visitor at Davos, was
Mr. Horatio F. Brown, author of _Life on the Lagoons_, etc. He took
warmly, as did every one, to Stevenson. The following two notes are
from a copy of Penn's _Fruits of Solitude_, printed at Philadelphia,
which Stevenson sent him as a gift this winter after his return to
Venice.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [February 1881]._
MY DEAR BROWN,--Here it is, with the mark of a San Francisco
_bouquiniste_. And if ever in all my "human conduct" I have done a
better thing to any fellow-creature than handing on to you this sweet,
dignified, and wholesome book, I know I shall hear of it on the last
day. To write a book like this were impossible; at least one can hand it
on--with a wrench--one to another. My wife cries out and my own heart
misgives me, but still here it is. I could scarcely better prove
myself--Yours affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO HORATIO F. BROWN
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [February 1881]._
MY DEAR BROWN,--I hope, if you get thus far, you will know what an
invaluable present I have made you. Even the copy was dear to me,
printed in the colony that Penn established, and carried in my pocket
all about the San Francisco streets, read in street cars and
ferry-boats, when I was sick unto death, and found in all times and
places a peaceful and sweet companion. But I hope, when you shall have
reached this note, my gift will not have been in vain; for while just
now we are so busy and intelligent, there is not the man living, no, nor
recently dead, that could put, with so lovely a spirit, so much honest,
kind wisdom into words.
R. L. S.
TO HORATIO F. BROWN
The following experiment in English alcaics was suggested by
conversations with Mr. Brown and J. A. Symonds on metrical forms,
followed by the despatch of some translations from old Venetian
boat-songs by the former after his return to Venice.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [April 1881]._
MY DEAR BROWN,--Nine years I have conded them.
Brave lads in olden musical centuries
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
Sat late by alehouse doors in April
Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:
Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;
Spring scents inspired,[35] old wine diluted;
Love and Apollo were there to chorus.
Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
Gone--those are gone, those unremembered
Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.
So man himself appears and evanishes,
So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at
Some green-embowered house, play their music,
Play and are gone on the windy highway;
Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory
Long after they departed eternally,
Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits,
Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.
Youth sang the song in years immemorial;
Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;
Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime
Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;
Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy--
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.
Please, my dear Brown, forgive my horrid delay. Symonds overworked and
knocked up. I off my sleep; my wife gone to Paris. Weather
lovely.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Monte Generoso in May; here, I think, till the end of April; write
again, to prove you are forgiving.
TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
Monte Generoso was given up; and on the way home to Scotland
Stevenson had stopped for a while at Fontainebleau, and then in
Paris; whence, finding himself unpleasantly affected by the climate,
he presently took refuge at St. Germain.
_Hotel du Pavillon Henry IV., St. Germain-en-Laye, Sunday, May 1st,
1881._
MY DEAR PEOPLE,--A week in Paris reduced me to the limpness and lack of
appetite peculiar to a kid glove, and gave Fanny a jumping sore throat.
It's my belief there is death in the kettle there; a pestilence or the
like. We came out here, pitched on the _Star and Garter_ (they call it
Somebody's pavilion), found the place a bed of lilacs and nightingales
(first time I ever heard one), and also of a bird called the _piasseur_,
cheerfulest of sylvan creatures, an ideal comic opera in itself. "Come
along, what fun, here's Pan in the next glade at picnic, and this-yer's
Arcadia, and it's awful fun, and I've had a glass, I will not deny, but
not to see it on me," that is his meaning as near as I can gather. Well,
the place (forest of beeches all new-fledged, grass like velvet, fleets
of hyacinth) pleased us and did us good. We tried all ways to find a
cheaper place, but could find nothing safe; cold, damp, brick-floored
rooms and sich; we could not leave Paris till your seven days' sight on
draft expired; we dared not go back to be miasmatised in these homes of
putridity; so here we are till Tuesday in the _Star and Garter_. My
throat is quite cured, appetite and strength on the mend. Fanny seems
also picking up.
If we are to come to Scotland, I _will_ have fir-trees, and I want a
burn, the firs for my physical, the water for my moral health.--Ever
affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
At Pitlochry, Stevenson was for some weeks in good health and working
order. The inquiries about the later life of Jean Cavalier, the
Protestant leader in the Cévennes, refer to a literary scheme,
whether of romance or history I forget, which had been in his mind
ever since the _Travels with a Donkey_.
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, June 6, 1881._
MY DEAR WEG,--Here I am in my native land, being gently blown and hailed
upon, and sitting nearer and nearer to the fire. A cottage near a moor
is soon to receive our human forms; it is also near a burn to which
Professor Blackie (no less!) has written some verses in his hot old age,
and near a farm from whence we shall draw cream and fatness. Should I be
moved to join Blackie, I shall go upon my knees and pray hard against
temptation; although, since the new Version, I do not know the proper
form of words. The swollen, childish, and pedantic vanity that moved the
said revisers to put "bring" for "lead," is a sort of literary fault
that calls for an eternal hell; it may be quite a small place, a star
of the least magnitude, and shabbily furnished; there shall ----, ----,
the revisers of the Bible and other absolutely loathsome literary
lepers, dwell among broken pens, bad, _groundy_ ink and ruled
blotting-paper made in France--all eagerly burning to write, and all
inflicted with incurable aphasia. I should not have thought upon that
torture had I not suffered it in moderation myself, but it is too horrid
even for a hell; let's let 'em off with an eternal toothache.
All this talk is partly to persuade you that I write to you out of good
feeling only, which is not the case. I am a beggar; ask Dobson,
Saintsbury, yourself, and any other of these cheeses who know something
of the eighteenth century, what became of Jean Cavalier between his
coming to England and his death in 1740. Is anything interesting known
about him? Whom did he marry? The happy French, smilingly following one
another in a long procession headed by the loud and empty Napoleon
Peyrat, say, Olympe Dunoyer, Voltaire's old flame. Vacquerie even thinks
that they were rivals, and is very French and very literary and very
silly in his comments. Now I may almost say it consists with my
knowledge that all this has not a shadow to rest upon. It is very odd
and very annoying; I have splendid materials for Cavalier till he comes
to my own country; and there, though he continues to advance in the
service, he becomes entirely invisible to me. Any information about him
will be greatly welcome: I may mention that I know as much as I desire
about the other prophets, Marion, Fage, Cavalier (de Sonne), my
Cavalier's cousin, the unhappy Lions, and the idiotic Mr. Lacy; so if
any erudite starts upon that track, you may choke him off. If you can
find aught for me, or if you will but try, count on my undying
gratitude. Lang's "Library" is very pleasant reading. My book _will_
reach you soon, for I write about it to-day.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Work on a series of tales of terror, or, as he called them,
"crawlers," planned in collaboration with his wife, soon superseded
for the moment other literary interests in his mind. _Thrawn Janet_
and the _Body-Snatchers_ were the only two of the set completed under
their original titles: _The Wreck of the Susanna_ contained, I think,
the germ of _The Merry Men_.
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [June 1881]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--_The Black Man and Other Tales._
The Black Man:
I. Thrawn Janet.
II. The Devil on Cramond Sands.
The Shadow on the Bed.
The Body-Snatchers.
The Case Bottle.
The King's Horn.
The Actor's Wife.
The Wreck of the Susanna.
This is the new work on which I am engaged with Fanny; they are all
supernatural. _Thrawn Janet_ is off to Stephen, but as it is all in
Scotch he cannot take it, I know. It was _so good_, I could not help
sending it. My health improves. We have a lovely spot here: a little
green glen with a burn, a wonderful burn, gold and green and snow-white,
singing loud and low in different steps of its career, now pouring over
miniature crags, now fretting itself to death in a maze of rocky stairs
and pots; never was so sweet a little river. Behind, great purple
moorlands reaching to Ben Vrackie. Hunger lives here, alone with larks
and sheep. Sweet spot, sweet spot.
Write me a word about Bob's professoriate and Landor, and what you think
of _The Black Man_. The tales are all ghastly. _Thrawn Janet_ frightened
me to death. There will maybe be another--_The Dead Man's Letter_. I
believe I shall recover; and I am, in this blessed hope, yours
exuberantly,
R. L. S.
TO PROFESSOR ÆNEAS MACKAY
This and the next four or five letters refer to the candidature of R.
L. S. for the Edinburgh Chair.
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, Wednesday, June 21, 1881._
MY DEAR MACKAY,--What is this I hear?--that you are retiring from your
chair. It is not, I hope, from ill-health?
But if you are retiring, may I ask if you have promised your support to
any successor? I have a great mind to try. The summer session would suit
me; the chair would suit me--if only I would suit it; I certainly should
work it hard: that I can promise. I only wish it were a few years from
now, when I hope to have something more substantial to show for myself.
Up to the present time, all that I have published, even bordering on
history, has been in an occasional form, and I fear this is much against
me.
Please let me hear a word in answer, and believe me, yours very
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
TO PROFESSOR ÆNEAS MACKAY
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [June 1881]._
MY DEAR MACKAY,--Thank you very much for your kind letter, and still
more for your good opinion. You are not the only one who has regretted
my absence from your lectures; but you were to me, then, only a part of
a mangle through which I was being slowly and unwillingly dragged--part
of a course which I had not chosen--part, in a word, of an organised
boredom.
I am glad to have your reasons for giving up the chair; they are partly
pleasant, and partly honourable to you. And I think one may say that
every man who publicly declines a plurality of offices, makes it
perceptibly more difficult for the next man to accept them.
Every one tells me that I come too late upon the field, every one being
pledged, which, seeing it is yet too early for any one to come upon the
field, I must regard as a polite evasion. Yet all advise me to stand, as
it might serve me against the next vacancy. So stand I shall, unless
things are changed. As it is, with my health this summer class is a
great attraction; it is perhaps the only hope I may have of a permanent
income. I had supposed the needs of the chair might be met by choosing
every year some period of history in which questions of Constitutional
Law were involved; but this is to look too far forward.
I understand (1_st_) that no overt steps can be taken till your
resignation is accepted; and (2_nd_) that in the meantime I may, without
offence, mention my design to stand.
If I am mistaken about these, please correct me as I do not wish to
appear where I should not.
Again thanking you very heartily for your coals of fire I remain yours
very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [June 1881]._
MY DEAR S. C.,--Great and glorious news. Your friend, the bold unfearing
chap, Aims at a professorial cap, And now besieges, do and dare, The
Edinburgh History chair. Three months in summer only it Will bind him to
that windy bit; The other nine to arrange abroad, Untrammel'd in the eye
of God. Mark in particular one thing: He means to work that cursed
thing, and to the golden youth explain Scotland and England, France and
Spain.
