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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31809-8.txt b/31809-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..32b4fef --- /dev/null +++ b/31809-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16106 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - +Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25) + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Other: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: March 28, 2010 [EBook #31809] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON *** + + + + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + SWANSTON EDITION + + VOLUME XXIV + + + _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: TEMBINOKA, KING OF APEMAMA, WITH THE HEIR-APPARENT] + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON + + + VOLUME TWENTY-FOUR + + + 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 VII-X + + + + +CONTENTS + + +VII. THE RIVIERA AGAIN--MARSEILLES AND HYÈRES + + PAGE + INTRODUCTORY 3 + + LETTERS-- + To the Editor of the New York Tribune 7 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 8 + To Thomas Stevenson 9 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 9 + To Trevor Haddon 10 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to John Addington + Symonds] 11 + To Charles Baxter 14 + To Sidney Colvin 15 + To Alison Cunningham 16 + To W. E. Henley 17 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 21 + To Thomas Stevenson 22 + To W. E. Henley 23 + To Mrs. Sitwell 24 + To Edmund Gosse 26 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 27 + To the Same 28 + To Edmund Gosse 29 + To the Same 30 + To W. E. Henley 31 + To the Same 32 + To Sidney Colvin 33 + To W. E. Henley 34 + To the Same 36 + To Jules Simoneau 36 + To W. E. Henley 37 + To Trevor Haddon 39 + To Jules Simoneau 41 + To Alison Cunningham 44 + To Edmund Gosse 45 + To Miss Ferrier 46 + To W. E. Henley 47 + To Edmund Gosse 50 + To Miss Ferrier 52 + To W. E. Henley 54 + To Sidney Colvin 55 + To W. E. Henley 57 + To W. H. Low 57 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 59 + To Thomas Stevenson 62 + To W. H. Low 63 + To W. E. Henley 65 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 66 + To Sidney Colvin 67 + To Sidney Colvin 69 + To Mrs. Milne 70 + To Miss Ferrier 71 + To W. E. Henley 72 + To W. H. Low 73 + To Thomas Stevenson 74 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 75 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 76 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 78 + To W. E. Henley 79 + To Sidney Colvin 81 + To Mr. Dick 83 + To Cosmo Monkhouse 85 + To Edmund Gosse 87 + To Miss Ferrier 88 + To W. H. Low 89 + To Thomas Stevenson 90 + To W. E. Henley 91 + To Trevor Haddon 93 + To Cosmo Monkhouse 95 + To W. E. Henley 96 + To Edmund Gosse 97 + To Sidney Colvin 98 + To the Same 99 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 100 + To Sidney Colvin 101 + To W. E. Henley 102 + + +VIII. LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH + + INTRODUCTORY 104 + + LETTERS-- + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 110 + To Andrew Chatto 110 + To W. E. Henley 111 + To the Rev. Professor Lewis Campbell 113 + To W. E. Henley 114 + To W. H. Low 115 + To Sir Walter Simpson 117 + To Thomas Stevenson 118 + To the Same 119 + To W. E. Henley 120 + To Charles Baxter 121 + To Miss Ferrier 121 + To Charles Baxter 122 + To W. E. Henley 123 + To Edmund Gosse 125 + To Austin Dobson 126 + To W. E. Henley 127 + To Henry James 127 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 130 + To W. E. Henley 131 + To Miss Ferrier 132 + To W. E. Henley 133 + To H. A. Jones 133 + To Sidney Colvin 134 + To Thomas Stevenson 135 + To Sidney Golvin 136 + To the Same 137 + To J. A. Symonds 138 + To Edmund Gosse 140 + To W. H. Low 142 + To P. G. Hamerton 143 + To W. E. Henley 146 + To the Same 147 + To William Archer 147 + To Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pennell 149 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 150 + To the Same 151 + To C. Howard Carrington 152 + To Katharine de Mattos 152 + To W. H. Low 153 + To W. E. Henley 155 + To William Archer 156 + To Thomas Stevenson 159 + To Henry James 160 + To William Archer 161 + To the Same 163 + To W. H. Low 166 + To Mrs. de Mattos 167 + To Alison Cunningham 167 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 168 + To W. H. Low 169 + To Edmund Gosse 173 + To James Payn 176 + To W. H. Low 177 + To Charles J. Guthrie 178 + To Thomas Stevenson 179 + To C. W. Stoddard 180 + To Edmund Gosse 181 + To J. A. Symonds 183 + To F. W. H. Myers 184 + To W. H. Low 185 + To Sidney Colvin 186 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 187 + To Sidney Colvin 189 + To Thomas Stevenson 190 + To Miss Monroe 191 + To Sidney Colvin 192 + To Miss Monroe 193 + To Alison Cunningham 196 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 196 + To the Same 198 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 199 + To Charles Baxter 200 + To Alison Cunningham 200 + To Thomas Stevenson 201 + To Alison Cunningham 202 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 202 + To T. Watts-Dunton 203 + To Alison Cunningham 204 + To Frederick Locker-Lampson 205 + To the Same 206 + To the Same 207 + To the Same 208 + To Auguste Rodin 209 + To Sidney Colvin 210 + To Lady Taylor 211 + To the Same 213 + To Henry James 214 + To Frederick Locker-Lampson 215 + To Henry James 215 + To Auguste Rodin 216 + To W. H. Low 217 + To Sidney Colvin 219 + To Alison Cunningham 220 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 221 + To the Same 225 + To Miss Rawlinson 227 + To Sidney Colvin 228 + To Sir Walter Simpson 229 + To W. E. Henley 229 + To W. H. Low 230 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 231 + To Messrs. Chatto and Windus 231 + + +IX. THE UNITED STATES AGAIN + + WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS + + INTRODUCTORY 233 + + LETTERS-- + To Sidney Colvin 235 + To the Same 236 + To Henry James 237 + To Sidney Colvin 238 + To W. E. Henley 239 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 240 + To Sir Walter Simpson 242 + To Edmund Gosse 244 + To W. H. Low 245 + To Charles Fairchild 246 + To William Archer 247 + To W. E. Henley 248 + To Henry James 249 + To Charles Baxter 251 + To Charles Scribner 252 + To E. L. Burlingame 253 + To the Same 254 + To John Addington Symonds 254 + To W. E. Henley 257 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 258 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 259 + To Charles Baxter 260 + To Miss Munroe 261 + To Henry James 262 + To Sidney Colvin 264 + To the Same 265 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 267 + To Charles Baxter 268 + To E. L. Burlingame 268 + To William Archer 270 + To the Same 272 + To the Same 273 + To E. L. Burlingame 273 + To the Same 274 + To Sidney Colvin 275 + To the Rev. Dr. Charteris 276 + To Edmund Gosse 277 + To Henry James 278 + To the Rev. Dr. Charteris 279 + To S. R. Crockett 280 + To Miss Ferrier 282 + To Sidney Colvin 283 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 284 + To Sidney Colvin 285 + To Charles Baxter 286 + To Lady Taylor 286 + To Homer St. Gaudens 287 + To Henry James 288 + + +X. PACIFIC VOYAGES + + YACHT CASCO--SCHOONER EQUATOR-- + S.S. JANET NICOLL + + INTRODUCTORY 290 + + LETTERS-- + To Sidney Colvin 293 + To Charles Baxter 294 + To Sidney Colvin 295 + To Charles Baxter 296 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 297 + To Sidney Colvin 298 + To William and Thomas Archer 300 + To Charles Baxter 301 + To the Same 303 + To John Addington Symonds 304 + To Thomas Archer 305 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin] 308 + To Sidney Colvin 316 + To E. L. Burlingame 319 + To Charles Baxter 322 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 323 + To Marcel Schwob 327 + To Charles Baxter 327 + To Sidney Colvin 329 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell] 331 + To Henry James 334 + To Sidney Colvin 336 + To E. L. Burlingame 338 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 339 + To Charles Baxter 343 + To the Same 344 + To W. H. Low 345 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin] 347 + To Mrs. R. L. Stevenson 349 + To Sidney Colvin 353 + To James Payn 355 + To Lady Taylor 357 + To Sidney Colvin 357 + To the Same 362 + To E. L. Burlingame 367 + To Charles Baxter 369 + To Lady Taylor 372 + To Dr. Scott 374 + To Charles Baxter 375 + To E. L. Burlingame 377 + To James Payn 381 + To Henry James 382 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 383 + To Charles Baxter 384 + To Sidney Colvin 385 + To E. L. Burlingame 387 + To Charles Baxter 392 + To E. L. Burlingame 394 + To Henry James 396 + To Marcel Schwob 397 + To Andrew Lang 399 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 401 + To Mrs. Charles Fairchild 403 + + + + +THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +1882-1890 + + + + +THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +VII + +THE RIVIERA AGAIN--MARSEILLES AND HYÈRES + +OCTOBER 1882--AUGUST 1884 + + +In the two years and odd months since his return from California, +Stevenson had made no solid gain of health. His winters, and especially +his second winter, at Davos had seemed to do him much temporary good; +but during the summers in Scotland he had lost as much as he had gained, +or more. Loving the Mediterranean shores of France from of old, he now +made up his mind to try them once again. + +As the ways and restrictions of a settled invalid were repugnant to +Stevenson's character and instincts, so were the life and society of a +regular invalid station depressing and uncongenial to him. He +determined, accordingly, to avoid settling in one of these, and hoped to +find a suitable climate and habitation that should be near, though not +in, some centre of the active and ordinary life of man, with accessible +markets, libraries, and other resources. In September 1882 he started +with his cousin Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson in search of a new home, and +thought first of trying the Languedoc coast, a region new to him. At +Montpellier, he was laid up again with a bad bout of his lung troubles; +and, the doctor not recommending him to stay, returned to Marseilles. +Here he was rejoined by his wife, and after a few days' exploration in +the neighbourhood they lighted on what seemed exactly the domicile they +wanted. This was a roomy and attractive enough house and garden called +the Campagne Defli, near the manufacturing suburb of St. Marcel, in a +sheltered position in full view of the shapely coastward hills. By the +third week in October they were installed, and in eager hopes of +pleasant days to come and a return to working health. These hopes were +not realised. Week after week went on, and the hemorrhages and fits of +fever and exhaustion did not diminish. Work, except occasional verses, +and a part of the story called _The Treasure of Franchard_, would not +flow, and the time had to be whiled away with games of patience and +other resources of the sick man. Nearly two months were thus passed; +during the whole of one of them Stevenson had not been able to go beyond +the garden; and by Christmas he had to face the fact that the air of the +place was tainted. An epidemic of fever, due to some defect of drainage, +broke out, and it became clear that this could be no home for Stevenson. +Accordingly, at his wife's instance, though having scarce the strength +to travel, he left suddenly for Nice, she staying behind to pack their +chattels and wind up their affairs and responsibilities as well as might +be. Various misadventures, miscarriages of telegrams, journeys taken at +cross purposes and the like, making existence uncomfortably dramatic at +the moment, caused the couple to believe for a while that they had +fairly lost each other. Mrs. Stevenson allows me to print a letter from +herself to Mr. J. A. Symonds vividly relating these predicaments (see +p. 11 foll.). At last, in the course of January, they came safely +together at Marseilles, and next made a few weeks' stay at Nice, where +Stevenson's health quickly mended. Thence they returned as far as +Hyères. Staying here through the greater part of February, at the Hôtel +des Îles d'Or, and finding the place to their liking, they cast about +once more for a resting-place, and were this time successful. + +The house chosen by the Stevensons at Hyères was not near the sea, but +inland, on the road above the old town and beneath the ruins of the +castle. The Chalet La Solitude it was called; a cramped but habitable +cottage built in the Swiss manner, with a pleasant strip of garden, and +a view and situation hardly to be bettered. Here he and his family lived +for the next sixteen months (March 1883 to July 1884). To the first part +of this period he often afterwards referred as the happiest time of his +life. His malady remained quiescent enough to afford, at least to his +own buoyant spirit, a strong hope of ultimate recovery. He delighted in +his surroundings, and realised for the first time the joys of a true +home of his own. The last shadow of a cloud between himself and his +parents had long passed away; and towards his father, now in declining +health, and often suffering from moods of constitutional depression, the +son begins on his part to assume, how touchingly and tenderly will be +seen from the following letters, a quasi-paternal attitude of +encouragement and monition. At the same time his work on the completion +of the _Silverado Squatters_, on _Prince Otto_, the _Child's Garden of +Verses_ (for which his own name was _Penny Whistles_), on the _Black +Arrow_ (designated hereinafter, on account of its Old English dialect, +as "tushery"), and other undertakings prospered well. In the autumn the +publication of _Treasure Island_ in book form brought with it the first +breath of popular applause. The reader will see how modest a price +Stevenson was content, nay, delighted, to receive for this classic. It +was two or three years yet before he could earn enough to support +himself and his family by literature: a thing he had always been +earnestly bent on doing, regarding it as the only justification for his +chosen way of life. In the meantime, it must be understood, whatever +help he needed from his father was from the hour of his marriage always +amply and ungrudgingly given. + +In September of the same year, 1883, Stevenson had felt deeply the death +of his old friend James Walter Ferrier (see the essay _Old Mortality_ +and the references in the following letters). But still his health held +out fairly, until, in January 1884, on a visit to Nice, he was +unexpectedly prostrated anew by an acute congestion of the internal +organs, which for the time being brought him to death's door. Returning +to his home, his recovery had been only partial when, after four months +(May 1884), a recurrence of violent hemorrhages from the lung once more +prostrated him completely; soon after which he quitted Hyères, and the +epidemic of cholera which broke out there the same summer prevented all +thoughts of his return. + +The Hyères time, both during the happy and hard-working months of +March-December 1883, and the semi-convalescence of February-May 1884, +was a prolific one in the way of correspondence; and there is perhaps no +period of his life when his letters reflect so fully the variety of his +moods and the eagerness of his occupations. + + + + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE + + + At Marseilles, while waiting to occupy the house which he had leased + in the suburbs of that city, Stevenson learned that his old friend + and kind adviser, Mr. James Payn, with whom he had been intimate as + sub-editor of the Cornhill Magazine under Mr. Leslie Stephen in the + '70's, had been inadvertently represented in the columns of the New + York Tribune as a plagiarist of R. L. S. In order to put matters + right, he at once sent the following letter both to the Tribune and + to the London Athenæum:-- + + _Terminus Hotel, Marseilles, October 16, 1882._ + +SIR,--It has come to my ears that you have lent the authority of your +columns to an error. + +More than half in pleasantry--and I now think the pleasantry +ill-judged--I complained in a note to my _New Arabian Nights_ that some +one, who shall remain nameless for me, had borrowed the idea of a story +from one of mine. As if I had not borrowed the ideas of the half of my +own! As if any one who had written a story ill had a right to complain +of any other who should have written it better! I am indeed thoroughly +ashamed of the note, and of the principle which it implies. + +But it is no mere abstract penitence which leads me to beg a corner of +your paper--it is the desire to defend the honour of a man of letters +equally known in America and England, of a man who could afford to lend +to me and yet be none the poorer; and who, if he would so far +condescend, has my free permission to borrow from me all that he can +find worth borrowing. + +Indeed, sir, I am doubly surprised at your correspondent's error. That +James Payn should have borrowed from me is already a strange conception. +The author of _Lost Sir Massingberd_ and _By Proxy_ may be trusted to +invent his own stories. The author of _A Grape from a Thorn_ knows +enough, in his own right, of the humorous and pathetic sides of human +nature. + +But what is far more monstrous--what argues total ignorance of the man +in question--is the idea that James Payn could ever have transgressed +the limits of professional propriety. I may tell his thousands of +readers on your side of the Atlantic that there breathes no man of +letters more inspired by kindness and generosity to his brethren of the +profession, and, to put an end to any possibility of error, I may be +allowed to add that I often have recourse, and that I had recourse once +more but a few weeks ago, to the valuable practical help which he makes +it his pleasure to extend to younger men. + +I send a duplicate of this letter to a London weekly; for the mistake, +first set forth in your columns, has already reached England, and my +wanderings have made me perhaps last of the persons interested to hear a +word of it.--I am, etc., + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Terminus Hotel, Marseille_, _Saturday_ [_October 1882_]. + +MY DEAR BOB,--We have found a house!--at Saint Marcel, Banlieue de +Marseille. In a lovely valley between hills part wooded, part white +cliffs; a house of a dining-room, of a fine salon--one side lined with a +long divan--three good bedrooms (two of them with dressing-rooms), three +small rooms (chambers of _bonne_ and sich), a large kitchen, a lumber +room, many cupboards, a back court, a large olive yard, cultivated by a +resident _paysan_, a well, a berceau, a good deal of rockery, a little +pine shrubbery, a railway station in front, two lines of omnibus to +Marseille. + + £48 per annum. + +It is called Campagne Defli! query Campagne Debug? The Campagne +Demosquito goes on here nightly, and is very deadly. Ere we can get +installed, we shall be beggared to the door, I see. + +I vote for separations; F.'s arrival here, after our separation, was +better fun to me than being married was by far. A separation completed +is a most valuable property; worth piles.--Ever your affectionate +cousin, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Terminus Hotel, Marseille, le 17th October 1882._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--We grow, every time we see it, more delighted with our +house. It is five miles out of Marseilles, in a lovely spot, among +lovely wooded and cliffy hills--most mountainous in line--far lovelier, +to my eyes, than any Alps. To-day we have been out inventorying; and +though a mistral blew, it was delightful in an open cab, and our house +with the windows open was heavenly, soft, dry, sunny, southern. I fear +there are fleas--it is called Campagne Defli--and I look forward to tons +of insecticide being employed. + +I have had to write a letter to the New York Tribune and the Athenæum. +Payn was accused of stealing my stories! I think I have put things +handsomely for him. + +Just got a servant!!!--Ever affectionate son, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + +Our servant is a Muckle Hash of a Weedy! + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + The next two months' letters had perforce to consist of little save + bulletins of back-going health, and consequent disappointment and + incapacity for work. + + _Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, + Banlieue de Marseille, November 13, 1882._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--Your delightful letters duly arrived this morning. They +were the only good feature of the day, which was not a success. Fanny +was in bed--she begged I would not split upon her, she felt so guilty; +but as I believe she is better this evening, and has a good chance to +be right again in a day or two, I will disregard her orders. I do not go +back, but do not go forward--or not much. It is, in one way, +miserable--for I can do no work; a very little wood-cutting, the +newspapers, and a note about every two days to write, completely +exhausts my surplus energy; even Patience I have to cultivate with +parsimony. I see, if I could only get to work, that we could live here +with comfort, almost with luxury. Even as it is, we should be able to +get through a considerable time of idleness. I like the place immensely, +though I have seen so little of it--I have only been once outside the +gate since I was here! It puts me in mind of a summer at Prestonpans and +a sickly child you once told me of. + +Thirty-two years now finished! My twenty-ninth was in San Francisco, I +remember--rather a bleak birthday. The twenty-eighth was not much +better; but the rest have been usually pleasant days in pleasant +circumstances. + +Love to you and to my father and to Cummy. + + From me and Fanny and Wogg. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO TREVOR HADDON + + + _Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, Dec. 29th, 1882._ + +DEAR SIR,--I am glad you sent me your note, I had indeed lost your +address, and was half thinking to try the Ringstown one; but far from +being busy, I have been steadily ill. I was but three or four days in +London, waiting till one of my friends was able to accompany me, and had +neither time nor health to see anybody but some publisher people. Since +then I have been worse and better, better and worse, but never able to +do any work and for a large part of the time forbidden to write and even +to play Patience, that last of civilised amusements. In brief, I have +been "the sheer hulk" to a degree almost outside of my experience, and I +desire all my friends to forgive me my sins of omission this while +back. I only wish you were the only one to whom I owe a letter, or many +letters. + +But you see, at least, you had done nothing to offend me; and I dare say +you will let me have a note from time to time, until we shall have +another chance to meet.--Yours sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + +An excellent new year to you, and many of them. + +If you chance to see a paragraph in the papers describing my illness, +and the "delicacies suitable to my invalid condition" cooked in copper, +and the other ridiculous and revolting yarns, pray regard it as a +spectral illusion, and pass by. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + I intercalate here Mrs. Stevenson's extremely vivid and + characteristic account of the weird misadventures that befell the + pair during their retreat from St. Marcel in search of a healthier + home. + + [_Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, January 1883._] + +MY DEAR MR. SYMONDS,--What must you think of us? I hardly dare write to +you. What do you do when people to whom you have been the dearest of +friends requite you by acting like fiends? I do hope you heap coals of +fire on their heads in the good old Christian sense. + +Louis has been very ill again. I hasten to say that he is now better. +But I thought at one time he would never be better again. He had +continual hemorrhages and became so weak that he was twice insensible in +one day, and was for a long time like one dead. At the worst fever broke +out in this village, typhus, I think, and all day the death-bells rang, +and we could hear the chanting whilst the wretched villagers carried +about their dead lying bare to the sun on their coffin-lids, so +spreading the contagion through the streets. The evening of the day when +Louis was so long insensible the weather changed, becoming very clear +and fine and greatly refreshing and reviving him. Then I said if it held +good he should start in the morning for Nice and try what a change might +do. Just at that time there was not money enough for the two of us, so +he had to start alone, though I expected soon to be able to follow him. +During the night a peasant-man died in a house in our garden, and in the +morning the corpse, hideously swollen in the stomach, was lying on its +coffin-lid at our gates. Fortunately it was taken away just before Louis +went, and he didn't see it nor hear anything about it until afterwards. +I had been back and forth all the morning from the door to the gates, +and from the gates to the door, in an agony lest Louis should have to +pass it on his way out. + +I was to have a despatch from Toulon where Louis was to pass the night, +two hours from St. Marcel, and another from Nice, some few hours +further, the next day. I waited one, two, three, four days, and no word +came. Neither telegram nor letter. The evening of the fourth day I went +to Marseilles and telegraphed to the Toulon and Nice stations and to the +bureau of police. I had been pouring out letters to every place I could +think of. The people at Marseilles were very kind and advised me to take +no further steps to find my husband. He was certainly dead, they said. +It was plain that he stopped at some little station on the road, +speechless and dying, and it was now too late to do anything; I had much +better return at once to my friends. "Eet ofen 'appens so," said the +Secretary, and "Oh yes, all right, very well," added a Swiss in a +sympathetic voice. I waited all night at Marseilles and got no answer, +all the next day and got no answer; then I went back to St. Marcel and +there was nothing there. At eight I started on the train with Lloyd who +had come for his holidays, but it only took us to Toulon where again I +telegraphed. At last I got an answer the next day at noon. I waited at +Toulon for the train I had reason to believe Louis travelled by, +intending to stop at every station and inquire for him until I got to +Nice. Imagine what those days were to me. I never received any of the +letters Louis had written to me, and he was reading the first he had +received from me when I knocked at his door. A week afterwards I had an +answer from the police. Louis was much better: the change and the +doctor, who seems very clever, have done wonderful things for him. It +was during this first day of waiting that I received your letter. There +was a vague comfort in it like a hand offered in the darkness, but I did +not read it until long after. + +We have had many other wild misadventures, Louis has twice (started) +actually from Nice under a misapprehension. At this moment I believe him +to be at Marseilles, stopping at the Hotel du Petit Louvre; I am +supposed to be packing here at St. Marcel, afterwards we are to go +somewhere, perhaps to the Lake of Geneva. My nerves were so shattered by +the terrible suspense I endured that memorable week that I have not been +fit to do much. When I was returning from Nice a dreadful old man with a +fat wife and a weak granddaughter sat opposite me and plied me with the +most extraordinary questions. He began by asking if Lloyd was any +connection of mine, and ended I believe by asking my mother's maiden +name. Another of the questions he put to me was where Louis wished to be +buried, and whether I could afford to have him embalmed when he died. +When the train stopped the only other passenger, a quiet man in a corner +who looked several times as if he wished to interfere and stop the old +man but was too shy, came to me and said that he knew Sidney Colvin and +he knew you, and that you were both friends of Louis; and that his name +was Basil Hammond,[1] and he wished to stay on a day in Marseilles and +help me work off my affairs. I accepted his offer with heartfelt thanks. +I was extremely ill next day, but we two went about and arranged about +giving up this house and what compensation, and did some things that I +could not have managed alone. My French is useful only in domestic +economy, and even that, I fear, is very curious and much of it patois. +Wasn't that a good fellow, and a kind fellow?--I cannot tell you how +grateful I am, words are such feeble things--at least for that purpose. +For anger, justifiable wrath, they are all too forcible. It was very bad +of me not to write to you, we talked of you so often and thought of you +so much, and I always said--"now I will write"--and then somehow I could +not.... + + FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON.] + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + After his Christmas flight to Marseilles and thence to Nice, + Stevenson began to mend quickly. In this letter to Mr. Baxter he + acknowledges the receipt of a specimen proof, set up for their + private amusement, of _Brashiana_, the series of burlesque sonnets he + had written at Davos in memory of the Edinburgh publican already + mentioned. It should be explained that in their correspondence + Stevenson and Mr. Baxter were accustomed to keep up an old play of + their student days by merging their identities in those of two + fictitious personages, Thomson and Johnson, imaginary types of + Edinburgh character, and ex-elders of the Scottish Kirk. + + _Grand Hotel, Nice, 12th January '83._ + +DEAR CHARLES,--Thanks for your good letter. It is true, man, God's +trüth, what ye say about the body Stevison. The deil himsel, it's my +belief, couldnae get the soul harled oot o' the creature's wame, or he +had seen the hinder end o' they proofs. Ye crack o' Mæcenas, he's +naebody by you! He gied the lad Horace a rax forrit by all accounts; but +he never gied him proofs like yon. Horace may hae been a better hand at +the clink than Stevison--mind, I'm no sayin' 't--but onyway he was never +sae weel prentit. Damned, but it's bonny! Hoo mony pages will there be, +think ye? Stevison maun hae sent ye the feck o' twenty sangs--fifteen +I'se warrant. Weel, that'll can make thretty pages, gin ye were to prent +on ae side only, whilk wad be perhaps what a man o' your _great_ idees +would be ettlin' at, man Johnson. Then there wad be the Pre-face, an' +prose ye ken prents oot langer than po'try at the hinder end, for ye hae +to say things in't. An' then there'll be a title-page and a dedication +and an index wi' the first lines like, and the deil an' a'. Man, it'll +be grand. Nae copies to be given to the Liberys. + +I am alane myself, in Nice, they ca't, but damned, I think they micht as +well ca't Nesty. The Pile-on,[2] 's they ca't, 's aboot as big as the +river Tay at Perth; and it's rainin' maist like Greenock. Dod, I've seen +'s had mair o' what they ca' the I-talian at Muttonhole. I-talian! I +haenae seen the sun for eicht and forty hours. Thomson's better, I +believe. But the body's fair attenyated. He's doon to seeven stane +eleeven, an' he sooks awa' at cod liver ile, till it's a fair disgrace. +Ye see he tak's it on a drap brandy; and it's my belief, it's just an +excuse for a dram. He an' Stevison gang aboot their lane, maistly; +they're company to either, like, an' whiles they'll speak o' Johnson. +But _he's_ far awa', losh me! Stevison's last book 's in a third +edeetion; an' it's bein' translated (like the psaulms of David, nae +less) into French; and an eediot they ca' Asher--a kind o' rival of +Tauchnitz--is bringin' him oot in a paper book for the Frenchies and the +German folk in twa volumes. Sae he's in luck, ye see.--Yours, + + THOMSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Stevenson here narrates in his own fashion by what generalship he at + last got rid of the Campagne Defli without having to pay compensation + as his wife expected. + + _Hotel du Petit Louvre, Marseille, 15 Feb. 1883._ + +DEAR SIR,--This is to intimate to you that Mr. and Mrs. Robert Louis +Stevenson were yesterday safely delivered + + of a + Campagne. + +The parents are both doing much better than could be expected; +particularly the dear papa. + +There, Colvin, I did it this time. Huge success. The propriétaires were +scattered like chaff. If it had not been the agent, may Israel now say, +if it had not been the agent who was on our side! But I made the agent +march! I threatened law; I was Immense--what do I say?--Immeasurable. +The agent, however, behaved well and is a fairly honest little +one-eared, white-eyed tom-cat of an opera-going gold-hunter. The +propriétaire _non est inventa_; we countermarched her, got in valuators; +and in place of a hundred francs in her pocket, she got nothing, and I +paid _one_ silver biscuit! It _might_ go further but I am convinced will +not, and anyway, I fear not the consequences. + +The weather is incredible; my heart sings; my health satisfies even my +wife. I did jolly well right to come after all and she now admits it. +For she broke down as I knew she would, and I from here, without passing +a night at the Defli, though with a cruel effusion of coach-hires, took +up the wondrous tale and steered the ship through. I now sit crowned +with laurel and literally exulting in kudos. The affair has been better +managed than our two last winterings,--I am yours, + + BRABAZON DRUM. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + The verses referred to in the following are those of the _Child's + Garden_. + + [_Nice, February 1883._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--You must think, and quite justly, that I am one of the +meanest rogues in creation. But though I do not write (which is a thing +I hate), it by no means follows that people are out of my mind. It is +natural that I should always think more or less about you, and still +more natural that I should think of you when I went back to Nice. But +the real reason why you have been more in my mind than usual is because +of some little verses that I have been writing, and that I mean to make +a book of; and the real reason of this letter (although I ought to have +written to you anyway) is that I have just seen that the book in +question must be dedicated to + + ALISON CUNNINGHAM, + +the only person who will really understand it, I don't know when it may +be ready, for it has to be illustrated, but I hope in the meantime you +may like the idea of what is to be; and when the time comes, I shall try +to make the dedication as pretty as I can make it. Of course, this is +only a flourish, like taking off one's hat; but still, a person who has +taken the trouble to write things does not dedicate them to any one +without meaning it; and you must just try to take this dedication in +place of a great many things that I might have said, and that I ought to +have done, to prove that I am not altogether unconscious of the great +debt of gratitude I owe you. This little book, which is all about my +childhood, should indeed go to no other person but you, who did so much +to make that childhood happy. + +Do you know, we came very near sending for you this winter. If we had +not had news that you were ill too, I almost believe we should have done +so, we were so much in trouble. + +I am now very well; but my wife has had a very, very bad spell, through +overwork and anxiety, when I was _lost_! I suppose you heard of that. +She sends you her love, and hopes you will write to her, though she no +more than I deserves it. She would add a word herself, but she is too +played out.--I am, ever your old boy, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Stevenson was by this time beginning to send home some of the MS. of + the _Child's Garden_, the title of which had not yet been settled. + The pieces as first numbered are in a different order from that + afterwards adopted, but the reader will easily identify the + references. + + [_Nice, March 1883._] + +MY DEAR LAD,--This is to announce to you the MS. of Nursery Verses, now +numbering XLVIII. pieces or 599 verses, which, of course, one might +augment _ad infinitum_. + +But here is my notion to make all clear. + +I do not want a big ugly quarto; my soul sickens at the look of a +quarto. I want a refined octavo, not large--not _larger_ than the Donkey +book, at any price. + +I think the full page might hold four verses of four lines, that is to +say, counting their blanks at two, of twenty-two lines in height. The +first page of each number would only hold two verses or ten lines, the +title being low down. At this rate, we should have seventy-eight or +eighty pages of letterpress. + +The designs should not be in the text, but facing the poem; so that if +the artist liked, he might give two pages of design to every poem that +turned the leaf, _i.e._ longer than eight lines, _i.e._ to twenty-eight +out of the forty-six. I should say he would not use this privilege (?) +above five times, and some he might scorn to illustrate at all, so we +may say fifty drawings. I shall come to the drawings next. + +But now you see my book of the thickness, since the drawings count two +pages, of 180 pages; and since the paper will perhaps be thicker, of +near two hundred by bulk. It is bound in a quiet green with the words in +thin gilt. Its shape is a slender, tall octavo. And it sells for the +publisher's fancy, and it will be a darling to look at; in short, it +would be like one of the original Heine books in type and spacing. + +Now for the pictures. I take another sheet and begin to jot notes for +them when my imagination serves: I will run through the book, writing +when I have an idea. There, I have jotted enough to give the artist a +notion. Of course, I don't do more than contribute ideas, but I will be +happy to help in any and every way. I may as well add another idea; when +the artist finds nothing much to illustrate, a good drawing of any +_object_ mentioned in the text, were it only a loaf of bread or a +candlestick, is a most delightful thing to a young child. I remember +this keenly. + +Of course, if the artist insists on a larger form, I must, I suppose, +bow my head. But my idea I am convinced is the best, and would make the +book truly, not fashionably pretty. + +I forgot to mention that I shall have a dedication; I am going to +dedicate 'em to Cummy; it will please her, and lighten a little my +burthen of ingratitude. A low affair is the Muse business. + +I will add no more to this lest you should want to communicate with the +artist; try another sheet. I wonder how many I'll keep wandering to. + +O I forgot. As for the title, I think "Nursery Verses" the best. Poetry +is not the strong point of the text, and I shrink from any title that +might seem to claim that quality; otherwise we might have "Nursery +Muses" or "New Songs of Innocence" (but that were a blasphemy), or +"Rimes of Innocence": the last not bad, or--an idea--"The Jews' Harp," +or--now I have it--"The Penny Whistle." + + THE PENNY WHISTLE + + NURSERY VERSES + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + ILLUSTRATED BY ---- ---- ---- + +And here we have an excellent frontispiece, of a party playing on a P. +W. to a little ring of dancing children. + + THE PENNY WHISTLE + is the name for me. + + +Fool! this is all wrong, here is the true name:-- + + PENNY WHISTLES + FOR SMALL WHISTLERS. + +The second title is queried, it is perhaps better, as simply PENNY +WHISTLES. + + Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge + That I your instrument debase: + By worse performers still we judge, + And give that fife a second place! + +Crossed penny whistles on the cover, or else a sheaf of 'em. + + SUGGESTIONS + +IV. The procession--the child running behind it. The procession tailing +off through the gates of a cloudy city. + +IX. _Foreign Lands._--This will, I think, want two plates--the child +climbing, his first glimpse over the garden wall, with what he sees--the +tree shooting higher and higher like the beanstalk, and the view +widening. The river slipping in. The road arriving in Fairyland. + +X. _Windy Nights._--The child in bed listening--the horseman galloping. + +XII. The child helplessly watching his ship--then he gets smaller, and +the doll joyfully comes alive--the pair landing on the island--the +ship's deck with the doll steering and the child firing the penny +cannon. Query two plates? The doll should never come properly alive. + +XV. Building of the ship--storing her--Navigation--Tom's accident, the +other child paying no attention. + +XXXI. _The Wind._--I sent you my notion of already. + +XXXVII. _Foreign Children._--The foreign types dancing in a jing-a-ring, +with the English child pushing in the middle. The foreign children +looking at and showing each other marvels. The English child at the +leeside of a roast of beef. The English child sitting thinking with his +picture-books all round him, and the jing-a-ring of the foreign +children in miniature dancing over the picture-books. + +XXXIX. Dear artist, can you do me that? + +XLII. The child being started off--the bed sailing, curtains and all, +upon the sea--the child waking and finding himself at home; the corner +of toilette might be worked in to look like the pier. + +XLVII. The lighted part of the room, to be carefully distinguished from +my child's dark hunting grounds. A shaded lamp. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Hôtel des Îles d'Or, Hyères, Var, March 2 [1883]._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--It must be at least a fortnight since we have had a +scratch of a pen from you; and if it had not been for Cummy's letter, I +should have feared you were worse again: as it is, I hope we shall hear +from you to-day or to-morrow at latest. + +_Health._--Our news is good: Fanny never got so bad as we feared, and we +hope now that this attack may pass off in threatenings. I am greatly +better, have gained flesh, strength, spirits; eat well, walk a good +deal, and do some work without fatigue. I am off the sick list. + +_Lodging._--We have found a house up the hill, close to the town, an +excellent place though very, very little. If I can get the landlord to +agree to let us take it by the month just now, and let our month's rent +count for the year in case we take it on, you may expect to hear we are +again installed, and to receive a letter dated thus:-- + + La Solitude, + Hyères-les-Palmiers, + Var. + +If the man won't agree to that, of course I must just give it up, as the +house would be dear enough anyway at 2000 f. However, I hope we may get +it, as it is healthy, cheerful, and close to shops, and society, and +civilisation. The garden, which is above, is lovely, and will be cool in +summer. There are two rooms below with a kitchen, and four rooms above, +all told.--Ever your affectionate son, R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + "Cassandra" was a nickname of the elder Mr. Stevenson for his + daughter-in-law. The scheme of a play to be founded on _Great + Expectations_ was one of a hundred formed in these days and + afterwards given up. + + _Hôtel des Îles d'Or, but my address will be Chalet la Solitude, + Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var, France, March 17, 1883._ + +DEAR SIR,--Your undated favour from Eastbourne came to hand in course of +post, and I now hasten to acknowledge its receipt. We must ask you in +future, for the convenience of our business arrangements, to struggle +with and tread below your feet this most unsatisfactory and uncommercial +habit. Our Mr. Cassandra is better; our Mr. Wogg expresses himself +dissatisfied with our new place of business; when left alone in the +front shop, he bawled like a parrot; it is supposed the offices are +haunted. + +To turn to the matter of your letter, your remarks on _Great +Expectations_ are very good. We have both re-read it this winter, and I, +in a manner, twice. The object being a play; the play, in its rough +outline, I now see: and it is extraordinary how much of Dickens had to +be discarded as unhuman, impossible, and ineffective: all that really +remains is the loan of a file (but from a grown-up young man who knows +what he was doing, and to a convict who, although he does not know it is +his father--the father knows it is his son), and the fact of the +convict-father's return and disclosure of himself to the son whom he has +made rich. Everything else has been thrown aside; and the position has +had to be explained by a prologue which is pretty strong. I have great +hopes of this piece, which is very amiable and, in places, very strong +indeed: but it was curious how Dickens had to be rolled away; he had +made his story turn on such improbabilities, such fantastic trifles, not +on a good human basis, such as I recognised. You are right about the +casts, they were a capital idea; a good description of them at first, +and then afterwards, say second, for the lawyer to have illustrated +points out of the history of the originals, dusting the particular +bust--that was all the development the thing would bear. Dickens killed +them. The only really well _executed_ scenes are the riverside ones; the +escape in particular is excellent; and I may add, the capture of the two +convicts at the beginning. Miss Havisham is, probably, the worst thing +in human fiction. But Wemmick I like; and I like Trabb's boy; and Mr. +Wopsle as Hamlet is splendid. + +The weather here is greatly improved, and I hope in three days to be in +the chalet. That is, if I get some money to float me there. + +I hope you are all right again, and will keep better. The month of March +is past its mid career; it must soon begin to turn toward the lamb; here +it has already begun to do so; and I hope milder weather will pick you +up. Wogg has eaten a forpet of rice and milk, his beard is streaming, +his eyes wild. I am besieged by demands of work from America. + +The £50 has just arrived; many thanks; I am now at ease.--Ever your +affectionate son, _pro_ Cassandra, Wogg and Co., + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + [_Chalet la Solitude, Hyères, April 1883._] + +My head is singing with _Otto_; for the first two weeks I wrote and +revised and only finished IV chapters: last week, I have just drafted +straight ahead, and I have just finished Chapter XI. It will want a heap +of oversight and much will not stand, but the pace is good; about 28 +Cornhill pp. drafted in seven days, and almost all of it +dialogue--indeed I may say all, for I have dismissed the rest very +summarily in the draft: one can always tickle at that. At the same rate, +the draft should be finished in ten days more; and then I shall have the +pleasure of beginning again at the beginning. Ah damned job! I have no +idea whether or not Otto will be good. It is all pitched pretty high and +stilted; almost like the Arabs, at that; but of course there is +love-making in Otto, and indeed a good deal of it. I sometimes feel very +weary; but the thing travels--and I like it when I am at it. + +Remember me kindly to all.--Your ex-contributor, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. SITWELL + + His correspondent had at his request been writing and despatching to + him fair copies of the various sets of verses for the _Child's + Garden_ (as the collection was ultimately called), which he had been + from time to time sending home. + + _Chalet la Solitude, Hyères [April 1883]._ + +MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am one of the lowest of the--but that's understood. I +received the copy, excellently written, with I think only one slip from +first to last. I have struck out two, and added five or six; so they now +number forty-five; when they are fifty, they shall out on the world. I +have not written a letter for a cruel time; I have been, and am, so +busy, drafting a long story (for me, I mean), about a hundred Cornhill +pages, or say about as long as the Donkey book: _Prince Otto_ it is +called, and is, at the present hour, a sore burthen but a hopeful. If I +had him all drafted, I should whistle and sing. But no: then I'll have +to rewrite him; and then there will be the publishers, alas! But some +time or other, I shall whistle and sing, I make no doubt. + +I am going to make a fortune, it has not yet begun, for I am not yet +clear of debt; but as soon as I can, I begin upon the fortune. I shall +begin it with a halfpenny, and it shall end with horses and yachts and +all the fun of the fair. This is the first real grey hair in my +character: rapacity has begun to show, the greed of the protuberant +guttler. Well, doubtless, when the hour strikes, we must all guttle and +protube. But it comes hard on one who was always so willow-slender and +as careless as the daisies. + +Truly I am in excellent spirits. I have crushed through a financial +crisis; Fanny is much better; I am in excellent health, and work from +four to five hours a day--from one to two above my average, that is; and +we all dwell together and make fortunes in the loveliest house you ever +saw, with a garden like a fairy story, and a view like a classical +landscape. + +Little? Well, it is not large. And when you come to see us, you will +probably have to bed at the hotel, which is hard by. But it is Eden, +madam, Eden and Beulah and the Delectable Mountains and Eldorado and the +Hesperidean Isles and Bimini.[3] + +We both look forward, my dear friend, with the greatest eagerness to +have you here. It seems it is not to be this season: but I appoint you +with an appointment for next season. You cannot see us else: remember +that. Till my health has grown solid like an oak-tree, till my fortune +begins really to spread its boughs like the same monarch of the woods +(and the acorn, ay de mi! is not yet planted), I expect to be a prisoner +among the palms. + +Yes, it is like old times to be writing you from the Riviera, and after +all that has come and gone, who can predict anything? How fortune +tumbles men about! Yet I have not found that they change their friends, +thank God. + +Both of our loves to your sister and yourself. As for me, if I am here +and happy, I know to whom I owe it; I know who made my way for me in +life, if that were all, and I remain, with love, your faithful friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + "Gilder" in the following is of course the late R. W. Gilder, for + many years the admirable editor of the Century Magazine. + + _Chalet la Solitude, Hyères [April 1883]._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I am very guilty; I should have written to you long ago; +and now, though it must be done, I am so stupid that I can only boldly +recapitulate. A phrase of three members is the outside of my syntax. + +First, I like the _Rover_ better than any of your other verse. I believe +you are right, and can make stories in verse. The last two stanzas and +one or two in the beginning--but the two last above all--I thought +excellent. I suggest a pursuit of the vein. If you want a good story to +treat, get the _Memoirs of the Chevalier Johnstone_, and do his passage +of the Tay; it would be excellent: the dinner in the field, the woman he +has to follow, the dragoons, the timid boatmen, the brave lasses. It +would go like a charm; look at it, and you will say you owe me one. + +Second, Gilder asking me for fiction, I suddenly took a great resolve, +and have packed off to him my new work, _The Silverado Squatters_. I do +not for a moment suppose he will take it; but pray say all the good +words you can for it. I should be awfully glad to get it taken. But if +it does not mean dibbs at once, I shall be ruined for life. Pray write +soon and beg Gilder your prettiest for a poor gentleman in pecuniary +sloughs. + +Fourth, next time I am supposed to be at death's door write to me like +a Christian, and let not your correspondence attend on business.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + +_P.S._--I see I have led you to conceive the _Squatters_ are fiction. +They are not, alas! + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Chalet la Solitude, May 5 [1883]._ + +MY DEAREST PEOPLE,--I have had a great piece of news. There has been +offered for _Treasure Island_--how much do you suppose? I believe it +would be an excellent jest to keep the answer till my next letter. For +two cents I would do so. Shall I? Anyway, I'll turn the page first. +No--well--A hundred pounds, all alive, O! A hundred jingling, tingling, +golden, minted quid. Is not this wonderful? Add that I have now +finished, in draft, the fifteenth chapter of my novel, and have only +five before me, and you will see what cause of gratitude I have. + +The weather, to look at the per contra sheet, continues vomitable; and +Fanny is quite out of sorts. But, really, with such cause of gladness, I +have not the heart to be dispirited by anything. My child's verse book +is finished, dedication and all, and out of my hands--you may tell +Cummy; _Silverado_ is done, too, and cast upon the waters; and this +novel so near completion, it does look as if I should support myself +without trouble in the future. If I have only health, I can, I thank +God. It is dreadful to be a great, big man, and not be able to buy +bread. + +O that this may last! + +I have to-day paid my rent for the half year, till the middle of +September, and got my lease: why they have been so long, I know not. + +I wish you all sorts of good things. + +When is our marriage day?--Your loving and ecstatic son, + + TREESURE EILAAN. + +It has been for me a Treasure Island verily. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, May 8, 1883._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--I was disgusted to hear my father was not so well. I +have a most troubled existence of work and business. But the work goes +well, which is the great affair. I meant to have written a most +delightful letter; too tired, however, and must stop. Perhaps I'll find +time to add to it ere post. + +I have returned refreshed from eating, but have little time, as Lloyd +will go soon with the letters on his way to his tutor, Louis Robert +(!!!!), with whom he learns Latin in French, and French, I suppose, in +Latin, which seems to me a capital education. He, Lloyd, is a great +bicycler already, and has been long distances; he is most new-fangled +over his instrument, and does not willingly converse on other subjects. + +Our lovely garden is a prey to snails; I have gathered about a bushel, +which, not having the heart to slay, I steal forth withal and deposit +near my neighbour's garden wall. As a case of casuistry, this presents +many points of interest. I loathe the snails, but from loathing to +actual butchery, trucidation of multitudes, there is still a step that I +hesitate to take. What, then, to do with them? My neighbour's vineyard, +pardy! It is a rich, villa, pleasure-garden of course; if it were a +peasant's patch, the snails, I suppose, would have to perish. + +The weather these last three days has been much better, though it is +still windy and unkind. I keep splendidly well, and am cruelly busy, +with mighty little time even for a walk. And to write at all, under such +pressure, must be held to lean to virtue's side. + +My financial prospects are shining. O if the health will hold, I should +easily support myself.--Your ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var [May 20, 1883]._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I enclose the receipt and the corrections. As for your +letter and Gilder's, I must take an hour or so to think; the matter much +importing--to me. The £40 was a heavenly thing. + +I send the MS. by Henley, because he acts for me in all matters, and had +the thing, like all my other books, in his detention. He is my unpaid +agent--an admirable arrangement for me, and one that has rather more +than doubled my income on the spot. + +If I have been long silent, think how long you were so and blush, sir, +blush. + +I was rendered unwell by the arrival of your cheque, and, like Pepys, +"my hand still shakes to write of it." To this grateful emotion, and not +to D.T., please attribute the raggedness of my hand. + +This year I should be able to live and keep my family on my own +earnings, and that in spite of eight months and more of perfect idleness +at the end of last and beginning of this. It is a sweet thought. + +This spot, our garden and our view, are sub-celestial. I sing daily with +my Bunyan, that great bard, + + "I dwell already the next door to Heaven!" + +If you could see my roses, and my aloes, and my fig-marigolds, and my +olives, and my view over a plain, and my view of certain mountains as +graceful as Apollo, as severe as Zeus, you would not think the phrase +exaggerated. + +It is blowing to-day a _hot_ mistral, which is the devil or a near +connection of his. + +This to catch the post.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var, France, May 21, 1883._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--The night giveth advice, generally bad advice; but I +have taken it. And I have written direct to Gilder to tell him to keep +the book[4] back and go on with it in November at his leisure. I do not +know if this will come in time; if it doesn't, of course things will go +on in the way proposed. The £40, or, as I prefer to put it, the 1000 +francs, has been such a piercing sun-ray as my whole grey life is gilt +withal. On the back of it I can endure. If these good days of Longman +and the Century only last, it will be a very green world, this that we +dwell in and that philosophers miscall. I have no taste for that +philosophy; give me large sums paid on the receipt of the MS. and +copyright reserved, and what do I care about the non-bëent? Only I know +it can't last. The devil always has an imp or two in every house, and my +imps are getting lively. The good lady, the dear, kind lady, the sweet, +excellent lady, Nemesis, whom alone I adore, has fixed her wooden eye +upon me. I fall prone; spare me, Mother Nemesis! But catch her! + +I must now go to bed; for I have had a whoreson influenza cold, and have +to lie down all day, and get up only to meals and the delights, June +delights, of business correspondence. + +You said nothing about my subject for a poem. Don't you like it? My own +fishy eye has been fixed on it for prose, but I believe it could be +thrown out finely in verse, and hence I resign and pass the hand. Twig +the compliment?--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + "Tushery" had been a name in use between Stevenson and Mr. Henley for + romances of the _Ivanhoe_ type. He now applies it to his own tale of + the Wars of the Roses, _The Black Arrow_, written for Mr. Henderson's + Young Folks, of which the office was in Red Lion Court. + + [Hyères, May 1883.] + +... The influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring, and am +headachy. So, as my good Red Lion Courier begged me for another +Butcher's Boy--I turned me to--what thinkest 'ou?--to Tushery, by the +mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so +free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. _The +Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest_ is his name: tush! a poor thing! + +Will _Treasure Island_ proofs be coming soon, think you? + +I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength +and masterfulness that begot John Silver in _Treasure Island_. Of +course, he is not in any other quality or feature the least like you; +but the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was +entirely taken from you. + +Otto is, as you say, not a thing to extend my public on. It is queer and +a little, little bit free; and some of the parties are immoral; and the +whole thing is not a romance, nor yet a comedy; nor yet a romantic +comedy; but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all three +in a glass jar. I think it is not without merit, but I am not always on +the level of my argument, and some parts are false, and much of the rest +is thin; it is more a triumph for myself than anything else; for I see, +beyond it, better stuff. I have nine chapters ready, or almost ready, +for press. My feeling would be to get it placed anywhere for as much as +could be got for it, and rather in the shadow, till one saw the look of +it in print.--Ever yours, + + PRETTY SICK. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, May 1883._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--The books came some time since, but I have not had the +pluck to answer: a shower of small troubles having fallen in, or +troubles that may be very large. + +I have had to incur a huge vague debt for cleaning sewers; our house was +(of course) riddled with hidden cesspools, but that was infallible. I +have the fever, and feel the duty to work very heavy on me at times; yet +go it must. I have had to leave _Fontainebleau_, when three hours would +finish it, and go full-tilt at tushery for a while. But it will come +soon. + +I think I can give you a good article on Hokusai; but that is for +afterwards; _Fontainebleau_ is first in hand. + +By the way, my view is to give the _Penny Whistles_ to Crane or +Greenaway. But Crane, I think, is likeliest; he is a fellow who, at +least, always does his best. + +Shall I ever have money enough to write a play? + +O dire necessity! + +A word in your ear: I don't like trying to support myself. I hate the +strain and the anxiety; and when unexpected expenses are foisted on me, +I feel the world is playing with false dice.--Now I must Tush, adieu. + + AN ACHING, FEVERED, PENNY-JOURNALIST. + + + A lytle Jape of TUSHERIE. + + By A. Tusher. + + The pleasant river gushes + Among the meadows green; + At home the author tushes; + For him it flows unseen. + + The Birds among the Bushes + May wanton on the spray; + But vain for him who tushes + The brightness of the day! + + The frog among the rushes + Sits singing in the blue. + By'r la'kin! but these tushes + Are wearisome to do! + + The task entirely crushes + The spirit of the bard: + God pity him who tushes-- + His task is very hard. + + The filthy gutter slushes, + The clouds are full of rain, + But doomed is he who tushes + To tush and tush again. + + At morn with his hair-br_u_shes, + Still "tush" he says, and weeps; + At night again he tushes, + And tushes till he sleeps. + + And when at length he pushes + Beyond the river dark-- + 'Las, to the man who tushes, + "Tush," shall be God's remark! + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + [_Chalet la Solitude, Hyères, May 1883._] + +COLVIN,--The attempt to correspond with you is vain. Well, well, then so +be it. I will from time to time write you an insulting letter, brief but +monstrous harsh. I regard you in the light of a genteel impostor. Your +name figures in the papers but never to a piece of letter-paper: well, +well. + +News. I am well: Fanny been ill but better: _Otto_ about three-quarters +done; _Silverado_ proofs a terrible job--it is a most unequal work--new +wine in old bottles--large rats, small bottles:[5] as usual, +penniless--O but penniless: still, with four articles in hand (say £35) +and the £100 for _Silverado_ imminent, not hopeless. + +Why am I so penniless, ever, ever penniless, ever, ever +penny-penny-penniless and dry? + + The birds upon the thorn, + The poppies in the corn, + They surely are more fortunate or prudenter than I! + +In Arabia, everybody is called the Father of something or other for +convenience or insult's sake. Thus you are "the Father of Prints," or of +"Bummkopferies," or "Father of Unanswered Correspondence." They would +instantly dub Henley "the Father of Wooden Legs"; me they would +denominate the "Father of Bones," and Matthew Arnold "the Father of +Eyeglasses." + +I have accepted most of the excisions. Proposed titles:-- + + The Innocent Muse. + A Child's Garden of Rhymes. + Songs of the Playroom. + Nursery Songs. + +I like the first? + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, May or June 1883._ + +DEAR LAD,--Snatches in return for yours; for this little once, I'm well +to windward of you. + +Seventeen chapters of _Otto_ are now drafted, and finding I was working +through my voice and getting screechy, I have turned back again to +rewrite the earlier part. It has, I do believe, some merit: of what +order, of course, I am the last to know; and, triumph of triumphs, my +wife--my wife who hates and loathes and slates my women--admits a great +part of my Countess to be on the spot. + +Yes, I could borrow, but it is the joy of being before the public, for +once. Really, £100 is a sight more than _Treasure Island_ is worth. + +The reason of my _dèche_? Well, if you begin one house, have to desert +it, begin another, and are eight months without doing any work, you will +be in a _dèche_ too. I am not in a _dèche_, however; _distingue_--I +would fain distinguish; I am rather a swell, but _not solvent_. At a +touch the edifice, _ædificium_, might collapse. If my creditors began to +babble around me, I would sink with a slow strain of music into the +crimson west. The difficulty in my elegant villa is to find oil, +_oleum_, for the dam axles. But I've paid my rent until September; and +beyond the chemist, the grocer, the baker, the doctor, the gardener, +Lloyd's teacher, and the great chief creditor Death, I can snap my +fingers at all men. Why will people spring bills on you? I try to make +'em charge me at the moment; they won't, the money goes, the debt +remains.--The Required Play is in the _Merry Men_. + + Q. E. F. + + +I thus render honour to your _flair_; it came on me of a clap; I do not +see it yet beyond a kind of sunset glory. But it's there: passion, +romance, the picturesque, involved: startling, simple, horrid: a +sea-pink in sea-froth! _S'agit de la désenterrer._ "Help!" cries a +buried masterpiece. + +Once I see my way to the year's end, clear, I turn to plays; till then I +grind at letters; finish _Otto_; write, say, a couple of my _Traveller's +Tales_; and then, if all my ships come home, I will attack the drama in +earnest. I cannot mix the skeins. Thus, though I'm morally sure there +is a play in _Otto_, I dare not look for it: I shoot straight at the +story. + +As a story, a comedy, I think _Otto_ very well constructed; the echoes +are very good, all the sentiments change round, and the points of view +are continually, and, I think (if you please), happily contrasted. None +of it is exactly funny, but some of it is smiling. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The verses alluded to are some of those afterwards collected in + _Underwoods_. + + [_Chalet la Solitude, Hyères, May or June 1883._] + +DEAR HENLEY,--You may be surprised to hear that I am now a great writer +of verses; that is, however, so. I have the mania now like my betters, +and faith, if I live till I am forty, I shall have a book of rhymes like +Pollock, Gosse, or whom you please. Really, I have begun to learn some +of the rudiments of that trade, and have written three or four pretty +enough pieces of octosyllabic nonsense, semi-serious, semi-smiling. A +kind of prose Herrick, divested of the gift of verse, and you behold the +Bard. But I like it. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JULES SIMONEAU + + + This friend was the keeper of the inn and restaurant where Stevenson + had boarded at Monterey in the autumn of 1879. In writing French, as + will be seen, Stevenson had always more grip of idiom than of + grammar. + + [_La Solitude, Hyères, May or June 1883_.] + +MON CHER ET BON SIMONEAU,--J'ai commencé plusieurs fois de vous écrire; +et voilà-t-il pas qu'un empêchement quelconque est arrivé toujours. La +lettre ne part pas; et je vous laisse toujours dans le droit de +soupçonner mon coeur. Mon bon ami, ne pensez pas que je vous ai +oublié ou que je vous oublierai jamais. Il n'en est de rien. Votre bon +souvenir me tient de bien près, et je le garderai jusqu'à la mort. + +J'ai failli mourir de bien près; mais me voici bien rétabli, bien que +toujours un peu chétif et malingre. J'habite, comme vous voyez, la +France. Je travaille beaucoup, et je commence à ne pas être le dernier; +déjà on me dispute ce que j'écris, et je n'ai pas à me plaindre de ce +que l'on appelle les honoraires. Me voici alors très affairé, très +heureux dans mon ménage, gâté par ma femme, habitant la plus petite +maisonette dans le plus beau jardin du monde, et voyant de mes fen êtres +la mer, les isles d'Hyères, et les belles collines, montagnes et forts +de Toulon. + +Et vous, mon très cher ami? Comment celà va-t-il? Comment vous +portez-vous? Comment va le commerce? Comment aimez vous le pays? et +l'enfant? et la femme? Et enfin toutes les questions possibles. +Écrivez-moi donc bien vite, cher Simoneau. Et quant à moi, je vous +promets que vous entendrez bien vîte parler de moi; je vous _récrirai_ +sous peu, et je vous enverrai un de mes livres. Ceci n'est qu'un +serrement de main, _from the bottom of my heart, dear and kind old +man_.--Your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The "new dictionary" means, of course, the first instalments of the + great Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, edited by Dr. J. A. + H. Murray. + + _La Solitude, Hyères [June 1883]._ + +DEAR LAD,--I was delighted to hear the good news about ----. Bravo, he +goes uphill fast. Let him beware of vanity, and he will go higher; let +him be still discontented, and let him (if it might be) see the merits +and not the faults of his rivals, and he may swarm at last to the +top-gallant. There is no other way. Admiration is the only road to +excellence; and the critical spirit kills, but envy and injustice are +putrefaction on its feet. + +Thus far the moralist. The eager author now begs to know whether you may +have got the other Whistles, and whether a fresh proof is to be taken; +also whether in that case the dedication should not be printed +therewith; _B_ulk _D_elights _P_ublishers (original aphorism; to be said +sixteen times in succession as a test of sobriety). + +Your wild and ravening commands were received; but cannot be obeyed. And +anyway, I do assure you I am getting better every day; and if the +weather would but turn, I should soon be observed to walk in hornpipes. +Truly I am on the mend. I am still very careful. I have the new +dictionary; a joy, a thing of beauty, and--bulk. I shall be raked i' the +mools before it's finished; that is the only pity; but meanwhile I sing. + +I beg to inform you that I, Robert Louis Stevenson, author of +_Brashiana_ and other works, am merely beginning to commence to prepare +to make a first start at trying to understand my profession. O the +height and depth of novelty and worth in any art! and O that I am +privileged to swim and shoulder through such oceans! Could one get out +of sight of land--all in the blue? Alas not, being anchored here in +flesh, and the bonds of logic being still about us. + +But what a great space and a great air there is in these small shallows +where alone we venture! and how new each sight, squall, calm, or +sunrise! An art is a fine fortune, a palace in a park, a band of music, +health, and physical beauty; all but love--to any worthy practiser. I +sleep upon my art for a pillow; I waken in my art; I am unready for +death, because I hate to leave it. I love my wife, I do not know how +much, nor can, nor shall, unless I lost her; but while I can conceive my +being widowed, I refuse the offering of life without my art. I _am_ not +but in my art; it is me; I am the body of it merely. + +And yet I produce nothing, am the author of _Brashiana_ and other works: +tiddy-iddity--as if the works one wrote were anything but 'prentice's +experiments. Dear reader, I deceive you with husks, the real works and +all the pleasure are still mine and incommunicable. After this break in +my work, beginning to return to it, as from light sleep, I wax +exclamatory, as you see. + + Sursum Corda: + Heave ahead: + Here's luck. + Art and Blue Heaven, + April and God's Larks. + Green reeds and the sky-scattering river. + A stately music. + Enter God! + + R. L. S. + + +Ay, but you know, until a man can write that "Enter God," he has made no +art! None! Come, let us take counsel together and make some! + + + + +TO TREVOR HADDON + + + During the height of the Provençal summer, for July and part of + August, Stevenson went with his wife to the Baths of Royat in + Auvergne (travelling necessarily by way of Clermont-Ferrand). His + parents joined them at Royat for part of their visit. This and + possibly the next following letters were written during the trip. The + news here referred to was that his correspondent had won a + scholarship at the Slade School. + + _La Solitude, Hyères. But just now writing from + Clermont-Ferrand, July 5, 1883._ + +DEAR MR. HADDON,--Your note with its piece of excellent news duly +reached me. I am delighted to hear of your success: selfishly so; for it +is pleasant to see that one whom I suppose I may call an admirer is no +fool. I wish you more and more prosperity, and to be devoted to your +art. An art is the very gist of life; it grows with you; you will never +weary of an art at which you fervently and superstitiously labour. +Superstitiously: I mean, think more of it than it deserves; be blind to +its faults, as with a wife or father; forget the world in a technical +trifle. The world is very serious; art is the cure of that, and must be +taken very lightly; but to take art lightly, you must first be stupidly +owlishly in earnest over it. When I made Casimir say "Tiens" at the end, +I made a blunder. I thought it was what Casimir would have said and I +put it down. As your question shows, it should have been left out. It +was a "patch" of realism, and an anti-climax. Beware of realism; it is +the devil; 'tis one of the means of art, and now they make it the end! +And such is the farce of the age in which a man lives, that we all, even +those of us who most detest it, sin by realism. + +Notes for the student of any art. + +1. Keep an intelligent eye upon _all_ the others. It is only by doing so +that you come to see what Art is: Art is the end common to them all, it +is none of the points by which they differ. + +2. In this age beware of realism. + +3. In your own art, bow your head over technique. Think of technique +when you rise and when you go to bed. Forget purposes in the meanwhile; +get to love technical processes; to glory in technical successes; get to +see the world entirely through technical spectacles, to see it entirely +in terms of what you can do. Then when you have anything to say, the +language will be apt and copious. + +My health is better. + +I have no photograph just now; but when I get one you shall have a copy. +It will not be like me; sometimes I turn out a capital, fresh bank +clerk; once I came out the image of Runjeet Singh; again the treacherous +sun has fixed me in the character of a travelling evangelist. It's quite +a lottery; but whatever the next venture proves to be, soldier, sailor, +tinker, tailor, you shall have a proof. Reciprocate. The truth is I have +no appearance; a certain air of disreputability is the one constant +character that my face presents: the rest change like water. But still I +am lean, and still disreputable. + +Cling to your youth. It is an artistic stock in trade. Don't give in +that you are ageing, and you won't age. I have exactly the same faults +and qualities still; only a little duller, greedier and better tempered; +a little less tolerant of pain and more tolerant of tedium. The last is +a great thing for life but--query?--a bad endowment for art? + +Another note for the art student. + +4. See the good in other people's work; it will never be yours. See the +bad in your own, and don't cry about it; it will be there always. Try to +use your faults; at any rate use your knowledge of them, and don't run +your head against stone walls. Art is not like theology; nothing is +forced. You have not to represent the world. You have to represent only +what you can represent with pleasure and effect, and the only way to +find out what that is is by technical exercise.--Yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO JULES SIMONEAU + + + [_Hyères or Royat, Summer 1883._] + +MY DEAR FRIEND SIMONEAU,--It would be difficult to tell how glad I was +to get your letter with your good news and kind remembrances, it did my +heart good to the bottom. I shall never forget the good time we had +together, the many long talks, the games of chess, the flute on an +occasion, and the excellent food. Now I am in clover, only my health a +mere ruined temple; the ivy grows along its shattered front, otherwise, +I have no wish that is not fulfilled: a beautiful large garden, a fine +view of plain, sea and mountain; a wife that suits me down to the +ground, and a barrel of good Beaujolais. To this I must add that my +books grow steadily more popular, and if I could only avoid illness I +should be well to do for money, as it is, I keep pretty near the wind. +Have I other means? I doubt it. I saw François here; and it was in some +respects sad to see him, pining in the ungenial life and not, I think, +very well pleased with his relatives. The young men, it is true, adored +him, but his niece tried to pump me about what money I had, with an +effrontery I was glad to disappoint. How he spoke of you I need not tell +you. He is your true friend, dear Simoneau, and your ears should have +tingled when we met, for we talked of little but yourself. + +The papers you speak about are past dates but I will send you a paper +from time to time, as soon as I am able to go out again. We were both +well pleased to hear of your marriage, and both Mrs. Stevenson and +myself beg to be remembered with the kindest wishes to Mrs. Simoneau. I +am glad you have done this. All races are better away from their own +country; but I think you French improve the most of all. At home, I like +you well enough, but give me the Frenchman abroad! Had you stayed at +home, you would probably have acted otherwise. Consult your +consciousness, and you will think as I do. How about a law condemning +the people of every country to be educated in another, to change sons in +short? Should we not gain all around? Would not the Englishman unlearn +hypocrisy? Would not the Frenchman learn to put some heart into his +friendships? I name what strikes me as the two most obvious defects of +the two nations. The French might also learn to be a little less +rapacious to women and the English to be a little more honest. + +Indeed their merits and defects make a balance. + + The English. The French. + hypocrites free from hypocrisy + good, stout reliable friends incapable of friendship + dishonest to the root fairly honest + fairly decent to women. rather indecent to women. + +There is my table, not at all the usual one, but yes, I think you will +agree with it. And by travel, each race can cure much of its defects and +acquire much of the others' virtues. Let us say that you and I are +complete! You are anyway: I would not change a hair of you. The +Americans hold the English faults: dishonest and hypocrites, perhaps not +so strongly but still to the exclusion of others. It is strange that +such mean defects should be so hard to eradicate, after a century of +separation, and so great an admixture of other blood. + +Your stay in Mexico must have been interesting indeed: and it is natural +you should be so keen against the Church on this side, we have a painful +exhibition of the other side: the _libre-penseur_ a mere priest without +the sacraments, the narrowest tyranny of intolerance popular, and in +fact a repetition in the XIXth century of theological ill-feeling minus +the sermons. We have speeches instead. I met the other day one of the +new lay schoolmasters of France; a pleasant cultivated man, and for some +time listened to his ravings. "In short," I said, "you are like Louis +Quatorze, you wish to drive out of France all who do not agree with +you." I thought he would protest; not he!--"Oui, Monsieur," was his +answer. And that is the cause of liberty and free thought! But the race +of man was born tyrannical; doubtless Adam beat Eve, and when all the +rest are dead the last man will be found beating the last dog. In the +land of Padre d. R. you see the old tyranny still active on its +crutches; in this land, I begin to see the new, a fat fellow, out of +leading-strings and already killing flies. + +This letter drones along unprofitably enough. Let me put a period to my +divagations. Write again soon, and let me hear good news of you, and I +will try to be more quick of answer. + +And with the best wishes to yourself and all your family, believe me, +your sincere friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + The persons mentioned below in the third paragraph are cousins of the + writer and playmates of his childhood; two of them, christened Lewis + like himself after their Balfour grandfather, had been nicknamed + after their birthplaces "Delhi" and "Cramond" to avoid confusion. + Mount Chessie is a beautiful place near Lasswade: "Cummy" has + described his delight when she cut whistles for him there out of a + plane-tree. + + [_Hyères or Royat, Summer_ 1883.] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--Yes, I own I am a real bad correspondent, and am as bad +as can be in most directions. + +I have been adding some more poems to your book. I wish they would look +sharp about it; but, you see, they are trying to find a good artist to +make the illustrations, without which no child would give a kick for it. +It will be quite a fine work, I hope. The dedication is a poem too, and +has been quite a long while written, but I do not mean you to see it +till you get the book; keep the jelly for the last, you know, as you +would often recommend in former days, so now you can take your own +medicine. + +I am very sorry to hear you have been so poorly; I have been very well; +it used to be quite the other way, used it not? Do you remember making +the whistle at Mount Chessie? I do not think it _was_ my knife; I +believe it was yours; but rhyme is a very great monarch, and goes before +honesty, in these affairs at least. Do you remember, at Warriston, one +autumn Sunday, when the beech nuts were on the ground, seeing heaven +open? I would like to make a rhyme of that, but cannot. + +Is it not strange to think of all the changes: Bob, Cramond, Delhi, +Minnie, and Henrietta, all married, and fathers and mothers, and your +humble servant just the one point better off? And such a little while +ago all children together! The time goes swift and wonderfully even; and +if we are no worse than we are, we should be grateful to the power that +guides us. For more than a generation I have now been to the fore in +this rough world, and been most tenderly helped, and done cruelly wrong, +and yet escaped; and here I am still, the worse for wear, but with some +fight in me still, and not unthankful--no, surely not unthankful, or I +were then the worst of human things! + +My little dog is a very much better child in every way, both more loving +and more amiable; but he is not fond of strangers, and is, like most of +his kind, a great, specious humbug. + +Fanny has been ill, but is much better again; she now goes donkey rides +with an old woman, who compliments her on her French. That old +woman--seventy odd--is in a parlous spiritual state. + +Pretty soon, in the new sixpenny illustrated magazine, Wogg's picture is +to appear: this is a great honour! And the poor soul, whose vanity would +just explode if he could understand it, will never be a bit the +wiser!--With much love, in which Fanny joins, believe me, your +affectionate boy, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + The reference is to Mr. Gosse's volume called _Seventeenth Century + Studies_. + + [_Hyères or Royat, Summer 1883._] + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have now leisurely read your volume; pretty soon, by +the way, you will receive one of mine. + +It is a pleasant, instructive, and scholarly volume. The three best +being, quite out of sight--Crashaw, Otway, and Etherege. They are +excellent; I hesitate between them; but perhaps Crashaw is the most +brilliant. + +Your Webster is not my Webster; nor your Herrick my Herrick. On these +matters we must fire a gun to leeward, show our colours, and go by. +Argument is impossible. They are two of my favourite authors: Herrick +above all: I suppose they are two of yours. Well, Janus-like, they do +behold us two with diverse countenances, few features are common to +these different avatars; and we can but agree to differ, but still with +gratitude to our entertainers, like two guests at the same dinner, one +of whom takes clear and one white soup. By my way of thinking, neither +of us need be wrong. + +The other papers are all interesting, adequate, clear, and with a +pleasant spice of the romantic. It is a book you may be well pleased to +have so finished, and will do you much good. The Crashaw is capital: +capital; I like the taste of it. Preface clean and dignified. The +handling throughout workmanlike, with some four or five touches of +preciosity, which I regret. + +With my thanks for information, entertainment, and a pleasurable envy +here and there.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + Soon after he was settled again at Hyères, Stevenson had a great + shock in the death of one of the oldest and most intimate of his + friends of Edinburgh days, Mr. James Walter Ferrier (see the essay + _Old Mortality_ in _Memories and Portraits_). It is in accordance + with the expressed wish of this gentleman's surviving sister that + publicity is given to the following letters:-- + + _La Solitude, Hyères_ [_Sept. 1883_]. + +MY DEAR MISS FERRIER,--They say Walter is gone. You, who know how I have +neglected him, will conceive my remorse. I had another letter written; +when I heard he was worse, I promised myself to wake up for the last +time. Alas, too late! + +My dear Walter, set apart that terrible disease, was, in his right mind, +the best and gentlest gentleman. God knows he would never intentionally +hurt a soul. + +Well, he is done with his troubles and out of his long sickness, and I +dare say is glad to be at peace and out of the body, which in him seemed +the enemy of the fine and kind spirit. He is the first friend I have +ever lost, and I find it difficult to say anything and fear to intrude +upon your grief. But I had to try to tell you how much I shared it. + +Could you get any one to tell me particulars? Do not write yourself of +course--I do not mean that; but some one else. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, September 19, 1883._ + +DEAR BOY,--Our letters vigorously cross: you will ere this have received +a note to Coggie: God knows what was in it. + +It is strange, a little before the first word you sent me--so +late--kindly late, I know and feel--I was thinking in my bed, when I +knew you I had six friends--Bob I had by nature; then came the good +James Walter--with all his failings--the _gentleman_ of the lot, alas to +sink so low, alas to do so little, but now, thank God, in his quiet +rest; next I found Baxter--well do I remember telling Walter I had +unearthed "a W.S. that I thought would do"--it was in the Academy Lane, +and he questioned me as to the Signet's qualifications; fourth came +Simpson; somewhere about the same time, I began to get intimate with +Jenkin; last came Colvin. Then, one black winter afternoon, long Leslie +Stephen, in his velvet jacket, met me in the Spec. by appointment, took +me over to the infirmary, and in the crackling, blighting gas-light +showed me that old head whose excellent representation I see before me +in the photograph. Now when a man has six friends, to introduce a +seventh is usually hopeless. Yet when you were presented, you took to +them and they to you upon the nail. You must have been a fine fellow; +but what a singular fortune I must have had in my six friends that you +should take to all. I don't know if it is good Latin, most probably +not: but this is enscrolled before my eyes for Walter: _Tandem e nubibus +in apricum properat_. Rest, I suppose, I know, was all that remained; +but O to look back, to remember all the mirth, all the kindness, all the +humorous limitations and loved defects of that character; to think that +he was young with me, sharing that weather-beaten, Fergussonian youth, +looking forward through the clouds to the sunburst; and now clean gone +from my path, silent--well, well. This has been a strange awakening. +Last night, when I was alone in the house, with the window open on the +lovely still night, I could have sworn he was in the room with me; I +could show you the spot; and, what was very curious, I heard his rich +laughter, a thing I had not called to mind for I know not how long. + +I see his coral waistcoat studs that he wore the first time he dined in +my house; I see his attitude, leaning back a little, already with +something of a portly air, and laughing internally. How I admired him! +And now in the West Kirk. + +I am trying to write out this haunting bodily sense of absence; besides, +what else should I write of? + +Yes, looking back, I think of him as one who was good, though sometimes +clouded. He was the only gentle one of all my friends, save perhaps the +other Walter. And he was certainly the only modest man among the lot. He +never gave himself away; he kept back his secret; there was always a +gentle problem behind all. Dear, dear, what a wreck; and yet how +pleasant is the retrospect! God doeth all things well, though by what +strange, solemn, and murderous contrivances! + +It is strange: he was the only man I ever loved who did not habitually +interrupt. The fact draws my own portrait. And it is one of the many +reasons why I count myself honoured by his friendship. A man like you +_had_ to like me; you could not help yourself; but Ferrier was above me, +we were not equals; his true self humoured and smiled paternally upon +my failings, even as I humoured and sorrowed over his. + +Well, first his mother, then himself, they are gone: "in their resting +graves." + +When I come to think of it, I do not know what I said to his sister, and +I fear to try again. Could you send her this? There is too much both +about yourself and me in it; but that, if you do not mind, is but a mark +of sincerity. It would let her know how entirely, in the mind of (I +suppose) his oldest friend, the good, true Ferrier obliterates the +memory of the other, who was only his "lunatic brother." + +Judge of this for me, and do as you please; anyway, I will try to write +to her again; my last was some kind of scrawl that I could not see for +crying. This came upon me, remember, with terrible suddenness; I was +surprised by this death; and it is fifteen or sixteen years since first +I saw the handsome face in the Spec. I made sure, besides, to have died +first. Love to you, your wife, and her sisters.--Ever yours, dear boy, + + R. L. S. + + +I never knew any man so superior to himself as poor James Walter. The +best of him only came as a vision, like Corsica from the Corniche. He +never gave his measure either morally or intellectually. The curse was +on him. Even his friends did not know him but by fits. I have passed +hours with him when he was so wise, good, and sweet, that I never knew +the like of it in any other. And for a beautiful good humour he had no +match. I remember breaking in upon him once with a whole red-hot story +(in my worst manner), pouring words upon him by the hour about some +truck not worth an egg that had befallen me; and suddenly, some half +hour after, finding that the sweet fellow had some concern of his own of +infinitely greater import, that he was patiently and smilingly waiting +to consult me on. It sounds nothing; but the courtesy and the +unselfishness were perfect. It makes me rage to think how few knew him, +and how many had the chance to sneer at their better. + +Well, he was not wasted, that we know; though if anything looked liker +irony than this fitting of a man out with these rich qualities and +faculties to be wrecked and aborted from the very stocks, I do not know +the name of it. Yet we see that he has left an influence; the memory of +his patient courtesy has often checked me in rudeness; has it not you? + +You can form no idea of how handsome Walter was. At twenty he was +splendid to see; then, too, he had the sense of power in him, and great +hopes; he looked forward, ever jesting of course, but he looked to see +himself where he had the right to expect. He believed in himself +profoundly; but _he never disbelieved in others_. To the roughest +Highland student he always had his fine, kind, open dignity of manner; +and a good word behind his back. + +The last time that I saw him before leaving for America--it was a sad +blow to both of us. When he heard I was leaving, and that might be the +last time we might meet--it almost was so--he was terribly upset, and +came round at once. We sat late, in Baxter's empty house, where I was +sleeping. My dear friend Walter Ferrier: O if I had only written to him +more! if only one of us in these last days had been well! But I ever +cherished the honour of his friendship, and now when he is gone, I know +what I have lost still better. We live on, meaning to meet; but when the +hope is gone, the pang comes. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, 26th September 1883._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--It appears a bolt from Transatlantica is necessary to +produce four lines from you. It is not flattering; but as I was always a +bad correspondent, 'tis a vice to which I am lenient. I give you to +know, however, that I have already twice (this makes three times) sent +you what I please to call a letter, and received from you in return a +subterfuge--or nothing.... + +My present purpose, however, which must not be postponed, is to ask you +to telegraph to the Americans. + +After a summer of good health of a very radiant order, toothache and the +death of a very old friend, which came upon me like a thunderclap, have +rather shelved my powers. I stare upon the paper, not write. I wish I +could write like your Sculptors; yet I am well aware that I should not +try in that direction. A certain warmth (tepid enough) and a certain +dash of the picturesque are my poor essential qualities; and if I went +fooling after the too classical, I might lose even these. But I envied +you that page. + +I am, of course, deep in schemes; I was so ever. Execution alone +somewhat halts. How much do you make per annum, I wonder? This year, for +the first time, I shall pass £300; I may even get halfway to the next +milestone. This seems but a faint remuneration; and the devil of it is, +that I manage, with sickness, and moves, and education, and the like, to +keep steadily in front of my income. However, I console myself with +this, that if I were anything else under God's Heaven, and had the same +crank health, I should make an even zero. If I had, with my present +knowledge, twelve months of my old health, I would, could, and should do +something neat. As it is, I have to tinker at my things in little +sittings; and the rent, or the butcher, or something, is always calling +me off to rattle up a pot-boiler. And then comes a back-set of my +health, and I have to twiddle my fingers and play patience. + +Well, I do not complain, but I do envy strong health where it is +squandered. Treasure your strength, and may you never learn by +experience the profound _ennui_ and irritation of the shelved artist. +For then, what is life? All that one has done to make one's life +effective then doubles the itch of inefficiency. + +I trust also you may be long without finding out the devil that there is +in a bereavement. After love it is the one great surprise that life +preserves for us. Now I don't think I can be astonished any more.--Yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, 30th Sept. 1883._ + +MY DEAR MISS FERRIER,--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and +was interested by all you told me. Yes, I know it is better for him to +be gone, and what you say helps me to realise that it is so--I did not +know how much he had suffered; it is so that we are cured of life. I am +a little afraid to write or think much of Walter just yet; as I have not +quite recovered the news and I have my work and my wife to think of. + +Some day soon when the sharpness passes off (if it does) I must try to +write some more of what he was: he was so little understood. I don't +suppose any one knew him better than I did. But just now it is difficult +to think of him. For you I do mourn indeed, and admire your courage: the +loss is terrible. I have no portrait of him. Is there one? If so please +let me have it: if it has to be copied please let it be. + +Henley seems to have been as good to dear Walter as he is to all. That +introduction was a good turn I did to both. It seems so strange for a +friendship to begin all these years ago with so much mirth and now to +end with this sorrow. Our little lives are moments in the wake of the +eternal silence: but how crowded while they last. His has gone down in +peace. + +I was not certainly the best companion for Walter, but I do believe I +was the best he had. In these early days he was not fortunate in +friends--looking back I see most clearly how much we both wanted a man +of riper wisdom. We had no religion between the pair of us--that was the +flaw. How very different was our last intimacy in Gladstone Terrace. But +youth must learn--looking back over these wasted opportunities, I must +try rather to remember what I did right, than to bewail the much that I +left undone and knew not how to do. I see that even you have allowed +yourself to have regrets. Dear Miss Ferrier, sure you were his angel. We +all had something to be glad of, in so far as we had understood and +loved and perhaps a little helped the gentle spirit; but you may +certainly be proud. He always loved you; and I remember in his worst +days spoke of you with great affection; a thing unusual with him; for he +was walking very wild and blind and had no true idea whether of himself +or life. The lifting afterwards was beautiful and touching. Dear Miss +Ferrier I have given your kind messages to my wife who feels for you and +reciprocates the hope to meet. When it may come off I know not. I feel +almost ashamed to say that I keep better, I feel as if like Mrs. Leslie +"you must hate me for it"--still I can very easily throw back whether by +fatigue or want of care, and I do not like to build plans for my return +to my own land. Is there no chance of your coming hereabouts? Though we +cannot in our small and disorderly house offer a lady a room, one can be +got close by and we can offer possible board and a most lovely little +garden for a lounge. Please remember me kindly to your brother John and +Sir A. and Lady Grant and believe me with hearty sympathy--Yours most +sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +I was rejoiced to hear he never doubted of my love, but I must cure my +hate of correspondence. This has been a sharp lesson. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + It will be remembered that "Whistles" or "Penny Whistles" was his own + name for the verses of the _Child's Garden_. The proposal referred to + at the end of this letter was one which had reached him from Messrs. + Lippincott, the American publishers, for a sailing trip to be taken + among the Greek islands and made the subject of a book. + + _La Solitude, Hyères [October 1883]._ + +My dear excellent, admired, volcanic angel of a lad, trusty as a dog, +eruptive as Vesuvius, in all things great, in all the soul of loyalty: +greeting. + +That you are better spirits me up good. I have had no colour of a Mag. +of Art. From here, here in Highairs the Palm-trees, I have heard your +conversation. It came here in the form of a Mistral, and I said to +myself, Damme, there is some Henley at the foot of this! + +I shall try to do the Whistle as suggested; but I can usually do +whistles only by giving my whole mind to it: to produce even such +limping verse demanding the whole forces of my untuneful soul. I have +other two anyway: better or worse. I am now deep, deep, ocean deep in +_Otto_: a letter is a curst distraction. About 100 pp. are near fit for +publication; I am either making a spoon or spoiling the horn of a +Caledonian bull, with that airy potentate. God help me, I bury a lot of +labour in that principality; and if I am not greatly a gainer, I am a +great loser and a great fool. However, _sursum corda_; faint heart never +writ romance. + +Your Dumas I think exquisite; it might even have been stronglier said: +the brave old godly pagan, I adore his big footprints on the earth. + +Have you read Meredith's _Love in the Valley_? It got me, I wept; I +remembered that poetry existed. + + "When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror." + +I propose if they (Lippincotts) will let me wait till next Autumn, and +go when it is safest, to accept £450 with £100 down; but it is now too +late to go this year. November and December are the months when it is +safest; and the back of the season is broken. I shall gain much +knowledge by the trip; this I look upon as one of the main inducements. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following is in answer to a letter containing remarks on the + proofs of the _Child's Garden_, then going round among some of his + friends, and on the instalments of _Silverado Squatters_ and the + _Black Arrow_, which were appearing in the Century Magazine and Young + Folks respectively. The remarks on Professor Seeley's literary manner + are _àpropos_ of the _Expansion of England_, which I had lately sent + him. + + _La Solitude, Hyères [October 1883]._ + +COLVIN, COLVIN, COLVIN,--Yours received; also interesting copy of _P. +Whistles_. "In the multitude of councillors the Bible declares there is +wisdom," said my great-uncle, "but I have always found in them +distraction." It is extraordinary how tastes vary: these proofs have +been handed about, it appears, and I have had several letters; +and--distraction. Æsop: the Miller and the Ass. + +Notes on details:-- + +1. I love the occasional trochaic line; and so did many excellent +writers before me. + +2. If you don't like _A Good Boy_, I do. + +3. In _Escape at Bedtime_, I found two suggestions. "Shove" for "above" +is a correction of the press; it was so written. "Twinkled" is just the +error; to the child the stars appear to be there; any word that suggests +illusion is a horror. + +4. I don't care; I take a different view of the vocative. + +5. Bewildering and childering are good enough for me. These are rhymes, +jingles; I don't go for eternity and the three unities. + +I will delete some of those condemned, but not all. I don't care for the +name Penny Whistles; I sent a sheaf to Henley when I sent 'em. But I've +forgot the others. I would just as soon call 'em "Rimes for Children" as +anything else. I am not proud nor particular. + +Your remarks on the _Black Arrow_ are to the point. I am pleased you +liked Crookback; he is a fellow whose hellish energy has always fixed my +attention. I wish Shakespeare had written the play after he had learned +some of the rudiments of literature and art rather than before. Some +day, I will re-tickle the Sable Missile, and shoot it, _moyennant +finances_, once more into the air; I can lighten it of much, and devote +some more attention to Dick o' Gloucester. It's great sport to write +tushery. + +By this I reckon you will have heard of my proposed excursiolorum to the +Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, and kindred sites. If the +excursiolorum goes on, that is if _moyennant finances_ comes off, I +shall write to beg you to collect introductiolorums for me. + +Distinguo: 1. _Silverado_ was not written in America, but in +Switzerland's icy mountains. 2. What you read is the bleeding and +disembowelled remains of what I wrote. 3. The good stuff is all to +come--so I think. "The Sea Fogs," "The Hunter's Family," "Toils and +Pleasures"--_belles pages_.--Yours ever, + + RAMNUGGER. + + +O!--Seeley is too clever to live, and the book a gem. But why has he +read too much Arnold? Why will he avoid--obviously avoid--fine writing +up to which he has led? This is a winking, curled-and-oiled, +ultra-cultured, Oxford-don sort of an affectation that infuriates my +honest soul. "You see"--they say--"how unbombastic _we_ are; we come +right up to eloquence, and, when it's hanging on the pen, dammy, we +scorn it!" It is literary Deronda-ism. If you don't want the woman, the +image, or the phrase, mortify your vanity and avoid the appearance of +wanting them. + + + + +TO W.E. HENLEY + + + The first paragraph of the following refers to contributions of R. L. + S. to the Magazine of Art under Mr. Henley's editorship:-- + + _La Solitude, Hyères [Autumn 1883]._ + +DEAR LAD,--Glad you like _Fontainebleau_. I am going to be the means, +under heaven, of aërating or literating your pages. The idea that +because a thing is a picture-book all the writing should be on the wrong +tack is _triste_ but widespread. Thus _Hokusai_ will be really a gossip +on convention, or in great part. And the Skelt will be as like a Charles +Lamb as I can get it. The writer should write, and not illustrate +pictures: else it's bosh.... + +Your remarks about the ugly are my eye. Ugliness is only the prose of +horror. It is when you are not able to write _Macbeth_ that you write +_Thérèse Raquin_. Fashions are external: the essence of art only varies +in so far as fashion widens the field of its application; art is a mill +whose thirlage, in different ages, widens and contracts; but, in any +case and under any fashion, the great man produces beauty, terror, and +mirth, and the little man produces cleverness (personalities, +psychology) instead of beauty, ugliness instead of terror, and jokes +instead of mirth. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be ever, +world without end. Amen! + +And even as you read, you say, "Of course, _quelle rengaine_!" + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + Manhattan mentioned below is the name of a short-lived New York + magazine, the editor of which had asked through Mr. Low for a + contribution from R. L. S. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, October [1883]._ + +MY DEAR LOW,-- ... Some day or other, in Cassell's Magazine of Art, you +will see a paper which will interest you, and where your name appears. +It is called _Fontainebleau: Village Communities of Artists_, and the +signature of R. L. Stevenson will be found annexed. + +Please tell the editor of Manhattan the following secrets for me: 1_st_, +That I am a beast; 2_nd_, that I owe him a letter; 3_rd_, that I have +lost his, and cannot recall either his name or address; 4_th_, that I am +very deep in engagements, which my absurd health makes it hard for me to +overtake; but 5_th_, that I will bear him in mind; 6_th_ and last, that +I am a brute. + +My address is still the same, and I live in a most sweet corner of the +universe, sea and fine hills before me, and a rich variegated plain; and +at my back a craggy hill, loaded with vast feudal ruins. I am very +quiet; a person passing by my door half startles me; but I enjoy the +most aromatic airs, and at night the most wonderful view into a moonlit +garden. By day this garden fades into nothing, overpowered by its +surroundings and the luminous distance; but at night and when the moon +is out, that garden, the arbour, the flight of stairs that mount the +artificial hillock, the plumed blue gum-trees that hang trembling, +become the very skirts of Paradise. Angels I know frequent it; and it +thrills all night with the flutes of silence. Damn that garden;--and by +day it is gone. + +Continue to testify boldly against realism. Down with Dagon, the fish +god! All art swings down towards imitation, in these days, fatally. But +the man who loves art with wisdom sees the joke; it is the lustful that +tremble and respect her ladyship; but the honest and romantic lovers of +the Muse can see a joke and sit down to laugh with Apollo. + +The prospect of your return to Europe is very agreeable; and I was +pleased by what you said about your parents. One of my oldest friends +died recently, and this has given me new thoughts of death. Up to now I +had rather thought of him as a mere personal enemy of my own; but now +that I see him hunting after my friends, he looks altogether darker. My +own father is not well; and Henley, of whom you must have heard me +speak, is in a questionable state of health. These things are very +solemn, and take some of the colour out of life. It is a great thing, +after all, to be a man of reasonable honour and kindness. Do you +remember once consulting me in Paris whether you had not better +sacrifice honesty to art; and how, after much confabulation, we agreed +that your art would suffer if you did? We decided better than we knew. +In this strange welter where we live, all hangs together by a million +filaments; and to do reasonably well by others, is the first +pre-requisite of art. Art is a virtue; and if I were the man I should +be, my art would rise in the proportion of my life. + +If you were privileged to give some happiness to your parents, I know +your art will gain by it. _By God it will!_--_Sic subscribitur_, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyères [October 1883]._ + +MY DEAR BOB,--Yes, I got both your letters at Lyons, but have been since +then decading in several steps. Toothache; fever; Ferrier's death; lung. +Now it is decided I am to leave to-morrow, penniless, for Nice to see +Dr. Williams. + +I was much struck by your last. I have written a breathless note on +Realism for Henley; a fifth part of the subject hurriedly touched, which +will show you how my thoughts are driving. You are now at last beginning +to think upon the problems of executive, plastic art, for you are now +for the first time attacking them. Hitherto you have spoken and thought +of two things--technique and the _ars artium_, or common background of +all arts. Studio work is the real touch. That is the genial error of the +present French teaching. Realism I regard as a mere question of method. +The "brown foreground," "old mastery," and the like, ranking with +villanelles, as technical sports and pastimes. Real art, whether ideal +or realistic, addresses precisely the same feeling, and seeks the same +qualities--significance or charm. And the same--very same--inspiration +is only methodically differentiated according as the artist is an arrant +realist or an arrant idealist. Each, by his own method, seeks to save +and perpetuate the same significance or charm; the one by suppressing, +the other by forcing, detail. All other idealism is the brown foreground +over again, and hence only art in the sense of a game, like cup and +ball. All other realism is not art at all--but not at all. It is, then, +an insincere and showy handicraft. + +Were you to re-read some Balzac, as I have been doing, it would greatly +help to clear your eyes. He was a man who never found his method. An +inarticulate Shakespeare, smothered under forcible-feeble detail. It is +astounding to the riper mind how bad he is, how feeble, how untrue, how +tedious; and, of course, when he surrendered to his temperament, how +good and powerful. And yet never plain nor clear. He could not consent +to be dull, and thus became so. He would leave nothing undeveloped, and +thus drowned out of sight of land amid the multitude of crying and +incongruous details. There is but one art--to omit! O if I knew how to +omit, I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knew how to omit would +make an _Iliad_ of a daily paper. + +Your definition of seeing is quite right. It is the first part of +omission to be partly blind. Artistic sight is judicious blindness. Sam +Bough must have been a jolly blind old boy. He would turn a corner, look +for one-half or quarter minute, and then say, "This'll do, lad." Down he +sat, there and then, with whole artistic plan, scheme of colour, and the +like, and begin by laying a foundation of powerful and seemingly +incongruous colour on the block. He saw, not the scene, but the +water-colour sketch. Every artist by sixty should so behold nature. +Where does he learn that? In the studio, I swear. He goes to nature for +facts, relations, values--material; as a man, before writing a +historical novel, reads up memoirs. But it is not by reading memoirs +that he has learned the selective criterion. He has learned that in the +practice of his art; and he will never learn it well, but when +disengaged from the ardent struggle of immediate representation, of +realistic and _ex facto_ art. He learns it in the crystallisation of +day-dreams; in changing, not in copying, fact; in the pursuit of the +ideal, not in the study of nature. These temples of art are, as you say, +inaccessible to the realistic climber. It is not by looking at the sea +that you get + + "The multitudinous seas incarnadine," + +nor by looking at Mont Blanc that you find + + "And visited all night by troops of stars." + +A kind of ardour of the blood is the mother of all this; and according +as this ardour is swayed by knowledge and seconded by craft, the art +expression flows clear, and significance and charm, like a moon rising, +are born above the barren juggle of mere symbols. + +The painter must study more from nature than the man of words. By why? +Because literature deals with men's business and passions which, in the +game of life, we are irresistibly obliged to study; but painting with +relations of light, and colour, and significances, and form, which, from +the immemorial habit of the race, we pass over with an unregardful eye. +Hence this crouching upon camp-stools, and these crusts.[6] But neither +one nor other is a part of art, only preliminary studies. + +I want you to help me to get people to understand that realism is a +method, and only methodic in its consequences; when the realist is an +artist, that is, and supposing the idealist with whom you compare him to +be anything but a _farceur_ and a _dilettante_. The two schools of +working do, and should, lead to the choice of different subjects. But +that is a consequence, not a cause. See my chaotic note, which will +appear, I fancy, in November in Henley's sheet. + +Poor Ferrier, it bust me horrid. He was, after you, the oldest of my +friends. + +I am now very tired, and will go to bed having prelected freely. Fanny +will finish. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Some pages of MS. exist in which the writer at this time attempted to + re-cast and expand a portion of the _Lay Morals_ of 1879. A letter + written some days earlier to his father, and partly quoted in Mr. + Graham Balfour's _Life_ (ed. 1906, p. 209), explains his purpose. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, 12th October 1883._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I have just lunched; the day is exquisite, the air +comes through the open window rich with odour, and I am by no means +spiritually minded. Your letter, however, was very much valued, and has +been read oftener than once. What you say about yourself I was glad to +hear; a little decent resignation is not only becoming a Christian, but +is likely to be excellent for the health of a Stevenson. To fret and +fume is undignified, suicidally foolish, and theologically unpardonable; +we are here not to make, but to tread predestined, pathways; we are the +foam of a wave, and to preserve a proper equanimity is not merely the +first part of submission to God, but the chief of possible kindnesses to +those about us. I am lecturing myself, but you also. To do our best is +one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequence is the next +part, of any sensible virtue. + +I have come, for the moment, to a pause in my moral works; for I have +many irons in the fire, and I wish to finish something to bring coin +before I can afford to go on with what I think doubtfully to be a duty. +It is a most difficult work; a touch of the parson will drive off those +I hope to influence; a touch of overstrained laxity, besides disgusting, +like a grimace, may do harm. Nothing that I have ever seen yet speaks +directly and efficaciously to young men; and I do hope I may find the +art and wisdom to fill up a gap. The great point, as I see it, is to ask +as little as possible, and meet, if it may be, every view or absence of +view; and it should be, must be, easy. Honesty is the one desideratum; +but think how hard a one to meet. I think all the time of Ferrier and +myself; these are the pair that I address. Poor Ferrier, so much a +better man than I, and such a temporal wreck. But the thing of which we +must divest our minds is to look partially upon others; all is to be +viewed; and the creature judged, as he must be by his Creator, not +dissected through a prism of morals, but in the unrefracted ray. So +seen, and in relation to the almost omnipotent surroundings, who is to +distinguish between F. and such a man as Dr. Candlish, or between such a +man as David Hume and such an one as Robert Burns? To compare my poor +and good Walter with myself is to make me startle; he, upon all grounds +above the merely expedient, was the nobler being. Yet wrecked utterly +ere the full age of manhood; and the last skirmishes so well fought, so +humanly useless, so pathetically brave, only the leaps of an expiring +lamp. All this is a very pointed instance. It shuts the mouth. I have +learned more, in some ways, from him than from any other soul I ever +met; and he, strange to think, was the best gentleman, in all kinder +senses, that I ever knew.--Ever your affectionate son, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The paper referred to at the beginning of the second paragraph is one + on R. L. S. in the Century Magazine, the first seriously critical + notice, says Mr. Low, which appeared of him in the States. + + [_La Solitude, Hyères, Oct. 23, 1883._] + +MY DEAR LOW,--_C'est d'un bon camarade_; and I am much obliged to you +for your two letters and the inclosure. Times are a lityle changed with +all of us since the ever memorable days of Lavenue: hallowed be his +name! hallowed his old Fleury!