In short, sir, I mean to try for this chair. I do believe I can make
something out of it. It will be a pulpit in a sense; for I am nothing if
not moral, as you know. My works are unfortunately so light and trifling
they may interfere. But if you think, as I think, I am fit to fight it,
send me the best kind of testimonial stating all you can in favour of me
and, with your best art, turning the difficulty of my never having done
anything in history, strictly speaking. Second, is there anybody else,
think you, from whom I could wring one--I mean, you could wring one for
me. Any party in London or Cambridge who thinks well enough of my little
books to back me up with a few heartfelt words? Jenkin approves highly;
but says, pile in _English_ testimonials. Now I only know Stephen,
Symonds, Lang, Gosse and you, and Meredith, to be sure. The chair is in
the gift of the Faculty of Advocates, where I believe I am more wondered
at than loved. I do not know the foundation; one or two hundred, I
suppose. But it would be a good thing for me, out and out good. Help me
to live, help me to _work_, for I am the better of pressure, and help me
to say what I want about God, man and life.
R. L. S.
Heart-broken trying to write rightly to people.
History and Constitutional Law is the full style.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, June 24,1881._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--I wonder if I misdirected my last to you. I begin to
fear it. I hope, however, this will go right. I am in act to do a mad
thing--to stand for the Edinburgh Chair of History; it is elected for by
the advocates, _quorum pars_; I am told that I am too late this year;
but advised on all hands to go on, as it is likely soon to be once more
vacant; and I shall have done myself good for the next time. Now, if I
got the thing (which I cannot, it appears), I believe, in spite of all
my imperfections, I could be decently effectual. If you can think so
also, do put it in a testimonial.
Heavens! _Je me sauve_, I have something else to say to you, but after
that (which is not a joke) I shall keep it for another shoot.--Yours
testimonially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I surely need not add, dear lad, that if you don't feel like it, you
will only have to pacify me by a long letter on general subjects, when I
shall hasten to respond in recompense for my assault upon the postal
highway.
TO CHARLES J. GUTHRIE
The next two letters are addressed to an old friend and fellow-member
of the Speculative Society, who had passed Advocate six years before,
on the same day as R. L. S. himself, and is now Lord Guthrie, a
Senator of the Scottish Courts of Justice, and has Swanston Cottage,
sacred to the memory of R. L. S., for his summer home.
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, June 30, 1881._
MY DEAR GUTHRIE,--I propose to myself to stand for Mackay's chair. I can
promise that I will not spare to work. If you can see your way to help
me, I shall be glad; and you may at least not mind making my candidature
known.--Believe me, yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES J. GUTHRIE
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, July 2nd, 1881._
MY DEAR GUTHRIE,--Many thanks for your support, and many more for the
kindness and thoughtfulness of your letter. I shall take your advice in
both directions; presuming that by "electors" you mean the curators. I
must see to this soon; and I feel it would also do no harm to look in
at the P.H.[36] As soon then as I get through with a piece of work that
both sits upon me like a stone and attracts me like a piece of travel, I
shall come to town and go a-visiting. Testimonial-hunting is a queer
form of sport--but has its pleasures.
If I got that chair, the Spec. would have a warm defender near at hand!
The sight of your fist made me Speculative on the past.--Yours most
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [July 1881]._
MY DEAR WEG,--Many thanks for the testimonial; many thanks for your
blind, wondering letter; many wishes, lastly, for your swift recovery.
Insomnia is the opposite pole from my complaint; which brings with it a
nervous lethargy, an unkind, unwholesome, and ungentle somnolence,
fruitful in heavy heads and heavy eyes at morning. You cannot sleep;
well, I can best explain my state thus: I cannot wake. Sleep, like the
lees of a posset, lingers all day, lead-heavy, in my knees and ankles.
Weight on the shoulders, torpor on the brain. And there is more than too
much of that from an ungrateful hound who is now enjoying his first
decently competent and peaceful weeks for close upon two years; happy in
a big brown moor behind him, and an incomparable burn by his side;
happy, above all, in some work--for at last I am at work with that
appetite and confidence that alone makes work supportable.
I told you I had something else to say. I am very tedious--it is another
request. In August and a good part of September we shall be in Braemar,
in a house with some accommodation. Now Braemar is a place patronised by
the royalty of the Sister Kingdoms--Victoria and the Cairngorms, sir,
honouring that countryside by their conjunct presence. This seems to me
the spot for A Bard. Now can you come to see us for a little while? I
can promise you, you must like my father, because you are a human being;
you ought to like Braemar, because of your avocation; and you ought to
like me, because I like you; and again, you must like my wife, because
she likes cats; and as for my mother--well, come and see, what do you
think? that is best. Mrs. Gosse, my wife tells me, will have other fish
to fry; and to be plain, I should not like to ask her till I had seen
the house. But a lone man I know we shall be equal to. _Qu'en dis tu?
Viens._--Yours,
R. L. S.
TO P. G. HAMERTON
_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 Saône; 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
Saône.
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.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [July 1881]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I do believe I am better, mind and body; I am tired
just now, for I have just been up the burn with Wogg, daily growing
better and boo'f'ler; so do not judge my state by my style in this. I am
working steady, four Cornhill pages scrolled every day, besides the
correspondence about this chair, which is heavy in itself. My first
story, _Thrawn Janet_, all in Scotch, is accepted by Stephen; my second,
_The Body Snatchers_, is laid aside in a justifiable disgust, the tale
being horrid; my third, _The Merry Men_, I am more than half through,
and think real well of. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and
wrecks; and I like it much above all my other attempts at story-telling;
I think it is strange; if ever I shall make a hit, I have the line now,
as I believe.
Fanny has finished one of hers, _The Shadow on the Bed_, and is now
hammering at a second, for which we have "no name" as yet--not by Wilkie
Collins.
_Tales for Winter Nights._ Yes, that, I think, we will call the lot of
them when republished.
Why have you not sent me a testimonial? Everybody else but you has
responded, and Symonds, but I'm afraid he's ill. Do think, too, if
anybody else would write me a testimonial. I am told quantity goes far.
I have good ones from Rev. Professor Campbell, Professor Meiklejohn,
Leslie Stephen, Lang, Gosse, and a very shaky one from Hamerton.
Grant is an elector, so can't, but has written me kindly. From Tulloch I
have not yet heard. Do help me with suggestions. This old chair, with
its £250 and its light work, would make me.
It looks as if we should take Cater's chalet[39] after all; but O! to go
back to that place, it seems cruel. I have not yet received the Landor;
but it may be at home, detained by my mother, who returns to-morrow.
Believe me, dear Colvin, ever yours,
R. L. S.
Yours came; the class is in summer; many thanks for the testimonial, it
is bully; arrived along with it another from Symonds, also bully; he is
ill, but not lungs, thank God--fever got in Italy. We _have_ taken
Cater's chalet; so we are now the aristo's of the valley. There is no
hope for me, but if there were, you would hear sweetness and light
streaming from my lips.
_The Merry Men._
Chap. I. Eilean Aros. \
II. What the Wreck had brought to Aros. | Tip
III. Past and Present in Sandag Bay. > Top
IV. The Gale. | Tale.
V. A Man out of the Sea. /
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, July 1881._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--I hope, then, to have a visit from you. If before
August, here; if later, at Braemar. Tupe!
And now, _mon bon_, I must babble about _The Merry Men_, my favourite
work. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks. Chapter I.
"Eilean Aros"--the island, the roost, the "merry men," the three people
there living--sea superstitions. Chapter II. "What the Wreck had brought
to Aros." Eh, boy? what had it? Silver and clocks and brocades, and what
a conscience, what a mad brain! Chapter III. "Past and Present in Sandag
Bay"--the new wreck and the old--so old--the Armada treasure-ship,
Sant^ma Trini^d--the grave in the heather--strangers there. Chapter IV.
"The Gale"--the doomed ship--the storm--the drunken madman on the
head--cries in the night. Chapter V. "A Man out of the Sea." But I must
not breathe to you my plot. It is, I fancy, my first real shoot at a
story; an odd thing, sir, but, I believe, my own, though there is a
little of Scott's _Pirate_ in it, as how should there not? He had the
root of romance in such places. Aros is Earraid, where I lived lang
syne;[40] the Ross of Grisapol is the Ross of Mull; Ben Ryan, Ben More.
I have written to the middle of Chapter IV. Like enough, when it is
finished I shall discard all chapterings; for the thing is written
straight through. It must, unhappily, be re-written--too well written
not to be.
The chair is only three months in summer; that is why I try for it. If I
get it, which I shall not, I should be independent at once. Sweet
thought. I liked your Byron well; your Berlioz better. No one would
remark these cuts; even I, who was looking for it, knew it not at all to
be a torso. The paper strengthens me in my recommendation to you to
follow Colvin's hint. Give us an 1830; you will do it well, and the
subject smiles widely on the world:--
1830: _A Chapter of Artistic History_, by William Ernest Henley (or _of
Social and Artistic History_, as the thing might grow to you). Sir, you
might be in the Athenæum yet with that; and, believe me, you might and
would be far better, the author of a readable book.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
The following names have been invented for Wogg by his dear papa:--
Grunty-pig (when he is scratched),
Rose-mouth (when he comes flying up with his rose-leaf tongue
depending), and
Hoofen-boots (when he has had his foots wet).
How would _Tales for Winter Nights_ do?
TO W. E. HENLEY
The spell of good health did not last long, and with a break of the
weather came a return of catarrhal troubles and hemorrhage. This
letter answers some criticisms made by his correspondent on _The
Merry Men_ as drafted in MS.
_Pitlochry, if you please [August], 1881._
DEAR HENLEY,--To answer a point or two. First, the Spanish ship was
sloop-rigged and clumsy, because she was fitted out by some private
adventurers, not over wealthy, and glad to take what they could get. Is
that not right? Tell me if you think not. That, at least, was how I
meant it. As for the boat-cloaks, I am afraid they are, as you say,
false imagination; but I love the name, nature, and being of them so
dearly, that I feel as if I would almost rather ruin a story than omit
the reference. The proudest moments of my life have been passed in the
stern-sheets of a boat with that romantic garment over my shoulders.
This, without prejudice to one glorious day when standing upon some
water stairs at Lerwick I signalled with my pocket-handkerchief for a
boat to come ashore for me. I was then aged fifteen or sixteen; conceive
my glory.
Several of the phrases you object to are proper nautical, or long-shore
phrases, and therefore, I think, not out of place in this long-shore
story. As for the two members which you thought at first so ill-united;
I confess they seem perfectly so to me. I have chosen to sacrifice a
long-projected story of adventure because the sentiment of that is
identical with the sentiment of "My uncle." My uncle himself is not the
story as I see it, only the leading episode of that story. It's really a
story of wrecks, as they appear to the dweller on the coast. It's a view
of the sea. Goodness knows when I shall be able to re-write; I must
first get over this copper-headed cold.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The reference to Landor in the following is to a volume of mine in
Macmillan's series _English Men of Letters_. This and the next two or
three years were those of the Fenian dynamite outrages at the Tower
of London, the House of Lords, etc.
[_Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry, August 1881._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is the first letter I have written this good
while. I have had a brutal cold, not perhaps very wisely treated; lots
of blood--for me, I mean. I was so well, however, before, that I seem to
be sailing through with it splendidly. My appetite never failed; indeed,
as I got worse, it sharpened--a sort of reparatory instinct. Now I feel
in a fair way to get round soon.
_Monday, August_ (_2nd_, is it?).--We set out for the Spital of
Glenshee, and reach Braemar on Tuesday. The Braemar address we cannot
learn; it looks as if "Braemar" were all that was necessary; if
particular, you can address 17 Heriot Row. We shall be delighted to see
you whenever, and as soon as ever, you can make it possible.
... I hope heartily you will survive me, and do not doubt it. There are
seven or eight people it is no part of my scheme in life to survive--yet
if I could but heal me of my bellowses, I could have a jolly life--have
it, even now, when I can work and stroll a little, as I have been doing
till this cold. I have so many things to make life sweet to me, it seems
a pity I cannot have that other one thing--health. But though you will
be angry to hear it, I believe, for myself at least, what is is best. I
believed it all through my worst days, and I am not ashamed to profess
it now.
Landor has just turned up; but I had read him already. I like him
extremely; I wonder if the "cuts" were perhaps not advantageous. It
seems quite full enough; but then you know I am a compressionist.
If I am to criticise, it is a little staid; but the classical is apt to
look so. It is in curious contrast to that inexpressive, unplanned
wilderness of Forster's; clear, readable, precise, and sufficiently
human. I see nothing lost in it, though I could have wished, in my
Scotch capacity, a trifle clearer and fuller exposition of his moral
attitude, which is not quite clear "from here."
He and his tyrannicide! I am in a mad fury about these explosions. If
that is the new world! Damn O'Donovan Rossa; damn him behind and before,
above, below, and roundabout; damn, deracinate, and destroy him, root
and branch, self and company, world without end. Amen. I write that for
sport if you like, but I will pray in earnest, O Lord, if you cannot
convert, kindly delete him!
Stories naturally at halt. Henley has seen one and approves. I believe
it to be good myself, even real good. He has also seen and approved one
of Fanny's. It will make a good volume. We have now
Thrawn Janet (with Stephen), proof to-day.
The Shadow on the Bed (Fanny's copying).
The Merry Men (scrolled).
The Body Snatchers (scrolled).
_In germis_
The Travelling Companion.
The Torn Surplice (_not final title_).
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
Dr. Japp (known in literature at this date and for some time
afterwards under his pseudonym H. A. Page; later under his own name
the biographer of De Quincey) had written to R. L. S. criticising
statements of fact and opinion in his essay on Thoreau, and
expressing the hope that they might meet and discuss their
differences. In the interval between the last letter and this
Stevenson with all his family had moved to Braemar.
_The Cottage, Castleton of Braemar, Sunday [August 1881]._
MY DEAR SIR,--I should long ago have written to thank you for your kind
and frank letter; but in my state of health papers are apt to get
mislaid, and your letter has been vainly hunted for until this (Sunday)
morning.
I regret I shall not be able to see you in Edinburgh; one visit to
Edinburgh has already cost me too dear in that invaluable particular
health; but if it should be at all possible for you to push on as far as
Braemar, I believe you would find an attentive listener, and I can offer
you a bed, a drive, and necessary food, etc.
If, however, you should not be able to come thus far, I can promise you
two things: First, I shall religiously revise what I have written, and
bring out more clearly the point of view from which I regarded Thoreau;
second, I shall in the Preface record your objection.
The point of view (and I must ask you not to forget that any such short
paper is essentially only a _section through_ a man) was this: I desired
to look at the man through his books. Thus, for instance, when I
mentioned his return to the pencil-making, I did it only in passing
(perhaps I was wrong), because it seemed to me not an illustration of
his principles, but a brave departure from them. Thousands of such there
were I do not doubt; still, they might be hardly to my purpose, though,
as you say so, some of them would be.
Our difference as to pity I suspect was a logomachy of my making. No
pitiful acts on his part would surprise me; I know he would be more
pitiful in practice than most of the whiners; but the spirit of that
practice would still seem to be unjustly described by the word pity.
When I try to be measured, I find myself usually suspected of a sneaking
unkindness for my subject; but you may be sure, sir, I would give up
most other things to be so good a man as Thoreau. Even my knowledge of
him leads me thus far.
Should you find yourself able to push on to Braemar--it may even be on
your way--believe me, your visit will be most welcome. The weather is
cruel, but the place is, as I dare say you know, the very "wale" of
Scotland--bar Tummelside.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_The Cottage, Castleton of Braemar, [August 1881]._
... Well, I have been pretty mean, but I have not yet got over my cold
so completely as to have recovered much energy. It is really
extraordinary that I should have recovered as well as I have in this
blighting weather; the wind pipes, the rain comes in squalls, great
black clouds are continually overhead, and it is as cold as March. The
country is delightful, more cannot be said; it is very beautiful, a
perfect joy when we get a blink of sun to see it in. The Queen knows a
thing or two, I perceive; she has picked out the finest habitable spot
in Britain.
I have done no work, and scarce written a letter for three weeks, but I
think I should soon begin again; my cough is now very trifling. I eat
well, and seem to have lost but little flesh in the meanwhile. I was
_wonderfully_ well before I caught this horrid cold. I never thought I
should have been as well again; I really enjoyed life and work; and, of
course, I now have a good hope that this may return.
I suppose you heard of our ghost stories. They are somewhat delayed by
my cold and a bad attack of laziness, embroidery, etc., under which
Fanny had been some time prostrate. It is horrid that we can get no
better weather. I did not get such good accounts of you as might have
been. You must imitate me. I am now one of the most conscientious people
at trying to get better you ever saw. I have a white hat, it is much
admired; also a plaid, and a heavy stoop; so I take my walks abroad,
witching the world.
Last night I was beaten at chess, and am still grinding under the
blow.--Ever your faithful friend,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_The Cottage (late the late Miss M'Gregor's), Castleton of Braemar,
August 10, 1881._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--Come on the 24th, there is a dear fellow. Everybody else
wants to come later, and it will be a godsend for, sir--Yours sincerely.
You can stay as long as you behave decently, and are not sick of,
sir--Your obedient, humble servant.
We have family worship in the home of, sir--Yours respectfully.
Braemar is a fine country, but nothing to (what you will also see) the
maps of, sir--Yours in the Lord.
A carriage and two spanking hacks draw up daily at the hour of two
before the house of, sir--Yours truly.
The rain rains and the winds do beat upon the cottage of the late Miss
Macgregor and of, sir--Yours affectionately.
It is to be trusted that the weather may improve ere you know the halls
of, sir--Yours emphatically.
All will be glad to welcome you, not excepting, sir--Yours ever.
You will now have gathered the lamentable intellectual collapse of,
sir--Yours indeed.
And nothing remains for me but to sign myself, sir--Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_N.B._--Each of these clauses has to be read with extreme glibness,
coming down whack upon the "Sir." This is very important. The fine
stylistic inspiration will else be lost.
I commit the man who made, the man who sold, and the woman who supplied
me with my present excruciating gilt nib to that place where the worm
never dies.
The reference to a deceased Highland lady (tending as it does to foster
unavailing sorrow) may be with advantage omitted from the address, which
would therefore run--The Cottage, Castleton of Braemar.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_The Cottage, Castleton of Braemar, August 19, 1881._
If you had an uncle who was a sea captain and went to the North Pole,
you had better bring his outfit. _Verbum Sapientibus._ I look towards
you.
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
[_Braemar, August 19, 1881._]
MY DEAR WEG,--I have by an extraordinary drollery of Fortune sent off to
you by this day's post a P.C. inviting you to appear in sealskin. But
this had reference to the weather, and not at all, as you may have been
led to fancy, to our rustic raiment of an evening.
As to that question, I would deal, in so far as in me lies, fairly with
all men. We are not dressy people by nature; but it sometimes occurs to
us to entertain angels. In the country, I believe, even angels may be
decently welcomed in tweed; I have faced many great personages, for my
own part, in a tasteful suit of sea-cloth with an end of carpet pending
from my gullet. Still, we do maybe twice a summer burst out in the
direction of blacks--and yet we do it seldom. In short, let your own
heart decide, and the capacity of your portmanteau. If you came in
camel's hair, you would still, although conspicuous, be welcome.
The sooner the better after Tuesday.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The following records the beginning of work upon _Treasure Island_,
the name originally proposed for which was _The Sea Cook_:--
[_Braemar, August 25, 1881._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Of course I am a rogue. Why, Lord, it's known, man; but
you should remember I have had a horrid cold. Now, I'm better, I think;
and see here--nobody, not you, nor Lang, nor the devil, will hurry me
with our crawlers. They are coming. Four of them are as good as done,
and the rest will come when ripe; but I am now on another lay for the
moment, purely owing to Lloyd, this one; but I believe there's more coin
in it than in any amount of crawlers: now, see here, _The Sea Cook, or
Treasure Island: A Story for Boys_.
If this don't fetch the kids, why, they have gone rotten since my day.
Will you be surprised to learn that it is about Buccaneers, that it
begins in the "Admiral Benbow" public-house on Devon coast, that it's
all about a map, and a treasure, and a mutiny, and a derelict ship, and
a current, and a fine old Squire Trelawney (the real Tre, purged of
literature and sin, to suit the infant mind), and a doctor, and another
doctor, and a sea cook with one leg, and a sea-song with the chorus
"Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" (at the third Ho you heave at the capstan
bars), which is a real buccaneer's song, only known to the crew of the
late Captain Flint (died of rum at Key West, much regretted, friends
will please accept this intimation); and lastly, would you be surprised
to hear, in this connection, the name of _Routledge_? That's the kind of
man I am, blast your eyes. Two chapters are written, and have been tried
on Lloyd with great success; the trouble is to work it off without
oaths. Buccaneers without oaths--bricks without straw. But youth and the
fond parent have to be consulted.
And now look here--this is next day--and three chapters are written and
read. (Chapter I. The Old Sea-dog at the "Admiral Benbow." Chapter II.
Black Dog appears and disappears. Chapter III. The Black Spot.) All now
heard by Lloyd, F., and my father and mother, with high approval. It's
quite silly and horrid fun, and what I want is the _best_ book about the
Buccaneers that can be had--the latter B's above all, Blackbeard and
sich, and get Nutt or Bain to send it skimming by the fastest post. And
now I know you'll write to me, for _The Sea Cook's_ sake.
Your Admiral Guinea is curiously near my line, but of course I'm
fooling; and your Admiral sounds like a shublime gent, Stick to him like
wax--he'll do. My Trelawney is, as I indicate, several thousand
sea-miles off the lie of the original or your Admiral Guinea; and
besides, I have no more about him yet but one mention of his name, and I
think it likely he may turn yet farther from the model in the course of
handling. A chapter a day I mean to do; they are short; and perhaps in a
month _The Sea Cook_ may to Routledge go, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
My Trelawney has a strong dash of Landor, as I see him from here. No
women in the story, Lloyd's orders; and who so blithe to obey? It's
awful fun boys' stories; you just indulge the pleasure of your heart,
that's all; no trouble, no strain. The only stiff thing is to get it
ended--that I don't see, but I look to a volcano. O sweet, O generous, O
human toils. You would like my blind beggar in Chapter III. I believe;
no writing, just drive along as the words come and the pen will scratch!