--of which you did not see--I think--as I +did--the glorious apotheosis: advanced on a Tuesday to three francs, on +the Thursday to six, and on Friday swept off, holus bolus, for the +proprietor's private consumption. Well, we had the start of that +proprietor. Many a good bottle came our way, and was, I think, worthily +made welcome. + +I am pleased that Mr. Gilder should like my literature; and I ask you +particularly to thank Mr. Bunner (have I the name right?) for his +notice, which was of that friendly, headlong sort that really pleases an +author like what the French call a "shake-hands." It pleased me the more +coming from the States, where I have met not much recognition, save from +the buccaneers, and above all from pirates who misspell my name. I saw +my book advertised in a number of the Critic as the work of one R. L. +Stephenson; and, I own, I boiled. It is so easy to know the name of the +man whose book you have stolen; for there it is, at full length, on the +title-page of your booty. But no, damn him, not he! He calls me +Stephenson. These woes I only refer to by the way, as they set a higher +value on the Century notice. + +I am now a person with an established ill-health--a wife--a dog +possessed with an evil, a Gadarene spirit--a chalet on a hill, looking +out over the Mediterranean--a certain reputation--and very obscure +finances. Otherwise, very much the same, I guess; and were a bottle of +Fleury a thing to be obtained, capable of developing theories along with +a fit spirit even as of yore. Yet I now draw near to the Middle Ages; +nearly three years ago, that fatal Thirty struck; and yet the great work +is not yet done--not yet even conceived. But so, as one goes on, the +wood seems to thicken, the footpath to narrow, and the House Beautiful +on the hill's summit to draw further and further away. We learn, indeed, +to use our means; but only to learn, along with it, the paralysing +knowledge that these means are only applicable to two or three poor +commonplace motives. Eight years ago, if I could have slung ink as I can +now, I should have thought myself well on the road after Shakespeare; +and now--I find I have only got a pair of walking-shoes and not yet +begun to travel. And art is still away there on the mountain summit. But +I need not continue; for, of course, this is your story just as much as +it is mine; and, strange to think, it was Shakespeare's too, and +Beethoven's, and Phidias's. It is a blessed thing that, in this forest +of art, we can pursue our woodlice and sparrows, _and not catch them_, +with almost the same fervour of exhilaration as that with which +Sophocles hunted and brought down the Mastodon. + +Tell me something of your work, and your wife.--My dear fellow, I am +yours ever, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + +My wife begs to be remembered to both of you; I cannot say as much for +my dog, who has never seen you, but he would like, on general +principles, to bite you. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + By this time _Treasure Island_ was out in book form, and the + following is in reply to some reflections on its seamanship which had + been conveyed to him through Mr. Henley:-- + + [_La Solitude, Hyères, November 1883._] + +MY DEAR LAD,-- ... Of course, my seamanship is jimmy: did I not beseech +you I know not how often to find me an ancient mariner--and you, whose +own wife's own brother is one of the ancientest, did nothing for me? As +for my seamen, did Runciman ever know eighteenth century Buccaneers? No? +Well, no more did I. But I have known and sailed with seamen too, and +lived and eaten with them; and I made my put-up shot in no great +ignorance, but as a put-up thing has to be made, _i.e._ to be coherent +and picturesque, and damn the expense. Are they fairly lively on the +wires? Then, favour me with your tongues. Are they wooden, and dim, and +no sport? Then it is I that am silent, otherwise not. The work, strange +as it may sound in the ear, is not a work of realism. The next thing I +shall hear is that the etiquette is wrong in Otto's Court! With a +warrant, and I mean it to be so, and the whole matter never cost me half +a thought. I make these paper people to please myself, and Skelt, and +God Almighty, and with no ulterior purpose. Yet am I mortal myself; for, +as I remind you, I begged for a supervising mariner. However, my heart +is in the right place. I have been to sea, but I never crossed the +threshold of a court; and the courts shall be the way I want 'em. + +I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all the +reviews I ever had; the one I liked best before that was ----'s on the +_Arabians_. These two are the flowers of the collection, according to +me. To live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans--sich is my +aspiration. + +Whenever you come you will be equally welcome. I am trying to finish +_Otto_ ere you shall arrive, so as to take and be able to enjoy a +well-earned--O yes, a well-earned--holiday. Longman fetched by _Otto_: +is it a spoon or a spoilt horn? Momentous, if the latter; if the former, +a spoon to dip much praise and pudding, and to give, I do think, much +pleasure. The last part, now in hand, much smiles upon me.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyères [November 1883]._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--You must not blame me too much for my silence; I am +over head and ears in work, and do not know what to do first. I have +been hard at _Otto_, hard at _Silverado_ proofs, which I have worked +over again to a tremendous extent; cutting, adding, rewriting, until +some of the worst chapters of the original are now, to my mind, as good +as any. I was the more bound to make it good, as I had such liberal +terms; it's not for want of trying if I have failed. + +I got your letter on my birthday; indeed, that was how I found it out +about three in the afternoon, when postie comes. Thank you for all you +said. As for my wife, that was the best investment ever made by man; but +"in our branch of the family" we seem to marry well. I, considering my +piles of work, am wonderfully well; I have not been so busy for I know +not how long. I hope you will send me the money I asked however, as I am +not only penniless, but shall remain so in all human probability for +some considerable time. I have got in the mass of my expectations; and +the £100 which is to float us on the new year cannot come due till +_Silverado_ is all ready; I am delaying it myself for the moment; then +will follow the binders and the travellers and an infinity of other +nuisances; and only at the last, the jingling-tingling. + +Do you know that _Treasure Island_ has appeared? In the November number +of Henley's Magazine, a capital number anyway, there is a funny +publisher's puff of it for your book; also a bad article by me. Lang +dotes on _Treasure Island_: "Except _Tom Sawyer_ and the _Odyssey_," he +writes, "I never liked any romance so much." I will inclose the letter +though. The Bogue is angelic, although very dirty. It has rained--at +last! It was jolly cold when the rain came. + +I was overjoyed to hear such good news of my father. Let him go on at +that!--Ever your affectionate, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Of the "small ships" here mentioned, _Fontainebleau_ and _The + Character of Dogs_ are well known: _A Misadventure in France_ is + probably a draft of the _Epilogue to an Inland Voyage_, not + published till five years later. The _Travelling Companion_ (of which + I remember little except that its scene was partly laid in North + Italy and that a publisher to whom it was shown declared it a work of + genius but indecent) was abandoned some two years later, as set forth + on p. 193 of this volume. + + _La Solitude, Hyères [November 1883]._ + + £10,000 Pounds Reward! + +WHEREAS Sidney Colvin, more generally known as the Guardian Angel, has +vanished from the gaze of Mr. R. L. Stevenson, the above reward is +offered as a means to discover the whereabouts of the misguided +gentleman. He was known as a man of irregular habits, and his rowdy +exterior would readily attract attention in a crowd. He was never known +to resist a drink; whisky was his favourite dish. If any one will bring +him to Mr. Stevenson's back area door, dead or alive, the greatest +rejoicing will be felt by a bereaved and uneasy family. + +Also, wherefore not a word, dear Colvin? My news is: splendid health; +great success of the _Black Arrow_; another tale demanded, readers this +time (the Lord lighten them!) pleased; a great variety of small ships +launched or still upon the stocks--(also, why not send the annotated +proof of _Fontainebleau_? ce n'est pas d'un bon camarade); a paper on +dogs for Carr;[7] a paper called _Old Mortality_, a paper called _A +Misadventure in France_, a tale entituled _The Travelling Companion_; +_Otto_ arrested one foot in air; and last and not least, a great demand +for news of Sidney Colvin and others. Herewith I pause, for why should I +cast pearls before swine? + +A word, Guardian Angel. You are much loved in this house, not by me +only, but by the wife. The Wogg himself is anxious.--Ever yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _La Solitude, Hyères [November 1883]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been bad, but as you were worse, I feel no +shame. I raise a blooming countenance, not the evidence of a +self-righteous spirit. + +I continue my uphill fight with the twin spirits of bankruptcy and +indigestion. Duns rage about my portal, at least to fancy's ear. + +I suppose you heard of Ferrier's death: my oldest friend, except Bob. It +has much upset me. I did not fancy how much. I am strangely concerned +about it. + +My house is the loveliest spot in the universe; the moonlight nights we +have are incredible; love, poetry and music, and the Arabian Nights, +inhabit just my corner of the world--nest there like mavises. + + Here lies + The carcase + of + Robert Louis Stevenson, + An active, austere, and not inelegant + writer, + who, + at the termination of a long career, + wealthy, wise, benevolent, and honoured by + the attention of two hemispheres, + yet owned it to have been his crowning favour + TO INHABIT + LA SOLITUDE. + +(with the consent of the intelligent edility of Hyères, he has been +interred, below this frugal stone, in the garden which he honoured for +so long with his poetic presence.) + +I must write more solemn letters. Adieu. Write. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. MILNE + + + This is to a cousin who had been one of his favourite playmates in + childhood, and had recognised some allusions in the proof slips of + the _Child's Garden_ (the piece called _A Pirate Story_). + + _La Solitude, Hyères [November 1883]._ + +MY DEAR HENRIETTA,--Certainly; who else would they be? More by token, on +that particular occasion, you were sailing under the title of Princess +Royal; I, after a furious contest, under that of Prince Alfred; and +Willie, still a little sulky, as the Prince of Wales. We were all in a +buck basket about half-way between the swing and the gate; and I can +still see the Pirate Squadron heave in sight upon the weather bow. + +I wrote a piece besides on Giant Bunker; but I was not happily inspired, +and it is condemned. Perhaps I'll try again; he was a horrid fellow, +Giant Bunker! and some of my happiest hours were passed in pursuit of +him. You were a capital fellow to play: how few there were who could! +None better than yourself. I shall never forget some of the days at +Bridge of Allan; they were one golden dream. See "A Good Boy" in the +_Penny Whistles_, much of the sentiment of which is taken direct from +one evening at B. of A. when we had had a great play with the little +Glasgow girl. Hallowed be that fat book of fairy tales! Do you remember +acting the Fair One with Golden Locks? What a romantic drama! Generally +speaking, whenever I think of play, it is pretty certain that you will +come into my head. I wrote a paper called _Child's Play_ once, where, I +believe, you or Willie would recognise things.... + +Surely Willie is just the man to marry; and if his wife wasn't a happy +woman, I think I could tell her who was to blame. Is there no word of +it? Well, these things are beyond arrangement; and the wind bloweth +where it listeth--which, I observe, is generally towards the west in +Scotland. Here it prefers a south-easterly course, and is called the +Mistral--usually with an adjective in front. But if you will remember my +yesterday's toothache and this morning's crick, you will be in a +position to choose an adjective for yourself. Not that the wind is +unhealthy; only when it comes strong, it is both very high and very +cold, which makes it the d-v-l. But as I am writing to a lady, I had +better avoid this topic; winds requiring a great scope of language. + +Please remember me to all at home; give Ramsay a pennyworth of +acidulated drops for his good taste.--And believe me, your affectionate +cousin, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + _La Solitude, Hyères [November 22, 1883]._ + +DEAR MISS FERRIER,--Many thanks for the photograph. It is---well, it is +like most photographs. The sun is an artist of too much renown; and, at +any rate, we who knew Walter "in the brave days of old" will be +difficult to please. + +I was inexpressibly touched to get a letter from some lawyers as to some +money. I have never had any account with my friends; some have gained +and some lost; and I should feel there was something dishonest in a +partial liquidation even if I could recollect the facts, _which I +cannot_. But the fact of his having put aside this memorandum touched me +greatly. + +The mystery of his life is great. Our chemist in this place, who had +been at Malvern, recognised the picture. You may remember Walter had a +romantic affection for all pharmacies? and the bottles in the window +were for him a poem? He said once that he knew no pleasure like driving +through a lamplit city, waiting for the chemists to go by. + +All these things return now. + +He had a pretty full translation of Schiller's _Æsthetic Letters_, which +we read together, as well as the second part of _Faust_, in Gladstone +Terrace, he helping me with the German. There is no keepsake I should +more value than the MS. of that translation. They were the best days I +ever had with him, little dreaming all would so soon be over. It needs a +blow like this to convict a man of mortality and its burthen. I always +thought I should go by myself; not to survive. But now I feel as if the +earth were undermined, and all my friends have lost one thickness of +reality since that one passed. Those are happy who can take it +otherwise; with that I found things all beginning to dislimn. Here we +have no abiding city, and one felt as though he had--and O too much +acted. + +But if you tell me, he did not feel my silence. However, he must have +done so; and my guilt is irreparable now. I thank God at least heartily +that he did not resent it. + +Please remember me to Sir Alexander and Lady Grant, to whose care I will +address this. When next I am in Edinburgh I will take flowers, alas! to +the West Kirk. Many a long hour we passed in graveyards, the man who has +gone and I--or rather not that man--but the beautiful, genial, witty +youth who so betrayed him.--Dear Miss Ferrier, I am yours most +sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + This refers to some dispute which had arisen with an editor (I forget + whom) concerning the refusal of an article on Salvini. The nickname + "Fastidious Brisk," from Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_, + was applied by Mr. Henley to Stevenson--very inappropriately as I + always thought. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, Autumn_ 1883. + +MY DEAR LAD,--You know your own business best; but I wish your honesty +were not so warfaring. These conflicts pain Lucretian sitters on the +shore; and one wonders--one wonders--wonders and whimpers. I do not say +my attitude is noble; but is yours conciliatory? I revere Salvini, but I +shall never see him--nor anybody--play again. That is all a matter of +history, heroic history, to me. Were I in London, I should be the liker +Tantalus--no more. But as for these quarrels: in not many years shall we +not all be clay-cold and safe below ground, you with your loud-mouthed +integrity, I with my fastidious briskness--and--with all their faults +and merits, swallowed in silence. It seems to me, in ignorance of cause, +that when the dustman has gone by, these quarrellings will prick the +conscience. Am I wrong? I am a great sinner; so, my brave friend, are +you; the others also. Let us a little imitate the divine patience and +the divine sense of humour, and smilingly tolerate those faults and +virtues that have so brief a period and so intertwined a being. + +I fear I was born a parson; but I live very near upon the margin +(though, by your leave, I may outlive you all!), and too much rigour in +these daily things sounds to me like clatter on the kitchen dishes. If +it might be--could it not be smoothed? This very day my father writes me +he has gone to see, upon his deathbed, an old friend to whom for years +he has not spoken or written. On his deathbed; no picking up of the lost +stitches; merely to say: my little fury, my spotted uprightness, after +having split our lives, have not a word of quarrel to say more. And the +same post brings me the news of another--War! Things in this troubled +medium are not so clear, dear Henley; there are faults upon all hands; +and the end comes, and Ferrier's grave gapes for us all. + + THE PROSY PREACHER + + (But written in deep dejection, my dear man). + +Suppose they _are_ wrong? Well, am I not tolerated, are you not +tolerated?--we and _our_ faults? + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, Var, 13th December 1883._ + +MY DEAR LOW,-- ... I was much pleased with what you said about my work. +Ill-health is a great handicapper in the race. I have never at command +that press of spirits that are necessary to strike out a thing red-hot. +_Silverado_ is an example of stuff worried and pawed about, God knows +how often, in poor health, and you can see for yourself the result: good +pages, an imperfect fusion, a certain languor of the whole. Not, in +short, art. I have told Roberts to send you a copy of the book when it +appears, where there are some fair passages that will be new to you. My +brief romance, _Prince Otto_--far my most difficult adventure up to +now--is near an end. I have still one chapter to write _de fond en +comble_, and three or four to strengthen or recast. The rest is done. I +do not know if I have made a spoon, or only spoiled a horn; but I am +tempted to hope the first. If the present bargain hold, it will not see +the light of day for some thirteen months. Then I shall be glad to know +how it strikes you. There is a good deal of stuff in it, both dramatic +and, I think, poetic; and the story is not like these purposeless fables +of to-day, but is, at least, intended to stand firm upon a base of +philosophy--or morals--as you please. It has been long gestated, and is +wrought with care. _Enfin, nous verrons._ My labours have this year for +the first time been rewarded with upwards of £350; that of itself, so +base we are! encourages me; and the better tenor of my health yet +more.--Remember me to Mrs. Low, and believe me, yours most sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, December 20, 1883._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I do not know which of us is to blame; I suspect it is +you this time. The last accounts of you were pretty good, I was pleased +to see; I am, on the whole, very well--suffering a little still from my +fever and liver complications, but better. + +I have just finished re-reading a book, which I counsel you above all +things _not_ to read, as it has made me very ill, and would make you +worse--Lockhart's _Scott_. It is worth reading, as all things are from +time to time that keep us nose to nose with fact; though I think such +reading may be abused, and that a great deal of life is better spent in +reading of a light and yet chivalrous strain. Thus, no Waverley novel +approaches in power, blackness, bitterness, and moral elevation to the +diary and Lockhart's narrative of the end; and yet the Waverley novels +are better reading for every day than the Life. You may take a tonic +daily, but not phlebotomy. + +The great double danger of taking life too easily, and taking it too +hard, how difficult it is to balance that! But we are all too little +inclined to faith; we are all, in our serious moments, too much inclined +to forget that all are sinners, and fall justly by their faults, and +therefore that we have no more to do with that than with the +thundercloud; only to trust, and do our best, and wear as smiling a face +as may be for others and ourselves. But there is no royal road among +this complicated business. Hegel the German got the best word of all +philosophy with his antinomies: the contrary of everything is its +postulate. That is, of course, grossly expressed, but gives a hint of +the idea, which contains a great deal of the mysteries of religion, and +a vast amount of the practical wisdom of life. For your part, there is +no doubt as to your duty--to take things easy and be as happy as you +can, for your sake, and my mother's, and that of many besides. Excuse +this sermon.--Ever your loving son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, December 25, 1883._ + +MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--This it is supposed will reach you about +Christmas, and I believe I should include Lloyd in the greeting. But I +want to lecture my father; he is not grateful enough; he is like Fanny; +his resignation is not the "true blue." A man who has gained a stone; +whose son is better, and, after so many fears to the contrary, I dare to +say, a credit to him; whose business is arranged; whose marriage is a +picture--what I should call resignation in such a case as his would be +to "take down his fiddle and play as lood as ever he could." That and +nought else. And now, you dear old pious ingrate, on this Christmas +morning, think what your mercies have been; and do not walk too far +before your breakfast--as far as to the top of India Street, then to the +top of Dundas Street, and then to your ain stair heid; and do not forget +that even as _laborare_, so _joculari_, _est orare_; and to be happy the +first step to being pious. + +I have as good as finished my novel, and a hard job it has been--but now +practically over, _laus deo_! My financial prospects better than ever +before; my excellent wife a touch dolorous, like Mr. Tommy; my Bogue +quite converted, and myself in good spirits. O, send Curry Powder per +Baxter. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _[La Solitude, Hyères] last Sunday of '83._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I give my father up. I give him a parable: that the +Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the tragic Life. +And he takes it backside foremost, and shakes his head, and is gloomier +than ever. Tell him that I give him up. I don't want no such a parent. +This is not the man for my money. I do not call that by the name of +religion which fills a man with bile. I write him a whole letter, +bidding him beware of extremes, and telling him that his gloom is +gallows-worthy; and I get back an answer--Perish the thought of it. + +Here am I on the threshold of another year, when, according to all human +foresight, I should long ago have been resolved into my elements; here +am I, who you were persuaded was born to disgrace you--and, I will do +you the justice to add, on no such insufficient grounds--no very burning +discredit when all is done; here am I married, and the marriage +recognised to be a blessing of the first order, A1 at Lloyd's. There is +he, at his not first youth, able to take more exercise than I at +thirty-three, and gaining a stone's weight, a thing of which I am +incapable. There are you; has the man no gratitude? There is +Smeoroch[8]: is he blind? Tell him from me that all this is + + NOT THE TRUE BLUE! + +I will think more of his prayers when I see in him a spirit of _praise_. +Piety is a more childlike and happy attitude than he admits. Martha, +Martha, do you hear the knocking at the door? But Mary was happy. Even +the Shorter Catechism, not the merriest epitome of religion, and a work +exactly as pious although not quite so true as the multiplication +table--even that dry-as-dust epitome begins with a heroic note. What is +man's chief end? Let him study that; and ask himself if to refuse to +enjoy God's kindest gifts is in the spirit indicated. Up, Dullard! It is +better service to enjoy a novel than to mump. + +I have been most unjust to the Shorter Catechism, I perceive. I wish to +say that I keenly admire its merits as a performance; and that all that +was in my mind was its peculiarly unreligious and unmoral texture; from +which defect it can never, of course, exercise the least influence on +the minds of children. But they learn fine style and some austere +thinking unconsciously.--Ever your loving son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var, January 1 (1884)._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--A Good New Year to you. The year closes, leaving me +with £50 in the bank, owing no man nothing, £100 more due to me in a +week or so, and £150 more in the course of the month; and I can look +back on a total receipt of £465, 0s. 6d. for the last twelve months! + +And yet I am not happy! + +Yet I beg! Here is my beggary:-- + + 1. Sellar's Trial. + 2. George Borrow's Book about Wales. + 3. My Grandfather's Trip to Holland. + 4. And (but this is, I fear, impossible) the Bell Rock Book. + +When I think of how last year began, after four months of sickness and +idleness, all my plans gone to water, myself starting alone, a kind of +spectre, for Nice--should I not be grateful? Come, let us sing unto the +Lord! + +Nor should I forget the expected visit, but I will not believe in that +till it befall; I am no cultivator of disappointments, 'tis a herb that +does not grow in my garden; but I get some good crops both of remorse +and gratitude. The last I can recommend to all gardeners; it grows best +in shiny weather, but once well grown, is very hardy; it does not +require much labour; only that the husbandman should smoke his pipe +about the flower-plots and admire God's pleasant wonders. Winter green +(otherwise known as Resignation, or the "false gratitude plant") springs +in much the same soil; is little hardier, if at all; and requires to be +so dug about and dunged, that there is little margin left for profit. +The variety known as the Black Winter green (H. V. Stevensoniana) is +rather for ornament than profit. + +"John, do you see that bed of resignation?"--"It's doin' bravely, +sir."--"John, I will not have it in my garden; it flatters not the eye +and comforts not the stomach; root it out."--"Sir, I ha'e seen o' them +that rase as high as nettles; gran' plants!"--"What then? Were they as +tall as alps, if still unsavoury and bleak, what matters it? Out with +it, then; and in its place put Laughter and a Good Conceit (that capital +home evergreen), and a bush of Flowering Piety--but see it be the +flowering sort--the other species is no ornament to any gentleman's Back +Garden." + + JNO. BUNYAN. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Early in January, Stevenson, after a week's visit at Hyères from his + friends Charles Baxter and W. E. Henley, accompanied them as far as + Nice, and there suddenly went down with an attack of acute + congestion, first of the lungs and then of the kidneys. At one moment + there seemed no hope, but he recovered slowly and returned to Hyères. + His friends had not written during his illness, fearing him to be too + far gone to care for letters. As he got better he began to chafe at + their silence. + + _[Hyères, February or March 1884]._ + + + TANDEM DESINO* + +I cannot read, work, sleep, lie still, walk, or even play patience. +These plagues will overtake all damned silencists; among whom, from this +day out, number + + Eructavit cor Timonis.** + + the fiery indignator + Roland Little Stevenson. + + I counted miseries by the heap, + But now have had my fill, + I cannot see, I do not sleep, + _But shortly I shall kill_. + + Of many letters, here is a + Full End. + + The last will and testament of + a demitting correspondent. + + My indefatigable pen + I here lay down forever. Men + Have used, and left me, and forgot; + Men are entirely off the spot; + Men are a _blague_ and an abuse; + And I commit them to the deuce! + + RODERICK LAMOND STEVENSON. + + I had companions, I had friends, + I had of whisky various blends. + The whisky was all drunk; and lo! + The friends were gone for evermo! + + * * * * * + + The loquacious man at peace.* + + And when I marked the ingratitude, + I to my maker turned, and spewed. + + RANDOLPH LOVEL STEVENSON. + + + A pen broken, a subverted ink-pot. + + Here endeth the Familiar Correspondence of R. L. S.** + + Explicuerunt Epistolae Stevensonianae Omnes.** + + All men are rot; but there are two-- + Sidney, the oblivious Slade, and you-- + Who from that rabble stand confest + Ten million times the rottenest. + + R. L. S. + + + When I was sick and safe in gaol + I thought my friends would never fail. + One wrote me nothing; t'other bard + Sent me an insolent post-card. + + R. L. S. + + + Terminus: Silentia.** + + FINIS Finaliter finium** + +IF NOBODY WRITES TO ME I SHALL DIE + +I now write no more. + + RICHARD LEFANU STEVENSON, + Duke of Indignation + + Mark Tacebo, Isaac Blood } + Secretary John Blind } + Vain-hope Go-to-bed } witnesses + Israel Sciatica } + + ----- + The finger on the mouth. + ----- + +* Originally reversed print. +** Originally sideways print. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The allusions in the second paragraph are to the commanders in the + Nile campaigns of those years. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, 9th March 1884._ + +MY DEAR S. C.,--You will already have received a not very sane note from +me; so your patience was rewarded--may I say, your patient silence? +However, now comes a letter, which on receipt, I thus acknowledge. + +I have already expressed myself as to the political aspect. About +Grahame, I feel happier; it does seem to have been really a good, neat, +honest piece of work. We do not seem to be so badly off for commanders: +Wolseley and Roberts, and this pile of Woods, Stewarts, Alisons, +Grahames, and the like. Had we but ONE statesman on any side of the +house! + +Two chapters of _Otto_ do remain: one to rewrite, one to create; and I +am not yet able to tackle them. For me it is my chief o' works; hence +probably not so for others, since it only means that I have here +attacked the greatest difficulties. But some chapters towards the end: +three in particular--I do think come off. I find them stirring, +dramatic, and not unpoetical. We shall see, however; as like as not, +the effort will be more obvious than the success. For, of course, I +strung myself hard to carry it out. The next will come easier, and +possibly be more popular. I believe in the covering of much paper, each +time with a definite and not too difficult artistic purpose; and then, +from time to time, drawing oneself up and trying, in a superior effort, +to combine the facilities thus acquired or improved. Thus one +progresses. But, mind, it is very likely that the big effort, instead of +being the masterpiece, may be the blotted copy, the gymnastic exercise. +This no man can tell; only the brutal and licentious public, snouting in +Mudie's wash-trough, can return a dubious answer. + +I am to-day, thanks to a pure heaven and a beneficent, loud-talking, +antiseptic mistral, on the high places as to health and spirits. Money +holds out wonderfully. Fanny has gone for a drive to certain meadows +which are now one sheet of jonquils: sea-bound meadows, the thought of +which may freshen you in Bloomsbury. "Ye have been fresh and fair, Ye +have been filled with flowers"--I fear I misquote. Why do people babble? +Surely Herrick, in his true vein, is superior to Martial himself, though +Martial is a very pretty poet. + +Did you ever read St. Augustine? The first chapters of the _Confessions_ +are marked by a commanding genius: Shakespearian in depth. I was struck +dumb, but, alas! when you begin to wander into controversy, the poet +drops out. His description of infancy is most seizing. And how is this: +"Sed majorum nugae negotia vocantur; puerorum autem talia cum sint +puniuntur a majoribus." Which is quite after the heart of R. L. S. See +also his splendid passage about the "luminosus limes amicitiae" and the +"nebulae de limosa concupiscentia carnis"; going on "_Utrumque_ in +confuso aestuabat et rapiebat imbecillam aetatem per abrupta +cupiditatum." That "Utrumque" is a real contribution to life's science. +Lust _alone_ is but a pigmy; but it never, or rarely, attacks us +single-handed. + +Do you ever read (to go miles off, indeed) the incredible Barbey +d'Aurévilly? A psychological Poe--to be for a moment Henley. I own with +pleasure I prefer him with all his folly, rot, sentiment, and mixed +metaphors, to the whole modern school in France. It makes me laugh when +it's nonsense; and when he gets an effect (though it's still nonsense +and mere Poëry, not poesy) it wakens me. _Ce qui ne meurt pas_ nearly +killed me with laughing, and left me--well, it left me very nearly +admiring the old ass. At least, it's the kind of thing one feels one +couldn't do. The dreadful moonlight, when they all three sit silent in +the room--by George, sir, it's imagined--and the brief scene between the +husband and wife is all there. _Quant au fond_, the whole thing, of +course, is a fever dream, and worthy of eternal laughter. Had the young +man broken stones, and the two women been hard-working honest +prostitutes, there had been an end of the whole immoral and baseless +business: you could at least have respected them in that case. + +I also read _Petronius Arbiter_, which is a rum work, not so immoral as +most modern works, but singularly silly. I tackled some Tacitus too. I +got them with a dreadful French crib on the same page with the text, +which helps me along and drives me mad. The French do not even try to +translate. They try to be much more classical than the classics, with +astounding results of barrenness and tedium. Tacitus, I fear, was too +solid for me. I liked the war part; but the dreary intriguing at Rome +was too much. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. DICK + + + This correspondent was for many years head clerk and confidential + assistant in the family firm at Edinburgh. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, 12th March 1884._ + +MY DEAR MR. DICK,--I have been a great while owing you a letter; but I +am not without excuses, as you have heard. I overworked to get a piece +of work finished before I had my holiday, thinking to enjoy it more; and +instead of that, the machinery near hand came sundry in my hands! like +Murdie's uniform. However, I am now, I think, in a fair way of recovery; +I think I was made, what there is of me, of whipcord and thorn-switches; +surely I am tough! But I fancy I shall not overdrive again, or not so +long. It is my theory that work is highly beneficial, but that it +should, if possible, and certainly for such partially broken-down +instruments as the thing I call my body, be taken in batches, with a +clear break and breathing space between. I always do vary my work, +laying one thing aside to take up another, not merely because I believe +it rests the brain, but because I have found it most beneficial to the +result. Reading, Bacon says, makes a full man, but what makes me full on +any subject is to banish it for a time from all my thoughts. However, +what I now propose is, out of every quarter to work two months, and rest +the third. I believe I shall get more done, as I generally manage, on my +present scheme, to have four months' impotent illness and two of +imperfect health--one before, one after, I break down. This, at least, +is not an economical division of the year. + +I re-read the other day that heartbreaking book, the _Life of Scott_. +One should read such works now and then, but O, not often. As I live, I +feel more and more that literature should be cheerful and +brave-spirited, even if it cannot be made beautiful and pious and +heroic. We wish it to be a green place; the Waverley Novels are better +to re-read than the over-true _Life_, fine as dear Sir Walter was. The +Bible, in most parts, is a cheerful book; it is our little piping +theologies, tracts, and sermons that are dull and dowie; and even the +Shorter Catechism, which is scarcely a work of consolation, opens with +the best and shortest and completest sermon ever written--upon Man's +chief end.--Believe me, my dear Mr. Dick, very sincerely yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--You see I have changed my hand. I was threatened apparently with +scrivener's cramp, and at any rate had got to write so small, that the +revisal of my MS. tried my eyes, hence my signature alone remains upon +the old model; for it appears that if I changed that, I should be cut +off from my "vivers." + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO COSMO MONKHOUSE + + + This amiable and excellent public servant, art-critic, and versifier + was a friend of old Savile Club days; the drift of his letter can + easily be guessed from this reply. The reference to Lamb is to the + essay on the Restoration dramatists. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, March 16, 1884._ + +MY DEAR MONKHOUSE,--You see with what promptitude I plunge into +correspondence; but the truth is, I am condemned to a complete inaction, +stagnate dismally, and love a letter. Yours, which would have been +welcome at any time, was thus doubly precious. + +Dover sounds somewhat shiveringly in my ears. You should see the weather +_I_ have--cloudless, clear as crystal, with just a punkah-draft of the +most aromatic air, all pine and gum tree. You would be ashamed of Dover; +you would scruple to refer, sir, to a spot so paltry. To be idle at +Dover is a strange pretension; pray, how do you warm yourself? If I were +there I should grind knives or write blank verse, or---- But at least +you do not bathe? It is idle to deny it: I have--I may say I nourish--a +growing jealousy of the robust, large-legged, healthy Britain-dwellers, +patient of grog, scorners of the timid umbrella, innocuously breathing +fog: all which I once was, and I am ashamed to say liked it. How +ignorant is youth! grossly rolling among unselected pleasures; and how +nobler, purer, sweeter, and lighter, to sip the choice tonic, to recline +in the luxurious invalid chair, and to tread, well-shawled, the little +round of the constitutional. Seriously, do you like to repose? Ye gods, +I hate it. I never rest with any acceptation; I do not know what people +mean who say they like sleep and that damned bedtime which, since long +ere I was breeched, has rung a knell to all my day's doings and beings. +And when a man, seemingly sane, tells me he has "fallen in love with +stagnation," I can only say to him, "You will never be a Pirate!" This +may not cause any regret to Mrs. Monkhouse; but in your own soul it will +clang hollow--think of it! Never! After all boyhood's aspirations and +youth's immoral day-dreams, you are condemned to sit down, grossly draw +in your chair to the fat board, and be a beastly Burgess till you die. +Can it be? Is there not some escape, some furlough from the Moral Law, +some holiday jaunt contrivable into a Better Land? Shall we never shed +blood? This prospect is too grey. + + Here lies a man who never did + Anything but what he was bid; + Who lived his life in paltry ease, + And died of commonplace disease. + +To confess plainly, I had intended to spend my life (or any leisure I +might have from Piracy upon the high seas) as the leader of a great +horde of irregular cavalry, devastating whole valleys. I can still, +looking back, see myself in many favourite attitudes; signalling for a +boat from my pirate ship with a pocket-handkerchief, I at the jetty end, +and one or two of my bold blades keeping the crowd at bay; or else +turning in the saddle to look back at my whole command (some five +thousand strong) following me at the hand-gallop up the road out of the +burning valley: this last by moonlight. + +_Et point du tout._ I am a poor scribe, and have scarce broken a +commandment to mention, and have recently dined upon cold veal! As for +you (who probably had some ambitions), I hear of you living at Dover, in +lodgings, like the beasts of the field. But in heaven, when we get +there, we shall have a good time, and see some real carnage. For heaven +is--must be--that great Kingdom of Antinomia, which Lamb saw dimly +adumbrated in the _Country Wife_, where the worm which never dies (the +conscience) peacefully expires, and the sinner lies down beside the Ten +Commandments. Till then, here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling, with +neither health nor vice for anything more spirited than procrastination, +which I may well call the Consolation Stakes of Wickedness; and by whose +diligent practice, without the least amusement to ourselves, we can rob +the orphan and bring down grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. + +This astonishing gush of nonsense I now hasten to close, envelope, and +expedite to Shakespeare's Cliff. Remember me to Shakespeare, and believe +me, yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + Mr. Gosse had written describing the office which he then occupied, a + picturesque old-fashioned chamber in the upper stories of the Board + of Trade. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, March 17, 1884._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--Your office--office is profanely said--your bower upon +the leads is divine. Have you, like Pepys, "the right to fiddle" there? +I see you mount the companion, barbiton in hand, and, fluttered about by +city sparrows, pour forth your spirit in a voluntary. Now when the +spring begins, you must lay in your flowers: how do you say about a +potted hawthorn? Would it bloom? Wallflower is a choice pot-herb; +lily-of-the-valley, too, and carnation, and Indian cress trailed about +the window, is not only beautiful by colour, but the leaves are good to +eat. I recommend thyme and rosemary for the aroma, which should not be +left upon one side; they are good quiet growths. + +On one of your tables keep a great map spread out; a chart is still +better--it takes one further--the havens with their little anchors, the +rocks, banks, and soundings, are adorably marine; and such furniture +will suit your ship-shape habitation. I wish I could see those cabins; +they smile upon me with the most intimate charm. From your leads, do you +behold St. Paul's? I always like to see the Foolscap; it is London _per +se_ and no spot from which it is visible is without romance. Then it is +good company for the man of letters, whose veritable nursing +Pater-Noster is so near at hand. + +I am all at a standstill; as idle as a painted ship, but not so pretty. +My romance, which has so nearly butchered me in the writing, not even +finished; though so near, thank God, that a few days of tolerable +strength will see the roof upon that structure. I have worked very hard +at it, and so do not expect any great public favour. _In moments of +effort, one learns to do the easy things that people like._ There is the +golden maxim; thus one should strain and then play, strain again and +play again. The strain is for us, it educates; the play is for the +reader, and pleases. Do you not feel so? We are ever threatened by two +contrary faults: both deadly. To sink into what my forefathers would +have called "rank conformity," and to pour forth cheap replicas, upon +the one hand; upon the other, and still more insidiously present, to +forget that art is a diversion and a decoration, that no triumph or +effort is of value, nor anything worth reaching except charm.--Yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + Soon after the date of the following letter Miss Ferrier went out to + her friends and stayed with them through the trying weeks which + followed. + + _La Solitude, Hyères_ [_March_ 22, 1884]. + +MY DEAR MISS FERRIER,--Are you really going to fail us? This seems a +dreadful thing. My poor wife, who is not well off for friends on this +bare coast, has been promising herself, and I have been promising her, a +rare acquisition. And now Miss Burn has failed, and you utter a very +doubtful note. You do not know how delightful this place is, nor how +anxious we are for a visit. Look at the names: "The Solitude"--is that +romantic? The palm-trees?--how is that for the gorgeous East? "Var"? the +name of a river--"the quiet waters by"! 'Tis true, they are in another +department, and consist of stones and a biennial spate; but what a +music, what a plash of brooks, for the imagination! We have hills; we +have skies; the roses are putting forth, as yet sparsely; the meadows by +the sea are one sheet of jonquils; the birds sing as in an English +May--for, considering we are in France and serve up our song-birds, I am +ashamed to say, on a little field of toast and with a sprig of thyme (my +own receipt) in their most innocent and now unvocal bellies--considering +all this, we have a wonderfully fair wood-music round this Solitude of +ours. What can I say more?--All this awaits you. _Kennst du das Land_, +in short.--Your sincere friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The verses enclosed were the set entitled "The Canoe Speaks," + afterwards printed in _Underwoods_. Stevenson was suffering at this + time from a temporary weakness of the eyesight. + + _La Solitude, Hyères [April 1884]._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--The blind man in these sprawled lines sends greeting. I +have been ill, as perhaps the papers told you. The news--"great +news--glorious news--sec-ond ed-ition!"--went the round in England. + +Anyway, I now thank you for your pictures, which, particularly the +Arcadian one, we all (Bob included, he was here sick-nursing me) much +liked. + +Herewith are a set of verses which I thought pretty enough to send to +press. Then I thought of the Manhattan, towards whom I have guilty and +compunctious feelings. Last, I had the best thought of all--to send them +to you in case you might think them suitable for illustration. It seemed +to me quite in your vein. If so, good; if not, hand them on to +Manhattan, Century, or Lippincott, at your pleasure, as all three desire +my work or pretend to. But I trust the lines will not go unattended. +Some riverside will haunt you; and O! be tender to my bathing girls. The +lines are copied in my wife's hand, as I cannot see to write otherwise +than with the pen of Cormoran, Gargantua, or Nimrod. Love to your +wife.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + +Copied it myself. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, April 19, 1884._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--Yesterday I very powerfully stated the _Hæresis +Stevensoniana_, or the complete body of divinity of the family +theologian, to Miss Ferrier. She was much impressed; so was I. You are a +great heresiarch; and I know no better. Whaur the devil did ye get thon +about the soap? Is it altogether your own? I never heard it elsewhere; +and yet I suspect it must have been held at some time or other, and if +you were to look up you would probably find yourself condemned by some +Council. + +I am glad to hear you are so well. The hear is excellent. The Cornhills +came; I made Miss Ferrier read us _Thrawn Janet_, and was quite bowled +over by my own works. _The Merry Men_ I mean to make much longer, with a +whole new dénouement, not yet quite clear to me. _The Story of a Lie_ I +must rewrite entirely also, as it is too weak and ragged, yet is worth +saving for the Admiral. Did I ever tell you that the Admiral was +recognised in America? + +When they are all on their legs this will make an excellent collection. + + +Has Davie never read _Guy Mannering_, _Rob Roy_, or _The Antiquary_? All +of which are worth three _Waverleys_. I think _Kenilworth_ better than +_Waverley_; _Nigel_, too; and _Quentin Durward_ about as good. But it +shows a true piece of insight to prefer _Waverley_, for it _is_ +different; and though not quite coherent, better worked in parts than +almost any other: surely more carefully. It is undeniable that the love +of the slap-dash and the shoddy grew upon Scott with success. Perhaps it +does on many of us, which may be the granite on which D.'s opinion +stands. However, I hold it, in Patrick Walker's phrase, for an "old, +condemned, damnable error." Dr. Simson was condemned by P. W. as being +"a bagful of" such. One of Patrick's amenities! + +Another ground there may be to D.'s opinion; those who avoid (or seek to +avoid) Scott's facility are apt to be continually straining and +torturing their style to get in more of life. And to many the extra +significance does not redeem the strain. + + DOCTOR STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyères, April 20th, 1884._ + +I have been really ill for two days, hemorrhage, weakness, extreme +nervousness that will not let me lie a moment, and damned sciatica o' +nights; but to-day I am on the recovery. Time; for I was miserable. It +is not often that I suffer, with all my turns and tumbles, from the +sense of serious illness; and I hate it, as I believe everybody does. +And then the combination of not being able to read, not being allowed to +speak, being too weak to write, and not wishing to eat, leaves a man +with some empty seconds. But I bless God, it's over now; to-day I am +much mended. + +Insatiable gulf, greedier than hell, and more silent than the woods of +Styx, have you or have you not lost the dedication to the _Child's +Garden_? Answer that plain question as otherwise I must try to tackle to +it once again. + +Sciatica is a word employed much by Shakespeare in a certain connection. +'Tis true, he was no physician, but as I read, he had smarted in his +day. I, too, do smart. And yet this keen soprano agony, these veins of +fire and bombshell explosions in the knee, are as nothing to a certain +dull, drowsy pain I had when my kidneys were congested at Nice; there +was death in that; the creak of Charon's rowlocks, and the miasmas of +the Styx. I may say plainly, much as I have lost the power of bearing +pain, I had still rather suffer much than die. Not only the love of life +grows on me, but the fear of certain odd end-seconds grows as well. 'Tis +a suffocating business, take it how you will; and Tyrrel and Forest only +bunglers. + +Well, this is an essay on death, or worse, on dying: to return to +daylight and the winds, I perceive I have grown to live too much in my +work and too little in life. 'Tis the dollars do it: the world is too +much. Whenever I think I would like to live a little, I hear the +butcher's cart resounding through the neighbourhood; and so to plunge +again. The fault is a good fault for me; to be able to do so, is to +succeed in life; and my life has been a huge success. I can live with +joy and without disgust in the art by which I try to support myself; I +have the best wife in the world; I have rather more praise and nearly as +much coin as I deserve; my friends are many and true-hearted. Sir, it is +a big thing in successes. And if mine anchorage lies something open to +the wind, Sciatica, if the crew are blind, and the captain spits blood, +one cannot have all, and I may be patched up again, who knows? "His +timbers yet are (indifferently) sound, and he may float again." + +Thanks for the word on _Silverado_.--Yours ever, + + THE SCIATICATED BARD. + + + + +TO TREVOR HADDON + + + The allusions to Skelt, the last of the designers and etchers of + cheap sheets illustrating the popular dramas and melodramas of the + day, will need no explanation to readers familiar with the essay _A + Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured_. + + _La Solitude, Hyères, April 23rd, 1884._ + +DEAR MR. HADDON,--I am pleased to see your hand again, and, waiting my +wife's return, to guess at some of the contents. For various things have +befallen me of late. First, as you see, I had to change my hand; lastly +I have fallen into a kind of blindness, and cannot read. This more +inclines me for something to do, to answer your letter before I have +read it, a safe plan familiar to diplomatists. + +I gather from half shut eyes that you were a Skeltist; now seriously +that is a good beginning; there is a deal of romance (cheap) in Skelt. +Look at it well, and you will see much of Dickens. And even Skelt is +better than conscientious, grey back-gardens, and conscientious, dull +still lives. The great lack of art just now is a spice of life and +interest; and I prefer galvanism to acquiescence in the grave. All do +not; 'tis an affair of tastes; and mine are young. Those who like death +have their innings to-day with art that is like mahogany and horse-hair +furniture, solid, true, serious and as dead as Cæsar. I wish I could +read _Treasure Island_; I believe I should like it. But work done, for +the artist, is the Golden Goose killed; you sell its feathers and lament +the eggs. To-morrow the fresh woods! + +I have been seriously ill, and do not pick up with that finality that I +should like to see. I linger over and digest my convalescence like a +favourite wine; and what with blindness, green spectacles, and +seclusion, cut but a poor figure in the world. + +I made out at the end that you were asking some advice--but what, my +failing eyes refuse to inform me. I must keep a sheet for the answer; +and Mrs. Stevenson still delays, and still I have no resource against +tedium but the waggling of this pen. + +You seem to me to be a pretty lucky young man; keep your eyes open to +your mercies. That part of piety is eternal; and the man who forgets to +be grateful has fallen asleep in life. Please to recognise that you are +unworthy of all that befalls you--unworthy, too, I hear you wail, of +this terrible sermon; but indeed we are not worthy of our fortunes; love +takes us in a counterfeit, success comes to us at play, health stays +with us while we abuse her; and even when we gird at our fellow-men, we +should remember that it is of their good will alone, that we still live +and still have claims to honour. The sins of the most innocent, if they +were exactly visited, would ruin them to the doer. And if you know any +man who believes himself to be worthy of a wife's love, a friend's +affection, a mistress's caress, even if venal, you may rest assured he +is worthy of nothing but a kicking. I fear men who have no open faults; +what do they conceal? We are not meant to be good in this world, but to +try to be, and fail, and keep on trying; and when we get a cake to say, +"Thank God!" and when we get a buffet, to say, "Just so: well hit!" + +I have been getting some of the buffets of late; but have amply earned +them--you need not pity me. Pity sick children and the individual poor +man; not the mass. Don't pity anybody else, and never pity fools. The +optimistic Stevenson; but there is a sense in these wanderings. + +Now I have heard your letter, and my sermon was not mal-à-propos. For +you seem to be complaining. Everybody's home is depressing, I believe; +it is their difficult business to make it less so. There is an +unpleasant saying, which would have pricked me sharply at your +age.--Yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO COSMO MONKHOUSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyères [April 24, 1884]._ + +DEAR MONKHOUSE,--If you are in love with repose, here is your occasion: +change with me. I am too blind to read, hence no reading; I am too weak +to walk, hence no walking; I am not allowed to speak, hence no talking; +but the great simplification has yet to be named; for, if this goes on, +I shall soon have nothing to eat--and hence, O Hallelujah! hence no +eating. The offer is a fair one: I have not sold myself to the devil, +for I could never find him. I am married, but so are you. I sometimes +write verses, but so do you. Come! _Hic quies!_ As for the commandments, +I have broken them so small that they are the dust of my chambers; you +walk upon them, triturate and toothless; and with the Golosh of +Philosophy, they shall not bite your heel. True, the tenement is +falling. Ay, friend, but yours also. Take a larger view; what is a year +or two? dust in the balance! 'Tis done, behold you Cosmo Stevenson, and +me R. L. Monkhouse; you at Hyères, I in London; you rejoicing in the +clammiest repose, me proceeding to tear your tabernacle into rags, as I +have already so admirably torn my own. + +My place to which I now introduce you--it is yours--is like a London +house, high and very narrow; upon the lungs I will not linger; the heart +is large enough for a ballroom; the belly greedy and inefficient; the +brain stocked with the most damnable explosives, like a dynamiter's den. +The whole place is well furnished, though not in a very pure taste; +Corinthian much of it; showy and not strong. + +About your place I shall try to find my way above, an interesting +exploration. Imagine me, as I go to bed, falling over a blood-stained +remorse; opening that cupboard in the cerebellum and being welcomed by +the spirit of your murdered uncle. I should probably not like your +remorses; I wonder if you will like mine; I have a spirited assortment; +they whistle in my ear o' nights like a north-easter. I trust yours +don't dine with the family; mine are better mannered; you will hear +nought of them till 2 A.M., except one, to be sure, that I have made a +pet of, but he is small; I keep him in buttons, so as to avoid +commentaries; you will like him much--if you like what is genuine. + +Must we likewise change religions? Mine is a good article, with a trick +of stopping; cathedral bell note; ornamental dial; supported by Venus +and the Graces; quite a summer-parlour piety. Of yours, since your last, +I fear there is little to be said. + +There is one article I wish to take away with me: my spirits. They suit +me. I don't want yours; I like my own; I have had them a long while in +bottle. It is my only reservation.--Yours (as you decide), + + R. L. MONKHOUSE. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyères [May 1884]._ + +DEAR BOY,--_Old Mortality_[9] is out, and I am glad to say Coggie likes +it. We like her immensely. + +I keep better, but no great shakes yet; cannot work--cannot: that is +flat, not even verses: as for prose, that more active place is shut on +me long since. + +My view of life is essentially the comic; and the romantically comic. +_As You Like It_ is to me the most bird-haunted spot in letters; +_Tempest_ and _Twelfth Night_ follow. These are what I mean by poetry +and nature. I make an effort of my mind to be quite one with Molière, +except upon the stage, where his inimitable _jeux de scène_ beggar +belief; but you will observe they are stage-plays--things _ad hoc_; not +great Olympian debauches of the heart and fancy; hence more perfect, and +not so great. Then I come, after great wanderings, to Carmosine and to +Fantasio; to one part of La Dernière Aldini (which, by the by, we might +dramatise in a week), to the notes that Meredith has found, Evan and the +postillion, Evan and Rose, Harry in Germany. And to me these things are +the good; beauty, touched with sex and laughter; beauty with God's earth +for the background. Tragedy does not seem to me to come off; and when it +does, it does so by the heroic illusion; the anti-masque has been +omitted; laughter, which attends on all our steps in life, and sits by +the deathbed, and certainly redacts the epitaph, laughter has been lost +from these great-hearted lies. But the comedy which keeps the beauty and +touches the terrors of our life (laughter and tragedy-in-a-good-humour +having kissed), that is the last word of moved representation; embracing +the greatest number of elements of fate and character; and telling its +story, not with the one eye of pity, but with the two of pity and mirth. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + Early in May Stevenson again fell very dangerously ill with + hemorrhage of the lungs, and lay for several weeks between life and + death, until towards the end of June he was brought sufficiently + round to venture by slow stages on the journey to England, staying + for two or three weeks at Royat on the way. His correspondent had + lately been appointed Clark Reader in English Literature at Trinity + College, Cambridge. + + _[La Solitude, Hyères] From my bed, May 29, 1884._ + +DEAR GOSSE,--The news of the Professorate found me in the article +of--well, of heads or tails; I am still in bed, and a very poor person. +You must thus excuse my damned delay; but, I assure you, I was +delighted. You will believe me the more, if I confess to you that my +first sentiment was envy; yes, sir, on my blood-boltered couch I envied +the professor. However, it was not of long duration; the double thought +that you deserved and that you would thoroughly enjoy your success fell +like balsam on my wounds. How came it that you never communicated my +rejection of Gilder's offer for the Rhone? But it matters not. Such +earthly vanities are over for the present. This has been a fine +well-conducted illness. A month in bed; a month of silence; a fortnight +of not stirring my right hand; a month of not moving without being +lifted. Come! _Ça y est_: devilish like being dead.--Yours, dear +Professor, academically, + + R. L. S. + + +I am soon to be moved to Royat; an invalid valet goes with me! I got him +cheap--second-hand. + +In turning over my late friend Ferrier's commonplace book, I find three +poems from _Viol and Flute_ copied out in his hand: "When Flower-time," +"Love in Winter," and "Mistrust." They are capital too. But I thought +the fact would interest you. He was no poetist either; so it means the +more. "Love in W.!" I like the best. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Enclosing some supplementary verses for the _Child's Garden_. + + _Marseilles, June 1884._ + +DEAR S. C.,--Are these four in time? No odds about order. I am at +Marseille and stood the journey wonderfully. Better address Hotel +Chabassière, Royat, Puy de Dôme. You see how this d--d poeshie flows +from me in sickness: Are they good or bad? Wha kens? But I like the +_Little Land_, I think, as well as any. As time goes on I get more fancy +in. We have no money, but a valet and a maid. The valet is no end; how +long can you live on a valet? Vive le valet! I am tempted to call myself +a valetudinarian. I love my love with a V because he is a +Valetudinarian; I took him to Valetta or Valais, gave him his Vails and +tenderly addressed him with one word, + + Vale. + + +_P.S._--It does not matter of course about order. As soon as I have all +the slips I shall organise the book for the publisher. A set of 8 will +be put together under the title _An Only Child_; another cycle of 10 +will be called _In the Garden_, and other six called _Bedtime_ to end +all up. It will now make quite a little volume of a good way upwards of +100 pp. Will you instruct Bain to send me a Bible; of a type that I can +read without blindness; the better if with notes; there is a Clarendon +Press Bible, pray see it yourself. I also want Ewald's History in a +translation. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The play of _Deacon Brodie_, the joint work of R. L. S. and W. E. H., + was to be performed in London early in July. + + [_Hotel Chabassière, Royat, July 1884._] + +DEAR S. C.,--Books received with great thanks. Very nice books, though I +see you underrate my cecity: I could no more read their beautiful Bible +than I could sail in heaven. However I have sent for another and can +read the rest for patience. + +I quite understand your feelings about the _Deacon_, which is a far way +behind; but I get miserable when I think of Henley cutting this splash +and standing, I fear, to lose a great deal of money. It is about Henley, +not Brodie, that I care. I fear my affections are not strong to my past +works; they are blotted out by others; and anyhow the _Deacon_ is damn +bad. + +I am half asleep and can no more discourse. Say to your friends, "Look +here, some friends of mine are bringing out a play; it has some stuff; +suppose you go and see it." But I know I am a cold, unbelieving fellow, +incapable of those hot claps that honour you and Henley and therefore--I +am asleep. _Child's Garden_ (first instalment) come. Fanny ill; self +asleep. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Hotel Chabassière, Royat [July 1884]._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--The weather has been demoniac; I have had a skiff of +cold, and was finally obliged to take to bed entirely; to-day, however, +it has cleared, the sun shines, and I begin to + + * * * * * + +_Several days after._--I have been out once, but now am back in bed. I +am better, and keep better, but the weather is a mere injustice. The +imitation of Edinburgh is, at times, deceptive; there is a note among +the chimney pots that suggests Howe Street; though I think the shrillest +spot in Christendom was not upon the Howe Street side, but in front, +just under the Miss Graemes' big chimney stack. It had a fine alto +character--a sort of bleat that used to divide the marrow in my +joints--say in the wee, slack hours. That music is now lost to us by +rebuilding; another air that I remember, not regret, was the solo of the +gas-burner in the little front room; a knickering, flighty, fleering, +and yet spectral cackle. I mind it above all on winter afternoons, late, +when the window was blue and spotted with rare rain-drops, and, looking +out, the cold evening was seen blue all over, with the lamps of Queen's +and Frederick's Street dotting it with yellow, and flaring eastward in +the squalls. Heavens, how unhappy I have been in such circumstances--I, +who have now positively forgotten the colour of unhappiness; who am full +like a fed ox, and dull like a fresh turf, and have no more spiritual +life, for good or evil, than a French bagman. + +We are at Chabassière's, for of course it was nonsense to go up the hill +when we could not walk. + +The child's poems in a far extended form are likely soon to be heard +of--which Cummy I dare say will be glad to know. They will make a book +of about one hundred pages.--Ever your affectionate, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + I had reported to Stevenson a remark made by one of his greatest + admirers, Sir E. Burne-Jones, on some particular analogy, I forget + what, between a passage of Defoe and one in _Treasure Island_. + + [_Hotel Chabassière, Royat, July 1884._] + +... Here is a quaint thing, I have read _Robinson_, _Colonel Jack_, +_Moll Flanders_, _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, _History of the Plague_, +_History of the Great Storm_, _Scotch Church and Union_. And there my +knowledge of Defoe ends--except a book, the name of which I forget, +about Peterborough in Spain, which Defoe obviously did not write, and +could not have written if he wanted. To which of these does B. J. refer? +I guess it must be the history of the Scottish Church. I jest; for, of +course, I _know_ it must be a book I have never read, and which this +makes me keen to read--I mean _Captain Singleton_. Can it be got and +sent to me? If _Treasure Island_ is at all like it, it will be +delightful. I was just the other day wondering at my folly in not +remembering it, when I was writing _T. I._, as a mine for pirate tips. +_T. I._ came out of Kingsley's _At Last_, where I got the Dead Man's +Chest--and that was the seed--and out of the great Captain Johnson's +_History of Notorious Pirates_. The scenery is Californian in part, and +in part _chic_. + +I was downstairs to-day! So now I am a made man--till the next time. + + R. L. STEVENSON. + +If it was _Captain Singleton_, send it to me, won't you? + + +_Later._--My life dwindles into a kind of valley of the shadow picnic. I +cannot read; so much of the time (as to-day) I must not speak above my +breath, that to play patience, or to see my wife play it, is become the +be-all and the end-all of my dim career. To add to my gaiety, I may +write letters, but there are few to answer. Patience and Poesy are thus +my rod and staff; with these I not unpleasantly support my days. + +I am very dim, dumb, dowie, and damnable. I hate to be silenced; and if +to talk by signs is my forte (as I contend), to understand them cannot +be my wife's. Do not think me unhappy; I have not been so for years; but +I am blurred, inhabit the debatable frontier of sleep, and have but dim +designs upon activity. All is at a standstill; books closed, paper put +aside, the voice, the eternal voice of R. L. S., well silenced. Hence +this plaint reaches you with no very great meaning, no very great +purpose, and written part in slumber by a heavy, dull, somnolent, +superannuated son of a bedpost. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + I suppose, but cannot remember, that I had in the meantime sent him + _Captain Singleton_. + + [_Hotel Chabassière, Royat, July 1884._] + +DEAR BOY,--I am glad that ---- ---- has disappointed you. Depend upon +it, nobody is so bad as to be worth scalping, except your dearest +friends and parents; and scalping them may sometimes be avoided by +scalping yourself. I grow daily more lymphatic and benign; bring me a +dynamiter, that I may embrace and bless him!--So, if I continue to evade +the friendly hemorrhage, I shall be spared in anger to pour forth senile +and insignificant volumes, and the clever lads in the journals, not +doubting of the eye of Nemesis, shall mock and gird at me. + +All this seems excellent news of the _Deacon_. But O! that the last +tableau, on from Leslie's entrance, were re-written! We had a great +opening there and missed it. I read for the first time _Captain +Singleton_; it has points; and then I re-read _Colonel Jack_ with +ecstasy; the first part is as much superior to _Robinson Crusoe_ as +_Robinson_ is to--_The Inland Voyage_. It is pretty, good, +philosophical, dramatic, and as picturesque as a promontory goat in a +gale of wind. Get it and fill your belly with honey. + +Fanny hopes to be in time for the _Deacon_. I was out yesterday, and +none the worse. We leave Monday. + + R. L. S. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] For many years fellow of and historical lecturer at Trinity + College, Cambridge. + + [2] _Paillon._ + + [3] The name of the Delectable Land in one of Heine's _Lieder_. + + [4] _Silverado Squatters_. + + [5] The allusion is to a specimen I had been used to hear quoted of + the Duke of Wellington's table-talk in his latter years. He had said + that musk-rats were sometimes kept alive in bottles in India. Curate, + or other meek dependent: "I presume, your Grace, they are small rats + and large bottles." His Grace: "No, large rats, small bottles; large + rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles." + + [6] _Croûtes_: crude studies from nature. + + [7] Mr. J. Comyns Carr, at this time editing the English Illustrated + Magazine. + + [8] A favourite Skye terrier. Mr. Stevenson was a great lover of dogs. + + [9] The essay so called, suggested by the death of J. W. Ferrier. See + _Memories and Portraits_. + + + + +VIII + +LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH + +SEPTEMBER 1884--AUGUST 1887 + + +Arriving in England at the end of July 1884, Stevenson took up his +quarters first for a few weeks at Richmond. He was compelled to abandon +the hope of making his permanent home at Hyères, partly by the renewed +failure there of his own health, partly by a bad outbreak of cholera +which occurred in the old Provençal town about the time he left it. +After consultation with several doctors, all of whom held out hopes of +ultimate recovery despite the gravity of his present symptoms, he moved +to Bournemouth. Here he found in the heaths and pinewoods some distant +semblance of the landscape of his native Scotland, and in the sandy +curves of the Channel coast a passable substitute for the bays and +promontories of his beloved Mediterranean. At all events, he liked the +place well enough to be willing to try it for a home; and such it became +for all but three years, from September 1884 to August 1887. These, +although in the matter of health the worst and most trying years of his +life, were in the matter of work some of the most active and successful. +For the first two or three months the Stevensons occupied a lodging on +the West Cliff called Wensleydale; for the next five, from mid-November +1884 to mid-April 1885, they were tenants of a house named Bonallie +Towers, pleasantly situated amid the pinewoods of Branksome Park, and +by its name recalling familiar Midlothian associations. Lastly, about +Easter 1885, they entered into occupation of a house of their own, given +by the elder Mr. Stevenson as a special gift to his daughter-in-law, and +renamed by its new occupants Skerryvore, in reminiscence of one of the +great lighthouse works carried out by the family firm off the Scottish +coast. + +During all the time of Stevenson's residence at Bournemouth he was +compelled to lead the life, irksome to him above all men, but borne with +invincible spirit and patience, of a chronic invalid and almost constant +prisoner to the house. A great part of his time had perforce to be spent +in bed, and there almost all his literary work was produced. Often for +days, and sometimes for whole weeks together, he was forbidden to speak +aloud, and compelled to carry on conversation with his family and +friends in whispers or with the help of pencil and paper. The few +excursions to a distance which he attempted--most commonly to my house +at the British Museum, once to Cambridge, once to Matlock, once to +Exeter, and once in 1886 as far as Paris--these excursions generally +ended in a breakdown and a hurried retreat to home and bed. +Nevertheless, he was able in intervals of comparative ease to receive +and enjoy the visits of friends from a distance both old and new--among +the most welcome of the latter being Mr. Henry James, Mr. William +Archer, and Mr. John S. Sargent; while among Bournemouth residents who +attached themselves to him on terms of special intimacy and affection +were Sir Percy and Lady Shelley and Sir Henry and Lady Taylor and their +daughters. + +At the same time, seizing and making the most of every week, nay, every +day and hour of respite, he contrived to produce work surprising, under +the circumstances, alike by quantity and quality. During the first two +months of his life at Bournemouth the two plays _Admiral Guinea_ and +_Beau Austin_ were written in collaboration with Mr. Henley, and many +other dramatic schemes were broached which health and leisure failed him +to carry out. In the course of the next few months he finished _Prince +Otto_, _The Child's Garden of Verses_, and _More New Arabian Nights_, +all three of which had been begun, and the two first almost completed, +before he left Hyères. He at the same time attacked two new tasks--a +highway novel called _The Great North Road_, and a _Life of Wellington_ +for a series edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, both of which he had in the +sequel to abandon; and a third, the boys' story of _Kidnapped_, which in +its turn had to be suspended, but on its publication next year turned +out one of the most brilliant of his successes. + +About midsummer of this year, 1885, he was distressed by the sudden +death of his old and kind friend Professor Fleeming Jenkin, and after a +while undertook the task of writing a memoir of him to be prefixed to +his collected papers. Towards the close of the same year he was busy +with what proved to be the most popular of all his writings, _The +Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, and with the Christmas story +of _Olalla_. _Jekyll and Hyde_ was published in January 1886, and after +threatening for the first week or two to fall flat, in no long time +caught the attention of all classes of readers, was quoted from a +hundred pulpits, and made the writer's name familiar to multitudes both +in England and America whom it had never reached before. A success +scarcely inferior, though of another kind, was made a few months +afterwards by _Kidnapped_, which Stevenson had taken up again in the +early spring, and which was published about midsummer. After completing +this task in March, he was able to do little work during the remainder +of the year, except in preparing materials for the _Life of Fleeming +Jenkin_, and in writing occasional verses which helped to make up the +collection published in the following year under the title _Underwoods_. +In the early autumn of the same year, 1886, he took a longer and more +successful excursion from home than usual, staying without breakdown for +two or three weeks at the Monument, as he always called my house at the +British Museum, and seeing something of kindred spirits among his +elders, such as Robert Browning, James Russell Lowell, the painters +Burne-Jones and W. B. Richmond, and others who had hitherto delighted in +his work and now learned to delight no less in his society. + +Thence he went with Mr. Henley for a short trip to Paris, chiefly in +order to see the sculptor Rodin and his old friends Mr. and Mrs. W. H. +Low. From this trip he returned none the worse, but during all the later +autumn and winter at Bournemouth was again hampered in his work by +renewed and prolonged attacks of illness. A further cause of trouble was +the distressing failure of his father's health and spirits, attended by +symptoms which plainly indicated the beginning of the end. + +For some weeks of April, 1887, he was much taken up with a scheme which +had nothing to do with literature, and which the few friends to whom he +confided it regarded as wildly Quixotic and unwise. In these years he +had, as we have seen, taken deeply to heart both what he thought the +guilty remissness of Government action in the matter of the Soudan +garrisons and of Gordon, and the tameness of acquiescence with which the +national conscience appeared to take the result. He had been not less +disturbed at the failure, hitherto, of successive administrations to +assert the reign of law in Ireland. He was no blind partisan of the +English cause in that country, and had even written of the hereditary +hatred of Irish for English as a sentiment justified by the facts of +history. But he held strongly that private warfare, the use of dynamite +and the knife, with the whole system of agrarian vengeances and the +persecution of the weak, were means which no end could justify; and that +redress of grievances, whatever form it might ultimately take, must be +preceded by the re-establishment of law. In _More New Arabian Nights_, +published the year before, he had endeavoured "to make dynamite +ridiculous if he could not make it horrible," and to the old elements of +fantastic invention, and humorously solemn realism in the unreal, had +added the new element of a witty and scornful criminal psychology. A +case that now appealed to him with especial force was that of the cruel +persecution kept up against the widow and daughters of the murdered man +Curtin. He determined that if no one else would take up the duty of +resisting such persecution without regard to consequences, he would take +it up himself, in the hope of more effectually rousing the public +conscience to the evils of the time. His plan was to go with his family, +occupy and live upon the derelict farm, and let happen what would. This, +as the letters referring to the matter plainly show, was no +irresponsible dream or whim, but a purpose conceived in absolute and +sober earnest. His wife and household were prepared to follow, though +under protest, had he persisted; as it seemed for some weeks that he +certainly would, until at last the arguments of his friends, and still +more the unmistakable evidence that his father's end was near, +persuaded him to give up his purpose. But to the last, I think he was +never well satisfied that in giving way he had not been a coward, +preferring fireside ease and comfort to the call of a public duty. + +After spending a part of the winter at Bournemouth and a part at +Torquay, both Stevenson's parents returned to Edinburgh in April 1887; +and within a few weeks after their arrival he was summoned north to his +father's death-bed. He stayed at Edinburgh the short time necessary for +the dispatch of business, and returned to his own sick-room life at +Skerryvore. + +During the two years and nine months of Stevenson's residence at +Bournemouth, preceding the date of his father's death, he had made no +apparent progress towards recovery. Every period of respite had been +quickly followed by a relapse, and all his work, brilliant and varied as +it was, had been done under conditions which would have reduced almost +any other man to inactivity. The close and frequently recurring +struggles against the danger of death from hemorrhage and exhaustion, +which he had been used, when they first occurred, to find exciting, grew +in the long run merely irksome; and even his persistent high courage and +gaiety, sustained as they were by the devoted affection of his wife and +many friends, began occasionally, for the first time, to fail him. +Accordingly, when in May 1887 the death of his father severed the +strongest of the ties which bound him to the old country, he was very +ready to listen to the advice of his physicians, who were unanimous in +thinking his case not hopeless, but urged him to try some complete +change of climate, surroundings, and mode of life. His wife's +connections pointing to the West, he thought of the mountain +health-resorts of Colorado, and of their growing reputation for the +cure of lung patients. Having let his house at Bournemouth, he +accordingly took passage on board the S.S. _Ludgate Hill_, sailing for +New York from London on August 21st, 1887, with his whole party, +consisting of his wife, his widowed mother, whom they had persuaded to +join them, his young stepson, and a trusted servant, Valentine Roch. The +concluding letters of the present section tell of the preparations for +this departure. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Wensleydale, Bournemouth, Sunday, 28th September 1884._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--I keep better, and am to-day downstairs for the first +time. I find the lockers entirely empty; not a cent to the front. Will +you pray send us some? It blows an equinoctial gale, and has blown for +nearly a week. Nimbus Britannicus; piping wind, lashing rain; the sea is +a fine colour, and wind-bound ships lie at anchor under the Old Harry +rocks, to make one glad to be ashore. + +The Henleys are gone, and two plays practically done. I hope they may +produce some of the ready.--I am, ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ANDREW CHATTO + + + During the earlier Bournemouth days were firmly established + Stevenson's cordial relations with the several English publishers + Cassell & Co., Chatto & Windus, and Longmans, and a little later with + C. Scribner's Sons in America. + + _Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October 3, 1884._ + +DEAR MR. CHATTO,--I have an offer of £25 for _Otto_ from America. I do +not know if you mean to have the American rights; from the nature of the +contract, I think not; but if you understood that you were to sell the +sheets, I will either hand over the bargain to you, or finish it myself +and hand you over the money if you are pleased with the amount. You see, +I leave this quite in your hands. To parody an old Scotch story of +servant and master: if you don't know that you have a good author, I +know that I have a good publisher. Your fair, open, and handsome +dealings are a good point in my life, and do more for my crazy health +than has yet been done by any doctor.--Very truly yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + There is no certain clue to the date of the following; neither has it + been possible to make sure what was the enclosure mentioned. The + special illness referred to seems to be that of the preceding May at + Hyères. + + [_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October 1884?_] + +DEAR BOY,--I trust this finds you well; it leaves me so-so. The weather +is so cold that I must stick to bed, which is rotten and tedious, but +can't be helped. + +I find in the blotting book the enclosed, which I wrote to you the eve +of my blood. Is it not strange? That night, when I naturally thought I +was coopered, the thought of it was much in my mind; I thought it had +gone; and I thought what a strange prophecy I had made in jest, and how +it was indeed like to be the end of many letters. But I have written a +good few since, and the spell is broken. I am just as pleased, for I +earnestly desire to live. This pleasant middle age into whose port we +are steering is quite to my fancy. I would cast anchor here, and go +ashore for twenty years and see the manners of the place. Youth was a +great time, but somewhat fussy. Now in middle age (bar lucre) all seems +mighty placid. It likes me; I spy a little bright café in one corner of +the port, in front of which I now propose we should sit down. There is +just enough of the bustle of the harbour and no more; and the ships are +close in, regarding us with stern-windows--the ships that bring deals +from Norway and parrots from the Indies. Let us sit down here for twenty +years, with a packet of tobacco and a drink, and talk of art and women. +By-and-by, the whole city will sink, and the ships too, and the table, +and we also; but we shall have sat for twenty years and had a fine talk; +and by that time, who knows? exhausted the subject. + +I send you a book which (or I am mistook) will please you; it pleased +me. But I do desire a book of adventure--a romance--and no man will get +or write me one. Dumas I have read and re-read too often; Scott, too and +I am short. I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to begin in a +good way; a book, I guess, like _Treasure Island_, alas! which I have +never read, and cannot though I live to ninety. I would God that some +one else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is the very book +for my complaint. I like the way I hear it opens; and they tell me John +Silver is good fun. And to me it is, and must ever be, a dream +unrealised, a book unwritten. O my sighings after romance, or even +Skeltery, and O! the weary age which will produce me neither! + + +CHAPTER I + +The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The single horseman, +cloaked and booted, who pursued his way across Willesden Common, had not +met a traveller, when the sound of wheels---- + + +CHAPTER I + +"Yes, sir," said the old pilot, "she must have dropped into the bay a +little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks." + +"She shows no colours," returned the young gentleman musingly. + +"They're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark," resumed the old salt. +"We shall soon know more of her." + +"Ay," replied the young gentleman called Mark, "and here, Mr. Seadrift, +comes your sweet daughter Nancy tripping down the cliff." + +"God bless her kind heart, sir," ejaculated old Seadrift. + + +CHAPTER I + +The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great +house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties +finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from +one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little did he +think what strange adventures were to befall him!---- + +That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead. + + What should be: What is: + The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy. + Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece. + Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THE REV. PROFESSOR LEWIS CAMPBELL + + + In reply to a gift of books, including the correspondent's well-known + translation of Sophocles. + + [_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._] + +MY DEAR CAMPBELL,--The books came duly to hand. My wife has occupied the +translation ever since, nor have I yet been able to dislodge her. As for +the primer, I have read it with a very strange result: that I find no +fault. If you knew how, dogmatic and pugnacious, I stand warden on the +literary art, you would the more appreciate your success and my--well, I +will own it--disappointment. For I love to put people right (or wrong) +about the arts. But what you say of Tragedy and of Sophocles very amply +satisfies me; it is well felt and well said; a little less technically +than it is my weakness to desire to see it put, but clear and adequate. +You are very right to express your admiration for the resource displayed +in Oedipus King; it is a miracle. Would it not have been well to mention +Voltaire's interesting onslaught, a thing which gives the best lesson of +the difference of neighbour arts?--since all his criticisms, which had +been fatal to a narrative, do not amount among them to exhibit one flaw +in this masterpiece of drama. For the drama, it is perfect; though such +a fable in a romance might make the reader crack his sides, so +imperfect, so ethereally slight is the verisimilitude required of these +conventional, rigid, and egg-dancing arts. + +I was sorry to see no more of you; but shall conclude by hoping for +better luck next time. My wife begs to be remembered to both of +you.--Yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The "Arabs" mentioned below are the stories comprised in the volume + _More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter_, written by Stevenson and + his wife in collaboration. + + _Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._ + +DEAR HENLEY,--We are all to pieces in health, and heavily handicapped +with Arabs. I have a dreadful cough, whose attacks leave me _ætat_. 90. +I never let up on the Arabs, all the same, and rarely get less than +eight pages out of hand, though hardly able to come downstairs for +twittering knees. + +I shall put in ----'s letter. He says so little of his circumstances +that I am in an impossibility to give him advice more specific than a +copybook. Give him my love, however, and tell him it is the mark of the +parochial gentleman who has never travelled to find all wrong in a +foreign land. Let him hold on, and he will find one country as good as +another; and in the meanwhile let him resist the fatal British tendency +to communicate his dissatisfaction with a country to its inhabitants. +'Tis a good idea, but it somehow fails to please. In a fortnight, if I +can keep my spirit in the box at all, I should be nearly through this +Arabian desert; so can tackle something fresh.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + It was some twenty months since the plan of publishing the _Child's + Garden_ in the first instance as a picture-book had been mooted (see + above, pp. 18, foll.). But it had never taken effect, and in the + following March the volume appeared without illustrations in England, + and also, I believe, in America. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, Hants, England, + First week in November, I guess, 1884._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--Now, look here, the above is my address for three months, +I hope; continue, on your part, if you please, to write to Edinburgh, +which is safe; but if Mrs. Low thinks of coming to England, she might +take a run down from London (four hours from Waterloo, main line) and +stay a day or two with us among the pines. If not, I hope it will be +only a pleasure deferred till you can join her. + +My Children's Verses will be published here in a volume called _A +Child's Garden_. The sheets are in hand; I will see if I cannot send you +the lot, so that you might have a bit of a start. In that case I would +do nothing to publish in the States, and you might try an illustrated +edition there; which, if the book went fairly over here, might, when +ready, be imported. But of this more fully ere long. You will see some +verses of mine in the last Magazine of Art, with pictures by a young +lady; rather pretty, I think. If we find a market for _Phasellulus +loquitur_, we can try another. I hope it isn't necessary to put the +verse into that rustic printing. I am Philistine enough to prefer clean +printer's type; indeed, I can form no idea of the verses thus +transcribed by the incult and tottering hand of the draughtsman, nor +gather any impression beyond one of weariness to the eyes. Yet the other +day, in the Century, I saw it imputed as a crime to Vedder that he had +not thus travestied Omar Khayyàm. We live in a rum age of music without +airs, stories without incident, pictures without beauty, American wood +engravings that should have been etchings, and dry-point etchings that +ought to have been mezzotints. I think of giving 'em literature without +words; and I believe if you were to try invisible illustration, it would +enjoy a considerable vogue. So long as an artist is on his head, is +painting with a flute, or writes with an etcher's needle, or conducts +the orchestra with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along +with roses. But any plain man who tries to follow the obtrusive canons +of his art, is but a commonplace figure. To hell with him is the motto, +or at least not that; for he will have his reward, but he will never be +thought a person of parts. + +_January 3, 1885._--And here has this been lying near two months. I have +failed to get together a preliminary copy of the Child's Verses for you, +in spite of doughty efforts; but yesterday I sent you the first sheet of +the definitive edition, and shall continue to send the others as they +come. If you can, and care to, work them--why so, well. If not, I send +you fodder. But the time presses; for though I will delay a little over +the proofs, and though it is even possible they may delay the English +issue until Easter, it will certainly not be later. Therefore perpend, +and do not get caught out. Of course, if you can do pictures, it will be +a great pleasure to me to see our names joined; and more than that, a +great advantage, as I dare say you may be able to make a bargain for +some share a little less spectral than the common for the poor author. +But this is all as you shall choose; I give you _carte blanche_ to do or +not to do.--Yours most sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +O, Sargent has been and painted my portrait; a very nice fellow he is, +and is supposed to have done well; it is a poetical but very +chicken-boned figure-head, as thus represented. + + R. L. S. Go on. + + +_P.P.S._--Your picture came; and let me thank you for it very much. I am +so hunted I had near forgotten. I find it very graceful; and I mean to +have it framed. + + + + +TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON + + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth [first week of + November 1884]._ + +MY DEAR SIMPSON,--At last, after divers adventures here we are: not +Pommery and Greno as you see, "but jist plain auld Bonellie, no very +faur frae Jenniper Green," as I might say if I were writing to Charles. +I hope now to receive a good bundle from you ere long; and I will try to +be both prompt and practical in response. I hope to hear your boy is +better: ah, that's where it bites, I know, that is where the childless +man rejoices; although, to confess fully, my whole philosophy of life +renounces these renunciations; I am persuaded we gain nothing in the +least comparable to what we lose, by holding back the hand from any +province of life; the intrigue, the imbroglio, such as it is, was made +for the plunger and not for the teetotaller. And anyway I hope your news +is good. + +I have nearly finished Lawson's most lively pamphlet. It is very clear +and interesting. For myself, I am in our house--a home of our own, in a +most lovely situation, among forest trees, where I hope you will come +and see us and find me in a repaired and more comfortable +condition--greatly pleased with it--rather hard-up, verging on the +dead-broke--and full tilt at hammering up some New Arabians for the pot. + +I wonder what you do without regular habits of work. I am capable of +only two theories of existence: the industrious worker's, the +spreester's; all between seems blank to me. We grow too old, and I, at +least, am too much deteriorated, for the last; and the first becomes a +bedrock necessary. My father is in a gloomy state and has the yellow +flag at the peak, or the fore, or wherever it should be; and he has just +emptied some melancholy vials on me; I am also, by way of change, +spitting blood. This somewhat clouds the termination of my note.--Yours +ever affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + About this time Mr. Stevenson was in some hesitation as to letting + himself be proposed for the office of President of the Royal Society + of Edinburgh. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 1884._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I have no hesitation in recommending you to let your +name go up; please yourself about an address; though I think, if we +could meet, we could arrange something suitable. What you propose would +be well enough in a way, but so modest as to suggest a whine. From that +point of view it would be better to change a little; but this, whether +we meet or not, we must discuss. Tait, Chrystal, the Royal Society, and +I, all think you amply deserve this honour and far more; it is not the +True Blue to call this serious compliment a "trial"; you should be glad +of this recognition. As for resigning, that is easy enough if found +necessary; but to refuse would be husky and unsatisfactory. _Sic subs._ + + R. L. S. + + +My cold is still very heavy; but I carry it well. Fanny is very very +much out of sorts, principally through perpetual misery with me. I fear +I have been a little in the dumps, which, _as you know, sir_, is a very +great sin. I must try to be more cheerful; but my cough is so severe +that I have sometimes most exhausting nights and very peevish wakenings. +However, this shall be remedied, and last night I was distinctly better +than the night before. There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise +blandly as we sit together on the devil's garden-wall), no more +abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguy peevishness; why (say I) +what matters it if we be a little uncomfortable--that is no reason for +mangling our unhappy wives. And then I turn and _girn_ on the +unfortunate Cassandra.--Your fellow culprit, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Mr. Stevenson, the elder, had read the play of _Admiral Guinea_, + written in September by his son and Mr. Henley in collaboration, and + had protested, with his usual vehemence of feeling and expression, + against the stage confrontation of profane blackguardry in the person + of Pew with evangelical piety in that of the reformed slaving captain + who gives his name to the piece. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth (The three B's) + [November 5, 1884]._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--Allow me to say, in a strictly Pickwickian sense, that +you are a silly fellow. I am pained indeed, but how should I be +offended? I think you exaggerate; I cannot forget that you had the same +impression of the _Deacon_; and yet, when you saw it played, were less +revolted than you looked for; and I will still hope that the _Admiral_ +also is not so bad as you suppose. There is one point, however, where I +differ from you very frankly. Religion is in the world; I do not think +you are the man to deny the importance of its rôle; and I have long +decided not to leave it on one side in art. The opposition of the +Admiral and Mr. Pew is not, to my eyes, either horrible or irreverent; +but it may be, and it probably is, very ill done: what then? This is a +failure; better luck next time; more power to the elbow, more +discretion, more wisdom in the design, and the old defeat becomes the +scene of the new victory. Concern yourself about no failure; they do not +cost lives as in engineering; they are the _pierres perdues_ of +successes. Fame is (truly) a vapour; do not think of it; if the writer +means well and tries hard, no failure will injure him, whether with God +or man. + +I wish I could hear a brighter account of yourself; but I am inclined to +acquit the _Admiral_ of having a share in the responsibility. My very +heavy cold is, I hope, drawing off; and the change to this charming +house in the forest will, I hope, complete my re-establishment.--With +love to all, believe me, your ever affectionate + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 11, 1884._ + +DEAR BOY,--I have been nearly smashed altogether; fever and chills, with +really very considerable suffering; and to my deep gloom and some fear +about the future, work has had to stop. There was no way out of it; +yesterday and to-day nothing would come, it was a mere waste of tissue, +productive of spoiled paper. + +I hope it will not last long; for the bum-baily is panting at my rump, +and when I turn a scared eye across my shoulder, I behold his talons +quivering above my frock-coat tails. + +Gosse has writ to offer me £40 for a Christmas number ghost story for +the Pall Mall: eight thousand words. I have, with some conditions, +accepted; I pray Heaven I may be able to do it. But I am not sure that +my incapacity to work is wholly due to illness; I believe the morphine +I have been taking for my bray may have a hand in it. It moderates the +bray, but, I think, sews up the donkey. + +I think my wife is a little better. If only I could get in trim, and get +this work done, I should be quite chipper. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The two next letters, on the same subject, are written in the styles + and characters of the two Edinburgh ex-elders, Johnstone (or Johnson) + and Thomson alternately. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, November 11 [1884]._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am in my new house, thus proudly styled, as you +perceive; but the deevil a tower ava' can be perceived (except out of +window); this is not as it should be; one might have hoped, at least, a +turret. We are all vilely unwell. I put in the dark watches imitating a +donkey with some success, but little pleasure; and in the afternoon I +indulge in a smart fever, accompanied by aches and shivers. There is +thus little monotony to be deplored. I at least am a _regular_ invalid; +I would scorn to bray in the afternoon; I would indignantly refuse the +proposal to fever in the night. What is bred in the bone will come out, +sir, in the flesh; and the same spirit that prompted me to date my +letter regulates the hour and character of my attacks.--I am, sir, +yours, + + THOMSON. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + The controversy here mentioned had been one in which Mr. Samuel + Smiles and others had taken part, concerning the rival claims of + Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of R. L. S., and John Rennie to + have been the chief engineers of the Bell Rock Lighthouse (see _A + Family of Engineers_, chap. iii.). + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 12, 1884._ + +MY DEAR COGGIE,--Many thanks for the two photos which now decorate my +room. I was particularly glad to have the Bell Rock. I wonder if you +saw me plunge, lance in rest, into a controversy thereanent? It was a +very one-sided affair. The man I attacked cried "Boo-hoo!" and referred +me to his big brother. And the big brother refused to move. So I slept +upon the field of battle, paraded, sang Te Deum, and came home after a +review rather than a campaign. + +Please tell Campbell I got his letter. The Wild Woman of the West has +been much amiss and complaining sorely. I hope nothing more serious is +wrong with her than just my ill-health, and consequent anxiety and +labour; but the deuce of it is, that the cause continues. I am about +knocked out of time now: a miserable, snuffling, shivering, +fever-stricken, nightmare-ridden, knee-jottering, hoast-hoast-hoasting +shadow and remains of man. But we'll no gie ower jist yet a bittie. +We've seen waur; and dod, mem, it's my belief that we'll see better. I +dinna ken 'at I've muckle mair to say to ye, or, indeed, onything; but +jist here's guid-fallowship, guid health, and the wale o' guid fortune +to your bonny sel'; and my respecs to the Perfessor and his wife, and +the Prinshiple, an' the Bell Rock, an' ony ither public chara'ters that +I'm acquaunt wi'. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + [_Bournemouth, November 13, 1884._] + +MY DEAR THOMSON,--It's a maist remarkable fac', but nae shüner had I +written yon braggin', blawin' letter aboot ma business habits, when +bang! that very day, ma hoast[10] begude in the aifternune. It is really +remaurkable; it's providenshle, I believe. The ink wasnae fair dry, the +words werenae weel ooten ma mouth, when bang, I got the lee. The mair ye +think o't, Thomson, the less ye'll like the looks o't. Proavidence (I'm +no' sayin') is all verra weel _in its place_; but if Proavidence has +nae mainners, wha's to learn't? Proavidence is a fine thing, but hoo +would you like Proavidence to keep your till for ye? The richt place for +Proavidence is in the kirk; it has naething to do wi' private +correspondence between twa gentlemen, nor freendly cracks, nor a wee bit +word of sculduddery[11] ahint the door, nor, in shoart, wi' ony +_hole-and-corner wark_, what I would call. I'm pairfec'ly willin' to +meet in wi' Proavidence, I'll be prood to meet in wi' him, when my +time's come and I cannae dae nae better; but if he's to come skulking +aboot my stair-fit, damned, I micht as weel be deid for a' the comfort +I'll can get in life. Cannae he no be made to understand that it's +beneath him? Gosh, if I was in his business, I wouldnae steir my heid +for a plain, auld ex-elder that, tak him the way he taks himsel', 's +just aboot as honest as he can weel afford, an' but for a wheen auld +scandals, near forgotten noo, is a pairfec'ly respectable and thoroughly +decent man. Or if I fashed wi' him ava', it wad be kind o' handsome +like; a pun'-note under his stair door, or a bottle o' auld, blended +malt to his bit marnin', as a teshtymonial like yon ye ken sae weel +aboot, but mair successfu'. + +Dear Thomson, have I ony money? If I have, _send it_, for the loard's +sake. + + JOHNSTONE. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 13, 1884._ + +MY DEAR BOY,--A thousand thanks for the _Molière_. I have already read, +in this noble presentment, _La Comtesse d'Escarbaguas_, _Le Malade +Imaginaire_, and a part of _Les Femmes Savantes_; I say, Poquelin took +damned good care of himself: Argan and Arysule, what parts! Many thanks +also for John Silver's pistol; I recognise it; that was the one he gave +Jim Hawkins at the mouth of the pit; I shall get a plate put upon it to +that effect. + +My birthday was a great success; I was better in health; I got +delightful presents; I received the definite commission from the P.M.G., +and began to write the tale; and in the evening Bob arrived, a simple +seraph. We have known each other ten years; and here we are, too, like +the pair that met in the infirmary: why can we not mellow into kindness +and sweetness like Bob? What is the reason? Does nature, even in my +octogenarian carcase, run too strong that I must be still a bawler and a +brawler and a treader upon corns? You, at least, have achieved the +miracle of embellishing your personal appearance to that point that, +unless your mother is a woman of even more perspicacity than I suppose, +it is morally impossible that she can recognise you. When I saw you ten +years ago, you looked rough and--kind of stigmatised, a look of an +embittered political shoemaker; where is it now? You now come waltzing +around like some light-hearted monarch; essentially jovial, essentially +royal; radiant of smiles. And in the meanwhile, by a complementary +process, I turn into a kind of hunchback with white hair! The devil. + +Well, let us be thankful for our mercies; in these ten years what a +change from the cell in the hospital, and the two sick boys in the next +bed, to the influence, the recognition, the liberty, and the happiness +of to-day! Well, well; fortune is not so blind as people say; you dreed +a good long weird; but you have got into a fine green paddock now to +kick your heels in. And I, too, what a difference; what a difference in +my work, in my situation, and unfortunately, also in my health! But one +need not complain of a pebble in the shoe, when by mere justice one +should rot in a dungeon. + +Many thanks to both of you; long life to our friendship, and that means, +I do most firmly believe, to these clay continents on which we fly our +colours; good luck to one and all, and may God continue to be +merciful.--Your old and warm friend, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + Stevenson had been unable to finish for the Pall Mall Christmas + number the tale he had first intended; had tried the publishers with + _Markheim_ (afterwards printed in the collection called _Merry Men_), + which proved too short; had then furbished up as well as he could a + tale drafted in the Pitlochry days, _The Body Snatcher_, which was + advertised in the streets of London by sandwich-men carrying posters + so horrific that they were suppressed, if I remember right, by the + police. Stevenson rightly thought the tale not up to his best mark, + and would not take the full payment which had been bargained for. His + correspondent was just about to start on a tour to the United States. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 15, 1884._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--This Mr. Morley[12] of yours is a most desperate fellow. +He has sent me (for my opinion) the most truculent advertisement I ever +saw, in which the white hairs of Gladstone are dragged round Troy behind +my chariot wheels. What can I say? I say nothing to him; and to you, I +content myself with remarking that he seems a desperate fellow. + +All luck to you on your American adventure; may you find health, wealth, +and entertainment! If you see, as you likely will, Frank R. Stockton, +pray greet him from me in words to this effect:-- + + My Stockton if I failed to like, + It were a sheer depravity, + For I went down with the _Thomas Hyke_ + And up with the _Negative Gravity_! + +I adore these tales. + +I hear flourishing accounts of your success at Cambridge, so you leave +with a good omen. Remember me to _green corn_ if it is in season; if +not, you had better hang yourself on a sour apple tree, for your voyage +has been lost.--Yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO AUSTIN DOBSON + + + Written in acknowledgment of the gift of a desk. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [December 1884 ?]._ + +DEAR DOBSON,--Set down my delay to your own fault; I wished to +acknowledge such a gift from you in some of my inapt and slovenly +rhymes; but you should have sent me your pen and not your desk. The +verses stand up to the axles in a miry cross-road, whence the coursers +of the sun shall never draw them; hence I am constrained to this +uncourtliness, that I must appear before one of the kings of that +country of rhyme without my singing robes. For less than this, if we may +trust the book of Esther, favourites have tasted death; but I conceive +the kingdom of the Muses mildlier mannered; and in particular that +county which you administer and which I seem to see as a half-suburban +land; a land of hollyhocks and country houses; a land where at night, in +thorny and sequestered bypaths, you will meet masqueraders going to a +ball in their sedans, and the rector steering homeward by the light of +his lantern; a land of the windmill, and the west wind, and the +flowering hawthorn with a little scented letter in the hollow of its +trunk, and the kites flying over all in the season of kites, and the far +away blue spires of a cathedral city. + +Will you forgive me, then, for my delay and accept my thanks not only +for your present, but for the letter which followed it, and which +perhaps I more particularly value, and believe me to be, with much +admiration, yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Stevenson and his wife were still busy on _More New Arabian Nights_ + (the romance of the _Great North Road_ having been begun and + postponed). The question here touched is, to what publishers should + they be offered. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 1884._ + +DEAR LAD,--For Cassell, I thought the G.N.R. (not railway this time) was +the motto. What are Cassells to do with this eccentric mass of blague +and seriousness? Their poor auld pows will a' turn white as snaw, man. +They would skriegh with horror. You see, the lot of tales is now coming +to a kind of bearing. They are being quite rehandled; all the three +intercalary narratives have been condemned and are being replaced--two +by picturesque and highly romantic adventures; one by a comic tale of +character; and the thing as it goes together so far, is, I do think, +singularly varied and vivid, coming near to laughter and touching tears. + +Will Cassell stand it? No. + +_Et de deux._ + +I vote for the syndicate, and to give Cassell the _North Road_ when +done. _Et sic subscr._ + + R. L. S. + + +My health is better. I never sleep, to be sure; Cawdor hath butchered +sleep; and I am twinged a bit by aches and rheumatism; but I get my five +to seven hours of work; and if that is not health, it is the nearest I +am like to have. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The following to Mr. Henry James refers to the essay of R. L. S. + called _A Humble Remonstrance_, which had just appeared in Longman's + Magazine. Mr. James had written holding out the prospect of a + continuance of the friendly controversy which had thus been opened up + between them on the aims and qualities of fiction. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, December 8, 1884._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--This is a very brave hearing from more points +than one. The first point is that there is a hope of a sequel. For this +I laboured. Seriously, from the dearth of information and thoughtful +interest in the art of literature, those who try to practise it with any +deliberate purpose run the risk of finding no fit audience. People +suppose it is "the stuff" that interests them; they think, for instance, +that the prodigious fine thoughts and sentiments in Shakespeare impress +by their own weight, not understanding that the unpolished diamond is +but a stone. They think that striking situations, or good dialogue, are +got by studying life; they will not rise to understand that they are +prepared by deliberate artifice and set off by painful suppressions. +Now, I want the whole thing well ventilated, for my own education and +the public's; and I beg you to look as quick as you can, to follow me up +with every circumstance of defeat where we differ, and (to prevent the +flouting of the laity) to emphasise the points where we agree. I trust +your paper will show me the way to a rejoinder; and that rejoinder I +shall hope to make with so much art as to woo or drive you from your +threatened silence. I would not ask better than to pass my life in +beating out this quarter of corn with such a seconder as yourself. + +Point the second--I am rejoiced indeed to hear you speak so kindly of my +work; rejoiced and surprised. I seem to myself a very rude, left-handed +countryman; not fit to be read, far less complimented, by a man so +accomplished, so adroit, so craftsmanlike as you. You will happily never +have cause to understand the despair with which a writer like myself +considers (say) the park scene in _Lady Barberina_. Every touch +surprises me by its intangible precision; and the effect when done, as +light as syllabub, as distinct as a picture, fills me with envy. Each +man among us prefers his own aim, and I prefer mine; but when we come to +speak of performance, I recognise myself, compared with you, to be a +lout and slouch of the first water. + +Where we differ, both as to the design of stories and the delineation of +character, I begin to lament. Of course, I am not so dull as to ask you +to desert your walk; but could you not, in one novel, to oblige a +sincere admirer, and to enrich his shelves with a beloved volume, could +you not, and might you not, cast your characters in a mould a little +more abstract and academic (dear Mrs. Pennyman had already, among your +other work, a taste of what I mean), and pitch the incidents, I do not +say in any stronger, but in a slightly more emphatic key--as it were an +episode from one of the old (so-called) novels of adventure? I fear you +will not; and I suppose I must sighingly admit you to be right. And yet, +when I see, as it were, a book of Tom Jones handled with your exquisite +precision and shot through with those side-lights of reflection in which +you excel, I relinquish the dear vision with regret. Think upon it. + +As you know, I belong to that besotted class of man, the invalid: this +puts me to a stand in the way of visits. But it is possible that some +day you may feel that a day near the sea and among pinewoods would be a +pleasant change from town. If so, please let us know; and my wife and I +will be delighted to put you up, and give you what we can to eat and +drink (I have a fair bottle of claret).