R. L. S.
Author of Boys' Stories.
TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
This correspondent had paid his visit as proposed, discussed the
Thoreau differences, listened delightedly to the first chapters of
_Treasure Island_, and proposed to offer the story for publication
to his friend Mr. Henderson, proprietor and editor of Young Folks.
[_Braemar, September 1881._]
MY DEAR DR. JAPP,--My father has gone, but I think I may take it upon me
to ask you to keep the book. Of all things you could do to endear
yourself to me, you have done the best, for my father and you have taken
a fancy to each other.
I do not know how to thank you for all your kind trouble in the matter
of _The Sea Cook_, but I am not unmindful. My health is still poorly,
and I have added intercostal rheumatism--a new attraction--which sewed
me up nearly double for two days, and still gives me a list to
starboard--let us be ever nautical!
I do not think with the start I have there will be any difficulty in
letting Mr. Henderson go ahead whenever he likes. I will write my story
up to its legitimate conclusion; and then we shall be in a position to
judge whether a sequel would be desirable, and I would then myself know
better about its practicability from the story-teller's point of
view.--Yours ever very sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
This tells of the farther progress of _Treasure Island_, of the price
paid for it, and of the modest hopes with which it was launched. "The
poet" is Mr. Gosse. The project of a highway story, _Jerry Abershaw_,
remained a favourite one with Stevenson until it was superseded three
or four years later by another, that of the _Great North Road_, which
in its turn had to be abandoned, from lack of health and leisure,
after some six or eight chapters had been written.
_Braemar, September 1881._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Thanks for your last. The £100 fell through, or
dwindled at least into somewhere about £30. However, that I've taken as
a mouthful, so you may look out for _The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island: A
Tale of the Buccaneers_, in Young Folks. (The terms are £2, 10s. a page
of 4500 words; that's not noble, is it? But I have my copyright safe. I
don't get illustrated--a blessing; that's the price I have to pay for my
copyright.)
I'll make this boys' book business pay; but I have to make a beginning.
When I'm done with Young Folks, I'll try Routledge or some one. I feel
pretty sure the _Sea Cook_ will do to reprint, and bring something
decent at that.
Japp is a good soul. The poet was very gay and pleasant. He told me
much: he is simply the most active young man in England, and one of the
most intelligent. "He shall o'er Europe, shall o'er earth extend."[41]
He is now extending over adjacent parts of Scotland.
I propose to follow up _The Sea Cook_ at proper intervals by _Jerry
Abershaw: A Tale of Putney Heath_ (which or its site I must visit): _The
Leading Light: A Tale of the Coast_, _The Squaw Men: or the Wild West_,
and other instructive and entertaining work. _Jerry Abershaw_ should be
good, eh? I love writing boys' books. This first is only an experiment;
wait till you see what I can make 'em with my hand in. I'll be the
Harrison Ainsworth of the future; and a chalk better by St. Christopher;
or at least as good. You'll see that even by _The Sea Cook_.
Jerry Abershaw--O what a title! Jerry Abershaw: d--n it, sir, it's a
poem. The two most lovely words in English; and what a sentiment! Hark
you, how the hoofs ring! Is this a blacksmith's? No, it's a wayside inn.
Jerry Abershaw. "It was a clear, frosty evening, not 100 miles from
Putney," etc. Jerry Abershaw. Jerry Abershaw. Jerry Abershaw. _The Sea
Cook_ is now in its sixteenth chapter, and bids for well up in the
thirties. Each three chapters is worth £2, 10s. So we've £12, 10s.
already.
Don't read Marryat's _Pirate_ anyhow; it is written in sand with a
salt-spoon: arid, feeble, vain, tottering production. But then we're
not always all there. _He_ was _all_ somewhere else that trip. It's
_damnable_, Henley. I don't go much on _The Sea Cook_; but, Lord, it's a
little fruitier than the _Pirate_ by Cap'n. Marryat.
Since this was written _The Cook_ is in his nineteenth chapter. Yo-heave
ho!
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
Stevenson's uncle, Dr. George Balfour, had recommended him to wear a
specially contrived and hideous respirator for the inhalation of
pine-oil.
_Braemar, 1881._
Dear Henley, with a pig's snout on
I am starting for London,
Where I likely shall arrive,
On Saturday, if still alive:
Perhaps your pirate doctor might
See me on Sunday? If all's right,
I should then lunch with you and with she
Who's dearer to you than you are to me.
I shall remain but little time
In London, as a wretched clime,
But not so wretched (for none are)
As that of beastly old Braemar.
My doctor sends me skipping. I
Have many facts to meet your eye.
My pig's snout's now upon my face;
And I inhale with fishy grace,
My gills outflapping right and left,
_Ol. pin. sylvest._ I am bereft
Of a great deal of charm by this--
Not quite the bull's eye for a kiss--
But like a gnome of olden time
Or bogey in a pantomime.
For ladies' love I once was fit,
But now am rather out of it.
Where'er I go, revolted curs
Snap round my military spurs;
The children all retire in fits
And scream their bellowses to bits.
Little I care: the worst's been done:
Now let the cold impoverished sun
Drop frozen from his orbit; let
Fury and fire, cold, wind and wet,
And cataclysmal mad reverses
Rage through the federate universes;
Let Lawson triumph, cakes and ale,
Whisky and hock and claret fail;--
Tobacco, love, and letters perish,
With all that any man could cherish:
You it may touch, not me. I dwell
Too deep already--deep in hell;
And nothing can befall, O damn!
To make me uglier than I am.
R. L. S.
This-yer refers to an ori-nasal respirator for the inhalation of
pine-wood oil, _oleum pini sylvestris_.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
With all his throat and lung troubles actively renewed, Stevenson
fled to Davos again in October. This time he and his wife and stepson
occupied a small house by themselves, the Chalet am Stein, near the
Buol Hotel. The election to the Edinburgh Professorship was still
pending, and the following note to his father shows that he thought
for a moment of giving the electors a specimen of his qualifications
in the shape of a magazine article on the Appin murder--a theme
afterwards turned to more vital account in the tales of _Kidnapped_
and _Catriona_.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, October 1881._]
MY DEAR FATHER,--It occurred to me last night in bed that I could write
The Murder of Red Colin,
A Story of the Forfeited Estates.
This I have all that is necessary for, with the following exceptions:--
_Trials of the Sons of Roy Rob with Anecdotes_: Edinburgh, 1818, and
The second volume of Blackwood's Magazine.
You might also look in Arnot's _Criminal Trials_ up in my room, and see
what observations he has on the case (Trial of James Stewart in Appin
for murder of Campbell of Glenure, 1752); if he has none, perhaps you
could see--O yes, see if Burton has it in his two vols. of trial
stories. I hope he hasn't; but care not; do it over again anyway.
The two named authorities I must see. With these, I could soon pull off
this article; and it shall be my first for the electors.--Ever
affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
Some of the habitual readers of Young Folks had written objecting to
the early instalments of _Treasure Island_, and the editor had come
forward in their defence.
_Davos Printing Office, managed by Samuel Lloyd Osbourne & Co., The
Chalet [Nov. 9, 1881]._
DEAR WEG,--If you are taking Young Folks, for God's Sake Twig the
editorial style; it is incredible; we are all left panting in the rear;
twig, O twig it. His name is Clinton; I should say the most melodious
prosewriter now alive; it's like buttermilk and blacking; it sings and
hums away in that last sheet, like a great old kettle full of bilge
water. You know: none of us could do it, boy. See No. 571, last page: an
article called "Sir Claude the Conqueror," and read it _aloud_ in your
best rhythmic tones; mon cher, c'est épatant.
Observe in the same number, how Will J. Shannon girds at your poor
friend; and how the rhythmic Clinton steps chivalrously forth in his
defence. First the Rev. Purcell; then Will J. Shannon: thick fall the
barbéd arrows.[42]
I wish I could play a game of chess with you.
If I survive, I shall have Clinton to dinner: it is plain I must make
hay while the sun shines; I shall not long keep a footing in the world
of penny writers, or call them obolists. It is a world full of
surprises, a romantic world. Weg, I was known there; even I. The
obolists, then, sometimes peruse our works. It is only fair; since I so
much batten upon theirs. Talking of which, in Heaven's name, get _The
Bondage of Brandon_ (3 vols.) by Bracebridge Hemming. It's the devil and
all for drollery. There is a Superior (sic) of the Jesuits, straight out
of Skelt.
And now look here, I had three points: Clinton--disposed of--(2nd) Benj.
Franklin--do you want him? (3rd) A radiant notion begot this morning
over an atlas: why not, you who know the lingo, give us a good legendary
and historical book on Iceland? It would, or should, be as romantic as a
book of Scott's; as strange and stirring as a dream. Think on't. My wife
screamed with joy at the idea; and the little Lloyd clapped his hands;
so I offer you three readers on the spot.
Fanny and I have both been in bed, tended by the hired sick nurse; Lloyd
has a broken finger (so he did not clap his hands literally); Wogg has
had an abscess in his ear; our servant is a devil.--I am yours ever,
with both of our best regards to Mrs. Gosse,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
The Rejected Obolist.
TO W. E. HENLEY
This letter speaks of contributions to the Magazine of Art (in these
years edited by Mr. Henley) from J. A. Symonds and from R. L. S.
himself, "Bunyan" meaning the essay on the cuts in Bagster's edition
of the _Pilgrim's Progress_. A toy press had just been set up in the
chalet for the lad Lloyd.
_Davos Printing Office, managed by Samuel Lloyd Osbourne & Co., The
Chalet [Nov. 1881]._
DEAR HENLEY,--I have done better for you than you deserved to hope; the
Venice Medley is withdrawn; and I have a Monte Oliveto (short) for you,
with photographs and sketches. I think you owe luck a candle; for this
no skill could have accomplished without the aid of accident.
How about carving and gilding? I have nearly killed myself over Bunyan;
and am too tired to finish him to-day, as I might otherwise have done.
For his back is broken. For some reason, it proved one of the hardest
things I ever tried to write; perhaps--but no--I have no theory to
offer--it went against the spirit. But as I say I girt my loins up and
nearly died of it.
In five weeks, six at the latest, I should have a complete proof of
_Treasure Island_. It will be from 75 to 80,000 words; and with anything
like half good pictures, it should sell. I suppose I may at least hope
for eight pic's? I aspire after ten or twelve. You had better
--Two days later.
Bunyan skips to-day, pretty bad, always with an official letter. Yours
came last night. I had already spotted your Dickens; very pleasant and
true.
My wife is far from well; quite confined to bed now; drain poisoning. I
keep getting better slowly; appetite dicky; but some days I feel and eat
well. The weather has been hot and heartless and unDavosy.
I shall give Symonds his note in about an hour from now.
Have done so; he will write of Vesalius and of Botticelli's Dante for
you.
Morris's _Sigurd_ is a grrrrreat poem; that is so. I have cried aloud at
this re-reading; he had fine stuff to go on, but he has touched it, in
places, with the hand of a master. Yes. Regin and Fafnir are incredibly
fine. Love to all.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO P. G. HAMERTON
The volume of republished essays here mentioned is _Familiar
Studies of Men and Books_. "The silly story of the election" refers
again to his correspondent's failure as a candidate for the Edinburgh
Chair of Fine Arts.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, December 1881._]
MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON,--My conscience has long been smiting me, till it
became nearly chronic. My excuses, however, are many and not pleasant.
Almost immediately after I last wrote to you, I had a hemorreage (I
can't spell it), was badly treated by a doctor in the country, and have
been a long while picking up--still, in fact, have much to desire on
that side. Next, as soon as I got here, my wife took ill; she is, I
fear, seriously so; and this combination of two invalids very much
depresses both.
I have a volume of republished essays coming out with Chatto and Windus;
I wish they would come, that my wife might have the reviews to divert
her. Otherwise my news is _nil_. I am up here in a little chalet, on the
borders of a pinewood, overlooking a great part of the Davos Thal, a
beautiful scene at night, with the moon upon the snowy mountains, and
the lights warmly shining in the village. J. A. Symonds is next door to
me, just at the foot of my Hill Difficulty (this you will please regard
as the House Beautiful), and his society is my great stand-by.
Did you see I had joined the band of the rejected? "Hardly one of us,"
said my _confrères_ at the bar.
I was blamed by a common friend for asking you to give me a testimonial;
in the circumstances he thought it was indelicate. Lest, by some
calamity, you should ever have felt the same way, I must say in two
words how the matter appeared to me. That silly story of the election
altered in no tittle the value of your testimony: so much for that. On
the other hand, it led me to take quite a particular pleasure in asking
you to give it; and so much for the other. I trust, even if you cannot
share it, you will understand my view.
I am in treaty with Bentley for a life of Hazlitt; I hope it will not
fall through, as I love the subject, and appear to have found a
publisher who loves it also. That, I think, makes things more pleasant.
You know I am a fervent Hazlittite; I mean regarding him as _the_
English writer who has had the scantiest justice. Besides which, I am
anxious to write biography; really, if I understand myself in quest of
profit, I think it must be good to live with another man from birth to
death. You have tried it, and know.
How has the cruising gone? Pray remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your
son, and believe me, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The memory here evoked of Brash the publican, who had been a special
butt for some of the youthful pranks of R. L. S. and his friends,
inspired in the next few weeks the sets of verses mentioned below
(vol. 24, pp. 14, 15, 38) in letters which show that the fictitious
Johnson and Thomson were far from being dead.
_[Chalet am Stein], Davos, December 5, 1881._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--We have been in miserable case here; my wife worse and
worse; and now sent away with Lloyd for sick nurse, I not being allowed
to go down. I do not know what is to become of us; and you may imagine
how rotten I have been feeling, and feel now, alone with my weasel-dog
and my German maid, on the top of a hill here, heavy mist and thin snow
all about me, and the devil to pay in general. I don't care so much for
solitude as I used to; results, I suppose, of marriage.
Pray write me something cheery. A little Edinburgh gossip, in Heaven's
name. Ah! what would I not give to steal this evening with you through
the big, echoing, college archway, and away south under the street
lamps, and away to dear Brash's, now defunct! But the old time is dead
also, never, never to revive. It was a sad time too, but so gay and so
hopeful, and we had such sport with all our low spirits and all our
distresses, that it looks like a kind of lamplit fairyland behind me. O
for ten Edinburgh minutes--sixpence between us, and the ever-glorious
Lothian Road, or dear mysterious Leith Walk! But here, a sheer hulk,
lies poor Tom Bowling; here in this strange place, whose very
strangeness would have been heaven to him then; and aspires, yes, C. B.,
with tears, after the past. See what comes of being left alone. Do you
remember Brash? the sheet of glass that we followed along George Street?
Granton? the night at Bonny mainhead? the compass near the sign of the
_Twinkling Eye_? the night I lay on the pavement in misery?
I swear it by the eternal sky
Johnson--nor--Thomson ne'er shall die!
Yet I fancy they are dead too; dead like Brash.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
The next is after going down to meet his wife and stepson, when the
former had left the doctor's hands at Berne.
_Chalet Buol, Davos-Platz, December 26, 1881._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--Yesterday, Sunday and Christmas, we finished this
eventful journey by a drive in an _open_ sleigh--none others were to be
had--seven hours on end through whole forests of Christmas trees. The
cold was beyond belief. I have often suffered less at a dentist's. It
was a clear, sunny day, but the sun even at noon falls, at this season,
only here and there into the Prättigau. I kept up as long as I could in
an imitation of a street singer:--
"Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses," etc.
At last Lloyd remarked, a blue mouth speaking from a corpse-coloured
face, "You seem to be the only one with any courage left?" And, do you
know, with that word my courage disappeared, and I made the rest of the
stage in the same dumb wretchedness as the others. My only terror was
lest Fanny should ask for brandy, or laudanum, or something. So awful
was the idea of putting my hands out, that I half thought I would
refuse.
Well, none of us are a penny the worse, Lloyd's cold better; I, with a
twinge of the rheumatiz; and Fanny better than her ordinary.
General conclusion between Lloyd and me as to the journey: A prolonged
visit to the dentist's, complicated with the fear of death.
Never, O never, do you get me there again.--Ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
Mr. Gosse and R. L. S. had proposed to Mr. R. W. Gilder, of the
Century Magazine, that they should collaborate for him on a series of
murder papers, beginning with the Elstree murder; and he had accepted
the proposal on terms which they thought liberal.
_Hotel Buol, Davos, Dec. 26, 1881._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have just brought my wife back, through such cold, in
an open sleigh too, as I had never fancied to exist. I won't use the
word torture, but go to your dentist's and in nine cases out of ten you
will not suffer more pain than we suffered.
This is merely in acknowledgment of your editorial: to say that I shall
give my mind at once to the Murder. But I bethink me you can say so much
and convey my sense of the liberality of our Cousins, without
exhibiting this scrawl. So I may go on to tell you that I have at last
found a publisher as eager to publish, as I am to write a Hazlitt.
Bentley is the Boy; and very liberal, at least, as per last advices;
certainly very friendly and eager, which makes work light, like
whistling. I wish I was with the rest of--well, of us--in the red books.
But I am glad to get a whack at Hazlitt, howsoe'er.
How goes your Gray? I would not change with you; brother! Gray would
never be suited to my temperament, while Hazlitt fits me like a glove.
I hope in your studies in Young Folks you did not miss the delicious
reticences, the artistic concealments, and general fine-shade
graduation, through which the fact of the Xmas Nr. being 3d. was
instilled--too strong--inspired into the mind of the readers. It was
superb.
I may add as a postscript: I wish to God I or anybody knew what was the
matter with my wife.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, March 1882._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Herewith _Moral Emblems_. The elephant by Fanny--the
rest by me.
I would have sent it long ago. But I must explain. I brought home with
me from my bad times in America two strains of unsoundness of mind, the
first, a perpetual fear that I can do no more work--the second, a
perpetual fear that my friends have quarrelled with me.[43] This last
long silence of yours drove me into really believing it, and I dared not
write to you.
Well, it's ancient history now, and here are the emblems. A second
series is in the press.
_Silverado_ is still unfinished; but I think I have done well on the
whole, as you say. I shall be home, I hope, sometime in May, perhaps
before; it depends on Fanny's health, which is still far from good and
often alarms me. I shall then see your collectanea. I shall not put pen
to paper till I settle somewhere else; Hazlitt had better simmer awhile.
I have to see Ireland too, who has most kindly written to me and invited
me to see his collections.
Symonds grows much on me: in many ways, what you would least expect, a
very sound man, and very wise in a wise way. It is curious how F. and I
always turn to him for advice: we have learned that his advice is
good.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, February 1882._]
MY DEAR CUMMY,--My wife and I are very much vexed to hear you are still
unwell. We are both keeping far better; she especially seems quite to
have taken a turn--_the_ turn, we shall hope. Please let us know how you
get on, and what has been the matter with you; Braemar I believe--the
vile hole. You know what a lazy rascal I am, so you won't be surprised
at a short letter, I know; indeed, you will be much more surprised at my
having had the decency to write at all. We have got rid of our young,
pretty, and incompetent maid; and now we have a fine, canny, twinkling,
shrewd, auld-farrant peasant body, who gives us good food and keeps us
in good spirits. If we could only understand what she says! But she
speaks Davos language, which is to German what Aberdeen-awa' is to
English, so it comes heavy. God bless you, my dear Cummy; and so says
Fanny forbye.--Ever your affectionate,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_[Chalet am Stein, Davos], 22nd February '82._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Your most welcome letter has raised clouds of sulphur
from my horizon....
I am glad you have gone back to your music. Life is a poor thing, I am
more and more convinced, without an art, that always waits for us and is
always new. Art and marriage are two very good stand-by's.
In an article which will appear some time in the Cornhill, _Talk and
Talkers_, and where I have full-lengthened the conversation of Bob,
Henley, Jenkin, Simpson, Symonds, and Gosse, I have at the end one
single word about yourself. It may amuse you to see it.
We are coming to Scotland after all, so we shall meet, which pleases me,
and I do believe I am strong enough to stand it this time. My knee is
still quite lame.
My wife is better again.... But we take it by turns; it is the dog that
is ill now.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
In the early months of this year a hurt knee kept Stevenson more
indoors than was good for him.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, February 1882._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Here comes the letter as promised last night. And first
two requests: Pray send the enclosed to c/o Blackmore's publisher, 'tis
from Fanny; second, pray send us Routledge's shilling book, Edward
Mayhew's _Dogs_, by return if it can be managed.
Our dog is very ill again, poor fellow, looks very ill too, only sleeps
at night because of morphine; and we do not know what ails him, only
fear it to be canker of the ear. He makes a bad, black spot in our life,
poor, selfish, silly, little tangle; and my wife is wretched. Otherwise
she is better, steadily and slowly moving up through all her relapses.
My knee never gets the least better; it hurts to-night, which it has not
done for long. I do not suppose my doctor knows any least thing about
it. He says it is a nerve that I struck, but I assure you he does not
know.
I have just finished a paper, _A Gossip on Romance_, in which I have
tried to do, very popularly, about one-half of the matter you wanted me
to try. In a way, I have found an answer to the question. But the
subject was hardly fit for so chatty a paper, and it is all loose ends.
If ever I do my book on the Art of Literature, I shall gather them
together and be clear.