--On the back of which, believe +me, yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--I reopen this to say that I have re-read my paper, and cannot +think I have at all succeeded in being either veracious or polite. I +knew, of course, that I took your paper merely as a pin to hang my own +remarks upon; but, alas! what a thing is any paper! What fine remarks +can you not hang on mine! How I have sinned against proportion, and with +every effort to the contrary, against the merest rudiments of courtesy +to you! You are indeed a very acute reader to have divined the real +attitude of my mind; and I can only conclude, not without closed eyes +and shrinking shoulders, in the well-worn words, + + Lay on, Macduff! + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 9, 1884._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--The dreadful tragedy of the Pall Mall has come to a +happy but ludicrous ending: I am to keep the money, the tale writ for +them is to be buried certain fathoms deep, and they are to flash out +before the world with our old friend of Kinnaird, _The Body Snatcher_. +When you come, please to bring-- + + (1) My Montaigne, or, at least, the two last volumes. + + (2) My Milton in the three vols. in green. + + (3) The Shakespeare that Babington sent me for a wedding-gift. + + (4) Hazlitt's _Table Talk and Plain Speaker_. + +If you care to get a box of books from Douglas and Foulis, let them be +_solid_. _Croker Papers_, _Correspondence of Napoleon_, _History of +Henry IV._, Lang's _Folk Lore_, would be my desires. + +I had a charming letter from Henry James about my Longman paper. I did +not understand queries about the verses; the pictures to the Seagull I +thought charming; those to the second have left me with a pain in my +poor belly and a swimming in the head. + +About money, I am afloat and no more, and I warn you, unless I have +great luck, I shall have to fall upon you at the New Year like a +hundredweight of bricks. Doctor, rent, chemist, are all threatening; +sickness has bitterly delayed my work; and unless, as I say, I have the +mischief's luck, I shall completely break down. _Verbum sapientibus._ I +do not live cheaply, and I question if I ever shall; but if only I had a +halfpenny worth of health, I could now easily suffice. The last +breakdown of my head is what makes this bankruptcy probable. + +Fanny is still out of sorts; Bogue better; self fair, but a stranger to +the blessings of sleep.--Ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [December 1884]._ + +DEAR LAD,--I have made up my mind about the P. M. G., and send you a +copy, which please keep or return. As for not giving a reduction, what +are we? Are we artists or city men? Why do we sneer at stockbrokers? O +nary; I will not take the £40. I took that as a fair price for my best +work; I was not able to produce my best; and I will be damned if I steal +with my eyes open. _Sufficit._ This is my lookout. As for the paper +being rich, certainly it is; but I am honourable. It is no more above me +in money than the poor slaveys and cads from whom I look for honesty are +below me. Am I Pepys, that because I can find the countenance of "some +of our ablest merchants," that because--and--pour forth languid twaddle +and get paid for it, I, too, should "cheerfully continue to steal"? I am +not Pepys. I do not live much to God and honour; but I will not wilfully +turn my back on both. I am, like all the rest of us, falling ever lower +from the bright ideas I began with, falling into greed, into idleness, +into middle-aged and slippered fireside cowardice; but is it you, my +bold blade, that I hear crying this sordid and rank twaddle in my ear? +Preaching the dankest Grundyism and upholding the rank customs of our +trade--you who are so cruel hard upon the customs of the publishers? O +man, look at the Beam in our own Eyes; and whatever else you do, do not +plead Satan's cause, or plead it for all; either embrace the bad, or +respect the good when you see a poor devil trying for it. If this is the +honesty of authors--to take what you can get and console yourself +because publishers are rich--take my name from the rolls of that +association. 'Tis a caucus of weaker thieves, jealous of the +stronger.--Ever yours, + + THE ROARING R. L. S. + + +You will see from the enclosed that I have stuck to what I think my dues +pretty tightly in spite of this flourish: these are my words for a poor +ten-pound note! + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + This refers to the death of Sir Alexander Grant, the distinguished + Aristotelian scholar and Principal of Edinburgh University. + + [_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 1884._] + +MY DEAR COGGIE,--We are very much distressed to hear of this which has +befallen your family. As for Sir Alexander, I can but speak from my own +feelings: he survived to finish his book and to conduct, with such a +great success, the tercentenary. Ah, how many die just upon the +threshold! Had he died a year ago, how great a disappointment! But all +this is nothing to the survivors. Do please, as soon as you are able, +let us know how it goes and _how it is likely to go_ with the family; +and believe that both my wife and I are most anxious to have good news, +or the best possible. My poor Coggie, I know very well how you must +feel; you are passing a bad time. + +Our news must seem very impertinent. We have both been ill; I, pretty +bad, my wife, pretty well down; but I, at least, am better. The Bogue, +who is let out every night for half an hour's yapping, is anchored in +the moonlight just before the door, and, under the belief that he is +watchdog at a lone farm beleaguered by moss-troopers, is simply raising +Cain. + +I can add nothing more, but just that we wish to hear as soon as you +have nothing else to do--not to hurry, of course,--if it takes three +months, no matter--but bear us in mind. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [Winter 1884]._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--Here was I in bed; not writing, not hearing, and finding +myself gently and agreeably ill used; and behold I learn you are bad +yourself. Get your wife to send us a word how you are. I am better +decidedly. Bogue got his Christmas card, and behaved well for three days +after. It may interest the cynical to learn that I started my last +hemorrhage by too sedulous attentions to my dear Bogue. The stick was +broken; and that night Bogue, who was attracted by the extraordinary +aching of his bones, and is always inclined to a serious view of his own +ailments, announced with his customary pomp that he was dying. In this +case, however, it was not the dog that died. (He had tried to bite his +mother's ankles.) I have written a long and peculiarly solemn paper on +the technical elements of style. It is path-breaking and epoch-making; +but I do not think the public will be readily convoked to its perusal. +Did I tell you that S. C. had risen to the paper on James? At last! O +but I was pleased; he's (like Johnnie) been lang, lang o' comin', but +here he is. He will not object to my future manoeuvres in the same +field, as he has to my former. All the family are here; my father better +than I have seen him these two years; my mother the same as ever. I do +trust you are better, and I am yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO H. A. JONES + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 30, 1884._ + +DEAR SIR,--I am so accustomed to hear nonsense spoken about all the +arts, and the drama in particular, that I cannot refrain from saying +"Thank you" for your paper. In my answer to Mr. James, in the December +Longman, you may see that I have merely touched, I think in a +parenthesis, on the drama; but I believe enough was said to indicate our +agreement in essentials. + +Wishing you power and health to further enunciate and to act upon these +principles, believe me, dear sir, yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Stevenson had begun with great eagerness to prepare material for a + volume on the Duke of Wellington for the series of _English Worthies_ + published by Messrs. Longman and edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, but + beyond preparation the scheme never went. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Jan. 4, 1885._ + +DEAR S. C.,--I am on my feet again, and getting on my boots to do the +Iron Duke. Conceive my glee: I have refused the £100, and am to get some +sort of royalty, not yet decided, instead. 'Tis for Longman's _English +Worthies_, edited by A. Lang. Aw haw, haw! + +Now, look here, could you get me a loan of the Despatches, or is that a +dream? I should have to mark passages I fear, and certainly note pages +on the fly. If you think it a dream, will Bain get me a second-hand +copy, or who would? The sooner, and cheaper, I can get it the better. If +there is anything in your weird library that bears on either the man or +the period, put it in a mortar and fire it here instanter; I shall +catch. I shall want, of course, an infinity of books: among which, any +lives there may be; a life of the Marquis Marmont (the Maréchal), +_Marmont's Memoirs_, _Greville's Memoirs_, _Peel's Memoirs_, _Napier_, +that blind man's history of England you once lent me, Hamley's +_Waterloo_; can you get me any of these? Thiers, idle Thiers also. Can +you help a man getting into his boots for such a huge campaign? How are +you? A Good New Year to you. I mean to have a good one, but on whose +funds I cannot fancy: not mine leastways, as I am a mere derelict and +drift beam-on to bankruptcy. + +For God's sake, remember the man who set out for to conquer Arthur +Wellesley, with a broken bellows and an empty pocket.--Yours ever, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Stevenson had been asked by his father to look over the proofs of a + paper which the latter was about to read, as President of the Royal + Society of Edinburgh, "On the Principal Causes of Silting in + Estuaries," in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal Scheme. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, 14th January 1885._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I am glad you like the changes. I own I was pleased +with my hand's darg; you may observe, I have corrected several errors +which (you may tell Mr. Dick) he had allowed to pass his eagle eye; I +wish there may be none in mine; at least, the order is better. The +second title, "Some New Engineering Questions involved in the M. S. C. +Scheme of last Session of P.," likes me the best. I think it a very good +paper; and I am vain enough to think I have materially helped to polish +the diamond. I ended by feeling quite proud of the paper, as if it had +been mine; the next time you have as good a one, I will overhaul it for +the wages of feeling as clever as I did when I had managed to understand +and helped to set it clear. I wonder if I anywhere misapprehended you? I +rather think not at the last; at the first shot I know I missed a point +or two. Some of what may appear to you to be wanton changes, a little +study will show to be necessary. + +Yes, Carlyle was ashamed of himself as few men have been; and let all +carpers look at what he did. He prepared all these papers for +publication with his own hand; all his wife's complaints, all the +evidence of his own misconduct: who else would have done so much? Is +repentance, which God accepts, to have no avail with men? nor even with +the dead? I have heard too much against the thrawn, discomfortable dog: +dead he is, and we may be glad of it; but he was a better man than most +of us, no less patently than he was a worse. To fill the world with +whining is against all my views: I do not like impiety. But--but--there +are two sides to all things, and the old scalded baby had his noble +side.--Ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, January 1885._ + +DEAR S. C.,--I have addressed a letter to the G. O. M. _à propos_ of +Wellington; and I became aware, you will be interested to hear, of an +overwhelming respect for the old gentleman. I can _blaguer_ his +failures; but when you actually address him, and bring the two statures +and records to confrontation, dismay is the result. By mere continuance +of years, he must impose; the man who helped to rule England before I +was conceived, strikes me with a new sense of greatness and antiquity, +when I must actually beard him with the cold forms of correspondence. I +shied at the necessity of calling him plain "Sir"! Had he been "My +lord," I had been happier; no, I am no equalitarian. Honour to whom +honour is due; and if to none, why, then, honour to the old! + +These, O Slade Professor, are my unvarnished sentiments: I was a little +surprised to find them so extreme, and therefore I communicate the fact. + +Belabour thy brains, as to whom it would be well to question. I have a +small space; I wish to make a popular book, nowhere obscure, nowhere, if +it can be helped, unhuman. It seems to me the most hopeful plan to tell +the tale, so far as may be, by anecdote. He did not die till so +recently, there must be hundreds who remember him, and thousands who +have still ungarnered stories. Dear man, to the breach! Up, soldier of +the iron dook, up, Slades, and at 'em! (which, conclusively, he did not +say: the at 'em-ic theory is to be dismissed). You know piles of fellows +who must reek with matter; help! help! I am going to try +Happy-and-Glorious-long-to-reign-over-us. H.M. must remember things: and +it is my belief, if my letter could be discreetly introduced, she would +like to tell them. So I jest, when I don't address my mind to it: when I +do, shall I be smit louting to my knee, as before the G. O. M.? +Problème!--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + In the two following letters are expressed some of the distress and + bitterness with which, in common with most Englishmen, Stevenson felt + the circumstances of Gordon's abandonment in the Soudan and the + failure of the belated attempt to rescue him. The advice to go on + with "my book" refers, if I remember right, to some scheme for the + republication in book form of stray magazine papers of mine of a more + or less personal or biographical nature. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are indeed a backward correspondent, and much may +be said against you. But in this weather, and O dear! in this political +scene of degradation, much must be forgiven. I fear England is dead of +Burgessry, and only walks about galvanised. I do not love to think of my +countrymen these days; nor to remember myself. Why was I silent? I feel +I have no right to blame any one; but I won't write to the G. O. M. I do +really not see my way to any form of signature, unless "your fellow +criminal in the eyes of God," which might disquiet the proprieties. + +About your book, I have always said: go on. The drawing of character is +a different thing from publishing the details of a private career. No +one objects to the first, or should object, if his name be not put upon +it; at the other, I draw the line. In a preface, if you chose, you might +distinguish; it is, besides, a thing for which you are eminently well +equipped, and which you would do with taste and incision. I long to see +the book. People like themselves (to explain a little more); no one +likes his life, which is a misbegotten issue, and a tale of failure. To +see these failures either touched upon, or _coasted_, to get the idea of +a spying eye and blabbing tongue about the house, is to lose all privacy +in life. To see that thing, which we do love, our character, set forth, +is ever gratifying. See how my _Talk and Talkers_ went; every one liked +his own portrait, and shrieked about other people's; so it will be with +yours. If you are the least true to the essential, the sitter will be +pleased; very likely not his friends, and that from _various motives_. + + R. L. S. + + +When will your holiday be? I sent your letter to my wife, and forget. +Keep us in mind, and I hope we shall be able to receive you. + + + + +TO J. A. SYMONDS + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._ + +MY DEAR SYMONDS,--Yes we have both been very neglectful. I had horrid +luck, catching two thundering influenzas in August and November. I +recovered from the last with difficulty, but have come through this +blustering winter with some general success; in the house, up and down. +My wife, however, has been painfully upset by my health. Last year, of +course, was cruelly trying to her nerves; Nice and Hyères are bad +experiences; and though she is not ill, the doctor tells me that +prolonged anxiety may do her a real mischief. + +I feel a little old and fagged, and chary of speech, and not very sure +of spirit in my work; but considering what a year I have passed, and how +I have twice sat on Charon's pierhead, I am surprising. + +My father has presented us with a very pretty home in this place, into +which we hope to move by May. My _Child's Verses_ come out next week. +_Otto_ begins to appear in April; _More New Arabian Nights_ as soon as +possible. Moreover, I am neck deep in Wellington; also a story on the +stocks, _The Great North Road_. O, I am busy! Lloyd is at college in +Edinburgh. That is, I think, all that can be said by way of news. + +Have you read _Huckleberry Finn_? It contains many excellent things; +above all, the whole story of a healthy boy's dealings with his +conscience, incredibly well done. + +My own conscience is badly seared; a want of piety; yet I pray for it, +tacitly, every day; believing it, after courage, the only gift worth +having; and its want, in a man of any claims to honour, quite +unpardonable. The tone of your letter seemed to me very sound. In these +dark days of public dishonour, I do not know that one can do better than +carry our private trials piously. What a picture is this of a nation! No +man that I can see, on any side or party, seems to have the least sense +of our ineffable shame: the desertion of the garrisons. I tell my little +parable that Germany took England, and then there was an Indian Mutiny, +and Bismarck said: "Quite right: let Delhi and Calcutta and Bombay fall; +and let the women and children be treated Sepoy fashion," and people +say, "O, but that is very different!" And then I wish I were dead. +Millais (I hear) was painting Gladstone when the news came of Gordon's +death; Millais was much affected, and Gladstone said, "Why? _It is the +man's own temerity!_" Voilà le Bourgeois! le voilà nu! But why should I +blame Gladstone, when I too am a Bourgeois? when I have held my peace? +Why did I hold my peace? Because I am a sceptic: _i.e._ a Bourgeois. We +believe in nothing, Symonds; you don't, and I don't; and these are two +reasons, out of a handful of millions, why England stands before the +world dripping with blood and daubed with dishonour. I will first try to +take the beam out of my own eye, trusting that even private effort +somehow betters and braces the general atmosphere. See, for example, if +England has shown (I put it hypothetically) one spark of manly +sensibility, they have been shamed into it by the spectacle of Gordon. +Police-Officer Cole is the only man that I see to admire. I dedicate my +_New Arabs_ to him and Cox, in default of other great public +characters.--Yours ever most affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + The following refers to an edition of Gray, with notes and a short + prefatory Life by Mr. Gosse; and to the publication of the _Child's + Garden of Verses_. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March 12, 1885._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I was indeed much exercised how I could be worked into +Gray; and lo! when I saw it, the passage seemed to have been written +with a single eye to elucidate the--worst?--well, not a very good poem +of Gray's. Your little life is excellent, clean, neat, efficient. I have +read many of your notes, too, with pleasure. Your connection with Gray +was a happy circumstance; it was a suitable conjunction. + +I did not answer your letter from the States, for what was I to say? I +liked getting it and reading it; I was rather flattered that you wrote +it to me; and then I'll tell you what I did--I put it in the fire. Why? +Well, just because it was very natural and expansive; and thinks I to +myself, if I die one of these fine nights, this is just the letter that +Gosse would not wish to go into the hands of third parties. Was I well +inspired? And I did not answer it because you were in your high places, +sailing with supreme dominion, and seeing life in a particular glory; +and I was peddling in a corner, confined to the house, overwhelmed with +necessary work, which I was not always doing well, and, in the very mild +form in which the disease approaches me, touched with a sort of bustling +cynicism. Why throw cold water? How ape your agreeable frame of mind? +In short, I held my tongue. + +I have now published on 101 small pages _The Complete Proof of Mr. R. L. +Stevenson's Incapacity to Write Verse_, in a series of graduated +examples with table of contents. I think I shall issue a companion +volume of exercises: "Analyse this poem. Collect and comminate the ugly +words. Distinguish and condemn the _chevilles_. State Mr. Stevenson's +faults of taste in regard to the measure. What reasons can you gather +from this example for your belief that Mr. S. is unable to write any +other measure?" + +They look ghastly in the cold light of print; but there is something +nice in the little ragged regiment for all; the blackguards seem to me +to smile, to have a kind of childish treble note that sounds in my ears +freshly; not song, if you will, but a child's voice. + +I was glad you enjoyed your visit to the States. Most Englishmen go +there with a confirmed design of patronage, as they go to France for +that matter; and patronage will not pay. Besides, in this year +of--grace, said I?--of disgrace, who should creep so low as an +Englishman? "It is not to be thought of that the flood"--ah, Wordsworth, +you would change your note were you alive to-day! + +I am now a beastly householder, but have not yet entered on my domain. +When I do, the social revolution will probably cast me back upon my dung +heap. There is a person called Hyndman whose eye is on me; his step is +beHynd me as I go. I shall call my house Skerryvore when I get it: +SKERRYVORE: _c'est bon pour la poéshie_. I will conclude with my +favourite sentiment: "The world is too much with me." + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, + _The Hermit of Skerryvore_, + + +Author of "John Vane Tempest: a Romance," "Herbert and Henrietta: or the +Nemesis of Sentiment," "The Life and Adventures of Colonel Bludyer +Fortescue," "Happy Homes and Hairy Faces," "A Pound of Feathers and a +Pound of Lead," part author of "Minn's Complete Capricious +Correspondent: a Manual of Natty, Natural, and Knowing Letters," and +editor of the "Poetical Remains of Samuel Burt Crabbe, known as the +melodious Bottle-Holder." + + Uniform with the above: + +"The Life and Remains of the Reverend Jacob Degray Squah," author of +"Heave-yo for the New Jerusalem," "A Box of Candles; or the Patent +Spiritual Safety Match," and "A Day with the Heavenly Harriers." + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The "dedication" referred to was that of a forthcoming illustrated + edition of Keats's _Lamia_. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March 13, 1885._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--Your success has been immense. I wish your letter had come +two days ago: _Otto_, alas! has been disposed of a good while ago; but +it was only day before yesterday that I settled the new volume of Arabs. +However, for the future, you and the sons of the deified Scribner are +the men for me. Really they have behaved most handsomely. I cannot lay +my hand on the papers, or I would tell you exactly how it compares with +my English bargain; but it compares well. Ah, if we had that copyright, +I do believe it would go far to make me solvent, ill-health and all. + +I wrote you a letter to the Rembrandt, in which I stated my views about +the dedication in a very brief form. It will give me sincere pleasure, +and will make the second dedication I have received, the other being +from John Addington Symonds. It is a compliment I value much; I don't +know any that I should prefer. + +I am glad to hear you have windows to do; that is a fine business, I +think; but, alas! the glass is so bad nowadays; realism invading even +that, as well as the huge inferiority of our technical resource +corrupting every tint. Still, anything that keeps a man to decoration +is, in this age, good for the artist's spirit. + +By the way, have you seen James and me on the novel? James, I think in +the August or September--R. L. S. in the December Longman. I own I think +the _école bête_, of which I am the champion, has the whip hand of the +argument; but as James is to make a rejoinder, I must not boast. Anyway +the controversy is amusing to see. I was terribly tied down to space, +which has made the end congested and dull. I shall see if I can afford +to send you the April Contemporary--but I dare say you see it anyway--as +it will contain a paper of mine on style, a sort of continuation of old +arguments on art in which you have wagged a most effective tongue. It is +a sort of start upon my Treatise on the Art of Literature: a small, arid +book that shall some day appear. + +With every good wish from me and mine (should I not say "she and hers"?) +to you and yours, believe me yours ever, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO P.G. HAMERTON + + + The work of his correspondent's which R. L. S. notices in the + following is the sumptuous volume _Landscape_: Seeley & Co., 1885. + The passages specially referred to will be found pp. 46-62 of that + work. + + _Bournemouth, March 16, 1885._ + +MY DEAR HAMERTON,--Various things have been reminding me of my +misconduct: First, Swan's application for your address; second, a sight +of the sheets of your _Landscape_ book; and last, your note to Swan, +which he was so kind as to forward. I trust you will never suppose me +to be guilty of anything more serious than an idleness, partially +excusable. My ill-health makes my rate of life heavier than I can well +meet, and yet stops me from earning more. My conscience, sometimes +perhaps too easily stifled, but still (for my time of life and the +public manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual and +almost endless transcriptions. On the back of all this, my +correspondence hangs like a thundercloud; and just when I think I am +getting through my troubles, crack, down goes my health, I have a long, +costly sickness, and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me I +have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the opportunity of +the aid makes the necessity none the more welcome. My father has +presented me with a beautiful house here--or so I believe, for I have +not yet seen it, being a cage bird but for nocturnal sorties in the +garden. I hope we shall soon move into it, and I tell myself that some +day perhaps we may have the pleasure of seeing you as our guest. I trust +at least that you will take me as I am, a thoroughly bad correspondent, +and a man, a hater, indeed, of rudeness in others, but too often rude in +all unconsciousness himself; and that you will never cease to believe +the sincere sympathy and admiration that I feel for you and for your +work. + +About the _Landscape_, which I had a glimpse of while a friend of mine +was preparing a review, I was greatly interested, and could write and +wrangle for a year on every page; one passage particularly delighted me, +the part about Ulysses--jolly. Then, you know, that is just what I fear +I have come to think landscape ought to be in literature; so there we +should be at odds. Or perhaps not so much as I suppose, as Montaigne +says it is a pot with two handles, and I own I am wedded to the +technical handle, which (I likewise own and freely) you do well to keep +for a mistress. I should much like to talk with you about some other +points; it is only in talk that one gets to understand. Your delightful +Wordsworth trap I have tried on two hardened Wordsworthians, not that I +am not one myself. By covering up the context, and asking them to guess +what the passage was, both (and both are very clever people, one a +writer, one a painter) pronounced it a guide-book. "Do you think it an +unusually good guide-book?" I asked, and both said, "No, not at all!" +Their grimace was a picture when I showed the original. + +I trust your health and that of Mrs. Hamerton keep better; your last +account was a poor one. I was unable to make out the visit I had hoped, +as (I do not know if you heard of it) I had a very violent and dangerous +hemorrhage last spring. I am almost glad to have seen death so close +with all my wits about me, and not in the customary lassitude and +disenchantment of disease. Even thus clearly beheld I find him not so +terrible as we suppose. But, indeed, with the passing of years, the +decay of strength, the loss of all my old active and pleasant habits, +there grows more and more upon me that belief in the kindness of this +scheme of things, and the goodness of our veiled God, which is an +excellent and pacifying compensation. I trust, if your health continues +to trouble you, you may find some of the same belief. But perhaps my +fine discovery is a piece of art, and belongs to a character cowardly, +intolerant of certain feelings, and apt to self-deception. I don't think +so, however; and when I feel what a weak and fallible vessel I was +thrust into this hurly-burly, and with what marvellous kindness the wind +has been tempered to my frailties, I think I should be a strange kind of +ass to feel anything but gratitude. + +I do not know why I should inflict this talk upon you; but when I summon +the rebellious pen, he must go his own way; I am no Michael Scott, to +rule the fiend of correspondence. Most days he will none of me; and when +he comes, it is to rape me where he will.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Stevenson was by this time beginning to realise that work at + play-writing in collaboration with Mr. Henley was doing much more to + exhaust his strength than to replenish either of their purses, and + Mr. Henley, who had built hopes of fame and fortune on their + collaboration, was very unwilling to face the fact. + + [_Bournemouth, March 1885._] + +MY DEAR LAD,--That is all right, and a good job. About coming down, you +cannot get into us for a while, as you may imagine; we are in desperate +vortex, and everybody 'most dead. I have been two days in bed with liver +and slight bleeding. + +Do you think you are right to send _Macaire_ and the _Admiral_ about? +Not a copy have I sent, nor (speaking for myself personally) do I want +sent. The reperusal of the _Admiral_, by the way, was a sore blow; eh, +God, man, it is a low, black, dirty, blackguard, ragged piece: vomitable +in many parts--simply vomitable. Pew is in places a reproach to both art +and man. But of all that afterwards. What I mean is that I believe in +playing dark with second and third-rate work. Macaire is a piece of +job-work, hurriedly bockled; might have been worse, might have been +better; happy-go-lucky; act it or-let-it-rot piece of business. Not a +thing, I think, to send in presentations. Do not let us _gober_ +ourselves--and, above all, not _gober_ dam pot-boilers--and p.b.'s with +an obvious flaw and hole in them, such as is our unrealised Bertrand in +this one. But of this also, on a meeting. + +I am not yet done with my proofs, I am sorry to say; so soon as I am, I +must tackle _Kidnapped_ seriously, or be content to have no bread, which +you would scarcely recommend. It is all I shall be able to do to wait +for the Young Folk money, on which I'll have to live as best I can till +the book comes in. + +Plays at that rate I do not think I can possibly look at before July; so +let that be a guide to you in your views. July, or August, or +September, or thereabouts: these must be our times, whichever we attack. +I think you had better suspend a visit till we can take you in and till +I can speak. It seems a considerable waste of money; above all, as just +now I could not even offer you meals with my woman in such a state of +overwork. My father and mother have had to go to lodgings.--Post. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + [_Bournemouth, March 1885._] + +DEAR LAD,--Much better, but rather unequal to do what I ought, a common +complaint. The change of weather much helped me, not too soon. + +I have thought as well as I could of what you said; and I come +unhesitatingly to the opinion that the stage is only a lottery, must not +be regarded as a trade, and must never be preferred to drudgery. If +money comes from any play, let us regard it as a legacy, but never count +upon it in our income for the year. In other words, I must go on and +drudge at _Kidnapped_, which I hate, and am unfit to do; and you will +have to get some journalism somehow. These are my cold and blighting +sentiments. It is bad enough to have to live by an art--but to think to +live by an art combined with commercial speculation--that way madness +lies. + +Time is our only friend. The _Admiral_, pulled simply in pieces and +about half deleted, will act some day: such is my opinion. I can no +more.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + An anonymous review of the _Child's Garden_, appearing in March, gave + R. L. S. so much pleasure that he wrote (in the four words, "Now who + are you?") to inquire the name of its writer, and learned that it + was Mr. Archer; with whom he had hitherto had no acquaintance. He + thereupon entered into friendly correspondence with his critic. + + _Bournemouth, March 29, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--Yes, I have heard of you and read some of your work; +but I am bound in particular to thank you for the notice of my verses. +"There," I said, throwing it over to the friend who was staying with me, +"it's worth writing a book to draw an article like that." Had you been +as hard upon me as you were amiable, I try to tell myself I should have +been no blinder to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire +and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an enviable touch; +the marks of a reader, such as one imagines for one's self in dreams, +thoughtful, critical, and kind; and to put the top on this memorial +column, a greater readiness to describe the author criticised than to +display the talents of his censor. + +I am a man _blasé_ to injudicious praise (though I hope some of it may +be judicious too), but I have to thank you for THE BEST CRITICISM I EVER +HAD; and am therefore, dear Mr. Archer, the most grateful critickee now +extant. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--I congratulate you on living in the corner of all London that I +like best. _À propos_, you are very right about my voluntary aversion +from the painful sides of life. My childhood was in reality a very mixed +experience, full of fever, nightmare, insomnia, painful days and +interminable nights; and I can speak with less authority of gardens than +of that other "land of counterpane." But to what end should we renew +these sorrows? The sufferings of life may be handled by the very +greatest in their hours of insight; it is of its pleasures that our +common poems should be formed; these are the experiences that we should +seek to recall or to provoke; and I say with Thoreau, "What right have I +to complain, who have not ceased to wonder?" and, to add a rider of my +own, who have no remedy to offer. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH PENNELL + + Acknowledging the dedication of an illustrated _Canterbury + Pilgrimage_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer 1885._] + +DEAR SIR AND MADAM,--This horrible delay must be forgiven me. It was not +caused by any want of gratitude; but by the desire to acknowledge the +dedication more suitably (and to display my wit) in a copy of verses. +Well, now I give that up, and tell you in plain prose, that you have +given me much pleasure by the dedication of your graceful book. + +As I was writing the above, I received a visit from Lady Shelley, who +mentioned to me that she was reading Mrs. Pennell's _Mary +Wollstonecraft_ with pleasure. It is odd how streams cross. Mr. +Pennell's work I have, of course, long known and admired: and I believe +there was once some talk, on the part of Mr. Gilder, that we should work +together; but the scheme fell through from my rapacity; and since then +has been finally rendered impossible (or so I fear) by my health. + +I should say that when I received the _Pilgrimage_, I was in a state +(not at all common with me) of depression; and the pleasant testimony +that my work had not all been in vain did much to set me up again. You +will therefore understand, late as is the hour, with what sincerity I am +able to sign myself--Gratefully yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +MR. AND MRS. PENNELL,--I see I should explain that this is all in my own +hand, I have not fobbed you off with an amanuensis; but as I have two +handwritings (both equally bad in these days) I might lead you to think +so. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + On the death of Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who in Stevenson's early + student days at Edinburgh had been both the warmest and the wisest of + his elder friends (died June 12, 1885). + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1885._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--You know how much and for how long I have loved, +respected, and admired him; I am only able to feel a little with you. +But I know how he would have wished us to feel. I never knew a better +man, nor one to me more lovable; we shall all feel the loss more greatly +as time goes on. It scarce seems life to me; what must it be to you? Yet +one of the last things that he said to me was, that from all these sad +bereavements of yours he had learned only more than ever to feel the +goodness and what we, in our feebleness, call the support of God; he had +been ripening so much--to other eyes than ours, we must suppose he was +ripe, and try to feel it. I feel it is better not to say much more. It +will be to me a great pride to write a notice of him: the last I can now +do. What more in any way I can do for you, please to think and let me +know. For his sake and for your own, I would not be a useless friend: I +know, you know me a most warm one; please command me or my wife, in any +way. Do not trouble to write to me; Austin, I have no doubt, will do so, +if you are, as I fear you will be, unfit. + +My heart is sore for you. At least you know what you have been to him; +how he cherished and admired you; how he was never so pleased as when he +spoke of you; with what a boy's love, up to the last, he loved you. This +surely is a consolation. Yours is the cruel part--to survive; you must +try and not grudge to him his better fortune, to go first. It is the sad +part of such relations that one must remain and suffer; I cannot see my +poor Jenkin without you. Nor you indeed without him; but you may try to +rejoice that he is spared that extremity. Perhaps I (as I was so much +his confidant) know even better than you can do what your loss would +have been to him; he never spoke of you but his face changed; it +was--you were--his religion. + +I write by this post to Austin and to the Academy.--Yours most +sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1885_.] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--I should have written sooner, but we are in a +bustle, and I have been very tired, though still well. Your very kind +note was most welcome to me. I shall be very much pleased to have you +call me Louis, as he has now done for so many years. Sixteen, you say? +is it so long? It seems too short now; but of that we cannot judge, and +must not complain. + +I wish that either I or my wife could do anything for you; when we can, +you will, I am sure, command us. + +I trust that my notice gave you as little pain as was possible. I found +I had so much to say, that I preferred to keep it for another place and +make but a note in the Academy. To try to draw my friend at greater +length, and say what he was to me and his intimates, what a good +influence in life and what an example, is a desire that grows upon me. +It was strange, as I wrote the note, how his old tests and criticisms +haunted me; and it reminded me afresh with every few words how much I +owe to him. + +I had a note from Henley, very brief and very sad. We none of us yet +feel the loss; but we know what he would have said and wished. + +Do you know that Dew Smith has two photographs of him, neither very bad? +and one giving a lively, though not flattering air of him in +conversation? If you have not got them, would you like me to write to +Dew and ask him to give you proofs? + +I was so pleased that he and my wife made friends; that is a great +pleasure. We found and have preserved one fragment (the head) of the +drawing he made and tore up when he was last here. He had promised to +come and stay with us this summer. May we not hope, at least, some time +soon to have one from you?--Believe me, my dear Mrs. Jenkin, with the +most real sympathy, your sincere friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + +Dear me, what happiness I owe to both of you! + + + + +TO C. HOWARD CARRINGTON + + + In answer to an inquiry from a correspondent not personally known to + him, who had by some means heard of the _Great North Road_ project. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 9th [1885]._ + +DEAR SIR,--_The Great North Road_ is still unfinished; it is scarce I +should say beyond Highgate: but it will be finished some day, bar the +big accident. It will not however gratify your taste; the highwayman is +not grasped: what you would have liked (and I, believe me) would have +been _Jerry Abershaw_: but Jerry was not written at the fit moment; I +have outgrown the taste--and his romantic horse-shoes clatter faintlier +down the incline towards Lethe.--Truly yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO KATHARINE DE MATTOS + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer 1885._ + +MY DEAR CATHERINE,--'Tis the most complete blague and folly to write to +you; you never answer and, even when you do, your letters crackle under +the teeth like ashes; containing nothing as they do but unseasonable +japes and a great cloudy vagueness as of the realm of chaos. In this I +know well they are like mine; and it becomes me well to write such--but +not you--for reasons too obvious to mention. We have both been sick; but +to-day I am up, though with an aching back. But I hope all will be +better. Of your views, state, finances, etc. etc., I know nothing. We +were mighty near the end of all things financially, when a strange shape +of a hand giving appeared in Heaven or from Hell, and set us up again +for the moment; yet still we totter on a whoreson brink. I beg pardon. I +forgot I was writing to a lady; but the word shall stay: it is the only +word; I would say it to the Q----n of E----d. + +How do you like letters of this kind? It is your kind. They mean +nothing; they are blankly insignificant; and impudently put one in the +wrong. One has learnt nothing; and forsooth one must reply.--Yours, the +Inexpressive Correspondent, + + R. L. S. + + +Hey-ey-ey! Sold again. Hey-ey-ey! + +Postscript: sold again. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + In August of this year Stevenson made with his wife an excursion to + the west country (stopping at Dorchester on the way, for the pleasure + of seeing Mr. Thomas Hardy at home), and was detained for several + weeks at The New London inn, Exeter, by a bad fit of hemorrhage. His + correspondence is not resumed until the autumn. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 22, 1885._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--I trust you are not annoyed with me beyond forgiveness; +for indeed my silence has been devilish prolonged. I can only tell you +that I have been nearly six months (more than six) in a strange +condition of collapse, when it was impossible to do any work, and +difficult (more difficult than you would suppose) to write the merest +note. I am now better, but not yet my own man in the way of brains, and +in health only so-so. I suppose I shall learn (I begin to think I am +learning) to fight this vast, vague feather-bed of an obsession that now +overlies and smothers me; but in the beginnings of these conflicts, the +inexperienced wrestler is always worsted, and I own I have been quite +extinct. I wish you to know, though it can be no excuse, that you are +not the only one of my friends by many whom I have thus neglected; and +even now, having come so very late into the possession of myself, with a +substantial capital of debts, and my work still moving with a desperate +slowness--as a child might fill a sandbag with its little handfuls--and +my future deeply pledged, there is almost a touch of virtue in my +borrowing these hours to write to you. Why I said "hours" I know not; it +would look blue for both of us if I made good the word. + +I was writing your address the other day, ordering a copy of my next, +_Prince Otto_, to go your way. I hope you have not seen it in parts; it +was not meant to be so read; and only my poverty (dishonourably) +consented to the serial evolution. + +I will send you with this a copy of the English edition of the _Child's +Garden_. I have heard there is some vile rule of the post-office in the +States against inscriptions; so I send herewith a piece of doggerel +which Mr. Bunner may, if he thinks fit, copy off the fly-leaf. + +Sargent was down again and painted a portrait of me walking about in my +own dining-room, in my own velveteen jacket, and twisting as I go my own +moustache; at one corner a glimpse of my wife, in an Indian dress, and +seated in a chair that was once my grandfather's, but since some months +goes by the name of Henry James's--for it was there the novelist loved +to sit--adds a touch of poesy and comicality. It is, I think, excellent, +but is too eccentric to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my +wife, in this wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at the extreme +other end; between us an open door exhibits my palatial entrance hall +and a part of my respected staircase. All this is touched in lovely, +with that witty touch of Sargent's; but, of course, it looks dam queer +as a whole. + +Pray let me hear from you, and give me good news of yourself and your +wife, to whom please remember me.--Yours most sincerely, my dear Low, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Prince Otto_ was published in October of this year; and the + following refers to two reviews of it--one of them by Mr. Henley, + which to the writer's displeasure had been pruned by the editor + before printing; the other by a writer in the Saturday Review who + declared that Otto was "a fool and a wittol," and could see nothing + but false style in the story of Seraphina's flight through the + forest. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Autumn 1885.]_ + +DEAR LAD,--If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I think [the +editor] has done us both a service; some of it stops my throat. What, it +would not have been the same if Dumas or Musset had done it, would it +not? Well, no, I do not think it would, do you know, now; I am really of +opinion it would not; and a dam good job too. Why, think what Musset +would have made of Otto! Think how gallantly Dumas would have carried +his crowd through! And whatever you do, don't quarrel with ----. It +gives me much pleasure to see your work there; I think you do yourself +great justice in that field; and I would let no annoyance, petty or +justifiable, debar me from such a market. I think you do good there. +Whether (considering our intimate relations) you would not do better to +refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to yourself: were it all on my +side, you could foresee my answer; but there is your side also, where +you must be the judge. + +As for the Saturday. Otto is no "fool," the reader is left in no doubt +as to whether or not Seraphina was a Messalina (though much it would +matter, if you come to that); and therefore on both these points the +reviewer has been unjust. Secondly, the romance lies precisely in the +freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues; and here I think the +reviewer showed himself dull. Lastly, if Otto's speech is offensive to +him, he is one of the large class of unmanly and ungenerous dogs who +arrogate and defile the name of manly. As for the passages quoted, I do +confess that some of them reek Gongorically; they are excessive, but +they are not inelegant after all. However, had he attacked me only +there, he would have scored. + +Your criticism on Gondremark is, I fancy, right. I thought all your +criticisms were indeed; only your praise--chokes me.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + The paper referred to in this and the following letters is one which + Mr. Archer wrote over his own signature in the November number of + Time, a magazine now extinct. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 28, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--I have read your paper with my customary admiration; +it is very witty, very adroit; it contains a great deal that is +excellently true (particularly the parts about my stories and the +description of me as an artist in life); but you will not be surprised +if I do not think it altogether just. It seems to me, in particular, +that you have wilfully read all my works in terms of my earliest; my +aim, even in style, has quite changed in the last six or seven years; +and this I should have thought you would have noticed. Again, your first +remark upon the affectation of the italic names; a practice only +followed in my two affected little books of travel, where a +typographical _minauderie_ of the sort appeared to me in character; and +what you say of it, then, is quite just. But why should you forget +yourself and use these same italics as an index to my theology some +pages further on? This is lightness of touch indeed; may I say, it is +almost sharpness of practice? + +Excuse these remarks. I have been on the whole much interested, and +sometimes amused. Are you aware that the praiser of this "brave +gymnasium" has not seen a canoe nor taken a long walk since '79? that he +is rarely out of the house nowadays, and carries his arm in a sling? Can +you imagine that he is a back-slidden communist, and is sure he will go +to hell (if there be such an excellent institution) for the luxury in +which he lives? And can you believe that, though it is gaily expressed, +the thought is hag and skeleton in every moment of vacuity or +depression? Can you conceive how profoundly I am irritated by the +opposite affectation to my own, when I see strong men and rich men +bleating about their sorrows and the burthen of life, in a world full of +"cancerous paupers," and poor sick children, and the fatally bereaved, +ay, and down even to such happy creatures as myself, who has yet been +obliged to strip himself, one after another, of all the pleasures that +he had chosen except smoking (and the days of that I know in my heart +ought to be over), I forgot eating, which I still enjoy, and who sees +the circle of impotence closing very slowly but quite steadily around +him? In my view, one dank, dispirited word is harmful, a crime of +_lèse-humanité_, a piece of acquired evil; every gay, every bright word +or picture, like every pleasant air of music, is a piece of pleasure set +afloat; the reader catches it, and, if he be healthy, goes on his way +rejoicing; and it is the business of art so to send him, as often as +possible. + +For what you say, so kindly, so prettily, so precisely, of my style, I +must in particular thank you; though even here, I am vexed you should +not have remarked on my attempted change of manner: seemingly this +attempt is still quite unsuccessful! Well, we shall fight it out on +this line if it takes all summer. + +And now for my last word: Mrs. Stevenson is very anxious that you should +see me, and that she should see you, in the flesh. If you at all share +in these views, I am a fixture. Write or telegraph (giving us time, +however, to telegraph in reply, lest the day be impossible), and come +down here to a bed and a dinner. What do you say, my dear critic? I +shall be truly pleased to see you; and to explain at greater length what +I meant by saying narrative was the most characteristic mood of +literature, on which point I have great hopes I shall persuade +you.--Yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--My opinion about Thoreau, and the passage in The Week, is +perhaps a fad, but it is sincere and stable. I am still of the same mind +five years later; did you observe that I had said "modern" authors? and +will you observe again that this passage touches the very joint of our +division? It is one that appeals to me, deals with that part of life +that I think the most important, and you, if I gather rightly, so much +less so? You believe in the extreme moment of the facts that humanity +has acquired and is acquiring; I think them of moment, but still of much +less than those inherent or inherited brute principles and laws that sit +upon us (in the character of conscience) as heavy as a shirt of mail, +and that (in the character of the affections and the airy spirit of +pleasure) make all the light of our lives. The house is, indeed, a great +thing, and should be rearranged on sanitary principles; but my heart and +all my interest are with the dweller, that ancient of days and day-old +infant man. + + R. L. S. + + +An excellent touch is p. 584. "By instinct or design he eschews what +demands constructive patience." I believe it is both; my theory is that +literature must always be most at home in treating movement and change; +hence I look for them. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 28, 1885._ + +MY DEAREST FATHER,--Get the November number of Time, and you will see a +review of me by a very clever fellow, who is quite furious at bottom +because I am too orthodox, just as Purcell was savage because I am not +orthodox enough. I fall between two stools. It is odd, too, to see how +this man thinks me a full-blooded fox-hunter, and tells me my philosophy +would fail if I lost my health or had to give up exercise! + +An illustrated _Treasure Island_ will be out next month. I have had an +early copy, and the French pictures are admirable. The artist has got +his types up in Hogarth; he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can +compose, and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one or two +little accidents, such as making the _Hispaniola_ a brig. I would send +you my copy, _but I cannot_; it is my new toy, and I cannot divorce +myself from this enjoyment. + +I am keeping really better, and have been out about every second day, +though the weather is cold and very wild. + +I was delighted to hear you were keeping better; you and Archer would +agree, more shame to you! (Archer is my pessimist critic.) Good-bye to +all of you, with my best love. We had a dreadful overhauling of my +conduct as a son the other night; and my wife stripped me of my +illusions and made me admit I had been a detestable bad one. Of one +thing in particular she convicted me in my own eyes: I mean, a most +unkind reticence, which hung on me then, and I confess still hangs on me +now, when I try to assure you that I do love you.--Ever your bad son, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 28, 1885._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--At last, my wife being at a concert, and a story +being done, I am at some liberty to write and give you of my views. And +first, many thanks for the works that came to my sickbed. And second, +and more important, as to the _Princess_.[13] Well, I think you are +going to do it this time; I cannot, of course, foresee, but these two +first numbers seem to me picturesque and sound and full of lineament, +and very much a new departure. As for your young lady, she is all there; +yes, sir, you can do low life, I believe. The prison was excellent; it +was of that nature of touch that I sometimes achingly miss from your +former work; with some of the grime, that is, and some of the emphasis +of skeleton there is in nature. I pray you to take grime in a good +sense; it need not be ignoble: dirt may have dignity; in nature it +usually has; and your prison was imposing. + +And now to the main point: why do we not see you? Do not fail us. Make +an alarming sacrifice, and let us see "Henry James's chair" properly +occupied. I never sit in it myself (though it was my grandfather's); it +has been consecrated to guests by your approval, and now stands at my +elbow gaping. We have a new room, too, to introduce to you--our last +baby, the drawing-room; it never cries, and has cut its teeth. Likewise, +there is a cat now. It promises to be a monster of laziness and +self-sufficiency. + +Pray see, in the November Time (a dread name for a magazine of light +reading), a very clever fellow, W. Archer, stating his views of me; the +rosy-gilled "athletico-æsthete"; and warning me, in a fatherly manner, +that a rheumatic fever would try my philosophy (as indeed it would), and +that my gospel would not do for "those who are shut out from the +exercise of any manly virtue save renunciation." To those who know that +rickety and cloistered spectre, the real R. L. S., the paper, besides +being clever in itself, presents rare elements of sport. The critical +parts are in particular very bright and neat, and often excellently +true. Get it by all manner of means. + +I hear on all sides I am to be attacked as an immoral writer; this is +painful. Have I at last got, like you, to the pitch of being attacked? +'Tis the consecration I lack--and could do without. Not that Archer's +paper is an attack, or what either he or I, I believe, would call one; +'tis the attacks on my morality (which I had thought a gem of the first +water) I referred to. + +Now, my dear James, come--come--come. The spirit (that is me) says, +Come; and the bride (and that is my wife) says, Come; and the best thing +you can do for us and yourself and your work is to get up and do so +right away.--Yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 30, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--It is possible my father may be soon down with me; he +is an old man and in bad health and spirits; and I could neither leave +him alone, nor could we talk freely before him. If he should be here +when you offer your visit, you will understand if I have to say no, and +put you off. + +I quite understand your not caring to refer to things of private +knowledge. What still puzzles me is how you ("in the witness box"--ha! I +like the phrase) should have made your argument actually hinge on a +contention which the facts answered. + +I am pleased to hear of the correctness of my guess. It is then as I +supposed; you are of the school of the generous and not the sullen +pessimists; and I can feel with you. I used myself to rage when I saw +sick folk going by in their Bath-chairs; since I have been sick myself +(and always when I was sick myself), I found life, even in its rough +places, to have a property of easiness. That which we suffer ourselves +has no longer the same air of monstrous injustice and wanton cruelty +that suffering wears when we see it in the case of others. So we begin +gradually to see that things are not black, but have their strange +compensations; and when they draw towards their worst, the idea of death +is like a bed to lie on. I should bear false witness if I did not +declare life happy. And your wonderful statement that happiness tends to +die out and misery to continue, which was what put me on the track of +your frame of mind, is diagnostic of the happy man raging over the +misery of others; it could never be written by the man who had tried +what unhappiness was like. And at any rate, it was a slip of the pen: +the ugliest word that science has to declare is a reserved indifference +to happiness and misery in the individual; it declares no leaning toward +the black, no iniquity on the large scale in fate's doings, rather a +marble equality, dread not cruel, giving and taking away and +reconciling. + +Why have I not written my _Timon_? Well, here is my worst quarrel with +you. You take my young books as my last word. The tendency to try to say +more has passed unperceived (my fault, that). And you make no allowance +for the slowness with which a man finds and tries to learn his tools. I +began with a neat brisk little style, and a sharp little knack of +partial observation; I have tried to expand my means, but still I can +only utter a part of what I wish to say, and am bound to feel; and much +of it will die unspoken. But if I had the pen of Shakespeare, I have no +_Timon_ to give forth. I feel kindly to the powers that be; I marvel +they should use me so well; and when I think of the case of others, I +wonder too, but in another vein, whether they may not, whether they +must not, be like me, still with some compensation, some delight. To +have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the +agreeable. This is a great truth, and has to be learned in the +fire.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +We expect you, remember that. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, November 1, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--You will see that I had already had a sight of your +article and what were my thoughts. + +One thing in your letter puzzles me. Are you, too, not in the +witness-box? And if you are, why take a wilfully false hypothesis? If +you knew I was a chronic invalid, why say that my philosophy was +unsuitable to such a case? My call for facts is not so general as yours, +but an essential fact should not be put the other way about. + +The fact is, consciously or not, you doubt my honesty; you think I am +making faces, and at heart disbelieve my utterances. And this I am +disposed to think must spring from your not having had enough of pain, +sorrow, and trouble in your existence. It is easy to have too much; easy +also or possible to have too little; enough is required that a man may +appreciate what elements of consolation and joy there are in everything +but absolutely overpowering physical pain or disgrace, and how in almost +all circumstances the human soul can play a fair part. You fear life, I +fancy, on the principle of the hand of little employment. But perhaps my +hypothesis is as unlike the truth as the one you chose. Well, if it be +so, if you have had trials, sickness, the approach of death, the +alienation of friends, poverty at the heels, and have not felt your +soul turn round upon these things and spurn them under--you must be very +differently made from me, and I earnestly believe from the majority of +men. But at least you are in the right to wonder and complain. + +To "say all"? Stay here. All at once? That would require a word from the +pen of Gargantua. We say each particular thing as it comes up, and "with +that sort of emphasis that for the time there seems to be no other." +Words will not otherwise serve us; no, nor even Shakespeare, who could +not have put _As You Like It_ and _Timon_ into one without ruinous loss +both of emphasis and substance. Is it quite fair then to keep your face +so steadily On my most light-hearted works, and then say I recognise no +evil? Yet in the paper on Burns, for instance, I show myself alive to +some sorts of evil. But then, perhaps, they are not your sorts. + +And again: "to say all"? All: yes. Everything: no. The task were +endless, the effect nil. But my all, in such a vast field as this of +life, is what interests me, what stands out, what takes on itself a +presence for my imagination or makes a figure in that little tricky +abbreviation which is the best that my reason can conceive. That I must +treat, or I shall be fooling with my readers. That, and not the all of +some one else. + +And here we come to the division: not only do I believe that literature +should give joy, but I see a universe, I suppose, eternally different +from yours; a solemn, a terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe, +where suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls with +dispassionate partiality, but where it may be and generally is nobly +borne; where, above all (this I believe; probably you don't: I think he +may, with cancer), _any brave man may make_ out a life which shall be +happy for himself, and, by so being, beneficent to those about him. And +if he fails, why should I hear him weeping? I mean if I fail, why should +I weep? Why should _you_ hear _me_? Then to me morals, the conscience, +the affections, and the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly, +so infinitely more important than the other parts of life, that I +conceive men rather triflers who become immersed in the latter; and I +will always think the man who keeps his lip stiff, and makes "a happy +fireside clime," and carries a pleasant face about to friends and +neighbours, infinitely greater (in the abstract) than an atrabilious +Shakespeare or a backbiting Kant or Darwin. No offence to any of these +gentlemen, two of whom probably (one for certain) came up to my +standard. + +And now enough said; it were hard if a poor man could not criticise +another without having so much ink shed against him. But I shall still +regret you should have written on an hypothesis you knew to be +untenable, and that you should thus have made your paper, for those who +do not know me, essentially unfair. The rich, fox-hunting squire speaks +with one voice; the sick man of letters with another.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + (_Prometheus-Heine in minimis_). + + +_P.S._--Here I go again. To me, the medicine bottles on my chimney and +the blood on my handkerchief are accidents; they do not colour my view +of life, as you would know, I think, if you had experience of sickness; +they do not exist in my prospect; I would as soon drag them under the +eyes of my readers as I would mention a pimple I might chance to have +(saving your presence) on my posteriors. What does it prove? what does +it change? it has not hurt, it has not changed me in any essential part; +and I should think myself a trifler and in bad taste if I introduced the +world to these unimportant privacies. + +But, again, there is this mountain-range between us--_that you do not +believe me_. It is not flattering, but the fault is probably in my +literary art. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + The "other thing coming out" mentioned below in the last paragraph + but one was _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December 26, 1885._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--_Lamia_ has not yet turned up, but your letter came to me +this evening with a scent of the Boulevard Montparnasse that was +irresistible. The sand of Lavenue's crumbled under my heel; and the +bouquet of the old Fleury came back to me, and I remembered the day when +I found a twenty franc piece under my fetish. Have you that fetish +still? and has it brought you luck? I remembered, too, my first sight of +you in a frock-coat and a smoking-cap, when we passed the evening at the +Café de Medicis; and my last when we sat and talked in the Parc Monceau; +and all these things made me feel a little young again, which, to one +who has been mostly in bed for a month, was a vivifying change. + +Yes, you are lucky to have a bag that holds you comfortably. Mine is a +strange contrivance; I don't die, damme, and I can't get along on both +feet to save my soul; I am a chronic sickist; and my work cripples along +between bed and the parlour, between the medicine bottle and the cupping +glass. Well, I like my life all the same; and should like it none the +worse if I could have another talk with you, though even my talks now +are measured out to me by the minute hand like poisons in a minim glass. + +A photograph will be taken of my ugly mug and sent to you for ulterior +purposes: I have another thing coming out, which I did not put in the +way of the Scribners, I can scarce tell how; but I was sick and +penniless and rather back on the world, and mismanaged it. I trust they +will forgive me. + +I am sorry to hear of Mrs. Low's illness, and glad to hear of her +recovery. I will announce the coming _Lamia_ to Bob: he steams away at +literature like smoke. I have a beautiful Bob on my walls, and a good +Sargent, and a delightful Lemon; and your etching now hangs framed in +the dining-room. So the arts surround me.--Yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. DE MATTOS + + With this cousin the writer had always been on terms of close + affection, and he now dedicated to her _The Strange Case of Dr. + Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. In the dedication as published only the second + verse stands. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] January 1st, 1886._ + +DEAREST KATHARINE,--Here, on a very little book and accompanied with +lame verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is now getting well on +in years; it must be nearly of age; and it gets more valuable to me with +every time I see you. It is not possible to express any sentiment, and +it is not necessary to try, at least between us. You know very well that +I love you dearly, and that I always will. I only wish the verses were +better, but at least you like the story; and it is sent to you by the +one that loves you--Jekyll, and not Hyde. + + _R. L. S._ + + + _Ave!_ + + Bells upon the city are ringing in the night; + High above the gardens are the houses full of light; + On the heathy Pentlands is the curlew flying free; + And the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie. + + We cannae break the bonds that God decreed to bind, + Still we'll be the children of the heather and the wind; + Far away from home, O, it's still for you and me + That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] Jan. 1st, 1886._ + +MY DEAR KINNICUM,[14]--I am a very bad dog, but not for the first time. +Your book, which is very interesting, came duly; and I immediately got +a very bad cold indeed, and have been fit for nothing whatever. I am a +bit better now, and aye on the mend; so I write to tell you, I thought +of you on New Year's Day; though, I own, it would have been more decent +if I had thought in time for you to get my letter then. Well, what can't +be cured must be endured, Mr. Lawrie; and you must be content with what +I give. If I wrote all the letters I ought to write, and at the proper +time, I should be very good and very happy; but I doubt if I should do +anything else. + +I suppose you will be in town for the New Year; and I hope your health +is pretty good. What you want is diet; but it is as much use to tell you +that as it is to tell my father. And I quite admit a diet is a beastly +thing. I doubt, however, if it be as bad as not being allowed to speak, +which I have tried fully, and do not like. When, at the same time, I was +not allowed to read, it passed a joke. But these are troubles of the +past, and on this day, at least, it is proper to suppose they won't +return. But we are not put here to enjoy ourselves: it was not God's +purpose; and I am prepared to argue, it is not our sincere wish. As for +our deserts, the less said of them the better, for somebody might hear, +and nobody cares to be laughed at. A good man is a very noble thing to +see, but not to himself; what he seems to God is, fortunately, not our +business; that is the domain of faith; and whether on the first of +January or the thirty-first of December, faith is a good word to end on. + +My dear Cummy, many happy returns to you and my best love.--The worst +correspondent in the world, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _January 1st, 1886_. + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--Many happy returns of the day to you all; I am fairly +well and in good spirits; and much and hopefully occupied with dear +Jenkin's life. The inquiry in every detail, every letter that I read, +makes me think of him more nobly. I cannot imagine how I got his +friendship; I did not deserve it. I believe the notice will be +interesting and useful. + +My father's last letter, owing to the use of a quill pen and the neglect +of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. Every one tried, and every +one failed to decipher an important word on which the interest of one +whole clause (and the letter consisted of two) depended. + +I find I can make little more of this; but I'll spare the blots.--Dear +people, ever your loving son, + + R. L. S. + + +I will try again, being a giant refreshed by the house being empty. The +presence of people is the great obstacle to letter-writing. I deny that +letters should contain news (I mean mine; those of other people should). +But mine should contain appropriate sentiments and humorous nonsense, or +nonsense without the humour. When the house is empty, the mind is seized +with a desire--no, that is too strong--a willingness to pour forth +unmitigated rot, which constitutes (in me) the true spirit of +correspondence. When I have no remarks to offer (and nobody to offer +them to), my pen flies, and you see the remarkable consequence of a page +literally covered with words and genuinely devoid of sense. I can always +do that, if quite alone, and I like doing it; but I have yet to learn +that it is beloved by correspondents. The deuce of it is, that there is +no end possible but the end of the paper; and as there is very little +left of that--if I cannot stop writing--suppose you give up reading. It +would all come to the same thing; and I think we should all be +happier.... + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + In the following letter R. L. S. accepts the dedication of Mr. Low's + illustrated edition of Keats's _Lamia_, and sends him in return the + newly published _Jekyll and Hyde_, and a set of verses afterwards + printed in the Century Magazine and _Underwoods_, and inscribed by + Mr. St. Gaudens on his medallion portrait of the author. The terms of + the _Lamia_ dedication are as follows: "In testimony of loyal + friendship and of a common faith in doubtful tales from Faery-Land, I + dedicate to Robert Louis Stevenson my work in this book." The Latin + legend inscribed above the design runs: "Neque est ullum certius + amicitiae vinculum quam consensus et societas consiliorum et + voluntatum." + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _Jan. 2nd, 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--_Lamia_ has come, and I do not know how to thank you, not +only for the beautiful art of the designs, but for the handsome and apt +words of the dedication. My favourite is "Bathes unseen," which is a +masterpiece; and the next, "Into the green recessed woods," is perhaps +more remarkable, though it does not take my fancy so imperiously. The +night scene at Corinth pleases me also. The second part offers fewer +opportunities. I own I should like to see both _Isabella_ and the _Eve_ +thus illustrated; and then there's _Hyperion_--O, yes, and _Endymion_! I +should like to see the lot: beautiful pictures dance before me by +hundreds: I believe _Endymion_ would suit you best. It also is in +faery-land; and I see a hundred opportunities, cloudy and flowery +glories, things as delicate as the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in +themselves of any mighty purport, but made for the pencil: the feast of +Pan, Peona's isle, the "slabbed margin of a well," the chase of the +butterfly, the nymph, Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of +unconnected beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the bosom of +the publisher. + +What is more important, I accept the terms of the dedication with a +frank heart, and the terms of your Latin legend fairly. The sight of +your pictures has once more awakened me to my right mind; something may +come of it; yet one more bold push to get free of this prison-yard of +the abominably ugly, where I take my daily exercise with my +contemporaries. I do not know, I have a feeling in my bones, a sentiment +which may take on the forms of imagination, or may not. If it does, I +shall owe it to you; and the thing will thus descend from Keats even if +on the wrong side of the blanket. If it can be done in prose--that is +the puzzle--I divagate again. Thank you again: you can draw and yet you +do not love the ugly: what are you doing in this age? Flee, while it is +yet time; they will have your four limbs pinned upon a stable door to +scare witches. The ugly, my unhappy friend, is _de rigueur_: it is the +only wear! What a chance you threw away with the serpent! Why had +Apollonius no pimples? Heavens, my dear Low, you do not know your +business.... + +I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph; but the gnome +is interesting, I think, and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards +the fountain of tears. It is not always the time to rejoice.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + +The gnome's name is _Jekyll & Hyde_; I believe you will find he is +likewise quite willing to answer to the name of Low or Stevenson. + +_Same day._--I have copied out on the other sheet some bad verses, which +somehow your picture suggested; as a kind of image of things that I +pursue and cannot reach, and that you seem--no, not to have reached--but +to have come a thought nearer to than I. This is the life we have +chosen: well, the choice was mad, but I should make it again. + +What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be printed in (say) the +Century for the sake of my name; and if that were possible, they might +advertise your book. It might be headed as sent in acknowledgment of +your _Lamia_. Or perhaps it might be introduced by the phrases I have +marked above. I dare say they would stick it in: I want no payment, +being well paid by _Lamia_. If they are not, keep them to yourself. + + + + +TO WILL H. LOW + + +_Damned bad lines in return for a beautiful book_ + + YOUTH now flees on feathered foot. + Faint and fainter sounds the flute; + Rarer songs of Gods. + And still, + Somewhere on the sunny hill, + Or along the winding stream. + Through the willows, flits a dream; + Flits, but shows a smiling face, + Flees, but with so quaint a grace, + None can choose to stay at home, + All must follow--all must roam. + + This is unborn beauty: she + Now in air floats high and free, + Takes the sun, and breaks the blue;-- + Late, with stooping pinion flew + Raking hedgerow trees, and wet + Her wing in silver streams, and set + Shining foot on temple roof. + Now again she flies aloof, + Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed + By the evening's amethyst. + + In wet wood and miry lane + Still we pound and pant in vain; + Still with earthy foot we chase + Waning pinion, fainting face; + Still, with grey hair, we stumble on + Till--behold!--the vision gone! + Where has fleeting beauty led? + To the doorway of the dead! + [Life is gone, but life was gay: + We have come the primrose way!][15] + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--Thank you for your letter, so interesting to my vanity. +There is a review in the St. James's, which, as it seems to hold +somewhat of your opinions, and is besides written with a pen and not a +poker, we think may possibly be yours. The _Prince_[16] has done fairly +well in spite of the reviews, which have been bad: he was, as you +doubtless saw, well slated in the Saturday; one paper received it as a +child's story; another (picture my agony) described it as a "Gilbert +comedy." It was amusing to see the race between me and Justin M'Carthy: +the Milesian has won by a length. + +That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and you take longer +over your work, and it will not be so successful as if you had aimed low +and rushed it. What the public likes is work (of any kind) a little +loosely executed; so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a +little dim and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if +possible) be a little dull into the bargain. I know that good work +sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my heart, I think it is by an +accident. And I know also that good work must succeed at last; but that +is not the doing of the public; they are only shamed into silence or +affectation. I do not write for the public; I do write for money, a +nobler deity; and most of all for myself, not perhaps any more noble, +but both more intelligent and nearer home. + +Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast whom +we feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press is the +mouth of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an university chair, +and everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its +abode and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but men, and not all of +these--and fewer women. As for respecting the race, and, above all, that +fatuous rabble of burgesses called "the public," God save me from such +irreligion!--that way lies disgrace and dishonour. There must be +something wrong in me, or I would not be popular. + +This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and permanent opinion. +Not much, I think. As for the art that we practise, I have never been +able to see why its professors should be respected. They chose the +primrose path; when they found it was not all primroses, but some of it +brambly, and much of it uphill, they began to think and to speak of +themselves as holy martyrs. But a man is never martyred in any honest +sense in the pursuit of his pleasure; and _delirium tremens_ has more of +the honour of the cross. We were full of the pride of life, and chose, +like prostitutes, to live by a pleasure. We should be paid if we give +the pleasure we pretend to give; but why should we be honoured? + +I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a Sunday; but we must +wait till I am able to see people. I am very full of Jenkin's life; it +is painful, yet very pleasant, to dig into the past of a dead friend, +and find him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I own, as I read, I +wonder more and more why he should have taken me to be a friend. He had +many and obvious faults upon the face of him; the heart was pure gold. I +feel it little pain to have lost him, for it is a loss in which I cannot +believe; I take it, against reason, for an absence; if not to-day, then +to-morrow, I still fancy I shall see him in the door; and then, now when +I know him better, how glad a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in the +immortality business, the world would indeed be too good to be true; but +we were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire: +the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps +well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly +day by day; and they are enough for a man who knows his own frailty and +sees all things in the proportion of reality. The soul of piety was +killed long ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether +eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but +his wayside campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for the +struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the condition that +he is opposed. How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, +so made up of discontent and aspiration, and such noble and uneasy +passions--how can he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud; +for man's cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he +continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior +happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop and taste it; he +can be about the rugged and bitter business where his heart lies; and +yet he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, and +enjoy the notion that he is both himself and something else; and that +his friends will yet meet him, all ironed out and emasculate, and still +be lovable,--as if love did not live in the faults of the beloved only, +and draw its breath in an unbroken round of forgiveness! But the truth +is, we must fight until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet +for mankind but complete resumption into--what?--God, let us say--when +all these desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last. + +Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short--_excusez_. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JAMES PAYN + + + The late Mrs. Buckle, a daughter of Mr. James Payn married to the + editor of the Times, had laughingly remonstrated, through her father, + on recognising some features of her own house in Queen Square, + Bloomsbury, in the description of that tenanted by the fair Cuban in + the section of Stevenson's _Dynamiter_ which tells the story of the + Brown Box. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886._ + +DEAR JAMES PAYN,--Your very kind letter came very welcome; and still +more welcome the news that you see ----'s tale. I will now tell you (and +it was very good and very wise of me not to tell it before) that he is +one of the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money into a +pharmacy at Hyères, when the cholera (certainly not his fault) swept +away his customers in a body. Thus you can imagine the pleasure I have +to announce to him a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy, +doing nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts inexorably +mount up. + +To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not one +of those that can be read running; and the name of your daughter remains +for me undecipherable. I call her, then, your daughter--and a very good +name too--and I beg to explain how it came about that I took her house. +The hospital was a point in my tale; but there is a house on each side. +Now the true house is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If +not, what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true? +Everything in the _Dynamiter_ is not true; but the story of the Brown +Box is, in almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear +to it. It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in +that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very bad +society. + +But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter's house has not a balcony at +the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that side of Queen +Square from the pavement and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence I +saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there is none to the +particular house in question, it must have been so arranged to spite me. + +I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three questions +to your daughter:-- + + 1st. Has her house the proper terrace? + 2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital? + 3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884? + +You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on +some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If +this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper +certificate, and her house property will return to its original value. + +Can man say more?--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir +Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of +Zero. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The late Sir Percy and Lady Shelley had in these days attached + themselves warmly to R. L. S., and saw in his ways and character a + living image of those of the poet, Sir Percy's father, as they + imagined him. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. Somethingorother-th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--I send you two photographs: they are both done by Sir +Percy Shelley, the poet's son, which may interest. The sitting down one +is, I think, the best; but if they choose that, see that the little +reflected light on the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be +tragic. Don't forget "Baronet" to Sir Percy's name. + +We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my +dedication.--Yours ever, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Apropos of the odd controversy about Shelley's nose: I have +before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley's son: my nose is +hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the accipitrine family in +man: well, out of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it +straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood of light on +calumnious man--and the scandal-mongering sun. For personally I cling to +my curve. To continue the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all +his sisters had noses like mine: Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the +family had high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this +turn-up (of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other +_fatras_) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened in +my photographs by his son? + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES J. GUTHRIE + + + "The lad" is Lloyd Osbourne, at this time a student at Edinburgh + University. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 18th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR GUTHRIE,--I hear the lad has got into the Spec. and I write to +thank you very warmly for the part you have played. I only wish we were +both going there together to-morrow night, and you would be in the +secretary's place (that so well became you, sir) and I were to open a +debate or harry you on "Private Business," and Omond perhaps to read us +a few glowing pages on--the siege of Saragossa, was it? or the Battle of +Saratoga? my memory fails me, but I have not forgotten a certain white +charger that careered over the fields of incoherent fight with a +prodigious consequence of laughter: have you? I wonder, has Omond? + +Well, well, _perierunt_, but, I hope, _non imputantur_. We have had good +fun. + +Again thanking you sincerely, I remain, my dear Guthrie, your old +comrade, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Kidnapped_ had at this time just been taken up again, and Stevenson + explains the course of the story to his father, who had taken the + deepest interest in it since they visited together the scene of the + Appin murder. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 25, 1886._] + +MY DEAR FATHER,--Many thanks for a letter quite like yourself. I quite +agree with you, and had already planned a scene of religion in +_Balfour_; the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge +furnishes me with a catechist whom I shall try to make the man. I have +another catechist, the blind, pistol-carrying highway robber, whom I +have transferred from the Long Island to Mull. I find it a most +picturesque period, and wonder Scott let it escape. The _Covenant_ is +lost on one of the Tarrans, and David is cast on Earraid, where (being +from inland) he is nearly starved before he finds out the island is +tidal; then he crosses Mull to Toronsay, meeting the blind catechist by +the way; then crosses Morven from Kinlochaline to Kingairloch, where he +stays the night with the good catechist; that is where I am; next day he +is to be put ashore in Appin, and be present at Colin Campbell's death. +To-day I rest, being a little run down. Strange how liable we are to +brain fag in this scooty family! But as far as I have got, all but the +last chapter, I think David is on his feet, and (to my mind) a far +better story and far sounder at heart than _Treasure Island_. + +I have no earthly news, living entirely in my story, and only coming out +of it to play patience. The Shelleys are gone; the Taylors kinder than +can be imagined. The other day, Lady Taylor drove over and called on +me; she is a delightful old lady, and great fun. I mentioned a story +about the Duchess of Wellington--which I had heard Sir Henry tell; and +though he was very tired, he looked it up and copied it out for me in +his own hand.--Your most affectionate son, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO C. W. STODDARD + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 13th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR STODDARD,--I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have at +last taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This is +already my sixth letter to-day, and I have many more waiting; and my +wrist gives me a jog on the subject of scrivener's cramp, which is not +encouraging. + +I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you wrote your last. I +am as usual pretty cheerful, but not very strong. I stay in the house +all winter, which is base; but, as you continue to see, the pen goes +from time to time, though neither fast enough nor constantly enough to +please me. + +My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and the interval of +widowery explains my writing. Another person writing for you when you +have done work is a great enemy to correspondence. To-day I feel out of +health, and shan't work; and hence this so much over-due reply. + +I was re-reading some of your _South Sea Idyls_ the other day: some of +the chapters are very good indeed; some pages as good as they can be. + +How does your class get along? If you like to touch on _Otto_, any day +in a by-hour, you may tell them--as the author's last dying +confession--that it is a strange example of the difficulty of being +ideal in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy-mindedness, which +spoils the book and often gives it a wanton air of unreality and +juggling with air-bells, comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too +great realism of some chapters and passages--some of which I have now +spotted, others I dare say I shall never spot--which disprepares the +imagination for the cast of the remainder. + +Any story can be made _true_ in its own key; any story can be made +_false_ by the choice of a wrong key of detail or style: _Otto_ is made +to reel like a drunken--I was going to say man, but let us substitute +cipher--by the variations of the key. Have you observed that the famous +problem of realism and idealism is one purely of detail? Have you seen +my _Note on Realism_ in Cassell's Magazine of Art; and _Elements of +Style_ in the Contemporary; and _Romance_ and _Humble Apology_ in +Longman's? They are all in your line of business; let me know what you +have not seen and I'll send 'em. + +I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was a pleasant old spot, +and I remember you there, though still more dearly in your own strange +den upon a hill in San Francisco; and one of the most San Francisco-y +parts of San Francisco. + +Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + Concerning the payment which Mr. Gosse had procured him from an + American magazine for the set of verses addressed to Mr. Low (see + above, p. 172). + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 17, 1886._] + +DEAR GOSSE,--Non, c'est honteux! for a set of shambling lines that don't +know whether they're trochees or what they are, that you or any of the +crafty ones would blush all over if you had so much as thought upon, all +by yourselves, in the water-closet. But God knows, I am glad enough of +five pounds; and this is almost as honest a way to get it as plain +theft, so what should I care?--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO J. A. SYMONDS + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth [Spring 1886]._ + +MY DEAR SYMONDS,--If we have lost touch, it is (I think) only in a +material sense; a question of letters, not hearts. You will find a warm +welcome at Skerryvore from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed, we never +tell ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run to Davos is a +prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship; and I think I can +promise you you have a pair of trusty well-wishers and friends in +Bournemouth: whether they write or not is but a small thing; the flag +may not be waved, but it is there. + +_Jekyll_ is a dreadful thing, I own; but the only thing I feel dreadful +about is that damned old business of the war in the members. This time +it came out; I hope it will stay in, in future. + +Raskolnikoff[17] is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years; I +am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: Henry James could not finish +it: all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was like having an +illness. James did not care for it because the character of Raskolnikoff +was not objective; and at that I divined a great gulf between us, and, on +further reflection, the existence of a certain impotence in many minds of +to-day, which prevents them from living in a book or a character, and +keeps them standing afar off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I +suppose the book may seem empty in the centre; to the others it is a +room, a house of life, into which they themselves enter, and are tortured +and purified. The Juge d'Instruction I thought a wonderful, weird, +touching, ingenious creation: the drunken father, and Sonia, and the +student friend, and the uncircumscribed, protoplasmic humanity of +Raskolnikoff, all upon a level that filled me with wonder: the execution +also, superb in places. Another has been translated--_Humiliés et +Offensés_. It is even more incoherent than _Le Crime et le Châtiment_, +but breathes much of the same lovely goodness, and has passages of power. +Dostoieffsky is a devil of a swell, to be sure. Have you heard that he +became a stout, imperialist conservative? It is interesting to know. To +something of that side, the balance leans with me also in view of the +incoherency and incapacity of all. The old boyish idea of the march on +Paradise being now out of season, and all plans and ideas that I hear +debated being built on a superb indifference to the first principles of +human character, a helpless desire to acquiesce in anything of which I +know the worst assails me. Fundamental errors in human nature of two +sorts stand on the skyline of all this modern world of aspirations. +First, that it is happiness that men want; and second, that happiness +consists of anything but an internal harmony. Men do not want, and I do +not think they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry, +effort, success--the elements our friends wish to eliminate. And, on the +other hand, happiness is a question of morality--or of immorality, there +is no difference--and conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his +worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I suppose, in his +ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy in the detested camp; Pepys was +pretty happy, and I am pretty happy on the whole, because we both +somewhat crowingly accepted a _via media_, both liked to attend to our +affairs, and both had some success in managing the same. It is quite an +open question whether Pepys and I ought to be happy; on the other hand, +there is no doubt that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he +said it) that he was _la misère humaine_, cureless misery--unless perhaps +by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had +justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece +ornaments, the bourgeois (_quorum pars_), and their cowardly dislike of +dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly +they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment +and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two +flaunting emblems of their hollowness. + +God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch. + +Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I +have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle. +Pray don't fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment, +now it has been spoken of, if you do,--Yours ever, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO F. W. H. MYERS + + + In reply to a paper of criticisms on _Jekyll and Hyde_. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1st, 1886._ + +MY DEAR SIR,--I know not how to thank you: this is as handsome as it is +clever. With almost every word I agree--much of it I even knew +before--much of it, I must confess, would never have been, if I had been +able to do what I like, and lay the thing by for the matter of a year. +But the wheels of Byles the Butcher drive exceeding swiftly, and +_Jekyll_ was conceived, written, re-written, re-rewritten, and printed +inside ten weeks. Nothing but this white-hot haste would explain the +gross error of Hyde's speech at Lanyon's. Your point about the +specialised fiend is more subtle, but not less just: I had not seen +it.--About the picture, I rather meant that Hyde had brought it himself; +and Utterson's hypothesis of the gift (p. 42) an error.--The tidiness of +the room, I thought, but I dare say my psychology is here too ingenious +to be sound, was due to the dread weariness and horror of the +imprisonment. Something has to be done: he would tidy the room. But I +dare say it is false. + +I shall keep your paper; and if ever my works come to be collected, I +will put my back into these suggestions. In the meanwhile, I do truly +lack words in which to express my sense of gratitude for the trouble you +have taken. The receipt of such a paper is more than a reward for my +labours. I have read it with pleasure, and as I say, I hope to use it +with profit.--Believe me, your most obliged, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The following letter relates to a suggestion which Mr. Gilder, as + editor of the Century Magazine, had already made in the Hyères time + nearly three years previously, and had now lately revived, that + Stevenson and his friend Mr. W. H. Low should make a joint excursion + down the Saône and Rhone, the result to be a book written by R. L. S. + and illustrated by Mr. Low. Considerations of health caused the plan + to be promptly abandoned for the second time. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._] + +MY DEAR LOW,--This is the most enchanting picture. Now understand my +state: I am really an invalid, but of a mysterious order. I might be a +_malade imaginaire_, but for one too tangible symptom, my tendency to +bleed from the lungs. If we could go (_1st_) We must have money enough +to travel with _leisure and comfort_--especially the first. (_2nd_) You +must be prepared for a comrade who would go to bed some part of every +day and often stay silent. (_3rd_) You would have to play the part of a +thoughtful courier, sparing me fatigue, looking out that my bed was +warmed, etc. (_4th_) If you are very nervous, you must recollect a bad +hemorrhage is always on the cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and +horror for those who are beside me. + +Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it. + +If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, I believe the +trip might do me good, and I feel sure that, working together, we might +produce a fine book. The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have +adored it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train. + +Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. I have stood the +winter hitherto with some credit, but the dreadful weather still +continues, and I cannot holloa till I am through the wood. + +Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I embrace the prospect +with glorious feelings. + +I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no circumstance of +pleasure except your letter. That, however, counts for much. I am glad +you liked the doggerel: I have already had a liberal cheque, over which +I licked my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to make +money by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is only too welcome +in my handsome but impecunious house. + +Let me know soon what is to be expected--as far as it does not hang by +that inconstant quantity, my want of health. Remember me to Madam with +the best thanks and wishes; and believe me your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Written just before a visit to London; not, this time, as my guest at + the British Museum, but to stay with his father at an hotel in + Fitzroy Square. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been reading the Vth and VIth Aeneid--the latter +for the first time--and am overpowered. That is one of the most +astonishing pieces of literature, or rather it contains the best, I ever +met with. We are all damned small fry, and Virgil is one of the tops of +human achievement; I never appreciated this; you should have a certain +age to feel this; it is no book for boys, who grind under the lack of +enterprise and dash, and pass ignorantly over miracles of performance +that leave an old hoary-headed practitioner like me stricken down with +admiration. Even as a boy, the Sibyl would have bust me; but I never +read the VIth till I began it two days ago; it is all fresh and +wonderful; do you envy me? If only I knew any Latin! if you had a decent +edition with notes--many notes--I should like well to have it; mine is a +damned Didot with not the ghost of a note, type that puts my eyes out, +and (I suspect) no very splendid text--but there, the carnal feelings of +the man who can't construe are probably parents to the suspicion. + +My dear fellow, I would tenfold rather come to the Monument; but my +father is an old man, and if I go to town, it shall be (this time) for +his pleasure. He has many marks of age, some of childhood; I wish this +knighthood business could come off, though even the talk of it has been +already something, but the change (to my eyes) is thoroughly begun; and +a very beautiful, simple, honourable, high-spirited and child-like (and +childish) man is now in process of deserting us piecemeal. _Si quis +piorum_--God knows, not that he was pious, but he did his hand's darg or +tried to do it; and if not,--well, it is a melancholy business.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + The first letter showing Stevenson's new interest in the + technicalities of music. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--I try to tell myself it is good nature, but I know +it is vanity that makes me write. + +I have drafted the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming and his friends, +his influence on me, his views on religion and literature, his part at +the Savile; it should boil down to about ten pages, and I really do +think it admirably good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that +I found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after a serious talk +with him: surely that means it is good? I had to write and tell you, +being alone. + +I have excellent news of Fanny, who is much better for the change. My +father is still very yellow, and very old, and very weak, but yesterday +he seemed happier, and smiled, and followed what was said; even laughed, +I think. When he came away, he said to me, "Take care of yourself, my +dearie," which had a strange sound of childish days, and will not leave +my mind. + +You must get Litolf's _Gavottes Célèbres_: I have made another trover +there: a musette of Lully's. The second part of it I have not yet got +the hang of; but the first--only a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful +and pretty hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the end of +it, this musette enters with the most really thrilling effect of simple +beauty. O--it's first-rate. I am quite mad over it. If you find other +books containing Lully, Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you +might tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be found. I +write all morning, come down, and never leave the piano till about five; +write letters, dine, get down again about eight, and never leave the +piano till I go to bed. This is a fine life.--Yours most sincerely, + + R. L. S. + + +If you get the musette (Lully's), please tell me if I am right, and it +was probably written for strings. Anyway, it is as neat as--as neat as +Bach--on the piano; or seems so to my ignorance. + +I play much of the Rigadoon; but it's strange, it don't come off _quite_ +so well with me! + +[Illustration] + +There is the first part of the musette copied (from memory, so I hope +there's nothing wrong). Is it not angelic? But it ought, of course, to +have the gavotte before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote +thus (if I remember):-- + +[Illustration] + +staccato, I think. Then you sail into the musette. + + +_N.B._--Where I have put an "A" is that a dominant eleventh, or what? or +just a seventh on the D? and if the latter, is that allowed? It sounds +very funny. Never mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which +is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble +questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The +whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could easily be played too +fast? The dignity must not be lost; the periwig feeling. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Written after his return from an excursion to Matlock with his + father, following on their visit to London. "The verses" means + _Underwoods_. The suppressed poem is that headed "To ----," + afterwards printed in _Songs of Travel_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is to announce to you, what I believe should have +been done sooner, that we are at Skerryvore. We were both tired, and I +was fighting my second cold, so we came straight through by the west. + +We have a butler! He doesn't buttle, but the point of the thing is the +style. When Fanny gardens, he stands over her and looks genteel. He +opens the door, and I am told waits at table. Well, what's the odds; I +shall have it on my tomb--"He ran a butler." + + He may have been this and that, + A drunkard or a guttler; + He may have been bald and fat-- + At least he kept a butler. + + He may have sprung from ill or well, + From Emperor or sutler; + He may be burning now in Hell-- + On earth he kept a butler. + +I want to tell you also that I have suppressed your poem. I shall send +it you for yourself, and I hope you will agree with me that it was not +good enough in point of view of merit, and a little too intimate as +between you and me. I would not say less of you, my friend, but I scarce +care to say so much in public while we live. A man may stand on his own +head; it is not fair to set his friend on a pedestal. + +The verses are now at press; I have written a damn fine ballad.--And I +am, dear S. C., ever yours, + + TOMNODDY. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Want of health preventing the author at this time from carrying the + adventures of David Balfour, as narrated in _Kidnapped_, through to + their issue as originally designed, it was resolved to wind them up + for the present with the discomfiture of the wicked uncle, leaving + open the possibility of a sequel, which was supplied six years later + in _Catriona_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886._] + +MY DEAR FATHER,--The David problem has to-day been decided. I am to +leave the door open for a sequel if the public take to it, and this will +save me from butchering a lot of good material to no purpose. Your +letter from Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to +see; the hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am for action quite +unfit, and even a letter is beyond me; so pray take these scraps at a +vast deal more than their intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about +David, Colvin agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it far +the most human of my labours hitherto. As to whether the long-eared +British public may take to it, all think it more than doubtful; I wish +they would, for I could do a second volume with ease and pleasure, and +Colvin thinks it sin and folly to throw away David and Alan Breck upon +so small a field as this one.--Ever your affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS MONROE + + + The next is in answer to criticisms on _Prince Otto_ received from a + lady correspondent in Chicago. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, May 25th, 1886._ + +DEAR MISS MONROE,--(I hope I have this rightly) I must lose no time in +thanking you for a letter singularly pleasant to receive. It may +interest you to know that I read to the signature without suspecting my +correspondent was a woman; though in one point (a reference to the +Countess) I might have found a hint of the truth. You are not pleased +with Otto; since I judge you do not like weakness; and no more do I. And +yet I have more than tolerance for Otto, whose faults are the faults of +weakness, but never of ignoble weakness, and who seeks before all to be +both kind and just. Seeks, not succeeds. But what is man? So much of +cynicism to recognise that nobody does right is the best equipment for +those who do not wish to be cynics in good earnest. Think better of +Otto, if my plea can influence you; and this I mean for your own +sake--not his, poor fellow, as he will never learn your opinion; but for +yours, because, as men go in this world (and women too), you will not go +far wrong if you light upon so fine a fellow; and to light upon one and +not perceive his merits is a calamity. In the flesh, of course, I mean; +in the book the fault, of course, is with my stumbling pen. Seraphina +made a mistake about her Otto; it begins to swim before me dimly that +you may have some traits of Seraphina? + +With true ingratitude you see me pitch upon your exception; but it is +easier to defend oneself gracefully than to acknowledge praise. I am +truly glad that you should like my books; for I think I see from what +you write that you are a reader worth convincing. Your name, if I have +properly deciphered it, suggests that you may be also something of my +countrywoman; for it is hard to see where Monroe came from, if not from +Scotland. I seem to have here a double claim on your good nature: being +myself pure Scotch and having appreciated your letter, make up two +undeniable merits which, perhaps, if it should be quite without trouble, +you might reward with your photograph.--Yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Evidently written about the 10th of June, very soon after the + decision of Mr. Gladstone to dissolve Parliament on the defeat of the + Home Rule Bill (June 8). As to the _Travelling Companion_, see above, + p. 68. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am in bed again--bloodie jackery and be damned to it. +Lloyd is better, I think; and money matters better; only my rascal +carcase, and the muddy and oily lees of what was once my immortal soul +are in a poor and pitiful condition. + + LITANY + Damn the political situation + " you + " me + and + " Gladstone. + +I am a kind of dam home ruler, worse luck to it. I would support almost +anything but that bill. How am I to vote? Great Cæsar's Ghost!--Ever +yours, + + R. L. S. + + +O! the _Travelling Companion_ won't do; I am back on it entirely: it is +a foul, gross, bitter, ugly daub, with lots of stuff in it, and no +urbanity and no glee and no true tragedy--to the crows with it, a +carrion tale! I will do no more carrion, I have done too much in this +carrion epoch; I will now be clean; and by clean, I don't mean any folly +about purity, but such things as a healthy man with his bowels open +shall find fit to see and speak about without a pang of nausea.--I am, +yours, + + A REPENTANT DANKIST. + + +The lakeists, the drainists, the brookists, and the riverites; let me be +a brookist, _faute de mieux_. + +I did enjoy myself in town, and was a thousandfold the better of it. + + + + +TO MISS MONROE + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886._] + +MY DEAR MISS MONROE,--I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; +yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible +you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, +as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The +interest taken in an author is fragile: his next book, or your next year +of culture, might see the interest frosted or outgrown; and himself, in +spite of all, you might probably find the most distasteful person upon +earth. My case is different. I have bad health, am often condemned to +silence for days together--was so once for six weeks, so that my voice +was awful to hear when I first used it, like the whisper of a +shadow--have outlived all my chief pleasures, which were active and +adventurous, and ran in the open air: and being a person who prefers +life to art, and who knows it is a far finer thing to be in love, or to +risk a danger, than to paint the finest picture or write the noblest +book, I begin to regard what remains to me of my life as very shadowy. +From a variety of reasons, I am ashamed to confess I was much in this +humour when your letter came. I had a good many troubles; was regretting +a high average of sins; had been recently reminded that I had outlived +some friends, and wondering if I had not outlived some friendships; and +had just, while boasting of better health, been struck down again by my +haunting enemy, an enemy who was exciting at first, but has now, by the +iteration of his strokes, become merely annoying and inexpressibly +irksome. Can you fancy that to a person drawing towards the elderly this +sort of conjunction of circumstances brings a rather aching sense of the +past and the future? Well, it was just then that your letter and your +photograph were brought to me in bed; and there came to me at once the +most agreeable sense of triumph. My books were still young; my words had +their good health and could go about the world and make themselves +welcome; and even (in a shadowy and distant sense) make something in the +nature of friends for the sheer hulk that stays at home and bites his +pen over the manuscripts. It amused me very much to remember that I had +been in Chicago, not so many years ago, in my proper person; where I had +failed to awaken much remark, except from the ticket collector; and to +think how much more gallant and persuasive were the fellows that I now +send instead of me, and how these are welcome in that quarter to the +sitter of Herr Platz, while their author was not very welcome even in +the villainous restaurant where he tried to eat a meal and rather +failed. + +And this leads me directly to a confession. The photograph which shall +accompany this is not chosen as the most like, but the best-looking. +Put yourself in my place, and you will call this pardonable. Even as it +is, even putting forth a flattered presentment, I am a little pained; +and very glad it is a photograph and not myself that has to go; for in +this case, if it please you, you can tell yourself it is my image--and +if it displease you, you can lay the blame on the photographer; but in +that, there were no help, and the poor author might belie his labours. + +_Kidnapped_ should soon appear; I am afraid you may not like it, as it +is very unlike _Prince Otto_ in every way; but I am myself a great +admirer of the two chief characters, Alan and David. _Virginibus +Puerisque_ has never been issued in the States. I do not think it is a +book that has much charm for publishers in any land; but I am to bring +out a new edition in England shortly, a copy of which I must try to +remember to send you. I say try to remember, because I have some +superficial acquaintance with myself: and I have determined, after a +galling discipline, to promise nothing more until the day of my death: +at least, in this way, I shall no more break my word, and I must now try +being churlish instead of being false. + +I do not believe you to be the least like Seraphina. Your photograph has +no trace of her, which somewhat relieves me, as I am a good deal afraid +of Seraphinas--they do not always go into the woods and see the sunrise, +and some are so well-mailed that even that experience would leave them +unaffected and unsoftened. The "hair and eyes of several complexions" +was a trait taken from myself; and I do not bind myself to the opinions +of Sir John. In this case, perhaps--but no, if the peculiarity is shared +by two such pleasant persons as you and I (as you and me--the +grammatical nut is hard), it must be a very good thing indeed, and Sir +John must be an ass. + +The Book Reader notice was a strange jumble of fact and fancy. I wish +you could have seen my father's old assistant and present partner when +he heard my father described as an "inspector of lighthouses," for we +are all very proud of the family achievements, and the name of my house +here in Bournemouth is stolen from one of the sea-towers of the Hebrides +which are our pyramids and monuments. I was never at Cambridge, again; +but neglected a considerable succession of classes at Edinburgh. But to +correct that friendly blunderer were to write an autobiography.--And so +now, with many thanks, believe me yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + Accompanying a presentation copy of _Kidnapped_. Alison Cunningham's + maiden name had been Hastie. + + [_Bournemouth, July 1886._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--Herewith goes my new book, in which you will find some +places that you know: I hope you will like it: I do. The name of the +girl at Limekilns (as will appear if the sequel is ever written) was +Hastie, and I conceive she was an ancestor of yours: as David was no +doubt some kind of relative of mine. + +I have no time for more, but send my love, and remembrances to your +brother.--Ever your affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + During these months, as already indicated, Stevenson was very much + taken up, in by-hours, with trying to learn something of the theory + and practice of music, and spent much of his time "pickling," as he + called it, in an elementary manner on the piano. He even tried his + hand in an experimental way at composition, and had sent one of his + attempts for criticism to his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, who was + better versed in the art. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._ + +SIR,--Your foolish letter was unduly received. There may be hidden +fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam spontaneous the thing was. I +could tinker and tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper, but scorned the act +with a Threnody, which was poured forth like blood and water on the +groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) remained +unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: crystallised emotion, the +statement and the reconciliation of the sorrows of the race and the +individual, is obviously no more to you than supping sawdust. Well, +well. If ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably be a +Passepied and fugue in G (or D). + +The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged Spanish +filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some freedom (1) the +refrain of _Martini's Moutons_; (2) _Sul margine d'un rio_, arranged for +the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase of Bach's +musette (Sweet Englishwoman,[18] No. 3), the rest of the musette being +one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health. +All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R. +L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged +and melancholy croppers.... I find one can get a notion of music very +nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have +arranged _La dove prende_, almost to the end, for two melodious +forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler _Colomba o +tortorella_ for the same instruments. + + This day is published + The works of Ludwig van Beethoven + arranged + and wiederdurchgearbeiteted + for two melodious forefingers + by, + Sir,--Your obedient servant, + PIMPERLY STIPPLE. + +That's a good idea? There's a person called Lenz who actually does +it--beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies on him, and found the +bleeding corpses of pieces of music divorced from their keys, despoiled +of their graces, and even changed in time; I do not wish to regard music +(nor to be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You say you are "a +spoon-fed idiot"; but how about Lenz? And how about me, sir, me? + +I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, an empty +matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a bell from a cat's collar, an +iron kitchen spoon, and a piece of coal more than half the superficies +of this sheet of paper. They are now (appropriately enough) speeding +towards the Silly Isles; I hope he will find them useful. By that, and +my telegram with prepaid answer to yourself, you may judge of my +spiritual state. The finances have much brightened; and if _Kidnapped_ +keeps on as it has begun, I may be solvent.--Yours, + + THRENODIÆ AVCTOR + (The author of ane Threnodie). + + +Op. 2: Scherzo (in G Major) expressive of the Sense of favours to come. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Skerryvore [Bournemouth, July 1886]._ + +DEAR BOB,--Herewith another shy; more melancholy than before, but I +think not so abjectly idiotic. The musical terms seem to be as good as +in Beethoven, and that, after all, is the great affair. Bar the dam +bareness of the bass, it looks like a piece of real music from a +distance. I am proud to say it was not made one hand at a time; the bass +was of synchronous birth with the treble; they are of the same age, sir, +and may God have mercy on their souls!--Yours, + + THE MAESTRO. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Mr. and Mrs. T. Stevenson had been thinking of trying a winter at + Bournemouth for the sake of being near their son, a plan which was + eventually carried out. The health of the former was now fast and + painfully breaking. Mr. J. W. Alexander, the well-known American + artist, had been down at Skerryvore with an introduction from Mr. + Gosse, and had made a drawing of Stevenson's head. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 7th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--It is probably my fault, and not yours, that I did not +understand. I think it would be well worth trying the winter in +Bournemouth; but I would only take the house by the month--this after +mature discussion. My leakage still pursues its course; if I were only +well, I have a notion to go north and get in (if I could) at the inn at +Kirkmichael, which has always smiled upon me much. If I did well there, +we might then meet and do what should most smile at the time. + +Meanwhile, of course, I must not move, and am in a rancid box here, +feeling the heat a great deal, and pretty tired of things. Alexander did +a good thing of me at last; it looks like a mixture of an aztec idol, a +lion, an Indian Rajah, and a woman; and certainly represents a mighty +comic figure. F. and Lloyd both think it is the best thing that has been +done of me up to now. + +You should hear Lloyd on the penny whistle, and me on the piano! Dear +powers, what a concerto! I now live entirely for the piano, he for the +whistle; the neighbours, in a radius of a furlong and a half, are +packing up in quest of brighter climes.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + +_P.S._--Please say if you can afford to let us have money for this trip, +and if so, how much. I can see the year through without help, I believe, +and supposing my health to keep up; but can scarce make this change on +my own metal. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._] + +DEAR CHARLES,--Doubtless, if all goes well, towards the 1st of August we +shall be begging at your door. Thanks for a sight of the papers, which I +return (you see) at once, fearing further responsibility. + +Glad you like Dauvit; but eh, man, yon's terrible strange conduc' o' +thon man Rankeillor. Ca' him a legal adviser! It would make a bonny +law-shuit, the Shaws case; and yon paper they signed, I'm thinking, +wouldnae be muckle thought o' by Puggy Deas.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + Hecky was a dog belonging to his correspondent's brother. Stevenson + was always interested by his own retentiveness of memory for childish + things, and here asks Cummy some questions to test the quality of + hers. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--I was sorry to get so poor account of you and Hecky. +Fanny thinks perhaps it might be Hecky's teeth. Sir Walter Simpson has a +very clever vet. I have forgotten his name; but if you like, I send a +card and you or James might ask the address. + +Now to what is more important. Do you remember any of the following +names: Lady Boothroyd, Barny Gee, Andrew Silex, the Steward, Carus +Rearn, Peter Mangles, Richard Markham, Fiddler Dick? Please let me know +and I will tell you how I come to ask. I warn you, you will have to cast +back your eyes a good long way, close upon thirty years, before you +strike the trail on which I wish to lead you. + +When I have had an answer I will write you a decent letter. To-day, +though nothing much is wrong with me, I am out of sorts and most +disinclined for writing.--Yours most affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + "Coolin," mentioned below, had been a favourite Skye terrier of + Heriot Row days. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _July 28, 1886._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--We have decided not to come to Scotland, but just to do +as Dobell wished, and take an outing. I believe this is wiser in all +ways; but I own it is a disappointment. I am weary of England; like +Alan, "I weary for the heather," if not for the deer. Lloyd has gone to +Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with whom he should have a good +time. _David_ seems really to be going to succeed, which is a pleasant +prospect on all sides. I am, I believe, floated financially; a book that +sells will be a pleasant novelty. I enclose another review; mighty +complimentary, and calculated to sell the book too. + +Coolin's tombstone has been got out, honest man! and it is to be +polished, for it has got scratched, and have a touch of gilding in the +letters, and be sunk in the front of the house. Worthy man, he, too, +will maybe weary for the heather, and the bents of Gullane, where (as I +dare say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and jumped on to his crown +from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of many thousand rabbits. I can +still hear the little cries of the honest fellow as he disappeared; and +my mother will correct me, but I believe it was two days before he +turned up again at North Berwick: to judge by his belly, he had caught +not one out of these thousands, but he had had some exercise. + +I keep well.--Ever your affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + Anticipating the gift of a cupboard and answering the questions set + in his last. The date of the readings had been his seventh year. Mr. + Galpin was a partner in Cassell, Petter, Galpin, & Co. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July or August 1886._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--The cupboard has not yet turned up, and I was hanging on +to be able to say it had. However, that is only a trick to escape +another letter, and I should despise myself if I kept it up. It was +truly kind of you, dear Cummy, to send it to us: and I will let you know +where we set it and how it looks. + +Carus Rearn and Andrew Silex and the others were from a story you read +me in Cassell's Family Paper, and which I have been reading again and +found by no means a bad story. Mr. Galpin lent me all the old volumes, +and I mean to re-read Custaloga also, but have not yet. It was strangely +like old times to read the other; don't you remember the poisoning with +mushrooms? That was Andrew Silex.--Yours most affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Having given up going to Scotland for a summer change, Stevenson had + started on the "outing" which he mentions in the last letter. It took + the shape of a ten days' visit to my house at the British Museum, + followed by another made in the company of Mr. Henley to Paris, + chiefly for the sake of seeing the W. H. Lows and the sculptor Rodin. + + _British Museum [August 10th, 1886]._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--We are having a capital holiday, and I am much better, +and enjoying myself to the nines. Richmond is painting my portrait. +To-day I lunch with him, and meet Burne-Jones; to-night Browning dines +with us. That sounds rather lofty work, does it not? His path was paved +with celebrities. To-morrow we leave for Paris, and next week, I +suppose, or the week after, come home. Address here, as we may not +reach Paris. I am really very well.--Ever your affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO T. WATTS-DUNTON + + + Written after his return from London and Paris. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth [September 1886]._ + +DEAR MR. WATTS,--The sight of the last Athenæum reminds me of you, and +of my debt, now too long due. I wish to thank you for your notice of +_Kidnapped_; and that not because it was kind, though for that also I +valued it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you before now for a +hundred articles on a hundred different writers. A critic like you is +one who fights the good fight, contending with stupidity, and I would +fain hope not all in vain; in my own case, for instance, surely not in +vain. + +What you say of the two parts in _Kidnapped_ was felt by no one more +painfully than by myself. I began it partly as a lark, partly as a +pot-boiler; and suddenly it moved, David and Alan stepped out from the +canvas, and I found I was in another world. But there was the cursed +beginning, and a cursed end must be appended; and our old friend Byles +the butcher was plainly audible tapping at the back door. So it had to +go into the world, one part (as it does seem to me) alive, one part +merely galvanised: no work, only an essay. For a man of tentative +method, and weak health, and a scarcity of private means, and not too +much of that frugality which is the artist's proper virtue, the days of +sinecures and patrons look very golden: the days of professional +literature very hard. Yet I do not so far deceive myself as to think I +should change my character by changing my epoch; the sum of virtue in +our books is in a relation of equality to the sum of virtues in +ourselves; and my _Kidnapped_ was doomed, while still in the womb and +while I was yet in the cradle, to be the thing it is. + +And now to the more genial business of defence. You attack my fight on +board the _Covenant_: I think it literal. David and Alan had every +advantage on their side--position, arms, training, a good conscience; a +handful of merchant sailors, not well led in the first attack, not led +at all in the second, could only by an accident have taken the +round-house by attack; and since the defenders had firearms and food, it +is even doubtful if they could have been starved out. The only doubtful +point with me is whether the seamen would have ever ventured on the +second onslaught; I half believe they would not; still the illusion of +numbers and the authority of Hoseason would perhaps stretch far enough +to justify the extremity.--I am, dear Mr. Watts, your very sincere +admirer, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._ + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--I am home from a long holiday, vastly better in health. +My wife not home yet, as she is being cured in some rather boisterous +fashion by some Swedish doctors. I hope it may do her good, as the +process seems not to be agreeable in itself. + +Your cupboard has come, and it is most beautiful: it is certainly worth +a lot of money, and is just what we have been looking for in all the +shops for quite a while: so your present falls very pat. It is to go in +our bedroom I think; but perhaps my wife will think it too much of a +good thing to be put so much out of the way, so I shall not put it in +its place till her return. I am so well that I am afraid to speak of it, +being a coward as to boasting. I take walks in the wood daily, and have +got back to my work after a long break. The story I wrote you about was +one you read to me in Cassell's Family Paper long ago when it came out. +It was astonishing how clearly I remembered it all, pictures, +characters, and incidents, though the last were a little mixed and I had +not the least the hang of the story. It was very pleasant to read it +again, and remember old days, and the weekly excursion to Mrs. Hoggs +after that precious journal. Dear me, lang syne now! God bless you, dear +Cummy.--Your afft. boy, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + Mr. Locker-Lampson, better known as Frederick Locker, the friend of + Tennyson and most accomplished writer of _vers de société_ in his + time, had through their common friend Mr. Andrew Lang asked Stevenson + for a set of verses, and he had sent the following--which were first + printed, I believe, at the head of a very scarce volume:--"_Rowfant + Rhymes_, by Frederick Locker, with an introduction by Austin Dobson. + Cleveland, The Rowfant Club, 1895. 127 copies only printed." + + _Skerryvore, September 4, 1886._ + + Not roses to the rose, I trow, + The thistle sends, nor to the bee + Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now + Should Locker ask a verse from me? + + Martial, perchance,--but he is dead, + And Herrick now must rhyme no more; + Still burning with the muse, they tread + (And arm in arm) the shadowy shore. + + They, if they lived, with dainty hand, + To music as of mountain brooks, + Might bring you worthy words to stand + Unshamed, dear Locker, in your books. + + But tho' these fathers of your race + Be gone before, yourself a sire, + To-day you see before your face + Your stalwart youngsters touch the lyre. + + On these--on Lang or Dobson--call, + Long leaders of the songful feast. + They lend a verse your laughing fall-- + A verse they owe you at the least. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + To Mr. Locker's acknowledgment of these verses Stevenson replied as + follows, asking his correspondent's interest on behalf of a friend + who had been kind to him at Hyères, in procuring a nomination for her + son to the Blue-Coat School. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._ + +DEAR LOCKER,--You take my verses too kindly, but you will admit, for +such a bluebottle of a versifier to enter the house of Gertrude, where +her necklace hangs, was not a little brave. Your kind invitation, I +fear, must remain unaccepted; and yet--if I am very well--perhaps next +spring--(for I mean to be very well)--my wife might.... But all that is +in the clouds with my better health. And now look here: you are a rich +man and know many people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of +Christ's Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in which I +would (if I could) do anything. To approach you, in this way, is not +decent; and you may therefore judge by my doing it, how near this matter +lies to my heart. I enclose you a list of the Governors, which I beg you +to return, whether or not you shall be able to do anything to help me. + +The boy's name is ----; he and his mother are very poor. It may interest +you in her cause if I tell you this: that when I was dangerously ill at +Hyères, this brave lady, who had then a sick husband of her own (since +dead) and a house to keep and a family of four to cook for, all with her +own hands, for they could afford no servant, yet took watch-about with +my wife, and contributed not only to my comfort, but to my recovery in a +degree that I am not able to limit. You can conceive how much I suffer +from my impotence to help her, and indeed I have already shown myself a +thankless friend. Let not my cry go up before you in vain!--Yours in +hope, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + Mr. Locker, apparently misunderstanding the application, had replied + with a cheque. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOCKER,--That I should call myself a man of letters, and land +myself in such unfathomable ambiguities! No, my dear Locker, I did not +want a cheque; and in my ignorance of business, which is greater even +than my ignorance of literature, I have taken the liberty of drawing a +pen through the document and returning it; should this be against the +laws of God or man, forgive me. All that I meant by my excessively +disgusting reference to your material well-being was the vague notion +that a man who is well off was sure to know a Governor of Christ's +Hospital; though how I quite arrived at this conclusion I do not see. A +man with a cold in the head does not necessarily know a ratcatcher; and +the connection is equally close--as it now appears to my awakened and +somewhat humbled spirit. For all that, let me thank you in the warmest +manner for your friendly readiness to contribute. You say you have hopes +of becoming a miser: I wish I had; but indeed I believe you deceive +yourself, and are as far from it as ever. I wish I had any excuse to +keep your cheque, for it is much more elegant to receive than to return; +but I have my way of making it up to you, and I do sincerely beg you to +write to the two Governors. This extraordinary out-pouring of +correspondence would (if you knew my habits) convince you of my great +eagerness in this matter. I would promise gratitude; but I have made a +promise to myself to make no more promises to anybody else, having +broken such a host already, and come near breaking my heart in +consequence; and as for gratitude, I am by nature a thankless dog, and +was spoiled from a child up. But if you can help this lady in the matter +of the Hospital, you will have helped the worthy. Let me continue to +hope that I shall make out my visit in the spring, and believe me, yours +very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +It may amuse you to know that a very long while ago, I broke my heart to +try to imitate your verses, and failed hopelessly. I saw some of the +evidences the other day among my papers, and blushed to the heels. + + R. L. S. + + +I give up finding out your name in the meantime, and keep to that by +which you will be known--Frederick Locker. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] 24th September 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOCKER,--You are simply an angel of light, and your two letters +have gone to the post; I trust they will reach the hearts of the +recipients--at least, that could not be more handsomely expressed. About +the cheque: well now, I am going to keep it; but I assure you Mrs. ---- +has never asked me for money, and I would not dare to offer any till she +did. For all that I shall stick to the cheque now, and act to that +amount as your almoner. In this way I reward myself for the ambiguity of +my epistolary style. + +I suppose, if you please, you may say your verses are thin (would you so +describe an arrow, by the way, and one that struck the gold? It scarce +strikes me as exhaustively descriptive), and, thin or not, they are +(and I have found them) inimitably elegant. I thank you again very +sincerely for the generous trouble you have taken in this matter which +was so near my heart, and you may be very certain it will be the fault +of my health and not my inclination, if I do not see you before very +long; for all that has past has made me in more than the official sense +sincerely yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO AUGUSTE RODIN + + Written after another visit to me in London, in November, which had + been cut short by fogs. "Le Printemps" is Rodin's group so called. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December 1886._] + +MON CHER AMI,--Il y a bien longtemps déjà que je vous dois des lettres +par dizaines; mais bien que je vais mieux, je ne vais toujours que +doucement. Il a fallu faire le voyage à Bournemouth comme une fuite en +Egypte, par crainte des brouillards qui me tuaient; et j'en ressentais +beaucoup de fatigue. Mais maintenant celà commence à aller, et je puis +vous donner de mes nouvelles. + +Le Printemps est arrivé, mais il avait le bras cassé, et nous l'avons +laissé, lors de notre fuite, aux soins d'un médecin-de-statues. Je +l'attends de jour en jour; et ma maisonette en resplendira bientôt. Je +regrette beaucoup le dédicace; peutêtre, quand vous viendrez nous voir, +ne serait-il pas trop tard de l'ajouter? Je n'en sais rien, je l'espère. +L'oeuvre, c'est pour tout le monde; le dédicace est pour moi. L'oeuvre +est un cadeau, trop beau même; c'est le mot d'amitié qui me le donne +pour de bon. Je suis si bête que je m'embrouille, et me perds; mais vous +me comprendrez, je pense. + +Je ne puis même pas m'exprimer en Anglais; comment voudriez vous que je +le pourrais en Français? Plus heureux que vous, le Némésis des arts ne +me visite pas sous le masque du désenchantement; elle me suce +l'intelligence et me laisse bayer aux corneilles, sans capacité mais +sans regret; sans espérance, c'est vrai, mais aussi, Dieu merci, sans +désespoir. Un doux étonnement me tient; je ne m'habitue pas à me trouver +si bûche, mais je m'y résigne; même si celà durait, ce ne serait pas +désagréable--mais comme je mourrais certainement de faim, ce serait tout +au moins regrettable pour moi et ma famille. + +Je voudrais pouvoir vous écrire; mais ce n'est pas moi qui tiens la +plume--c'est l'autre, le bête, celui qui ne connaît pas le Français, +celui qui n'aime pas mes amis comme je les aime, qui ne goûte pas aux +choses de l'art comme j'y goûte; celui que je renie, mais auquel je +commande toujours assez pour le faire prendre la plume en main et écrire +des tristes bavardages. Celui-là, mon cher Rodin, vous ne l'aimez pas; +vous ne devez jamais le connaître. Votre ami, qui dort à present, comme +un ours, au plus profond de mon être, se réveillera sous peu. Alors, il +vous écrira de sa propre main. Attendez lui. L'autre ne compte pas; ce +n'est qu'un secrétaire infidèle et triste, à l'âme gelée, à la tête de +bois. + +Celui qui dort est toujours, mon cher ami, bien à vous; celui qui écrit +est chargé de vous en faire part et de signer de la raison sociale, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ET TRIPLE-BRUTE. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following refers first, if I remember right, to some steps that + were being taken to obtain recognition in the form of a knighthood + for the elder Stevenson's public services; next, to the writer's own + work at the time in hand; and lastly, to my volume on Keats then in + preparation for the _English Men of Letters_ series. + + _Skerryvore, Dec. 14, 1886._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is first-rate of you, the Lord love you for it! I +am truly much obliged. He--my father--is very changeable; at times, he +seems only a slow quiet edition of himself; again, he will be very +heavy and blank; but never so violent as last spring; and therefore, to +my mind, better on the whole. + +Fanny is pretty peepy; I am splendid. I have been writing much +verse--quite the bard, in fact; and also a dam tale to order, which will +be what it will be: I don't love it, but some of it is passable in its +mouldy way, _The Misadventures of John Nicholson_. All my bardly +exercises are in Scotch; I have struck my somewhat ponderous guitar in +that tongue to no small extent: with what success, I know not, but I +think it's better than my English verse; more marrow and fatness, and +more ruggedness. + +How goes _Keats_? Pray remark, if he (Keats) hung back from Shelley, it +was not to be wondered at, _when so many of his friends were Shelley's +pensioners_. I forget if you have made this point; it has been borne in +upon me reading Dowden and the _Shelley Papers_; and it will do no harm +if you have made it. I finished a poem to-day, and writ 3000 words of a +story, _tant bien que mal_; and have a right to be sleepy, and (what is +far nobler and rarer) am so.--My dear Colvin, ever yours, + + THE REAL MACKAY. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + Stevenson's volume of tales _The Merry Men_, so called from the story + which heads the collection, was about to appear with a dedication to + Lady Taylor. Professor Dowden's _Shelley_ had lately come out, and + had naturally been read with eager interest in a circle where Sir + Percy (the poet's son) and Lady Shelley were intimate friends and + neighbours. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth_ [_New Year, 1887_]. + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--This is to wish you all the salutations of the +year, with some regret that I cannot offer them in person; yet less than +I had supposed. For hitherto your flight to London seems to have worked +well; and time flies and will soon bring you back again. Though time is +ironical, too; and it would be like his irony if the same tide that +brought you back carried me away. That would not be, at least, without +some meeting. + +I feel very sorry to think the book to which I have put your name will +be no better, and I can make it no better. The tales are of all dates +and places; they are like the box, the goose, and the cottage of the +ferryman; and must go floating down time together as best they can. But +I am after all a (superior) penny-a-liner; I must do, in the Scotch +phrase, as it will do with me; and I cannot always choose what my books +are to be, only seize the chance they offer to link my name to a +friend's. I hope the lot of them (the tales) will look fairly +disciplined when they are clapped in binding; but I fear they will be +but an awkward squad. I have a mild wish that you at least would read +them no further than the dedication. + +I suppose we have all been reading Dowden. It seems to me a really +first-rate book, full of justice, and humour without which there can be +no justice; and of fine intelligence besides. Here and there, perhaps a +trifle precious, but this is to spy flaws in a fine work. I was weary at +my resemblances to Shelley; I seem but a Shelley with less oil, and no +genius; though I have had the fortune to live longer and (partly) to +grow up. He was growing up. There is a manlier note in the last days; in +spite of such really sickening aberrations as the Emillia Viviani +business. I try to take a humorously-genial view of life; but Emillia +Viviani, if I have her detested name aright,[19] is too much for my +philosophy. I cannot smile when I see all these grown folk waltzing and +piping the eye about an insubordinate and perfectly abominable +schoolgirl, as silly and patently as false as Blanche Amory.[20] I +really think it is one of those episodes that make the angels weep. + +With all kind regards and affectionate good wishes to and for you and +yours, believe me, your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + The reference in the last paragraph to a "vision" cannot be + explained, his correspondent's daughters retaining no memory on the + subject. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 1887._] + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I don't know but what I agree fairly well with all +you say, only I like _The Merry Men_, as a fantasia or vision of the +sea, better than you do. The trouble with _Olalla_ is that it somehow +sounds false; and I think it must be this that gives you the feeling of +irreverence. Of _Thrawn Janet_, which I like very much myself, you say +nothing, thus uttering volumes; but it is plain that people cannot +always agree. I do not think it is a wholesome part of me that broods on +the evil in the world and man; but I do not think that I get harm from +it; possibly my readers may, which is more serious; but at any account, +I do not purpose to write more in this vein. But the odd problem is: +what makes a story true? _Markheim_ is true; _Olalla_ false; and I don't +know why, nor did I feel it while I worked at them; indeed I had more +inspiration with _Olalla_, as the style shows. I am glad you thought +that young Spanish woman well dressed; I admire the style of it myself, +more than is perhaps good for me; it is so solidly written. And that +again brings back (almost with the voice of despair) my unanswerable: +why is it false? + +Here is a great deal about my works. I am in bed again; and my wife but +so-so; and we have no news recently from Lloyd; and the cat is well; and +we see, or I see, no one; so that other matters are all closed against +me. + +Your vision is strange indeed; but I see not how to use it; I fear I am +earthy enough myself to regard it as a case of disease, but certainly it +is a thrilling case to hear of.--Ever affectionately yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + This letter is written on the front page of a set of proofs of + _Memories and Portraits_. The "silly Xmas story" is _The + Misadventures of John Nicholson_; the "volume of verse" appeared + later in the year as _Underwoods_. The signature refers to the two + Scots poets of whom, "in his native speech," he considered himself + the follower. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 1887._ + + All the salutations! + +MY DEAR JAMES,--I send you the first sheets of the new volume, all that +has yet reached me, the rest shall follow in course. I am really a very +fair sort of a fellow all things considered, have done some work; a +silly Xmas story (with some larks in it) which won't be out till I don't +know when. I am also considering a volume of verse, much of which will +be cast in my native speech, that very dark oracular medium: I suppose +this is a folly, but what then? As the nurse says in Marryat, "It was +only a little one." + +My wife is peepy and dowie: two Scotch expressions with which I will +leave you to wrestle unaided, as a preparation for my poetical works. +She is a woman (as you know) not without art: the art of extracting the +gloom of the eclipse from sunshine; and she has recently laboured in +this field not without success or (as we used to say) not without a +blessing. It is strange: "we fell out my wife and I" the other night; +she tackled me savagely for being a canary-bird; I replied (bleatingly) +protesting that there was no use in turning life into King Lear; +presently it was discovered that there were two dead combatants upon the +field, each slain by an arrow of the truth, and we tenderly carried off +each other's corpses. Here is a little comedy for Henry James to write! +The beauty was each thought the other quite unscathed at first. But we +had dealt shrewd stabs. + +You say nothing of yourself, which I shall take to be good news. +Archer's note has gone. He is, in truth, a very clever fellow that +Archer, and I believe a good one. It is a pleasant thing to see a man +who can use a pen; he can: really says what he means, and says it with a +manner; comes into print like one at his ease, not shame-faced and +wrong-foot-foremost like the bulk of us. Well, here is luck, and here +are the kindest recollections from the canary-bird and from King Lear, +from the Tragic Woman and the Flimsy Man. + + ROBERT RAMSAY FERGUSSON STEVENSON. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + Stevenson suffered more even than usual after the turn of the year + and during the spring of 1887, and for several months his + correspondence almost entirely fails. This is in reply to an + invitation to Rowfant for Easter. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 5th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR LOCKER,--Here I am in my bed as usual, and it is indeed a long +while since I went out to dinner. You do not know what a crazy fellow +this is. My winter has not so far been luckily passed, and all hope of +paying visits at Easter has vanished for twelve calendar months. But +because I am a beastly and indurated invalid, I am not dead to human +feelings; and I neither have forgotten you nor will forget you. Some day +the wind may round to the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am +still truly yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The volume of tales here mentioned is _The Merry Men_; that of + essays, _Memories and Portraits_; that of verse, _Underwoods_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 1887._] + +MY DEAR JAMES,--My health has played me it in once more in the absurdest +fashion, and the creature who now addresses you is but a stringy and +white-faced _bouilli_ out of the pot of fever, with the devil to pay in +every corner of his economy. I suppose (to judge by your letter) I need +not send you these sheets, which came during my collapse by the rush. I +am on the start with three volumes, that one of tales, a second one of +essays, and one of--ahem--verse. This is a great order, is it not? After +that I shall have empty lockers. All new work stands still; I was +getting on well with Jenkin when this blessed malady unhorsed me, and +sent me back to the dung-collecting trade of the republisher. I shall +re-issue _Virg. Puer._ as vol. I. of _Essays_, and the new vol. as vol. +II. of ditto; to be sold, however, separately. This is but a dry +maundering; however, I am quite unfit--"I am for action quite unfit +Either of exercise or wit." My father is in a variable state; many +sorrows and perplexities environ the house of Stevenson; my mother +shoots north at this hour on business of a distinctly rancid character; +my father (under my wife's tutorage) proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; I +remain here in my bed and whistle; in no quarter of heaven is anything +encouraging apparent, except that the good Colvin comes to the hotel +here on a visit. This dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the +fact that my head aches, which I always regard as a liberty on the part +of the powers that be. This is also my first letter since my recovery. +God speed your laudatory pen! + +My wife joins in all warm messages.--Yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO AUGUSTE RODIN + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 1887._ + +MON CHER AMI,--Je vous néglige, et cependant ce n'est véritablement pas +de ma faute. J'ai fait encore une maladie; et je puis dire que je l'ai +royalement bien faite. Que celà vous aide à me pardonner. Certes je ne +vous oublie pas; et je puis dire que je ne vous oublierai jamais. Si je +n'écris pas, dites que je suis malade--c'est trop souvent vrai, dites +que je suis las d'écrivailler--ce sera toujours vrai; mais ne dites pas, +et ne pensez pas, que je deviens indifférent. J'ai devant moi votre +portrait tiré d'un journal anglais (et encadré à mes frais), et je le +regarde avec amitié, je le regarde même avec une certaine +complaisance--dirai-je, de faux aloi? comme un certificat de jeunesse. +Je me croyais trop vieux--au moins trop quarante-ans--pour faire de +nouveaux amis; et quand je regarde votre portrait, et quand je pense au +plaisir de vous revoir, je sens que je m'étais trompé. Écrivez-moi donc +un petit mot, pour me dire que vous ne gardez pas rancune de mon +silence, et que vous comptez bientôt venir en Angleterre. Si vous tardez +beaucoup, ce sera moi qui irai vous relancer.--Bien à vous, mon cher +ami, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + Mr. Low and his wife, who were at this time leaving Paris for good, + had been meditating a visit to the Stevensons at Bournemouth on their + way home to the United States. + + [_April 1887._] + +MY DEAR LOW,--The fares to London may be found in any continental +Bradshaw or sich; from London to Bournemouth impoverished parties who +can stoop to the third class get their ticket for the matter of 10s., +or, as my wife loves to phrase it, "a half a pound." You will also be +involved in a 3s. fare to get to Skerryvore; but this, I dare say, +friends could help you in on your arrival; so that you may reserve your +energies for the two tickets--costing the matter of a pound--and the +usual gratuities to porters. This does not seem to me much: considering +the intellectual pleasures that await you here, I call it dirt cheap. I +_believe_ the third class from Paris to London (_via_ Dover) is _about_ +forty francs, but I cannot swear. Suppose it to be fifty. + + frcs. + 50 x 2 = 100 100 + + The expense of spirit or spontaneous lapse of coin on the journey, + at 5 frcs. a head, 5 x 2 = 10 10 + + Victuals on ditto, at 5 frcs. a head, 5 x 2 = 10 10 + + Gratuity to stewardess, in case of severe prostration, at 3 francs 3 + + One night in London, on a modest footing, say 20 20 + + Two tickets to Bournemouth at 12·50, 12·50 x 2 = 25 25 + + Porters and general devilment, say 5 5 + + Cabs in London, say 2 shillings, and in Bournemouth, + 3 shillings = 5 shillings, 6 frcs. 25 6·25 + ------ + frcs. 179·25 + + Or, the same in pounds, £7, 3s. 6-1/2d. + Or, the same in dollars, $35·45, + +if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out dinner in +London in case you want to blow out, which would come extry, and with +the aid of _vangs fangs_ might easily double the whole amount--above all +if you have a few friends to meet you. + +In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered for the first +time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the singular costliness of +travelling with your wife. Anybody would count the tickets double; but +how few would have remembered--or indeed has any one ever +remembered?--to count the spontaneous lapse of coin double also? Yet +there are two of you, each must do his daily leakage, and it must be +done out of your travelling fund. You will tell me, perhaps, that you +carry the coin yourself: my dear sir, do you think you can fool your +Maker? Your wife has to lose her quota; and by God she will--if you kept +the coin in a belt. One thing I have omitted: you will lose a certain +amount on the exchange, but this even I cannot foresee, as it is one of +the few things that vary with the way a man has.--I am, dear sir, yours +financially, + + SAMUEL BUDGETT. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + I had lately sent him two books, the fifth volume of Huxley's + _Collected Essays_ and Cotter Morison's _Service of Man_: the latter + a work of Positivist tendency, which its genial and accomplished + author had long meditated, but which unfortunately he only began to + write after a rapid decline of health and power had set in. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Spring 1887._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I read Huxley, and a lot of it with great interest. Eh, +what a gulf between a man with a mind like Huxley and a man like Cotter +Morison. Truly 'tis the book of a boy; before I was twenty I was done +with all these considerations. Nor is there one happy phrase, except +"the devastating flood of children." Why should he din our ears with +languid repetitions of the very first ideas and facts that a bright lad +gets hold of; and how can a man be so destitute of historical +perspective, so full of cheap outworn generalisations--feudal ages, time +of suffering--_pas tant qu'aujourdhui_, M. Cotter! Christianity--which? +what? how? You must not attack all forms, from Calvin to St. Thomas, +from St. Thomas to (One who should surely be considered) Jesus Christ, +with the same missiles: they do not all tell against all. But there it +is, as we said; a man joins a sect, and becomes one-eyed. He affects a +horror of vices which are just the thing to stop his "devastating flood +of babies," and just the thing above all to keep the vicious from +procreating. Where, then, is the ground of this horror in any +intelligent Servant of Humanity? O, beware of creeds and anti-creeds, +sects and anti-sects. There is but one truth, outside science, the truth +that comes of an earnest, smiling survey of mankind "from China to +Peru," or further, and from to-day to the days of Probably Arboreal; +and the truth (however true it is) that robs you of sympathy with any +form of thought or trait of man, is false for you, and heretical, and +heretico-plastic. Hear Morison struggling with his chains; hear me, hear +all of us, when we suffer our creeds or anti-creeds to degenerate +towards the whine, and begin to hate our neighbours, or our ancestors, +like ourselves. And yet in Morison, too, as in St. Thomas, as in +Rutherford, ay, or in Peden, truth struggles, or it would not so deform +them. The man has not a devil; it is an angel that tears and blinds him. +But Morison's is an old, almost a venerable seraph, with whom I dealt +before I was twenty, and had done before I was twenty-five. + +Behold how the voices of dead preachers speak hollowly (and lengthily) +within me!--Yours ever--and rather better---not much, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + _Skerryvore, April 16th, 1887._ + +MY DEAREST CUMMY,--As usual, I have been a dreary bad fellow and not +written for ages; but you must just try to forgive me, to believe (what +is the truth) that the number of my letters is no measure of the number +of times I think of you, and to remember how much writing I have to do. +The weather is bright, but still cold; and my father, I'm afraid, feels +it sharply. He has had--still has, rather--a most obstinate jaundice, +which has reduced him cruelly in strength, and really upset him +altogether. I hope, or think, he is perhaps a little better; but he +suffers much, cannot sleep at night, and gives John and my mother a +severe life of it to wait upon him. My wife is, I think, a little +better, but no great shakes. I keep mightily respectable myself. + +Coolin's Tombstone is now built into the front wall of Skerryvore, and +poor Bogie's (with a Latin inscription also) is set just above it. +Poor, unhappy wee man, he died, as you must have heard, in fight, which +was what he would have chosen; for military glory was more in his line +than the domestic virtues. I believe this is about all my news, except +that, as I write, there is a blackbird singing in our garden trees, as +it were at Swanston. I would like fine to go up the burnside a bit, and +sit by the pool and be young again--or no, be what I am still, only +there instead of here, for just a little. Did you see that I had written +about John Todd? In this month's Longman it was; if you have not seen +it, I will try and send it you. Some day climb as high as Halkerside for +me (I am never likely to do it for myself), and sprinkle some of the +well water on the turf. I am afraid it is a pagan rite, but quite +harmless, and _ye can sain it wi' a bit prayer_. Tell the Peewies that I +mind their forbears well. My heart is sometimes heavy and sometimes glad +to mind it all. But for what we have received, the Lord make us truly +thankful. Don't forget to sprinkle the water, and do it in my name; I +feel a childish eagerness in this. + +Remember me most kindly to James, and with all sorts of love to +yourself, believe me, your laddie, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--I suppose Mrs. Todd ought to see the paper about her man; judge +of that, and if you think she would not dislike it, buy her one from me, +and let me know. The article is called _Pastoral_, in Longman's Magazine +for April. I will send you the money; I would to-day, but it's the +Sabbie day, and I cannae. + + R. L. S. + + +Remembrances from all here. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + The following sets forth the _pros_ and _cons_ which were balancing + each other in his mind in regard to his scheme of going to make a + stand in his own person against agrarian outrage in Ireland. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] April 15 or 16 + (the hour not being known), 1887._ + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--It is I know not what hour of the night; but I +cannot sleep, have lit the gas, and here goes. + +First, all your packet arrived: I have dipped into the Schumann already +with great pleasure. Surely, in what concerns us there is a sweet little +chirrup; the _Good Words_ arrived in the morning just when I needed it, +and the famous notes that I had lost were recovered also in the nick of +time. + +And now I am going to bother you with my affairs: premising, first, that +this is _private_; second, that whatever I do the _Life_ shall be done +first, and I am getting on with it well; and third, that I do not quite +know why I consult you, but something tells me you will hear with +fairness. + +Here is my problem. The Curtin women are still miserable prisoners; no +one dare buy their farm of them, all the manhood of England and the +world stands aghast before a threat of murder. (1) Now, my work can be +done anywhere; hence I can take up without loss a back-going Irish farm, +and live on, though not (as I had originally written) in it: First +Reason. (2) If I should be killed, there are a good many who would feel +it: writers are so much in the public eye, that a writer being murdered +would attract attention, throw a bull's-eye light upon this cowardly +business: Second Reason. (3) I am not unknown in the States, from which +the funds come that pay for these brutalities: to some faint extent, my +death (if I should be killed) would tell there: Third Reason. (4) +_Nobody else is taking up this obvious and crying duty:_ Fourth Reason. +(5) I have a crazy health and may die at any moment, my life is of no +purchase in an insurance office, it is the less account to husband it, +and the business of husbanding a life is dreary and demoralising: Fifth +Reason. + +I state these in no order, but as they occur to me. And I shall do the +like with the objections. + +First Objection: It will do no good; you have seen Gordon die, and +nobody minded; nobody will mind if you die. This is plainly of the +devil. Second Objection: You will not even be murdered, the climate will +miserably kill you, you will strangle out in a rotten damp heat, in +congestion, etc. Well, what then? It changes nothing: the purpose is to +brave crime; let me brave it, for such time and to such an extent as God +allows. Third Objection: The Curtin women are probably highly +uninteresting females. I haven't a doubt of it. But the Government +cannot, men will not, protect them. If I am the only one to see this +public duty, it is to the public and the Right I should perform it--not +to Mesdames Curtin. Fourth Objection: I am married. "I have married a +wife!" I seem to have heard it before. It smells ancient! what was the +context? Fifth Objection: My wife has had a mean life (1), loves me (2), +could not bear to lose me (3). (1) I admit: I am sorry. (2) But what +does she love me for? and (3) she must lose me soon or late. And after +all, because we run this risk, it does not follow we should fail. Sixth +Objection: My wife wouldn't like it. No, she wouldn't. Who would? But +the Curtins don't like it. And all those who are to suffer if this goes +on, won't like it. And if there is a great wrong, somebody must suffer. +Seventh Objection: I won't like it. No, I will not; I have thought it +through, and I will not. But what of that? And both she and I may like +it more than we suppose. We shall lose friends, all comforts, all +society: so has everybody who has ever done anything; but we shall have +some excitement, and that's a fine thing; and we shall be trying to do +the right, and that's not to be despised. Eighth Objection: I am an +author with my work before me. See Second Reason. Ninth Objection: But +am I not taken with the hope of excitement? I was at first. I am not +much now. I see what a dreary, friendless, miserable, God-forgotten +business it will be. And anyway, is not excitement the proper reward of +doing anything both right and a little dangerous? Tenth Objection: But +am I not taken with a notion of glory? I dare say I am. Yet I see quite +clearly how all points to nothing coming, to a quite inglorious death by +disease and from the lack of attendance; or even if I should be knocked +on the head, as these poor Irish promise, how little any one will care. +It will be a smile at a thousand breakfast-tables. I am nearly forty +now; I have not many illusions. And if I had? I do not love this +health-tending, housekeeping life of mine. I have a taste for danger, +which is human, like the fear of it. Here is a fair cause; a just cause; +no knight ever set lance in rest for a juster. Yet it needs not the +strength I have not, only the passive courage that I hope I could +muster, and the watchfulness that I am sure I could learn. + +Here is a long midnight dissertation; with myself; with you. Please let +me hear. But I charge you this: if you see in this idea of mine the +finger of duty, do not dissuade me. I am nearing forty, I begin to love +my ease and my home and my habits, I never knew how much till this +arose; do not falsely counsel me to put my head under the bed-clothes. +And I will say this to you: my wife, who hates the idea, does not +refuse. "It is nonsense," says she, "but if you go, I will go." Poor +girl, and her home and her garden that she was so proud of! I feel her +garden most of all, because it is a pleasure (I suppose) that I do not +feel myself to share. + + 1. Here is a great wrong. + 2. " a growing wrong. + 3. " a wrong founded on crime. + 4. " crime that the Government cannot prevent. + 5. " crime that it occurs to no man to defy. + 6. But it has occurred to me. + 7. Being a known person, some will notice my defiance. + 8. Being a writer, I can _make_ people notice it. + 9. And, I think, _make_ people imitate me. + 10. Which would destroy in time this whole scaffolding of oppression. + 11. And if I fail, however ignominiously, that is not my concern. + It is, with an odd mixture of reverence and humorous remembrances + of Dickens, be it said--it is A-nother's. + +And here, at I cannot think what hour of the morning, I shall dry up, +and remain--Yours, really in want of a little help, + + R. L. S. + + + Sleepless at midnight's dewy hour. + " " witching " + " " maudlin " + etc. + +_Next morning._--Eleventh Objection: I have a father and mother. And who +has not? Macduff's was a rare case; if we must wait for a Macduff. +Besides, my father will not perhaps be long here. Twelfth Objection: The +cause of England in Ireland is not worth supporting. _À qui le +dites-vous?_ And I am not supporting that. Home Rule, if you like. Cause +of decency, the idea that populations should not be taught to gain +public ends by private crime, the idea that for all men to bow before a +threat of crime is to loosen and degrade beyond redemption the whole +fabric of man's decency. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + The first paragraph of the following refers to the _Life of Fleeming + Jenkin_; the second, to a remark of his correspondent that a task + such as he had proposed to himself in Ireland should be undertaken + by a society rather than an individual. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1887._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--The Book. It is all drafted: I hope soon to send +you for comments Chapters III., IV., and V. Chapter VII. is roughly but +satisfactorily drafted: a very little work should put that to rights. +But Chapter VI. is no joke; it is a _mare magnum_: I swim and drown and +come up again; and it is all broken ends and mystification: moreover, I +perceive I am in want of more matter. I must have, first of all, a +little letter from Mr. Ewing about the phonograph work: _If_ you think +he would understand it is quite a matter of chance whether I use a word +or a fact out of it. If you think he would not: I will go without. Also, +could I have a look at Ewing's _précis_? And lastly, I perceive I must +interview you again about a few points; they are very few, and might +come to little; and I propose to go on getting things as well together +as I can in the meanwhile, and rather have a final time when all is +ready and only to be criticised. I do still think it will be good. I +wonder if Trélat would let me cut? But no, I think I wouldn't after all; +'tis so quaint and pretty and clever and simple and French, and gives +such a good sight of Fleeming: the plum of the book, I think. + +You misunderstood me in one point: I always hoped to found such a +society; that was the outside of my dream, and would mean entire +success. _But_--I cannot play Peter the Hermit. In these days of the +Fleet Street journalist, I cannot send out better men than myself, with +wives or mothers just as good as mine, and sisters (I may at least say) +better, to a danger and a long-drawn dreariness that I do not share. My +wife says it's cowardice; what brave men are the leader-writers! Call it +cowardice; it is mine. Mind you, I may end by trying to do it by the pen +only: I shall not love myself if I do; and is it ever a good thing to do +a thing for which you despise yourself?--even in the doing? And if the +thing you do is to call upon others to do the thing you neglect? I have +never dared to say what I feel about men's lives, because my own was in +the wrong: shall I dare to send them to death? The physician must heal +himself; he must honestly _try_ the path he recommends: if he does not +even try, should he not be silent? + +I thank you very heartily for your letter, and for the seriousness you +brought to it. You know, I think when a serious thing is your own, you +keep a saner man by laughing at it and yourself as you go. So I do not +write possibly with all the really somewhat sickened gravity I feel. And +indeed, what with the book, and this business to which I referred, and +Ireland, I am scarcely in an enviable state. Well, I ought to be glad, +after ten years of the worst training on earth--valetudinarianism--that +I can still be troubled by a duty. You shall hear more in time; so far, +I am at least decided: I will go and see Balfour when I get to London. + +We have all had a great pleasure: a Mrs. Rawlinson came and brought with +her a nineteen-year-old daughter, simple, human, as beautiful +as--herself; I never admired a girl before, you know it was my weakness: +we are all three dead in love with her. How nice to be able to do so +much good to harassed people by--yourself!--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS RAWLINSON + + + Here follows a compliment in verse to the young lady last mentioned, + whose Christian name was May. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1887._] + + Of the many flowers you brought me, + Only some were meant to stay, + And the flower I thought the sweetest + Was the flower that went away. + + Of the many flowers you brought me, + All were fair and fresh and gay, + But the flower I thought the sweetest + Was the blossom of the May. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Within a fortnight after the date of the above Stevenson went + himself, and for the last time, to Scotland, and was present, too + late for recognition, at the death of his father (May 8, 1887). + Business detained him for some weeks, and the following was written + just before his return to Bournemouth. + + [_Edinburgh, June 1887._] + +MY DEAR S. C.,--At last I can write a word to you. Your little note in +the P.M.G. was charming. I have written four pages in the Contemporary, +which Bunting found room for: they are not very good, but I shall do +more for his memory in time. + +About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long before I could tell +my mind; and now I know it, and can but say that I am glad. If we could +have had my father, that would have been a different thing. But to keep +that changeling--suffering changeling--any longer, could better none and +nothing. Now he rests; it is more significant, it is more like himself. +He will begin to return to us in the course of time, as he was and as we +loved him. + +My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene--"O let him pass," +Kent and Lear--was played for me here in the first moment of my return. +I believe Shakespeare saw it with his own father. I had no words; but it +was shocking to see. He died on his feet, you know; was on his feet the +last day, knowing nobody--still he would be up. This was his constant +wish; also that he might smoke a pipe on his last day. The funeral would +have pleased him; it was the largest private funeral in man's memory +here. + +We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home without going +through town. I do not know; I have no views yet whatever; nor can have +any at this stage of my cold and my business.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON + + + Written during a short visit to me between his return from Scotland + and his departure for New York. + + _British Museum [July 1887]._ + +MY DEAR SIMPSON,--This is a long time I have not acknowledged the Art of +Golf, though I read it through within thirty-six hours of its arrival. I +have been ill and out of heart, and ill again and again ill, till I am +weary of it, and glad indeed to try the pitch-farthing hazard of a trip +to Colorado or New Mexico. There we go, if I prove fit for the start, on +August 20th. + +Meanwhile, the Art of Golf. A lot of it is very funny, and I liked the +fun very well; but what interested me most was the more serious part, +because it turns all the while on a branch of psychology that no one has +treated and that interests me much: the psychology of athletics. I had +every reason to be interested in it, because I am abnormal: I have no +memory in athletics. I have forgotten how to ride and how to skate; and +I should not be the least surprised if I had forgotten how to swim. + +I find I can write no more: it is the first I have tried since I was +ill; and I am too weak.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + During the two months following his father's death Stevenson had + suffered much both from his old complaints and from depression of + mind. His only work had been in preparing for press the verse + collection _Underwoods_, the _Life of Fleeming Jenkin_, and the + volume of essays called _Memories and Portraits_. The opinions quoted + are those of physicians. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August 1887._ + +DEAR LAD,--I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson's well-known work, +_Virginibus Puerisque_, is about to be reprinted. At the same time a +second volume called _Memories and Portraits_ will issue from the +roaring loom. Its interest will be largely autobiographical, Mr. S. +having sketched there the lineaments of many departed friends, and dwelt +fondly, and with a m'istened eye, upon by-gone pleasures. The two will +be issued under the common title of _Familiar Essays_; but the volumes +will be vended separately to those who are mean enough not to hawk at +both. + +The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began to think I should +not get away. However, I hope--I hope--remark the word--no boasting--I +hope I may luff up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw, gave as usual a good +account of my lungs, and expressed himself, like his neighbours, +hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle says, Scott says, Brown +says--they all say--You ought not to be in such a state of health; you +should recover. Well, then, I mean to. My spirits are rising again after +three months of black depression: I almost begin to feel as if I should +care to live: I would, by God! And so I believe I shall.--Yours, + + BULLETIN M'GURDER. + + +How has the _Deacon_ gone? + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August 6th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--We--my mother, my wife, my stepson, my maidservant, and +myself, five souls--leave, if all is well, Aug. 20th, per Wilson line +s.s. Ludgate Hill. Shall probably evade N. Y. at first, cutting +straight to a watering-place: Newport, I believe, its name. Afterwards +we shall steal incognito into _la bonne ville_, and see no one but you +and the Scribners, if it may be so managed. You must understand I have +been very seedy indeed, quite a dead body; and unless the voyage does +miracles, I shall have to draw it dam fine. Alas, "The Canoe Speaks" is +now out of date; it will figure in my volume of verses now imminent. +However, I may find some inspiration some day.--Till very soon, yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + The lady to whom the following (and much correspondence yet to come) + is addressed had been an attached friend of the Skerryvore household + and a pupil of Stevenson's in the art of writing. She had given R. L. + S. a paper-cutter by way of farewell token at his starting. + + _Bournemouth, August 19th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I promise you the paper-knife shall go to sea with +me; and if it were in my disposal, I should promise it should return with +me too. All that you say, I thank you for very much; I thank you for all +the pleasantness that you have brought about our house; and I hope the +day may come when I shall see you again in poor old Skerryvore, now left +to the natives of Canada, or to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am +afraid my attempt to jest is rather _à contre-coeur_.--Good-bye--_au +revoir_--and do not forget your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MESSRS. CHATTO AND WINDUS + + + The titles and proofs mentioned in the text are presumably those of + _Underwoods_ and _Memories and Portraits_. + + _Bournemouth_ [_August 1887_]. + +DEAR SIRS,--I here enclose the two titles. Had you not better send me +the bargains to sign? I shall be here till Saturday; and shall have an +address in London (which I shall send you) till Monday, when I shall +sail. Even if the proofs do not reach you till Monday morning, you could +send a clerk from Fenchurch Street Station at 10.23 A.M. for Galleons +Station, and he would find me embarking on board the _Ludgate Hill_, +Island Berth, Royal Albert Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be +necessary to catch this last chance. I am most anxious to have the +proofs with me on the voyage.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [10] Cough. + + [11] Loose talk. + + [12] Mr. Charles Morley, at this time manager or assistant-manager of + the Pall Mall Gazette. + + [13] _Princess Casamassima._ + + [14] Lothian vernacular pronunciation of Cunningham. + + [15] In _Underwoods_ the lines thus bracketed as doubtful stand with + the change: + + "Life is over; life was gay." + + [16] _Prince Otto._ + + [17] The name of the hero in Dostoieffsky's _Le Crime et le Châtiment_. + + [18] _Suite anglaise._ + + [19] As in fact he had, all except the double l. + + [20] In _Pendennis_. + + + + +IX + +THE UNITED STATES AGAIN + +WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS + +AUGUST 1887--JUNE 1888 + + +The letters printed in the following section are selected from those +which tell of Stevenson's voyage to New York and reception there at the +beginning of September 1887; of his winter's life and work at Saranac +Lake, and of his decision taken in May 1888 to venture on a yachting +cruise in the South Seas. + +The moment of his arrival at New York was that when his reputation had +first reached its height in the United States, owing to the popularity +both of _Treasure Island_ and _Kidnapped_, but more especially to the +immense impression made by the _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde_. He experienced consequently for the first time the pleasures, +such as they were, of celebrity, and also its inconveniences; found the +most hospitable of refuges in the house of his kind friends, Mr. and +Mrs. Charles Fairchild, at Newport; and quickly made many other friends, +including the late Augustus St. Gaudens, the famous sculptor, with Mr. +C. Scribner and Mr. E. L. Burlingame, the owner and the editor of +Scribner's Magazine, from whom he immediately received and accepted very +advantageous offers of work. Having been dissuaded from braving for the +present the fatigue of the long journey to Colorado and the extreme +rigour of its winter climate, he determined to try instead a season at +Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, New York State, which had +lately been coming into reputation as a place of cure. There, under the +care of the well-known resident physician, Dr. Trudeau, he spent nearly +seven months, from the end of September 1887 to the end of April 1888, +with results on the whole favourable to his own health, though not to +that of his wife, which could never support these winter mountain cures. +On the 16th of April, he and his party left Saranac. After spending a +fortnight in New York, where, as always in cities, his health quickly +flagged again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters at +Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, for the sake of fresh +air and boating. Here he enjoyed the occasional society of some of his +New York friends, including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was +initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the meantime, +Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco to see her relatives; and +holding that the climate of the Pacific was likely to be better for the +projected cruise than that of the Atlantic, had inquired there whether a +yacht was to be hired for such a purpose. The schooner _Casco_, Captain +Otis, was found. Stevenson signified by telegraph his assent to the +arrangement; determined to risk in the adventure the sum of £2000, of +which his father's death had put him in possession, hoping to recoup +himself by a series of Letters recounting his experiences, for which he +had received a commission from Mr. S. S. M'Clure; and on the 2nd of June +started with his mother and stepson for San Francisco, the first stage +on that island cruise from which he was destined never to return. + +His work during the season September 1887-May 1888 had consisted of the +twelve papers published in the course of 1888 in Scribner's Magazine, +including perhaps the most striking of all his essays, _A Chapter on +Dreams_, _Pulvis et Umbra_, _Beggars_, _The Lantern Bearers_, _Random +Memories_, etc.; as well as the greater part of the _Master of +Ballantrae_ and _The Wrong Box_--the last originally conceived and +drafted by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + A succession of Stevenson's friends had visited and spent part of the + day or the evening with him at Armfield's hotel on Sunday, August + 20th, each bringing some farewell gift or another (as related by Mr. + Gosse in his volume _Critical Kitcats_, p. 297). Among these, Mr. + Henry James's gift had been a case of champagne for consumption + during the journey. On the morning of the 21st I accompanied him to + the docks, saw him and his party embarked on board the steamer + _Ludgate Hill_, a vessel sailing from the port of London and carrying + animals and freight as well as passengers. They had chosen to go by + this route for the sake alike of economy and amusement, rather than + by one of the sumptuous liners sailing from Liverpool or Southampton. + Leaving the ship's side as she weighed anchor, and waving farewell to + the party from the boat which landed me, I little knew what was the + truth, that I was looking on the face of my friend for the last time. + The letters next following were written during or Immediately after + his passage across the Atlantic. "The Commodore" is of course R. L. S. + + _H.M.S. Vulgarium, off Havre de Grace, + this 22nd day of August [1887]._ + +SIR,--The weather has been hitherto inimitable. Inimitable is the only +word that I can apply to our fellow-voyagers, whom a categorist, +possibly premature, has been already led to divide into two classes--the +better sort consisting of the baser kind of Bagman, and the worser of +undisguised Beasts of the Field. The berths are excellent, the pasture +swallowable, the champagne of H. James (to recur to my favourite +adjective) inimitable. As for the Commodore, he slept awhile in the +evening, tossed off a cup of Henry James with his plain meal, walked the +deck till eight, among sands and floating lights and buoys and wrecked +brigantines, came down (to his regret) a minute too soon to see Margate +lit up, turned in about nine, slept, with some interruptions, but on the +whole sweetly, until six, and has already walked a mile or so of deck, +among a fleet of other steamers waiting for the tide, within view of +Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats, hovering +sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck with endearments of primitive +simplicity. There, sir, can be viewed the sham quarrel, the sham desire +for information, and every device of these two poor ancient sexes (who +might, you might think, have learned in the course of the ages something +new) down to the exchange of head-gear.--I am, sir, yours, + + BOLD BOB BOLTSPRIT. + + +B. B. B. (_alias_ the Commodore) will now turn to his proofs. Havre de +Grace is a city of some show. It is for-ti-fied; and, so far as I can +see, is a place of some trade. It is situ-ated in France, a country of +Europe. You always complain there are no facts in my letters. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Newport, R.I., U.S.A. [September 1887]_ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--So long it went excellent well, and I had a time I am +glad to have had; really enjoying my life. There is nothing like being +at sea, after all. And O, why have I allowed myself to rot so long on +land? But on the Banks I caught a cold, and I have not yet got over it. +My reception here was idiotic to the last degree.... It is very silly, +and not pleasant, except where humour enters; and I confess the poor +interviewer lads pleased me. They are too good for their trade; avoided +anything I asked them to avoid, and were no more vulgar in their reports +than they could help. I liked the lads. + +O, it was lovely on our stable-ship, chock full of stallions. She +rolled heartily, rolled some of the fittings out of our state-room, and +I think a more dangerous cruise (except that it was summer) it would be +hard to imagine. But we enjoyed it to the masthead, all but Fanny; and +even she perhaps a little. When we got in, we had run out of beer, +stout, cocoa, soda-water, water, fresh meat, and (almost) of biscuit. +But it was a thousandfold pleasanter than a great big Birmingham liner +like a new hotel; and we liked the officers, and made friends with the +quarter-masters, and I (at least) made a friend of a baboon (for we +carried a cargo of apes), whose embraces have pretty near cost me a +coat. The passengers improved, and were a very good specimen lot, with +no drunkard, no gambling that I saw, and less grumbling and backbiting +than one would have asked of poor human nature. Apes, stallions, cows, +matches, hay, and poor men-folk, all, or almost all, came successfully +to land.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + [_Newport, U.S.A., September 1887._] + +MY DEAR JAMES,--Here we are at Newport in the house of the good +Fairchilds; and a sad burthen we have laid upon their shoulders. I have +been in bed practically ever since I came. I caught a cold on the Banks +after having had the finest time conceivable, and enjoyed myself more +than I could have hoped on board our strange floating menagerie: +stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent +of these incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the +stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking through the ports at +our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; and the +little monkeys stared at each other in their cages, and were thrown +overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured +about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my +clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black +tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a +picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were +not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll +till the bell shall sound unexpected notes and the fittings shall break +loose in our state-room, and you have the voyage of the _Ludgate Hill_. +She arrived in the port of New York, without beer, porter, soda-water, +curaçoa, fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet we lived, and we regret +her. + +My wife is a good deal run down, and I am no great shakes. + +America is, as I remarked, a fine place to eat in, and a great place for +kindness; but, Lord, what a silly thing is popularity! I envy the cool +obscurity of Skerryvore. If it even paid, said Meanness! and was abashed +at himself.--Yours most sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + [_New York, end of September 1887._] + +MY DEAR S. C.,--Your delightful letter has just come, and finds me in a +New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St. Gaudens) who is +making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to boot) one of the +handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I caught a cold on the Banks; +fog is not for me; nearly died of interviewers and visitors, during +twenty-four hours in New York; cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine, +a journey like fairyland for the most engaging beauties, one little +rocky and pine-shaded cove after another, each with a house and a boat +at anchor, so that I left my heart in each and marvelled why American +authors had been so unjust to their country; caught another cold on the +train; arrived at Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in +bed until I left again; the Fairchilds proving during this time +kindness itself; Mr. Fairchild simply one of the most engaging men in +the world, and one of the children, Blair, _aet._ ten, a great joy and +amusement in his solemn adoring attitude to the author of _Treasure +Island_. + +Here I was interrupted by the arrival of my sculptor.--I withdraw +calling him handsome; he is not quite that, his eyes are too near +together; he is only remarkable looking, and like an Italian +cinque-cento medallion; I have begged him to make a medallion of himself +and give me a copy. I will not take up the sentence in which I was +wandering so long, but begin fresh. I was ten or twelve days at Newport; +then came back convalescent to New York. Fanny and Lloyd are off to the +Adirondacks to see if that will suit; and the rest of us leave Monday +(this is Saturday) to follow them up. I hope we may manage to stay there +all winter. I have a splendid appetite and have on the whole recovered +well after a mighty sharp attack. I am now on a salary of £500 a year +for twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine on what I like; it is more +than £500, but I cannot calculate more precisely. You have no idea how +much is made of me here; I was offered £2000 for a weekly article--eh +heh! how is that? but I refused that lucrative job. The success of +_Underwoods_ is gratifying. You see, the verses are sane; that is their +strong point, and it seems it is strong enough to carry them. + +A thousand thanks for your grand letter.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The verses herein alluded to were addressed to Rossetti's friend, Dr. + Gordon Hake, physician and poet (1809-1895), in return for some + received from him. They are those beginning "In the beloved hour that + ushers day" and printed as No. xix. in _Songs of Travel_. + + _New York [September 1887]._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which please communicate. I +did my best with the interviewers; + +I don't know if Lloyd sent you the result; my heart was too sick: you +can do nothing with them; and yet ----literally sweated with anxiety to +please, and took me down in long hand! + +I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not busted, but +medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, plain, high-minded +artist and honest fellow; you would like him down to the ground. I +believe sculptors are fine fellows when they are not demons. O, I am now +a salaried person, £600, a year,[21] to write twelve articles in +Scribner's Magazine; it remains to be seen if it really pays, huge as +the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh me. I hope you will like my +answer to Hake, and specially that he will. + +Love to all.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + (_le salarié_). + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [October 1887]._ + +MY DEAR BOB,--The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous for me; I could +not risk the long railway voyage, and the season was too late to risk +the Eastern, Cape Hatteras side of the steamer one; so here we stuck and +stick. We have a wooden house on a hill-top, overlooking a river, and a +village about a quarter of a mile away, and very wooded hills; the whole +scene is very Highland, bar want of heather and the wooden houses. + +I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is proved the sea agrees +heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no +worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in summer. +Good Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a +string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these I +hold that £700 a year is as much as any body can possibly want; and I +have had more, so I know, for the extry coins were for no use, excepting +for illness, which damns everything. + +I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it +possible. We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the +mere fact of its being a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we could cut +about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all +manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And truly there is +nothing else. I had literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full +mind--full of external and physical things, not full of cares and +labours and rot about a fellow's behaviour. My heart literally sang; I +truly care for nothing so much as for that. We took so north a course, +that we saw Newfoundland; no one in the ship had ever seen it before. + +It was beyond belief to me how she rolled; in seemingly smooth water, +the bell striking, the fittings bounding out of our state-room. It is +worth having lived these last years, partly because I have written some +better books, which is always pleasant, but chiefly to have had the joy +of this voyage. I have been made a lot of here, and it is sometimes +pleasant, sometimes the reverse; but I could give it all up, and agree +that ---- was the author of my works, for a good seventy ton schooner +and the coins to keep her on. And to think there are parties with yachts +who would make the exchange! I know a little about fame now; it is no +good compared to a yacht; and anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more +genuine fame; to cross the Atlantic and come to anchor in Newport (say) +with the Union Jack, and go ashore for your letters and hang about the +pier, among the holiday yachtsmen--that's fame, that's glory, and nobody +can take it away; they can't say your book is bad; you _have_ crossed +the Atlantic. I should do it south by the West Indies, to avoid the +damned Banks; and probably come home by steamer, and leave the skipper +to bring the yacht home. + +Well, if all goes well, we shall maybe sail out of Southampton water +some of these days and take a run to Havre, and try the Baltic, or +somewhere. + +Love to you all--Ever your afft. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON + + It was supposed that Stevenson's letters to this friend, like those + to Professor Fleeming Jenkin, had been destroyed or disappeared + altogether. But besides the two printed above (pp. 117 and 229) here + is a third, preserved by a friend to whom Sir Walter made a present + of it. + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887._] + +MY DEAR SIMPSON, + + the address is + c/o Charles Scribner's Sons, + 243 Broadway, N.Y., + +where I wish you would write and tell us you are better. But the place +of our abode is Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks; it is a mighty good +place too, and I mean it shall do me good. Indeed the dreadful +depression and collapse of last summer has quite passed away; it was a +thorough change I wanted; I wonder perhaps if it wouldn't pick you +up--if you are not picked up already; you have been a long time in Great +Britain; and that is a slow poison, very slow for the strong, but +certain for all. Old Dr. Chepmell told Lloyd: any one can stay a year in +England and be the better for it, but no one can stay there steadily and +not be the worse. + +I have had a very curious experience here; being very much made of, and +called upon, and all that; quite the famous party in fact: it is not so +nice as people try to make out, when you are young, and don't want to +bother working. Fame is nothing to a yacht; _experto crede_. There are +nice bits of course; for you meet very pleasant and interesting people; +but the thing at large is a bore and a fraud; and I am much happier up +here, where I see no one and live my own life. One thing is they do not +stick for money to the Famed One; I was offered £2000 a year for a +weekly article; and I accepted (and now enjoy) £720 a year for a monthly +one: 720/12 (whatever that may be) for each article, as long or as short +as I please, and on any mortal subject. I am sure it will do me harm to +do it; but the sum was irresistible. See calculations on verso of last +page, and observe, sir, the accuracy of my methods. + +Hulloh, I must get up, as I can't lose any time. Good-bye, remember me +to her ladyship and salute the Kids.--Ever your friend, + + R. L. S. + + + 12 : 10 :: 72 : _x_, and this results in the same problem. Well--tackle + it. + + 12)720(60 + 72 + + Is it possible? + + £60!!?? + + Let us cheque it by trying it in dollars, $3500 per an. + + 12)3500(291. 80 + 24 + --- + 110 + 108 + --- + 20 + + Well : $291.80 + + then divide by 5 for a rough test + + 5)291(58.4.4 + 25 add 80 cents = 40d. = 3. 4d. + -- + 3.4 + ------- + £58. 7.8 + + Well, call it + £58.10. + ====== + and be done with it! + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + The following refers to a review by Mr. Gosse of Stevenson's volume + of verse called _Underwoods_. The book had been published a few weeks + previously, and is dedicated, as readers will remember, to a number + of physicians who had attended him at sundry times and places. + + _Saranac Lake, Oct. 8th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have just read your article twice, with cheers of +approving laughter. I do not believe you ever wrote anything so funny: +Tyndall's "shell," the passage on the Davos press and its invaluable +issues, and that on V. Hugo and Swinburne, are exquisite; so, I say it +more ruefully, is the touch about the doctors. For the rest, I am very +glad you like my verses so well; and the qualities you ascribe to them +seem to me well found and well named. I own to that kind of candour you +attribute to me: when I am frankly interested, I suppose I fancy the +public will be so too; and when I am moved, I am sure of it. It has been +my luck hitherto to meet with no staggering disillusion. "Before" and +"After" may be two; and yet I believe the habit is now too thoroughly +ingrained to be altered. About the doctors, you were right, that +dedication has been the subject of some pleasantries that made me grind, +and of your happily touched reproof which made me blush. And to miscarry +in a dedication is an abominable form of book-wreck; I am a good +captain, I would rather lose the tent and save my dedication. + +I am at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, I suppose for the winter: it +seems a first-rate place; we have a house in the eye of many winds, with +a view of a piece of running water--Highland, all but the dear hue of +peat--and of many hills--Highland also, but for the lack of heather. +Soon the snow will close on us; we are here some twenty +miles--twenty-seven, they say, but this I profoundly disbelieve--in the +woods: communication by letter is slow and (let me be consistent) +aleatory; by telegram is as near as may be possible. + +I had some experience of American appreciation; I liked a little of it, +but there is too much; a little of that would go a long way to spoil a +man; and I like myself better in the woods. I am so damned candid and +ingenuous (for a cynic), and so much of a "cweatu' of impulse--aw" (if +you remember that admirable Leech) that I begin to shirk any more taffy; +I think I begin to like it too well. But let us trust the Gods; they +have a rod in pickle; reverently I doff my trousers, and with screwed +eyes await the _amari aliquid_ of the great God Busby. + +I thank you for the article in all ways, and remain yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887._] + +SIR,--I have to trouble you with the following _paroles bien senties_. +We are here at a first-rate place. "Baker's" is the name of our house, +but we don't address there; we prefer the tender care of the +Post-Office, as more aristocratic (it is no use to telegraph even to the +care of the Post-Office, who does not give a single damn[22]). Baker's +has a prophet's chamber, which the hypercritical might describe as a +garret with a hole in the floor: in that garret, sir, I have to trouble +you and your wife to come and slumber. Not now, however: with manly +hospitality, I choke off any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife and +my mother are gone (a note for the latter, strongly suspected to be in +the hand of your talented wife, now sits silent on the mantel shelf), +one to Niagara and t'other to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not +yet installed. And because, third, I won't have you till I have a +buffalo robe and leggings, lest you should want to paint me as a plain +man, which I am not, but a rank Saranacker and wild man of the +woods.--Yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES FAIRCHILD + + + _Post Office, Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, N.Y. [October 1887]._ + +MY DEAR FAIRCHILD,--I do not live in the Post Office; that is only my +address; I live at "Baker's," a house upon a hill, and very jolly in +every way. I believe this is going to do: we have a kind of a garret of +a spare room, where hardy visitors can sleep, and our table (if homely) +is not bad. + +And here, appropriately enough, comes in the begging part. We cannot get +any fruit here: can you manage to send me some grapes? I told you I +would trouble you, and I will say that I do so with pleasure, which +means a great deal from yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Remember us to all yours: my mother and my wife are away +skylarking; my mother to Niagara, my wife to Indianapolis; and I live +here to-day alone with Lloyd, Valentine, some cold meat, and four salmon +trout, one of which is being grilled at this moment of writing; so that, +after the immortal pattern of the Indian boys, my household will soon +only reckon three. As usual with me, the news comes in a P.S., and is +mostly folly. + + R. L. S. + + +_P.P.S._--My cold is so much better that I took another yesterday. But +the new one is a puny child; I fear him not; and yet I fear to boast. If +the postscript business goes on, this establishment will run out of P's; +but I hope it wasn't you that made this paper--just for a last word--I +could not compliment you upon that. And Lord! if you could see the +ink--not what I am using--but the local vintage! They don't write much +here; I bet what you please. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + The Wondrous Tale referred to in the following is Stevenson's _Black + Arrow_, which had been through Mr. Archer's hands in proof. + + _Saranac Lake, October 1887._ + +DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a work +of genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your pencillings; +though I defend "shrew," or at least many of the shrews. + +We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill and +forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled +and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more bitterly +deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not boast. + +My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and I +remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the hill +air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and +make great fires, and get along like one o'clock. + +I am now a salaried party; I am a _bourgeois_ now; I am to write a +weekly paper for Scribner's, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth +ache for shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to +you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he +said he had had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while, +perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough +gentlefolk in all ways that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I +am like to be a millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at +the social revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed; +and it would be a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are +you about? I hope you are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am +now, after a most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but +indeed I was quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my +respects to Tom.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + "Gleeson White" in this letter means the collection of _Ballades, + Rondeaus, &c._, edited by that gentleman and dedicated to R. L. S. + (Walter Scott, 1887). + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887._] + +MY DEAR LAD,--I hear some vague reports of a success[23] at Montreal. + +My news is not much, my mother is away to Niagara and Fanny to Indiana; +the Port Admiral and I and Valentine keep house together in our +verandahed cottage near a wood. I am writing, and have got into the +vein. When I got to N. Y. a paper offered me £2000 a year to do critical +weekly articles for them; the sum was so enormous that I tottered; +however, Scribner at once offered me the same scale to give him a +monthly paper in his magazine; indeed it is rather higher, £720 for the +twelve papers. This I could not decently refuse; and I am now a yoked +man, and after a fit of my usual impotence under bondage, seem to have +got into the swing. I suppose I shall scarce manage to do much else; but +there is the fixed sum, which shines like a sun in the firmament. A +prophet has certainly a devil of a lot of honour (and much coins) in +another country, whatever he has in his own. + +I got Gleeson White; your best work and either the best or second best +in the book is the Ballade in Hot Weather; that is really a masterpiece +of melody and fancy. Damn your Villanelles--and everybody's. G. +Macdonald comes out strong in his two pious rondels; _Fons Bandusiæ_ +seems as exquisite as ever. To my surprise, I liked two of the Pantoums, +the blue-bottle, and the still better after-death one from _Love in +Idleness_. Lang cuts a poor figure, except in the Cricket one; your +patter ballade is a great _tour de force_, but spoiled by similar +cæsuras. On the whole 'tis a ridiculous volume, and I had more pleasure +out of it than I expected. I forgot to praise Grant Allen's excellent +ballade, which is the one that runs with yours,--and here, to the point, +a note from you at Margate--among East Winds and Plain Women, damn them! +Well, what can we do or say? We are only at Saranac for the winter; and +if this _Deacon_ comes off, why you may join us there in glory; I would +I had some news of it. Saranac is not _quite_ so dear, in some ways, as +the rest of this land, where it costs you a pound to sneeze, and fifty +to blow your nose; but even here it costs $2·50 to get a box from the +station! Think of it! Lift it up tenderly! They had need to pay well! +but how poor devils live; and how it can pay to take a theatre company +over to such a land, is more than I can fancy. The devil of the States +for you is the conveyances, they are so dear--but O, what is not! + +I have thrown off my cold in excellent style, though still very groggy +about the knees, so that when I climb a paling, of which we have many, I +feel as precarious and nutatory as a man of ninety. Under this I grind; +but I believe the place will suit me. Must stop.--Ever affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The "dear Alexander" mentioned below is Mr. J. W. Alexander, the + well-known American artist, who had been a welcome visitor to + Stevenson at Bournemouth, and had drawn his portrait there. The + humorous romance proceeding from Mr. Osbourne's typewriter was the + first draft of _The Wrong Box_; or, as it was originally called, _The + Finsbury Tontine_, or _The Game of Bluff_. The article by Mr. Henry + James referred to in the last paragraph is one on R. L. S. which had + appeared in the Century Magazine for October, and was reprinted in + _Partial Portraits_. + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887_.] I know not the day; but the month + it is the drear October by the + ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--This is to say _First_, the voyage was a huge +success. We all enjoyed it (bar my wife) to the ground: sixteen days at +sea with a cargo of hay, matches, stallions, and monkeys, and in a ship +with no style on, and plenty of sailors to talk to, and the endless +pleasures of the sea--the romance of it, the sport of the scratch dinner +and the smashing crockery, the pleasure--an endless pleasure--of +balancing to the swell: well, it's over. + +_Second_, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport and New +York; saw much of and liked hugely the Fairchilds, St. Gaudens the +sculptor, Gilder of the Century--just saw the dear Alexander--saw a lot +of my old and admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you knew and +appreciated--was medallioned by St. Gaudens, and at last escaped to + +_Third_, Saranac Lake, where we now are, and which I believe we mean to +like and pass the winter at. Our house--emphatically "Baker's"--is on a +hill, and has a sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley--bless +the face of running water!--and sees some hills too, and the paganly +prosaic roofs of Saranac itself; the Lake it does not see, nor do I +regret that; I like water (fresh water I mean) either running swiftly +among stones, or else largely qualified with whisky. As I write, the sun +(which has been long a stranger) shines in at my shoulder; from the next +room, the bell of Lloyd's typewriter makes an agreeable music as it +patters off (at a rate which astonishes this experienced novelist) the +early chapters of a humorous romance; from still further off--the walls +of Baker's are neither ancient nor massive--rumours of Valentine about +the kitchen stove come to my ears; of my mother and Fanny I hear +nothing, for the excellent reason that they have gone sparking off, one +to Niagara, one to Indianapolis. People complain that I never give news +in my letters. I have wiped out that reproach. + +But now, _Fourth_, I have seen the article; and it may be from natural +partiality, I think it the best you have written. O--I remember the +Gautier, which was an excellent performance; and the Balzac, which was +good; and the Daudet, over which I licked my chops; but the R. L. S. is +better yet. It is so humorous, and it hits my little frailties with so +neat (and so friendly) a touch; and Alan is the occasion for so much +happy talk, and the quarrel is so generously praised. I read it twice, +though it was only some hours in my possession; and Low, who got it for +me from the Century, sat up to finish it ere he returned it; and, sir, +we were all delighted. Here is the paper out, nor will anything, not +even friendship, not even gratitude for the article, induce me to begin +a second sheet; so here, with the kindest remembrances and the warmest +good wishes, I remain, yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _[Saranac Lake], 18th November 1887._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--No likely I'm going to waste a sheet of paper.... I am +offered £1600 ($8000) for the American serial rights on my next story! +As you say, times are changed since the Lothian Road. Well, the Lothian +Road was grand fun too; I could take an afternoon of it with great +delight. But I'm awfu' grand noo, and long may it last! + +Remember me to any of the faithful--if there are any left. I wish I +could have a crack with you.--Yours ever affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + +I find I have forgotten more than I remembered of business.... Please +let us know (if you know) for how much Skerryvore is let; you will here +detect the female mind; I let it for what I could get; nor shall the +possession of this knowledge (which I am happy to have forgot) increase +the amount by so much as the shadow of a sixpenny piece; but my females +are agog.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES SCRIBNER + + + Shortly after the date of the present correspondence Stevenson, to + his great advantage, put all his publishing arrangements (as he had + already put his private business) into the hands of his friend Mr. + Baxter. Meantime he was managing them himself; and an occasional + lapse of memory or attention betrayed him once or twice into + misunderstandings, and once at least conflicting agreements with two + different publishers, both his friends. He was the first to denounce + the error when he became aware of it, and suffered sharply from the + sense of his own unintentional fault. The next two letters, and some + allusions in those which follow, relate to this affair. + + [_Saranac Lake, November 20 or 21, 1887._] + +MY DEAR MR. SCRIBNER,--Heaven help me, I am under a curse just now. I +have played fast and loose with what I said to you; and that, I beg you +to believe, in the purest innocence of mind. I told you you should have +the power over all my work in this country; and about a fortnight ago, +when M'Clure was here, I calmly signed a bargain for the serial +publication of a story. You will scarce believe that I did this in mere +oblivion; but I did; and all that I can say is that I will do so no +more, and ask you to forgive me. Please write to me soon as to this. + +Will you oblige me by paying in for three articles, as already sent, to +my account with John Paton & Co., 52 William Street? This will be most +convenient for us. + +The fourth article is nearly done; and I am the more deceived, or it is +_A Buster_. + +Now as to the first thing in this letter, I do wish to hear from you +soon; and I am prepared to hear any reproach, or (what is harder to +hear) any forgiveness; for I have deserved the worst.--Yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + This is the first of many letters, increasing in friendliness as the + correspondence goes on, to the editor of Scribner's Magazine. + + [_Saranac Lake, November 1887._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--I enclose corrected proof of _Beggars_, which +seems good. I mean to make a second sermon, which, if it is about the +same length as _Pulvis et Umbra_, might go in along with it as two +sermons, in which case I should call the first "The Whole Creation," and +the second "Any Good." We shall see; but you might say how you like the +notion. + +One word: if you have heard from Mr. Scribner of my unhappy oversight in +the matter of a story, you will make me ashamed to write to you, and yet +I wish to beg you to help me into quieter waters. The oversight +committed--and I do think it was not so bad as Mr. Scribner seems to +think it--and discovered, I was in a miserable position. I need not tell +you that my first impulse was to offer to share or to surrender the +price agreed upon when it should fall due; and it is almost to my credit +that I arranged to refrain. It is one of these positions from which +there is no escape; I cannot undo what I have done. And I wish to beg +you--should Mr. Scribner speak to you in the matter--to try to get him +to see this neglect of mine for no worse than it is: unpardonable +enough, because a breach of an agreement; but still pardonable, because +a piece of sheer carelessness and want of memory, done, God knows, +without design and since most sincerely regretted. I have no memory. You +have seen how I omitted to reserve the American rights in _Jekyll_: last +winter I wrote and demanded, as an increase, a less sum than had already +been agreed upon for a story that I gave to Cassell's. For once that my +forgetfulness has, by a cursed fortune, seemed to gain, instead of lose, +me money, it is painful indeed that I should produce so poor an +impression on the mind of Mr. Scribner. But I beg you to believe, and if +possible to make him believe, that I am in no degree or sense a +_faiseur_, and that in matters of business my design, at least, is +honest. Nor (bating bad memory and self-deception) am I untruthful in +such affairs. + +If Mr. Scribner shall have said nothing to you in the matter, please +regard the above as unwritten, and believe me, yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Saranac Lake, November 1887._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--The revise seemed all right, so I did not trouble +you with it; indeed, my demand for one was theatrical, to impress that +obdurate dog, your reader. Herewith a third paper: it has been a cruel +long time upon the road, but here it is, and not bad at last, I fondly +hope. I was glad you liked the _Lantern Bearers_; I did, too. I thought +it was a good paper, really contained some excellent sense, and was +ingeniously put together. I have not often had more trouble than I have +with these papers; thirty or forty pages of foul copy, twenty is the +very least I have had. Well, you pay high; it is fit that I should have +to work hard, it somewhat quiets my conscience.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + _Saranac Lake, Adirondack Mountains, + New York, U.S.A., November 21, 1887._ + +MY DEAR SYMONDS,--I think we have both meant and wanted to write to you +any time these months; but we have been much tossed about, among new +faces and old, and new scenes and old, and scenes (like this of Saranac) +which are neither one nor other. To give you some clue to our affairs, I +had best begin pretty well back. We sailed from the Thames in a vast +bucket of iron that took seventeen days from shore to shore. I cannot +describe how I enjoyed the voyage, nor what good it did me; but on the +Banks I caught friend catarrh. In New York and then in Newport I was +pretty ill; but on my return to New York, lying in bed most of the time, +with St. Gaudens the sculptor sculping me, and my old friend Low around, +I began to pick up once more. Now here we are in a kind of wilderness of +hills and firwoods and boulders and snow and wooden houses. So far as we +have gone the climate is grey and harsh, but hungry and somnolent; and +although not charming like that of Davos, essentially bracing and +briskening. The country is a kind of insane mixture of Scotland and a +touch of Switzerland and a dash of America, and a thought of the British +Channel in the skies. We have a decent house-- + + +_December 6th._--A decent house, as I was saying, sir, on a hill-top, +with a look down a Scottish river in front, and on one hand a Perthshire +hill; on the other, the beginnings and skirts of the village play hide +and seek among other hills. We have been below zero, I know not how far +(-10 at 8 A.M. once), and when it is cold it is delightful; but hitherto +the cold has not held, and we have chopped in and out from frost to +thaw, from snow to rain, from quiet air to the most disastrous +north-westerly curdlers of the blood. After a week of practical thaw, +the ice still bears in favoured places. So there is hope. + +I wonder if you saw my book of verses? It went into a second edition, +because of my name, I suppose, and its _prose_ merits. I do not set up +to be a poet. Only an all-round literary man: a man who talks, not one +who sings. But I believe the very fact that it was only speech served +the book with the public. Horace is much a speaker, and see how popular! +Most of Martial is only speech, and I cannot conceive a person who does +not love his Martial; most of Burns, also, such as "The Louse," "The +Toothache," "The Haggis," and lots more of his best. Excuse this little +apology for my house; but I don't like to come before people who have a +note of song, and let it be supposed I do not know the difference. + +To return to the more important--news. My wife again suffers in high and +cold places; I again profit. She is off to-day to New York for a change, +as heretofore to Berne, but I am glad to say in better case than then. +Still it is undeniable she suffers, and you must excuse her (at least) +if we both prove bad correspondents. I am decidedly better, but I have +been terribly cut up with business complications: one disagreeable, as +threatening loss; one, of the most intolerable complexion, as involving +me in dishonour. The burthen of consistent carelessness: I have lost +much by it in the past; and for once (to my damnation) I have gained. I +am sure you will sympathise. It is hard work to sleep; it is hard to be +told you are a liar, and have to hold your peace, and think, "Yes, by +God, and a thief too!" You remember my lectures on Ajax, or the +Unintentional Sin? Well, I know all about that now. Nothing seems so +unjust to the sufferer: or is more just in essence. _Laissez passer la +justice de Dieu._ + +Lloyd has learned to use the typewriter, and has most gallantly +completed upon that the draft of a tale, which seems to me not without +merit and promise, it is so silly, so gay, so absurd, in spots (to my +partial eyes) so genuinely humorous. It is true, he would not have +written it but for the _New Arabian Nights_; but it is strange to find a +young writer funny. Heavens, but I was depressing when I took the pen in +hand! And now I doubt if I am sadder than my neighbours. Will this +beginner move in the inverse direction? + +Let me have your news, and believe me, my dear Symonds, with genuine +affection, yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The following refers to a volume on the elder Dumas, which Mr. Henley + was at this time preparing to write, and which he proposed to + dedicate to his friend. + + _Saranac [December 1887]._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--I was indeed overjoyed to hear of the Dumas. In the matter +of the dedication, are not cross dedications a little awkward? Lang and +Rider Haggard did it, to be sure. Perpend. And if you should conclude +against a dedication, there is a passage in _Memories and Portraits_ +written _at_ you, when I was most desperate (to stir you up a bit), +which might be quoted: something about Dumas still waiting his +biographer. I have a decent time when the weather is fine; when it is +grey, or windy or wet (as it too often is), I am merely degraded to the +dirt. I get some work done every day with a devil of a heave; not extra +good ever; and I regret my engagement. Whiles I have had the most +deplorable business annoyances too; have been threatened with having to +refund money; got over that; and found myself in the worst scrape of +being a kind of unintentional swindler. These have worried me a great +deal; also old age with his stealing steps seems to have clawed me in +his clutch to some tune. + +Do you play All Fours? We are trying it; it is still all haze to me. Can +the elder hand _beg_ more than once? The Port Admiral is at Boston +mingling with millionaires. I am but a weed on Lethe wharf. The wife is +only so-so. The Lord lead us all: if I can only get off the stage with +clean hands, I shall sing Hosanna. "Put" is described quite differently +from your version in a book I have; what are your rules? The Port +Admiral is using a game of Put in a tale of his, the first copy of +which was gloriously finished about a fortnight ago, and the revise +gallantly begun: _The Finsbury Tontine_ it is named, and might fill two +volumes, and is quite incredibly silly, and in parts (it seems to me) +pretty humorous.--Love to all from + + AN OLD, OLD MAN. + + +I say, _Taine's Origines de la France Contemporaine_ is no end; it would +turn the dead body of Charles Fox into a living Tory. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + [_Saranac Lake, December 1887._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--The Opal is very well; it is fed with glycerine +when it seems hungry. I am very well, and get about much more than I +could have hoped. My wife is not very well; there is no doubt the high +level does not agree with her, and she is on the move for a holiday to +New York. Lloyd is at Boston on a visit, and I hope has a good time. My +mother is really first-rate; she and I, despairing of other games for +two, now play All Fours out of a gamebook, and have not yet discovered +its niceties, if any. + +You will have heard, I dare say, that they made a great row over me +here. They also offered me much money, a great deal more than my works +are worth: I took some of it, and was greedy and hasty, and am now very +sorry. I have done with big prices from now out. Wealth and self-respect +seem, in my case, to be strangers. + +We were talking the other day of how well Fleeming managed to grow rich. +Ah, that is a rare art; something more intellectual than a virtue. The +book has not yet made its appearance here; the Life alone, with a little +preface, is to appear in the States; and the Scribners are to send you +half the royalties. I should like it to do well, for Fleeming's sake. + +Will you please send me the Greek water-carrier's song? I have a +particular use for it. + +Have I any more news, I wonder?--and echo wonders along with me. I am +strangely disquieted on all political matters; and I do not know if it +is "the signs of the times" or the sign of my own time of life. But to +me the sky seems black both in France and England, and only partly clear +in America. I have not seen it so dark in my time; of that I am sure. + +Please let us have some news; and excuse me, for the sake of my +well-known idleness; and pardon Fanny, who is really not very well, for +this long silence.--Very sincerely your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + The lady at Bournemouth (the giver of the paper-knife) to whom the + following letter is addressed had been trusted to keep an eye on + Stevenson's interests in connection with his house (which had been + let) and other matters, and to report thereon from time to time. In + their correspondence Stevenson is generally referred to as the Squire + and the lady as the Gamekeeper. + + [_Saranac Lake, December 1887._] + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I am so much afraid our gamekeeper may weary of +unacknowledged reports! Hence, in the midst of a perfect horror of +detestable weathers of a quite incongruous strain, and with less desire +for correspondence than--well, than--well, with no desire for +correspondence, behold me dash into the breach. Do keep up your letters. +They are most delightful to this exiled backwoods family; and in your +next, we shall hope somehow or other to hear better news of you and +yours--that in the first place--and to hear more news of our beasts and +birds and kindly fruits of earth and those human tenants who are (truly) +too much with us. + +I am very well; better than for years: that is for good. But then my +wife is no great shakes; the place does not suit her--it is my private +opinion that no place does--and she is now away down to New York for a +change, which (as Lloyd is in Boston) leaves my mother and me and +Valentine alone in our wind-beleaguered hill-top hat-box of a house. You +should hear the cows butt against the walls in the early morning while +they feed; you should also see our back log when the thermometer goes +(as it does go) away--away below zero, till it can be seen no more by +the eye of man--not the thermometer, which is still perfectly visible, +but the mercury, which curls up into the bulb like a hibernating bear; +you should also see the lad who "does chores" for us, with his red +stockings and his thirteen-year-old face, and his highly manly tramp +into the room; and his two alternative answers to all questions about +the weather: either "Cold," or with a really lyrical movement of the +voice, "_Lovely_--raining!" + +Will you take this miserable scrap for what it is worth? Will you also +understand that I am the man to blame, and my wife is really almost too +much out of health to write, or at least doesn't write?