To-morrow, having once finished off the touches still due on this, I
shall tackle _San Francisco_ for you. Then the tide of work will fairly
bury me, lost to view and hope. You have no idea what it costs me to
wring out my work now. I have certainly been a fortnight over this
_Romance_, sometimes five hours a day; and yet it is about my usual
length--eight pages or so, and would be a d----d sight the better for
another curry. But I do not think I can honestly re-write it all; so I
call it done, and shall only straighten words in a revision currently.
I had meant to go on for a great while, and say all manner of
entertaining things. But all's gone. I am now an idiot.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The following flight of fancy refers to supposed errors of judgment
on the part of an eminent firm of publishers, with whom Stevenson had
at this time no connection. Very soon afterwards he entered into
relations with them which proved equally pleasant and profitable to
both parties, and were continued on the most cordial terms until his
death.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 1882._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Last night we had a dinner-party, consisting of the
John Addington, curry, onions (lovely onions), and beefsteak. So
unusual is any excitement, that F. and I feel this morning as if we had
been to a coronation. However I must, I suppose, write.
I was sorry about your female contributor squabble. 'Tis very comic, but
really unpleasant. But what care I? Now that I illustrate my own books,
I can always offer you a situation in our house--S. L. Osbourne and Co.
As an author gets a halfpenny a copy of verses, and an artist a penny a
cut, perhaps a proof-reader might get several pounds a year.
O that Coronation! What a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a
firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and
that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and
drank fifty royal wines--_quel coup d'oeil_! but was it not overdone,
even for a coronation--almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly
too late to begin dinner. (It was really 6.30 instead of 5.30.)
Your list of books that Cassells have refused in these weeks is not
quite complete; they also refused:--
1. Six undiscovered Tragedies, one romantic Comedy, a fragment of
Journal extending over six years, and an unfinished Autobiography
reaching up to the first performance of King John. By William
Shakespeare.
2. The Journals and Private Correspondence of David, King of Israel.
3. Poetical Works of Arthur, Iron Dook of Wellington including a Monody
on Napoleon.
4. Eight books of an unfinished novel, _Solomon Crabb_. By Henry
Fielding.
5. Stevenson's Moral Emblems.
You also neglected to mention, as _per contra_, that they had during the
same time accepted and triumphantly published Brown's _Handbook to
Cricket_, _Jones's First French Reader_, and Robinson's _Picturesque
Cheshire_, uniform with the same author's _Stately Homes of Salop_.
O if that list could come true! How we would tear at _Solomon Crabb_! O
what a bully, bully, bully business. Which would you read
first--Shakespeare's autobiography, or his journals? What sport the
monody on Napoleon would be--what wooden verse, what stucco ornament! I
should read both the autobiography and the journals before I looked at
one of the plays, beyond the names of them, which shows that Saintsbury
was right, and I do care more for life than for poetry. No--I take it
back. Do you know one of the tragedies--a Bible tragedy
too--_David_--was written in his third period--much about the same time
as Lear? The comedy, _April Rain_, is also a late work. _Beckett_ is a
fine ranting piece, like _Richard II._, but very fine for the stage.
Irving is to play it this autumn when I'm in town; the part rather suits
him--but who is to play Henry--a tremendous creation, sir. Betterton in
his private journal seems to have seen this piece; and he says
distinctly that Henry is the best part in any play. "Though," he adds,
"how it be with the ancient plays I know not. But in this I have ever
feared to do ill, and indeed will not be persuaded to that undertaking."
So says Betterton. _Rufus_ is not so good; I am not pleased with
_Rufus_; plainly a _rifaccimento_ of some inferior work; but there are
some damned fine lines. As for the purely satiric ill-minded _Abelard
and Heloise_, another _Troilus, quoi!_ it is not pleasant, truly, but
what strength, what verve, what knowledge of life, and the Canon! What a
finished, humorous, rich picture is the Canon! Ah, there was nobody like
Shakespeare. But what I like is the David and Absalom business: Absalom
is so well felt--you love him as David did; David's speech is one roll
of royal music from the first act to the fifth.
I am enjoying _Solomon Crabb_ extremely; Solomon's capital adventure
with the two highwaymen and Squire Trecothick and Parson Vance; it is as
good, I think, as anything in Joseph Andrews. I have just come to the
part where the highwayman with the black patch over his eye has tricked
poor Solomon into his place, and the squire and the parson are hearing
the evidence. Parson Vance is splendid. How good, too, is old Mrs. Crabb
and the coastguardsman in the third chapter, or her delightful quarrel
with the sexton of Seaham; Lord Conybeare is surely a little overdone;
but I don't know either; he's such damned fine sport. Do you like Sally
Barnes? I'm in love with her. Constable Muddon is as good as Dogberry
and Verges put together; when he takes Solomon to the cage, and the
highwayman gives him Solomon's own guinea for his pains, and kisses Mrs.
Muddon, and just then up drives Lord Conybeare, and instead of helping
Solomon, calls him all the rascals in Christendom--O Henry Fielding,
Henry Fielding! Yet perhaps the scenes at Seaham are the best. But I'm
bewildered among all these excellences.
Stay, cried a voice that made the welkin crack--This
here's a dream, return and study BLACK!
--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO ALEXANDER IRELAND
The following is in reply to a letter Stevenson had received on some
questions connected with his proposed Life of Hazlitt from the
veteran critic and bibliographer since deceased, Mr. Alexander
Ireland. At the foot is to be found the first reference to his new
amusement of wood engraving for the Davos Press:--
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 1882._]
MY DEAR SIR,--This formidable paper need not alarm you; it argues
nothing beyond penury of other sorts, and is not at all likely to lead
me into a long letter. If I were at all grateful it would, for yours has
just passed for me a considerable part of a stormy evening. And speaking
of gratitude, let me at once and with becoming eagerness accept your
kind invitation to Bowdon. I shall hope, if we can agree as to dates
when I am nearer hand, to come to you sometime in the month of May. I
was pleased to hear you were a Scot; I feel more at home with my
compatriots always; perhaps the more we are away, the stronger we feel
that bond.
You ask about Davos; I have discoursed about it already, rather sillily
I think, in the _Pall Mall_, and I mean to say no more, but the ways of
the Muse are dubious and obscure, and who knows? I may be wiled again.
As a place of residence, beyond a splendid climate, it has to my eyes
but one advantage--the neighbourhood of J. A. Symonds--I dare say you
know his work, but the man is far more interesting. It has done me, in
my two winters' Alpine exile, much good; so much, that I hope to leave
it now for ever, but would not be understood to boast. In my present
unpardonably crazy state, any cold might send me skipping, either back
to Davos, or further off. Let us hope not. It is dear; a little dreary;
very far from many things that both my taste and my needs prompt me to
seek; and altogether not the place that I should choose of my free will.
I am chilled by your description of the man in question, though I had
almost argued so much from his cold and undigested volume. If the
republication does not interfere with my publisher, it will not
interfere with me; but there, of course, comes the hitch. I do not know
Mr. Bentley, and I fear all publishers like the devil from legend and
experience both. However, when I come to town, we shall, I hope, meet
and understand each other as well as author and publisher ever do. I
liked his letters; they seemed hearty, kind, and personal. Still--I am
notedly suspicious of the trade--your news of this republication alarms
me.
The best of the present French novelists seems to me, incomparably,
Daudet. _Les Rois en Exil_ comes very near being a masterpiece. For Zola
I have no toleration, though the curious, eminently bourgeois, and
eminently French creature has power of a kind. But I would he were
deleted. I would not give a chapter of old Dumas (meaning himself, not
his collaborators) for the whole boiling of the Zolas. Romance with the
smallpox--as the great one: diseased anyway and blackhearted and
fundamentally at enmity with joy.
I trust that Mrs. Ireland does not object to smoking; and if you are a
teetotaller, I beg you to mention it before I come--I have all the
vices; some of the virtues also, let us hope--that, at least, of being a
Scotchman, and yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--My father was in the old High School the last year, and walked
in the procession to the new. I blush to own I am an Academy boy; it
seems modern, and smacks not of the soil.
_P.P.S._--I enclose a good joke--at least, I think so--my first efforts
at wood engraving printed by my stepson, a boy of thirteen. I will put
in also one of my later attempts. I have been nine days at the
art--observe my progress.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. GOSSE
Mrs. Gosse had sent R. L. S. a miniature Bible illustrated with rude
cuts, picked up at an outdoor stall. "Lloyd's new work" is _Black
Canyon_.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 16, 1882._]
DEAR MRS. GOSSE,--Thank you heartily for the Bible, which is exquisite.
I thoroughly appreciate the whole; but have you done justice to the
third lion in Daniel (like the third murderer in Macbeth)--a singular
animal--study him well. The soldier in the fiery furnace beats me.
I enclose a programme of Lloyd's new work. The work I shall send
to-morrow, for the publisher is out and I dare not touch his "plant":
_il m'en cuirait_. The work in question I think a huge lark, but still
droller is the author's attitude. Not one incident holds with another
from beginning to end; and whenever I discover a new inconsistency, Sam
is the first to laugh--with a kind of humorous pride at the thing being
so silly.
I saw the note, and I was so sorry my article had not come in time for
the old lady. We should all hurry up and praise the living. I must
praise Tupper. A propos, did you ever read him?--or know any one who
had? That is very droll; but the truth is we all live in a clique, buy
each other's books and like each other's books; and the great, gaunt,
grey, gaping public snaps its big fingers and reads Talmage and
Tupper--and _Black Canyon_.
My wife is better; I, for the moment, am but so-so myself; but the
printer is in very--how shall we say?--large type at this present, and
the sound of the press never ceases. Remember me to Weg.--Yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
* * * * *
NOTICE
To-day is published by S. L. Osbourne & Co.
ILLUSTRATED
BLACK CANYON,
or
WILD ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST.
An
Instructive and amusing TALE written by
Samuel Lloyd Osbourne
Price 6d.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
Although _Black Canyon_ is rather shorter than ordinary for that kind of
story, it is an excellent work. We cordially recommend it to our
readers.--_Weekly Messenger._
S. L. Osbourne's new work (_Black Canyon_) is splendidly illustrated. In
the story, the characters are bold and striking. It reflects the
highest honour on its writer.--_Morning Call._
A very remarkable work. Every page produces an effect. The end is as
singular as the beginning. I never saw such a work before.--_R. L.
Stevenson._
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
I had written to him of the proposal that I should do the volume on
Keats for Macmillan's _English Men of Letters_ series. From his
essay, _Talk and Talkers_, I was eventually left out.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, Spring 1882._]
DEAR COLVIN,--About Keats--well yes, I wonder; I see all your
difficulties and yet, I have the strongest kind of feeling that critical
biography is your real vein. The Landor was one nail; another, I think,
would be good for you and the public. Indeed I would do the Keats. He is
worth doing; it is a brave and a sad little story, and the critical part
lies deep in the very vitals of art. All summed, I would do him;
remember it is but a small order alongside of Landor; and £100, and
kudos, and a good word for the poor, great lad, who will otherwise fall
among the molluscs. Up, heart! give me a John Keats! Houghton, though he
has done it with grace, has scarce done it with grip.