--And believe me, +with kind remembrances to Mrs. Boodle and your sisters, very sincerely +yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The supposed Lord Warmingpan of the following was really Lord + Pollexfen. + + _Saranac, 12th December '87._ + +Give us news of all your folk. A Merry Christmas from all of us. + + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Will you please send £20 to ---- for a Christmas gift +from ----? Moreover, I cannot remember what I told you to send to ----; +but as God has dealt so providentially with me this year, I now propose +to make it £20. + +I beg of you also to consider my strange position. I jined a club which +it was said was to defend the Union; and I had a letter from the +secretary, which his name I believe was Lord Warmingpan (or words to +that effect), to say I am elected, and had better pay up a certain sum +of money, I forget what. Now I cannae verra weel draw a blank cheque and +send to-- + + LORD WARMINGPAN (or words to that effect), + London, England. + +And, man, if it was possible, I would be dooms glad to be out o' this +bit scrapie. Mebbe the club was ca'd "The Union," but I wouldnae like to +sweir; and mebbe it wasnae, or mebbe only words to that effec'--but I +wouldnae care just exac'ly about sweirin'. Do ye no think Henley, or +Pollick, or some o' they London fellies, micht mebbe perhaps find out +for me? and just what the soom was? And that you would aiblins pay for +me? For I thocht I was sae dam patriotic jinin', and it would be a kind +o' a come-doun to be turned out again. Mebbe Lang would ken; or mebbe +Rider Haggyard: they're kind o' Union folks. But it's my belief his name +was Warmingpan whatever.--Yours, + + THOMSON, + _alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + +Could it be Warminster? + + + + +TO MISS MONROE + + + The play of DEACON BRODIE was at this time being performed at + Chicago, with Mr. E. J. Henley in the title-part. + + _Saranac Lake, New York [December 19, 1887]._ + +DEAR MISS MONROE,--Many thanks for your letter and your good wishes. It +was much my desire to get to Chicago: had I done--or if I yet do--so, I +shall hope to see the original of my photograph, which is one of my show +possessions; but the fates are rather contrary. My wife is far from +well; I myself dread, worse than almost any other imaginable peril, that +miraculous and really insane invention the American Railroad Car. +Heaven help the man--may I add the woman--that sets foot in one! Ah, if +it were only an ocean to cross, it would be a matter of small thought to +me--and great pleasure. But the railroad car--every man has his weak +point; and I fear the railroad car as abjectly as I do an earwig, and, +on the whole, on better grounds. You do not know how bitter it is to +have to make such a confession; for you have not the pretension nor the +weakness of a man. If I do get to Chicago, you will hear of me: so much +can be said. And do you never come east? + +I was pleased to recognise a word of my poor old _Deacon_ in your +letter. It would interest me very much to hear how it went and what you +thought of piece and actors; and my collaborator, who knows and respects +the photograph, would be pleased too.--Still in the hope of seeing you, +I am, yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--It may please you to know how our family has been +employed. In the silence of the snow the afternoon lamp has lighted an +eager fireside group: my mother reading, Fanny, Lloyd, and I devoted +listeners; and the work was really one of the best works I ever heard; +and its author is to be praised and honoured; and what do you suppose is +the name of it? and have you ever read it yourself? and (I am bound I +will get to the bottom of the page before I blow the gaff, if I have to +fight it out on this line all summer; for if you have not to turn a +leaf, there can be no suspense, the conspectory eye being swift to pick +out proper names; and without suspense, there can be little pleasure in +this world, to my mind at least)--and, in short, the name of it is +_Roderick Hudson_, if you please. My dear James, it is very spirited, +and very sound, and very noble too. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, Rowland, O, all +first-rate: Rowland a very fine fellow; Hudson as good as he can stick +(did you know Hudson? I suspect you did), Mrs. H. his real born mother, +a thing rarely managed in fiction. + +We are all keeping pretty fit and pretty hearty; but this letter is not +from me to you, it is from a reader of _R. H._ to the author of the +same, and it says nothing, and has nothing to say, but thank you. + +We are going to re-read _Casamassima_ as a proper pendant. Sir, I think +these two are your best, and care not who knows it. + +May I beg you, the next time _Roderick_ is printed off, to go over the +sheets of the last few chapters, and strike out "immense" and +"tremendous"? You have simply dropped them there like your +pocket-handkerchief; all you have to do is to pick them up and pouch +them, and your room--what do I say?--your cathedral!--will be swept and +garnished.--I am, dear sir, your delighted reader, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Perhaps it is a pang of causeless honesty, perhaps I hope it +will set a value on my praise of _Roderick_, perhaps it's a burst of the +diabolic, but I must break out with the news that I can't bear the +_Portrait of a Lady_. I read it all, and I wept too; but I can't stand +your having written it; and I beg you will write no more of the like. +_Infra_, sir; Below you: I can't help it--it may be your favourite work, +but in my eyes it's BELOW YOU to write and me to read. I thought +_Roderick_ was going to be another such at the beginning; and I cannot +describe my pleasure as I found it taking bones and blood, and looking +out at me with a moved and human countenance, whose lineaments are +written in my memory until my last of days. + + R. L. S. + + +My wife begs your forgiveness; I believe for her silence. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Saranac Lake [December 1887]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--This goes to say that we are all fit, and the place is +very bleak and wintry, and up to now has shown no such charms of climate +as Davos, but is a place where men eat and where the cattarh, catarrh +(cattarrh, or cattarrhh) appears to be unknown. I walk in my verandy in +the snaw, sir, looking down over one of those dabbled wintry landscapes +that are (to be frank) so chilly to the human bosom, and up at a grey, +English--nay, _mehercle_, Scottish--heaven; and I think it pretty bleak; +and the wind swoops at me round the corner, like a lion, and fluffs the +snow in my face; and I could aspire to be elsewhere; but yet I do not +catch cold, and yet, when I come in, I eat. So that hitherto Saranac, if +not deliriously delectable, has not been a failure; nay, from the mere +point of view of the wicked body, it has proved a success. But I wish I +could still get to the woods; alas, _nous n'irons plus au bois_ is my +poor song; the paths are buried, the dingles drifted full, a little walk +is grown a long one; till spring comes, I fear the burthen will hold +good. + +I get along with my papers for Scribner not fast, nor so far specially +well; only this last, the fourth one (which makes a third part of my +whole task), I do believe is pulled off after a fashion. It is a mere +sermon: "Smith opens out";[24] but it is true, and I find it touching +and beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine writing +in it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. _Pulvis et Umbra_, I call it; +I might have called it a Darwinian Sermon, if I had wanted. Its +sentiments, although parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe. The +other three papers, I fear, bear many traces of effort, and the +ungenuine inspiration of an income at so much per essay, and the honest +desire of the incomer to give good measure for his money. Well, I did my +damndest anyway. + +We have been reading H. James's _Roderick Hudson_, which I eagerly press +you to get at once: it is a book of a high order--the last volume in +particular. I wish Meredith would read it. It took my breath away. + +I am at the seventh book of the _Æneid_, and quite amazed at its merits +(also very often floored by its difficulties). The Circe passage at the +beginning, and the sublime business of Amata with the simile of the +boy's top--O Lord, what a happy thought!--have specially delighted +me.--I am, dear sir, your respected friend, + + JOHN GREGG GILLSON, J.P., M.R.I.A., etc. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following narrates the beginning of the author's labours on _The + Master of Ballantrae_. An unfinished paper written some years later + in Samoa, and intended for Scribner's Magazine, tells how the story + first took shape in his mind. See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, + vol. iv. p. 297: reprinted in _Essays on the Art of Writing_. + + [_Saranac Lake, December 24, 1887._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thank you for your explanations. I have done no more +Virgil since I finished the seventh book, for I have first been eaten up +with Taine, and next have fallen head over heels into a new tale, _The +Master of Ballantrae_. No thought have I now apart from it, and I have +got along up to page ninety-two of the draft with great interest. It is +to me a most seizing tale: there are some fantastic elements; the most +is a dead genuine human problem--human tragedy, I should say rather. It +will be about as long, I imagine, as _Kidnapped_. + +DRAMATIS PERSONAE: + + (1) My old Lord Durrisdeer. + + (2) The Master of Ballantrae, _and_ + + (3) Henry Durie, _his sons_. + + (4) Clementina,[25] _engaged to the first, married to the second_. + + (5) Ephraim Mackellar, _land steward at Durrisdeer and narrator of the + most of the book_. + + (6) Francis Burke, Chevalier de St. Louis, _one of Prince Charlie's + Irishmen and narrator of the rest_. + +Besides these, many instant figures, most of them dumb or nearly so: +Jessie Brown the whore, Captain Crail, Captain MacCombie, our old friend +Alan Breck, our old friend Riach (both only for an instant), Teach the +pirate (vulgarly Blackbeard), John Paul and Macconochie, servants at +Durrisdeer. The date is from 1745 to '65 (about). The scene, near +Kirkcudbright, in the States, and for a little moment in the French East +Indies. I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the +brothers, and announcement of the death to Clementina and my +Lord--Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really +very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil. I have known +hints of him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as a lion, +but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so +much surprise in my two cowards. 'Tis true, I saw a hint of the same +nature in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to +attend to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here come my +visitors--and have now gone, or the first relay of them; and I hope no +more may come. For mark you, sir, this is our "day"--Saturday, as ever +was; and here we sit, my mother and I, before a large wood fire and +await the enemy with the most steadfast courage; and without snow and +greyness: and the woman Fanny in New York for her health, which is far +from good; and the lad Lloyd at the inn in the village because he has a +cold; and the handmaid Valentine abroad in a sleigh upon her messages; +and to-morrow Christmas and no mistake. Such is human life: _la carrière +humaine_. I will enclose, if I remember, the required autograph. + +I will do better, put it on the back of this page. Love to all, and +mostly, my very dear Colvin, to yourself. For whatever I say or do, or +don't say or do, you may be very sure I am--Yours always affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + _Saranac Lake, Christmas 1887._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,---And a very good Christmas to you all; and better +fortune; and if worse, the more courage to support it--which I think is +the kinder wish in all human affairs. Somewhile--I fear a good +while--after this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have no +tact and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic brutality; and I +dare say the present, even after my friend Baxter has acted on and +reviewed my hints, may prove a White Elephant. That is why I dread +presents. And therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper +prove unwelcome, _it is to be exchanged_. I will not sit down under the +name of a giver of White Elephants. I never had any elephant but one, +and his initials were R. L. S.; and he trod on my foot at a very early +age. But this is a fable, and not in the least to the point: which is +that if, for once in my life, I have wished to make things nicer for +anybody but the Elephant (see fable), do not suffer me to have made them +ineffably more embarrassing, and exchange--ruthlessly exchange! + +For my part, I am the most cockered up of any mortal being; and one of +the healthiest, or thereabout, at some modest distance from the bull's +eye. I am condemned to write twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine for +the love of gain; I think I had better send you them; what is far more +to the purpose, I am on the jump with a new story which has bewitched +me--I doubt it may bewitch no one else. It is called _The Master of +Ballantrae_--pronounce B[=a]ll[)a]n-tray. If it is not good, well, mine +will be the fault; for I believe it is a good tale. + +The greetings of the season to you, and your mother, and your sisters. +My wife heartily joins.--And I am, yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--You will think me an illiterate dog: I am, for the first time, +reading Robertson's sermons. I do not know how to express how much I +think of them. If by any chance you should be as illiterate as I, and +not know them, it is worth while curing the defect. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The following letter invites Mr. Baxter to allow himself (under an + _alias_) and his office in Edinburgh to figure in a preface to the + new story. Such a preface was drafted accordingly, but on second + thoughts suppressed; to be, on renewed consideration, reinstated in + the final editions. + + _Saranac Lake, January '88._ + +DEAR CHARLES,--You are the flower of Doers.... Will my doer collaborate +thus much in my new novel? In the year 1794 or 5, Mr. Ephraim Mackellar, +A.M., late steward on the Durrisdeer estates, completed a set of +memoranda (as long as a novel) with regard to the death of the (then) +late Lord Durrisdeer, and as to that of his attainted elder brother, +called by the family courtesy title the Master of Ballantrae. These he +placed in the hand of John Macbrair, W.S., the family agent, on the +understanding they were to be sealed until 1862, when a century would +have elapsed since the affair in the wilderness (my lord's death). You +succeeded Mr. Macbrair's firm; the Durrisdeers are extinct; and last +year, in an old green box, you found these papers with Macbrair's +indorsation. It is that indorsation of which I want a copy; you may +remember, when you gave me the papers, I neglected to take that, and I +am sure you are a man too careful of antiquities to have let it fall +aside. I shall have a little introduction descriptive of my visit to +Edinburgh, arrival there, denner with yoursel', and first reading of the +papers in your smoking-room: all of which, of course, you well +remember.--Ever yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + +Your name is my friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S.!!! + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + _Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._ + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--I am keeping the sermon to see if I can't add +another. Meanwhile, I will send you very soon a different paper which +may take its place. Possibly some of these days soon I may get together +a talk on things current, which should go in (if possible) earlier than +either. I am now less nervous about these papers; I believe I can do the +trick without great strain, though the terror that breathed on my back +in the beginning is not yet forgotten. + +The _Master of Ballantrae_ I have had to leave aside, as I was quite +worked out. But in about a week I hope to try back and send you the +first four numbers: these are all drafted, it is only the revision that +has broken me down, as it is often the hardest work. These four I +propose you should set up for me at once, and we'll copyright 'em in a +pamphlet. I will tell you the names of the _bona fide_ purchasers in +England. + +The numbers will run from twenty to thirty pages of my manuscript. You +can give me that much, can you not? It is a howling good tale--at least +these first four numbers are; the end is a trifle more fantastic, but +'tis all picturesque. + +Don't trouble about any more French books; I am on another scent, you +see, just now. Only the _French in Hindustan_ I await with impatience, +as that is for _Ballantrae_. The scene of that romance is Scotland---the +States--Scotland--India---Scotland--and the States again; so it jumps +like a flea. I have enough about the States now, and very much obliged I +am; yet if Drake's _Tragedies of the Wilderness_ is (as I gather) a +collection of originals, I should like to purchase it. If it is a +picturesque vulgarisation, I do not wish to look it in the face. +Purchase, I say; for I think it would be well to have some such +collection by me with a view to fresh works.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--If you think of having the _Master_ illustrated, I suggest that +Hole would be very well up to the Scottish, which is the larger, part. +If you have it done here, tell your artist to look at the hall of +Craigievar in Billing's _Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities_, and +he will get a broad hint for the hall at Durrisdeer: it is, I think, the +chimney of Craigievar and the roof of Pinkie, and perhaps a little more +of Pinkie altogether; but I should have to see the book myself to be +sure. Hole would be invaluable for this. I dare say if you had it +illustrated, you could let me have one or two for the English edition. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + The following refers to Mr. Bernard Shaw's novel, _Cashel Byron's + Profession_, which had been sent Stevenson to read by their common + friend Mr. Archer. + + [_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._] + +MY DEAR ARCHER,--What am I to say? I have read your friend's book with +singular relish. If he has written any other, I beg you will let me see +it; and if he has not, I beg him to lose no time in supplying the +deficiency. It is full of promise; but I should like to know his age. +There are things in it that are very clever, to which I attach small +importance; it is the shape of the age. And there are passages, +particularly the rally in presence of the Zulu king, that show genuine +and remarkable narrative talent--a talent that few will have the wit to +understand, a talent of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision, +and sufficient self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a +narrator. + +As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most feverish. Over +Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I dote on +Bashville--I could read of him for ever; _de Bashville je suis le +fervent_--there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave; +_Bashville est magnifique, mais il n'est guère possible_. He is the note +of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the author +has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott's or Dumas', and then he daubs +in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the romantic +griffon--even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at +the nature of the quest--and I believe in his heart he thinks he is +labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism. + +It is this that makes me--the most hardened adviser now extant--stand +back and hold my peace. If Mr. Shaw is below five-and-twenty, let him go +his path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic, +and pursue romance with his eyes open;--or perhaps he knows it;--God +knows!--my brain is softened. + +It is HORRID FUN. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure +you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author. + +(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +1 part Charles Reade; 1 part Henry James or some kindred author badly +assimilated; 1/2 part Disraeli (perhaps unconscious); 1-1/2 parts +struggling, over-laid original talent; 1 part blooming, gaseous folly. +That is the equation as it stands. What it may be, I don't know, nor any +other man. _Vixere fortes_--O, let him remember that--let him beware of +his damned century; his gifts of insane chivalry and animated narration +are just those that might be slain and thrown out like an untimely birth +by the Daemon of the epoch. And if he only knew how I have adored the +chivalry! Bashville!--_O Bashville! j'en chortle_ (which is fairly +polyglot). + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888._] + +MY DEAR ARCHER,--Pretty sick in bed; but necessary to protest and +continue your education. + +Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think because not amusing (I +think he often was amusing). The reason is this: I never, or almost +never, saw two pages of his work that I could not have put in one +without the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I know of +writing. If there is anywhere a thing said in two sentences that could +have been as clearly and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then +it's amateur work. Then you will bring me up with old Dumas. Nay, the +object of a story is to be long, to fill up hours; the story-teller's +art of writing is to water out by continual invention, historical and +technical, and yet not seem to water; seem on the other hand to practise +that same wit of conspicuous and declaratory condensation which is the +proper art of writing. That is one thing in which my stories fail: I am +always cutting the flesh off their bones. + +I would rise from the dead to preach! + +Hope all well. I think my wife better, but she's not allowed to write; +and this (only wrung from me by desire to Boss and Parsonise and +Dominate, strong in sickness) is my first letter for days, and will +likely be my last for many more. Not blame my wife for her silence: +doctor's orders. All much interested by your last, and fragment from +brother, and anecdotes of Tomarcher.--The sick but still Moral + + R. L. S. + + +Tell Shaw to hurry up: I want another. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + In early days in Paris, Stevenson's chivalrous feelings had once been + shocked by the scene in the _Demi-Monde_ of Dumas fils, where Suzanne + d'Ange is trapped by Olivier de Jalin. His correspondent had asked + what exactly took place. + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888 ?_] + +MY DEAR ARCHER,--It happened thus. I came forth from that performance in +a breathing heat of indignation. (Mind, at this distance of time and +with my increased knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the piece; +but I saw none then, except a problem in brutality; and I still consider +the problem in that case not established.) On my way down the _Français_ +stairs, I trod on an old gentleman's toes, whereupon with that suavity +that so well becomes me, I turned about to apologise, and on the +instant, repenting me of that intention, stopped the apology midway, and +added something in French to this effect: No, you are one of the +_lâches_ who have been applauding that piece. I retract my apology. Said +the old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and with a smile that was +truly heavenly in temperance, irony, good-nature, and knowledge of the +world, "Ah, monsieur, vous êtes bien jeune!"--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--Will you send me (from the library) some of the +works of my dear old G. P. R. James? With the following especially I +desire to make or to renew acquaintance: _The Songster_, _The Gipsy_, +_The Convict_, _The Stepmother_, _The Gentleman of the Old School_, _The +Robber_. + +_Excusez du peu._ + +This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an accident. The +"Franklin County Library" contains two works of his, _The Cavalier_ and +_Morley Ernstein_. I read the first with indescribable amusement--it was +worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; the second (to my +surprise) was better than I had dared to hope: a good, honest, dull, +interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned talent in the invention +when not strained; and a genuine old-fashioned feeling for the English +language. This experience awoke appetite, and you see I have taken steps +to stay it. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--1. Of course then don't use it. Dear Man, I write +these to please you, not myself, and you know a main sight better than I +do what is good. In that case, however, I enclose another paper, and +return the corrected proof of _Pulvis et Umbra_, so that we may be +afloat. + +2. I want to say a word as to the _Master_. (The _Master of Ballantrae_ +shall be the name by all means.) If you like and want it, I leave it to +you to make an offer. You may remember I thought the offer you made when +I was still in England too small; by which I did not at all mean, I +thought it less than it was worth, but too little to tempt me to undergo +the disagreeables of serial publication. This tale (if you want it) you +are to have; for it is the least I can do for you; and you are to +observe that the sum you pay me for my articles going far to meet my +wants, I am quite open to be satisfied with less than formerly. I tell +you I do dislike this battle of the dollars. I feel sure you all pay too +much here in America; and I beg you not to spoil me any more. For I am +getting spoiled: I do not want wealth, and I feel these big sums +demoralise me. + +My wife came here pretty ill; she had a dreadful bad night; to-day she +is better. But now Valentine is ill; and Lloyd and I have got breakfast, +and my hand somewhat shakes after washing dishes.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Please order me the Evening Post for two months. My subscription +is run out. The _Mutiny_ and _Edwardes_ to hand. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + [_Saranac Lake, March 1888._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Fanny has been very unwell. She is not long home, has +been ill again since her return, but is now better again to a degree. +You must not blame her for not writing, as she is not allowed to write +at all, not even a letter. To add to our misfortunes, Valentine is quite +ill and in bed. Lloyd and I get breakfast; I have now, 10.15, just got +the dishes washed and the kitchen all clear, and sit down to give you as +much news as I have spirit for, after such an engagement. Glass is a +thing that really breaks my spirit: I do not like to fail, and with +glass I cannot reach the work of my high calling--the artist's. + +I am, as you may gather from this, wonderfully better: this harsh, grey, +glum, doleful climate has done me good. You cannot fancy how sad a +climate it is. When the thermometer stays all day below 10°, it is +really cold; and when the wind blows, O commend me to the result. +Pleasure in life is all delete; there is no red spot left, fires do not +radiate, you burn your hands all the time on what seem to be cold +stones. It is odd, zero is like summer heat to us now; and we like, when +the thermometer outside is really low, a room at about 48°: 60° we find +oppressive. Yet the natives keep their holes at 90° or even 100°. + +This was interrupted days ago by household labours. Since then I have +had and (I tremble to write it, but it does seem as if I had) beaten off +an influenza. The cold is exquisite. Valentine still in bed. The proofs +of the first part of _The Master of Ballantrae_ begin to come in; soon +you shall have it in the pamphlet form; and I hope you will like it. The +second part will not be near so good; but there--we can but do as it'll +do with us. I have every reason to believe this winter has done me real +good, so far as it has gone; and if I carry out my scheme for next +winter, and succeeding years, I should end by being a tower of strength. +I want you to save a good holiday for next winter; I hope we shall be +able to help you to some larks. Is there any Greek Isle you would like +to explore? or any creek in Asia Minor?--Yours ever affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS + + The Rev. Dr. Charteris, of Edinburgh, had been one of the most + intimate and trusted friends of Stevenson's father, and R. L. S. + turns to him accordingly for memories and impressions. + + [_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._] + +MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,--I have asked Douglas and Foulis to send you my +last volume, so that you may possess my little paper on my father in a +permanent shape; not for what that is worth, but as a tribute of respect +to one whom my father regarded with such love, esteem, and affection. +Besides, as you will see, I have brought you under contribution, and I +have still to thank you for your letter to my mother; so more than kind; +in much, so just. It is my hope, when time and health permit, to do +something more definite for my father's memory. You are one of the very +few who can (if you will) help me. Pray believe that I lay on you no +obligation; I know too well, you may believe me, how difficult it is to +put even two sincere lines upon paper, where all, too, is to order. But +if the spirit should ever move you, and you should recall something +memorable of your friend, his son will heartily thank you for a note of +it.--With much respect, believe me, yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + [_Saranac Lake, March 31, 1888._] + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--Why so plaintive? Either the post-office has played us +false, or you were in my debt. In case it should be my letter that has +failed to come to post, I must tell again the fate of Mrs. Gosse's +thermometer. It hangs in our sitting-room, where it has often marked +freezing point and below; "See what Gosse says," is a common word of +command. But the point is this: in the verandah hangs another +thermometer, condemned to register minus 40° and that class of +temperatures; and to him, we have given the name of the Quarterly +Reviewer. I hope the jape likes you. + +Please tell the Fortnightly man that I am sorry but I can do nothing of +that sort this year, as I am under a pledge to Scribner's; and indeed my +monthly articles take the best of my time. It was a project I went into +with horrid diffidence; and lucre was my only motive. I get on better +than I expected, but it is difficult to find an article of the sort +required for each date, and to vary the matter and keep up (if possible) +the merit. I do not know if you think I have at all succeeded; it seemed +to me this really worked paper was more money's worth (as well as +probably better within my means) than the Lang business at the Sign of +the Ship. Indeed I feel convinced I could never have managed that; it +takes a gift to do it. Here is lunch.--Yours afftly., + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + [_Saranac Lake, March 1888._] + +MY DEAR DELIGHTFUL JAMES,--To quote your heading to my wife, I think no +man writes so elegant a letter, I am sure none so kind, unless it be +Colvin, and there is more of the stern parent about him. I was vexed at +your account of my admired Meredith: I wish I could go and see him; as +it is I will try to write; and yet (do you understand me?) there is +something in that potent, _genialisch_ affectation that puts one on the +strain even to address him in a letter. He is not an easy man to be +yourself with: there is so much of him, and veracity and the high +athletic intellectual humbug are so intermixed.[26] I read with +indescribable admiration your _Emerson_. I begin to long for the day +when these portraits of yours shall be collected: do put me in. But +Emerson is a higher flight. Have you a _Tourgueneff_? You have told me +many interesting things of him, and I seem to see them written, and +forming a graceful and _bildend_ sketch. (I wonder whence comes this +flood of German--I haven't opened a German book since I teethed.) My +novel is a tragedy; four parts out of six or seven are written, and gone +to Burlingame. Five parts of it are sound, human tragedy; the last one +or two, I regret to say, not so soundly designed; I almost hesitate to +write them; they are very picturesque, but they are fantastic; they +shame, perhaps degrade, the beginning. I wish I knew; that was how the +tale came to me however. I got the situation; it was an old taste of +mine: The older brother goes out in the '45, the younger stays; the +younger, of course, gets title and estate and marries the bride +designate of the elder--a family match, but he (the younger) had always +loved her, and she had really loved the elder. Do you see the situation? +Then the devil and Saranac suggested this _dénouement_, and I joined the +two ends in a day or two of constant feverish thought, and began to +write. And now--I wonder if I have not gone too far with the fantastic? +The elder brother is an INCUBUS: supposed to be killed at Culloden, he +turns up again and bleeds the family of money; on that stopping he comes +and lives with them, whence flows the real tragedy, the nocturnal duel +of the brothers (very naturally, and indeed, I think, inevitably +arising), and second supposed death of the elder. Husband and wife now +really make up, and then the cloven hoof appears. For the third supposed +death and the manner of the third reappearance is steep; steep, sir. It +is even very steep, and I fear it shames the honest stuff so far; but +then it is highly pictorial, and it leads up to the death of the elder +brother at the hands of the younger in a perfectly cold-blooded murder, +of which I wish (and mean) the reader to approve. You see how daring is +the design. There are really but six characters, and one of these +episodic, and yet it covers eighteen years, and will be, I imagine, the +longest of my works.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + +_Read Gosse's Raleigh._ First-rate.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS + + + _Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [Spring 1888]._ + +MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,--The funeral letter, your notes, and many other +things, are reserved for a book, _Memorials of a Scottish Family_, if +ever I can find time and opportunity. I wish I could throw off all else +and sit down to it to-day. Yes, my father was a "distinctly religious +man," but not a pious. The distinction painfully and pleasurably recalls +old conflicts; it used to be my great gun--and you, who suffered for the +whole Church, know how needful it was to have some reserve artillery! +His sentiments were tragic; he was a tragic thinker. Now, granted that +life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion +to make us accept and serve in that tragedy, as officers in that other +and comparable one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the +military sense; and the religious man--I beg pardon, the pious man--is +he who has a military joy in duty--not he who weeps over the wounded. We +can do no more than try to do our best. Really, I am the grandson of the +manse--I preach you a kind of sermon. Box the brat's ears! + +My mother--to pass to matters more within my competence--finely enjoys +herself. The new country, some new friends we have made, the interesting +experiment of this climate--which (at least) is tragic--all have done +her good. I have myself passed a better winter than for years, and now +that it is nearly over have some diffident hopes of doing well in the +summer and "eating a little more air" than usual. + +I thank you for the trouble you are taking, and my mother joins with me +in kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Charteris.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO S. R. CROCKETT + + + [_Saranac Lake, Spring 1888_]. + +DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK,--For O, man, I cannae read +your name!--That I have been so long in answering your delightful letter +sits on my conscience badly. The fact is I let my correspondence +accumulate until I am going to leave a place; and then I pitch in, +overhaul the pile, and my cries of penitence might be heard a mile +about. Yesterday I despatched thirty-five belated letters: conceive the +state of my conscience, above all as the Sins of Omission (see boyhood's +guide, the Shorter Catechism) are in my view the only serious ones; I +call it my view, but it cannot have escaped you that it was also +Christ's. However, all that is not to the purpose, which is to thank you +for the sincere pleasure afforded by your charming letter. I get a good +few such; how few that please me at all, you would be surprised to +learn--or have a singularly just idea of the dulness of our race; how +few that please me as yours did, I can tell you in one word--_None_. I +am no great kirkgoer, for many reasons--and the sermon's one of them, +and the first prayer another, but the chief and effectual reason is the +stuffiness. I am no great kirkgoer, says I, but when I read yon letter +of yours, I thought I would like to sit under ye. And then I saw ye were +to send me a bit buik, and says I, I'll wait for the bit buik, and then +I'll mebbe can read the man's name, and anyway I'll can kill twa birds +wi' ae stane. And, man! the buik was ne'er heard tell o'! + +That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay. + +And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks to you, and +greeting to your wife, and may you have good guidance in your difficult +labours, and a blessing on your life. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + (No just sae young's he was, though-- + I'm awfae near forty, man.) + Address c/o Charles Scribner's Sons, + 743 Broadway, New York. + +Don't put "N.B." in your paper: put SCOTLAND, and be done with it. Alas, +that I should be thus stabbed in the home of my friends! The name of my +native land is not NORTH BRITAIN, whatever may be the name of yours. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + [_Saranac Lake, April 1888._] + +MY DEAREST COGGIE,--I wish I could find the letter I began to you some +time ago when I was ill; but I can't and I don't believe there was much +in it anyway. We have all behaved like pigs and beasts and barn-door +poultry to you; but I have been sunk in work, and the lad is lazy and +blind and has been working too; and as for Fanny, she has been (and +still is) really unwell. I had a mean hope you might perhaps write again +before I got up steam: I could not have been more ashamed of myself than +I am, and I should have had another laugh. + +They always say I cannot give news in my letters: I shall shake off that +reproach. On Monday, if she is well enough, Fanny leaves for California +to see her friends; it is rather an anxiety to let her go alone; but the +doctor simply forbids it in my case, and she is better anywhere than +here--a bleak, blackguard, beggarly climate, of which I can say no good +except that it suits me and some others of the same or similar +persuasions whom (by all rights) it ought to kill. It is a form of +Arctic St. Andrews, I should imagine; and the miseries of forty degrees +below zero, with a high wind, have to be felt to be appreciated. The +greyness of the heavens here is a circumstance eminently revolting to +the soul; I have near forgot the aspect of the sun--I doubt if this be +news; it is certainly no news to us. My mother suffers a little from the +inclemency of the place, but less on the whole than would be imagined. +Among other wild schemes, we have been projecting yacht voyages; and I +beg to inform you that Cogia Hassan was cast for the part of passenger. +They may come off!--Again this is not news. The lad? Well, the lad wrote +a tale this winter, which appeared to me so funny that I have taken it +in hand, and some of these days you will receive a copy of a work +entitled "_A Game of Bluff_, by Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis +Stevenson." + +Otherwise he (the lad) is much as usual. There remains, I believe, to be +considered only R. L. S., the house-bond, prop, pillar, bread-winner, +and bully of the establishment. Well, I do not think him much better; he +is making piles of money; the hope of being able to hire a yacht ere +long dances before his eyes; otherwise he is not in very high spirits at +this particular moment, though compared with last year at Bournemouth an +angel of joy. + +And now is this news, Cogia, or is it not? It all depends upon the point +of view, and I call it news. The devil of it is that I can think of +nothing else, except to send you all our loves, and to wish exceedingly +you were here to cheer us all up. But we'll see about that on board the +yacht.--Your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The Mutiny novel here foreshadowed never got written. + + _[Saranac Lake] April 9th!! 1888._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been long without writing to you, but am not to +blame. I had some little annoyances quite for a private eye, but they +ran me so hard that I could not write without lugging them in, which +(for several reasons) I did not choose to do. Fanny is off to San +Francisco, and next week I myself flit to New York: address Scribner's. +Where we shall go I know not, nor (I was going to say) care; so bald and +bad is my frame of mind. Do you know our--ahem!--fellow clubman, Colonel +Majendie? I had such an interesting letter from him. Did you see my +sermon? It has evoked the worst feeling: I fear people don't care for +the truth, or else I don't tell it. Suffer me to wander without purpose. +I have sent off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck at a +twenty-first, and taken a copy of one which was on business, and +corrected several galleys of proof, and sorted about a bushel of old +letters; so if any one has a right to be romantically stupid it is +I--and I am. Really deeply stupid, and at that stage when in old days I +used to pour out words without any meaning whatever and with my mind +taking no part in the performance. I suspect that is now the case. I am +reading with extraordinary pleasure the life of Lord Lawrence: Lloyd and +I have a mutiny novel-- + +(_Next morning, after twelve other letters_)--mutiny novel on hand--a +tremendous work--so we are all at Indian books. The idea of the novel is +Lloyd's: I call it a novel. 'Tis a tragic romance, of the most tragic +sort: I believe the end will be almost too much for human +endurance--when the hero is thrown to the ground with one of his own +(Sepoy) soldier's knees upon his chest, and the cries begin in the +Beebeeghar. O truly, you know it is a howler! The whole last part +is--well the difficulty is that, short of resuscitating Shakespeare, I +don't know who is to write it. + +I still keep wonderful. I am a great performer before the Lord on the +penny whistle.--Dear sir, sincerely yours, + + ANDREW JACKSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + _[Saranac Lake, April 1888.] + Address, c/o Messrs. Scribner's Sons, + 743 Broadway, N.Y._ + +MY DEAR GAMEKEEPER,--Your p.c. (proving you a good student of Micawber) +has just arrived, and it paves the way to something I am anxious to say. +I wrote a paper the other day--_Pulvis et Umbra_;--I wrote it with great +feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and healthful, it is in +such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad to fight out my +battle, and see some fine sunsets, and hear some excellent jests between +whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision +of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or +pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it. And +I could wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it +troubles folk too much: all have not the same digestion, nor the same +sight of things. And it came over me with special pain that perhaps this +article (which I was at the pains to send to her) might give dismalness +to my _Gamekeeper at Home_. Well, I cannot take back what I have said; +but yet I may add this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that +it may be--to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth--surely of all +things it makes this world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral +side--but the great battle and the breathing times with their +refreshments. I see no more and no less. And if you look again, it is +not ugly, and it is filled with promise. + +Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology. My wife is away off to +the uttermost parts of the States, all by herself. I shall be off, I +hope, in a week; but where? Ah! that I know not. I keep wonderful, and +my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing. We now perform duets +on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to make the bass; I think I must +really send you one, which I wish you would correct.... I may be said to +live for these instrumental labours now, but I have always some +childishness on hand.--I am, dear Gamekeeper, your indulgent but +intemperate Squire, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Having spent the last fortnight of April at New York, Stevenson and + his stepson moved at the beginning of May to the small New Jersey + watering-place from whence the following few letters are dated: his + wife having meanwhile gone to San Francisco, where she presently made + arrangements for the Pacific yachting trip. + + _Union House, Manasquan, New Jersey [May 1888]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--We are here at a delightful country inn, like a country +French place, the only people in the house, a cat-boat at our disposal, +the sea always audible on the outer beach, the lagoon as smooth as +glass, all the little, queer, many coloured villas standing shuttered +and empty; in front of ours, across the lagoon, two long wooden bridges; +one for the rail, one for the road, sounding with intermittent traffic. +It is highly pleasant, and a delightful change from Saranac. My health +is much better for the change; I am sure I walked about four miles +yesterday, one time with another--well, say three and a half; and the +day before, I was out for four hours in the cat-boat, and was as stiff +as a board in consequence. More letters call.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Union House, Manasquan, N. J., but address to + Scribner's, 11th May 1888._ + +_MY DEAR CHARLES_,--I have found a yacht, and we are going the full +pitch for seven months. If I cannot get my health back (more or less), +'tis madness; but, of course, there is the hope, and I will play big.... +If this business fails to set me up, well, £2000 is gone, and I know I +can't get better. We sail from San Francisco, June 15th, for the South +Seas in the yacht _Casco_.--With a million thanks for all your dear +friendliness, ever yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + [_Manasquan, May 1888._] + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I have to announce our great news. On June 15th we +sail from San Francisco in the schooner yacht _Casco_, for a seven +months' cruise in the South Seas. You can conceive what a state of +excitement we are in; Lloyd perhaps first; but this is an old dream of +mine which actually seems to be coming true, and I am sun-struck. It +seems indeed too good to be true; and that we have not deserved so much +good fortune. From Skerryvore to the Galapagos is a far cry! And from +poking in a sick-room all winter to the deck of one's own ship, is +indeed a heavenly change. + +All these seven months I doubt if we can expect more than three mails at +the best of it: and I do hope we may hear something of your news by +each. I have no very clear views as to where the three addresses ought +to be, but if you hear no later news, Charles Scribner's Sons will +always have the run of our intended movements. And an early letter there +would probably catch us at the Sandwich Islands. Tahiti will probably be +the second point: and (as I roughly guess) Quito the third. But the +whole future is invested with heavenly clouds. + +I trust you are all well and content, and have good news of the +Shelleys, to whom I wish you would pass on ours. They should be able to +sympathise with our delight. + +Now I have all my miserable Scribner articles to rake together in the +inside of a fortnight: so you must not expect me to be more copious. I +have you all in the kindest memory, and am, your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +Remember me to Aubrey de Vere. + + + + +TO HOMER ST. GAUDENS + + + The following is addressed from Manasquan to a boy, the son of the + writer's friend, the sculptor St. Gaudens; for the rest, it explains + itself. + + _Manasquan, New Jersey, 27th May 1888._ + +DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS,--Your father has brought you this day to see me, +and he tells me it is his hope you may remember the occasion. I am +going to do what I can to carry out his wish; and it may amuse you, +years after, to see this little scrap of paper and to read what I write. +I must begin by testifying that you yourself took no interest whatever +in the introduction, and in the most proper spirit displayed a +single-minded ambition to get back to play, and this I thought an +excellent and admirable point in your character. You were also (I use +the past tense, with a view to the time when you shall read, rather than +to that when I am writing) a very pretty boy, and (to my European views) +startlingly self-possessed. My time of observation was so limited that +you must pardon me if I can say no more: what else I marked, what +restlessness of foot and hand, what graceful clumsiness, what +experimental designs upon the furniture, was but the common inheritance +of human youth. But you may perhaps like to know that the lean flushed +man in bed, who interested you so little, was in a state of mind +extremely mingled and unpleasant: harassed with work which he thought he +was not doing well, troubled with difficulties to which you will in time +succeed, and yet looking forward to no less a matter than a voyage to +the South Seas and the visitation of savage and desert islands.--Your +father's friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Manasquan (ahem!), New Jersey, May 28th, 1888._ + +MY DEAR JAMES,--With what a torrent it has come at last! Up to now, what +I like best is the first number of a _London Life_. You have never done +anything better, and I don't know if perhaps you have ever done anything +so good as the girl's outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching your +later works in your native land. I had to present the Beltraffio volume +to Low, and it has brought him to his knees; he was _amazed_ at the +first part of Georgina's Reasons, although (like me) not so well +satisfied with Part II. It is annoying to find the American public as +stupid as the English, but they will waken up in time: I wonder what +they will think of _Two Nations_?... + +This, dear James, is a valedictory. On June 15th the schooner yacht +_Casco_ will (weather and a jealous providence permitting) steam through +the Golden Gates for Honolulu, Tahiti, the Galapagos, Guayaquil, and--I +hope _not_ the bottom of the Pacific. It will contain your obedient +'umble servant and party. It seems too good to be true, and is a very +good way of getting through the green-sickness of maturity which, with +all its accompanying ills, is now declaring itself in my mind and life. +They tell me it is not so severe as that of youth; if I (and the +_Casco_) are spared, I shall tell you more exactly, as I am one of the +few people in the world who do not forget their own lives. + +Good-bye, then, my dear fellow, and please write us a word; we expect to +have three mails in the next two months: Honolulu, Tahiti, and +Guayaquil. But letters will be forwarded from Scribner's, if you hear +nothing more definite directly. In 3 (three) days I leave for San +Francisco.--Ever yours most cordially, + + R. L. S. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [21] For the actual sum, see below, p. 243. + + [22] "But she was more than usual calm, + She did not give a single dam." + + _Marjorie Fleming._ + + [23] Of the play _Deacon Brodie_. + + [24] "Smith opens out his cauld harangues + On practice and on morals." + + The Rev. George Smith of Galston, the minister thus referred to by + Burns (in the _Holy Fair_), was a great-grandfather of Stevenson on + the mother's side; and against Stevenson himself, in his didactic + moods, the passage was often quoted by his friends when they wished + to tease him. + + [25] Afterwards changed to Alison. + + [26] Alluding to a kind of lofty, posturing manner of G. M.'s in mind + and speech, quite different from any real insincerity. + + + + +X + +PACIFIC VOYAGES + +YACHT _CASCO_--SCHOONER _EQUATOR_--S.S. _JANET NICOLL_ + +JUNE 1888-OCTOBER 1890 + + +In the following section are printed nearly all the letters which +reached Stevenson's correspondents in England and the United States, at +intervals necessarily somewhat rare, during the eighteen months of his +Pacific voyages. It was on the 28th of June 1888 that he started from +the harbour of San Francisco on what was only intended to be a health +and pleasure excursion of a few months' duration, but turned into a +voluntary exile prolonged until the hour of his death. His company +consisted, besides himself, of his wife, his mother, his stepson Mr. +Lloyd Osbourne, and the servant Valentine Roch. They sailed on board the +schooner yacht _Casco_, Captain Otis, and made straight for the +Marquesas, dropping anchor on the 28th of July in Anaho Bay, the harbour +of the island of Nukahiva. The magic effect of this first island +landfall on his mind he has described in the opening chapter of his book +_In the South Seas_. After spending six weeks in this group they sailed +south-eastwards, visiting (a sufficiently perilous piece of navigation) +several of the coral atolls of the Paumotus or Low Archipelago. Thence +they arrived in the first week of October at the Tahitian group or +"Society" islands. In these their longest stay was not at the chief +town, Papeete, where Stevenson fell sharply ill, but in a more secluded +and very beautiful station, Tautira, whither he went to recruit, and +where they were detained by the necessity of remasting the schooner. +Here Stevenson and one of the local chiefs, Ori a Ori, made special +friends and parted with heartfelt mutual regret. Mrs. Stevenson is good +enough to allow me to supplement the somewhat fragmentary account of +these adventures given in his letters with one or two of her own, in +which they are told with full vividness and detail. + +Sailing from Tahiti due northwards through forty degrees of latitude, +the party arrived about Christmas at Honolulu, the more than +semi-civilised capital of the Hawaiian group (Sandwich Islands), where +they paid off the yacht _Casco_ and made a stay of nearly six months. +Here Stevenson finished _The Master of Ballantrae_ and _The Wrong Box_; +and hence his mother returned for a while to Scotland, to rejoin her +son's household when it was fairly installed two years later at Vailima. +From Honolulu Stevenson made several excursions, including one, which +profoundly impressed him, to the leper settlement at Molokai, the scene +of Father Damien's ministrations and death. + +This first year of cruising and residence among the Pacific Islands had +resulted in so encouraging a renewal of health, with so keen a zest +added to life by the restored capacity for outdoor activity and +adventure, that Stevenson determined to prolong his experiences in yet +more remote archipelagoes of the same ocean. He started accordingly from +Honolulu in June 1889 on a trading schooner, the _Equator_, bound to the +Gilberts, one of the least visited and most primitively mannered of all +the island groups of the Western Pacific; emerged towards Christmas of +the same year into semi-civilisation again at Apia, on the island of +Upolu in Samoa, where he wrote his first Polynesian story, _The Bottle +Imp_. Enchanted with the scenery and the people, he stayed for six +weeks, first in the house of Mr. H. J. Moors, a leading American trader, +then with his family in a separate cottage not far off; bought an estate +on the densely wooded mountain side above Apia, with the notion of +making there, if not a home, at least a place of rest and call on later +projected excursions among the islands; and began to make collections +for his studies in recent Samoan history. In February he went on to +Sydney to find his correspondence and consider future plans. It was +during this stay at Sydney that he was moved to give expression to his +righteous indignation at the terms of a letter concerning Father Damien +by the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Here also he fell once more seriously +ill, with a renewal of all his old symptoms; and the conclusion was +forced upon him that he must take up his residence for the rest of his +life in the tropics--though with occasional excursions, as he then +hoped, at least half-way homeward to places where it might be possible +for friends from England to meet him. In order to shake off the effects +of this attack, he started with his party on a fresh sea voyage from +Sydney, this time on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_, which took +him by a very devious course to the Gilberts again, the Marshalls, and +among many other remote islands during the months of April-August 1890. +During the voyage he began to put into shape the notes for a volume on +the South Seas which he had been compiling ever since he left San +Francisco. Unfortunately, he persisted in the endeavour to make his work +impersonal and full of information, or what he called "serious +interest," exactly in the manner which his wife had foreseen before they +left Honolulu, and from which she had wisely tried to dissuade him (see +her letter printed on pp. 347 foll.). On the return voyage Stevenson +left the _Janet Nicoll_ to land in New Caledonia, staying for some days +at Noumea before he went on to Sydney, where he spent four or five weeks +of later August and September. Thence he returned in October to take up +his abode for good on his Samoan property, where the work of clearing, +planting, and building a habitable cottage had been going on busily +during his absence. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + It should be remembered that the Marquesas, the Paumotus, and the + Tahitian group are all dependencies of France. + + _Yacht Casco, Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands [July 1888]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write +to say how d'ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having +the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more +civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in +his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing 'em, +and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: +no fool, though. + +The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the +loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score +natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare now. +Very rare and equally absurd to view. + +This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: it takes me all +the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come home and +note, the strangeness around us. I shouldn't wonder if there came +trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a nation that is not +beloved in certain islands--and it does not know it! Strange: like +ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all and much to yourself. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Yacht Casco, at sea, near the Paumotus, + 7 A.M., September 6th, 1888, with a dreadful pen._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Last night as I lay under my blanket in the cockpit, +courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the +southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we +were all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow, +praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the +Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a +sudden I had a vision of--Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash of +lightning: I simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I +remember all I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the +rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and +yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far +less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did +not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book, etc. etc. +And then now--what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the +incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary +thoroughfare for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts +are down. And I felt I must write one word to you. Excuse me if I write +little: when I am at sea, it gives me a headache; when I am in port, I +have my diary crying "Give, give." I shall have a fine book of travels, +I feel sure; and will tell you more of the South Seas after very few +months than any other writer has done--except Herman Melville perhaps, +who is a howling cheese. Good luck to you, God bless you.--Your +affectionate friend, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The signature used at foot of this letter and occasionally elsewhere, + "The Old Man Virulent," alludes to the fits of uncontrollable anger + to which he was often in youth, but by this time very rarely, + subject: fits occasioned sometimes by instances of official stolidity + or impertinence or what he took for such, more often by acts + savouring of cruelty, meanness, or injustice. + + _Fakarava, Low Archipelago, September 21st, 1888._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Only a word. Get out your big atlas, and imagine a +straight line from San Francisco to Anaho, the N.E. corner of Nukahiva, +one of the Marquesas Islands; imagine three weeks there: imagine a day's +sail on August 12th round the eastern end of the island to Tai-o-hae, +the capital; imagine us there till August 22nd: imagine us skirt the +east side of Ua-pu--perhaps Rona-Poa on your atlas--and through the +Bordelais straits to Taa-hauku in Hiva-Oa, where we arrive on the 23rd; +imagine us there until September 4th, when we sailed for Fakarava, which +we reached on the 9th, after a very difficult and dangerous passage +among these isles. Tuesday, we shall leave for Taiti, where I shall +knock off and do some necessary work ashore. It looks pretty bald in the +atlas; not in fact; nor I trust in the 130 odd pages of diary which I +have just been looking up for these dates: the interest, indeed, has +been _incredible_: I did not dream there were such places or such races. +My health has stood me splendidly; I am in for hours wading over the +knees for shells; I have been five hours on horseback: I have been up +pretty near all night waiting to see where the _Casco_ would go ashore, +and with my diary all ready--simply the most entertaining night of my +life. Withal I still have colds; I have one now, and feel pretty sick +too; but not as at home: instead of being in bed, for instance, I am at +this moment sitting snuffling and writing in an undershirt and trousers; +and as for colour, hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner than +the berry: only my trunk and the aristocratic spot on which I sit retain +the vile whiteness of the north. + +Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry James, and any whom +you see of well-wishers. Accept from me the very best of my affection: +and believe me ever yours, + + THE OLD MAN VIRULENT. + + + _Papeete, Taiti, October 7th, 1888._ + +Never having found a chance to send this off, I may add more of my news. +My cold took a very bad turn, and I am pretty much out of sorts at this +particular, living in a little bare one-twentieth-furnished house, +surrounded by mangoes, etc. All the rest are well, and I mean to be +soon. But these Taiti colds are very severe and, to children, often +fatal; so they were not the thing for me. Yesterday the brigantine came +in from San Francisco, so we can get our letters off soon. There are in +Papeete at this moment, in a little wooden house with grated verandahs, +two people who love you very much, and one of them is + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Taiti, as ever was, 6th October 1888._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... You will receive a lot of mostly very bad proofs +of photographs: the paper was so bad. Please keep them very private, as +they are for the book. We send them, having learned so dread a fear of +the sea, that we wish to put our eggs in different baskets. We have been +thrice within an ace of being ashore: we were lost (!) for about twelve +hours in the Low Archipelago, but by God's blessing had quiet weather +all the time; and once in a squall, we cam so near gaun heels ower +hurdies, that I really dinnae ken why we didnae a'thegither. Hence, as +I say, a great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, particularly +on the Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean. + +You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, owing to incidental +beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, owing to the intrinsic interest of +these isles. I hope the book will be a good one; nor do I really very +much doubt that--the stuff is so curious; what I wonder is, if the +public will rise to it. A copy of my journal, or as much of it as is +made, shall go to you also; it is, of course, quite imperfect, much +being to be added and corrected; but O, for the eggs in the different +baskets. + +All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the cruise so far, in +spite of its drawbacks. We have had an awfae time in some ways, Mr. +Baxter; and if I wasnae sic a verra patient man (when I ken that I +_have_ to be) there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I hadnae +happened to be on deck about three in the marnin', I _think_ there would +have been _murder_ done. The American Mairchant Marine is a kent +service; ye'll have heard its praise, I'm thinkin'; an' if ye never did, +ye can get _Twa Years Before the Mast_, by Dana, whaur forbye a great +deal o' pleisure, ye'll get a' the needcessary information. Love to your +father and all the family.--Ever your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + This lady, as we have seen, had made Stevenson a present of a + paper-cutter when he left Bournemouth; and it is in the character of + the paper-cutter that he now writes. + + _Taiti, October 10th, 1888._ + +DEAR GIVER,--I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a +person so locomotory as my proprietor. The number of thousand miles that +I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made +acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your +imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more +exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master's right-hand +trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of +Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have +been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea +shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular +company for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master--or as I +more justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, +does not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African +potentate on my subject's legs?--_he_ is delighted with these isles, and +this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. He now +blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes the poor thing +appears stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues +his career with truculent insensibility. Health appears to reign in the +party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left +England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there +is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate + + WOODEN PAPER-CUTTER. + + +A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the _Feast of + Famine_, published with others in the collection of 1890 _Ballads_ + (Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his South Sea ballads + for any quality except their narrative vigour, thinking them unequal + and uncertain both in metre and style. + + _Taiti, October 16th, 1888._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning +bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet will +travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a better +ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will wag your +pow over it; and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has it not +spirit all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy painted +it, has it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has +considerable merit! Read it, get a typewritten copy taken, and send me +that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting the +most excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending the +thing is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS. +go down with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it +has left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for +putting eggs in various baskets. + +We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and the +Sandwiches. + + O, how my spirit languishes + To step ashore on the Sanguishes; + For there my letters wait, + There shall I know my fate. + O, how my spirit languidges + To step ashore on the Sanguidges. + +_18th._--I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am +quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these +climates and this voyage have given me more strength than I could have +thought possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the +mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of +space, the cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors, +the captain, the passengers--but you are amply repaid when you sight an +island, and drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble has attended this +trip, but I must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, as +in the last few weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that +were the bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and +to some degree from my temper. Do you know what they called the _Casco_ +at Fakarava? The _Silver Ship_. Is that not pretty? Pray tell Mrs. +Jenkin, _die silberne Frau_, as I only learned it since I wrote her. I +think of calling the book by that name: _The Cruise of the Silver +Ship_--so there will be one poetic page at least--the title. At the +Sandwiches we shall say farewell to the _S. S._ with mingled feelings. +She is a lovely creature: the most beautiful thing at this moment in +Taiti. + +Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to say. +You would think I was bursting: but the voyage is all stored up for the +book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the +time are not worth telling; and our news is little. + +Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now stored, and the +Blue Peter metaphorically flies. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM AND THOMAS ARCHER + + + Stevenson addresses a part of this letter, as well as the whole of + another later on, to a young son of Mr. Archer's, but rather to amuse + himself than his nominal correspondent, who was then aged three + + _Taiti, October 17th, 1888._ + +DEAR ARCHER,--Though quite unable to write letters I nobly send you a +line signifying nothing. The voyage has agreed well with all; it has had +its pains, and its extraordinary pleasures; nothing in the world can +equal the excitement of the first time you cast anchor in some bay of a +tropical island, and the boats begin to surround you, and the tattooed +people swarm aboard. Tell Tomarcher, with my respex, that hide-and-seek +is not equal to it; no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of +that, is a game for the unskilful: the artist prefers daylight, a +good-sized garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, and--come on, +Macduff. + +TOMARCHER, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but that was not the +real bent of my genius. I was the best player of hide-and-seek going; +not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge, I could jink very +well, I could crawl without any noise through leaves, I could hide under +a carrot plant, it used to be my favourite boast that I always _walked_ +into the den. You may care to hear, Tomarcher, about the children in +these parts; their parents obey them, they do not obey their parents; +and I am sorry to tell you (for I dare say you are already thinking the +idea a good one) that it does not pay one halfpenny. There are three +sorts of civilisation, Tomarcher: the real old-fashioned one, in which +children either had to find out how to please their dear papas, or their +dear papas cut their heads off. This style did very well, but is now out +of fashion. Then the modern European style: in which children have to +behave reasonably well, and go to school and say their prayers, or their +dear papas _will know the reason why_. This does fairly well. Then there +is the South Sea Island plan, which does not do one bit. The children +beat their parents here; it does not make their parents any better; so +do not try it. + +Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your new house, but will +send this to one of your papa's publishers. Remember us all to all of +you, and believe me, yours respectably, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Tautira (The Garden of the World), otherwise called + Hans-Christian-Andersen-ville [November 1888]._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Whether I have a penny left in the wide world, I know +not, nor shall know, till I get to Honolulu, where I anticipate a devil +of an awakening. It will be from a mighty pleasant dream at least: +Tautira being mere Heaven. But suppose, for the sake of argument, any +money to be left in the hands of my painful doer, what is to be done +with it? Save us from exile would be the wise man's choice, I suppose; +for the exile threatens to be eternal. But yet I am of opinion--in case +there should be _some_ dibbs in the hand of the P.D., _i.e._ painful +doer; because if there be none, I shall take to my flageolet on the +high-road, and work home the best way I can, having previously made away +with my family--I am of opinion that if ---- and his are in the +customary state, and you are thinking of an offering, and there should +be still some funds over, you would be a real good P.D. to put some in +with yours and tak' the credit o't, like a wee man! I know it's a +beastly thing to ask, but it, after all, does no earthly harm, only that +much good. And besides, like enough there's nothing in the till, and +there is an end. Yet I live here in the full lustre of millions; it is +thought I am the richest son of man that has yet been to Tautira: +I!--and I am secretly eaten with the fear of lying in pawn, perhaps for +the remainder of my days, in San Francisco. As usual, my colds have much +hashed my finances. + +Do tell Henley I write this just after having dismissed Ori the +sub-chief, in whose house I live, Mrs. Ori, and Pairai, their adopted +child, from the evening hour of music: during which I Publickly (with a +k) Blow on the Flageolet. These are words of truth. Yesterday I told Ori +about W. E. H., counterfeited his playing on the piano and the pipe, and +succeeded in sending the six feet four there is of that sub-chief +somewhat sadly to his bed; feeling that his was not the genuine article +after all. Ori is exactly like a colonel in the Guards.--I am, dear +Charles, ever yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The stanzas which end this letter are well known, having been + printed, with one additional, in _Songs of Travel_; but they gain + effect, I think, from being given here in their place. + + _Tautira, 10th November '88._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Our mainmast is dry-rotten, and we are all to the +devil; I shall lie in a debtor's jail. Never mind, Tautira is first +chop. I am so besotted that I shall put on the back of this my attempt +at words to Wandering Willie; if you can conceive at all the difficulty, +you will also conceive the vanity with which I regard any kind of +result; and whatever mine is like, it has some sense, and Burns's has +none. + + Home no more home to me, whither must I wander? + Hunger my driver, I go where I must. + Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; + Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust. + Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree; + The true word of welcome was spoken in the door-- + Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight, + Kind folks of old, you come again no more. + + Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces, + Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child. + Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland; + Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild. + Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, + Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. + Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed, + The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + The following is the draft of a proposed dedication to the South Sea + travel-book which was to be the fruit of the present voyages, as is + explained in a note at the end. + + _November 11th, 1888._ + +_One November night, in the village of Tautira, we sat at the high table +in the hall of assembly, hearing the natives sing. It was dark in the +hall, and very warm; though at times the land wind blew a little +shrewdly through the chinks, and at times, through the larger openings, +we could see the moonlight on the lawn. As the songs arose in the +rattling Tahitian chorus, the chief translated here and there a verse. +Farther on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves; and I am +in hopes that not you only, but all who can find a savour in the ancient +poetry of places, will read them with some pleasure. You are to conceive +us, therefore, in strange circumstances and very pleasing; in a strange +land and climate, the most beautiful on earth; surrounded by a foreign +race that all travellers have agreed to be the most engaging; and taking +a double interest in two foreign arts._ + +_We came forth again at last, in a cloudy moonlight, on the forest lawn +which is the street of Tautira. The Pacific roared outside upon the +reef. Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone out +under the shadow of the wood, the lamplight bursting through the +crannies of the wall. We went homeward slowly, Ori a Ori carrying behind +us the lantern and the chairs, properties with which we had just been +enacting our part of the distinguished visitor. It was one of those +moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and +deplore the absence of congenial friends; and it was your name that +first rose upon our lips. "How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!" +said one, and then another. The word caught in my mind; I went to bed, +and it was still there. The glittering, frosty solitudes in which your +days are cast arose before me: I seemed to see you walking there in the +late night, under the pine-trees and the stars; and I received the image +with something like remorse._ + +_There is a modern attitude towards Fortune; in this place I will not +use a graver name. Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy with +equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old. Our fathers, +it should seem, wondered and doubted how they had merited their +misfortunes: we, rather how we have deserved our happiness. And we stand +often abashed, and sometimes revolted, at those partialities of fate by +which we profit most. It was so with me on that November night: I felt +that our positions should be changed. It was you, dear Symonds, who +should have gone upon that voyage and written this account. With your +rich stores of knowledge, you could have remarked and understood a +thousand things of interest and beauty that escaped my ignorance; and +the brilliant colours of your style would have carried into a thousand +sickrooms the sea air and the strong sun of tropic islands. It was +otherwise decreed. But suffer me at least to connect you, if only in +name and only in the fondness of imagination, with the voyage of the_ +Silver Ship. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +DEAR SYMONDS,--I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its +completion. If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place this +letter at the beginning? It represents--I need not tell you, for you too +are an artist--a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake last +night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think it a good piece of +writing. We are _in heaven here_. Do not forget. + + R. L. S. + + +Please keep this: I have no perfect copy. + +_Tautira, on the peninsula of Taiti._ + + + + +TO THOMAS ARCHER + + + _Tautira, Island of Taiti [November 1888]._ + +DEAR TOMARCHER,--This is a pretty state of things! seven o'clock and no +word of breakfast! And I was awake a good deal last night, for it was +full moon, and they had made a great fire of cocoa-nut husks down by the +sea, and as we have no blinds or shutters, this kept my room very +bright. And then the rats had a wedding or a school-feast under my bed. +And then I woke early, and I have nothing to read except Virgil's +_Æneid_, which is not good fun on an empty stomach, and a Latin +dictionary, which is good for naught, and by some humorous accident, +your dear papa's article on Skerryvore. And I read the whole of that, +and very impudent it is, but you must not tell your dear papa I said so, +or it might come to a battle in which you might lose either a dear papa +or a valued correspondent, or both, which would be prodigal. And still +no breakfast; so I said "Let's write to Tomarcher." + +This is a much better place for children than any I have hitherto seen +in these seas. The girls (and sometimes the boys) play a very elaborate +kind of hopscotch. The boys play horses exactly as we do in Europe; and +have very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each other down, in which +they do not often succeed. The children of all ages go to church and are +allowed to do what they please, running about the aisles, rolling balls, +stealing mamma's bonnet and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to +sleep in the middle of the floor. I forgot to say that the whips to play +horses, and the balls to roll about the church--at least I never saw +them used elsewhere--grow ready made on trees; which is rough on +toy-shops. The whips are so good that I wanted to play horses myself; +but no such luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, ugly man. The +balls are rather hard, but very light and quite round. When you grow up +and become offensively rich, you can charter a ship in the port of +London, and have it come back to you entirely loaded with these balls; +when you could satisfy your mind as to their character, and give them +away when done with to your uncles and aunts. But what I really wanted +to tell you was this: besides the tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on +the tree-top!), I have seen some real _made_ toys, the first hitherto +observed in the South Seas. + +This was how. You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; one horse; in the +front seat two Tahiti natives, in their Sunday clothes, blue coat, white +shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue stuff with big +white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the back seat me and my +wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, plenty of lunch and +things: among us a great deal of fun in broken Tahitian, one of the +natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a great ally of mine. +Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is now called Rui, the +nearest they can come to Louis, for they have no _l_ and no _s_ in their +language. Rui is six feet three in his stockings, and a magnificent man. +We all have straw hats, for the sun is strong. We drive between the sea, +which makes a great noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a +forest mostly of fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of +our ivy, heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than your head +and far nicer, called Barbedine. Presently we came to a house in a +pretty garden, quite by itself, very nicely kept, the doors and windows +open, no one about, and no noise but that of the sea. It looked like a +house in a fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a river, and there +we saw the inhabitants. Just in the mouth of the river, where it met the +sea waves, they were ducking and bathing and screaming together like a +covey of birds: seven or eight little naked brown boys and girls as +happy as the day was long; and on the banks of the stream beside them, +real toys--toy ships, full rigged, and with their sails set, though they +were lying in the dust on their beam ends. And then I knew for sure they +were all children in a fairy-story, living alone together in that lonely +house with the only toys in all the island; and that I had myself +driven, in my four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, and +the question was, should I get out again? But it was all right; I guess +only one of the wheels of the gig had got into the fairy-story; and the +next jolt the whole thing vanished, and we drove on in our sea-side +forest as before, and I have the honour to be Tomarcher's valued +correspondent, TERIITERA, which he was previously known as + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + This letter from Mrs. Stevenson serves to fill out and explain + allusions in the three or four preceding. The beautiful brown + princess is Princess Moë, ex-queen of Raiatea, well known to readers + of Pierre Loti and Miss Gordon Cumming. The move away from Papeete, + where Stevenson had fallen seriously ill, had been made in hopes of + finding on the island a climate that would suit him better. + + _Tautira, Tahiti, Dec. 4th [1888]._ + +DEAR, long neglected, though never forgotten Custodian, I write you from +fairyland, where we are living in a fairy story, the guests of a +beautiful brown princess. We came to stay a week, five weeks have +passed, and we are still indefinite as to our time of leaving. It was +chance brought us here, for no one in Papeete could tell us a word about +this part of the island except that it was very fine to look at, and +inhabited by wild people--"almost as wild as the people of Anaho!" That +touch about the people of Anaho inclined our hearts this way, so we +finally concluded to take a look at the other side of Tahiti. The place +of our landing was windy, uninhabited except by mosquitoes, and Louis +was ill. The first day Lloyd and the Captain made an exploration, but +came back disgusted. They had found a Chinaman, a long way off, who +seemed to have some horses, but no desire to hire them to strangers, and +they had found nothing else whatever. The next morning I took Valentine +and went on a prospecting tour of my own. I found the Chinaman, +persuaded him to let me have two horses and a wagon, and went back for +the rest of my family. When asked where I wished to go, I could only say +to the largest native village and the most wild. Ill as Louis was, I +brought him the next day, and shall never cease to be thankful for my +courage, for he has gained health and strength every day. He takes sea +baths and swims, and lives almost entirely in the open air as nearly +without clothes as possible, a simple pyjama suit of striped light +flannel his only dress. As to shoes and stockings we all have scorned +them for months except Mrs. Stevenson, who often goes barefoot and +never, I believe, wears stockings. Lloyd's costume, in which he looks +remarkably well, consists of a striped flannel shirt and a pareu. The +pareu is no more or less than a large figured blue and white cotton +window curtain twisted about the waist, and hanging a little below the +bare knees. Both Louis and Lloyd wear wreaths of artificial flowers, +made of the dried pandanus leaf, on their hats. + +Moë has gone to Papeete by the command of the king, whose letter was +addressed "To the great Princess at Tautira. P.V." P.V. stands for +Pomaré 5th. Every evening, before she went, we played Van John lying in +a circle on pillows in the middle of the floor with our heads together: +and hardly an evening passed but it struck us afresh how very much you +would like Moë, and we told her of you again. The house (really here a +palace) in which we live, belongs to the sub-chief, Ori, a subject and +relation of the Princess. He, and his whole family, consisting of his +wife, his two little adopted sons, his daughter and her two young +babies, turned out to live in a little bird-cage hut of one room. Ori is +the very finest specimen of a native we have seen yet; he is several +inches over six feet, of perfect though almost gigantic proportions, and +looks more like a Roman Emperor in bronze than words can express. One +day, when Moë gave a feast, it being the correct thing to do, we all +wore wreaths of golden yellow leaves on our heads; when Ori walked in +and sat down at the table, as with one voice we all cried out in +admiration. His manners and I might say his habit of thought are +English. In some ways, he is so like a Colonel of the Guards that we +often call him Colonel. It was either the day before, or the morning of +our public feast, that Louis asked the Princess if she thought Ori would +accept his name. She was sure of it, and much pleased at the idea. I +wish you could have seen Louis, blushing like a schoolgirl, when Ori +came in, and the brotherhood was offered. So now if you please, Louis is +no more Louis, having given that name away in the Tahitian form of +_Rui_, but is known as _Terii-Tera_ (pronounced Ter_ee_terah) that being +Ori's Christian name. "Ori a Ori" is his clan name. + +Let me tell you of our village feast. The chief, who was our guide in +the matter, found four large fat hogs, which Louis bought, and four +cases of ship's biscuit were sent over from the _Casco_, which is lying +at Papeete for repairs. Our feast cost in all about eighty dollars. +Every Sunday all things of public interest are announced in the Farehau +(an enormous public bird cage) and the news of the week read aloud from +the Papeete journal, if it happens to turn up. Our feast was given on a +Wednesday, and was announced by the chief the Sunday before, who +referred to Louis as "the rich one." Our hogs were killed in the +morning, washed in the sea, and roasted whole in a pit with hot stones. +When done they were laid on their stomachs in neat open coffins of green +basket work, each hog with his case of biscuits beside him. Early in the +morning the entire population began bathing, a bath being the +preliminary to everything. At about three o'clock--four was the hour +set--there was a general movement towards our premises, so that I had to +hurry Louis into his clothes, all white, even to his shoes. Lloyd was +also in white, but barefoot. I was not prepared, so had to appear in a +red and white muslin gown, also barefoot. As Mrs. Stevenson had had a +feast of her own, conducted on religious principles, she kept a little +in the background, so that her dress did not matter so much. The chief, +who speaks French very well, stood beside Louis to interpret for him. +By the time we had taken our respective places on the veranda in front +of our door, an immense crowd had assembled. They came in five, instead +of four detachments which was what the chief expected, and he was a +little confused at first, as he and Louis had been arranging a speech to +four sets of people, which ran in this order. The clergyman at the head +of the Protestants: the chief, council, and irreligious:--one of the +council at their head. The schoolmaster with the schoolchildren: the +catechist and the Catholics: but there was another very small sect, by +some strange mischance called Mormons, which it was supposed would be +broken up and swallowed by the others. But no, the Mormons came in a +body alone, marshalled by the best and wittiest speaker--_bar Rui_--in +Tautira. Each set of people came bending under the weight of bamboo +poles laden with fruits, pigs, fowls, etc. All were dressed in their +gayest pareus, and many had wreaths of leaves or flowers on their heads. +The prettiest sight of all was the children, who came marching two and +two abreast, the bamboo poles lying lengthwise across their shoulders. + +When all the offerings had been piled in five great heaps upon the +ground, Louis made his oration to the accompaniment of the squealing of +pigs, the cackling of hens, and the roar of the surf which beats +man-high upon the roof. A speech was made in return on behalf of the +village, and then each section sent forth its orator, the speeches +following in the order I have given above. Each speaker finished by +coming forward with one of the smaller things in his hand, which he +offered personally to Louis, and then shook hands with us all and +retired. Among these smaller presents were many fish-hooks for large +fishing, laboriously carved from mother-of-pearl shell. One man came +with one egg in each hand saying, "carry these to Scotland with you, let +them hatch into cocks, and their song shall remind you of Tautira." The +schoolmaster, with a leaf-basket of rose apples, made his speech in +French. Somehow the whole effect of the scene was like a story out of +the Bible, and I am not ashamed that Louis and I both shed tears when we +saw the enchanting procession of schoolchildren. The Catholic priest, +Father Bruno, a great friend of ours, said that for the next fifty years +the time of the feast of the rich one will be talked of: which reminds +me of our friend Donat, of Fakarava, who was temporary resident at the +time we were there. "I am so glad," he said, "that the _Casco_ came in +just now, otherwise I should be forgotten: but now the people will +always say this or that happened so long before--or so long after--the +coming of the _Silver Ship_, when Donat represented the government." + +In front of our house is a broad stretch of grass, dotted with +cocoanuts, breadfruits, mangoes, and the strange pandanus tree. I wish +you could have seen them, their lower branches glowing with the rich +colours of the fruits hung upon them by Ori and his men, and great heaps +lying piled against their roots, on the evening of our feast. From the +bamboo poles that they were carried upon, a pen was made for the ten +pigs, and a fowl house for the twenty-three fowls that were among the +presents. But there was a day of reckoning at hand. Time after time we +ran down to the beach to look for the _Casco_, until we were in despair. +For over a month we had lived in Ori's house, causing him infinite +trouble and annoyance, and not even his, at that. Areia (the +chief--Areia means the Prince) went to Papeete and came back with a +letter to say that more work had to be done upon the _Casco_, and it +might be any time before she could get to Tautira. We had used up all +our stores, and had only a few dollars of money left in Tautira, and not +very much in Papeete. Could we stand the journey to Papeete, we could +not live upon the yacht in the midst of the workmen, and we had not +money enough left to live at an hotel. We were playing cards on the +floor, as usual, when this message came, and you can imagine its effect. +I knew perfectly well that Rui would force us to stay on with him, but +what depressed me the most of all, was the fact of Louis having made +brothers with him just before this took place. Had there been a shadow +of doubt on our dear Rui's face, I should have fled from before him. +Sitting there on the floor waiting for him was too much for my nerves +and I burst into tears, upon which the princess wept bitterly. In the +meantime the priest had dropped in, so that we had him and Moë, and +Areia, as witnesses to our humiliating position. First came Madame Rui, +who heard the story, and sat down on the floor in silence, which was +very damping for a beginning, and then Ori of Ori, the magnificent, who +listened to the tale of the shipwrecked mariners with serious dignity, +asking one or two questions, and then spoke to this effect. "You are my +brother: all that I have is yours. I know that your food is done, but I +can give you plenty of fish and taro. We like you, and wish to have you +here. Stay where you are till the _Casco_ comes. Be happy--_et ne +pleurez pas_." Louis dropped his head into his hands and wept, and then +we all went up to Rui and shook hands with him and accepted his offer. +Madame Rui, who had been silent only as a dutiful wife, that her husband +might speak first, poured forth manifold reasons for our staying on as +long as we could possibly manage. During all this scene, an attendant of +the princess had been sitting on the floor behind us, a baby in his +arms, where he had ensconced himself for the purpose of watching the +game. He understood nothing of what was going on; we wondered afterwards +what he thought of it. Reduced as we were, we still had a few bottles of +champagne left. Champagne being an especial weakness of our gigantic +friend, it occurred to some one that this was a proper occasion to open +a couple of bottles. Louis, the Princess, and I were quite, as the +Scotch so well say, "begrutten," Areia's immense eyes were fairly +melting out of his head with emotion, the priest was wiping his eyes and +blowing his nose: and then for no apparent cause we suddenly fell to +drinking and clinking glasses quite merrily: the bewildered attendant +clinked and drank too, and then sat down and waited in case there should +be any repetition of the drinking part of the performance. And sure +enough there was, for in the midst of an animated discussion as to ways +and means, Mrs. Stevenson announced that it was St. Andrew's day, so +again the attendant clinked and drank with Ori's mad foreigners. + +It is quite true that we live almost entirely upon native food; our +luncheon to-day consisted of raw fish with sauce made of cocoanut milk +mixed with sea water and lime juice, taro poi-poi, and bananas roasted +in hot stones in a little pit in the ground, with cocoanut cream to eat +with them. Still we like coffee in the evening, a little wine at dinner, +and a few other products of civilisation. It would be possible, the +chief said, to send a boat, but that would cost sixty dollars. A final +arrangement, which we were forced to accept, was that Rui should go in +his own boat, and the chief would appoint a substitute for some public +work that he was then engaged upon. Early the next morning, amidst a +raging sea and a storming wind, Rui departed with three men to help him. +It is forty miles to Papeete, and Rui, starting in the early morning, +arrived there at nine o'clock; but alas, the wind was against him, and +it was altogether six days before he got back. + +Louis has done a great deal of work on his new story, _The Master of +Ballantrae_, almost finished it in fact, while Mrs. Stevenson and I are +deep in the mysteries of hatmaking, which is a ladies' accomplishment +taking the place of water-colour drawing in England. It is a small +compliment to present a hat to an acquaintance. Altogether we have about +thirteen. Next door to us is Areia's out-of-door house, where he and the +ladies of his family sleep and eat: it has a thatched roof of palm +branches, and a floor of boards, the sides and ends being open to the +world. On the floor are spread mats plaited of pandanus leaves, and +pillows stuffed with silk cotton from the cotton tree. We make little +calls upon the ladies, lie upon the mats, and smoke cigarettes made of +tobacco leaves rolled in a bit of dried pandanus, and admire their work, +or get a lesson; or they call upon us, and lie upon our mats. One day +there was an election in the Farehau. It takes place all over the island +once a year, and among others, the sub-chief and head-councillor is +chosen. For the latter, our Rui was a candidate. In the beginning, the +French deposed the born chiefs and told the people to elect men for +themselves. The choice of Tautira fell upon Rui, who declined the +honour, saying that Areia was his natural chief, and he could not take a +position that should belong to his superior; upon which the people +elected Areia chief, and Rui sub-chief and head-councillor. We all went +over to the Farehau, where Areia sat in the middle of his councillors on +a dais behind a long table. The Farehau is an immense bird-cage of +bamboos tied together with pandanus fibre, and thatched with palms. In +front of the dais the ground is deeply covered with dried leaves. The +costume of the dignitaries was rather odd. Areia wore a white shirt and +blue flannel coat, which was well enough; but on his plump legs were a +pair of the most incredible trousers: light blue calico with a small red +pattern, such as servant girls wear for gowns in England: on his feet +were neat little shoes and stockings. Rui was a fine sight, and we were +very proud of him; he sat, exactly like an English gentleman, holding +himself well in hand, alert as a fox and keen as a greyhound: several +men spoke from the farther end of the hall, making objections of some +sort, we could see. Rui listened with a half satirical, half kindly +smile in his eyes, and then dropped a quiet answer without rising from +his seat, which had the effect of raising a shout of laughter, and quite +demolishing his opponent. Voters came up to the table and dropped their +bits of paper into a slit in a box: some led children by the hand, and +some carried babies in their arms; across the centre of the great room +children and dogs ran chasing each other and playing. I noticed two +little maids who walked up and down for a long time with their arms +intertwined about each other's waists. Near where we sat (we were on the +dais, above the common herd), a pretty young lady having tied up her +dog's mouth with a tuft of grass, industriously caught and cracked fleas +from its back. Both Lloyd and I grew very sleepy, and as we did not like +to leave till the election was decided, we just threw ourselves down and +took a nap at the feet of the councillors: nor did we wake till the +chief called out to us in English "it is finished." I never thought I +should be able to calmly sleep at a public meeting on a platform in the +face of several hundred people: but it is wonderful how quickly one +takes up the ways of a people when you live with them as intimately as +we do. + +I hear dinner coming on the table, so with much love from us all to you +and other dear ones, including our dear friend Henry James, believe me, +affectionately yours, + + FANNY V. de G. STEVENSON.] + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Yacht Casco, at Sea, 14th January 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Twenty days out from Papeete. Yes, sir, all that, and +only (for a guess) in 4° north or at the best 4°30', though already the +wind seems to smell a little of the North Pole. My handwriting you must +take as you get, for we are speeding along through a nasty swell, and I +can only keep my place at the table by means of a foot against the +divan, the unoccupied hand meanwhile gripping the ink-bottle. As we +begin (so very slowly) to draw near to seven months of correspondence, +we are all in some fear; and I want to have letters written before I +shall be plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables which I +constantly expect at Honolulu. What is needful can be added there. + +We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of my dear old friend, +Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this invaluable yacht had been +repaired. It was all for the best: Tautira being the most beautiful +spot, and its people the most amiable, I have ever found. Besides which, +the climate suited me to the ground; I actually went sea-bathing almost +every day, and in our feasts (we are all huge eaters in Taiarapu) have +been known to apply four times for pig. And then again I got wonderful +materials for my book, collected songs and legends on the spot; songs +still sung in chorus by perhaps a hundred persons, not two of whom can +agree on their translation; legends, on which I have seen half a dozen +seniors sitting in conclave and debating what came next. Once I went a +day's journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high chief of +the Tevas--_my_ chief that is, for I am now a Teva and Teriitera, at +your service--to collect more and correct what I had already. In the +meanwhile I got on with my work, almost finished _The Master of +Ballantrae_, which contains more human work than anything of mine but +_Kidnapped_, and wrote the half of another ballad, the _Song of Rahero_, +on a Taiarapu legend of my own clan, sir--not so much fire as the _Feast +of Famine_, but promising to be more even and correct. But the best +fortune of our stay at Tautira was my knowledge of Ori himself, one of +the finest creatures extant. The day of our parting was a sad one. We +deduced from it a rule for travellers: not to stay two months in one +place--which is to cultivate regrets. + +At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for +Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now have +experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary +winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came +almost to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken. Three days +ago our luck seemed to improve, we struck a leading breeze, got +creditably through the doldrums, and just as we looked to have the N.E. +trades and a straight run, the rains and squalls and calms began again +about midnight, and this morning, though there is breeze enough to send +us along, we are beaten back by an obnoxious swell out of the north. +Here is a page of complaint, when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps +been more in place. For all this time we must have been skirting past +dangerous weather, in the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and +getting only annoyance where we should have had peril, and ill-humour +instead of fear. + +I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this time, or whether +the usual damn hangs over my letter? "The midwife whispered, Be thou +dull!" or at least inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted +with the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. I cannot +tell you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: two +nights ago, the 12th January, we had it all planned out, arrived in the +lights and whirl of Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, +over the bridge, etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in triumph and +with indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, I always think we are too +sparing of assurances: Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and +Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer I live, +the more dear do you become to me; nor does my heart own any stronger +sentiment. If the bloody schooner didn't send me flying in every sort of +direction at the same time, I would say better what I feel so much; but +really, if you were here, you would not be writing letters, I believe; +and even I, though of a more marine constitution, am much perturbed by +this bobbery and wish--O ye Gods, how I wish!--that it was done, and we +had arrived, and I had Pandora's Box (my mail-bag) in hand, and was in +the lively hope of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse, +tinned mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, which now make up +our whole repertory. O Pandora's Box! I wonder what you will contain. As +like as not you will contain but little money: if that be so, we shall +have to retire to 'Frisco in the _Casco_, and thence by sea _via_ Panama +to Southampton, where we should arrive in April. I would like fine to +see you on the tug: ten years older both of us than the last time you +came to welcome Fanny and me to England. If we have money, however, we +shall do a little differently: send the _Casco_ away from Honolulu empty +of its high-born lessees, for that voyage to 'Frisco is one long dead +beat in foul and at last in cold weather; stay awhile behind, follow by +steamer, cross the States by train, stay awhile in New York on business, +and arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton. But all this is a +question of money. We shall have to lie very dark awhile to recruit our +finances: what comes from the book of the cruise, I do not want to touch +until the capital is repaid. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + _Honolulu, January 1889._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Here at last I have arrived. We could not get away +from Tahiti till Christmas Day, and then had thirty days of calms and +squalls, a deplorable passage. This has thrown me all out of gear in +every way. I plunge into business. + +1. _The Master._ Herewith go three more parts. You see he grows in bulk; +this making ten already, and I am not yet sure if I can finish it in an +eleventh; which shall go to you _quam primum_--I hope by next mail. + +2. _Illustrations to M._ I totally forgot to try to write to Hole. It +was just as well, for I find it impossible to forecast with sufficient +precision. You had better throw off all this and let him have it at +once. _Please do: all, and at once: see further_; and I should hope he +would still be in time for the later numbers. The three pictures I have +received are so truly good that I should bitterly regret having the +volume imperfectly equipped. They are the best illustrations I have seen +since I don't know when. + +3. _Money._ To-morrow the mail comes in, and I hope it will bring me +money either from you or home, but I will add a word on that point. + +4. My address will be Honolulu--no longer Yacht _Casco_, which I am +packing off--till probably April. + +5. As soon as I am through with _The Master_, I shall finish _The Game +of Bluff_--now rechristened _The Wrong Box_. This I wish to sell, cash +down. It is of course copyright in the States; and I offer it to you for +five thousand dollars. Please reply on this by return. Also please tell +the typewriter who was so good as to be amused by our follies that I am +filled with admiration for his piece of work. + +6. _Master_ again. Please see that I haven't the name of the Governor of +New York wrong (1764 is the date) in part ten. I have no book of +reference to put me right. Observe you now have up to August inclusive +in hand, so you should begin to feel happy. + +Is this all? I wonder, and fear not. Henry the Trader has not yet turned +up: I hope he may to-morrow, when we expect a mail. Not one word of +business have I received either from the States or England, nor anything +in the shape of coin; which leaves me in a fine uncertainty and quite +penniless on these islands. H.M.[27] (who is a gentleman of a courtly +order and much tinctured with letters) is very polite; I may possibly +ask for the position of palace doorkeeper. My voyage has been a singular +mixture of good and ill fortune. As far as regards interest and +material, the fortune has been admirable; as far as regards time, money, +and impediments of all kinds, from squalls and calms to rotten masts and +sprung spars, simply detestable. I hope you will be interested to hear +of two volumes on the wing. The cruise itself, you are to know, will +make a big volume with appendices; some of it will first appear as +(what they call) letters in some of M'Clure's papers. I believe the book +when ready will have a fair measure of serious interest: I have had +great fortune in finding old songs and ballads and stories, for +instance, and have many singular instances of life in the last few years +among these islands. + +The second volume is of ballads. You know _Ticonderoga_. I have written +another: _The Feast of Famine_, a Marquesan story. A third is half done: +_The Song of Rahero_, a genuine Tahitian legend. A fourth dances before, +me. A Hawaiian fellow this, _The Priest's Drought_, or some such name. +If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects out of the islands, +_Ticonderoga_ shall be suppressed, and we'll call the volume _South Sea +Ballads_. In health, spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do +believe, refreshed capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise +folly. Still we're not home, and (although the friend of a crowned head) +are penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents used to call them) +"lovely but _fatil_ islands." By the way, who wrote the _Lion of the +Nile_? My dear sir, that is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it has a +true thought and a true ring of language. Beg the anonymous from me, to +delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, and end on "the +lion of the Nile." One Lampman has a good sonnet on a "Winter Evening" +in, I think, the same number: he seems ill named, but I am tempted to +hope a man is not always answerable for his name.[28] For instance, you +would think you knew mine. No such matter. It is--at your service and +Mr. Scribner's and that of all of the faithful--Teriitera (pray +pronounce Tayree-Tayra) or (_gallicé_) Téri-téra. + + R. L. S. + +More when the mail shall come. + + +I am an idiot. I want to be clear on one point. Some of Hole's drawings +must of course be too late; and yet they seem to me so excellent I would +fain have the lot complete. It is one thing for you to pay for drawings +which are to appear in that soul-swallowing machine, your magazine: +quite another if they are only to illustrate a volume. I wish you to +take a brisk (even a fiery) decision on the point; and let Hole know. To +resume my desultory song, I desire you would carry the same fire +(hereinbefore suggested) into your decision on _The Wrong Box_; for in +my present state of benighted ignorance as to my affairs for the last +seven months--I know not even whether my house or my mother's house have +been let--I desire to see something definite in front of me--outside the +lot of palace doorkeeper. I believe the said _Wrong Box_ is a real lark; +in which, of course, I may be grievously deceived; but the typewriter is +with me. I may also be deceived as to the numbers of _The Master_ now +going and already gone; but to me they seem First Chop, sir, First Chop. +I hope I shall pull off that damned ending; but it still depresses me: +this is your doing, Mr. Burlingame: you would have it there and then, +and I fear it--I fear that ending. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Honolulu, February 8th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here we are at Honolulu, and have dismissed the yacht, +and lie here till April anyway, in a fine state of haze, which I am yet +in hopes some letter of yours (still on the way) may dissipate. No +money, and not one word as to money! However, I have got the yacht paid +off in triumph, I think; and though we stay here impignorate, it should +not be for long, even if you bring us no extra help from home. The +cruise has been a great success, both as to matter, fun, and health; and +yet, Lord, man! we're pleased to be ashore! Yon was a very fine voyage +from Tahiti up here, but--the dry land's a fine place too, and we don't +mind squalls any longer, and eh, man, that's a great thing. Blow, blow, +thou wintry wind, thou hast done me no appreciable harm beyond a few +grey hairs! Altogether, this foolhardy venture is achieved; and if I +have but nine months of life and any kind of health, I shall have both +eaten my cake and got it back again with usury. But, man, there have +been days when I felt guilty, and thought I was in no position for the +head of a house. + +Your letter and accounts are doubtless at S. F., and will reach me in +course. My wife is no great shakes; she is the one who has suffered +most. My mother has had a Huge Old Time; Lloyd is first chop; I so well +that I do not know myself--sea-bathing, if you please, and what is far +more dangerous, entertaining and being entertained by His Majesty here, +who is a very fine intelligent fellow, but O, Charles! what a crop for +the drink! He carries it, too, like a mountain with a sparrow on its +shoulders. We calculated five bottles of champagne in three hours and a +half (afternoon), and the sovereign quite presentable, although +perceptibly more dignified at the end.... + +The extraordinary health I enjoy and variety of interests I find among +these islands would tempt me to remain here; only for Lloyd, who is not +well placed in such countries for a permanency; and a little for Colvin, +to whom I feel I owe a sort of filial duty. And these two considerations +will no doubt bring me back--to go to bed again--in England.--Yours ever +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, February 1889._ + +MY DEAR BOB,--My extremely foolhardy venture is practically over. How +foolhardy it was I don't think I realised. We had a very small schooner, +and, like most yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and like many +American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The waters we sailed in +are, of course, entirely unlighted, and very badly charted; in the +Dangerous Archipelago, through which we were fools enough to go, we were +perfectly in ignorance of where we were for a whole night and half the +next day, and this in the midst of invisible islands and rapid and +variable currents; and we were lucky when we found our whereabouts at +last. We have twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as I +came on deck, I found the green sea over the cockpit coamings and +running down the companion like a brook to meet me; at that same moment +the foresail sheet jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the +only occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, but I +worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility of hemorrhage better than +the certainty of drowning. Another time I saw a rather singular thing: +our whole ship's company as pale as paper from the captain to the cook; +we had a black squall astern on the port side and a white squall ahead +to starboard; the complication passed off innocuous, the black squall +only fetching us with its tail, and the white one slewing off somewhere +else. Twice we were a long while (days) in the close vicinity of +hurricane weather, but again luck prevailed, and we saw none of it. +These are dangers incident to these seas and small craft. What was an +amazement, and at the same time a powerful stroke of luck, both our +masts were rotten, and we found it out--I was going to say in time, but +it was stranger and luckier than that. The head of the mainmast hung +over so that hands were afraid to go to the helm; and less than three +weeks before--I am not sure it was more than a fortnight--we had been +nearly twelve hours beating off the lee shore of Eimeo (or Moorea, next +island to Tahiti) in half a gale of wind with a violent head sea: she +would neither tack nor wear once, and had to be boxed off with the +mainsail--you can imagine what an ungodly show of kites we carried--and +yet the mast stood. The very day after that, in the southern bight of +Tahiti, we had a near squeak, the wind suddenly coming calm; the reefs +were close in with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought we were gone, +and the captain had a boat cleared, when a lucky squall came to our +rescue. My wife, hearing the order given about the boats, remarked to my +mother, "Isn't that nice? We shall soon be ashore!" Thus does the female +mind unconsciously skirt along the verge of eternity. Our voyage up here +was most disastrous--calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain, +hurricane weather all about, and we in the midst of the hurricane +season, when even the hopeful builder and owner of the yacht had +pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran out of food, and were quite +given up for lost in Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to Belle[29] +about the _Casco_, as a deadly subject. + +But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; and though I am +very glad to be done with them for a while and comfortably ashore, where +a squall does not matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall +want to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took was +financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink a lot of money in the +cruise, and if I didn't get health, how was I to get it back? I have got +health to a wonderful extent; and as I have the most interesting matter +for my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a +profit. But, second (what I own I never considered till too late), there +was the danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of +disablement, towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned +round and cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear +the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her +deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine till she +gets there. + +From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful +success. I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last voyage we +had grown so used to sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a +full month, except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our visits to +the islands have been more like dreams than realities: the people, the +life, the beachcombers, the old stories and songs I have picked up, so +interesting; the climate, the scenery, and (in some places) the women, +so beautiful. The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the +Marquesas; both as fine types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me, I +have not told you one characteristic incident of the cruise from a +semi-naval point of view. One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay; +the most awful noise on deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the +cabin; and there I had to sit below, entertaining in my best style a +negroid native chieftain, much the worse for rum! You can imagine the +evening's pleasure. + +This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would be incomplete +without one other trait. On our voyage up here I came one day into the +dining-room, the hatch in the floor was open, the ship's boy was below +with a baler, and two of the hands were carrying buckets as for a fire; +this meant that the pumps had ceased working. + +One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. It blew fair, but +very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all single-reefed, +and she carried her lee rail under water and flew. The swell, the +heaviest I have ever been out in--I tried in vain to estimate the +height, _at least_ fifteen feet--came tearing after us about a point and +a half off the wind. We had the best hand--old Louis--at the wheel; and, +really, he did nobly, and had noble luck, for it never caught us once. +At times it seemed we must have it; old Louis would look over his +shoulder with the queerest look and dive down his neck into his +shoulders; and then it missed us somehow, and only sprays came over our +quarter, turning the little outside lane of deck into a mill race as +deep as to the cockpit coamings. I never remember anything more +delightful and exciting. Pretty soon after we were lying absolutely +becalmed under the lee of Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the +captain never confessed he had done it on purpose, but when accused, he +smiled. Really, I suppose he did quite right, for we stood committed to +a dangerous race, and to bring her to the wind would have been rather a +heart-sickening manoeuvre. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MARCEL SCHWOB + + + At Honolulu, Stevenson found awaiting him, among the accumulations of + the mail-bag, two letters of friendly homage--the first, I think, he + had received from any foreign _confrère_--addressed to him by the + distinguished young French scholar and man of letters, M. Marcel + Schwob, since deceased. + + _Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, February 8th, 1889._ + +DEAR SIR,--I thank you--from the midst of such a flurry as you can +imagine, with seven months' accumulated correspondence on my table--for +your two friendly and clever letters. Pray write me again. I shall be +home in May or June, and not improbably shall come to Paris in the +summer. Then we can talk; or in the interval I may be able to write, +which is to-day out of the question. Pray take a word from a man of +crushing occupations, and count it as a volume. Your little _conte_ is +delightful. Ah yes, you are right, I love the eighteenth century; and so +do you, and have not listened to its voice in vain.--The Hunted One, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Honolulu, 8th March 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--At last I have the accounts: the Doer has done +excellently, and in the words of ----, "I reciprocate every step of your +behaviour."... I send a letter for Bob in your care, as I don't know +his Liverpool address,[30] by which (for he is to show you part of it) +you will see we have got out of this adventure--or hope to have--with +wonderful fortune. I have the retrospective horrors on me when I think +of the liabilities I incurred; but, thank God, I think I'm in port +again, and I have found one climate in which I can enjoy life. Even +Honolulu is too cold for me; but the south isles were a heaven upon +earth to a puir, catarrhal party like Johns'one. We think, as Tahiti is +too complete a banishment, to try Madeira. It's only a week from +England, good communications, and I suspect in climate and scenery not +unlike our dear islands; in people, alas! there can be no comparison. +But friends could go, and I could come in summer, so I should not be +quite cut off. + +Lloyd and I have finished a story, _The Wrong Box_. If it is not funny, +I am sure I do not know what is. I have split over writing it. Since I +have been here, I have been toiling like a galley slave: three numbers +of _The Master_ to rewrite, five chapters of _The Wrong Box_ to write +and rewrite, and about five hundred lines of a narrative poem to write, +rewrite, and re-rewrite. Now I have _The Master_ waiting me for its +continuation, two numbers more; when that's done, I shall breathe. This +spasm of activity has been chequered with champagne parties: Happy and +Glorious, Hawaii Ponoi paua: kou moi--(Native Hawaiians, dote upon your +monarch!) Hawaiian God save the King. (In addition to my other labours, +I am learning the language with a native moonshee.) Kalakaua is a +terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry to him; +he thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon as a whet for dinner. +You should see a photograph of our party after an afternoon with H. H. +M.: my! what a crew!--Yours ever affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Ill-health and pressing preoccupations, together with uncertainty as + to when and where letters would reach him, had kept me from writing + during the previous autumn and winter. + + _Honolulu, March 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still not a word from you! I am utterly cast down; but +I will try to return good for evil and for once give you news. We are +here in the suburb of Honolulu in a rambling house or set of houses in a +great garden. + +[Illustration: _a a a_, stairs up to balcony.] + +1. Lloyd's room. 2. My mother's room. 3. A room kept dark for +photographs. 4. The kitchen. 5. Balcony. 6. The Lanai, an open room or +summer parlour, partly surrounded with Venetian shutters, in part quite +open, which is the living-room. 7. A crazy dirty cottage used for the +arts. 8. Another crazy dirty cottage, where Fanny and I live. The town +is some three miles away, but the house is connected by telephone with +the chief shops, and the tramway runs to within a quarter of a mile of +us. I find Honolulu a beastly climate after Tahiti and have been in bed +a little; but my colds _took on no catarrhal symptom_, which is +staggeringly delightful. I am studying Hawaiian with a native, a Mr. +Joseph Poepoe, a clever fellow too: the tongue is a little bewildering; +I am reading a pretty story in native--no, really it is pretty, although +wandering and wordy; highly pretty with its continual traffic from one +isle to another of the soothsayer, pursuing rainbows. Fanny is, I think, +a good deal better on the whole, having profited like me by the tropics; +my mother and Lloyd are first-rate. I do not think I have heard from you +since last May; certainly not since June; and this really frightens me. +Do write, even now. Scribner's Sons it should be; we shall probably be +out of this some time in April, home some time in June. But the world +whirls to me perceptibly, a mass of times and seasons and places and +engagements, and seas to cross, and continents to traverse, so that I +scarce know where I am. Well, I have had a brave time. _Et ego in +Arcadia_--though I don't believe Arcadia was a spot upon Tahiti. I have +written another long narrative poem: the _Song of Rahero_. Privately, I +think it good: but your ominous silence over the _Feast of Famine_ leads +me to fear we shall not be agreed. Is it possible I have wounded you in +some way? I scarce like to dream that it is possible; and yet I know too +well it may be so. If so, don't write, and you can pitch into me when we +meet. I am, admittedly, as mild as London Stout now; and the Old Man +Virulent much a creature of the past. My dear Colvin, I owe you and +Fleeming Jenkin, the two older men who took the trouble and knew how to +make a friend of me, everything that I have or am: if I have behaved +ill, just hold on and give me a chance, you shall have the slanging of +me and I bet I shall prefer it to this silence.--Ever, my dear Colvin, +your most affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON to MRS. SITWELL + + + This letter brought to friends in England the first news of the + intended prolongation of the cruise among the remoter islands of the + Pacific. + + _Honolulu, towards the end of March 1889._ + +MY DEAR FRIEND,--Louis has improved so wonderfully in the delicious +islands of the South Seas, that we think of trying yet one more voyage. +We are a little uncertain as to how we shall go, whether in a missionary +ship, or by hiring schooners from point to point, but the "unregenerate" +islands we must see. I suppose we shall be off some time in June, which +will fetch us back to England in another year's time. You could hardly +believe it if you could see Louis now. He looks as well as he ever did +in his life, and has had no sign of cough or hemorrhage (begging pardon +of Nemesis) for many months. It seems a pity to return to England until +his health is firmly reestablished, and also a pity not to see all that +we can see quite easily starting from this place: and which will be our +only opportunity in life. Of course there is the usual risk from hostile +natives, and the horrible sea, but a positive risk is so much more +wholesome than a negative one, and it is all such joy to Louis and +Lloyd. As for me, I hate the sea, and am afraid of it (though no one +will believe that because in time of danger I do not make an +outcry--nevertheless I _am_ afraid of it, and it is not kind to me), but +I love the tropic weather, and the wild people, and to see my two boys +so happy. Mrs. Stevenson is going back to Scotland in May, as she does +not like to be longer away from her old sister, who has been very ill. +And besides, we do not feel justified in taking her to the sort of +places we intend to visit. As for me, I can get comfort out of very +rough surroundings for my people, I can work hard and enjoy it; I can +even shoot pretty well, and though I "don't want to fight, by jingo if I +must," why I can. I don't suppose there will be any occasion for that +sort of thing--only in case. + +I am not quite sure of the names, but I _think_ our new cruise includes +the Gilberts, the Fijis, and the Solomons. A letter might go from the +Fijis; Louis will write the particulars, of which I am not sure. As for +myself, I have had more cares than I was really fit for. To keep house +on a yacht is no easy thing. When Louis and I broke loose from the ship +and lived alone amongst the natives I got on very well. It was when I +was deathly sea-sick, and the question was put to me by the cook, "What +shall we have for the cabin dinner, what for to-morrow's breakfast, what +for lunch? and what about the sailors' food? Please come and look at the +biscuits, for the weevils have got into them, and show me how to make +yeast that will rise of itself, and smell the pork which seems pretty +high, and give me directions about making a pudding with molasses--and +what is to be done about the bugs?"--etc. etc. In the midst of heavy +dangerous weather, when I was lying on the floor clutching a basin, down +comes the mate with a cracked head, and I must needs cut off the hair +matted with blood, wash and dress the wound, and administer +restoratives. I do not like being "the lady of the yacht," but ashore! +O, then I felt I was repaid for all. I wonder did any of my letters from +beautiful Tautira ever come to hand, with the descriptions of our life +with Louis's adopted brother Ori a Ori? Ori wrote to us, if no one else +did, and I mean to give you a translation of his letter. It begins with +our native names. + + + _Tautira, 26 Dec. 1888._ + +To Teriitera (Louis) and Tapina Tutu (myself) and Aromaiterai (Lloyd) +and Teiriha (Mrs. Stevenson) Salutation in the true Jesus. + +I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, I +was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Tehini, also, and all of my +household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that +I went upon the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you +on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor and hoisted +the sails. When the ship started, I ran along the beach to see you +still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, "farewell +Louis": and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your +voice crying "Rui farewell." Afterwards I watched the ship as long as I +could until the night fell; and when it was dark I said to myself, "if I +had wings I should fly to the ship to meet you, and to sleep amongst +you, so that I might be able to come back to shore and to tell Rui +Tehini, 'I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera.'" After that we passed +that night in the impatience of grief. Towards eight o'clock I seemed to +hear your voice, "Teriitera--Rui--here is the hour for putter and tiro" +(cheese and syrup). I did not sleep that night, thinking continually of +you, my very dear friend, until the morning: being then awake I went to +see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not there. Afterwards I +looked into your rooms; they did not please me as they used to do. I did +not hear your voice crying, "hail Rui." I thought then that you had +gone, and that you had left me. Rising up I went to the beach to see +your ship, and I could not see it. I wept, then, till the night, telling +myself continually, "Teriitera returns into his own country and leaves +his dear Rui in grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep for him." I +will not forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet +you again. It is my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in +this world. It is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be that +your body and my body shall eat together at our table: there is what +would make my heart content. But now we are separated. May God be with +you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well +and we also, according to the words of Paul. + + ORI A ORI; that is to say, RUI. + + +After reading this to me Louis has left in tears saying that he is not +worthy that such a letter should be written to him. We hope to so manage +that we shall stop at Tahiti and see Rui once more. I tell myself that +pleasant story when I wake in the night. + +I find my head swimming so that I cannot write any more. I wish some +rich Catholic would send a parlour organ to Père Bruno of Tautira. I am +going to try and save money to do it myself, but he may die before I +have enough. I feel ashamed to be sitting here when I think of that old +man who cannot draw because of scrivener's paralysis, who has no one +year in and year out to speak to but natives (our Rui is a Protestant +not bigoted like the rest of them--but still a Protestant) and the only +pastime he has is playing on an old broken parlour organ whose keys are +mostly dumb. I know no more pathetic figure. Have you no rich Catholic +friends who would send him an organ that he could play upon? Of course I +am talking nonsense, and yet I know somewhere that person exists if only +I knew the place. + +Our dearest love to you all. + + FANNY.] + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Honolulu [March 1889]._ + +MY DEAR JAMES,--Yes--I own up--I am untrue to friendship and (what is +less, but still considerable) to civilisation. I am not coming home for +another year. There it is, cold and bald, and now you won't believe in +me at all, and serve me right (says you) and the devil take me. But look +here, and judge me tenderly. I have had more fun and pleasure of my life +these past months than ever before, and more health than any time in ten +long years. And even here in Honolulu I have withered in the cold; and +this precious deep is filled with islands, which we may still visit; and +though the sea is a deathful place, I like to be there, and like +squalls (when they are over); and to draw near to a new island, I cannot +say how much I like. In short, I take another year of this sort of life, +and mean to try to work down among the poisoned arrows, and mean (if it +may be) to come back again when the thing is through, and converse with +Henry James as heretofore; and in the meanwhile issue directions to H. +J. to write to me once more. Let him address here at Honolulu, for my +views are vague; and if it is sent here it will follow and find me, if I +am to be found; and if I am not to be found, the man James will have +done his duty, and we shall be at the bottom of the sea, where no +post-office clerk can be expected to discover us, or languishing on a +coral island, the philosophic drudges of some barbarian potentate: +perchance, of an American Missionary. My wife has just sent to Mrs. +Sitwell a translation (_tant bien que mal_) of a letter I have had from +my chief friend in this part of the world: go and see her, and get a +hearing of it; it will do you good; it is a better method of +correspondence than even Henry James's. I jest, but seriously it is a +strange thing for a tough, sick, middle-aged scrivener like R. L. S. to +receive a letter so conceived from a man fifty years old, a leading +politician, a crack orator, and the great wit of his village: boldly +say, "the highly popular M.P. of Tautira." My nineteenth century strikes +here, and lies alongside of something beautiful and ancient. I think the +receipt of such a letter might humble, shall I say even ----? and for +me, I would rather have received it than written _Redgauntlet_ or the +sixth _Æneid_. All told, if my books have enabled or helped me to make +this voyage, to know Rui, and to have received such a letter, they have +(in the old prefatorial expression) not been writ in vain. It would seem +from this that I have been not so much humbled as puffed up; but, I +assure you, I have in fact been both. A little of what that letter says +is my own earning; not all, but yet a little; and the little makes me +proud, and all the rest ashamed; and in the contrast, how much more +beautiful altogether is the ancient man than him of to-day! + +Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he _is_ of the nineteenth +century, and that glaringly. And to curry favour with him, I wish I +could be more explicit; but, indeed, I am still of necessity extremely +vague, and cannot tell what I am to do, nor where I am to go for some +while yet. As soon as I am sure, you shall hear. All are fairly +well--the wife, your countrywoman, least of all; troubles are not +entirely wanting; but on the whole we prosper, and we are all +affectionately yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Honolulu, April 2nd, 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am beginning to be ashamed of writing on to you +without the least acknowledgment, like a tramp; but I do not care--I am +hardened; and whatever be the cause of your silence, I mean to write +till all is blue. I am outright ashamed of my news, which is that we are +not coming home for another year. I cannot but hope it may continue the +vast improvement of my health: I think it good for Fanny and Lloyd; and +we have all a taste for this wandering and dangerous life. My mother I +send home, to my relief, as this part of our cruise will be (if we can +carry it out) rather difficult in places. Here is the idea: about the +middle of June (unless the Boston Board objects) we sail from Honolulu +in the missionary ship (barquentine auxiliary steamer) _Morning Star_: +she takes us through the Gilberts and Marshalls, and drops us (this is +my great idea) on Ponape, one of the volcanic islands of the Carolines. +Here we stay marooned among a doubtful population, with a Spanish +vice-governor and five native kings, and a sprinkling of missionaries +all at loggerheads, on the chance of fetching a passage to Sydney in a +trader, a labour ship or (maybe, but this appears too bright) a ship of +war. If we can't get the _Morning Star_ (and the Board has many reasons +that I can see for refusing its permission) I mean to try to fetch Fiji, +hire a schooner there, do the Fijis and Friendlies, hit the course of +the _Richmond_ at Tonga Tabu, make back by Tahiti, and so to S. F., and +home: perhaps in June 1890. For the latter part of the cruise will +likely be the same in either case. You can see for yourself how much +variety and adventure this promises, and that it is not devoid of danger +at the best; but if we can pull it off in safety, gives me a fine book +of travel, and Lloyd a fine lecture and diorama, which should vastly +better our finances. + +I feel as if I were untrue to friendship; believe me, Colvin, when I +look forward to this absence of another year, my conscience sinks at +thought of the Monument; but I think you will pardon me if you consider +how much this tropical weather mends my health. Remember me as I was at +home, and think of me sea-bathing and walking about, as jolly as a +sandboy: you will own the temptation is strong; and as the scheme, bar +fatal accidents, is bound to pay into the bargain, sooner or later, it +seems it would be madness to come home now, with an imperfect book, no +illustrations to speak of, no diorama, and perhaps fall sick again by +autumn. I do not think I delude myself when I say the tendency to +catarrh has visibly diminished. + +It is a singular thing that as I was packing up old papers ere I left +Skerryvore, I came on the prophecies of a drunken Highland sibyl, when I +was seventeen. She said I was to be very happy, to visit America, and +_to be much upon the sea_. It seems as if it were coming true with a +vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong, old, rooted belief that I +shall die by drowning? I don't want that to come true, though it is an +easy death; but it occurs to me oddly, with these long chances in front. +I cannot say why I like the sea; no man is more cynically and +constantly alive to its perils; I regard it as the highest form of +gambling; and yet I love the sea as much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean +emotions; a world all and always beautiful; air better than wine; +interest unflagging; there is upon the whole no better life.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Honolulu, April 1889._] + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--This is to announce the most prodigious change of +programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I desire to see +more, and I get so much health here that I dread a return to our vile +climates. I have applied accordingly to the missionary folk to let me go +round in the _Morning Star_; and if the Boston Board should refuse, I +shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a trading schooner, and see the Fijis +and Friendlies and Samoa. He would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. Of +course, if I go in the _Morning Star_, I see all the eastern (or +western?) islands. + +Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last of _The +Master_: though I tell you it sticks!--and I hope to have had some +proofs forbye, of the verses anyway. And now to business. + +I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if not, +in some equally compact and portable shape--Seaside Library, for +instance--the Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can get 'em, +and the following of Marryat: _Phantom Ship_, _Peter Simple_, _Percival +Keene_, _Privateersman_, _Children of the New Forest_, _Frank Mildmay_, +_Newton Forster_, _Dog Fiend (Snarleyyow)_. Also _Midshipman Easy_, +_Kingsburn_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Motley's _Dutch Republic_, +Lang's _Letters on Literature_, a complete set of my works, _Jenkin_, in +duplicate; also _Familiar Studies_, ditto. + +I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory indeed, and +for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have come and gone before +I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite +worked out, and this cursed end of _The Master_ hangs over me like the +arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before dawn, and no doubt +the clouds will soon rise; but it is a difficult thing to write, above +all in Mackellarese; and I cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this +off, _The Master_ will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived; +and even if I don't pull if off, it'll still have some stuff in it. + +We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother +leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to come +here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address, which will +probably be Sydney. If we get on the _Morning Star_, I propose at +present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of getting a +passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons mighty vague, and +the cruise is risky; but I shall know something of the South Seas when +it is done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. It +should give me a fine book of travels, anyway. + +Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him have +them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my books should go +to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht _Casco_, Oakland, +Cal.--In haste, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + _Honolulu, April 6th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--Nobody writes a better letter than my Gamekeeper: +so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular, answering (by some +delicate instinct) all the questions she suggests. It is a shame you +should get such a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially and +originally incapable of the art epistolary. I would let the +paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden +seaman did after the manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies. +The place he seems to have stayed at--seems, for his absence was not +observed till we were near the Equator--was Tautira, and, I assure you, +he displayed good taste, Tautira being as "nigh hand heaven" as a +paper-cutter or anybody has a right to expect. + +I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and I give the +grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly--we are not coming home +for another year. My mother returns next month. Fanny, Lloyd, and I push +on again among the islands on a trading schooner, the _Equator_--first +for the Gilbert group, which we shall have an opportunity to explore +thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to the Marshalls and Carolines; and +if occasion (or money) fail, to Samoa, and back to Tahiti. I own we are +deserters, but we have excuses. You cannot conceive how these climates +agree with the wretched house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find +himself sea-bathing, and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up +person. They agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her +rheumatism, and with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is +endless; and the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very +delightful. We had applied for places in the American missionary ship, +the _Morning Star_, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea, +giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we determined to +cut off the missionaries with a shilling. + +The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; we live here, +oppressed with civilisation, and look for good things in the future. But +it would surprise you if you came out to-night from Honolulu (all +shining with electric lights, and all in a bustle from the arrival of +the mail, which is to carry you these lines) and crossed the long wooden +causeway along the beach, and came out on the road through Kapiolani +park, and seeing a gate in the palings, with a tub of gold-fish by the +wayside, entered casually in. The buildings stand in three groups by +the edge of the beach, where an angry little spitfire sea continually +spirts and thrashes with impotent irascibility, the big seas breaking +further out upon the reef. The first is a small house, with a very large +summer parlour, or _lanai_, as they call it here, roofed, but +practically open. There you will find the lamps burning and the family +sitting about the table, dinner just done: my mother, my wife, Lloyd, +Belle, my wife's daughter, Austin her child, and to-night (by way of +rarity) a guest. All about the walls our South Sea curiosities, war +clubs, idols, pearl shells, stone axes, etc.; and the walls are only a +small part of a lanai, the rest being glazed or latticed windows, or +mere open space. You will see there no sign of the Squire, however; and +being a person of a humane disposition, you will only glance in over the +balcony railing at the merrymakers in the summer parlour, and proceed +further afield after the Exile. You look round, there is beautiful green +turf, many trees of an outlandish sort that drop thorns--look out if +your feet are bare; but I beg your pardon, you have not been long enough +in the South Seas--and many oleanders in full flower. The next group of +buildings is ramshackle, and quite dark; you make out a coach-house +door, and look in--only some cocoanuts; you try round to the left and +come to the sea front, where Venus and the moon are making luminous +tracks on the water, and a great swell rolls and shines on the outer +reef; and here is another door--all these places open from the +outside--and you go in, and find photography, tubs of water, negatives +steeping, a tap, and a chair and an ink-bottle, where my wife is +supposed to write; round a little further, a third door, entering which +you find a picture upon the easel and a table sticky with paints; a +fourth door admits you to a sort of court, where there is a hen +sitting--I believe on a fallacious egg. No sign of the Squire in all +this. But right opposite the studio door you have observed a third +little house, from whose open door lamp-light streams and makes hay of +the strong moonlight shadows. You had supposed it made no part of the +grounds, for a fence runs round it lined with oleander; but as the +Squire is nowhere else, is it not just possible he may be here? It is a +grim little wooden shanty; cobwebs bedeck it; friendly mice inhabit its +recesses; the mailed cockroach walks upon the wall; so also, I regret to +say, the scorpion. Herein are two pallet beds, two mosquito curtains, +strung to the pitch-boards of the roof, two tables laden with books and +manuscripts, three chairs, and, in one of the beds, the Squire busy +writing to yourself, as it chances, and just at this moment somewhat +bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect powder, and +will be all right in no time; but just now he contemplates large white +blisters, and would like to scratch them, but knows better. The house is +not bare; it has been inhabited by Kanakas, and--you know what children +are!--the bare wood walls are pasted over with pages from the _Graphic_, +_Harper's Weekly_, etc. The floor is matted, and I am bound to say the +matting is filthy. There are two windows and two doors, one of which is +condemned; on the panels of that last a sheet of paper is pinned up, and +covered with writing. I cull a few plums:-- + + "A duck-hammock for each person. + A patent organ like the commandant's at Taiohae. + Cheap and bad cigars for presents. + Revolvers. + Permanganate of potass. + Liniment for the head and sulphur. + Fine tooth-comb." + +What do you think this is? Simply life in the South Seas foreshortened. +These are a few of our desiderata for the next trip, which we jot down +as they occur. + +There, I have really done my best and tried to send something like a +letter--one letter in return for all your dozens. Pray remember us all +to yourself, Mrs. Boodle, and the rest of your house. I do hope your +mother will be better when this comes. I shall write and give you a new +address when I have made up my mind as to the most probable, and I do +beg you will continue to write from time to time and give us airs from +home. To-morrow--think of it--I must be off by a quarter to eight to +drive in to the palace and breakfast with his Hawaiian Majesty at 8.30: +I shall be dead indeed. Please give my news to Scott, I trust he is +better; give him my warm regards. To you we all send all kinds of +things, and I am the absentee Squire, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Honolulu, April 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--As usual, your letter is as good as a cordial, and I +thank you for it, and all your care, kindness, and generous and +thoughtful friendship, from my heart. I was truly glad to hear a word of +Colvin, whose long silence has terrified me; and glad to hear that you +condoned the notion of my staying longer in the South Seas, for I have +decided in that sense. The first idea was to go in the _Morning Star_, +missionary ship; but now I have found a trading schooner, the _Equator_, +which is to call for me here early in June and carry us through the +Gilberts. What will happen then, the Lord knows. My mother does not +accompany us: she leaves here for home early in May, and you will hear +of us from her; but not, I imagine, anything more definite. We shall get +dumped on Butaritari, and whether we manage to go on to the Marshalls +and Carolines, or whether we fall back on Samoa, Heaven must decide; but +I mean to fetch back into the course of the _Richmond_--(to think you +don't know what the _Richmond_ is!--_the_ steamer of the Eastern South +Seas, joining New Zealand, Tongatabu, the Samoas, Taheite, and +Rarotonga, and carrying by last advices sheep in the saloon!)--into the +course of the _Richmond_ and make Tahiti again on the home track. Would +I like to see the Scots Observer? Wouldn't I not? But whaur? I'm +direckit at space. They have nae post offishes at the Gilberts, and as +for the Car'lines! Ye see, Mr. Baxter, we're no just in the punkshewal +_centre_ o' civ'lisation. But pile them up for me, and when I've decided +on an address, I'll let you ken, and ye'll can send them stavin' after +me.--Ever your affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The reference in the first paragraph is to the publication in the + press, which Mr. Baxter had permitted, of one of Stevenson's letters + written during the earlier part of his voyage. R. L. S. had + remonstrated, always greatly disliking the publication of private + letters during the writer's lifetime; and now writes to soften the + effect of his remonstrance. + + _Honolulu, 10th May 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am appalled to gather from your last just to hand +that you have felt so much concern about the letter. Pray dismiss it +from your mind. But I think you scarce appreciate how disagreeable it is +to have your private affairs and private unguarded expressions getting +into print. It would soon sicken any one of writing letters. I have no +doubt that letter was very wisely selected, but it just shows how things +crop up. There was a raging jealousy between the two yachts; our captain +was nearly in a fight over it. However, no more; and whatever you think, +my dear fellow, do not suppose me angry with you or ----; although I was +_annoyed at the circumstance_--a very different thing. But it is +difficult to conduct life by letter, and I continually feel I may be +drifting into some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no part. + +I must now turn to a point of business. This new cruise of ours is +somewhat venturesome; and I think it needful to warn you not to be in a +hurry to suppose us dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is quite on the +cards we might be cast on some unvisited, or very rarely visited, +island; that there we might lie for a long time, even years, unheard of; +and yet turn up smiling at the hinder end. So do not let me be "rowpit" +till you get some certainty we have gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or +graced the feast of some barbarian in the character of Long Pig. + +I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only +white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day, +living with a native, seeing four lepers shipped off to Molokai, hearing +native causes, and giving my opinion as _amicus curiæ_ as to the +interpretation of a statute in English; a lovely week among God's +best--at least God's sweetest works--Polynesians. It has bettered me +greatly. If I could only stay there the time that remains, I could get +my work done and be happy; but the care of my family keeps me in vile +Honolulu, where I am always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and +cesspools and beastly _haoles_.[31] What is a haole? You are one; and +so, I am sorry to say, am I. After so long a dose of whites, it was a +blessing to get among Polynesians again even for a week. + +Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel', I'll say that for +ye; and trust before I sail I shall get another letter with more about +yourself.--Ever your affectionate friend, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The allusions in the latter half of this letter are to the departure + for Europe of the young Hawaiian princess Kaiulani (see the poem + beginning "When from her land to mine she goes," in _Songs of + Travel_), and to the circumstances of the great hurricane at Apia on + March 15th, 1889. + + _Honolulu, (about) 20th May '89._ + +MY DEAR LOW,-- ... The goods have come; many daughters have done +virtuously, but thou excellest them all.--I have at length finished +_The Master_; it has been a sore cross to me; but now he is buried, his +body's under hatches,--his soul, if there is any hell to go to, gone to +hell; and I forgive him: it is harder to forgive Burlingame for having +induced me to begin the publication, or myself for suffering the +induction.--Yes, I think Hole has done finely; it will be one of the +most adequately illustrated books of our generation; he gets the note, +he tells the story--_my_ story: I know only one failure--the Master +standing on the beach.--You must have a letter for me at Sydney--till +further notice. Remember me to Mrs. Will. H., the godlike sculptor, and +any of the faithful. If you want to cease to be a republican, see my +little Kaiulani, as she goes through--but she is gone already. You will +die a red: I wear the colours of that little royal maiden, _Nous allons +chanter à la ronde, si vous voulez!_ only she is not blonde by several +chalks, though she is but a half-blood, and the wrong half Edinburgh +Scots like mysel'. But, O Low, I love the Polynesian: this civilisation +of ours is a dingy, ungentlemanly business; it drops out too much of +man, and too much of that the very beauty of the poor beast: who has his +beauties in spite of Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with +no news: I am a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt Zola is a better +correspondent.--Long live your fine old English admiral--yours, I +mean--the U.S.A. one at Samoa; I wept tears and loved myself and mankind +when I read of him: he is not too much civilised. And there was Gordon, +too; and there are others, beyond question. But if you could live, the +only white folk, in a Polynesian village; and drink that warm, light +_vin du pays_ of human affection and enjoy that simple dignity of all +about you--I will not gush, for I am now in my fortieth year, which +seems highly unjust, but there it is, Mr. Low, and the Lord enlighten +your affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + This letter shows the writer in her character of wise and anxious + critic of her husband's work. The result, in the judgment of most of + his friends, went far to justify her misgivings. + + _Honolulu, May 21st, 1889._ + +BEST OF FRIENDS,--It was a joy inexpressible to get a word from you at +last. Fortunately for our peace of mind, we were almost positive that +your letters had been sent to the places we had already left. Still it +was a bitter disappointment to get nothing from you when we arrived +here. I wish you could have seen us both throwing over the immense +package of letters searching for your handwriting. Now that we know you +have been ill, please do let some one send us a line to our next address +telling us how you are. What that next address may be we do not yet +know, as our final movements are a little uncertain. To begin with, a +trading schooner, the _Equator_, will come along some time in the first +part of June, lie outside the harbour here and signal to us. Within +forty-eight hours we shall pack up our possessions, our barrel of sauer +kraut, our barrel of salt onions, our bag of cocoanuts, our native +garments, our tobacco, fish hooks, red combs, and Turkey red calicoes +(all the latter for trading purposes), our hand organ, photograph and +painting materials, and finally our magic lantern--all these upon a +large whaleboat, and go out to the _Equator_. Lloyd, also, takes a +fiddle, a guitar, a native instrument something like a banjo, called a +taropatch fiddle, and a lot of song books. We shall be carried first to +one of the Gilberts, landing at Butaritari. The _Equator_ is going about +amongst the Gilbert group, and we have the right to keep her over when +we like within reasonable limits. Finally she will leave us, and we +shall have to take the chances of what happens next. We hope to see the +Marshalls, the Carolines, the Fijis, Tonga and Samoa (also other islands +that I do not remember), perhaps staying a little while in Sydney, and +stopping on our way home to see our friends in Tahiti and the Marquesas. +I am very much exercised by one thing. Louis has the most enchanting +material that any one ever had in the whole world for his book, and I am +afraid he is going to spoil it all. He has taken into his Scotch +Stevenson head that a stern duty lies before him, and that his book must +be a sort of scientific and historical impersonal thing, comparing the +different languages (of which he knows nothing, really) and the +different peoples, the object being to settle the question as to whether +they are of common Malay origin or not. Also to compare the Protestant +and Catholic missions, etc., and the whole thing to be impersonal, +leaving out all he knows of the people themselves. And I believe there +is no one living who has got so near to them, or who understands them as +he does. Think of a small treatise on the Polynesian races being offered +to people who are dying to hear about Ori a Ori, the making of brothers +with cannibals, the strange stories they told, and the extraordinary +adventures that befell us:--suppose Herman Melville had given us his +theories as to the Polynesian language and the probable good or evil +results of the missionary influence instead of _Omoo_ and _Typee_, or +Kinglake[32] instead of _Eothen_. Louis says it is a stern sense of duty +that is at the bottom of it, which is more alarming than anything else. +I am so sure that you will agree with me that I am going to ask you to +throw the weight of your influence as heavily as possible in the scales +with me. Please refer to the matter in the letters we shall receive at +our first stopping place, otherwise Louis will spend a great deal of +time in Sydney actually reading up other people's books on the Islands. +What a thing it is to have a "man of genius" to deal with. It is like +managing an overbred horse. Why with my own feeble hand I could write a +book that the whole world would jump at. Please keep any letters of mine +that contain any incidents of our wanderings. They are very exact as to +facts, and Louis may, in this conscientious state of mind (indeed I am +afraid he has), put nothing in his diary but statistics. Even if I +thought it a desirable thing to write what he proposes, I should still +think it impossible unless after we had lived and studied here some +twenty years or more. + +Now I am done with my complaining, and shall turn to the pleasanter +paths. Louis went to one of the other islands a couple of weeks ago, +quite alone, got drenched with rain and surf, rode over mountain +paths--five and a half hours one day--and came back none the worse for +it. To-day he goes to Molokai, the leper island. He never has a sign of +hemorrhage, the air cushion is a thing of the past, and altogether he is +a new man. How he will do in the English climate again I do not know, +but in these latitudes he is very nearly a well man, nothing seems to do +him harm but overwork. That, of course, is sometimes difficult to +prevent. Now, however, the _Master_ is done, we have enough money to go +upon and there is no need to work at all. I must stop. My dear love to +you all. + + FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON.] + + + + +TO MRS. R. L. STEVENSON + + + The following two letters were written during and immediately after + Stevenson's trip to the noted leper settlement, the scene of Father + Damien's labours, at Molokai. + + _Kalawao, Molokai [May 1889]._ + +DEAR FANNY,--I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron and Mr. Gilfillan, +both born in the States, yet the first still with a strong Highland, and +the second still with a strong Lowland accent, were good company; the +night was warm, the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gilfillan gave me his +berth, and I slept well, though I heard the sisters sick in the next +stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling woke me in the morning; I turned +in all standing, so went right on the upper deck. The day was on the +peep out of a low morning bank, and we were wallowing along under +stupendous cliffs. As the lights brightened, we could see certain +abutments and buttresses on their front where wood clustered and grass +grew brightly. But the whole brow seemed quite impassable, and my heart +sank at the sight. Two thousand feet of rock making 19° (the Captain +guesses) seemed quite beyond my powers. However, I had come so far; and, +to tell you the truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that I dared +not go back on the adventure in the interests of my own self-respect. +Presently we came up with the leper promontory: lowland, quite bare and +bleak and harsh, a little town of wooden houses, two churches, a +landing-stair, all unsightly, sour, northerly, lying athwart the +sunrise, with the great wall of the pali cutting the world out on the +south. Our lepers were sent on the first boat, about a dozen, one poor +child very horrid, one white man, leaving a large grown family behind +him in Honolulu, and then into the second stepped the sisters and +myself. I do not know how it would have been with me had the sisters not +been there. My horror of the horrible is about my weakest point; but the +moral loveliness at my elbow blotted all else out; and when I found that +one of them was crying, poor soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a +little myself; then I felt as right as a trivet, only a little crushed +to be there so uselessly. I thought it was a sin and a shame she should +feel unhappy; I turned round to her, and said something like this: +"Ladies, God Himself is here to give you welcome. I'm sure it is good +for me to be beside you; I hope it will be blessed to me; I thank you +for myself and the good you do me." It seemed to cheer her up; but +indeed I had scarce said it when we were at the landing-stairs, and +there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God save us!) pantomime masks in +poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters and the new patients. + +Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made up my mind on the +boat's voyage _not_ to give my hand; that seemed less offensive than the +gloves. So the sisters and I went up among that crew, and presently I +got aside (for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot +across the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. All horror was +quite gone from me: to see these dread creatures smile and look happy +was beautiful. On my way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful +_alohas_ with the patients coming galloping over on their horses; I was +stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was happy, only ashamed of myself +that I was here for no good. One woman was pretty, and spoke good +English, and was infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly; +she thought I was the new white patient; and when she found I was only a +visitor, a curious change came in her face and voice--the only sad +thing, morally sad, I mean--that I met that morning. But for all that, +they tell me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses became +rare; dry stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick pandanus; a dreary +country; from overhead in the little clinging wood shogs of the pali +chirruping of birds fell; the low sun was right in my face; the trade +blew pure and cool and delicious; I felt as right as ninepence, and +stopped and chatted with the patients whom I still met on their horses, +with not the least disgust. About half-way over, I met the +superintendent (a leper) with a horse for me, and O, wasn't I glad! But +the horse was one of those curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always +dully want to go somewhere else, and my traffic with him completed my +crushing fatigue. I got to the guest-house, an empty house with several +rooms, kitchen, bath, etc. There was no one there, and I let the horse +go loose in the garden, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep. + +Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came back and slept +again while he was at the dispensary, and he woke me for dinner; and I +came back and slept again, and he woke me about six for supper; and +then in about an hour I felt tired again, and came up to my solitary +guest-house, played the flageolet, and am now writing to you. As yet, +you see, I have seen nothing of the settlement, and my crushing fatigue +(though I believe that was moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the +doctor's opinion make me think the pali hopeless. "You don't look a +strong man," said the doctor; "but are you sound?" I told him the truth; +then he said it was out of the question, and if I were to get up at all, +I must be carried up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses +continually fall on this ascent: the doctor goes up with a change of +clothes--it is plain that to be carried would in itself be very +fatiguing to both mind and body; and I should then be at the beginning +of thirteen miles of mountain road to be ridden against time. How should +I come through? I hope you will think me right in my decision: I mean to +stay, and shall not be back in Honolulu till Saturday, June first. You +must all do the best you can to make ready. + +Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to toddle and run, and +they live here as composed as brick and mortar--at least the wife does, +a Kentucky German, a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite +amazed at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! Gilfillan +too, a good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, kept up his hard +Lowland Scottish talk in the boat while the sister was covering her +face; but I believe he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and +part perhaps in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, why I +made my speech to them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed to +do so, and remembered one of my golden rules, "When you are ashamed to +speak, speak up at once." But, mind you, that rule is only golden with +strangers; with your own folks, there are other considerations. This is +a strange place to be in. A bell has been sounded at intervals while I +wrote, now all is still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike +the sound of telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch dark, +with a small fine rain; one light over in the leper settlement, one +cricket whistling in the garden, my lamp here by my bedside, and my pen +cheeping between my inky fingers. + +Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80° in the shade, strong, +sweet Anaho trade-wind. + + LOUIS. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Honolulu, June 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am just home after twelve days' journey to Molokai, +seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only say that the +sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high +to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. I used to ride over +from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three miles across the promontory, the +cliff-wall, ivied with forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my +left), go to the Sisters' home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a +game of croquet with seven leper girls (90° in the shade), got a little +old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired +enough, but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing +them. You who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who know so +many dressmakers, please make it known it would be an acceptable gift to +send scraps for doll dressmaking to the Reverend Sister Maryanne, Bishop +Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaiian Islands. + +I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard stories that cannot be +repeated: yet I never admired my poor race so much, nor (strange as it +may seem) loved life more than in the settlement. A horror of moral +beauty broods over the place: that's like bad Victor Hugo, but it is the +only way I can express the sense that lived with me all these days. And +this even though it was in great part Catholic, and my sympathies flow +never with so much difficulty as towards Catholic virtues. The passbook +kept with heaven stirs me to anger and laughter. One of the sisters +calls the place "the ticket office to heaven." Well, what is the odds? +They do their darg, and do it with kindness and efficiency incredible; +and we must take folks' virtues as we find them, and love the better +part. Of old Damien, whose weaknesses and worse perhaps I heard fully, I +think only the more. It was a European peasant: dirty, bigoted, +untruthful, unwise, tricky, but superb with generosity, residual candour +and fundamental good-humour: convince him he had done wrong (it might +take hours of insult) and he would undo what he had done and like his +corrector better. A man, with all the grime and paltriness of mankind, +but a saint and hero all the more for that. The place as regards scenery +is grand, gloomy, and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer +along the whole face of the island into a sea unusually deep; the front +of the mountain ivied and furred with clinging forest, one viridescent +cliff: about half-way from east to west, the low, bare, stony promontory +edged in between the cliff and the ocean; the two little towns (Kalawao +and Kalaupapa) seated on either side of it, as bare almost as bathing +machines upon a beach; and the population--gorgons and chimaeras dire. +All this tear of the nerves I bore admirably; and the day after I got +away, rode twenty miles along the opposite coast and up into the +mountains: they call it twenty, I am doubtful of the figures: I should +guess it nearer twelve; but let me take credit for what residents +allege; and I was riding again the day after, so I need say no more +about health. Honolulu does not agree with me at all: I am always out of +sorts there, with slight headache, blood to the head, etc. I had a good +deal of work to do and did it with miserable difficulty; and yet all the +time I have been gaining strength, as you see, which is highly +encouraging. By the time I am done with this cruise I shall have the +material for a very singular book of travels: names of strange stories +and characters, cannibals, pirates, ancient legends, old Polynesian +poetry,--never was so generous a farrago. I am going down now to get the +story of a shipwrecked family, who were fifteen months on an island with +a murderer: there is a specimen. The Pacific is a strange place; the +nineteenth century only exists there in spots: all round, it is a no +man's land of the ages, a stir-about of epochs and races, barbarisms and +civilisations, virtues and crimes. + +It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had known how ill you +were, I should be now on my way home. I had chartered my schooner and +made all arrangements before (at last) we got definite news. I feel +highly guilty; I should be back to insult and worry you a little. Our +address till further notice is to be c/o R. Towns & Co., Sydney. That is +final: I only got the arrangement made yesterday; but you may now +publish it abroad.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JAMES PAYN + + + The following was written to his old friend of Cornhill Magazine + days, Mr. James Payn, on receiving in Hawaii news of that gentleman's + ill health and gathering deafness. + + _Honolulu, H.I., June 13th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I get sad news of you here at my offsetting for +further voyages: I wish I could say what I feel. Sure there was never +any man less deserved this calamity; for I have heard you speak time and +again, and I remember nothing that was unkind, nothing that was untrue, +nothing that was not helpful, from your lips. It is the ill-talkers that +should hear no more. God knows, I know no word of consolation; but I do +feel your trouble. You are the more open to letters now; let me talk to +you for two pages. I have nothing but happiness to tell; and you may +bless God you are a man so sound-hearted that (even in the freshness of +your calamity) I can come to you with my own good fortune unashamed and +secure of sympathy. It is a good thing to be a good man, whether deaf or +whether dumb; and of all our fellow-craftsmen (whom yet they count a +jealous race), I never knew one but gave you the name of honesty and +kindness: come to think of it gravely, this is better than the finest +hearing. We are all on the march to deafness, blindness, and all +conceivable and fatal disabilities; we shall not all get there with a +report so good. My good news is a health astonishingly reinstated. This +climate; these voyagings; these landfalls at dawn; new islands peaking +from the morning bank; new forested harbours; new passing alarms of +squalls and surf; new interests of gentle natives,--the whole tale of my +life is better to me than any poem. + +I am fresh just now from the leper settlement of Molokai, playing +croquet with seven leper girls, sitting and yarning with old, blind, +leper beachcombers in the hospital, sickened with the spectacle of +abhorrent suffering and deformation amongst the patients, touched to the +heart by the sight of lovely and effective virtues in their helpers: no +stranger time have I ever had, nor any so moving. I do not think it a +little thing to be deaf, God knows, and God defend me from the +same!--but to be a leper, or one of the self-condemned, how much more +awful! and yet there's a way there also. "There are Molokais +everywhere," said Mr. Dutton, Father Damien's dresser; you are but new +landed in yours; and my dear and kind adviser, I wish you, with all my +soul, that patience and courage which you will require. Think of me +meanwhile on a trading schooner bound for the Gilbert Islands, +thereafter for the Marshalls, with a diet of fish and cocoanut before +me; bound on a cruise of--well, of investigation to what islands we can +reach, and to get (some day or other) to Sydney, where a letter +addressed to the care of R. Towns & Co. will find me sooner or later; +and if it contain any good news, whether of your welfare or the courage +with which you bear the contrary, will do me good.--Yours affectionately +(although so near a stranger), + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + _Honolulu, June 19th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--Our new home, the _Equator_, trading schooner, +rides at the buoy to-night, and we are for sea shortly. All your folk of +the Roost held us for phantoms and things of the night from our first +appearance; but I do wish you would try to believe in our continued +existence, as flesh and blood obscurely tossed in the Pacific, or +walking coral shores, and in our affection, which is more constant than +becomes the breasts of such absconders. My good health does not cease to +be wonderful to myself: Fanny is better in these warm places; it is the +very thing for Lloyd; and in the matter of interest, the spice of life, +etc., words cannot depict what fun we have. Try to have a little more +patience with the fugitives, and think of us now and again among the +Gilberts, where we ought to be about the time when you receive this +scrap. They make no great figure on the atlas, I confess; but you will +see the name there, if you look--which I wish you would, and try to +conceive us as still extant. We all send the kindest remembrances to all +of you; please make one of the girls write us the news to the care of R. +Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, where we hope to bring up about +the end of the year--or later. Do not forget yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Stevenson and his party sailed accordingly on the trading schooner + _Equator_, "on a certain bright June day in 1889," for the Gilbert + Islands, a scattered group of atolls in the Western Pacific. Their + expectation was to come back into civilisation again by way of the + Carolines, Manila, and the China ports; but instead of this, + circumstances which occurred to change the trader's course took them + southwards to Samoa, where they arrived in December of the same year. + Their second voyage was thus of six months' duration; in the course + of it they spent two periods of about six weeks each on land, first + at one and then at another of the two island capitals, Butaritari and + Apemama. The following letter is the first which reached Stevenson's + friends from this part of his voyage, and was written in two + instalments, the first from on board the _Equator_ in the lagoon of + the island of Apaiang; the second, six weeks later, from the + settlement on shore at Apemama, which the king, his friend Temhinoka, + allowed him and his party to occupy during their stay. The account of + this stay at Apemama and of the character of the king is far the most + interesting and attractive part of the volume called _In the South + Seas_, which was the literary result of these voyages. + + _Schooner Equator, Apaiang Lagoon, August 22nd, 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--The missionary ship is outside the reef trying (vainly) +to get in; so I may have a chance to get a line off. I am glad to say I +shall be home by June next for the summer, or we shall know the reason +why. For God's sake be well and jolly for the meeting. I shall be, I +believe, a different character from what you have seen this long while. +This cruise is up to now a huge success, being interesting, pleasant, +and profitable. The beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting +character here; the natives are very different, on the whole, from +Polynesians: they are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), and +protected by a dark tongue. It is delightful to meet the few Hawaiians +(mostly missionaries) that are dotted about, with their Italian _brio_ +and their ready friendliness. The whites are a strange lot, many of them +good, kind, pleasant fellows; others quite the lowest I have ever seen +even in the slums of cities. I wish I had time to narrate to you the +doings and character of three white murderers (more or less proven) I +have met. One, the only undoubted assassin of the lot, quite gained my +affection in his big home out of a wreck, with his New Hebrides wife in +her savage turban of hair and yet a perfect lady, and his three +adorable little girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand +organ, performing circus on the floor with startling effects of nudity, +and curling up together on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, +three Rob Roy dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer +meanwhile brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart +went out to him; and yet his crime on the face of it was dark: +disembowelling, in his own house, an old man of seventy, and him drunk. + +It is lunch-time, I see, and I must close up with my warmest love to +you. I wish you were here to sit upon me when required. Ah! if you were +but a good sailor! I will never leave the sea, I think; it is only there +that a Briton lives: my poor grandfather, it is from him I inherit the +taste, I fancy, and he was round many islands in his day; but I, please +God, shall beat him at that before the recall is sounded. Would you be +surprised to learn that I contemplate becoming a shipowner? I do, but it +is a secret. Life is far better fun than people dream who fall asleep +among the chimney stacks and telegraph wires. + +Love to Henry James and others near.--Ever yours, my dear fellow, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + _Equator Town, Apemama, October 1889._ + +No _Morning Star_ came, however; and so now I try to send this to you by +the schooner _J. L. Tiernan_. We have been about a month ashore, camping +out in a kind of town the king set up for us: on the idea that I was +really a "big chief" in England. He dines with us sometimes, and sends +up a cook for a share of our meals when he does not come himself. This +sounds like high living! alas, undeceive yourself. Salt junk is the +mainstay; a low island, except for cocoanuts, is just the same as a ship +at sea: brackish water, no supplies, and very little shelter. The king +is a great character--a thorough tyrant, very much of a gentleman, a +poet, a musician, a historian, or perhaps rather more a genealogist--it +is strange to see him lying in his house among a lot of wives (nominal +wives) writing the History of Apemama in an account-book; his +description of one of his own songs, which he sang to me himself, as +"about sweethearts, and trees, and the sea--and no true, all-the-same +lie," seems about as compendious a definition of lyric poetry as a man +could ask. Tembinoka is here the great attraction: all the rest is heat +and tedium and villainous dazzle, and yet more villainous mosquitoes. We +are like to be here, however, many a long week before we get away, and +then whither? A strange trade this voyaging: so vague, so bound-down, so +helpless. Fanny has been planting some vegetables, and we have actually +onions and radishes coming up: ah, onion-despiser, were you but a while +in a low island, how your heart would leap at sight of a coster's +barrow! I think I could shed tears over a dish of turnips. No doubt we +shall all be glad to say farewell to low islands--I had near said for +ever. They are very tame; and I begin to read up the directory, and pine +for an island with a profile, a running brook, or were it only a well +among the rocks. The thought of a mango came to me early this morning +and set my greed on edge; but you do not know what a mango is, so----. + +I have been thinking a great deal of you and the Monument of late, and +even tried to get my thoughts into a poem, hitherto without success. God +knows how you are: I begin to weary dreadfully to see you--well, in nine +months, I hope; but that seems a long time. I wonder what has befallen +me too, that flimsy part of me that lives (or dwindles) in the public +mind; and what has befallen _The Master_, and what kind of a Box the +Merry Box has been found. It is odd to know nothing of all this. We had +an old woman to do devil-work for you about a month ago, in a Chinaman's +house on Apaiang (August 23rd or 24th), You should have seen the crone +with a noble masculine face, like that of an old crone [_sic_], a body +like a man's (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting +cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain +of the _Equator_, and the Chinaman and his native wife and +sister-in-law, all squatting on the floor about the sibyl; and a crowd +of dark faces watching from behind her shoulder (she sat right in the +doorway) and tittering aloud with strange, appalled, embarrassed +laughter at each fresh adjuration. She informed us you were in England, +not travelling and now no longer sick; she promised us a fair wind the +next day, and we had it, so I cherish the hope she was as right about +Sidney Colvin. The shipownering has rather petered out since I last +wrote, and a good many other plans beside. + +Health? Fanny very so-so; I pretty right upon the whole, and getting +through plenty work: I know not quite how, but it seems to me not bad +and in places funny. + +South Sea Yarns: + + 1. _The Wrecker_ } R. L. S. + 2. _The Pearl Fisher_ } by and + 3. _The Beachcombers_ } Lloyd O. + +_The Pearl Fisher_, part done, lies in Sydney. It is _The Wrecker_ we +are now engaged upon: strange ways of life, I think, they set forth: +things that I can scarce touch upon, or even not at all, in my travel +book; and the yarns are good, I do believe. _The Pearl Fisher_ is for +the New York Ledger: the yarn is a kind of Monte Cristo one. _The +Wrecker_ is the least good as a story, I think; but the characters seem +to me good. _The Beachcombers_ is more sentimental. These three scarce +touch the out-skirts of the life we have been viewing; a hot-bed of +strange characters and incidents: Lord, how different from Europe or the +Pallid States! Farewell. Heaven knows when this will get to you. I burn +to be in Sydney and have news. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following, written in the last days of the sail southwards from + the Gilberts to Samoa, contains the full plan of the South Sea book + as it had now been conceived. In the issue, Part I. (so far as I + know) was never written; Parts II. and III. appeared serially in the + New York Sun, and were reprinted with corrections in the volume + called _In the South Seas_; Part IV. was never written; Part V. was + written but has not been printed, at least in this country; Part VI. + (and far the most successful) closes the volume _In the South Seas_; + Part VII. developed itself into _A Footnote to History_. The verses + at the end of this letter have already been printed (_Songs of + Travel_, vol. xiv., p. 244); but I give them here with the context, + as in similar instances above. The allusion is to the two colossal + images from Easter Island which used to stand under the portico to + the right hand of the visitor entering the Museum, were for some + years removed, and are now restored to their old place. + + _Schooner Equator, at sea. 190 miles off Samoa. + Monday, December 2nd, 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--We are just nearing the end of our long cruise. Rain, +calms, squalls, bang--there's the foretopmast gone; rain, calm, squalls, +away with the stay-sail; more rain, more calm, more squalls; a +prodigious heavy sea all the time, and the _Equator_ staggering and +hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great square, +crowded with wet human beings, and the rain avalanching on the deck, and +the leaks dripping everywhere: Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, +bearing up wonderfully. But such voyages are at the best a trial. We had +one particularity: coming down on Winslow Reef, p. d. (position +doubtful): two positions in the directory, a third (if you cared to +count that) on the chart; heavy sea running, and the night due. The +boats were cleared, bread put on board, and we made up our packets for a +boat voyage of four or five hundred miles, and turned in, expectant of a +crash. Needless to say it did not come, and no doubt we were far to +leeward. If we only had twopenceworth of wind, we might be at dinner in +Apia to-morrow evening; but no such luck: here we roll, dead before a +light air--and that is no point of sailing at all for a fore and aft +schooner--the sun blazing overhead, thermometer 88°, four degrees above +what I have learned to call South Sea temperature; but for all that, +land so near, and so much grief being happily astern, we are all pretty +gay on board, and have been photographing and draught-playing and +sky-larking like anything. I am minded to stay not very long in Samoa +and confine my studies there (as far as any one can forecast) to the +history of the late war. My book is now practically modelled: if I can +execute what is designed, there are few better books now extant on this +globe, bar the epics, and the big tragedies, and histories, and the +choice lyric poetics, and a novel or so--none. But it is not executed +yet; and let not him that putteth on his armour, vaunt himself. At +least, nobody has had such stuff; such wild stories, such beautiful +scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners and traditions, so +incredible a mixture of the beautiful and horrible, the savage and +civilised. I will give you here some idea of the table of contents, +which ought to make your mouth water. I propose to call the book _The +South Seas_: it is rather a large title, but not many people have seen +more of them than I, perhaps no one--certainly no one capable of using +the material. + + _Part I. General. "Of schooners, islands, and maroons"_ + + CHAPTER I. Marine. + + " II. Contraband (smuggling, barratry, labour traffic). + + " III. The Beachcomber. + + " IV. Beachcomber stories, i. The Murder of the Chinaman, ii. + Death of a Beachcomber. iii. A Character, iv. The Apia + Blacksmith. + + + _Part II. The Marquesas_ + + " V. Anaho. i. Arrival, ii. Death, iii. The Tapu. iv. Morals, v. + Hoka. + + " VI. Tai-o-hae. i. Arrival. ii. The French. iii. The Royal Family. + iv. Chiefless Folk. v. The Catholics. vi. Hawaiian + Missionaries + + " VII. Observations of a Long Pig. i. Cannibalism, ii. Hatiheu. iii. + Frère Michel, iv. Taa-hauku and Atuona. v. The Vale of + Atuona. vi. Moipu. vii. Captain Hati. + + _Part III. The Dangerous Archipelago_ + + " VIII. The Group. + + " IX. A House to let in a Low Island. + + " X. A Paumotuan Funeral, i. The Funeral, ii. Tales of the Dead. + + + _Part IV. Tahiti_ + + " XI. Tautira. + + " XII. Village Government in Tahiti. + + " XIII. A Journey in Quest of Legends. + + " XIV. Legends and Songs. + + " XV. Life in Eden. + + " XVI. Note on the French Regimen. + + + _Part V. The Eight Islands_ + + " XVII. A Note on Missions. + + " XVIII. The Kona Coast of Hawaii. i. Hookena. ii. A Ride in the + Forest. iii. A Law Case. iv. The City of Refuge. v. The + Lepers. + + " XIX. Molokai. i. A Week in the Precinct. ii. History of the Leper + Settlement, iii. The Mokolii. iv. The Free Island. + + + _Part VI. The Gilberts_ + + " XX. The Group, ii. Position of Woman, iii. The Missions. iv. + Devilwork. v. Republics. + + " XXI. Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari, its King and Court. + ii. History of Three Kings. iii. The Drink Question. + + " XXII. A Butaritarian Festival. + + " XXIII. The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions. ii. Equator Town + and the Palace. iii. The Three Corselets. + + + _Part VII. Samoa_ + + which I have not yet reached. + + +Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than 300 Cornhill +pages; and I suspect not much under 500. Samoa has yet to be accounted +for: I think it will be all history, and I shall work in observations on +Samoan manners, under the similar heads in other Polynesian islands. It +is still possible, though unlikely, that I may add a passing visit to +Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I am growing impatient to see yourself, +and I do not want to be later than June of coming to England. Anyway, +you see it will be a large work, and as it will be copiously +illustrated, the Lord knows what it will cost. We shall return, God +willing, by Sydney, Ceylon, Suez and, I guess, Marseilles the +many-masted (copyright epithet). I shall likely pause a day or two in +Paris, but all that is too far ahead--although now it begins to look +near--so near, and I can hear the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street, +and see the gates swing back, and feel myself jump out upon the Monument +steps--Hosanna!--home again. My dear fellow, now that my father is done +with his troubles, and 17 Heriot Row no more than a mere shell, you and +that gaunt old Monument in Bloomsbury are all that I have in view when I +use the word home; some passing thoughts there may be of the rooms at +Skerryvore, and the blackbirds in the chine on a May morning; but the +essence is S.C. and the Museum. Suppose, by some damned accident, you +were no more; well, I should return just the same, because of my mother +and Lloyd, whom I now think to send to Cambridge; but all the spring +would have gone out of me, and ninety per cent. of the attraction lost. +I will copy for you here a copy of verses made in Apemama. + + I heard the pulse of the besieging sea + Throb far away all night. I heard the wind + Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms. + I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, + And flailing fans and shadows of the palm: + The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault-- + The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept. + The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives, + Slept in the precinct of the palisade: + Where single, in the wind, under the moon, + Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire, + Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel. + To other lands and nights my fancy turned. + To London first, and chiefly to your house, + The many-pillared and the well-beloved. + There yearning fancy lighted; there again + In the upper room I lay and heard far off + The unsleeping city murmur like a shell; + The muffled tramp of the Museum guard + Once more went by me; I beheld again + Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street; + Again I longed for the returning morn, + The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds, + The consentancous trill of tiny song + That weaves round monumental cornices + A passing charm of beauty: most of all, + For your light foot I wearied, and your knock + That was the glad réveillé of my day. + Lo, now, when to your task in the great house + At morning through the portico you pass, + One moment glance where, by the pillared wall, + Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke, + Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument + Of faiths forgot and races undivined; + Sit now disconsolate, remembering well + The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd, + The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice + Incessant, of the breakers on the shore. + As far as these from their ancestral shrine, + So far, so foreign, your divided friends + Wander, estranged in body, not in mind. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + _Schooner Equator, at sea, Wednesday, 4th December 1889._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--We are now about to rise, like whales, from this +long dive, and I make ready a communication which is to go to you by the +first mail from Samoa. How long we shall stay in that group I cannot +forecast; but it will be best still to address at Sydney, where I trust, +when I shall arrive, perhaps in one month from now, more probably in two +or three, to find all news. + +_Business._--Will you be likely to have a space in the Magazine for a +serial story, which should be ready, I believe, by April, at latest by +autumn? It is called _The Wrecker_; and in book form will appear as +number 1 of _South Sea Yarns_ by R. L. S. and Lloyd Osbourne. Here is +the table as far as fully conceived, and indeed executed.[33]... + +The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really believe to be +insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has never been handled before, no +more has San Francisco. These seem all elements of success. There is, +besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, on +whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of the American merchant +marine, opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three +hundred pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles upon +you, if you will have a vacancy, and what you will be willing to pay. It +will of course be copyright in both the States and England. I am a +little anxious to have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of +the mystery. + +_Pleasure._--We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though four +months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largeish order; and +my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health, +though our long and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain, +sails carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets made on +the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me of salt brine, and +filled me with a longing for beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted. +The interest has been immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the +Napoleon of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me +the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and, +what pleased me more, told me their singular story, then all manner of +strange tales, facts, and experiences for my South Sea book, which +should be a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff. + +We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the heat is cruel--it is +the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but a pair of +serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze--O, yes, +and a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, sweat +streams from me. The rest are on deck under a bit of awning; we are not +much above a hundred miles from port, and we might as well be in +Kamschatka. However, I should be honest: this is the first calm I have +endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated +blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the helpless ship. + +I wonder how you liked the end of _The Master_; that was the hardest job +I ever had to do; did I do it? + +My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame. Remember +all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I don't get a word +through for him.--I am, yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + The following was written soon after the termination of the voyage of + the _Equator_ and Stevenson's first landing in Samoa, where he was + engaged in collecting materials for the account (then intended to be + the concluding part of his great projected South Sea book) of the war + and hurricane of the previous year. + + _Samoa [December 1889]._ + +MY DEAR BAXTER,-- ... I cannot return until I have seen either Tonga or +Fiji or both: and I must not leave here till I have finished my +collections on the war--a very interesting bit of history, the truth +often very hard to come at, and the search (for me) much complicated by +the German tongue, from the use of which I have desisted (I suppose) +these fifteen years. The last two days I have been mugging with a +dictionary from five to six hours a day; besides this, I have to call +upon, keep sweet, and judiciously interview all sorts of +persons--English, American, German, and Samoan. It makes a hard life; +above all, as after every interview I have to come and get my notes +straight on the nail. I believe I should have got my facts before the +end of January, when I shall make for Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in +the hurricane season; but they had so bad a one last year, I don't +imagine there will be much of an edition this. Say that I get to Sydney +some time in April, and I shall have done well, and be in a position to +write a very singular and interesting book, or rather two; for I shall +begin, I think, with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about +as long as _Kidnapped_, not very interesting, but valuable--and a thing +proper to be done. And then, hey! for the big South Sea Book: a devil of +a big one, and full of the finest sport. + +This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before seven, +reading a number of Blackwood's Magazine, I was startled by a soft +_talofa, alii_ (note for my mother: they are quite courteous here in the +European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa +coming from early mass in his white coat and white linen kilt, with +three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest thing to a hero in my +history, and really a fine fellow; plenty sense, and the most dignified, +quiet, gentle manners. Talking of Blackwood--a file of which I was lucky +enough to find here in the lawyer's--Mrs. Oliphant seems in a staggering +state: from the _Wrong Box_ to _The Master_ I scarce recognise either my +critic or myself. I gather that _The Master_ should do well, and at +least that notice is agreeable reading. I expect to be home in June: you +will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to my labours, I +suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and almost every day I ride up +and see Fanny and Lloyd, who are in a house in the bush with Ah Fu. I +live in Apia for history's sake with Moors, an American trader. Day +before yesterday I was arrested and fined for riding fast in the street, +which made my blood bitter, as the wife of the manager of the German +Firm has twice almost ridden me down, and there seems none to say her +nay. The Germans have behaved pretty badly here, but not in all ways so +ill as you may have gathered: they were doubtless much provoked; and if +the insane Knappe had not appeared upon the scene, might have got out of +the muddle with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as +things occur to me. + +I hope from my outcries about printing you do not think I want you to +keep my news or letters in a Blue Beard closet. I like all friends to +hear of me; they all should if I had ninety hours in the day, and +strength for all of them; but you must have gathered how hard worked I +am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty tired man. + + + _29th December [1889]._ + +To-morrow (Monday, I won't swear to my day of the month; this is the +Sunday between Christmas and New Year) I go up the coast with Mr. +Clarke, one of the London Society missionaries, in a boat to examine +schools, see Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph. Pray Heaven we +have good weather; this is the rainy season; we shall be gone four or +five days; and if the rain keep off, I shall be glad of the change; if +it rain, it will be beastly. This explains still further how hard +pressed I am, as the mail will be gone ere I return, and I have thus +lost the days I meant to write in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets +and copies for me, and is a great nuisance. He said he wished to come to +me in order to learn "long explessions." Henry goes up along with us; +and as I am not fond of him, he may before the trip is over hear some +"stlong explessions." I am writing this on the back balcony at Moors', +palms and a hill like the hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; myself +lying on the floor, and (like the parties in Handel's song) "clad in +robes of virgin white"; the ink is dreadful, the heat delicious, a fine +going breeze in the palms, and from the other side of the house the +sudden angry splash and roar of the Pacific on the reef, where the +warships are still piled from last year's hurricane, some under water, +one high and dry upon her side, the strangest figure of a ship was ever +witnessed; the narrow bay there is full of ships; the men-of-war covered +with sail after the rains, and (especially the German ship, which is +fearfully and awfully top heavy) rolling almost yards in, in what +appears to be calm water. + +Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the Marquesas or +Tahiti: a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of +nature; and this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great German +plantations with their countless regular avenues of palms. The island +has beautiful rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in the +Lothians, with pleasant pools and waterfalls and overhanging verdure, +and often a great volume of sound, so that once I thought I was passing +near a mill, and it was only the voice of the river. I am not specially +attracted by the people; but they are courteous; the women very +attractive, and dress lovely; the men purposelike, well set up, tall, +lean, and dignified. As I write, the breeze is brisking up, doors are +beginning to slam, and shutters; a strong draught sweeps round the +balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow. Here I shut up.--Ever your +affectionate + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + This letter contains the first announcement of the purchase of the + Vailima estate (not yet so named). Sir Percy Shelley had died in the + previous December. + + _Apia, Samoa, Jan. 20th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I shall hope to see you in some months from now, +when I come home--to break up my establishment--I know no diminutive of +the word. Your daughters cast a spell upon me; they were always +declaring I was a winged creature and would vanish into the uttermost +isle; and they were right, and I have made my preparations. I am now the +owner of an estate upon Upolu, some two or three miles behind and above +Apia; three streams, two waterfalls, a great cliff, an ancient native +fort, a view of the sea and lowlands, or (to be more precise) several +views of them in various directions, are now mine. It would be +affectation to omit a good many head of cattle; above all as it required +much diplomacy to have them thrown in, for the gentleman who sold to me +was staunch. Besides all this, there is a great deal more forest than I +have any need for; or to be plain the whole estate is one impassable +jungle, which must be cut down and through at considerable expense. Then +the house has to be built; and then (as a climax) we may have to stand a +siege in it in the next native war. + +I do feel as if I was a coward and a traitor to desert my friends; only, +my dear lady, you know what a miserable corrhyzal (is that how it is +spelt?) creature I was at home: and here I have some real health, I can +walk, I can ride, I can stand some exposure, I am up with the sun, I +have a real enjoyment of the world and of myself; it would be hard to go +back again to England and to bed; and I think it would be very silly. I +am sure it would; and yet I feel shame, and I know I am not writing like +myself. I wish you knew how much I admired you, and when I think of +those I must leave, how early a place your name occupies. I have not had +the pleasure to know you very long; and yet I feel as if my leaving +England were a special treachery to you, and my leaving you a treachery +to myself. I will only ask you to try to forgive me: for I am sure I +will never quite forgive myself. Somebody might write to me in the care +of R. Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, to tell me if you can +forgive. But you will do quite right if you cannot. Only let me come and +see you when we do return, or it will be a lame home-coming. + +My wife suffered a good deal in our last, somewhat arduous voyage; all +our party indeed suffered except myself. Fanny is now better but she is +still no very famous success in the way of health. + +All the while I have been writing, I have had another matter in my eye; +of which I scarce like to speak: You know of course that I am thinking +of Sir Percy and his widow. The news has reached me in the shape of a +newspaper cutting, I have no particulars. He had a sweet, original +nature; I think I liked him better than ever I should have liked his +father; I am sorry he was always a little afraid of me; if I had had +more chance, he would have liked me too, we had so much in common, and +I valued so much his fine soul, as honest as a dog's, and the romance of +him, which was like a dog's too, and like a poet's at the same time. If +he had not been Shelley's son, people would have thought more of him; +and yet he was the better of the two, bar verses. + +Please tell my dear Ida and Una that we think much of them, as well as +of your dear self, and believe me, in words which you once allowed me to +use (and I was very much affected when you did so), your affectionate +friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO DR. SCOTT + + + This gentleman is the physician to whose assiduous care and kindness, + as recorded in the dedication to _Underwoods_, Stevenson owed so much + during his invalid years at Bournemouth. + + _Apia, Samoa, January 20th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR SCOTT,--Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of me +before! I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up +to date) a person whom you would scarce know. I think nothing of long +walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone the other day, partly +riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine. I have stood a six months' +voyage on a copra schooner with about three months ashore on coral +atolls, which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever +from ship's food. My wife suffered badly--it was too rough a business +altogether--Lloyd suffered--and, in short, I was the only one of the +party who "kept my end up." + +I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle; have +even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred acres, I know +not which till the survey is completed, and shall only return next +summer to wind up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a +subject of the High Commissioner. + +Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant patient, +but that I have a medical discovery to communicate. I find I can (almost +immediately) fight off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if +obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from +one to five days sees the cold generally to the door. I find it at once +produces a glow, stops rigour, and though it makes one very +uncomfortable, prevents the advance of the disease. Hearing of this +influenza, it occurred to me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps +a stronger exhibition--injections of cocaine, for instance--still +better. + +If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems +highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much inclined +to make the experiment. See what a gulf you may save me from if you +shall have previously made it on _anima vili_, on some less important +sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless. + +How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your brother and all +friends in Bournemouth.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + After a stay of four or five weeks at Apia, during which he had + fallen more and more in love with Samoa and the Samoans, Stevenson + took steamer again, this time for Sydney, where he had ordered his + letters to await him. This and the two following letters were written + during the passage. I again print in their original place a set of + verses separately published in _Songs of Travel_. + + _Februar den 3en 1890 + Dampfer Lübeck, zwischen Apia und Sydney._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have got one delightful letter from you, and heard +from my mother of your kindness in going to see her. Thank you for that: +you can in no way more touch and serve me.... Ay, ay, it is sad to sell +17; sad and fine were the old days: when I was away in Apemama, I wrote +two copies of verse about Edinburgh and the past, so ink black, so +golden bright. I will send them, if I can find them, for they will say +something to you, and indeed one is more than half addressed to you. +This is it-- + + TO MY OLD COMRADES + + Do you remember--can we e'er forget?-- + How, in the coiled perplexities of youth, + In our wild climate, in our scowling town, + We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared? + The belching winter wind, the missile rain, + The rare and welcome silence of the snows, + The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night, + The grimy spell of the nocturnal town, + Do you remember?--Ah, could one forget! + As when the fevered sick that all night long + Listed the wind intone, and hear at last + The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer + Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn,-- + With sudden ardour, these desire the day: + +(Here a squall sends all flying.) + + So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope; + So we, exulting, hearkened and desired. + For lo! as in the palace porch of life + We huddled with chimeras, from within-- + How sweet to hear!--the music swelled and fell, + And through the breach of the revolving doors + What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled! + I have since then contended and rejoiced; + Amid the glories of the house of life + Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld: + Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes + Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love + Fall insignificant on my closing ears, + What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind + In our inclement city? what return + But the image of the emptiness of youth, + Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice + Of discontent and rapture and despair? + So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp, + The momentary pictures gleam and fade + And perish, and the night resurges--these + Shall I remember, and then all forget. + +They're pretty second-rate, but felt. I can't be bothered to copy the +other. + +I have bought 314-1/2 acres of beautiful land in the bush behind Apia; +when we get the house built, the garden laid, and cattle in the place, +it will be something to fall back on for shelter and food; and if the +island could stumble into political quiet, it is conceivable it might +even bring a little income.... We range from 600 to 1500 feet, have five +streams, waterfalls, precipices, profound ravines, rich tablelands, +fifty head of cattle on the ground (if any one could catch them), a +great view of forest, sea, mountains, the warships in the haven: really +a noble place. Some day you are to take a long holiday and come and see +us: it has been all planned. + +With all these irons in the fire, and cloudy prospects, you may be sure +I was pleased to hear a good account of business. I believed _The +Master_ was a sure card: I wonder why Henley thinks it grimy; grim it +is, God knows, but sure not grimy, else I am the more deceived. I am +sorry he did not care for it; I place it on the line with _Kidnapped_ +myself. We'll see as time goes on whether it goes above or falls below. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + The Editor of Scribner's Magazine had written asking him for fresh + contributions, and he sends the set of verses addressed to + Tembinoka, the king at Butaritari, and afterwards reprinted in + _Songs of Travel_, beginning "Let us who part like brothers part like + bards." + + _S.S. _Lübeck_ [between Apia and Sydney, February] 1890_ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I desire nothing better than to continue my +relation with the Magazine, to which it pleases me to hear I have been +useful. The only thing I have ready is the enclosed barbaric piece. As +soon as I have arrived in Sydney I shall send you some photographs, a +portrait of Tembinoka, perhaps a view of the palace or of the "matted +men" at their singing; also T.'s flag, which my wife designed for him: +in a word, what I can do best for you. It will be thus a foretaste of my +book of travels. I shall ask you to let me have, if I wish it, the use +of the plates made, and to make up a little tract of the verses and +illustrations, of which you might send six copies to H.M. Tembinoka, +King of Apemama, via Butaritari, Gilbert Islands. It might be best to +send it by Crawford & Co., S.F. There is no postal service; and +schooners must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps some such note as +this might be prefixed: + +_At my departure from the island of Apemama, for which you will look in +vain in most atlases, the king and I agreed, since we both set up to be +in the poetical way, that we should celebrate our separation in verse. +Whether or not his majesty has been true to his bargain, the laggard +posts of the Pacific may perhaps inform me in six months, perhaps not +before a year. The following lines represent my part of the contract, +and it is hoped, by their pictures of strange manners, they may +entertain a civilised audience. Nothing throughout has been invented or +exaggerated; the lady herein referred to as the author's Muse, has +confined herself to stringing into rhyme facts and legends that I saw or +heard during two months' residence upon the island._ + + R. L. S. + + +You will have received from me a letter about _The Wrecker_. No doubt +it is a new experiment for me, being disguised so much as a study of +manners, and the interest turning on a mystery of the detective sort. I +think there need be no hesitation about beginning it in the fall of the +year. Lloyd has nearly finished his part, and I shall hope to send you +very soon the MS. of about the first four-sevenths. At the same time, I +have been employing myself in Samoa, collecting facts about the recent +war; and I propose to write almost at once and to publish shortly a +small volume, called I know not what--the War in Samoa, the Samoa +Trouble, an Island War, the War of the Three Consuls, I know +not--perhaps you can suggest. It was meant to be a part of my travel +book; but material has accumulated on my hands until I see myself forced +into volume form, and I hope it may be of use, if it come soon. I have a +few photographs of the war, which will do for illustrations. It is +conceivable you might wish to handle this in the Magazine, although I am +inclined to think you won't, and to agree with you. But if you think +otherwise, there it is. The travel letters (fifty of them) are already +contracted for in papers; these I was quite bound to let M'Clure handle, +as the idea was of his suggestion, and I always felt a little sore as to +one trick I played him in the matter of the end-papers. The war-volume +will contain some very interesting and picturesque details: more I can't +promise for it. Of course the fifty newspaper letters will be simply +patches chosen from the travel volume (or volumes) as it gets written, +But you see I have in hand:-- + + Say half done. 1. _The Wrecker_. + + Lloyd's copy half done, mine 2. _The Pearl Fisher_ (a novel promised + not touched. to the Ledger, and which will form, + when it comes in book form, No. 2 + of our _South Sea Yarns_). + + Not begun, but all material 3. The War volume. + ready. + + Ditto. 4. The Big Travel Book, which includes + the letters. + + You know how they stand. 5. The _Ballads_. + +_Excusez du peu!_ And you see what madness it would be to make any fresh +engagements. At the same time, you have _The Wrecker_ and the War +volume, if you like either--or both--to keep my name in the Magazine. + +It begins to look as if I should not be able to get any more ballads +done this somewhile. I know the book would sell better if it were all +ballads; and yet I am growing half tempted to fill up with some other +verses. A good few are connected with my voyage, such as the "Home of +Tembinoka" sent herewith, and would have a sort of slight affinity to +the _South Sea Ballads_. You might tell me how that strikes a stranger. + +In all this, my real interest is with the travel volume, which ought to +be of a really extraordinary interest. + +I am sending you "Tembinoka" as he stands; but there are parts of him +that I hope to better, particularly in stanzas III. and II. I scarce +feel intelligent enough to try just now; and I thought at any rate you +had better see it, set it up if you think well, and let me have a proof; +so, at least, we shall get the bulk of it straight. I have spared you +Teñkoruti, Tembaitake, Tembinatake, and other barbarous names, because I +thought the dentists in the States had work enough without my +assistance; but my chief's name is TEMBINOKA, pronounced, according to +the present quite modern habit in the Gilberts, Tembinok'. Compare in +the margin Tengkorootch; a singular new trick, setting at defiance all +South Sea analogy, for nowhere else do they show even the ability, far +less the will, to end a word upon a consonant. Loia is Lloyd's name, +ship becomes shipé, teapot tipoté, etc. Our admirable friend Herman +Melville, of whom, since I could judge, I have thought more than ever, +had no ear for languages whatever: his Hapar tribe should be Hapaa, etc. + +But this is of no interest to you: suffice it, you see how I am as usual +up to the neck in projects, and really all likely bairns this time. When +will this activity cease? Too soon for me, I dare to say. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JAMES PAYN + + + _February 4th, 1890_, S.S. Lübeck. + +MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--In virtue of confessions in your last, you would at +the present moment, if you were along of me, be sick; and I will ask you +to receive that as an excuse for my hand of write. Excuse a plain seaman +if he regards with scorn the likes of you pore land-lubbers ashore now. +(Reference to nautical ditty.) Which I may however be allowed to add +that when eight months' mail was laid by my side one evening in Apia, +and my wife and I sat up the most of the night to peruse the +same--(precious indisposed we were next day in consequence)--no letter, +out of so many, more appealed to our hearts than one from the pore, +stick-in-the-mud, land-lubbering, common (or garden) Londoner, James +Payn. Thank you for it; my wife says, "Can't I see him when we get back +to London?" I have told her the thing appeared to me within the spear of +practical politix. (Why can't I spell and write like an honest, sober, +god-fearing litry gent? I think it's the motion of the ship.) Here I was +interrupted to play chess with the chief engineer; as I grow old, I +prefer the "athletic sport of cribbage," of which (I am sure I misquote) +I have just been reading in your delightful _Literary Recollections_. +How you skim along, you and Andrew Lang (different as you are), and yet +the only two who can keep a fellow smiling every page, and ever and +again laughing out loud. I joke wi' deeficulty, I believe; I am not +funny; and when I am, Mrs. Oliphant says I'm vulgar, and somebody else +says (in Latin) that I'm a whore, which seems harsh and even uncalled +for: I shall stick to weepers; a 5s. weeper, 2s. 6d. laugher, 1s. +shocker. + +My dear sir, I grow more and more idiotic; I cannot even feign sanity. +Some time in the month of June a stalwart weather-beaten man, evidently +of seafaring antecedents, shall be observed wending his way between the +Athenæum Club and Waterloo Place. Arrived off No. 17, he shall be +observed to bring his head sharply to the wind, and tack into the outer +haven. "Captain Payn in the harbour?"--"Ay, ay, sir. What +ship?"--"Barquentin R. L. S., nine hundred and odd days out from the port +of Bournemouth, homeward bound, with yarns and curiosities." + +Who was it said, "For God's sake, don't speak of it!" about Scott and +his tears? He knew what he was saying. The fear of that hour is the +skeleton in all our cupboards; that hour when the pastime and the +livelihood go together; and--I am getting hard of hearing myself; a pore +young child of forty, but new come frae my Mammy, O! + +Excuse these follies, and accept the expression of all my +regards.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The _Solution_ is a short story of Mr. Henry James, first published + in a periodical and reprinted in the collection called _The Lesson of + the Master_ (Macmillans). + + _Union Club, Sydney, February 19, 1890._ + +HERE--in this excellent civilised, antipodal club smoking-room, I have +just read the first part of your _Solution_. Dear Henry James, it is an +exquisite art; do not be troubled by the shadows of your French +competitors: not one, not de Maupassant, could have done a thing more +clean and fine; dry in touch, but the atmosphere (as in a fine summer +sunset) rich with colour and with perfume. I shall say no more; this +note is De Solutione; except that I--that we--are all your sincere +friends and hope to shake you by the hand in June. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + signed, sealed and + delivered as his act + and deed + and very thought of very thought, + this nineteenth of February in the year of our + Lord one thousand eight hundred ninety and + nothing. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Written while he was still in a white heat of indignation on behalf + of Father Damien. He was not aware that Dr. Hyde's letter had been a + private one not meant for publicity, and later came to think he might + have struck as effectively on behalf of Damien without striking so + fiercely against Dr. Hyde (see below, p. 404). "Damon" is the Rev. F. + Damon, a missionary in Hawaii. + + _Union Club, Sydney, March 5, 1890._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I understand the family keeps you somewhat informed. +For myself I am in such a whirl of work and society, I can ill spare a +moment. My health is excellent and has been here tried by abominable wet +weather, and (what's waur) dinners and lunches. As this is like to be +our metropolis, I have tried to lay myself out to be sociable with an +eye to yoursel'. Several niceish people have turned up: Fanny has an +evening, but she is about at the end of the virtuous effort, and shrinks +from the approach of any fellow creature. + +Have you seen Hyde's (Dr. not Mr.) letter about Damien? That has been +one of my concerns; I have an answer in the press; and have just written +a difficult letter to Damon trying to prepare him for what (I fear) +must be to him extremely painful. The answer is to come out as a +pamphlet; of which I make of course a present to the publisher. I am not +a cannibal, I would not eat the flesh of Dr. Hyde,--and it is +conceivable it will make a noise in Honolulu. I have struck as hard as I +knew how; nor do I think my answer can fail to do away (in the minds of +all who see it) with the effect of Hyde's incredible and really +villainous production. What a mercy I wasn't this man's _guest_ in the +_Morning Star_! I think it would have broke my heart. + +Time for me to go!--I remain, with love, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + Stevenson had not been long at Sydney--just long enough to write and + print the famous _Letter to Dr. Hyde_ in defence of Father + Damien--when, to his heavy disappointment, he fell ill again with one + of his old bad attacks of fever and hemorrhage from the lungs. It was + this experience which finally determined him to settle for good on + his new island property in Samoa, which at first he had thought of + rather as an occasional refuge and resting-place in the intervals + between future projected yachting voyages. + + _Union Club, Sydney, March 7th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I did not send off the enclosed before from laziness; +having gone quite sick, and being a blooming prisoner here in the club, +and indeed in my bedroom. I was in receipt of your letters and your +ornamental photo, and was delighted to see how well you looked, and how +reasonably well I stood.... I am sure I shall never come back home +except to die; I may do it, but shall always think of the move as +suicidal, unless a great change comes over me, of which as yet I see no +symptom. This visit to Sydney has smashed me handsomely; and yet I made +myself a prisoner here in the club upon my first arrival. This is not +encouraging for further ventures; Sydney winter--or, I might almost say, +Sydney spring, for I came when the worst was over--is so small an +affair, comparable to our June depression at home in Scotland.... The +pipe is right again; it was the springs that had rusted, and ought to +have been oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but, Lord! here in +the club I dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience to be in my own +backwoods and raise the sound of minstrelsy. What pleasures are to be +compared with those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso.--Yours ever +affectionately, the Unvirtuous Virtuoso, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + To try and recover from the effects of his illness at Sydney, + Stevenson determined to take another voyage; and started accordingly + in April with his party on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_, + which took him by a long and devious course among many groups of + islands that he had not yet visited, returning to Sydney in August by + way of New Caledonia. On the first night out of Auckland harbour the + voyage nearly came to a premature end through the blowing up of some + trade fireworks, or materials for fireworks, which had been packed in + the stateroom. + + _S.S. Janet Nicoll, off Upolu [Spring 1890]._ + +MY DEAREST COLVIN,--I was sharply ill at Sydney, cut off, right out of +bed, in this steamer on a fresh island cruise, and have already reaped +the benefit. We are excellently found this time, on a spacious vessel, +with an excellent table; the captain, supercargo, our one +fellow-passenger, etc., very nice; and the charterer, Mr. Henderson, the +very man I could have chosen. The truth is, I fear, this life is the +only one that suits me; so long as I cruise in the South Seas, I shall +be well and happy--alas, no, I do not mean that, and _absit omen_!--I +mean that, so soon as I cease from cruising, the nerves are strained, +the decline commences, and I steer slowly but surely back to bedward. We +left Sydney, had a cruel rough passage to Auckland, for the _Janet_ is +the worst roller I was ever aboard of. I was confined to my cabin, +ports closed, self shied out of the berth, stomach (pampered till the +day I left on a diet of perpetual egg-nogg) revolted at ship's food and +ship eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging with one hand to the plate, with +the other to the glass, and using the knife and fork (except at +intervals) with the eyelid. No matter: I picked up hand over hand. After +a day in Auckland, we set sail again; were blown up in the main cabin +with calcium fires, as we left the bay. Let no man say I am +unscientific: when I ran, on the alert, out of my stateroom, and found +the main cabin incarnadined with the glow of the last scene of a +pantomime, I stopped dead: "What is this?" said I. "This ship is on +fire, I see that; but why a pantomime?" And I stood and reasoned the +point, until my head was so muddled with the fumes that I could not find +the companion. A few seconds later, the captain had to enter crawling on +his belly, and took days to recover (if he has recovered) from the +fumes. By singular good fortune, we got the hose down in time and saved +the ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes and a great part of our +photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw the native sailors tossing +overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it +contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine +weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a vexatious sea. As +we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage Island, a man ashore +told me afterwards the sight of the _Janet Nicoll_ made him sick; and +indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night before. All +through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem spearing the +ink-bottle like a flying fish, and holding my papers together as I +might. For, of all things, what I was at was history--the Samoan +business--and I had to turn from one to another of these piles of +manuscript notes, and from one page to another in each, until I should +have found employment for the hands of Briareus. All the same, this +history is a godsend for a voyage; I can put in time, getting events +co-ordinated and the narrative distributed, when my much-heaving +numskull would be incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met +the missionary barque _John Williams_. I tell you it was a great day for +Savage Island: the path up the cliffs was crowded with gay islandresses +(I like that feminine plural) who wrapped me in their embraces, and +picked my pockets of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch would +have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, like the Golden +Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, with a red flower behind her +ear, had searched me with extraordinary zeal; and when, soon after, I +missed my matches, I accused her (she still following us) of being the +thief. After some delay, and with a subtle smile, she produced the box, +gave me _one match_, and put the rest away again. Too tired to add +more.--Your most affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + The idea here discussed of a further series of essays to be + contributed to Scribner's Magazine was never carried out. + + _S.S. Janet Nicoll, off Peru Island, Kingsmills + Group, July 13th, '90._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I am moved to write to you in the matter of the end +papers. I am somewhat tempted to begin them again. Follow the reasons +_pro_ and _con_:-- + +1st. I must say I feel as if something in the nature of the end paper +were a desirable finish to the number, and that the substitutes of +occasional essays by occasional contributors somehow fail to fill the +bill. Should you differ with me on this point, no more is to be said. +And what follows must be regarded as lost words. + +2nd. I am rather taken with the idea of continuing the work. For +instance, should you have no distaste for papers of the class called +_Random Memories_, I should enjoy continuing them (of course at +intervals), and when they were done I have an idea they might make a +readable book. On the other hand, I believe a greater freedom of choice +might be taken, the subjects more varied and more briefly treated, in +somewhat approaching the manner of Andrew Lang in the _Sign of the +Ship_; it being well understood that the broken sticks[34] method is one +not very suitable (as Colonel Burke would say) to my genius, and not +very likely to be pushed far in my practice. Upon this point I wish you +to condense your massive brain. In the last lot I was promised, and I +fondly expected to receive, a vast amount of assistance from intelligent +and genial correspondents. I assure you, I never had a scratch of a pen +from any one above the level of a village idiot, except once, when a +lady sowed my head full of grey hairs by announcing that she was going +to direct her life in future by my counsels. Will the correspondents be +more copious and less irrelevant in the future? Suppose that to be the +case, will they be of any use to me in my place of exile? Is it possible +for a man in Samoa to be in touch with the great heart of the People? +And is it not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so hopeless a +distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers? Upon these points, +perpend, and give me the results of your perpensions. + +3rd. The emolument would be agreeable to your humble servant. + +I have now stated all the _pros_, and the most of the _cons_ are come in +by the way. There follows, however, one immense Con (with a capital +"C"), which I beg you to consider particularly. I fear that, to be of +any use for your magazine, these papers should begin with the beginning +of a volume. Even supposing my hands were free, this would be now +impossible for next year. You have to consider whether, supposing you +have no other objection, it would be worth while to begin the series in +the middle of a volume, or desirable to delay the whole matter until +the beginning of another year. + +Now supposing that the _cons_ have it, and you refuse my offer, let me +make another proposal, which you will be very inclined to refuse at the +first off-go, but which I really believe might in time come to +something. You know how the penny papers have their answers to +correspondents. Why not do something of the same kind for the +"culchawed"? Why not get men like Stimson, Brownell, Professor James, +Goldwin Smith, and others who will occur to you more readily than to me, +to put and to answer a series of questions of intellectual and general +interest, until at last you should have established a certain standard +of matter to be discussed in this part of the Magazine? + +I want you to get me bound volumes of the Magazine from its start. The +Lord knows I have had enough copies; where they are I know not. A +wandering author gathers no magazines. + +_The Wrecker_ is in no forrader state than in last reports. I have +indeed got to a period when I cannot well go on until I can refresh +myself on the proofs of the beginning. My respected collaborator, who +handles the machine which is now addressing you, has indeed carried his +labours farther, but not, I am led to understand, with what we used to +call a blessing; at least, I have been refused a sight of his latest +labours. However, there is plenty of time ahead, and I feel no anxiety +about the tale, except that it may meet with your approval. + +All this voyage I have been busy over my _Travels_, which, given a very +high temperature and the saloon of a steamer usually going before the +wind, and with the cabins in front of the engines, has come very near to +prostrating me altogether. You will therefore understand that there are +no more poems. I wonder whether there are already enough, and whether +you think that such a volume would be worth the publishing? I shall hope +to find in Sydney some expression of your opinion on this point. Living +as I do among--not the most cultured of mankind ("splendidly educated +and perfect gentlemen when sober")--I attach a growing importance to +friendly criticisms from yourself. + +I believe that this is the most of our business. As for my health, I got +over my cold in a fine style, but have not been very well of late. To my +unaffected annoyance, the blood-spitting has started again. I find the +heat of a steamer decidedly wearing and trying in these latitudes, and I +am inclined to think the superior expedition rather dearly paid for. +Still, the fact that one does not even remark the coming of a squall, +nor feel relief on its departure, is a mercy not to be acknowledged +without gratitude. The rest of the family seem to be doing fairly well; +both seem less run down than they were on the _Equator_, and Mrs. +Stevenson very much less so. We have now been three months away, have +visited about thirty-five islands, many of which were novel to us, and +some extremely entertaining; some also were old acquaintances, and +pleasant to revisit. In the meantime, we have really a capital time +aboard ship, in the most pleasant and interesting society, and with +(considering the length and nature of the voyage) an excellent table. +Please remember us all to Mr. Scribner, the young chieftain of the +house, and the lady, whose health I trust is better. To Mrs. Burlingame +we all desire to be remembered, and I hope you will give our news to +Low, St. Gaudens, Faxon, and others of the faithful in the city. I shall +probably return to Samoa direct, having given up all idea of returning +to civilisation in the meanwhile. There, on my ancestral acres, which I +purchased six months ago from a blind Scots blacksmith, you will please +address me until further notice. The name of the ancestral acres is +going to be Vailima; but as at the present moment nobody else knows the +name, except myself and the co-patentees, it will be safer, if less +ambitious, to address R. L. S., Apia, Samoa. The ancestral acres run to +upwards of three hundred; they enjoy the ministrations of five streams, +whence the name. They are all at the present moment under a trackless +covering of magnificent forest, which would be worth a great deal if it +grew beside a railway terminus. To me, as it stands, it represents a +handsome deficit. Obliging natives from the Cannibal Islands are now +cutting it down at my expense. You would be able to run your magazine to +much greater advantage if the terms of authors were on the same scale +with those of my cannibals. We have also a house about the size of a +manufacturer's lodge. 'Tis but the egg of the future palace, over the +details of which on paper Mrs. Stevenson and I have already shed real +tears; what it will be when it comes to paying for it, I leave you to +imagine. But if it can only be built as now intended, it will be with +genuine satisfaction and a growunded pride that I shall welcome you at +the steps of my Old Colonial Home, when you land from the steamer on a +long-merited holiday. I speak much at my ease; yet I do not know, I may +be now an outlaw, a bankrupt, the abhorred of all good men. I do not +know, you probably do. Has Hyde[35] turned upon me? Have I fallen, like +Danvers Carew? + +It is suggested to me that you might like to know what will be my future +society. Three consuls, all at loggerheads with one another, or at the +best in a clique of two against one; three different sects of +missionaries, not upon the best of terms; and the Catholics and +Protestants in a condition of unhealable ill-feeling as to whether a +wooden drum ought or ought not to be beaten to announce the time of +school. The native population, very genteel, very songful, very +agreeable, very good-looking, chronically spoiling for a fight (a +circumstance not to be entirely neglected in the design of the palace). +As for the white population of (technically, "The Beach"), I don't +suppose it is possible for any person not thoroughly conversant with the +South Seas to form the smallest conception of such a society, with its +grog-shops, its apparently unemployed hangers-on, its merchants of all +degrees of respectability and the reverse. The paper, of which I must +really send you a copy--if yours were really a live magazine, you would +have an exchange with the editor: I assure you, it has of late contained +a great deal of matter about one of your contributors--rejoices in the +name of Samoa Times and South Sea Advertiser. The advertisements in the +Advertiser are permanent, being simply subsidies for its existence. A +dashing warfare of newspaper correspondence goes on between the various +residents, who are rather fond of recurring to one another's +antecedents. But when all is said, there are a lot of very nice, +pleasant people, and I don't know that Apia is very much worse than half +a hundred towns that I could name. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + As above indicated, on the way between Samoa and Sydney Stevenson + left the _Janet Nicoll_ for a week's stay in New Caledonia, during + which he was hospitably received by the French officials. + + _Hotel Sebastopol, Noumea, August 1890._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have stayed here a week while Lloyd and my wife +continue to voyage in the _Janet Nicoll_; this I did, partly to see the +convict system, partly to shorten my stay in the extreme cold--hear me +with my extreme! _moi qui suis originaire d'Edimbourg_--of Sydney at +this season. I am feeling very seedy, utterly fatigued and overborne +with sleep. I have a fine old gentleman of a doctor, who attends and +cheers and entertains, if he does not cure me; but even with his +ministrations I am almost incapable of the exertion sufficient for this +letter; and I am really, as I write, falling down with sleep. What is +necessary to say, I must try to say shortly. Lloyd goes to clear out our +establishments: pray keep him in funds, if I have any; if I have not, +pray try to raise them. Here is the idea: to install ourselves, at the +risk of bankruptcy, in Samoa. It is not the least likely it will pay +(although it may); but it is almost certain it will support life, with +very few external expenses. If I die, it will be an endowment for the +survivors, at least for my wife and Lloyd; and my mother, who might +prefer to go home, has her own. Hence I believe I shall do well to hurry +my installation. The letters are already in part done; in part done is a +novel for Scribner; in the course of the next twelve months I should +receive a considerable amount of money. I am aware I had intended to pay +back to my capital some of this. I am now of opinion I should act +foolishly. Better to build the house and have a roof and farm of my own; +and thereafter, with a livelihood assured, save and repay.... There is +my livelihood, all but books and wine, ready in a nutshell; and it ought +to be more easy to save and to repay afterwards. Excellent, say you, but +will you save and will you repay? I do not know, said the Bell of Old +Bow.... It seems clear to me.... The deuce of the affair is that I do +not know when I shall see you and Colvin. I guess you will have to come +and see me: many a time already we have arranged the details of your +visit in the yet unbuilt house on the mountain. I shall be able to get +decent wine from Noumea. We shall be able to give you a decent welcome, +and talk of old days. _Apropos_ of old days, do you remember still the +phrase we heard in Waterloo Place? I believe you made a piece for the +piano on that phrase. Pray, if you remember it, send it me in your next. +If you find it impossible to write correctly, send it me _à la +récitative_, and indicate the accents. Do you feel (you must) how +strangely heavy and stupid I am? I must at last give up and go sleep; I +am simply a rag. + +_The morrow._--I feel better, but still dim and groggy. To-night I go to +the governor's; such a lark--no dress clothes--twenty-four hours' +notice--able-bodied Polish tailor--suit made for a man with the figure +of a puncheon--same hastily altered for self with the figure of a +bodkin--sight inconceivable. Never mind; dress clothes, "which nobody +can deny"; and the officials have been all so civil that I liked neither +to refuse nor to appear in mufti. Bad dress clothes only prove you are a +grisly ass; no dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of +respect. I wish you were here with me to help me dress in this wild +raiment, and to accompany me to M. Noel-Pardon's. I cannot say what I +would give if there came a knock now at the door and you came in. I +guess Noel-Pardon would go begging, and we might burn the fr. 200 dress +clothes in the back garden for a bonfire; or what would be yet more +expensive and more humorous, get them once more expanded to fit you, and +when that was done, a second time cut down for my gossamer dimensions. + +I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, who has always a +place in my heart, as I hope I have a little in his. His kindness helped +me infinitely when you and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and +affection in this town of convicts at the world's end. There are very +few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a retrospect of life, the +day's flash and colour, one day with another, flames, dazzles, and puts +to sleep; and when the days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope, +they make but a single pattern. Only a few things stand out; and among +these--most plainly to me--Rutland Square.--Ever, my dear Charles, your +affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Just returned from trying on the dress clo'. Lord, you should +see the coat! It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross +in front, the sleeves are like bags. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + Proceeding from New Caledonia to Sydney, Stevenson again made a stay + there of about a month, before going to settle in his new island home + and superintend the operations of planting and building. The next + letter is in acknowledgment of proofs received from Messrs. Scribner + of a proposed volume of verse to contain, besides _Ticonderoga_ and + the two ballads on Marquesan and Tahitian legends, a number of the + other miscellaneous verses which he had written in the course of his + travels. In the end, the ballads only stood for publication at this + time; the other verses were reserved, and have been posthumously + published under the title _Songs of Travel_. + + _Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,-- + + _Ballads._ + +The deuce is in this volume. It has cost me more botheration and dubiety +than any other I ever took in hand. On one thing my mind is made up: the +verses at the end have no business there, and throw them down. Many of +them are bad, many of the rest want nine years' keeping, and the +remainder are not relevant--throw them down; some I never want to hear +of more, others will grow in time towards decent items in a second +_Underwoods_--and in the meanwhile, down with them! At the same time, I +have a sneaking idea the ballads are not altogether without merit--I +don't know if they're poetry, but they're good narrative, or I'm +deceived. (You've never said one word about them, from which I astutely +gather you are dead set against: "he was a diplomatic man"--extract from +epitaph of E. L. B.--"and remained on good terms with Minor Poets.") You +will have to judge: one of the Gladstonian trinity of paths must be +chosen. (1st) Either publish the five ballads, such as they are, in a +volume called _Ballads_; in which case pray send sheets at once to +Chatto and Windus. Or (2nd) write and tell me you think the book too +small, and I'll try and get into the mood to do some more. Or (3rd) +write and tell me the whole thing is a blooming illusion; in which case +draw off some twenty copies for my private entertainment, and charge me +with the expense of the whole dream. + +In the matter of rhyme no man can judge himself; I am at the world's +end, have no one to consult, and my publisher holds his tongue. I call +it unfair and almost unmanly. I do indeed begin to be filled with +animosity; Lord, wait till you see the continuation of _The Wrecker_, +when I introduce some New York publishers.... It's a good scene; the +quantities you drink and the really hideous language you are represented +as employing may perhaps cause you one tithe of the pain you have +inflicted by your silence on, sir, The Poetaster, + + R. L. S. + + +Lloyd is off home; my wife and I dwell sundered: she in lodgings, +preparing for the move; I here in the club, and at my old +trade--bedridden. Naturally, the visit home is given up; we only wait +our opportunity to get to Samoa, where, please, address me. + +Have I yet asked you to despatch the books and papers left in your care +to me at Apia, Samoa? I wish you would, _quam primum_. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Union Club, Sydney, August 1890._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Kipling is too clever to live. The _Bête +Humaine_[36] I had already perused in Noumea, listening the while to the +strains of the convict band. He is a Beast; but not human, and, to be +frank, not very interesting. "Nervous maladies: the homicidal ward," +would be the better name: O, this game gets very tedious. + +Your two long and kind letters have helped to entertain the old familiar +sickbed. So has a book called _The Bondman_, by Hall Caine; I wish you +would look at it. I am not half-way through yet. Read the book, and +communicate your views. Hall Caine, by the way, appears to take Hugo's +view of History and Chronology (_Later_; the book doesn't keep up; it +gets very wild.) + +I must tell you plainly--I can't tell Colvin--I do not think I shall +come to England more than once, and then it'll be to die. Health I enjoy +in the tropics; even here, which they call sub- or semi-tropical, I come +only to catch cold. I have not been out since my arrival; live here in +a nice bedroom by the fireside, and read books and letters from Henry +James, and send out to get his _Tragic Muse_, only to be told they can't +be had as yet in Sydney, and have altogether a placid time. But I can't +go out! The thermometer was nearly down to 50° the other day--no +temperature for me, Mr. James: how should I do in England? I fear not at +all. Am I very sorry? I am sorry about seven or eight people in England, +and one or two in the States. And outside of that, I simply prefer +Samoa. These are the words of honesty and soberness. (I am fasting from +all but sin, coughing, _The Bondman_, a couple of eggs and a cup of +tea.) I was never fond of towns, houses, society, or (it seems) +civilisation. Nor yet it seems was I ever very fond of (what is +technically called) God's green earth. The sea, islands, the islanders, +the island life and climate, make and keep me truly happier. These last +two years I have been much at sea, and I have _never wearied_; sometimes +I have indeed grown impatient for some destination; more often I was +sorry that the voyage drew so early to an end; and never once did I lose +my fidelity to blue water and a ship. It is plain, then, that for me my +exile to the place of schooners and islands can be in no sense regarded +as a calamity. + +Good-bye just now: I must take a turn at my proofs. + + +_N.B._--Even my wife has weakened about the sea. She wearied, the last +time we were ashore, to get afloat again.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MARCEL SCHWOB + + + _Union Club, Sydney, August 19th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR MR. SCHWOB,--_Mais, alors, vous avez tous les bonheurs, vous!_ +More about Villon; it seems incredible: when it is put in order, pray +send it me. + +You wish to translate the _Black Arrow_: dear sir, you are hereby +authorised; but I warn you, I do not like the work. Ah, if you, who know +so well both tongues, and have taste and instruction--if you would but +take a fancy to translate a book of mine that I myself admired--for we +sometimes admire our own--or I do--with what satisfaction would the +authority be granted! But these things are too much to expect. _Vous ne +détestez pas alors mes bonnes femmes? moi, je les déteste._ I have never +pleased myself with any women of mine save two character parts, one of +only a few lines--the Countess of Rosen, and Madame Desprez in the +_Treasure of Franchard_. + +I had indeed one moment of pride about my poor _Black Arrow_: Dickon +Crookback I did, and I do, think is a spirited and possible figure. +Shakespeare's--O, if we can call that cocoon Shakespeare!--Shakespeare's +is spirited--one likes to see the untaught athlete butting against the +adamantine ramparts of human nature, head down, breech up; it reminds us +how trivial we are to-day, and what safety resides in our triviality. +For spirited it may be, but O, sure not possible! I love Dumas and I +love Shakespeare: you will not mistake me when I say that the Richard of +the one reminds me of the Porthos of the other; and if by any sacrifice +of my own literary baggage I could clear the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ of +Porthos, _Jekyll_ might go, and the _Master_, and the _Black Arrow_, you +may be sure, and I should think my life not lost for mankind if half a +dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in. + +The tone of your pleasant letters makes me egotistical; you make me take +myself too gravely. Comprehend how I have lived much of my time in +France, and loved your country, and many of its people, and all the time +was learning that which your country has to teach--breathing in rather +that atmosphere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the +time knew--and raged to know--that I might write with the pen of angels +or of heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps in +M. Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, and reads and +understands, and is kind enough to like my work. + +I am just now overloaded with work. I have two huge novels on hand--_The +Wrecker_ and the _Pearl Fisher_,[37] in collaboration with my stepson: +the latter, the _Pearl Fisher_, I think highly of, for a black, ugly, +trampling, violent story, full of strange scenes and striking +characters. And then I am about waist-deep in my big book on the South +Seas: _the_ big book on the South Seas it ought to be, and shall. And +besides, I have some verses in the press, which, however, I hesitate to +publish. For I am no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so +facile. All this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa keep +me very busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed. + +Alas, I shall not have the pleasure to see you yet awhile, if ever. You +must be content to take me as a wandering voice, and in the form of +occasional letters from recondite islands; and address me, if you will +be good enough to write, to Apia, Samoa. My stepson, Mr. Osbourne, goes +home meanwhile to arrange some affairs; it is not unlikely he may go to +Paris to arrange about the illustrations to my South Seas; in which case +I shall ask him to call upon you, and give you some word of our +outlandish destinies. You will find him intelligent, I think; and I am +sure, if (_par hasard_) you should take any interest in the islands, he +will have much to tell you.--Herewith I conclude, and am your obliged +and interested correspondent, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--The story you refer to has got lost in the post. + + + + +TO ANDREW LANG + + + _Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._ + +MY DEAR LANG,--I observed with a great deal of surprise and interest +that a controversy in which you have been taking sides at home, in +yellow London, hinges in part at least on the Gilbert Islanders and +their customs in burial. Nearly six months of my life has been passed in +the group: I have revisited it but the other day; and I make haste to +tell you what I know. The upright stones--I enclose you a photograph of +one on Apemama--are certainly connected with religion; I do not think +they are adored. They stand usually on the windward shore of the +islands, that is to say, apart from habitation (on _enclosed islands_, +where the people live on the sea side, I do not know how it is, never +having lived on one). I gathered from Tembinoka, Rex Apemamae, that the +pillars were supposed to fortify the island from invasion: spiritual +martellos. I think he indicated they were connected with the cult of +Tenti--pronounce almost as chintz in English, the _t_ being explosive; +but you must take this with a grain of salt, for I knew no word of +Gilbert Island; and the King's English, although creditable, is rather +vigorous than exact. Now, here follows the point of interest to you: +such pillars, or standing stones, have no connection with graves. The +most elaborate grave that I have ever seen in the group--to be +certain--is in the form of a _raised border_ of gravel, usually strewn +with broken glass. One, of which I cannot be sure that it was a grave, +for I was told by one that it was, and by another that it was +not--consisted of a mound about breast high in an excavated taro swamp, +on the top of which was a child's house, or rather _maniapa_--that is to +say, shed, or open house, such as is used in the group for social or +political gatherings--so small that only a child could creep under its +eaves. I have heard of another great tomb on Apemama, which I did not +see; but here again, by all accounts, no sign of a standing stone. My +report would be--no connection between standing stones and sepulture. I +shall, however, send on the terms of the problem to a highly intelligent +resident trader, who knows more than perhaps any one living, white or +native, of the Gilbert group; and you shall have the result. In Samoa, +whither I return for good, I shall myself make inquiries; up to now, I +have neither seen nor heard of any standing stones in that +group.--Yours, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + Exactly what tale of doings in the garret at Skerryvore had been + related to Stevenson (in the character of Robin Lewison) by his + correspondent (in the character of Miss Green) cannot well be + gathered from this reply. But the letter is interesting as containing + the only mention of certain schemes of romance afterwards abandoned. + + _Union Club, Sydney, 1st September 1890._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I find you have been behaving very ill: _been_ +very ill, in fact. I find this hard to forgive; probably should not +forgive it at all if Robin Lewison had not been sick himself and a +wretched sick-room prisoner in this club for near a month. Well, the +best and bravest sometimes fail. But who is Miss Green? Don't know her! +I knew a lady of an exceedingly generous and perfervid nature--worthy to +be suspected of Scotch blood for the pertervidness--equipped with a +couple--perhaps a brace sounds better English--of perfervid eyes--with a +certain graceful gaucherie of manner, almost like a child's, and that is +at once the highest point of gaucherie and grace--a friend everybody I +ever saw was delighted to see come and sorry to see go. Yes, I knew that +lady, and can see her now. But who was Miss Green? There is something +amiss here. Either the Robin Lewisons have been very shabbily treated, +or--and this is the serious part of the affair--somebody unknown to me +has been entrusted with the key of the Skerryvore garret. This may go as +far as the Old Bailey, ma'am. + +But why should I gird at you or anybody, when the truth is we are the +most miserable sinners in the world? For we are not coming home, I dare +not. Even coming to Sydney has made me quite ill, and back I go to +Samoa, whither please address--Apia, Samoa--(and remember it is Sámó-a, +a spondee to begin with, or Sahmoa, if you prefer that writing)--back I +and my wife go to Samoa to live on our landed estate with four black +labour boys in a kind of a sort of house, which Lloyd will describe to +you. For he has gone to England: receive him like a favour and a piece +of cake; he is our greeting to friends. + +I paused here to put in the date on the first page. I am precious nearly +through my fortieth year, thinks I to myself. Must be nearly as old as +Miss Green, thinks I. O, come! I exclaimed, not as bad as that! Some +lees of youth about the old remnant yet. + +My amiable Miss Green, I beg you to give me news of your health, and if +it may be good news. And when you shall have seen Lloyd, to tell me how +his reports of the South Seas and our new circumstances strike such an +awfully old person as yourself, and to tell me if you ever received a +letter I sent you from Hawaii. I remember thinking--or remember +remembering rather--it was (for me) quite a long respectable +communication. Also, you might tell me if you got my war-whoop and +scalping-knife assault on _le nommé_ Hyde. + +I ought not to forget to say your tale fetched me (Miss Green) by its +really vile probability. If we had met that man in Honolulu he would +have done it, and Miss Green would have done it. Only, alas! there is no +completed novel lying in the garret: would there were! It should be out +to-morrow with the name to it, and relieve a kind of tightness in the +money market much deplored in our immediate circle. To be sure (now I +come to think of it) there are some seven chapters of _The Great North +Road_; three, I think, of _Robin Run the Hedge_, given up when some +nefarious person pre-empted the name; and either there--or somewhere +else--likely New York--one chapter of _David Balfour_, and five or six +of the _Memoirs of Henry Shovel_. That's all. But Lloyd and I have +one-half of The Wrecker in type, and a good part of _The Pearl Fisher_ +(O, a great and grisly tale that!) in MS. And I have a projected, +entirely planned love-story--everybody will think it dreadfully +improper, I'm afraid--called _Cannonmills_. And I've a vague, rosy haze +before me--a love-story too, but not improper--called _The Rising Sun_. +(It's the name of the wayside inn where the story, or much of the story, +runs; but it's a kind of a pun: it means the stirring up of a boy by +falling in love, and how he rises in the estimation of a girl who +despised him, though she liked him, and had befriended him; I really +scarce see beyond their childhood yet, but I want to go beyond, and make +each out-top the other by successions: it should be pretty and true if I +could do it.) Also I have my big book, _The South Seas_, always with me, +and a sair handfu'--if I may be allowed to speak Scotch to Miss Green--a +sair handfu' it is likely to be. All this literary gossip I bestow upon +you _entre confrères_, Miss Green, which is little more than fair, Miss +Green. + +Allow me to remark that it is now half-past twelve o'clock of the living +night; I should certainly be ashamed of myself, and you also; for this +is no time of the night for Miss Green to be colloguing with a +comparatively young gentleman of forty. So with all the kindest wishes +to yourself, and all at Lostock, and all friends in Hants, or over the +borders in Dorset, I bring my folly to an end. Please believe, even when +I am silent, in my real affection; I need not say the same for Fanny, +more obdurately silent, not less affectionate than I.--Your friend, + + ROBERT--ROBIN LEWISON. + + +(Nearly had it wrong--force of habit.) + + + + +TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD + + + _Union Club, Sydney [September 1890]._ + +MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--I began a letter to you on board the _Janet +Nicoll_ on my last cruise, wrote, I believe, two sheets, and ruthlessly +destroyed the flippant trash. Your last has given me great pleasure and +some pain, for it increased the consciousness of my neglect. Now, this +must go to you, whatever it is like. + +... It is always harshness that one regrets.... I regret also my letter +to Dr. Hyde. Yes, I do; I think it was barbarously harsh; if I did it +now, I would defend Damien no less well, and give less pain to those who +are alive. These promptings of good-humour are not all sound; the three +times three, cheer boys cheer, and general amiability business rests on +a sneaking love of popularity, the most insidious enemy of virtue. On +the whole, it was virtuous to defend Damien; but it was harsh to strike +so hard at Dr. Hyde. When I wrote the letter, I believed he would bring +an action, in which case I knew I could be beggared. And as yet there +has come no action; the injured Doctor has contented himself up to now +with the (truly innocuous) vengeance of calling me a "Bohemian Crank," +and I have deeply wounded one of his colleagues whom I esteemed and +liked. + +Well, such is life. You are quite right; our civilisation is a hollow +fraud, all the fun of life is lost by it; all it gains is that a larger +number of persons can continue to be contemporaneously unhappy on the +surface of the globe. O, unhappy!--there is a big word and a +false--continue to be not nearly--by about twenty per cent.--so happy as +they might be: that would be nearer the mark. + +When--observe that word, which I will write again and larger--WHEN you +come to see us in Samoa, you will see for yourself a healthy and happy +people. + +You see, you are one of the very few of our friends rich enough to come +and see us; and when my house is built, and the road is made, and we +have enough fruit planted and poultry and pigs raised, it is undeniable +that you must come--must is the word; that is the way in which I speak +to ladies. You and Fairchild, anyway--perhaps my friend Blair--we'll +arrange details in good time. It will be the salvation of your souls, +and make you willing to die. + +Let me tell you this: In '74 or 5 there came to stay with my father and +mother a certain Mr. Seed, a prime minister or something of New Zealand. +He spotted what my complaint was; told me that I had no business to stay +in Europe; that I should find all I cared for, and all that was good for +me, in the Navigator Islands; sat up till four in the morning persuading +me, demolishing my scruples. And I resisted: I refused to go so far from +my father and mother. O, it was virtuous, and O, wasn't it silly! But my +father, who was always my dearest, got to his grave without that pang; +and now in 1890, I (or what is left of me) go at last to the Navigator +Islands. God go with us! It is but a Pisgah sight when all is said; I go +there only to grow old and die; but when you come, you will see it is a +fair place for the purpose. + +Flaubert[38] has not turned up; I hope he will soon; I knew of him only +through Maxime Descamps.--With kindest messages to yourself and all of +yours, I remain + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [27] King Kalakaua. + + [28] This is the Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (d. 1899). + + [29] Stevenson's stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time + living at Honolulu, and joined his party and family for good after + they arrived at Sydney in the following autumn. + + [30] R. A. M. Stevenson was at this time professor of Fine Art in the + University of Liverpool. + + [31] The Hawaiian name for white men. + + [32] The writer has omitted something here. + + [33] Table of chapter headings follows. + + [34] French _bâtons rompus_: disconnected thoughts or studies. + + [35] The Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu: in reference to Stevenson's + letter on Father Damien. + + [36] By Émile Zola. + + [37] Afterwards re-named _The Ebb-Tide_. + + [38] His _Letters_. + + + + +END OF VOL. XXIV + + +PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - +Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON *** + +***** This file should be named 31809-8.txt or 31809-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/0/31809/ + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume XXIV, by Robert Louis Stevenson. + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + body { margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%; text-align: justify;} + p { margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 1em; line-height: 1.4em;} + p.noind { margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 0; } + + h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { text-align: center; } + hr { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; width: 70%; height: 5px; background-color: #dcdcdc; border:none; } + hr.art { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 40%; height: 5px; background-color: #657383; + margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 6em } + hr.foot {text-align: left; margin-left: 2em; width: 16%; background-color: black; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0; height: 1px; } + hr.short {height: 1px; width: 20%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; } + hr.full {width: 100%;} + + .f80 { font-size: 80% } + .f90 { font-size: 90% } + + table.reg, table.reg1, table.reg2 { margin-left: auto; 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25) + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Other: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: March 28, 2010 [EBook #31809] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON *** + + + + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<h4>THE WORKS OF</h4> + +<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3> + +<h4>SWANSTON EDITION</h4> + +<h5>VOLUME XXIV</h5> +<div class="pt3"> </div> + +<p class="noind center"><i>Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five<br /> +Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS<br /> +STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies<br /> +have been printed, of which only Two Thousand<br /> +Copies are for sale.</i></p> + +<p class="noind center"><i>This is No. <span style="font-size: 60%;">............</span></i></p> + +<div class="figcenter1"> +<img style="border:0; width:442px; height:700px" + src="images/img1.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center f80">TEMBINOKA, KING OF APEMAMA, WITH THE HEIR-APPARENT</p> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<h3>THE WORKS OF</h3> +<h2>ROBERT LOUIS</h2> +<h2>STEVENSON</h2> + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<h5>VOLUME TWENTY FOUR</h5> +<div class="pt3"> </div> + +<h5>LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND<br /> +WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL<br /> +AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM<br /> +HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN<br /> +AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII</h5> + +<p class="noind center"><i>For permission to use the</i> <span class="sc">Letters</span> <i>in the</i><br /> +<span class="sc">Swanston Edition of Stevenson’s Works</span><br /> +<i>the Publishers are indebted to the kindness of</i><br /> +<span class="sc">Messrs. Methuen & Co., Ltd</span>.</p> + +<div class="pt3"> </div> +<h6>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h6> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<h4>THE LETTERS OF</h4> +<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3> + +<h6>EDITED BY</h6> +<h3>SIDNEY COLVIN</h3> + +<h5>PARTS VII—X</h5> + +<hr class="art" /> +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table style="border-collapse: collapse;" class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr> <td class="center" colspan="2"><h4>VII. THE RIVIERA AGAIN—MARSEILLES +AND HYÈRES</h4></td></tr> + +<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> <td> </td> + <td class="tc2b">PAGE</td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page3">3</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters—</td> + <td class="tc2b"> </td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Editor of the New York Tribune</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page7">7</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page8">8</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page9">9</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page9">9</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Trevor Haddon</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page10">10</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to John Addington Symonds]</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page11">11</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page14">14</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page15">15</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page16">16</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page17">17</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page21">21</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page22">22</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page23">23</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Sitwell</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page24">24</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page26">26</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page27">27</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page28">28</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page29">29</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page30">30</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page31">31</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page32">32</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page33">33</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page34">34</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page36">36</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Jules Simoneau</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page36">36</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page37">37</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Trevor Haddon</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page39">39</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Jules Simoneau</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page41">41</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page44">44</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page45">45</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page46">46</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page47">47</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page50">50</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page52">52</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page54">54</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page55">55</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page57">57</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page57">57</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page59">59</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page62">62</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page63">63</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page65">65</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page66">66</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page67">67</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page69">69</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Milne</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page70">70</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page71">71</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page72">72</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page73">73</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page74">74</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page75">75</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page76">76</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page78">78</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page79">79</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page81">81</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. Dick</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page83">83</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Cosmo Monkhouse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page85">85</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page87">87</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page88">88</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page89">89</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page90">90</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page91">91</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Trevor Haddon</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page93">93</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Cosmo Monkhouse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page95">95</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page96">96</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page97">97</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page98">98</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page99">99</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page100">100</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page101">101</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page102">102</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="center pt2" colspan="2"><h4>VIII. LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH</h4></td></tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page104">104</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters—</td> + <td class="tc2b"> </td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page110">110</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Andrew Chatto</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page110">110</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page111">111</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Rev. Professor Lewis Campbell</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page113">113</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page114">115</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page115">115</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sir Walter Simpson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page117">117</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page118">118</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page119">119</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page120">120</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page121">121</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page121">121</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page122">122</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page123">123</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page125">125</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Austin Dobson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page126">126</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page127">127</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page127">127</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page130">130</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page131">131</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page132">132</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page133">133</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To H. A. Jones</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page133">133</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page134">134</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page135">135</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Golvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page136">136</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page137">137</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To J. A. Symonds</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page138">138</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page140">140</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page142">142</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To P. G. Hamerton</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page143">143</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page146">146</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page147">147</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To William Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page147">147</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pennell</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page149">149</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page150">150</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page151">151</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To C. Howard Carrington</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page152">152</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Katharine de Mattos</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page152">152</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page153">153</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page155">155</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To William Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page156">156</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page159">159</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page160">160</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To William Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page161">161</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page163">163</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page166">166</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. de Mattos</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page167">167</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page167">167</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page168">168</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page169">169</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page173">173</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To James Payn</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page176">176</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page177">177</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles J. Guthrie</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page178">178</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page179">179</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To C. W. Stoddard</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page180">180</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page181">181</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To J. A. Symonds</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page183">183</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To F. W. H. Myers</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page184">184</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page185">185</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page186">186</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page187">187</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page189">189</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page190">190</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Monroe</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page191">191</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page192">192</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Monroe</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page193">193</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page196">196</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page196">196</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page198">198</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page199">199</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page200">200</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page200">200</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page201">201</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page202">202</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page202">202</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To T. Watts-Dunton</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page203">203</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page204">204</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page205">205</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page206">206</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page207">207</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page208">208</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Auguste Rodin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page209">209</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page210">210</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Lady Taylor</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page211">211</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page213">213</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page214">214</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page215">215</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page215">215</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Auguste Rodin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page216">216</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page217">217</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page219">219</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Alison Cunningham</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page220">220</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page221">221</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page225">225</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Rawlinson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page227">227</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page228">228</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sir Walter Simpson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page229">229</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page229">229</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page230">230</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page231">231</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Messrs. Chatto and Windus</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page231">231</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="center pt2" colspan="2"><h4>IX. THE UNITED STATES AGAIN</h4> + <h5>WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS</h5></td></tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page233">233</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters—</td> + <td class="tc2b"> </td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page235">235</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page236">236</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page237">237</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page238">238</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page239">239</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page240">240</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sir Walter Simpson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page242">242</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page244">244</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page245">245</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Fairchild</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page246">246</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To William Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page247">247</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page248">248</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page249">249</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page251">251</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Scribner</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page252">252</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page253">253</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page254">254</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To John Addington Symonds</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page254">254</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. E. Henley</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page257">257</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page258">258</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page259">259</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page260">260</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Munroe</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page261">261</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page262">262</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page264">264</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page265">265</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page267">267</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page268">268</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page268">268</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To William Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page270">270</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page272">272</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page273">273</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page273">273</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page274">274</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page275">275</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Rev. Dr. Charteris</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page276">276</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Edmund Gosse</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page277">277</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page278">278</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Rev. Dr. Charteris</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page279">279</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To S. R. Crockett</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page280">280</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Ferrier</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page282">282</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page283">283</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page284">284</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page285">285</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page286">286</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Lady Taylor</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page286">286</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Homer St. Gaudens</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page287">287</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page288">288</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="center pt2" colspan="2"><h4>X. PACIFIC VOYAGES</h4> + <h5>YACHT <i>CASCO</i>—SCHOONER <i>EQUATOR</i>—S.S. <i>JANET NICOLL</i></h5></td></tr> + + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3 sc">Introductory</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page290">290</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3 sc">Letters—</td> + <td class="tc2b"> </td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page293">293</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page294">294</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page295">295</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page296">296</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page297">297</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page298">298</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To William and Thomas Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page300">300</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page301">301</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page303">303</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To John Addington Symonds</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page304">304</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Thomas Archer</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page305">305</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin]</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page308">308</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page316">316</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page319">319</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page322">322</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To R. A. M. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page323">323</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Marcel Schwob</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page327">327</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page327">327</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page329">329</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell]</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page331">331</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page334">334</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page336">336</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page338">338</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page339">339</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page343">343</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page344">344</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To W. H. Low</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page345">345</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin]</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page347">347</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. R. L. Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page349">349</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page353">353</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To James Payn</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page355">355</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Lady Taylor</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page357">357</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page357">357</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To the Same</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page362">362</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page367">367</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page369">369</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Lady Taylor</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page372">372</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Dr. Scott</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page374">374</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page375">375</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page377">377</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To James Payn</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page381">381</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page382">382</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page383">383</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page384">384</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Sidney Colvin</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page385">385</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page387">387</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Charles Baxter</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page392">392</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To E. L. Burlingame</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page394">394</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Henry James</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page396">396</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Marcel Schwob</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page397">397</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Andrew Lang</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page399">399</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc3a">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page401">401</a></td> </tr> + +<tr class="cl"> <td class="tc3a">To Mrs. Charles Fairchild</td> + <td class="tc2b"><a href="#page403">403</a></td> </tr> +</table> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>1</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>THE LETTERS<br /> +OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h2> + +<h3>1882-1890</h3> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a>2</span></p> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id="page3"></a>3</span></p> +<h2>THE LETTERS<br /> +OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h2> +<hr class="art" /> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<h3>THE RIVIERA AGAIN—MARSEILLES +AND HYÈRES</h3> + +<h5><span class="sc">October</span> 1882—<span class="sc">August</span> 1884</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> the two years and odd months since his return from +California, Stevenson had made no solid gain of health. +His winters, and especially his second winter, at Davos +had seemed to do him much temporary good; but during +the summers in Scotland he had lost as much as he had +gained, or more. Loving the Mediterranean shores of +France from of old, he now made up his mind to try them +once again.</p> + +<p>As the ways and restrictions of a settled invalid were +repugnant to Stevenson’s character and instincts, so were +the life and society of a regular invalid station depressing +and uncongenial to him. He determined, accordingly, +to avoid settling in one of these, and hoped to find +a suitable climate and habitation that should be near, +though not in, some centre of the active and ordinary life +of man, with accessible markets, libraries, and other +resources. In September 1882 he started with his cousin +Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson in search of a new home, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>4</span> +thought first of trying the Languedoc coast, a region new +to him. At Montpellier, he was laid up again with a bad +bout of his lung troubles; and, the doctor not recommending +him to stay, returned to Marseilles. Here he was +rejoined by his wife, and after a few days’ exploration in +the neighbourhood they lighted on what seemed exactly +the domicile they wanted. This was a roomy and attractive +enough house and garden called the Campagne Defli, +near the manufacturing suburb of St. Marcel, in a sheltered +position in full view of the shapely coastward hills. +By the third week in October they were installed, and in +eager hopes of pleasant days to come and a return to +working health. These hopes were not realised. Week +after week went on, and the hemorrhages and fits of +fever and exhaustion did not diminish. Work, except +occasional verses, and a part of the story called <i>The +Treasure of Franchard</i>, would not flow, and the time had +to be whiled away with games of patience and other +resources of the sick man. Nearly two months were thus +passed; during the whole of one of them Stevenson had +not been able to go beyond the garden; and by Christmas +he had to face the fact that the air of the place was tainted. +An epidemic of fever, due to some defect of drainage, +broke out, and it became clear that this could be no home +for Stevenson. Accordingly, at his wife’s instance, though +having scarce the strength to travel, he left suddenly for +Nice, she staying behind to pack their chattels and wind +up their affairs and responsibilities as well as might be. +Various misadventures, miscarriages of telegrams, journeys +taken at cross purposes and the like, making existence +uncomfortably dramatic at the moment, caused the couple +to believe for a while that they had fairly lost each other. +Mrs. Stevenson allows me to print a letter from herself +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>5</span> +to Mr. J. A. Symonds vividly relating these predicaments +(see p. 11 foll.). At last, in the course of January, +they came safely together at Marseilles, and next made +a few weeks’ stay at Nice, where Stevenson’s health quickly +mended. Thence they returned as far as Hyères. Staying +here through the greater part of February, at the Hôtel +des Îles d’Or, and finding the place to their liking, they +cast about once more for a resting-place, and were this +time successful.</p> + +<p>The house chosen by the Stevensons at Hyères was +not near the sea, but inland, on the road above the old +town and beneath the ruins of the castle. The Chalet La +Solitude it was called; a cramped but habitable cottage +built in the Swiss manner, with a pleasant strip of garden, +and a view and situation hardly to be bettered. Here he +and his family lived for the next sixteen months (March +1883 to July 1884). To the first part of this period he +often afterwards referred as the happiest time of his life. +His malady remained quiescent enough to afford, at least +to his own buoyant spirit, a strong hope of ultimate +recovery. He delighted in his surroundings, and realised +for the first time the joys of a true home of his own. The +last shadow of a cloud between himself and his parents +had long passed away; and towards his father, now in +declining health, and often suffering from moods of +constitutional depression, the son begins on his part +to assume, how touchingly and tenderly will be seen +from the following letters, a quasi-paternal attitude +of encouragement and monition. At the same +time his work on the completion of the <i>Silverado Squatters</i>, +on <i>Prince Otto</i>, the <i>Child’s Garden of Verses</i> (for which +his own name was <i>Penny Whistles</i>), on the <i>Black Arrow</i> +(designated hereinafter, on account of its Old English +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>6</span> +dialect, as “tushery”), and other undertakings prospered +well. In the autumn the publication of <i>Treasure +Island</i> in book form brought with it the first breath of +popular applause. The reader will see how modest a price +Stevenson was content, nay, delighted, to receive for this +classic. It was two or three years yet before he could earn +enough to support himself and his family by literature: +a thing he had always been earnestly bent on doing, regarding +it as the only justification for his chosen way of life. +In the meantime, it must be understood, whatever help +he needed from his father was from the hour of his marriage +always amply and ungrudgingly given.</p> + +<p>In September of the same year, 1883, Stevenson had +felt deeply the death of his old friend James Walter +Ferrier (see the essay <i>Old Mortality</i> and the references in +the following letters). But still his health held out fairly, +until, in January 1884, on a visit to Nice, he was unexpectedly +prostrated anew by an acute congestion of the +internal organs, which for the time being brought him to +death’s door. Returning to his home, his recovery had +been only partial when, after four months (May 1884), a +recurrence of violent hemorrhages from the lung once +more prostrated him completely; soon after which he +quitted Hyères, and the epidemic of cholera which broke +out there the same summer prevented all thoughts of +his return.</p> + +<p>The Hyères time, both during the happy and hard-working +months of March-December 1883, and the semi-convalescence +of February-May 1884, was a prolific one +in the way of correspondence; and there is perhaps no +period of his life when his letters reflect so fully the variety +of his moods and the eagerness of his occupations.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page7" id="page7"></a>7</span></p> + +<p class="to">To the Editor of the New York Tribune</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>At Marseilles, while waiting to occupy the house which he had +leased in the suburbs of that city, Stevenson learned that his old +friend and kind adviser, Mr. James Payn, with whom he had been +intimate as sub-editor of the Cornhill Magazine under Mr. Leslie +Stephen in the ’70’s, had been inadvertently represented in the +columns of the New York Tribune as a plagiarist of R. L. S. In +order to put matters right, he at once sent the following letter both +to the Tribune and to the London Athenæum:—</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Terminus Hotel, Marseilles, October</i> 16, 1882.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,—It has come to my ears that you have lent the +authority of your columns to an error.</p> + +<p>More than half in pleasantry—and I now think the +pleasantry ill-judged—I complained in a note to my <i>New +Arabian Nights</i> that some one, who shall remain nameless +for me, had borrowed the idea of a story from one of +mine. As if I had not borrowed the ideas of the half of +my own! As if any one who had written a story ill had +a right to complain of any other who should have written +it better! I am indeed thoroughly ashamed of the note, +and of the principle which it implies.</p> + +<p>But it is no mere abstract penitence which leads me to +beg a corner of your paper—it is the desire to defend the +honour of a man of letters equally known in America and +England, of a man who could afford to lend to me and +yet be none the poorer; and who, if he would so far condescend, +has my free permission to borrow from me all +that he can find worth borrowing.</p> + +<p>Indeed, sir, I am doubly surprised at your correspondent’s +error. That James Payn should have borrowed +from me is already a strange conception. The author of +<i>Lost Sir Massingberd</i> and <i>By Proxy</i> may be trusted to +invent his own stories. The author of <i>A Grape from a +Thorn</i> knows enough, in his own right, of the humorous +and pathetic sides of human nature.</p> + +<p>But what is far more monstrous—what argues total +ignorance of the man in question—is the idea that James +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>8</span> +Payn could ever have transgressed the limits of professional +propriety. I may tell his thousands of readers on +your side of the Atlantic that there breathes no man of +letters more inspired by kindness and generosity to his +brethren of the profession, and, to put an end to any +possibility of error, I may be allowed to add that I often +have recourse, and that I had recourse once more but a +few weeks ago, to the valuable practical help which he +makes it his pleasure to extend to younger men.</p> + +<p>I send a duplicate of this letter to a London weekly; +for the mistake, first set forth in your columns, has already +reached England, and my wanderings have made me +perhaps last of the persons interested to hear a word +of it.—I am, etc.,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To R. A. M. Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Terminus Hotel, Marseille</i>, +<i>Saturday</i> [<i>October</i> 1882].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BOB</span>,—We have found a house!—at Saint +Marcel, Banlieue de Marseille. In a lovely valley between +hills part wooded, part white cliffs; a house of a dining-room, +of a fine salon—one side lined with a long divan—three +good bedrooms (two of them with dressing-rooms), +three small rooms (chambers of <i>bonne</i> and sich), a large +kitchen, a lumber room, many cupboards, a back court, +a large olive yard, cultivated by a resident <i>paysan</i>, a +well, a berceau, a good deal of rockery, a little pine +shrubbery, a railway station in front, two lines of omnibus +to Marseille.</p> + +<p class="center">£48 per annum.</p> + +<p>It is called Campagne Defli! query Campagne Debug? +The Campagne Demosquito goes on here nightly, and +is very deadly. Ere we can get installed, we shall be +beggared to the door, I see.</p> + +<p>I vote for separations; F.’s arrival here, after our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>9</span> +separation, was better fun to me than being married was +by far. A separation completed is a most valuable property; +worth piles.—Ever your affectionate cousin,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Terminus Hotel, Marseille, le 17th October</i> 1882.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—We grow, every time we see it, +more delighted with our house. It is five miles out of +Marseilles, in a lovely spot, among lovely wooded and +cliffy hills—most mountainous in line—far lovelier, to my +eyes, than any Alps. To-day we have been out inventorying; +and though a mistral blew, it was delightful in an +open cab, and our house with the windows open was +heavenly, soft, dry, sunny, southern. I fear there are +fleas—it is called Campagne Defli—and I look forward +to tons of insecticide being employed.</p> + +<p>I have had to write a letter to the New York Tribune +and the Athenæum. Payn was accused of stealing my +stories! I think I have put things handsomely for him.</p> + +<p>Just got a servant!!!—Ever affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Our servant is a Muckle Hash of a Weedy!</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The next two months’ letters had perforce to consist of little +save bulletins of back-going health, and consequent disappointment +and incapacity for work.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, +Banlieue de Marseille, November</i> 13, 1882.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MOTHER</span>,—Your delightful letters duly arrived +this morning. They were the only good feature of the +day, which was not a success. Fanny was in bed—she +begged I would not split upon her, she felt so guilty; +but as I believe she is better this evening, and has a good +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>10</span> +chance to be right again in a day or two, I will disregard +her orders. I do not go back, but do not go forward—or +not much. It is, in one way, miserable—for I can do +no work; a very little wood-cutting, the newspapers, +and a note about every two days to write, completely +exhausts my surplus energy; even Patience I have to +cultivate with parsimony. I see, if I could only get to +work, that we could live here with comfort, almost with +luxury. Even as it is, we should be able to get through +a considerable time of idleness. I like the place immensely, +though I have seen so little of it—I have only +been once outside the gate since I was here! It puts me +in mind of a summer at Prestonpans and a sickly child +you once told me of.</p> + +<p>Thirty-two years now finished! My twenty-ninth was +in San Francisco, I remember—rather a bleak birthday. +The twenty-eighth was not much better; but the rest +have been usually pleasant days in pleasant circumstances.</p> + +<p>Love to you and to my father and to Cummy.</p> + +<p>From me and Fanny and Wogg.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + + +<p class="to">To Trevor Haddon</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, Dec</i>. 29<i>th,</i> 1882.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,—I am glad you sent me your note, I had +indeed lost your address, and was half thinking to try +the Ringstown one; but far from being busy, I have +been steadily ill. I was but three or four days in London, +waiting till one of my friends was able to accompany me, +and had neither time nor health to see anybody but some +publisher people. Since then I have been worse and +better, better and worse, but never able to do any work +and for a large part of the time forbidden to write and +even to play Patience, that last of civilised amusements. +In brief, I have been “the sheer hulk” to a degree almost +outside of my experience, and I desire all my friends to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>11</span> +forgive me my sins of omission this while back. I only +wish you were the only one to whom I owe a letter, or +many letters.</p> + +<p>But you see, at least, you had done nothing to offend +me; and I dare say you will let me have a note from time +to time, until we shall have another chance to meet.—Yours +sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">An excellent new year to you, and many of them.</p> + +<p>If you chance to see a paragraph in the papers describing +my illness, and the “delicacies suitable to my invalid +condition” cooked in copper, and the other ridiculous and +revolting yarns, pray regard it as a spectral illusion, and +pass by.</p> + + +<p class="to">[<span class="sc">Mrs. R. L. Stevenson<br /> +to John Addington Symonds</span></p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>I intercalate here Mrs. Stevenson’s extremely vivid and characteristic +account of the weird misadventures that befell the pair during +their retreat from St. Marcel in search of a healthier home.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, January</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MR. SYMONDS</span>,—What must you think of +us? I hardly dare write to you. What do you do when +people to whom you have been the dearest of friends +requite you by acting like fiends? I do hope you heap +coals of fire on their heads in the good old Christian sense.</p> + +<p>Louis has been very ill again. I hasten to say that he +is now better. But I thought at one time he would never +be better again. He had continual hemorrhages and +became so weak that he was twice insensible in one day, +and was for a long time like one dead. At the worst fever +broke out in this village, typhus, I think, and all day the +death-bells rang, and we could hear the chanting whilst +the wretched villagers carried about their dead lying bare +to the sun on their coffin-lids, so spreading the contagion +through the streets. The evening of the day when Louis +was so long insensible the weather changed, becoming very +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" id="page12"></a>12</span> +clear and fine and greatly refreshing and reviving him. +Then I said if it held good he should start in the morning +for Nice and try what a change might do. Just at that time +there was not money enough for the two of us, so he had +to start alone, though I expected soon to be able to follow +him. During the night a peasant-man died in a house in +our garden, and in the morning the corpse, hideously swollen +in the stomach, was lying on its coffin-lid at our gates. +Fortunately it was taken away just before Louis went, +and he didn’t see it nor hear anything about it until afterwards. +I had been back and forth all the morning from +the door to the gates, and from the gates to the door, +in an agony lest Louis should have to pass it on his way +out.</p> + +<p>I was to have a despatch from Toulon where Louis +was to pass the night, two hours from St. Marcel, and +another from Nice, some few hours further, the next day. +I waited one, two, three, four days, and no word came. +Neither telegram nor letter. The evening of the fourth +day I went to Marseilles and telegraphed to the Toulon +and Nice stations and to the bureau of police. I had been +pouring out letters to every place I could think of. The +people at Marseilles were very kind and advised me to +take no further steps to find my husband. He was certainly +dead, they said. It was plain that he stopped at +some little station on the road, speechless and dying, +and it was now too late to do anything; I had much +better return at once to my friends. “Eet ofen ’appens +so,” said the Secretary, and “Oh yes, all right, very +well,” added a Swiss in a sympathetic voice. I waited +all night at Marseilles and got no answer, all the next day +and got no answer; then I went back to St. Marcel and +there was nothing there. At eight I started on the train +with Lloyd who had come for his holidays, but it only +took us to Toulon where again I telegraphed. At last I +got an answer the next day at noon. I waited at Toulon +for the train I had reason to believe Louis travelled by, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13"></a>13</span> +intending to stop at every station and inquire for him +until I got to Nice. Imagine what those days were to me. +I never received any of the letters Louis had written to +me, and he was reading the first he had received from me +when I knocked at his door. A week afterwards I had +an answer from the police. Louis was much better: the +change and the doctor, who seems very clever, have done +wonderful things for him. It was during this first day of +waiting that I received your letter. There was a vague +comfort in it like a hand offered in the darkness, but I +did not read it until long after.</p> + +<p>We have had many other wild misadventures, Louis +has twice (started) actually from Nice under a misapprehension. +At this moment I believe him to be at Marseilles, +stopping at the Hotel du Petit Louvre; I am supposed +to be packing here at St. Marcel, afterwards we are to go +somewhere, perhaps to the Lake of Geneva. My nerves +were so shattered by the terrible suspense I endured that +memorable week that I have not been fit to do much. +When I was returning from Nice a dreadful old man with +a fat wife and a weak granddaughter sat opposite me and +plied me with the most extraordinary questions. He +began by asking if Lloyd was any connection of mine, and +ended I believe by asking my mother’s maiden name. +Another of the questions he put to me was where Louis +wished to be buried, and whether I could afford to have +him embalmed when he died. When the train stopped +the only other passenger, a quiet man in a corner who +looked several times as if he wished to interfere and stop +the old man but was too shy, came to me and said that +he knew Sidney Colvin and he knew you, and that you +were both friends of Louis; and that his name was Basil +Hammond,<a name="FnAnchor_1" id="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><span class="sp">1</span></a> and he wished to stay on a day in Marseilles +and help me work off my affairs. I accepted his offer with +heartfelt thanks. I was extremely ill next day, but we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>14</span> +two went about and arranged about giving up this house +and what compensation, and did some things that I could +not have managed alone. My French is useful only in +domestic economy, and even that, I fear, is very curious +and much of it patois. Wasn’t that a good fellow, and a +kind fellow?—I cannot tell you how grateful I am, words +are such feeble things—at least for that purpose. For +anger, justifiable wrath, they are all too forcible. It was +very bad of me not to write to you, we talked of you so +often and thought of you so much, and I always said—“now +I will write”—and then somehow I could not....</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Fanny V. de G. Stevenson.]</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>After his Christmas flight to Marseilles and thence to Nice, +Stevenson began to mend quickly. In this letter to Mr. Baxter +he acknowledges the receipt of a specimen proof, set up for their +private amusement, of <i>Brashiana</i>, the series of burlesque sonnets +he had written at Davos in memory of the Edinburgh publican +already mentioned. It should be explained that in their correspondence +Stevenson and Mr. Baxter were accustomed to keep up +an old play of their student days by merging their identities in those +of two fictitious personages, Thomson and Johnson, imaginary types +of Edinburgh character, and ex-elders of the Scottish Kirk.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Grand Hotel, Nice, 12th January</i> ’83.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Thanks for your good letter. It is +true, man, God’s trüth, what ye say about the body +Stevison. The deil himsel, it’s my belief, couldnae get +the soul harled oot o’ the creature’s wame, or he had seen +the hinder end o’ they proofs. Ye crack o’ Mæcenas, +he’s naebody by you! He gied the lad Horace a rax +forrit by all accounts; but he never gied him proofs like +yon. Horace may hae been a better hand at the clink +than Stevison—mind, I’m no sayin’ ’t—but onyway he +was never sae weel prentit. Damned, but it’s bonny! +Hoo mony pages will there be, think ye? Stevison maun +hae sent ye the feck o’ twenty sangs—fifteen I’se warrant. +Weel, that’ll can make thretty pages, gin ye were to prent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>15</span> +on ae side only, whilk wad be perhaps what a man o’ +your <i>great</i> idees would be ettlin’ at, man Johnson. Then +there wad be the Pre-face, an’ prose ye ken prents oot +langer than po’try at the hinder end, for ye hae to say +things in’t. An’ then there’ll be a title-page and a dedication +and an index wi’ the first lines like, and the deil an’ a’. +Man, it’ll be grand. Nae copies to be given to the Liberys.</p> + +<p>I am alane myself, in Nice, they ca’t, but damned, I +think they micht as well ca’t Nesty. The Pile-on,<a name="FnAnchor_2" id="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><span class="sp">2</span></a> ’s +they ca’t, ’s aboot as big as the river Tay at Perth; and +it’s rainin’ maist like Greenock. Dod, I’ve seen ’s had +mair o’ what they ca’ the I-talian at Muttonhole. I-talian! +I haenae seen the sun for eicht and forty hours. Thomson’s +better, I believe. But the body’s fair attenyated. +He’s doon to seeven stane eleeven, an’ he sooks awa’ at +cod liver ile, till it’s a fair disgrace. Ye see he tak’s it +on a drap brandy; and it’s my belief, it’s just an excuse +for a dram. He an’ Stevison gang aboot their lane, maistly; +they’re company to either, like, an’ whiles they’ll speak +o’ Johnson. But <i>he’s</i> far awa’, losh me! Stevison’s last +book ’s in a third edeetion; an’ it’s bein’ translated (like +the psaulms of David, nae less) into French; and an eediot +they ca’ Asher—a kind o’ rival of Tauchnitz—is bringin’ +him oot in a paper book for the Frenchies and the German +folk in twa volumes. Sae he’s in luck, ye see.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Thomson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson here narrates in his own fashion by what generalship +he at last got rid of the Campagne Defli without having to pay +compensation as his wife expected.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Hotel du Petit Louvre, Marseille, 15 Feb.</i> 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,—This is to intimate to you that Mr. and +Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson were yesterday safely delivered</p> + +<p class="center">of a</p> +<p class="center">Campagne.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>16</span></p> + +<p>The parents are both doing much better than could +be expected; particularly the dear papa.</p> + +<p>There, Colvin, I did it this time. Huge success. The +propriétaires were scattered like chaff. If it had not been +the agent, may Israel now say, if it had not been the +agent who was on our side! But I made the agent +march! I threatened law; I was Immense—what do +I say?—Immeasurable. The agent, however, behaved +well and is a fairly honest little one-eared, white-eyed tom-cat +of an opera-going gold-hunter. The propriétaire <i>non est +inventa</i>; we countermarched her, got in valuators; and in +place of a hundred francs in her pocket, she got nothing, +and I paid <i>one</i> silver biscuit! It <i>might</i> go further but I am +convinced will not, and anyway, I fear not the consequences.</p> + +<p>The weather is incredible; my heart sings; my health +satisfies even my wife. I did jolly well right to come +after all and she now admits it. For she broke down as +I knew she would, and I from here, without passing a +night at the Defli, though with a cruel effusion of coach-hires, +took up the wondrous tale and steered the ship +through. I now sit crowned with laurel and literally +exulting in kudos. The affair has been better managed +than our two last winterings,—I am yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Brabazon Drum.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The verses referred to in the following are those of the <i>Child’s +Garden</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Nice, February</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,—You must think, and quite justly, +that I am one of the meanest rogues in creation. But +though I do not write (which is a thing I hate), it by no +means follows that people are out of my mind. It is +natural that I should always think more or less about +you, and still more natural that I should think of you +when I went back to Nice. But the real reason why you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17"></a>17</span> +have been more in my mind than usual is because of some +little verses that I have been writing, and that I mean +to make a book of; and the real reason of this letter +(although I ought to have written to you anyway) is that +I have just seen that the book in question must be dedicated +to</p> + +<p class="sc center">Alison Cunningham,</p> + +<p class="noind">the only person who will really understand it, I don’t +know when it may be ready, for it has to be illustrated, +but I hope in the meantime you may like the idea of +what is to be; and when the time comes, I shall try to +make the dedication as pretty as I can make it. Of +course, this is only a flourish, like taking off one’s hat; +but still, a person who has taken the trouble to write +things does not dedicate them to any one without meaning +it; and you must just try to take this dedication in +place of a great many things that I might have said, and +that I ought to have done, to prove that I am not altogether +unconscious of the great debt of gratitude I owe +you. This little book, which is all about my childhood, +should indeed go to no other person but you, who did so +much to make that childhood happy.</p> + +<p>Do you know, we came very near sending for you this +winter. If we had not had news that you were ill too, I +almost believe we should have done so, we were so much +in trouble.</p> + +<p>I am now very well; but my wife has had a very, very +bad spell, through overwork and anxiety, when I was +<i>lost</i>! I suppose you heard of that. She sends you her +love, and hopes you will write to her, though she no more +than I deserves it. She would add a word herself, but +she is too played out.—I am, ever your old boy,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson was by this time beginning to send home some of the +MS. of the <i>Child’s Garden</i>, the title of which had not yet been settled. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>18</span> +The pieces as first numbered are in a different order from that afterwards +adopted, but the reader will easily identify the references.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Nice, March</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—This is to announce to you the MS. +of Nursery Verses, now numbering <span class="sc">XLVIII</span>. pieces or 599 +verses, which, of course, one might augment <i>ad infinitum</i>.</p> + +<p>But here is my notion to make all clear.</p> + +<p>I do not want a big ugly quarto; my soul sickens at +the look of a quarto. I want a refined octavo, not large—not +<i>larger</i> than the Donkey book, at any price.</p> + +<p>I think the full page might hold four verses of four +lines, that is to say, counting their blanks at two, of +twenty-two lines in height. The first page of each number +would only hold two verses or ten lines, the title being +low down. At this rate, we should have seventy-eight or +eighty pages of letterpress.</p> + +<p>The designs should not be in the text, but facing the +poem; so that if the artist liked, he might give two pages +of design to every poem that turned the leaf, <i>i.e.</i> longer +than eight lines, <i>i.e.</i> to twenty-eight out of the forty-six. +I should say he would not use this privilege (?) above +five times, and some he might scorn to illustrate at all, +so we may say fifty drawings. I shall come to the drawings +next.</p> + +<p>But now you see my book of the thickness, since the +drawings count two pages, of 180 pages; and since the +paper will perhaps be thicker, of near two hundred by +bulk. It is bound in a quiet green with the words in thin +gilt. Its shape is a slender, tall octavo. And it sells for +the publisher’s fancy, and it will be a darling to look at; +in short, it would be like one of the original Heine books +in type and spacing.</p> + +<p>Now for the pictures. I take another sheet and begin +to jot notes for them when my imagination serves: I will +run through the book, writing when I have an idea. There, +I have jotted enough to give the artist a notion. Of +course, I don’t do more than contribute ideas, but I will +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19"></a>19</span> +be happy to help in any and every way. I may as well +add another idea; when the artist finds nothing much +to illustrate, a good drawing of any <i>object</i> mentioned in +the text, were it only a loaf of bread or a candlestick, +is a most delightful thing to a young child. I remember +this keenly.</p> + +<p>Of course, if the artist insists on a larger form, I must, +I suppose, bow my head. But my idea I am convinced is +the best, and would make the book truly, not fashionably +pretty.</p> + +<p>I forgot to mention that I shall have a dedication; I +am going to dedicate ’em to Cummy; it will please her, +and lighten a little my burthen of ingratitude. A low +affair is the Muse business.</p> + +<p>I will add no more to this lest you should want to communicate +with the artist; try another sheet. I wonder +how many I’ll keep wandering to.</p> + +<p>O I forgot. As for the title, I think “Nursery Verses” +the best. Poetry is not the strong point of the text, and +I shrink from any title that might seem to claim that +quality; otherwise we might have “Nursery Muses” or +“New Songs of Innocence” (but that were a blasphemy), +or “Rimes of Innocence”: the last not bad, or—an idea—“The +Jews’ Harp,” or—now I have it—“The Penny +Whistle.”</p> + +<p class="center scs">THE PENNY WHISTLE</p> + +<p class="center scs">NURSERY VERSES</p> + +<p class="center scs">BY<br /> + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON<br /> + +ILLUSTRATED BY —— —— ——</p> + +<p>And here we have an excellent frontispiece, of a party +playing on a P. W. to a little ring of dancing children.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="scs">THE PENNY WHISTLE</span><br /> +is the name for me.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>20</span></p> + +<p>Fool! this is all wrong, here is the true name:—</p> + +<p class="center scs">PENNY WHISTLES<br /> +FOR SMALL WHISTLERS.</p> + +<p>The second title is queried, it is perhaps better, as +simply <span class="scs">PENNY WHISTLES</span>.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge</p> +<p class="i1">That I your instrument debase:</p> +<p>By worse performers still we judge,</p> +<p class="i1">And give that fife a second place!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>Crossed penny whistles on the cover, or else a sheaf +of ’em.</p> + +<p class="center scs">SUGGESTIONS</p> + +<p><span class="scs">IV.</span> The procession—the child running behind it. The +procession tailing off through the gates of a cloudy city.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">IX.</span> <i>Foreign Lands.</i>—This will, I think, want two plates—the +child climbing, his first glimpse over the garden wall, +with what he sees—the tree shooting higher and higher +like the beanstalk, and the view widening. The river +slipping in. The road arriving in Fairyland.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">X.</span> <i>Windy Nights.</i>—The child in bed listening—the +horseman galloping.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XII.</span> The child helplessly watching his ship—then he +gets smaller, and the doll joyfully comes alive—the pair +landing on the island—the ship’s deck with the doll steering +and the child firing the penny cannon. Query two +plates? The doll should never come properly alive.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XV.</span> Building of the ship—storing her—Navigation—Tom’s +accident, the other child paying no attention.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XXXI.</span> <i>The Wind.</i>—I sent you my notion of already.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XXXVII.</span> <i>Foreign Children.</i>—The foreign types dancing +in a jing-a-ring, with the English child pushing in the +middle. The foreign children looking at and showing each +other marvels. The English child at the leeside of a roast +of beef. The English child sitting thinking with his picture-books +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21"></a>21</span> +all round him, and the jing-a-ring of the foreign +children in miniature dancing over the picture-books.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XXXIX.</span> Dear artist, can you do me that?</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XLII.</span> The child being started off—the bed sailing, curtains +and all, upon the sea—the child waking and finding +himself at home; the corner of toilette might be worked +in to look like the pier.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">XLVII.</span> The lighted part of the room, to be carefully +distinguished from my child’s dark hunting grounds. A +shaded lamp.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Hôtel des Îles d’Or, Hyères, Var, +March</i> 2 [1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MOTHER</span>,—It must be at least a fortnight +since we have had a scratch of a pen from you; and if +it had not been for Cummy’s letter, I should have feared +you were worse again: as it is, I hope we shall hear from +you to-day or to-morrow at latest.</p> + +<p><i>Health.</i>—Our news is good: Fanny never got so bad +as we feared, and we hope now that this attack may pass +off in threatenings. I am greatly better, have gained +flesh, strength, spirits; eat well, walk a good deal, and +do some work without fatigue. I am off the sick list.</p> + +<p><i>Lodging.</i>—We have found a house up the hill, close +to the town, an excellent place though very, very little. +If I can get the landlord to agree to let us take it by the +month just now, and let our month’s rent count for the +year in case we take it on, you may expect to hear we +are again installed, and to receive a letter dated thus:—</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 6em;">La Solitude,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 9em;">Hyères-les-Palmiers,</p> + <p style="padding-left: 12em;">Var.</p> + +<p>If the man won’t agree to that, of course I must just +give it up, as the house would be dear enough anyway at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22"></a>22</span> +2000 f. However, I hope we may get it, as it is healthy, +cheerful, and close to shops, and society, and civilisation. +The garden, which is above, is lovely, and will be cool +in summer. There are two rooms below with a kitchen, +and four rooms above, all told.—Ever your affectionate +son,</p> + +<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Cassandra” was a nickname of the elder Mr. Stevenson for +his daughter-in-law. The scheme of a play to be founded on <i>Great +Expectations</i> was one of a hundred formed in these days and afterwards +given up.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Hôtel des Îles d’Or, but my address will be Chalet<br /> +la Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var, France, +March</i> 17, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Dear Sir,</span>—Your undated favour from Eastbourne +came to hand in course of post, and I now hasten to +acknowledge its receipt. We must ask you in future, for +the convenience of our business arrangements, to struggle +with and tread below your feet this most unsatisfactory +and uncommercial habit. Our Mr. Cassandra is better; +our Mr. Wogg expresses himself dissatisfied with our new +place of business; when left alone in the front shop, he +bawled like a parrot; it is supposed the offices are haunted.</p> + +<p>To turn to the matter of your letter, your remarks on +<i>Great Expectations</i> are very good. We have both re-read +it this winter, and I, in a manner, twice. The object +being a play; the play, in its rough outline, I now see: +and it is extraordinary how much of Dickens had to be +discarded as unhuman, impossible, and ineffective: all +that really remains is the loan of a file (but from a grown-up +young man who knows what he was doing, and to a +convict who, although he does not know it is his father—the +father knows it is his son), and the fact of the convict-father’s +return and disclosure of himself to the son +whom he has made rich. Everything else has been thrown +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id="page23"></a>23</span> +aside; and the position has had to be explained by a +prologue which is pretty strong. I have great hopes of +this piece, which is very amiable and, in places, very +strong indeed: but it was curious how Dickens had to be +rolled away; he had made his story turn on such improbabilities, +such fantastic trifles, not on a good human basis, +such as I recognised. You are right about the casts, they +were a capital idea; a good description of them at first, +and then afterwards, say second, for the lawyer to have +illustrated points out of the history of the originals, dusting +the particular bust—that was all the development +the thing would bear. Dickens killed them. The only +really well <i>executed</i> scenes are the riverside ones; the +escape in particular is excellent; and I may add, the +capture of the two convicts at the beginning. Miss Havisham +is, probably, the worst thing in human fiction. But +Wemmick I like; and I like Trabb’s boy; and Mr. Wopsle +as Hamlet is splendid.</p> + +<p>The weather here is greatly improved, and I hope in +three days to be in the chalet. That is, if I get some +money to float me there.</p> + +<p>I hope you are all right again, and will keep better. +The month of March is past its mid career; it must soon +begin to turn toward the lamb; here it has already begun +to do so; and I hope milder weather will pick you up. +Wogg has eaten a forpet of rice and milk, his beard is +streaming, his eyes wild. I am besieged by demands of +work from America.</p> + +<p>The £50 has just arrived; many thanks; I am now at +ease.—Ever your affectionate son, <i>pro</i> Cassandra, Wogg +and Co.,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Chalet la Solitude, Hyères, April</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p>My head is singing with <i>Otto</i>; for the first two weeks +I wrote and revised and only finished IV chapters: last +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24"></a>24</span> +week, I have just drafted straight ahead, and I have just +finished Chapter XI. It will want a heap of oversight +and much will not stand, but the pace is good; about +28 Cornhill pp. drafted in seven days, and almost all of +it dialogue—indeed I may say all, for I have dismissed +the rest very summarily in the draft: one can always +tickle at that. At the same rate, the draft should be +finished in ten days more; and then I shall have the +pleasure of beginning again at the beginning. Ah damned +job! I have no idea whether or not Otto will be good. +It is all pitched pretty high and stilted; almost like the +Arabs, at that; but of course there is love-making in +Otto, and indeed a good deal of it. I sometimes feel very +weary; but the thing travels—and I like it when I am +at it.</p> + +<p>Remember me kindly to all.—Your ex-contributor,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Sitwell</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>His correspondent had at his request been writing and despatching +to him fair copies of the various sets of verses for the <i>Child’s +Garden</i> (as the collection was ultimately called), which he had been +from time to time sending home.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Chalet la Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>April</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FRIEND</span>,—I am one of the lowest of the—but +that’s understood. I received the copy, excellently +written, with I think only one slip from first to last. I +have struck out two, and added five or six; so they now +number forty-five; when they are fifty, they shall out on +the world. I have not written a letter for a cruel time; +I have been, and am, so busy, drafting a long story (for +me, I mean), about a hundred Cornhill pages, or say about +as long as the Donkey book: <i>Prince Otto</i> it is called, and is, +at the present hour, a sore burthen but a hopeful. If I +had him all drafted, I should whistle and sing. But no: +then I’ll have to rewrite him; and then there will be the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25"></a>25</span> +publishers, alas! But some time or other, I shall whistle +and sing, I make no doubt.</p> + +<p>I am going to make a fortune, it has not yet begun, +for I am not yet clear of debt; but as soon as I can, I +begin upon the fortune. I shall begin it with a halfpenny, +and it shall end with horses and yachts and all +the fun of the fair. This is the first real grey hair in my +character: rapacity has begun to show, the greed of the +protuberant guttler. Well, doubtless, when the hour +strikes, we must all guttle and protube. But it comes +hard on one who was always so willow-slender and as +careless as the daisies.</p> + +<p>Truly I am in excellent spirits. I have crushed through +a financial crisis; Fanny is much better; I am in excellent +health, and work from four to five hours a day—from +one to two above my average, that is; and we all +dwell together and make fortunes in the loveliest house +you ever saw, with a garden like a fairy story, and a view +like a classical landscape.</p> + +<p>Little? Well, it is not large. And when you come +to see us, you will probably have to bed at the hotel, +which is hard by. But it is Eden, madam, Eden and +Beulah and the Delectable Mountains and Eldorado and +the Hesperidean Isles and Bimini.<a name="FnAnchor_3" id="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><span class="sp">3</span></a></p> + +<p>We both look forward, my dear friend, with the greatest +eagerness to have you here. It seems it is not to be +this season: but I appoint you with an appointment for +next season. You cannot see us else: remember that. +Till my health has grown solid like an oak-tree, till my +fortune begins really to spread its boughs like the same +monarch of the woods (and the acorn, ay de mi! is not +yet planted), I expect to be a prisoner among the +palms.</p> + +<p>Yes, it is like old times to be writing you from the +Riviera, and after all that has come and gone, who can +predict anything? How fortune tumbles men about! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26"></a>26</span> +Yet I have not found that they change their friends, thank +God.</p> + +<p>Both of our loves to your sister and yourself. As for +me, if I am here and happy, I know to whom I owe it; +I know who made my way for me in life, if that were all, +and I remain, with love, your faithful friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Gilder” in the following is of course the late R. W. Gilder, for +many years the admirable editor of the Century Magazine.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Chalet la Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>April</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—I am very guilty; I should have +written to you long ago; and now, though it must be +done, I am so stupid that I can only boldly recapitulate. +A phrase of three members is the outside of my syntax.</p> + +<p>First, I like the <i>Rover</i> better than any of your other +verse. I believe you are right, and can make stories +in verse. The last two stanzas and one or two in the +beginning—but the two last above all—I thought excellent. +I suggest a pursuit of the vein. If you want a +good story to treat, get the <i>Memoirs of the Chevalier Johnstone</i>, +and do his passage of the Tay; it would be excellent: +the dinner in the field, the woman he has to follow, the +dragoons, the timid boatmen, the brave lasses. It would go +like a charm; look at it, and you will say you owe me one.</p> + +<p>Second, Gilder asking me for fiction, I suddenly took +a great resolve, and have packed off to him my new work, +<i>The Silverado Squatters</i>. I do not for a moment suppose +he will take it; but pray say all the good words you +can for it. I should be awfully glad to get it taken. But +if it does not mean dibbs at once, I shall be ruined for +life. Pray write soon and beg Gilder your prettiest for +a poor gentleman in pecuniary sloughs.</p> + +<p>Fourth, next time I am supposed to be at death’s door +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" id="page27"></a>27</span> +write to me like a Christian, and let not your correspondence +attend on business.