I have put you into _Talk and Talkers_ sure enough. God knows, I hope I
shall offend nobody; I do begin to quake mightily over that paper. I
have a _Gossip on Romance_ about done; it puts some real criticism in a
light way, I think. It is destined for Longman who (dead secret) is
bringing out a new Mag. (6d.) in the Autumn. Dead Secret: all his
letters are three deep with masks and passwords, and I swear on a skull
daily. F. has reread _Treasure I^d._, against which she protested; and
now she thinks the end about as good as the beginning; only some six
chapters situate about the midst of the tale to be rewritten. This
sounds hopefuller. My new long story, _The Adventures of John
Delafield_, is largely planned.
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
Stevenson and Mr. Gosse were still meditating a book in which some of
the famous historical murder cases should be retold (see above, p.
338). "Gray" and "Keats" are volumes in the _English Men of Letters_
series.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 23, 1882._]
MY DEAR WEG,--And I had just written the best note to Mrs. Gosse that
was in my power. Most blameable.
I now send (for Mrs. Gosse)
BLACK CANYON
Also an advertisement of my new appearance as poet (bard, rather) and
hartis on wood. The cut represents the Hero and the Eagle, and is
emblematic of Cortez first viewing the Pacific Ocean, which (according
to the bard Keats) it took place in Darien. The cut is much admired for
the sentiment of discovery, the manly proportions of the voyager, and
the fine impression of tropical scenes and the untrodden WASTE, so aptly
rendered by the hartis.
I would send you the book; but I declare I'm ruined. I got a penny a cut
and a halfpenny a set of verses from the flint-hearted publisher, and
only one specimen copy, as I'm a sinner. ---- was apostolic alongside of
Osbourne.
I hope you will be able to decipher this, written at steam speed with a
breaking pen, the hotfast postman at my heels. No excuse, says you.
None, sir, says I, and touches my 'at most civil (extraordinary
evolution of pen, now quite doomed--to resume--) I have not put pen to
the Bloody Murder yet. But it is early on my list; and when once I get
to it, three weeks should see the last bloodstain--maybe a fortnight.
For I am beginning to combine an extraordinary laborious slowness while
at work, with the most surprisingly quick results in the way of
finished manuscripts. How goes Gray? Colvin is to do Keats. My wife is
still not well.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
"The enclosed" means a packet of the Davos Press cuts.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 1882._]
MY DEAR DR. JAPP,--You must think me a forgetful rogue, as indeed I am;
for I have but now told my publisher to send you a copy of the _Familiar
Studies_. However, I own I have delayed this letter till I could send
you the enclosed. Remembering the nights at Braemar when we visited the
Picture Gallery, I hoped they might amuse you. You see, we do some
publishing hereaway. I shall hope to see you in town in May.--Always
yours faithfully,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
The references in the first paragraph are to the volume _Familiar
Studies of Men and Books_.
_Chalet am Stein, Davos, April 1, 1882._
MY DEAR DR. JAPP,--A good day to date this letter, which is in fact a
confession of incapacity. During my wife's illness I somewhat lost my
head, and entirely lost a great quire of corrected proofs. This is one
of the results; I hope there are none more serious. I was never so sick
of any volume as I was of that; I was continually receiving fresh proofs
with fresh infinitesimal difficulties. I was ill--I did really fear my
wife was worse than ill. Well, it's out now; and though I have observed
several carelessnesses myself, and now here's another of your
finding--of which, indeed, I ought to be ashamed--it will only justify
the sweeping humility of the Preface.
Symonds was actually dining with us when your letter came, and I
communicated your remarks.... He is a far better and more interesting
thing than any of his books.
The Elephant was my wife's; so she is proportionately elate you should
have picked it out for praise--from a collection, let me add, so replete
with the highest qualities of art.
My wicked carcase, as John Knox calls it, holds together wonderfully. In
addition to many other things, and a volume of travel, I find I have
written, since December, 90 Cornhill pages of magazine work--essays and
stories: 40,000 words, and I am none the worse--I am the better. I begin
to hope I may, if not outlive this wolverine upon my shoulders, at least
carry him bravely like Symonds and Alexander Pope. I begin to take a
pride in that hope.
I shall be much interested to see your criticisms; you might perhaps
send them to me. I believe you know that is not dangerous; one folly I
have not--I am not touchy under criticism.
Lloyd and my wife both beg to be remembered; and Lloyd sends as a
present a work of his own. I hope you feel flattered; for this is
_simply the first time he has ever given one away_. I have to buy my own
works, I can tell you.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
From about this time until 1885 Mr. Henley acted in an informal way
as agent for R. L. S. in most of his dealings with publishers in
London. "Both" in the second paragraph means, I think, _Treasure
Island_ and _Silverado Squatters_.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, April 1882._]
MY DEAR HENLEY,--I hope and hope for a long letter--soon I hope to be
superseded by long talks--and it comes not. I remember I have never
formally thanked you for that hundred quid, nor in general for the
introduction to Chatto and Windus, and continue to bury you in copy as
if you were my private secretary. Well, I am not unconscious of it all;
but I think least said is often best, generally best; gratitude is a
tedious sentiment, it's not ductile, not dramatic.
If Chatto should take both, _cui dedicare_? I am running out of
dedikees; if I do, the whole fun of writing is stranded. _Treasure
Island_, if it comes out, and I mean it shall, of course goes to Lloyd.
Lemme see, I have now dedicated to
W. E. H. [William Ernest Henley].
S. C. [Sidney Colvin].
T. S. [Thomas Stevenson].
Simp. [Sir Walter Simpson].
There remain: C. B., the Williamses--you know they were the parties who
stuck up for us about our marriage, and Mrs. W. was my guardian angel,
and our Best Man and Bridesmaid rolled in one, and the only third of the
wedding party--my sister-in-law, who is booked for _Prince Otto_--Jenkin
I suppose some time--George Meredith, the only man of genius of my
acquaintance, and then I believe I'll have to take to the dead, the
immortal memory business.
Talking of Meredith, I have just re-read for the third and fourth time
_The Egoist_. When I shall have read it the sixth or seventh, I begin to
see I shall know about it. You will be astonished when you come to
re-read it; I had no idea of the matter--human, red matter he has
contrived to plug and pack into that strange and admirable book.
Willoughby is, of course, a pure discovery; a complete set of nerves,
not heretofore examined, and yet running all over the human body--a suit
of nerves. Clara is the best girl ever I saw anywhere. Vernon is almost
as good. The manner and the faults of the book greatly justify
themselves on further study. Only Dr. Middleton does not hang together;
and Ladies Busshe and Culmer _sont des monstruosités_. Vernon's conduct
makes a wonderful odd contrast with Daniel Deronda's. I see more and
more that Meredith is built for immortality.
Talking of which, Heywood, as a small immortal, an immortalet, claims
some attention. _The Woman killed with Kindness_ is one of the most
striking novels--not plays, though it's more of a play than anything
else of his--I ever read. He had such a sweet, sound soul, the old boy.
The death of the two pirates in _Fortune by Sea and Land_ is a document.
He had obviously been present, and heard Purser and Clinton take death
by the beard with similar braggadocios. Purser and Clinton, names of
pirates; Scarlet and Bobbington, names of highwaymen. He had the touch
of names, I think. No man I ever knew had such a sense, such a tact, for
English nomenclature: Rainsforth, Lacy, Audley, Forrest, Acton, Spencer,
Frankford--so his names run.
Byron not only wrote _Don Juan_; he called Joan of Arc "a fanatical
strumpet." These are his words. I think the double shame, first to a
great poet, second to an English noble, passes words.
Here is a strange gossip.--I am yours loquaciously,
R. L. S.
My lungs are said to be in a splendid state. A cruel examination, an
exa_nim_ation I may call it, had this brave result. _Taïaut!_ Hillo!
Hey! Stand by! Avast! Hurrah!
TO MRS. T. STEVENSON
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, April 9, 1882._]
MY DEAR MOTHER,--Herewith please find belated birthday present. Fanny
has another.
Cockshot = Jenkin. But
Jack = Bob. pray
Burly = Henley. regard
Athelred = Simpson. these
Opalstein = Symonds. as
Purcel = Gosse. secrets.
My dear mother, how can I keep up with your breathless changes?
Innerleithen, Cramond, Bridge of Allan, Dunblane, Selkirk. I lean to
Cramond, but I shall be pleased anywhere, any respite from Davos; never
mind, it has been a good, though a dear lesson. Now, with my improved
health, if I can pass the summer, I believe I shall be able no more to
exceed, no more to draw on you. It is time I sufficed for myself indeed.
And I believe I can.
I am still far from satisfied about Fanny; she is certainly better, but
it is by fits a good deal, and the symptoms continue, which should not
be. I had her persuaded to leave without me this very day (Saturday
8th), but the disclosure of my mismanagement broke up that plan; she
would not leave me lest I should mismanage more. I think this an unfair
revenge; but I have been so bothered that I cannot struggle. All Davos
has been drinking our wine. During the month of March, three litres a
day were drunk--O it is too sickening--and that is only a specimen. It
is enough to make any one a misanthrope, but the right thing is to hate
the donkey that was duped--which I devoutly do.
I have this winter finished _Treasure Island_, written the preface to
the _Studies_, a small book about the _Inland Voyage_ size, _The
Silverado Squatters_, and over and above that upwards of ninety (90)
Cornhill pages of magazine work. No man can say I have been idle.--Your
affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, April 1882._]
MY DEAR BOB,--Yours received. I have received a communication by same
mail from my mother, clamouring for news, which I must answer as soon as
I've done this. Of course, I shall paint your game in lively colours.
I hope to get away from here--let me not speak of it ungratefully--from
here--by Thursday at latest. I am indeed much better; but a slip of the
foot may still cast me back. I must walk circumspectly yet awhile. But O
to be able to go out and get wet, and not spit blood next day!
Yes, I remember the _enfantement_ of the Arabian Nights; the first idea
of all was the handsome cabs, which I communicated to you in St.
Leonard's Terrace drawing-room. That same afternoon the Prince de Galles
and the Suicide Club were invented; and several more now forgotten. I
must try to start 'em again.
Lloyd I believe is to be a printer--in the meantime he confines himself
to being an expense. He is a first-rate lad for all that. He is now
interrupting me about twice to the line, which does not condooce to
clarity, I'm afraid.
Fanny is still far from well, quite far from well. My faith is in the
Pirate.
I enclose all my artistic works; they are woodcuts--I cut them with a
knife out of blocks of wood: I am a wood-engraver; I aaaam a wooooood
engraaaaver. Lloyd then prints 'em: are they not fun? I doat on them; in
my next venture, I am going to have colour printing; it will be very
laborious, six blocks to cut for each picter, but the result would be
pyramidal.
If I get through the summer, I settle in Autumn in le pays de France; I
believe in the Brittany and become a _Snoozer_. You will come and snooze
awhile won't you, and try and get Louisa to join.
Pepys was a decent fellow; singularly like Charles Baxter, by the way,
in every character of mind and taste, and not unlike him in face. I did
not mean I had been too just to him but not just enough to bigger
swells. I would rather have _known_ Pepys than the whole jing-bang; I
doat on him as a card to know.
We shall be pretty poor at the start, of course, but I guess we can haul
through. Only intending visitors to the Brittannic Castle must not look
for nightingales' tongues. When next you see the form of the jeune et
beau pray give him my love, when I come to Weybridge, I'll hope to see
him.--Ever yours affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON, 1er Roi de Béotie.
Pour copie conforme, Le sécrétaire Royale, W. P. BANNATYNE.
TO TREVOR HADDON
The few remaining letters of this period are dated from Edinburgh and
from Stobo Manse, near Peebles. This, in the matter of weather and
health, was the most disappointing of all Stevenson's attempts at
summer residence in Scotland. Before going to Stobo he made a short
excursion with his father to Lochearnhead; and later spent some three
weeks with me at Kingussie, but from neither place wrote any letters
worth preserving. The following was addressed to a young art-student
who had read the works of Walt Whitman after reading Stevenson's
essay on him, and being staggered by some things he found there had
written asking for further comment and counsel.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [June 1882]._
DEAR SIR,--If I have in any way disquieted you, I believe you are
justified in bidding me stand and deliver a remedy if there be one:
which is the point.
1st I am of your way of thinking: that a good deal of Whitman is as well
taken once but 2nd I quite believe that it is better to have everything
brought before one in books. In that way the problems reach us when we
are cool, and not warped by the sophistries of an instant passion. Life
itself presents its problems with a terrible directness and at the very
hour when we are least able to judge calmly. Hence this Pisgah sight of
all things, off the top of a book, is only a rational preparation for
the ugly grips that must follow.
But 3rd, no man can settle another's life for him. It is the test of the
nature and courage of each that he shall decide it for himself. Each in
turn must meet and beard the Sphynx. Some things however I must say--and
you will treat them as things read in a book for you to accept or refuse
as you shall see most fit.
Go not out of your way to make difficulties. Hang back from life while
you are young. Shoulder no responsibilities. You do not yet know how far
you can trust yourself--it will not be very far, or you are more
fortunate than I am. If you can keep your sexual desires in order, be
glad, be very glad. Some day, when you meet your fate, you will be free,
and the better man. _Don't make a boy and girl friendship that which it
is not._ Look at Burns: that is where amourettes conduct an average good
man; and a tepid marriage is only a more selfish amourette--in the long
run. Whatever you do, see that you don't sacrifice a woman; that's where
all imperfect loves conduct us. At the same time, if you can make it
convenient to be chaste, for God's sake, avoid the primness of your
virtue; hardness to a poor harlot is a sin lower than the ugliest
unchastity.
Never be in a hurry anyhow.
There is my sermon.
Certainly, you cannot too earnestly go in for the Greek; and about any
art, think last of what pays, first of what pleases. It is in that
spirit only that an art can be made. Progress in art is made by learning
to _enjoy_ it. That which seems a little dull at first, is found to
contain the elements of pleasure more largely though more quietly
commingled.
I return to my sermon for one more word: Natural desire gives you no
right to any particular woman: that comes with love only, and don't be
too ready to believe in love: there are many shams: the true love will
not allow you to reason about it.
It is your fault if I appear so pulpiteering.
Wishing you well in life and art, and that you may long be
young.--Believe me, yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_[Edinburgh] Sunday [June 1882]._
... NOTE turned up, but no gray opuscule, which, however, will probably
turn up to-morrow in time to go out with me to Stobo Manse,
Peeblesshire, where, if you can make it out, you will be a good soul to
pay a visit. I shall write again about the opuscule; and about Stobo,
which I have not seen since I was thirteen, though my memory speaks
delightfully of it.
I have been very tired and seedy, or I should have written before,
_inter alia_, to tell you that I had visited my murder place and found
_living traditions_ not yet in any printed book; most startling. I also
got photographs taken, but the negatives have not yet turned up. I lie
on the sofa to write this, whence the pencil; having slept yesterday--1
+ 4 + 7-1/2 = 12-1/2 hours and being (9 A.M.) very anxious to sleep
again. The arms of Porpus, quoi! A poppy gules, etc.
From Stobo you can conquer Peebles and Selkirk, or to give them their
old decent names, Tweeddale and Ettrick. Think of having been called
Tweeddale, and being called PEEBLES! Did I ever tell you my skit on my
own travel books? We understand that Mr. Stevenson has in the press
another volume of unconventional travels: _Personal Adventures in
Peeblesshire_. Je la trouve méchante.--Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
Did I say I had seen a verse on two of the Buccaneers? I did, and
_ça-y-est_.
TO TREVOR HADDON
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [June 1882]._
MY DEAR SIR,--I see nothing "cheekie" in anything you have done. Your
letters have naturally given me much pleasure, for it seems to me you
are a pretty good young fellow, as young fellows go; and if I add that
you remind me of myself, you need not accuse me of retrospective vanity.
You now know an address which will always find me; you might let me have
your address in London; I do not promise anything--for I am always
overworked in London--but I shall, if I can arrange it, try to see you.
I am afraid I am not so rigid on chastity: you are probably right in
your view; but this seems to me a dilemma with two horns, the real curse
of a man's life in our state of society--and a woman's too, although,
for many reasons, it appears somewhat differently with the enslaved sex.
By your "fate" I believe I meant your marriage, or that love at least
which may befall any one of us at the shortest notice and overthrow the
most settled habits and opinions. I call that your fate, because then,
if not before, you can no longer hang back, but must stride out into
life and act.--Believe me, yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
Mr. Gosse had mistaken the name of the Peeblesshire manse, and is
reproached accordingly. "Gray" is Mr. Gosse's volume on that poet in
Mr. Morley's series of _English Men of Letters_.
_Stobo Manse, Peeblesshire [July 1882]._
I would shoot you, but I have no bow:
The place is not called Stobs, but Stobo.
As Gallic Kids complain of "Bobo,"
I mourn for your mistake of Stobo.
First, we shall be gone in September. But if you think of coming in
August, my mother will hunt for you with pleasure. We should all be
overjoyed--though Stobo it could not be, as it is but a kirk and manse,
but possibly somewhere within reach. Let us know.
Second, I have read your Gray with care. A more difficult subject I can
scarce fancy; it is crushing; yet I think you have managed to shadow
forth a man, and a good man too; and honestly, I doubt if I could have
done the same. This may seem egoistic; but you are not such a fool as to
think so. It is the natural expression of real praise. The book as a
whole is readable; your subject peeps every here and there out of the
crannies like a shy violet--he could do no more--and his aroma hangs
there.
I write to catch a minion of the post. Hence brevity. Answer about the
house.--Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
In the heat of conversation Stevenson was accustomed to invent any
number of fictitious personages, generally Scottish, and to give them
names and to set them playing their imaginary parts in life,
reputable or otherwise. Many of these inventions, including Mr.
Pirbright Smith and Mr. Pegfurth Bannatyne, were a kind of
incarnations of himself, or of special aspects of himself; they
assumed for him and his friends a kind of substantial existence; and
constantly in talk, and occasionally in writing, he would keep up the
play of reporting their sayings and doings quite gravely, as in the
following:--
[_Stobo Manse, July 1882._]
DEAR HENLEY,... I am not worth an old damn. I am also crushed by bad
news of Symonds; his good lung going; I cannot help reading it as a
personal hint; God help us all! Really, I am not very fit for work; but
I try, try, and nothing comes of it.
I believe we shall have to leave this place; it is low, damp, and
_mauchy_; the rain it raineth every day; and the glass goes
tol-de-rol-de-riddle.
Yet it's a bonny bit; I wish I could live in it, but doubt. I wish I was
well away somewhere else. I feel like flight some days; honour bright.
Pirbright Smith is well. Old Mr. Pegfurth Bannatyne is here staying at a
country inn. His whole baggage is a pair of socks and a book in a
fishing-basket; and he borrows even a rod from the landlord. He walked
here over the hills from Sanquhar, "singin'," he says, "like a mavis." I
naturally asked him about Hazlitt. "He wouldnae take his drink," he
said, "a queer, queer fellow." But did not seem further communicative.
He says he has become "releegious," but still swears like a trooper. I
asked him if he had no headquarters. "No likely," said he. He says he is
writing his memoirs, which will be interesting. He once met Borrow; they
boxed; "and Geordie," says the old man chuckling, "gave me the damnedest
hiding." Of Wordsworth he remarked, "He wasnae sound in the faith, sir,
and a milk-blooded, blue-spectacled bitch forbye. But his po'mes are
grand--there's no denying that." I asked him what his book was. "I
havenae mind," said he--that was his only book! On turning it out, I
found it was one of my own, and on showing it to him, he remembered it
at once. "O aye," he said, "I mind now. It's pretty bad; ye'll have to
do better than that, chieldy," and chuckled, chuckled. He is a strange
old figure, to be sure. He cannot endure Pirbright Smith--"a mere
æsthatic," he said. "Pooh!" "Fishin' and releegion--these are my
aysthatics," he wound up.
I thought this would interest you, so scribbled it down. I still hope to
get more out of him about Hazlitt, though he utterly pooh-poohed the
idea of writing H.'s life. "Ma life now," he said, "there's been queer
things in _it_." He is seventy-nine! but may well last to a
hundred!--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] In San Francisco.
[29] "The whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes
and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as used to be in
Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high seasons."--See
_Wandering Willie's Tale_ in _Redgauntlet_, borrowed perhaps from
_Christ's Kirk of the Green_.
[30] The Davoser Landwasser.
[31] In architecture, a series of piles to defend the pier of a bridge.
[32] The translator of Sophocles in Bohn's Classics.
[33] Anne Killigrew.
[34] Gentleman's library.
[35] _i.e._ breathed in, inhaled: a rare but legitimate use of the
word.
[36] _Parliament House._
[37] "He knew the rocks where angels haunt,
Upon the mountains visitant."
Wordsworth's _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_.
[38] Mr. Hamerton had been an unsuccessful candidate for the
Professorship of Fine Art at Edinburgh University.
[39] The Chalet am Stein (or Chalet Buol) at Davos.
[40] In the summer of 1870: see above, pp. 24-30, and the essay
_Memories of an Islet_ in _Memories and Portraits_.
[41] From Landor's _Gebir_: the line refers to Napoleon Bonaparte.
[42] The Editor's defence was in the following terms: "That which
you condemn is really the best story now appearing in the paper, and
the impress of an able writer is stamped on every paragraph of the
_Treasure Island_. You will probably share this opinion when you
have read a little more of it."
[43] I struggle as hard as I know how against both, but a judicious
postcard would sometimes save me the expense of the second.
END OF VOL. XXIII.
PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.
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