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p><i>P.S.</i>—I see I have led you to conceive the <i>Squatters</i> +are fiction. They are not, alas!</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Chalet la Solitude, May</i> 5 [1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAREST PEOPLE</span>,—I have had a great piece of +news. There has been offered for <i>Treasure Island</i>—how +much do you suppose? I believe it would be an excellent +jest to keep the answer till my next letter. For two +cents I would do so. Shall I? Anyway, I’ll turn the +page first. No—well—A hundred pounds, all alive, O! +A hundred jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid. Is not +this wonderful? Add that I have now finished, in draft, +the fifteenth chapter of my novel, and have only five before +me, and you will see what cause of gratitude I have.</p> + +<p>The weather, to look at the per contra sheet, continues +vomitable; and Fanny is quite out of sorts. But, really, +with such cause of gladness, I have not the heart to be +dispirited by anything. My child’s verse book is finished, +dedication and all, and out of my hands—you may tell +Cummy; <i>Silverado</i> is done, too, and cast upon the waters; +and this novel so near completion, it does look as if I +should support myself without trouble in the future. If +I have only health, I can, I thank God. It is dreadful +to be a great, big man, and not be able to buy bread.</p> + +<p>O that this may last!</p> + +<p>I have to-day paid my rent for the half year, till the +middle of September, and got my lease: why they have +been so long, I know not.</p> + +<p>I wish you all sorts of good things.</p> + +<p>When is our marriage day?—Your loving and ecstatic +son,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Treesure Eilaan.</p> + +<p>It has been for me a Treasure Island verily.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>28</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, May</i> 8, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—I was disgusted to hear my father +was not so well. I have a most troubled existence of +work and business. But the work goes well, which is the +great affair. I meant to have written a most delightful +letter; too tired, however, and must stop. Perhaps I’ll +find time to add to it ere post.</p> + +<p>I have returned refreshed from eating, but have little +time, as Lloyd will go soon with the letters on his way to +his tutor, Louis Robert (!!!!), with whom he learns +Latin in French, and French, I suppose, in Latin, which +seems to me a capital education. He, Lloyd, is a great +bicycler already, and has been long distances; he is +most new-fangled over his instrument, and does not +willingly converse on other subjects.</p> + +<p>Our lovely garden is a prey to snails; I have gathered +about a bushel, which, not having the heart to slay, I +steal forth withal and deposit near my neighbour’s garden +wall. As a case of casuistry, this presents many points +of interest. I loathe the snails, but from loathing to +actual butchery, trucidation of multitudes, there is still +a step that I hesitate to take. What, then, to do with +them? My neighbour’s vineyard, pardy! It is a rich, +villa, pleasure-garden of course; if it were a peasant’s +patch, the snails, I suppose, would have to +perish.</p> + +<p>The weather these last three days has been much +better, though it is still windy and unkind. I keep splendidly +well, and am cruelly busy, with mighty little time +even for a walk. And to write at all, under such pressure, +must be held to lean to virtue’s side.</p> + +<p>My financial prospects are shining. O if the health +will hold, I should easily support myself.—Your ever +affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id="page29"></a>29</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var</i> +[<i>May</i> 20, 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—I enclose the receipt and the corrections. +As for your letter and Gilder’s, I must take +an hour or so to think; the matter much importing—to +me. The £40 was a heavenly thing.</p> + +<p>I send the MS. by Henley, because he acts for me in +all matters, and had the thing, like all my other books, +in his detention. He is my unpaid agent—an admirable +arrangement for me, and one that has rather more than +doubled my income on the spot.</p> + +<p>If I have been long silent, think how long you were +so and blush, sir, blush.</p> + +<p>I was rendered unwell by the arrival of your cheque, +and, like Pepys, “my hand still shakes to write of it.” +To this grateful emotion, and not to D.T., please attribute +the raggedness of my hand.</p> + +<p>This year I should be able to live and keep my family +on my own earnings, and that in spite of eight months +and more of perfect idleness at the end of last and beginning +of this. It is a sweet thought.</p> + +<p>This spot, our garden and our view, are sub-celestial. +I sing daily with my Bunyan, that great bard,</p> + +<p class="center f90">“I dwell already the next door to Heaven!”</p> + +<p>If you could see my roses, and my aloes, and my fig-marigolds, +and my olives, and my view over a plain, and +my view of certain mountains as graceful as Apollo, as +severe as Zeus, you would not think the phrase exaggerated.</p> + +<p>It is blowing to-day a <i>hot</i> mistral, which is the devil +or a near connection of his.</p> + +<p>This to catch the post.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt sc">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>30</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, +Var, France, May</i> 21, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—The night giveth advice, generally +bad advice; but I have taken it. And I have written +direct to Gilder to tell him to keep the book<a name="FnAnchor_4" id="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><span class="sp">4</span></a> back and +go on with it in November at his leisure. I do not know +if this will come in time; if it doesn’t, of course things +will go on in the way proposed. The £40, or, as I prefer +to put it, the 1000 francs, has been such a piercing sun-ray +as my whole grey life is gilt withal. On the back of +it I can endure. If these good days of Longman and the +Century only last, it will be a very green world, this that +we dwell in and that philosophers miscall. I have no +taste for that philosophy; give me large sums paid on +the receipt of the MS. and copyright reserved, and what +do I care about the non-bëent? Only I know it can’t +last. The devil always has an imp or two in every +house, and my imps are getting lively. The good +lady, the dear, kind lady, the sweet, excellent lady, +Nemesis, whom alone I adore, has fixed her wooden +eye upon me. I fall prone; spare me, Mother Nemesis! +But catch her!</p> + +<p>I must now go to bed; for I have had a whoreson +influenza cold, and have to lie down all day, and get up +only to meals and the delights, June delights, of business +correspondence.</p> + +<p>You said nothing about my subject for a poem. Don’t +you like it? My own fishy eye has been fixed on it for +prose, but I believe it could be thrown out finely in verse, +and hence I resign and pass the hand. Twig the compliment?—Yours +affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>31</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Tushery” had been a name in use between Stevenson and +Mr. Henley for romances of the <i>Ivanhoe</i> type. He now applies it to +his own tale of the Wars of the Roses, <i>The Black Arrow</i>, written +for Mr. Henderson’s Young Folks, of which the office was in Red +Lion Court.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hyères, May</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p>... The influenza has busted me a good deal; I +have no spring, and am headachy. So, as my good Red +Lion Courier begged me for another Butcher’s Boy—I +turned me to—what thinkest ’ou?—to Tushery, by the +mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every +tusher tushes me so free, that may I be tushed if the whole +thing is worth a tush. <i>The Black Arrow: A Tale of +Tunstall Forest</i> is his name: tush! a poor thing!</p> + +<p>Will <i>Treasure Island</i> proofs be coming soon, think you?</p> + +<p>I will now make a confession. It was the sight of +your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot John +Silver in <i>Treasure Island</i>. Of course, he is not in any +other quality or feature the least like you; but the idea +of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, +was entirely taken from you.</p> + +<p>Otto is, as you say, not a thing to extend my public +on. It is queer and a little, little bit free; and some of +the parties are immoral; and the whole thing is not a +romance, nor yet a comedy; nor yet a romantic comedy; +but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all +three in a glass jar. I think it is not without merit, but +I am not always on the level of my argument, and some +parts are false, and much of the rest is thin; it is more a +triumph for myself than anything else; for I see, beyond +it, better stuff. I have nine chapters ready, or almost +ready, for press. My feeling would be to get it placed +anywhere for as much as could be got for it, and rather +in the shadow, till one saw the look of it in print.—Ever +yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Pretty Sick.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32"></a>32</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, May</i> 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—The books came some time since, but +I have not had the pluck to answer: a shower of small +troubles having fallen in, or troubles that may be very +large.</p> + +<p>I have had to incur a huge vague debt for cleaning +sewers; our house was (of course) riddled with hidden +cesspools, but that was infallible. I have the fever, and +feel the duty to work very heavy on me at times; yet +go it must. I have had to leave <i>Fontainebleau</i>, when three +hours would finish it, and go full-tilt at tushery for a while. +But it will come soon.</p> + +<p>I think I can give you a good article on Hokusai; but +that is for afterwards; <i>Fontainebleau</i> is first in hand.</p> + +<p>By the way, my view is to give the <i>Penny Whistles</i> to +Crane or Greenaway. But Crane, I think, is likeliest; he +is a fellow who, at least, always does his best.</p> + +<p>Shall I ever have money enough to write a play?</p> + +<p>O dire necessity!</p> + +<p>A word in your ear: I don’t like trying to support +myself. I hate the strain and the anxiety; and +when unexpected expenses are foisted on me, I feel the +world is playing with false dice.—Now I must +Tush, adieu.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">An Aching, Fevered, Penny-Journalist.</p> + +<p class="center">A lytle Jape of <span class="scs">TUSHERIE</span>.</p> + +<p class="rt1">By A. Tusher.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The pleasant river gushes</p> + <p class="i1">Among the meadows green;</p> +<p>At home the author tushes;</p> + <p class="i1">For him it flows unseen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33"></a>33</span></p> +<p class="s">The Birds among the Bŭshes</p> + <p class="i1">May wanton on the spray;</p> +<p>But vain for him who tushes</p> + <p class="i1">The brightness of the day!</p> + +<p class="s">The frog among the rushes</p> + <p class="i1">Sits singing in the blue.</p> +<p>By’r la’kin! but these tushes</p> + <p class="i1">Are wearisome to do!</p> + +<p class="s">The task entirely crushes</p> + <p class="i1">The spirit of the bard:</p> +<p>God pity him who tushes—</p> + <p class="i1">His task is very hard.</p> + +<p class="s">The filthy gutter slushes,</p> + <p class="i1">The clouds are full of rain,</p> +<p>But doomed is he who tushes</p> + <p class="i1">To tush and tush again.</p> + +<p class="s">At morn with his hair-br<i>u</i>shes,</p> + <p class="i1">Still “tush” he says, and weeps;</p> +<p>At night again he tushes,</p> + <p class="i1">And tushes till he sleeps.</p> + +<p class="s">And when at length he pŭshes</p> + <p class="i1">Beyond the river dark—</p> +<p>’Las, to the man who tushes,</p> + <p class="i1">“Tush,” shall be God’s remark!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Chalet la Solitude, Hyères, May</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">COLVIN</span>,—The attempt to correspond with you is vain. +Well, well, then so be it. I will from time to time write you +an insulting letter, brief but monstrous harsh. I regard you +in the light of a genteel impostor. Your name figures in +the papers but never to a piece of letter-paper: well, well.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34"></a>34</span></p> + +<p>News. I am well: Fanny been ill but better: <i>Otto</i> +about three-quarters done; <i>Silverado</i> proofs a terrible +job—it is a most unequal work—new wine in old bottles—large +rats, small bottles:<a name="FnAnchor_5" id="FnAnchor_5" href="#Footnote_5"><span class="sp">5</span></a> as usual, penniless—O but +penniless: still, with four articles in hand (say £35) and +the £100 for <i>Silverado</i> imminent, not hopeless.</p> + +<p>Why am I so penniless, ever, ever penniless, ever, ever +penny-penny-penniless and dry?</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + + <p>The birds upon the thorn,</p> + <p>The poppies in the corn,</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>They surely are more fortunate or prudenter than I!</p> + +<p>In Arabia, everybody is called the Father of something +or other for convenience or insult’s sake. Thus you are +“the Father of Prints,” or of “Bummkopferies,” or +“Father of Unanswered Correspondence.” They would +instantly dub Henley “the Father of Wooden Legs”; +me they would denominate the “Father of Bones,” and +Matthew Arnold “the Father of Eyeglasses.”</p> + +<p>I have accepted most of the excisions. Proposed +titles:—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>The Innocent Muse.</p> +<p>A Child’s Garden of Rhymes.</p> +<p>Songs of the Playroom.</p> +<p>Nursery Songs.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>I like the first?</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, May or June</i> 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—Snatches in return for yours; for this +little once, I’m well to windward of you.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id="page35"></a>35</span></p> + +<p>Seventeen chapters of <i>Otto</i> are now drafted, and finding +I was working through my voice and getting screechy, I +have turned back again to rewrite the earlier part. It +has, I do believe, some merit: of what order, of course, +I am the last to know; and, triumph of triumphs, my wife—my +wife who hates and loathes and slates my women—admits +a great part of my Countess to be on the spot.</p> + +<p>Yes, I could borrow, but it is the joy of being before +the public, for once. Really, £100 is a sight more than +<i>Treasure Island</i> is worth.</p> + +<p>The reason of my <i>dèche</i>? Well, if you begin one +house, have to desert it, begin another, and are eight +months without doing any work, you will be in a <i>dèche</i> +too. I am not in a <i>dèche</i>, however; <i>distingue</i>—I would +fain distinguish; I am rather a swell, but <i>not solvent</i>. +At a touch the edifice, <i>ædificium</i>, might collapse. If my +creditors began to babble around me, I would sink with +a slow strain of music into the crimson west. The difficulty +in my elegant villa is to find oil, <i>oleum</i>, for the dam +axles. But I’ve paid my rent until September; and +beyond the chemist, the grocer, the baker, the doctor, the +gardener, Lloyd’s teacher, and the great chief creditor +Death, I can snap my fingers at all men. Why will people +spring bills on you? I try to make ’em charge me at the +moment; they won’t, the money goes, the debt remains.—The +Required Play is in the <i>Merry Men</i>.</p> + +<p class="rt">Q. E. F.</p> + +<p class="pt2">I thus render honour to your <i>flair</i>; it came on me of +a clap; I do not see it yet beyond a kind of sunset glory. +But it’s there: passion, romance, the picturesque, involved: +startling, simple, horrid: a sea-pink in sea-froth! +<i>S’agit de la désenterrer.</i> “Help!” cries a buried +masterpiece.</p> + +<p>Once I see my way to the year’s end, clear, I turn to +plays; till then I grind at letters; finish <i>Otto</i>; write, say, +a couple of my <i>Traveller’s Tales</i>; and then, if all my +ships come home, I will attack the drama in earnest. I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id="page36"></a>36</span> +cannot mix the skeins. Thus, though I’m morally sure +there is a play in <i>Otto</i>, I dare not look for it: I shoot +straight at the story.</p> + +<p>As a story, a comedy, I think <i>Otto</i> very well constructed; +the echoes are very good, all the sentiments +change round, and the points of view are continually, +and, I think (if you please), happily contrasted. None +of it is exactly funny, but some of it is smiling.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The verses alluded to are some of those afterwards collected in +<i>Underwoods</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Chalet la Solitude, Hyères, May or June</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR HENLEY</span>,—You may be surprised to hear that I am +now a great writer of verses; that is, however, so. I have +the mania now like my betters, and faith, if I live till I +am forty, I shall have a book of rhymes like Pollock, +Gosse, or whom you please. Really, I have begun to +learn some of the rudiments of that trade, and have +written three or four pretty enough pieces of octosyllabic +nonsense, semi-serious, semi-smiling. A kind of prose +Herrick, divested of the gift of verse, and you behold the +Bard. But I like it.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Jules Simoneau</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This friend was the keeper of the inn and restaurant where +Stevenson had boarded at Monterey in the autumn of 1879. In +writing French, as will be seen, Stevenson had always more grip +of idiom than of grammar.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>La Solitude, Hyères, May or June</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MON CHER ET BON SIMONEAU</span>,—J’ai commencé plusieurs +fois de vous écrire; et voilà-t-il pas qu’un empêchement +quelconque est arrivé toujours. La lettre ne part pas; et +je vous laisse toujours dans le droit de soupçonner mon +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37"></a>37</span> +cœur. Mon bon ami, ne pensez pas que je vous ai oublié +ou que je vous oublierai jamais. Il n’en est de rien. Votre +bon souvenir me tient de bien près, et je le garderai jusqu’à +la mort.</p> + +<p>J’ai failli mourir de bien près; mais me voici bien +rétabli, bien que toujours un peu chétif et malingre. +J’habite, comme vous voyez, la France. Je travaille +beaucoup, et je commence à ne pas être le dernier; déjà +on me dispute ce que j’écris, et je n’ai pas à me plaindre +de ce que l’on appelle les honoraires. Me voici alors +très affairé, très heureux dans mon ménage, gâté par ma +femme, habitant la plus petite maisonette dans le plus +beau jardin du monde, et voyant de mes fen êtres la mer, +les isles d’Hyères, et les belles collines, montagnes et forts +de Toulon.</p> + +<p>Et vous, mon très cher ami? Comment celà va-t-il? +Comment vous portez-vous? Comment va le commerce? +Comment aimez vous le pays? et l’enfant? et la femme? +Et enfin toutes les questions possibles. Écrivez-moi donc +bien vite, cher Simoneau. Et quant à moi, je vous promets +que vous entendrez bien vîte parler de moi; je vous +<i>récrirai</i> sous peu, et je vous enverrai un de mes livres. +Ceci n’est qu’un serrement de main, <i>from the bottom of my +heart, dear and kind old man</i>.—Your friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The “new dictionary” means, of course, the first instalments of +the great Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, edited by +Dr. J. A. H. Murray.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>June</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—I was delighted to hear the good news +about ——. Bravo, he goes uphill fast. Let him beware +of vanity, and he will go higher; let him be still discontented, +and let him (if it might be) see the merits and +not the faults of his rivals, and he may swarm at last to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id="page38"></a>38</span> +the top-gallant. There is no other way. Admiration is +the only road to excellence; and the critical spirit kills, +but envy and injustice are putrefaction on its feet.</p> + +<p>Thus far the moralist. The eager author now begs to +know whether you may have got the other Whistles, and +whether a fresh proof is to be taken; also whether in that +case the dedication should not be printed therewith; <i>B</i>ulk +<i>D</i>elights <i>P</i>ublishers (original aphorism; to be said sixteen +times in succession as a test of sobriety).</p> + +<p>Your wild and ravening commands were received; but +cannot be obeyed. And anyway, I do assure you I am +getting better every day; and if the weather would but +turn, I should soon be observed to walk in hornpipes. +Truly I am on the mend. I am still very careful. I have +the new dictionary; a joy, a thing of beauty, and—bulk. +I shall be raked i’ the mools before it’s finished; that is +the only pity; but meanwhile I sing.</p> + +<p>I beg to inform you that I, Robert Louis Stevenson, +author of <i>Brashiana</i> and other works, am merely beginning +to commence to prepare to make a first start at +trying to understand my profession. O the height and +depth of novelty and worth in any art! and O that I am +privileged to swim and shoulder through such oceans! +Could one get out of sight of land—all in the blue? Alas +not, being anchored here in flesh, and the bonds of logic +being still about us.</p> + +<p>But what a great space and a great air there is in these +small shallows where alone we venture! and how new +each sight, squall, calm, or sunrise! An art is a fine +fortune, a palace in a park, a band of music, health, and +physical beauty; all but love—to any worthy practiser. +I sleep upon my art for a pillow; I waken in my art; I +am unready for death, because I hate to leave it. I love +my wife, I do not know how much, nor can, nor shall, +unless I lost her; but while I can conceive my being +widowed, I refuse the offering of life without my art. I <i>am</i> +not but in my art; it is me; I am the body of it merely.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id="page39"></a>39</span></p> + +<p>And yet I produce nothing, am the author of <i>Brashiana</i> +and other works: tiddy-iddity—as if the works one wrote +were anything but ’prentice’s experiments. Dear reader, +I deceive you with husks, the real works and all the +pleasure are still mine and incommunicable. After this +break in my work, beginning to return to it, as from light +sleep, I wax exclamatory, as you see.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Sursum Corda:</p> +<p>Heave ahead:</p> +<p>Here’s luck.</p> +<p>Art and Blue Heaven,</p> +<p>April and God’s Larks.</p> +<p>Green reeds and the sky-scattering river.</p> +<p>A stately music.</p> +<p>Enter God!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt2">Ay, but you know, until a man can write that “Enter +God,” he has made no art! None! Come, let us take +counsel together and make some!</p> + + +<p class="to">To Trevor Haddon</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>During the height of the Provençal summer, for July and part +of August, Stevenson went with his wife to the Baths of Royat in +Auvergne (travelling necessarily by way of Clermont-Ferrand). +His parents joined them at Royat for part of their visit. This and +possibly the next following letters were written during the trip. +The news here referred to was that his correspondent had won a +scholarship at the Slade School.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères. But just now writing from<br /> +Clermont-Ferrand, July</i> 5, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. HADDON</span>,—Your note with its piece of excellent +news duly reached me. I am delighted to hear of +your success: selfishly so; for it is pleasant to see that +one whom I suppose I may call an admirer is no fool. I +wish you more and more prosperity, and to be devoted +to your art. An art is the very gist of life; it grows +with you; you will never weary of an art at which you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>40</span> +fervently and superstitiously labour. Superstitiously: I +mean, think more of it than it deserves; be blind to its +faults, as with a wife or father; forget the world in a +technical trifle. The world is very serious; art is the +cure of that, and must be taken very lightly; but to take +art lightly, you must first be stupidly owlishly in earnest +over it. When I made Casimir say “Tiens” at the end, +I made a blunder. I thought it was what Casimir would +have said and I put it down. As your question shows, it +should have been left out. It was a “patch” of realism, +and an anti-climax. Beware of realism; it is the devil; +’tis one of the means of art, and now they make it the end! +And such is the farce of the age in which a man lives, that +we all, even those of us who most detest it, sin by realism.</p> + +<p>Notes for the student of any art.</p> + +<p>1. Keep an intelligent eye upon <i>all</i> the others. It is +only by doing so that you come to see what Art is: Art +is the end common to them all, it is none of the points by +which they differ.</p> + +<p>2. In this age beware of realism.</p> + +<p>3. In your own art, bow your head over technique. +Think of technique when you rise and when you go to +bed. Forget purposes in the meanwhile; get to love +technical processes; to glory in technical successes; get +to see the world entirely through technical spectacles, to +see it entirely in terms of what you can do. Then when you +have anything to say, the language will be apt and copious.</p> + +<p>My health is better.</p> + +<p>I have no photograph just now; but when I get one +you shall have a copy. It will not be like me; sometimes +I turn out a capital, fresh bank clerk; once I came +out the image of Runjeet Singh; again the treacherous +sun has fixed me in the character of a travelling evangelist. +It’s quite a lottery; but whatever the next venture +proves to be, soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, you shall +have a proof. Reciprocate. The truth is I have no +appearance; a certain air of disreputability is the one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41"></a>41</span> +constant character that my face presents: the rest change +like water. But still I am lean, and still disreputable.</p> + +<p>Cling to your youth. It is an artistic stock in trade. +Don’t give in that you are ageing, and you won’t age. I +have exactly the same faults and qualities still; only +a little duller, greedier and better tempered; a little +less tolerant of pain and more tolerant of tedium. The +last is a great thing for life but—query?—a bad endowment +for art?</p> + +<p>Another note for the art student.</p> + +<p>4. See the good in other people’s work; it will never +be yours. See the bad in your own, and don’t cry about +it; it will be there always. Try to use your faults; at +any rate use your knowledge of them, and don’t run +your head against stone walls. Art is not like theology; +nothing is forced. You have not to represent the world. +You have to represent only what you can represent with +pleasure and effect, and the only way to find out what +that is is by technical exercise.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Jules Simoneau</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hyères or Royat, Summer</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FRIEND SIMONEAU</span>,—It would be difficult to +tell how glad I was to get your letter with your good +news and kind remembrances, it did my heart good to +the bottom. I shall never forget the good time we had +together, the many long talks, the games of chess, the +flute on an occasion, and the excellent food. Now I am +in clover, only my health a mere ruined temple; the ivy +grows along its shattered front, otherwise, I have no +wish that is not fulfilled: a beautiful large garden, a fine +view of plain, sea and mountain; a wife that suits me +down to the ground, and a barrel of good Beaujolais. +To this I must add that my books grow steadily more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>42</span> +popular, and if I could only avoid illness I should be well +to do for money, as it is, I keep pretty near the wind. +Have I other means? I doubt it. I saw François here; +and it was in some respects sad to see him, pining in the +ungenial life and not, I think, very well pleased with his +relatives. The young men, it is true, adored him, but +his niece tried to pump me about what money I had, +with an effrontery I was glad to disappoint. How he +spoke of you I need not tell you. He is your true friend, +dear Simoneau, and your ears should have tingled when +we met, for we talked of little but yourself.</p> + +<p>The papers you speak about are past dates but I will +send you a paper from time to time, as soon as I am able +to go out again. We were both well pleased to hear of +your marriage, and both Mrs. Stevenson and myself beg +to be remembered with the kindest wishes to Mrs. Simoneau. +I am glad you have done this. All races are better away +from their own country; but I think you French improve +the most of all. At home, I like you well enough, but +give me the Frenchman abroad! Had you stayed at +home, you would probably have acted otherwise. Consult +your consciousness, and you will think as I do. How +about a law condemning the people of every country to +be educated in another, to change sons in short? Should +we not gain all around? Would not the Englishman +unlearn hypocrisy? Would not the Frenchman learn to +put some heart into his friendships? I name what strikes +me as the two most obvious defects of the two nations. +The French might also learn to be a little less rapacious +to women and the English to be a little more honest.</p> + +<p>Indeed their merits and defects make a balance.</p> + +<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">The English.</td> <td class="tc1">The French.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">hypocrites</td> <td class="tc3">free from hypocrisy</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">good, stout reliable friends</td> <td class="tc3">incapable of friendship</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">dishonest to the root</td> <td class="tc3">fairly honest</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">fairly decent to women.</td> <td class="tc3">rather indecent to women.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" id="page43"></a>43</span></p> + +<p class="noind">There is my table, not at all the usual one, but yes, I +think you will agree with it. And by travel, each race +can cure much of its defects and acquire much of the +others’ virtues. Let us say that you and I are complete! +You are anyway: I would not change a hair of you. +The Americans hold the English faults: dishonest and +hypocrites, perhaps not so strongly but still to the exclusion +of others. It is strange that such mean defects +should be so hard to eradicate, after a century of separation, +and so great an admixture of other blood.</p> + +<p>Your stay in Mexico must have been interesting indeed: +and it is natural you should be so keen against the Church +on this side, we have a painful exhibition of the other +side: the <i>libre-penseur</i> a mere priest without the sacraments, +the narrowest tyranny of intolerance popular, and +in fact a repetition in the XIXth century of theological +ill-feeling minus the sermons. We have speeches instead. +I met the other day one of the new lay schoolmasters of +France; a pleasant cultivated man, and for some time +listened to his ravings. “In short,” I said, “you are +like Louis Quatorze, you wish to drive out of France +all who do not agree with you.” I thought he would +protest; not he!—“Oui, Monsieur,” was his answer. +And that is the cause of liberty and free thought! But +the race of man was born tyrannical; doubtless Adam +beat Eve, and when all the rest are dead the last man will +be found beating the last dog. In the land of Padre d. R. +you see the old tyranny still active on its crutches; in this +land, I begin to see the new, a fat fellow, out of leading-strings +and already killing flies.</p> + +<p>This letter drones along unprofitably enough. Let me +put a period to my divagations. Write again soon, and +let me hear good news of you, and I will try to be more +quick of answer.</p> + +<p>And with the best wishes to yourself and all your +family, believe me, your sincere friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>44</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The persons mentioned below in the third paragraph are cousins +of the writer and playmates of his childhood; two of them, christened +Lewis like himself after their Balfour grandfather, had been nicknamed +after their birthplaces “Delhi” and “Cramond” to avoid +confusion. Mount Chessie is a beautiful place near Lasswade: +“Cummy” has described his delight when she cut whistles for him +there out of a plane-tree.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hyères or Royat, Summer</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,—Yes, I own I am a real bad correspondent, +and am as bad as can be in most directions.</p> + +<p>I have been adding some more poems to your book. +I wish they would look sharp about it; but, you see, +they are trying to find a good artist to make the illustrations, +without which no child would give a kick for it. +It will be quite a fine work, I hope. The dedication is a +poem too, and has been quite a long while written, but I +do not mean you to see it till you get the book; keep the +jelly for the last, you know, as you would often recommend +in former days, so now you can take your own +medicine.</p> + +<p>I am very sorry to hear you have been so poorly; I +have been very well; it used to be quite the other way, +used it not? Do you remember making the whistle at +Mount Chessie? I do not think it <i>was</i> my knife; I +believe it was yours; but rhyme is a very great monarch, +and goes before honesty, in these affairs at least. Do you +remember, at Warriston, one autumn Sunday, when the +beech nuts were on the ground, seeing heaven open? I +would like to make a rhyme of that, but cannot.</p> + +<p>Is it not strange to think of all the changes: Bob, +Cramond, Delhi, Minnie, and Henrietta, all married, and +fathers and mothers, and your humble servant just the +one point better off? And such a little while ago all +children together! The time goes swift and wonderfully +even; and if we are no worse than we are, we should be +grateful to the power that guides us. For more than a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45"></a>45</span> +generation I have now been to the fore in this rough world, +and been most tenderly helped, and done cruelly wrong, +and yet escaped; and here I am still, the worse for wear, +but with some fight in me still, and not unthankful—no, +surely not unthankful, or I were then the worst of +human things!</p> + +<p>My little dog is a very much better child in every +way, both more loving and more amiable; but he is not +fond of strangers, and is, like most of his kind, a great, +specious humbug.</p> + +<p>Fanny has been ill, but is much better again; she now +goes donkey rides with an old woman, who compliments +her on her French. That old woman—seventy odd—is +in a parlous spiritual state.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon, in the new sixpenny illustrated magazine, +Wogg’s picture is to appear: this is a great honour! +And the poor soul, whose vanity would just explode if +he could understand it, will never be a bit the wiser!—With +much love, in which Fanny joins, believe me, your +affectionate boy,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The reference is to Mr. Gosse’s volume called <i>Seventeenth Century +Studies</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hyères or Royat, Summer</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—I have now leisurely read your +volume; pretty soon, by the way, you will receive one +of mine.</p> + +<p>It is a pleasant, instructive, and scholarly volume. +The three best being, quite out of sight—Crashaw, Otway, +and Etherege. They are excellent; I hesitate between +them; but perhaps Crashaw is the most brilliant.</p> + +<p>Your Webster is not my Webster; nor your Herrick +my Herrick. On these matters we must fire a gun to +leeward, show our colours, and go by. Argument is +impossible. They are two of my favourite authors: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46"></a>46</span> +Herrick above all: I suppose they are two of yours. Well, +Janus-like, they do behold us two with diverse countenances, +few features are common to these different avatars; +and we can but agree to differ, but still with gratitude to +our entertainers, like two guests at the same dinner, one +of whom takes clear and one white soup. By my way +of thinking, neither of us need be wrong.</p> + +<p>The other papers are all interesting, adequate, clear, +and with a pleasant spice of the romantic. It is a book +you may be well pleased to have so finished, and will +do you much good. The Crashaw is capital: capital; +I like the taste of it. Preface clean and dignified. The +handling throughout workmanlike, with some four or +five touches of preciosity, which I regret.</p> + +<p>With my thanks for information, entertainment, and a +pleasurable envy here and there.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Soon after he was settled again at Hyères, Stevenson had a great +shock in the death of one of the oldest and most intimate of his +friends of Edinburgh days, Mr. James Walter Ferrier (see the essay +<i>Old Mortality</i> in <i>Memories and Portraits</i>). It is in accordance with +the expressed wish of this gentleman’s surviving sister that publicity +is given to the following letters:—</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>Sept.</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS FERRIER</span>,—They say Walter is gone. +You, who know how I have neglected him, will conceive +my remorse. I had another letter written; when I +heard he was worse, I promised myself to wake up for +the last time. Alas, too late!</p> + +<p>My dear Walter, set apart that terrible disease, was, +in his right mind, the best and gentlest gentleman. God +knows he would never intentionally hurt a soul.</p> + +<p>Well, he is done with his troubles and out of his long +sickness, and I dare say is glad to be at peace and out of +the body, which in him seemed the enemy of the fine and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" id="page47"></a>47</span> +kind spirit. He is the first friend I have ever lost, and I +find it difficult to say anything and fear to intrude upon +your grief. But I had to try to tell you how much I +shared it.</p> + +<p>Could you get any one to tell me particulars? Do +not write yourself of course—I do not mean that; but +some one else.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, September</i> 19, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOY</span>,—Our letters vigorously cross: you will ere +this have received a note to Coggie: God knows what +was in it.</p> + +<p>It is strange, a little before the first word you sent me—so +late—kindly late, I know and feel—I was thinking +in my bed, when I knew you I had six friends—Bob I +had by nature; then came the good James Walter—with +all his failings—the <i>gentleman</i> of the lot, alas to sink +so low, alas to do so little, but now, thank God, in his +quiet rest; next I found Baxter—well do I remember +telling Walter I had unearthed “a W.S. that I thought +would do”—it was in the Academy Lane, and he questioned +me as to the Signet’s qualifications; fourth came +Simpson; somewhere about the same time, I began to get +intimate with Jenkin; last came Colvin. Then, one +black winter afternoon, long Leslie Stephen, in his velvet +jacket, met me in the Spec. by appointment, took me +over to the infirmary, and in the crackling, blighting gas-light +showed me that old head whose excellent representation +I see before me in the photograph. Now when a man +has six friends, to introduce a seventh is usually hopeless. +Yet when you were presented, you took to them and they +to you upon the nail. You must have been a fine fellow; +but what a singular fortune I must have had in my six +friends that you should take to all. I don’t know if it is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48"></a>48</span> +good Latin, most probably not: but this is enscrolled +before my eyes for Walter: <i>Tandem e nubibus in apricum +properat</i>. Rest, I suppose, I know, was all that remained; +but O to look back, to remember all the mirth, all the +kindness, all the humorous limitations and loved defects +of that character; to think that he was young with me, +sharing that weather-beaten, Fergussonian youth, looking +forward through the clouds to the sunburst; and now +clean gone from my path, silent—well, well. This has +been a strange awakening. Last night, when I was alone +in the house, with the window open on the lovely still +night, I could have sworn he was in the room with me; +I could show you the spot; and, what was very curious, +I heard his rich laughter, a thing I had not called to mind +for I know not how long.</p> + +<p>I see his coral waistcoat studs that he wore the first +time he dined in my house; I see his attitude, leaning +back a little, already with something of a portly air, and +laughing internally. How I admired him! And now in +the West Kirk.</p> + +<p>I am trying to write out this haunting bodily sense of +absence; besides, what else should I write of?</p> + +<p>Yes, looking back, I think of him as one who was good, +though sometimes clouded. He was the only gentle one +of all my friends, save perhaps the other Walter. And +he was certainly the only modest man among the lot. +He never gave himself away; he kept back his secret; +there was always a gentle problem behind all. Dear, +dear, what a wreck; and yet how pleasant is the retrospect! +God doeth all things well, though by what strange, +solemn, and murderous contrivances!</p> + +<p>It is strange: he was the only man I ever loved who +did not habitually interrupt. The fact draws my own +portrait. And it is one of the many reasons why I count +myself honoured by his friendship. A man like you <i>had</i> +to like me; you could not help yourself; but Ferrier was +above me, we were not equals; his true self humoured +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49"></a>49</span> +and smiled paternally upon my failings, even as I humoured +and sorrowed over his.</p> + +<p>Well, first his mother, then himself, they are gone: +“in their resting graves.”</p> + +<p>When I come to think of it, I do not know what I said +to his sister, and I fear to try again. Could you send +her this? There is too much both about yourself and +me in it; but that, if you do not mind, is but a mark of +sincerity. It would let her know how entirely, in the +mind of (I suppose) his oldest friend, the good, true Ferrier +obliterates the memory of the other, who was only his +“lunatic brother.”</p> + +<p>Judge of this for me, and do as you please; anyway, +I will try to write to her again; my last was some kind +of scrawl that I could not see for crying. This came +upon me, remember, with terrible suddenness; I was surprised +by this death; and it is fifteen or sixteen years +since first I saw the handsome face in the Spec. I made +sure, besides, to have died first. Love to you, your wife, +and her sisters.—Ever yours, dear boy,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt2">I never knew any man so superior to himself as poor +James Walter. The best of him only came as a vision, +like Corsica from the Corniche. He never gave his +measure either morally or intellectually. The curse was +on him. Even his friends did not know him but by fits. +I have passed hours with him when he was so wise, good, +and sweet, that I never knew the like of it in any other. +And for a beautiful good humour he had no match. I +remember breaking in upon him once with a whole red-hot +story (in my worst manner), pouring words upon him +by the hour about some truck not worth an egg that had +befallen me; and suddenly, some half hour after, finding +that the sweet fellow had some concern of his own of +infinitely greater import, that he was patiently and +smilingly waiting to consult me on. It sounds nothing; +but the courtesy and the unselfishness were perfect. It +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>50</span> +makes me rage to think how few knew him, and how many +had the chance to sneer at their better.</p> + +<p>Well, he was not wasted, that we know; though if +anything looked liker irony than this fitting of a man +out with these rich qualities and faculties to be wrecked +and aborted from the very stocks, I do not know the +name of it. Yet we see that he has left an influence; +the memory of his patient courtesy has often checked +me in rudeness; has it not you?</p> + +<p>You can form no idea of how handsome Walter was. +At twenty he was splendid to see; then, too, he had +the sense of power in him, and great hopes; he looked +forward, ever jesting of course, but he looked to see himself +where he had the right to expect. He believed in +himself profoundly; but <i>he never disbelieved in others</i>. +To the roughest Highland student he always had his +fine, kind, open dignity of manner; and a good word +behind his back.</p> + +<p>The last time that I saw him before leaving for America—it +was a sad blow to both of us. When he heard I was +leaving, and that might be the last time we might meet—it +almost was so—he was terribly upset, and came +round at once. We sat late, in Baxter’s empty house, +where I was sleeping. My dear friend Walter Ferrier: +O if I had only written to him more! if only one of us +in these last days had been well! But I ever cherished +the honour of his friendship, and now when he is gone, +I know what I have lost still better. We live on, meaning +to meet; but when the hope is gone, the pang comes.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, 26th September</i> 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—It appears a bolt from Transatlantica +is necessary to produce four lines from you. It is +not flattering; but as I was always a bad correspondent, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>51</span> +’tis a vice to which I am lenient. I give you to know, +however, that I have already twice (this makes three +times) sent you what I please to call a letter, and received +from you in return a subterfuge—or nothing....</p> + +<p>My present purpose, however, which must not be +postponed, is to ask you to telegraph to the Americans.</p> + +<p>After a summer of good health of a very radiant order, +toothache and the death of a very old friend, which came +upon me like a thunderclap, have rather shelved my +powers. I stare upon the paper, not write. I wish I could +write like your Sculptors; yet I am well aware that I +should not try in that direction. A certain warmth (tepid +enough) and a certain dash of the picturesque are my poor +essential qualities; and if I went fooling after the too +classical, I might lose even these. But I envied you +that page.</p> + +<p>I am, of course, deep in schemes; I was so ever. +Execution alone somewhat halts. How much do you make +per annum, I wonder? This year, for the first time, I +shall pass £300; I may even get halfway to the next milestone. +This seems but a faint remuneration; and the +devil of it is, that I manage, with sickness, and moves, +and education, and the like, to keep steadily in front of +my income. However, I console myself with this, that +if I were anything else under God’s Heaven, and had the +same crank health, I should make an even zero. If I +had, with my present knowledge, twelve months of my +old health, I would, could, and should do something neat. +As it is, I have to tinker at my things in little sittings; +and the rent, or the butcher, or something, is always +calling me off to rattle up a pot-boiler. And then comes +a back-set of my health, and I have to twiddle my fingers +and play patience.</p> + +<p>Well, I do not complain, but I do envy strong health +where it is squandered. Treasure your strength, and +may you never learn by experience the profound <i>ennui</i> +and irritation of the shelved artist. For then, what is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52"></a>52</span> +life? All that one has done to make one’s life effective +then doubles the itch of inefficiency.</p> + +<p>I trust also you may be long without finding out the +devil that there is in a bereavement. After love it is the +one great surprise that life preserves for us. Now I don’t +think I can be astonished any more.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, 30th Sept. 1883.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS FERRIER</span>,—I am very much obliged to +you for your letter and was interested by all you told +me. Yes, I know it is better for him to be gone, and +what you say helps me to realise that it is so—I did not +know how much he had suffered; it is so that we are +cured of life. I am a little afraid to write or think +much of Walter just yet; as I have not quite recovered +the news and I have my work and my wife to +think of.</p> + +<p>Some day soon when the sharpness passes off (if it +does) I must try to write some more of what he was: he +was so little understood. I don’t suppose any one knew +him better than I did. But just now it is difficult to +think of him. For you I do mourn indeed, and admire +your courage: the loss is terrible. I have no portrait +of him. Is there one? If so please let me have it: if +it has to be copied please let it be.</p> + +<p>Henley seems to have been as good to dear Walter as +he is to all. That introduction was a good turn I did to +both. It seems so strange for a friendship to begin all +these years ago with so much mirth and now to end with +this sorrow. Our little lives are moments in the wake of +the eternal silence: but how crowded while they last. +His has gone down in peace.</p> + +<p>I was not certainly the best companion for Walter, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id="page53"></a>53</span> +but I do believe I was the best he had. In these early +days he was not fortunate in friends—looking back I see +most clearly how much we both wanted a man of riper +wisdom. We had no religion between the pair of us—that +was the flaw. How very different was our last +intimacy in Gladstone Terrace. But youth must learn—looking +back over these wasted opportunities, I must try +rather to remember what I did right, than to bewail the +much that I left undone and knew not how to do. I see +that even you have allowed yourself to have regrets. +Dear Miss Ferrier, sure you were his angel. We all had +something to be glad of, in so far as we had understood +and loved and perhaps a little helped the gentle spirit; +but you may certainly be proud. He always loved you; +and I remember in his worst days spoke of you with great +affection; a thing unusual with him; for he was walking +very wild and blind and had no true idea whether of +himself or life. The lifting afterwards was beautiful and +touching. Dear Miss Ferrier I have given your kind +messages to my wife who feels for you and reciprocates +the hope to meet. When it may come off I know not. +I feel almost ashamed to say that I keep better, I feel +as if like Mrs. Leslie “you must hate me for it”—still I +can very easily throw back whether by fatigue or want +of care, and I do not like to build plans for my return +to my own land. Is there no chance of your coming +hereabouts? Though we cannot in our small and disorderly +house offer a lady a room, one can be got close +by and we can offer possible board and a most lovely +little garden for a lounge. Please remember me kindly to +your brother John and Sir A. and Lady Grant and +believe me with hearty sympathy—Yours most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt2">I was rejoiced to hear he never doubted of my love, +but I must cure my hate of correspondence. This has +been a sharp lesson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>54</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>It will be remembered that “Whistles” or “Penny Whistles” +was his own name for the verses of the <i>Child’s Garden</i>. The proposal +referred to at the end of this letter was one which had reached him +from Messrs. Lippincott, the American publishers, for a sailing trip +to be taken among the Greek islands and made the subject of a +book.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>October</i> 1883].</p> + +<p>My dear excellent, admired, volcanic angel of a lad, +trusty as a dog, eruptive as Vesuvius, in all things great, +in all the soul of loyalty: greeting.</p> + +<p>That you are better spirits me up good. I have had +no colour of a Mag. of Art. From here, here in Highairs +the Palm-trees, I have heard your conversation. It came +here in the form of a Mistral, and I said to myself, Damme, +there is some Henley at the foot of this!</p> + +<p>I shall try to do the Whistle as suggested; but I can +usually do whistles only by giving my whole mind to it: +to produce even such limping verse demanding the whole +forces of my untuneful soul. I have other two anyway: +better or worse. I am now deep, deep, ocean deep in +<i>Otto</i>: a letter is a curst distraction. About 100 pp. are +near fit for publication; I am either making a spoon or +spoiling the horn of a Caledonian bull, with that airy +potentate. God help me, I bury a lot of labour in that +principality; and if I am not greatly a gainer, I am a +great loser and a great fool. However, <i>sursum corda</i>; +faint heart never writ romance.</p> + +<p>Your Dumas I think exquisite; it might even have +been stronglier said: the brave old godly pagan, I adore +his big footprints on the earth.</p> + +<p>Have you read Meredith’s <i>Love in the Valley</i>? It got +me, I wept; I remembered that poetry existed.</p> + +<p class="center f90">“When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror.”</p> + +<p>I propose if they (Lippincotts) will let me wait till next +Autumn, and go when it is safest, to accept £450 with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id="page55"></a>55</span> +£100 down; but it is now too late to go this year. November +and December are the months when it is safest; and +the back of the season is broken. I shall gain much +knowledge by the trip; this I look upon as one of the +main inducements.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following is in answer to a letter containing remarks on +the proofs of the <i>Child’s Garden</i>, then going round among some of +his friends, and on the instalments of <i>Silverado Squatters</i> and the +<i>Black Arrow</i>, which were appearing in the Century Magazine and +Young Folks respectively. The remarks on Professor Seeley’s +literary manner are <i>àpropos</i> of the <i>Expansion of England</i>, which +I had lately sent him.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>October</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">COLVIN, COLVIN, COLVIN</span>,—Yours received; also interesting +copy of <i>P. Whistles</i>. “In the multitude of councillors +the Bible declares there is wisdom,” said my great-uncle, +“but I have always found in them distraction.” +It is extraordinary how tastes vary: these proofs have +been handed about, it appears, and I have had several +letters; and—distraction. Æsop: the Miller and the Ass.</p> + +<p>Notes on details:—</p> + +<p>1. I love the occasional trochaic line; and so did +many excellent writers before me.</p> + +<p>2. If you don’t like <i>A Good Boy</i>, I do.</p> + +<p>3. In <i>Escape at Bedtime</i>, I found two suggestions. +“Shove” for “above” is a correction of the press; it +was so written. “Twinkled” is just the error; to the +child the stars appear to be there; any word that suggests +illusion is a horror.</p> + +<p>4. I don’t care; I take a different view of the +vocative.</p> + +<p>5. Bewildering and childering are good enough for me. +These are rhymes, jingles; I don’t go for eternity and +the three unities.</p> + +<p>I will delete some of those condemned, but not all. I +don’t care for the name Penny Whistles; I sent a sheaf +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id="page56"></a>56</span> +to Henley when I sent ’em. But I’ve forgot the +others. I would just as soon call ’em “Rimes for +Children” as anything else. I am not proud nor +particular.</p> + +<p>Your remarks on the <i>Black Arrow</i> are to the point. I +am pleased you liked Crookback; he is a fellow whose +hellish energy has always fixed my attention. I wish +Shakespeare had written the play after he had learned +some of the rudiments of literature and art rather than +before. Some day, I will re-tickle the Sable Missile, and +shoot it, <i>moyennant finances</i>, once more into the air; I +can lighten it of much, and devote some more attention +to Dick o’ Gloucester. It’s great sport to write +tushery.</p> + +<p>By this I reckon you will have heard of my proposed +excursiolorum to the Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, +and kindred sites. If the excursiolorum goes on, that +is if <i>moyennant finances</i> comes off, I shall write to beg +you to collect introductiolorums for me.</p> + +<p>Distinguo: 1. <i>Silverado</i> was not written in America, +but in Switzerland’s icy mountains. 2. What you read is +the bleeding and disembowelled remains of what I wrote. +3. The good stuff is all to come—so I think. “The Sea +Fogs,” “The Hunter’s Family,” “Toils and Pleasures”—<i>belles +pages</i>.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Ramnugger.</p> + +<p class="pt2">O!—Seeley is too clever to live, and the book a gem. +But why has he read too much Arnold? Why will he +avoid—obviously avoid—fine writing up to which he has +led? This is a winking, curled-and-oiled, ultra-cultured, +Oxford-don sort of an affectation that infuriates my +honest soul. “You see”—they say—“how unbombastic +<i>we</i> are; we come right up to eloquence, and, when it’s +hanging on the pen, dammy, we scorn it!” It is literary +Deronda-ism. If you don’t want the woman, the image, +or the phrase, mortify your vanity and avoid the appearance +of wanting them.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57"></a>57</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W.E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The first paragraph of the following refers to contributions of +R. L. S. to the Magazine of Art under Mr. Henley’s editorship:—</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères [Autumn 1883].</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—Glad you like <i>Fontainebleau</i>. I am going +to be the means, under heaven, of aërating or literating +your pages. The idea that because a thing is a picture-book +all the writing should be on the wrong tack is <i>triste</i> +but widespread. Thus <i>Hokusai</i> will be really a gossip on +convention, or in great part. And the Skelt will be as +like a Charles Lamb as I can get it. The writer should +write, and not illustrate pictures: else it’s bosh....</p> + +<p>Your remarks about the ugly are my eye. Ugliness is +only the prose of horror. It is when you are not able to +write <i>Macbeth</i> that you write <i>Thérèse Raquin</i>. Fashions +are external: the essence of art only varies in so far as +fashion widens the field of its application; art is a mill +whose thirlage, in different ages, widens and contracts; +but, in any case and under any fashion, the great man +produces beauty, terror, and mirth, and the little man +produces cleverness (personalities, psychology) instead of +beauty, ugliness instead of terror, and jokes instead of +mirth. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be +ever, world without end. Amen!</p> + +<p>And even as you read, you say, “Of course, <i>quelle +rengaine</i>!”</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Manhattan mentioned below is the name of a short-lived New +York magazine, the editor of which had asked through Mr. Low +for a contribution from R. L. S.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, October</i> [1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—... Some day or other, in Cassell’s +Magazine of Art, you will see a paper which will interest +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58"></a>58</span> +you, and where your name appears. It is called <i>Fontainebleau: +Village Communities of Artists</i>, and the signature +of R. L. Stevenson will be found annexed.</p> + +<p>Please tell the editor of Manhattan the following +secrets for me: 1<i>st</i>, That I am a beast; 2<i>nd</i>, that I owe +him a letter; 3<i>rd</i>, that I have lost his, and cannot recall +either his name or address; 4<i>th</i>, that I am very deep +in engagements, which my absurd health makes it hard +for me to overtake; but 5<i>th</i>, that I will bear him in mind; +6<i>th</i> and last, that I am a brute.</p> + +<p>My address is still the same, and I live in a most sweet +corner of the universe, sea and fine hills before me, and a +rich variegated plain; and at my back a craggy hill, loaded +with vast feudal ruins. I am very quiet; a person passing +by my door half startles me; but I enjoy the most aromatic +airs, and at night the most wonderful view into a +moonlit garden. By day this garden fades into nothing, +overpowered by its surroundings and the luminous distance; +but at night and when the moon is out, that +garden, the arbour, the flight of stairs that mount the +artificial hillock, the plumed blue gum-trees that hang +trembling, become the very skirts of Paradise. Angels I +know frequent it; and it thrills all night with the flutes +of silence. Damn that garden;—and by day it is gone.</p> + +<p>Continue to testify boldly against realism. Down with +Dagon, the fish god! All art swings down towards imitation, +in these days, fatally. But the man who loves art with +wisdom sees the joke; it is the lustful that tremble and respect +her ladyship; but the honest and romantic lovers of +the Muse can see a joke and sit down to laugh with Apollo.</p> + +<p>The prospect of your return to Europe is very agreeable; +and I was pleased by what you said about your +parents. One of my oldest friends died recently, and +this has given me new thoughts of death. Up to now +I had rather thought of him as a mere personal enemy +of my own; but now that I see him hunting after my +friends, he looks altogether darker. My own father is not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59"></a>59</span> +well; and Henley, of whom you must have heard me +speak, is in a questionable state of health. These things +are very solemn, and take some of the colour out of life. +It is a great thing, after all, to be a man of reasonable +honour and kindness. Do you remember once consulting +me in Paris whether you had not better sacrifice honesty +to art; and how, after much confabulation, we agreed that +your art would suffer if you did? We decided better than +we knew. In this strange welter where we live, all hangs +together by a million filaments; and to do reasonably +well by others, is the first pre-requisite of art. Art is a +virtue; and if I were the man I should be, my art would +rise in the proportion of my life.</p> + +<p>If you were privileged to give some happiness to your +parents, I know your art will gain by it. <i>By God it will!</i> +—<i>Sic subscribitur</i>,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To R. A. M. Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>October</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BOB</span>,—Yes, I got both your letters at Lyons, +but have been since then decading in several steps. +Toothache; fever; Ferrier’s death; lung. Now it is +decided I am to leave to-morrow, penniless, for Nice to +see Dr. Williams.</p> + +<p>I was much struck by your last. I have written a +breathless note on Realism for Henley; a fifth part of +the subject hurriedly touched, which will show you how +my thoughts are driving. You are now at last beginning +to think upon the problems of executive, plastic art, for +you are now for the first time attacking them. Hitherto +you have spoken and thought of two things—technique +and the <i>ars artium</i>, or common background of all arts. +Studio work is the real touch. That is the genial error +of the present French teaching. Realism I regard as a +mere question of method. The “brown foreground,” “old +mastery,” and the like, ranking with villanelles, as technical +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>60</span> +sports and pastimes. Real art, whether ideal or realistic, +addresses precisely the same feeling, and seeks the same +qualities—significance or charm. And the same—very +same—inspiration is only methodically differentiated +according as the artist is an arrant realist or an arrant +idealist. Each, by his own method, seeks to save and +perpetuate the same significance or charm; the one by +suppressing, the other by forcing, detail. All other idealism +is the brown foreground over again, and hence only +art in the sense of a game, like cup and ball. All other +realism is not art at all—but not at all. It is, then, an +insincere and showy handicraft.</p> + +<p>Were you to re-read some Balzac, as I have been +doing, it would greatly help to clear your eyes. He was +a man who never found his method. An inarticulate +Shakespeare, smothered under forcible-feeble detail. It +is astounding to the riper mind how bad he is, how feeble, +how untrue, how tedious; and, of course, when he surrendered +to his temperament, how good and powerful. +And yet never plain nor clear. He could not consent to +be dull, and thus became so. He would leave nothing +undeveloped, and thus drowned out of sight of land amid +the multitude of crying and incongruous details. There +is but one art—to omit! O if I knew how to omit, I +would ask no other knowledge. A man who knew how +to omit would make an <i>Iliad</i> of a daily paper.</p> + +<p>Your definition of seeing is quite right. It is the first +part of omission to be partly blind. Artistic sight is +judicious blindness. Sam Bough must have been a jolly +blind old boy. He would turn a corner, look for one-half +or quarter minute, and then say, “This’ll do, lad.” Down +he sat, there and then, with whole artistic plan, scheme +of colour, and the like, and begin by laying a foundation +of powerful and seemingly incongruous colour on the +block. He saw, not the scene, but the water-colour sketch. +Every artist by sixty should so behold nature. Where +does he learn that? In the studio, I swear. He goes to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>61</span> +nature for facts, relations, values—material; as a man, +before writing a historical novel, reads up memoirs. But +it is not by reading memoirs that he has learned the selective +criterion. He has learned that in the practice of his +art; and he will never learn it well, but when disengaged +from the ardent struggle of immediate representation, of +realistic and <i>ex facto</i> art. He learns it in the crystallisation +of day-dreams; in changing, not in copying, fact; in the +pursuit of the ideal, not in the study of nature. These +temples of art are, as you say, inaccessible to the realistic +climber. It is not by looking at the sea that you get</p> + +<p class="center f90">“The multitudinous seas incarnadine,”</p> + +<p class="noind">nor by looking at Mont Blanc that you find</p> + +<p class="center f90">“And visited all night by troops of stars.”</p> + +<p class="noind">A kind of ardour of the blood is the mother of all this; +and according as this ardour is swayed by knowledge and +seconded by craft, the art expression flows clear, and significance +and charm, like a moon rising, are born above the +barren juggle of mere symbols.</p> + +<p>The painter must study more from nature than the +man of words. By why? Because literature deals with +men’s business and passions which, in the game of life, +we are irresistibly obliged to study; but painting with +relations of light, and colour, and significances, and form, +which, from the immemorial habit of the race, we pass +over with an unregardful eye. Hence this crouching upon +camp-stools, and these crusts.<a name="FnAnchor_6" id="FnAnchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"><span class="sp">6</span></a> But neither one nor other +is a part of art, only preliminary studies.</p> + +<p>I want you to help me to get people to understand +that realism is a method, and only methodic in its consequences; +when the realist is an artist, that is, and supposing +the idealist with whom you compare him to be anything +but a <i>farceur</i> and a <i>dilettante</i>. The two schools of working +do, and should, lead to the choice of different subjects. But +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62"></a>62</span> +that is a consequence, not a cause. See my chaotic note, +which will appear, I fancy, in November in Henley’s sheet.</p> + +<p>Poor Ferrier, it bust me horrid. He was, after you, +the oldest of my friends.</p> + +<p>I am now very tired, and will go to bed having prelected +freely. Fanny will finish.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Some pages of MS. exist in which the writer at this time attempted +to re-cast and expand a portion of the <i>Lay Morals</i> of 1879. A +letter written some days earlier to his father, and partly quoted in +Mr. Graham Balfour’s <i>Life</i> (ed. 1906, p. 209), explains his purpose.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, 12th October 1883.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—I have just lunched; the day is +exquisite, the air comes through the open window rich +with odour, and I am by no means spiritually minded. +Your letter, however, was very much valued, and has been +read oftener than once. What you say about yourself I +was glad to hear; a little decent resignation is not only +becoming a Christian, but is likely to be excellent for the +health of a Stevenson. To fret and fume is undignified, +suicidally foolish, and theologically unpardonable; we are +here not to make, but to tread predestined, pathways; we +are the foam of a wave, and to preserve a proper equanimity +is not merely the first part of submission to God, +but the chief of possible kindnesses to those about us. I +am lecturing myself, but you also. To do our best is one +part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequence +is the next part, of any sensible virtue.</p> + +<p>I have come, for the moment, to a pause in my moral +works; for I have many irons in the fire, and I wish to +finish something to bring coin before I can afford to go +on with what I think doubtfully to be a duty. It is a +most difficult work; a touch of the parson will drive off +those I hope to influence; a touch of overstrained laxity, +besides disgusting, like a grimace, may do harm. Nothing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63"></a>63</span> +that I have ever seen yet speaks directly and efficaciously +to young men; and I do hope I may find the art and +wisdom to fill up a gap. The great point, as I see it, is +to ask as little as possible, and meet, if it may be, every +view or absence of view; and it should be, must be, easy. +Honesty is the one desideratum; but think how hard a +one to meet. I think all the time of Ferrier and myself; +these are the pair that I address. Poor Ferrier, so much +a better man than I, and such a temporal wreck. But +the thing of which we must divest our minds is to look +partially upon others; all is to be viewed; and the creature +judged, as he must be by his Creator, not dissected +through a prism of morals, but in the unrefracted ray. +So seen, and in relation to the almost omnipotent surroundings, +who is to distinguish between F. and such a +man as Dr. Candlish, or between such a man as David +Hume and such an one as Robert Burns? To compare +my poor and good Walter with myself is to make me +startle; he, upon all grounds above the merely expedient, +was the nobler being. Yet wrecked utterly ere the full +age of manhood; and the last skirmishes so well fought, +so humanly useless, so pathetically brave, only the leaps +of an expiring lamp. All this is a very pointed instance. +It shuts the mouth. I have learned more, in some ways, +from him than from any other soul I ever met; and he, +strange to think, was the best gentleman, in all kinder +senses, that I ever knew.—Ever your affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The paper referred to at the beginning of the second paragraph +is one on R. L. S. in the Century Magazine, the first seriously critical +notice, says Mr. Low, which appeared of him in the States.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>La Solitude, Hyères, Oct.</i> 23, 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—<i>C’est d’un bon camarade</i>; and I am +much obliged to you for your two letters and the inclosure. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64"></a>64</span> +Times are a lityle changed with all of us since the ever +memorable days of Lavenue: hallowed be his name! +hallowed his old Fleury!—of which you did not see—I +think—as I did—the glorious apotheosis: advanced on a +Tuesday to three francs, on the Thursday to six, and on +Friday swept off, holus bolus, for the proprietor’s private +consumption. Well, we had the start of that proprietor. +Many a good bottle came our way, and was, I think, +worthily made welcome.</p> + +<p>I am pleased that Mr. Gilder should like my literature; +and I ask you particularly to thank Mr. Bunner (have I +the name right?) for his notice, which was of that friendly, +headlong sort that really pleases an author like what the +French call a “shake-hands.” It pleased me the more +coming from the States, where I have met not much +recognition, save from the buccaneers, and above all from +pirates who misspell my name. I saw my book advertised +in a number of the Critic as the work of one R. L. +Stephenson; and, I own, I boiled. It is so easy to know +the name of the man whose book you have stolen; for +there it is, at full length, on the title-page of your booty. +But no, damn him, not he! He calls me Stephenson. +These woes I only refer to by the way, as they set a higher +value on the Century notice.</p> + +<p>I am now a person with an established ill-health—a +wife—a dog possessed with an evil, a Gadarene spirit—a +chalet on a hill, looking out over the Mediterranean—a +certain reputation—and very obscure finances. Otherwise, +very much the same, I guess; and were a bottle of +Fleury a thing to be obtained, capable of developing +theories along with a fit spirit even as of yore. Yet I +now draw near to the Middle Ages; nearly three years +ago, that fatal Thirty struck; and yet the great work is +not yet done—not yet even conceived. But so, as one +goes on, the wood seems to thicken, the footpath to narrow, +and the House Beautiful on the hill’s summit to draw +further and further away. We learn, indeed, to use our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>65</span> +means; but only to learn, along with it, the paralysing +knowledge that these means are only applicable to two +or three poor commonplace motives. Eight years ago, if +I could have slung ink as I can now, I should have thought +myself well on the road after Shakespeare; and now—I +find I have only got a pair of walking-shoes and not yet +begun to travel. And art is still away there on the mountain +summit. But I need not continue; for, of course, +this is your story just as much as it is mine; and, strange +to think, it was Shakespeare’s too, and Beethoven’s, and +Phidias’s. It is a blessed thing that, in this forest of +art, we can pursue our woodlice and sparrows, <i>and not +catch them</i>, with almost the same fervour of exhilaration +as that with which Sophocles hunted and brought down +the Mastodon.</p> + +<p>Tell me something of your work, and your wife.—My +dear fellow, I am yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt2">My wife begs to be remembered to both of you; I +cannot say as much for my dog, who has never seen you, +but he would like, on general principles, to bite you.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>By this time <i>Treasure Island</i> was out in book form, and the +following is in reply to some reflections on its seamanship which +had been conveyed to him through Mr. Henley:—</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>La Solitude, Hyères, November</i> 1883.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,— ... Of course, my seamanship is +jimmy: did I not beseech you I know not how often to +find me an ancient mariner—and you, whose own wife’s +own brother is one of the ancientest, did nothing for me? +As for my seamen, did Runciman ever know eighteenth +century Buccaneers? No? Well, no more did I. But I +have known and sailed with seamen too, and lived and +eaten with them; and I made my put-up shot in no great +ignorance, but as a put-up thing has to be made, <i>i.e.</i> to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66"></a>66</span> +be coherent and picturesque, and damn the expense. Are +they fairly lively on the wires? Then, favour me with +your tongues. Are they wooden, and dim, and no sport? +Then it is I that am silent, otherwise not. The work, +strange as it may sound in the ear, is not a work of realism. +The next thing I shall hear is that the etiquette is wrong +in Otto’s Court! With a warrant, and I mean it to be +so, and the whole matter never cost me half a thought. +I make these paper people to please myself, and Skelt, +and God Almighty, and with no ulterior purpose. Yet +am I mortal myself; for, as I remind you, I begged for a +supervising mariner. However, my heart is in the right +place. I have been to sea, but I never crossed the threshold +of a court; and the courts shall be the way I want ’em.</p> + +<p>I’m glad to think I owe you the review that pleased +me best of all the reviews I ever had; the one I liked +best before that was ——’s on the <i>Arabians</i>. These two +are the flowers of the collection, according to me. To +live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans—sich +is my aspiration.</p> + +<p>Whenever you come you will be equally welcome. I +am trying to finish <i>Otto</i> ere you shall arrive, so as to take +and be able to enjoy a well-earned—O yes, a well-earned—holiday. +Longman fetched by <i>Otto</i>: is it a spoon or +a spoilt horn? Momentous, if the latter; if the former, +a spoon to dip much praise and pudding, and to give, I +do think, much pleasure. The last part, now in hand, +much smiles upon me.—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>November</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MOTHER</span>,—You must not blame me too much +for my silence; I am over head and ears in work, and do +not know what to do first. I have been hard at <i>Otto</i>, hard +at <i>Silverado</i> proofs, which I have worked over again to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67"></a>67</span> +a tremendous extent; cutting, adding, rewriting, until +some of the worst chapters of the original are now, to +my mind, as good as any. I was the more bound to make +it good, as I had such liberal terms; it’s not for want +of trying if I have failed.</p> + +<p>I got your letter on my birthday; indeed, that was +how I found it out about three in the afternoon, when +postie comes. Thank you for all you said. As for my +wife, that was the best investment ever made by man; +but “in our branch of the family” we seem to marry +well. I, considering my piles of work, am wonderfully +well; I have not been so busy for I know not how long. +I hope you will send me the money I asked however, as +I am not only penniless, but shall remain so in all human +probability for some considerable time. I have got in +the mass of my expectations; and the £100 which is to +float us on the new year cannot come due till <i>Silverado</i> is +all ready; I am delaying it myself for the moment; then +will follow the binders and the travellers and an infinity +of other nuisances; and only at the last, the jingling-tingling.</p> + +<p>Do you know that <i>Treasure Island</i> has appeared? In +the November number of Henley’s Magazine, a capital +number anyway, there is a funny publisher’s puff of it +for your book; also a bad article by me. Lang dotes on +<i>Treasure Island</i>: “Except <i>Tom Sawyer</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i>,” +he writes, “I never liked any romance so much.” I will +inclose the letter though. The Bogue is angelic, although +very dirty. It has rained—at last! It was jolly cold when +the rain came.</p> + +<p>I was overjoyed to hear such good news of my father. +Let him go on at that!—Ever your affectionate,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Of the “small ships” here mentioned, <i>Fontainebleau</i> and <i>The +Character of Dogs</i> are well known: <i>A Misadventure in France</i> is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>68</span> +probably a draft of the <i>Epilogue to an Inland Voyage</i>, not published +till five years later. The <i>Travelling Companion</i> (of which I remember +little except that its scene was partly laid in North Italy and that +a publisher to whom it was shown declared it a work of genius but +indecent) was abandoned some two years later, as set forth on +p. 193 of this volume.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>November</i> 1883].</p> + +<p class="center">£10,000 Pounds Reward!</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Whereas</span> Sidney Colvin, more generally known as the +Guardian Angel, has vanished from the gaze of Mr. R. L. +Stevenson, the above reward is offered as a means to discover +the whereabouts of the misguided gentleman. He +was known as a man of irregular habits, and his rowdy +exterior would readily attract attention in a crowd. He +was never known to resist a drink; whisky was his favourite +dish. If any one will bring him to Mr. Stevenson’s +back area door, dead or alive, the greatest rejoicing will +be felt by a bereaved and uneasy family.</p> + +<p>Also, wherefore not a word, dear Colvin? My news +is: splendid health; great success of the <i>Black Arrow</i>; +another tale demanded, readers this time (the Lord lighten +them!) pleased; a great variety of small ships launched +or still upon the stocks—(also, why not send the annotated +proof of <i>Fontainebleau</i>? ce n’est pas d’un bon +camarade); a paper on dogs for Carr;<a name="FnAnchor_7" id="FnAnchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"><span class="sp">7</span></a> a paper called +<i>Old Mortality</i>, a paper called <i>A Misadventure in +France</i>, a tale entituled <i>The Travelling Companion</i>; +<i>Otto</i> arrested one foot in air; and last and not least, +a great demand for news of Sidney Colvin and others. +Herewith I pause, for why should I cast pearls before +swine?</p> + +<p>A word, Guardian Angel. You are much loved in +this house, not by me only, but by the wife. The Wogg +himself is anxious.—Ever yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69"></a>69</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>November</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I have been bad, but as you were +worse, I feel no shame. I raise a blooming countenance, +not the evidence of a self-righteous spirit.</p> + +<p>I continue my uphill fight with the twin spirits of bankruptcy +and indigestion. Duns rage about my portal, at +least to fancy’s ear.</p> + +<p>I suppose you heard of Ferrier’s death: my oldest +friend, except Bob. It has much upset me. I did +not fancy how much. I am strangely concerned +about it.</p> + +<p>My house is the loveliest spot in the universe; the +moonlight nights we have are incredible; love, poetry and +music, and the Arabian Nights, inhabit just my corner +of the world—nest there like mavises.</p> + +<div class="list1 center"> + <p>Here lies</p> + <p>The carcase</p> + <p>of</p> + <p>Robert Louis Stevenson,</p> + <p>An active, austere, and not inelegant</p> + <p>writer,</p> + <p>who,</p> + <p>at the termination of a long career,</p> + <p>wealthy, wise, benevolent, and honoured by</p> + <p>the attention of two hemispheres,</p> +<p>yet owned it to have been his crowning favour</p> + <p class="scs">TO INHABIT</p> + <p class="scs">LA SOLITUDE.</p> +</div> + +<p class="noind">(with the consent of the intelligent edility of Hyères, he +has been interred, below this frugal stone, in the garden +which he honoured for so long with his poetic presence.)</p> + +<p>I must write more solemn letters. Adieu. Write.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70"></a>70</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Milne</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This is to a cousin who had been one of his favourite playmates +in childhood, and had recognised some allusions in the proof slips +of the <i>Child’s Garden</i> (the piece called <i>A Pirate Story</i>).</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>November</i> 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRIETTA</span>,—Certainly; who else would they +be? More by token, on that particular occasion, you +were sailing under the title of Princess Royal; I, after a +furious contest, under that of Prince Alfred; and Willie, +still a little sulky, as the Prince of Wales. We were all +in a buck basket about half-way between the swing and +the gate; and I can still see the Pirate Squadron heave +in sight upon the weather bow.</p> + +<p>I wrote a piece besides on Giant Bunker; but I was +not happily inspired, and it is condemned. Perhaps I’ll +try again; he was a horrid fellow, Giant Bunker! and +some of my happiest hours were passed in pursuit of him. +You were a capital fellow to play: how few there were +who could! None better than yourself. I shall never +forget some of the days at Bridge of Allan; they were +one golden dream. See “A Good Boy” in the <i>Penny +Whistles</i>, much of the sentiment of which is taken direct +from one evening at B. of A. when we had had a great +play with the little Glasgow girl. Hallowed be that fat +book of fairy tales! Do you remember acting the Fair +One with Golden Locks? What a romantic drama! +Generally speaking, whenever I think of play, it is pretty +certain that you will come into my head. I wrote a paper +called <i>Child’s Play</i> once, where, I believe, you or Willie +would recognise things....</p> + +<p>Surely Willie is just the man to marry; and if his wife +wasn’t a happy woman, I think I could tell her who was +to blame. Is there no word of it? Well, these things are +beyond arrangement; and the wind bloweth where it +listeth—which, I observe, is generally towards the west in +Scotland. Here it prefers a south-easterly course, and is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id="page71"></a>71</span> +called the Mistral—usually with an adjective in front. +But if you will remember my yesterday’s toothache and +this morning’s crick, you will be in a position to choose +an adjective for yourself. Not that the wind is unhealthy; +only when it comes strong, it is both very high and very +cold, which makes it the d-v-l. But as I am writing to +a lady, I had better avoid this topic; winds requiring a +great scope of language.</p> + +<p>Please remember me to all at home; give Ramsay a +pennyworth of acidulated drops for his good taste.—And +believe me, your affectionate cousin,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>November</i> 22, 1883].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MISS FERRIER</span>,—Many thanks for the photograph. +It is—well, it is like most photographs. The sun is an artist +of too much renown; and, at any rate, we who knew Walter +“in the brave days of old” will be difficult to please.</p> + +<p>I was inexpressibly touched to get a letter from some +lawyers as to some money. I have never had any account +with my friends; some have gained and some lost; and +I should feel there was something dishonest in a partial +liquidation even if I could recollect the facts, <i>which I +cannot</i>. But the fact of his having put aside this memorandum +touched me greatly.</p> + +<p>The mystery of his life is great. Our chemist in this +place, who had been at Malvern, recognised the picture. +You may remember Walter had a romantic affection for all +pharmacies? and the bottles in the window were for him a +poem? He said once that he knew no pleasure like driving +through a lamplit city, waiting for the chemists to go by.</p> + +<p>All these things return now.</p> + +<p>He had a pretty full translation of Schiller’s <i>Æsthetic +Letters</i>, which we read together, as well as the second part +of <i>Faust</i>, in Gladstone Terrace, he helping me with the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>72</span> +German. There is no keepsake I should more value than +the MS. of that translation. They were the best days I +ever had with him, little dreaming all would so soon be +over. It needs a blow like this to convict a man of mortality +and its burthen. I always thought I should go by +myself; not to survive. But now I feel as if the earth +were undermined, and all my friends have lost one thickness +of reality since that one passed. Those are happy +who can take it otherwise; with that I found things all +beginning to dislimn. Here we have no abiding city, and +one felt as though he had—and O too much acted.</p> + +<p>But if you tell me, he did not feel my silence. However, +he must have done so; and my guilt is irreparable now. +I thank God at least heartily that he did not resent it.</p> + +<p>Please remember me to Sir Alexander and Lady Grant, +to whose care I will address this. When next I am in +Edinburgh I will take flowers, alas! to the West Kirk. +Many a long hour we passed in graveyards, the man who +has gone and I—or rather not that man—but the beautiful, +genial, witty youth who so betrayed him.—Dear +Miss Ferrier, I am yours most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This refers to some dispute which had arisen with an editor (I +forget whom) concerning the refusal of an article on Salvini. The +nickname “Fastidious Brisk,” from Ben Jonson’s <i>Every Man out +of his Humour</i>, was applied by Mr. Henley to Stevenson—very +inappropriately as I always thought.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, Autumn</i> 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—You know your own business best; +but I wish your honesty were not so warfaring. These +conflicts pain Lucretian sitters on the shore; and one +wonders—one wonders—wonders and whimpers. I do not +say my attitude is noble; but is yours conciliatory? I +revere Salvini, but I shall never see him—nor anybody—play +again. That is all a matter of history, heroic history, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73"></a>73</span> +to me. Were I in London, I should be the liker Tantalus—no +more. But as for these quarrels: in not many years +shall we not all be clay-cold and safe below ground, you +with your loud-mouthed integrity, I with my fastidious +briskness—and—with all their faults and merits, swallowed +in silence. It seems to me, in ignorance of cause, that +when the dustman has gone by, these quarrellings will +prick the conscience. Am I wrong? I am a great sinner; +so, my brave friend, are you; the others also. Let us +a little imitate the divine patience and the divine sense +of humour, and smilingly tolerate those faults and virtues +that have so brief a period and so intertwined a being.</p> + +<p>I fear I was born a parson; but I live very near upon +the margin (though, by your leave, I may outlive you +all!), and too much rigour in these daily things sounds to +me like clatter on the kitchen dishes. If it might be—could +it not be smoothed? This very day my father writes +me he has gone to see, upon his deathbed, an old friend +to whom for years he has not spoken or written. On his +deathbed; no picking up of the lost stitches; merely to +say: my little fury, my spotted uprightness, after having +split our lives, have not a word of quarrel to say more. +And the same post brings me the news of another—War! +Things in this troubled medium are not so clear, dear +Henley; there are faults upon all hands; and the end +comes, and Ferrier’s grave gapes for us all.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">The Prosy Preacher</p> + +<p style="text-align: right;">(But written in deep dejection, my dear man).</p> + +<p class="pt1">Suppose they <i>are</i> wrong? Well, am I not tolerated, +are you not tolerated?—we and <i>our</i> faults?</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, Var, 13th December</i> 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,— ... I was much pleased with what +you said about my work. Ill-health is a great handicapper +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74"></a>74</span> +in the race. I have never at command that press +of spirits that are necessary to strike out a thing red-hot. +<i>Silverado</i> is an example of stuff worried and pawed about, +God knows how often, in poor health, and you can see +for yourself the result: good pages, an imperfect fusion, +a certain languor of the whole. Not, in short, art. I +have told Roberts to send you a copy of the book when +it appears, where there are some fair passages that will +be new to you. My brief romance, <i>Prince Otto</i>—far my +most difficult adventure up to now—is near an end. I +have still one chapter to write <i>de fond en comble</i>, and three +or four to strengthen or recast. The rest is done. I do +not know if I have made a spoon, or only spoiled a horn; +but I am tempted to hope the first. If the present bargain +hold, it will not see the light of day for some thirteen +months. Then I shall be glad to know how it strikes you. +There is a good deal of stuff in it, both dramatic and, I +think, poetic; and the story is not like these purposeless +fables of to-day, but is, at least, intended to stand firm +upon a base of philosophy—or morals—as you please. It +has been long gestated, and is wrought with care. <i>Enfin, +nous verrons.</i> My labours have this year for the first time +been rewarded with upwards of £350; that of itself, so +base we are! encourages me; and the better tenor of +my health yet more.—Remember me to Mrs. Low, and +believe me, yours most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, December</i> 20, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—I do not know which of us is to +blame; I suspect it is you this time. The last accounts +of you were pretty good, I was pleased to see; I am, on +the whole, very well—suffering a little still from my fever +and liver complications, but better.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id="page75"></a>75</span></p> + +<p>I have just finished re-reading a book, which I counsel +you above all things <i>not</i> to read, as it has made me very +ill, and would make you worse—Lockhart’s <i>Scott</i>. It is +worth reading, as all things are from time to time that +keep us nose to nose with fact; though I think such +reading may be abused, and that a great deal of life is +better spent in reading of a light and yet chivalrous strain. +Thus, no Waverley novel approaches in power, blackness, +bitterness, and moral elevation to the diary and Lockhart’s +narrative of the end; and yet the Waverley novels +are better reading for every day than the Life. You may +take a tonic daily, but not phlebotomy.</p> + +<p>The great double danger of taking life too easily, and +taking it too hard, how difficult it is to balance that! +But we are all too little inclined to faith; we are all, +in our serious moments, too much inclined to forget that +all are sinners, and fall justly by their faults, and therefore +that we have no more to do with that than with the +thundercloud; only to trust, and do our best, and wear +as smiling a face as may be for others and ourselves. But +there is no royal road among this complicated business. +Hegel the German got the best word of all philosophy +with his antinomies: the contrary of everything is its +postulate. That is, of course, grossly expressed, but gives +a hint of the idea, which contains a great deal of the mysteries +of religion, and a vast amount of the practical wisdom +of life. For your part, there is no doubt as to your duty—to +take things easy and be as happy as you can, for +your sake, and my mother’s, and that of many besides. +Excuse this sermon.—Ever your loving son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, December</i> 25, 1883.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER</span>,—This it is supposed +will reach you about Christmas, and I believe I should +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>76</span> +include Lloyd in the greeting. But I want to lecture my +father; he is not grateful enough; he is like Fanny; his +resignation is not the “true blue.” A man who has gained +a stone; whose son is better, and, after so many fears +to the contrary, I dare to say, a credit to him; whose +business is arranged; whose marriage is a picture—what +I should call resignation in such a case as his would be +to “take down his fiddle and play as lood as ever he could.” +That and nought else. And now, you dear old pious +ingrate, on this Christmas morning, think what your +mercies have been; and do not walk too far before your +breakfast—as far as to the top of India Street, then to +the top of Dundas Street, and then to your ain stair heid; +and do not forget that even as <i>laborare</i>, so <i>joculari</i>, <i>est +orare</i>; and to be happy the first step to being pious.</p> + +<p>I have as good as finished my novel, and a hard job +it has been—but now practically over, <i>laus deo</i>! My +financial prospects better than ever before; my excellent +wife a touch dolorous, like Mr. Tommy; my Bogue quite +converted, and myself in good spirits. O, send Curry +Powder per Baxter.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>La Solitude, Hyères</i>] <i>last Sunday of</i> ’83.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MOTHER</span>,—I give my father up. I give him +a parable: that the Waverley novels are better reading +for every day than the tragic Life. And he takes it backside +foremost, and shakes his head, and is gloomier than +ever. Tell him that I give him up. I don’t want no +such a parent. This is not the man for my money. I +do not call that by the name of religion which fills a man +with bile. I write him a whole letter, bidding him beware +of extremes, and telling him that his gloom is gallows-worthy; +and I get back an answer—Perish the thought +of it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77"></a>77</span></p> + +<p>Here am I on the threshold of another year, when, +according to all human foresight, I should long ago have +been resolved into my elements; here am I, who you +were persuaded was born to disgrace you—and, I will do +you the justice to add, on no such insufficient grounds—no +very burning discredit when all is done; here am I +married, and the marriage recognised to be a blessing of +the first order, A1 at Lloyd’s. There is he, at his not +first youth, able to take more exercise than I at thirty-three, +and gaining a stone’s weight, a thing of which I +am incapable. There are you; has the man no gratitude? +There is Smeoroch<a name="FnAnchor_8" id="FnAnchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"><span class="sp">8</span></a>: is he blind? Tell him from me +that all this is</p> + +<p class="center scs">NOT THE TRUE BLUE!</p> + +<p class="noind">I will think more of his prayers when I see in him a spirit +of <i>praise</i>. Piety is a more childlike and happy attitude +than he admits. Martha, Martha, do you hear the knocking +at the door? But Mary was happy. Even the +Shorter Catechism, not the merriest epitome of religion, +and a work exactly as pious although not quite so true +as the multiplication table—even that dry-as-dust epitome +begins with a heroic note. What is man’s chief end? +Let him study that; and ask himself if to refuse to enjoy +God’s kindest gifts is in the spirit indicated. Up, +Dullard! It is better service to enjoy a novel than to +mump.</p> + +<p>I have been most unjust to the Shorter Catechism, I +perceive. I wish to say that I keenly admire its merits +as a performance; and that all that was in my mind was +its peculiarly unreligious and unmoral texture; from which +defect it can never, of course, exercise the least influence +on the minds of children. But they learn fine style and +some austere thinking unconsciously.—Ever your loving +son,</p> + + <p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>78</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères-les-Palmiers, Var, +January</i> 1 (1884).</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—A Good New Year to you. The +year closes, leaving me with £50 in the bank, owing no man +nothing, £100 more due to me in a week or so, and £150 +more in the course of the month; and I can look back on +a total receipt of £465, 0s. 6d. for the last twelve months!</p> + +<p>And yet I am not happy!</p> + +<p>Yet I beg! Here is my beggary:—</p> + +<div class="list"> +<p>1. Sellar’s Trial.</p> +<p>2. George Borrow’s Book about Wales.</p> +<p>3. My Grandfather’s Trip to Holland.</p> +<p>4. And (but this is, I fear, impossible) the Bell Rock Book.</p> +</div> + +<p>When I think of how last year began, after four months +of sickness and idleness, all my plans gone to water, myself +starting alone, a kind of spectre, for Nice—should I not +be grateful? Come, let us sing unto the Lord!</p> + +<p>Nor should I forget the expected visit, but I will not +believe in that till it befall; I am no cultivator of disappointments, +’tis a herb that does not grow in my garden; +but I get some good crops both of remorse and gratitude. +The last I can recommend to all gardeners; it grows best +in shiny weather, but once well grown, is very hardy; +it does not require much labour; only that the husbandman +should smoke his pipe about the flower-plots and +admire God’s pleasant wonders. Winter green (otherwise +known as Resignation, or the “false gratitude plant”) +springs in much the same soil; is little hardier, if at all; +and requires to be so dug about and dunged, that there +is little margin left for profit. The variety known as the +Black Winter green (H. V. Stevensoniana) is rather for +ornament than profit.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79"></a>79</span></p> + +<p>“John, do you see that bed of resignation?”—“It’s +doin’ bravely, sir.”—“John, I will not have it in my +garden; it flatters not the eye and comforts not the +stomach; root it out.”—“Sir, I ha’e seen o’ them that +rase as high as nettles; gran’ plants!”—“What then? +Were they as tall as alps, if still unsavoury and bleak, +what matters it? Out with it, then; and in its place +put Laughter and a Good Conceit (that capital home evergreen), +and a bush of Flowering Piety—but see it be the +flowering sort—the other species is no ornament to any +gentleman’s Back Garden.”</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Jno. Bunyan.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Early in January, Stevenson, after a week’s visit at Hyères from +his friends Charles Baxter and W. E. Henley, accompanied them +as far as Nice, and there suddenly went down with an attack of +acute congestion, first of the lungs and then of the kidneys. At one +moment there seemed no hope, but he recovered slowly and returned +to Hyères. His friends had not written during his illness, fearing +him to be too far gone to care for letters. As he got better he +began to chafe at their silence.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hyères, February or March</i> 1884].</p> + + +<p class="center">TANDEM DESINO*</p> + +<p>I cannot read, work, sleep, lie still, walk, or even play +patience. These plagues will overtake all damned +silencists; among whom, from this day out, number</p> + +<p>Eructavit cor Timonis.**</p> + + <p class="center">the fiery indignator<br /> + Roland Little Stevenson.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>I counted miseries by the heap,</p> + <p class="i1">But now have had my fill,</p> +<p>I cannot see, I do not sleep,</p> + <p class="i1"><i>But shortly I shall kill</i>.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<div class="list1 center"> + <p>Of many letters, here is a</p> + <p>Full End.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80"></a>80</span></p> + +<p>The last will and testament of</p> + <p>a demitting correspondent.</p> +</div> + +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>My indefatigable pen</p> +<p>I here lay down forever. Men</p> +<p>Have used, and left me, and forgot;</p> +<p>Men are entirely off the spot;</p> +<p>Men are a <i>blague</i> and an abuse;</p> +<p>And I commit them to the deuce!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="sc rt">Roderick Lamond Stevenson.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>I had companions, I had friends,</p> +<p>I had of whisky various blends.</p> +<p>The whisky was all drunk; and lo!</p> +<p>The friends were gone for evermo!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p class="center">The loquacious man at peace.*</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>And when I marked the ingratitude,</p> +<p>I to my maker turned, and spewed.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="sc rt">Randolph Lovel Stevenson.</p> + + +<div class="list1 center"> +<p>Here endeth the</p> +<p>Familiar Correspondence</p> +<p>of</p> +<p>R. L .S.**</p> + +<p class="pt2">Explicuerunt Epistolae</p> +<p>Stevensonianae</p> +<p>Omnes.**</p> +</div> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>A pen broken, a subverted ink-pot.</p> + +<p class="s">All men are rot; but there are two—</p> +<p>Sidney, the oblivious Slade, and you—</p> +<p>Who from that rabble stand confest</p> +<p>Ten million times the rottenest.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>When I was sick and safe in gaol</p> +<p>I thought my friends would never fail.</p> +<p>One wrote me nothing; t’other bard</p> +<p>Sent me an insolent post-card.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>81</span></p> + +<p>Terminus: Silentia.**</p> + +<p>FINIS Finaliter finium.**</p> + +<p class="center" style="letter-spacing: 0.5em;">IF NOBODY WRITES TO ME I<br /> +SHALL DIE</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 3em;">I now write no more.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Richard Lefanu Stevenson,</p> +<p style="text-align: right; padding-right: 4em;">Duke of Indignation</p> + +<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc3">Mark Tacebo,</td> <td class="tc2">Isaac Blood</td> + <td class="tc3" style="vertical-align: middle;" rowspan="4"> <span style="font-size: 400%;">}</span>witnesses</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3"> Secretary</td> <td class="tc2">John Blind</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> <td class="tc2">Vain-hope Go-to-bed</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> <td class="tc2">Israel Sciatica</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="short" style="text-align: left;" /> +<p class="noind">The finger on the mouth.</p> +<hr class="short" style="text-align: left;" /> + +<p class="f80 noind">* Originally printed upside-down.</p> +<p class="f80 noind">** Originally printed sideways.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The allusions in the second paragraph are to the commanders +in the Nile campaigns of those years.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, 9th March</i> 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR S. C.</span>,—You will already have received a not +very sane note from me; so your patience was rewarded—may +I say, your patient silence? However, now comes +a letter, which on receipt, I thus acknowledge.</p> + +<p>I have already expressed myself as to the political +aspect. About Grahame, I feel happier; it does seem to +have been really a good, neat, honest piece of work. We +do not seem to be so badly off for commanders: Wolseley +and Roberts, and this pile of Woods, Stewarts, Alisons, +Grahames, and the like. Had we but <span class="sc">ONE</span> statesman +on any side of the house!</p> + +<p>Two chapters of <i>Otto</i> do remain: one to rewrite, one +to create; and I am not yet able to tackle them. For +me it is my chief o’ works; hence probably not so for +others, since it only means that I have here attacked the +greatest difficulties. But some chapters towards the end: +three in particular—I do think come off. I find them +stirring, dramatic, and not unpoetical. We shall see, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>82</span> +however; as like as not, the effort will be more obvious +than the success. For, of course, I strung myself hard +to carry it out. The next will come easier, and possibly +be more popular. I believe in the covering of much paper, +each time with a definite and not too difficult artistic +purpose; and then, from time to time, drawing oneself +up and trying, in a superior effort, to combine the facilities +thus acquired or improved. Thus one progresses. But, +mind, it is very likely that the big effort, instead of being +the masterpiece, may be the blotted copy, the gymnastic +exercise. This no man can tell; only the brutal and +licentious public, snouting in Mudie’s wash-trough, can +return a dubious answer.</p> + +<p>I am to-day, thanks to a pure heaven and a beneficent, +loud-talking, antiseptic mistral, on the high places as to +health and spirits. Money holds out wonderfully. Fanny +has gone for a drive to certain meadows which are now +one sheet of jonquils: sea-bound meadows, the thought +of which may freshen you in Bloomsbury. “Ye have +been fresh and fair, Ye have been filled with flowers”—I +fear I misquote. Why do people babble? Surely +Herrick, in his true vein, is superior to Martial himself, +though Martial is a very pretty poet.</p> + +<p>Did you ever read St. Augustine? The first chapters +of the <i>Confessions</i> are marked by a commanding genius: +Shakespearian in depth. I was struck dumb, but, alas! +when you begin to wander into controversy, the poet +drops out. His description of infancy is most seizing. +And how is this: “Sed majorum nugae negotia vocantur; +puerorum autem talia cum sint puniuntur a majoribus.” +Which is quite after the heart of R. L. S. See also his +splendid passage about the “luminosus limes amicitiae” +and the “nebulae de limosa concupiscentia carnis”; going +on “<i>Utrumque</i> in confuso aestuabat et rapiebat imbecillam +aetatem per abrupta cupiditatum.” That “Utrumque” +is a real contribution to life’s science. Lust <i>alone</i> is but a +pigmy; but it never, or rarely, attacks us single-handed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>83</span></p> + +<p>Do you ever read (to go miles off, indeed) the incredible +Barbey d’Aurévilly? A psychological Poe—to be for a +moment Henley. I own with pleasure I prefer him with +all his folly, rot, sentiment, and mixed metaphors, to the +whole modern school in France. It makes me laugh when +it’s nonsense; and when he gets an effect (though it’s +still nonsense and mere Poëry, not poesy) it wakens me. +<i>Ce qui ne meurt pas</i> nearly killed me with laughing, and +left me—well, it left me very nearly admiring the old ass. +At least, it’s the kind of thing one feels one couldn’t do. +The dreadful moonlight, when they all three sit silent in +the room—by George, sir, it’s imagined—and the brief +scene between the husband and wife is all there. <i>Quant +au fond</i>, the whole thing, of course, is a fever dream, and +worthy of eternal laughter. Had the young man broken +stones, and the two women been hard-working honest +prostitutes, there had been an end of the whole immoral +and baseless business: you could at least have respected +them in that case.</p> + +<p>I also read <i>Petronius Arbiter</i>, which is a rum work, not +so immoral as most modern works, but singularly silly. +I tackled some Tacitus too. I got them with a dreadful +French crib on the same page with the text, which helps +me along and drives me mad. The French do not even +try to translate. They try to be much more classical than +the classics, with astounding results of barrenness and +tedium. Tacitus, I fear, was too solid for me. I liked +the war part; but the dreary intriguing at Rome was +too much.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. Dick</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This correspondent was for many years head clerk and confidential +assistant in the family firm at Edinburgh.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, 12th March</i> 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MR. DICK</span>,—I have been a great while owing +you a letter; but I am not without excuses, as you have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>84</span> +heard. I overworked to get a piece of work finished before +I had my holiday, thinking to enjoy it more; and instead +of that, the machinery near hand came sundry in my +hands! like Murdie’s uniform. However, I am now, I +think, in a fair way of recovery; I think I was made, +what there is of me, of whipcord and thorn-switches; +surely I am tough! But I fancy I shall not overdrive +again, or not so long. It is my theory that work is highly +beneficial, but that it should, if possible, and certainly +for such partially broken-down instruments as the thing +I call my body, be taken in batches, with a clear break +and breathing space between. I always do vary my work, +laying one thing aside to take up another, not merely +because I believe it rests the brain, but because I have +found it most beneficial to the result. Reading, Bacon +says, makes a full man, but what makes me full on +any subject is to banish it for a time from all my thoughts. +However, what I now propose is, out of every quarter +to work two months, and rest the third. I believe I shall +get more done, as I generally manage, on my present +scheme, to have four months’ impotent illness and two +of imperfect health—one before, one after, I break down. +This, at least, is not an economical division of the year.</p> + +<p>I re-read the other day that heartbreaking book, the +<i>Life of Scott</i>. One should read such works now and then, +but O, not often. As I live, I feel more and more that +literature should be cheerful and brave-spirited, even if +it cannot be made beautiful and pious and heroic. We +wish it to be a green place; the Waverley Novels are +better to re-read than the over-true <i>Life</i>, fine as dear Sir +Walter was. The Bible, in most parts, is a cheerful book; +it is our little piping theologies, tracts, and sermons that +are dull and dowie; and even the Shorter Catechism, +which is scarcely a work of consolation, opens with the +best and shortest and completest sermon ever written—upon +Man’s chief end.—Believe me, my dear Mr. Dick, +very sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85"></a>85</span></p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—You see I have changed my hand. I was threatened +apparently with scrivener’s cramp, and at any rate +had got to write so small, that the revisal of my MS. tried +my eyes, hence my signature alone remains upon the old +model; for it appears that if I changed that, I should +be cut off from my “vivers.”</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Cosmo Monkhouse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This amiable and excellent public servant, art-critic, and versifier +was a friend of old Savile Club days; the drift of his letter can +easily be guessed from this reply. The reference to Lamb is to +the essay on the Restoration dramatists.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, March</i> 16, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MONKHOUSE</span>,—You see with what promptitude +I plunge into correspondence; but the truth is, I am +condemned to a complete inaction, stagnate dismally, and +love a letter. Yours, which would have been welcome at +any time, was thus doubly precious.</p> + +<p>Dover sounds somewhat shiveringly in my ears. You +should see the weather <i>I</i> have—cloudless, clear as crystal, +with just a punkah-draft of the most aromatic air, all +pine and gum tree. You would be ashamed of Dover; +you would scruple to refer, sir, to a spot so paltry. To +be idle at Dover is a strange pretension; pray, how do +you warm yourself? If I were there I should grind knives +or write blank verse, or—— But at least you do not +bathe? It is idle to deny it: I have—I may say I nourish—a +growing jealousy of the robust, large-legged, healthy +Britain-dwellers, patient of grog, scorners of the timid +umbrella, innocuously breathing fog: all which I once +was, and I am ashamed to say liked it. How ignorant is +youth! grossly rolling among unselected pleasures; and +how nobler, purer, sweeter, and lighter, to sip the choice +tonic, to recline in the luxurious invalid chair, and to +tread, well-shawled, the little round of the constitutional. +Seriously, do you like to repose? Ye gods, I hate it. I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>86</span> +never rest with any acceptation; I do not know what +people mean who say they like sleep and that damned +bedtime which, since long ere I was breeched, has rung +a knell to all my day’s doings and beings. And when a +man, seemingly sane, tells me he has “fallen in love with +stagnation,” I can only say to him, “You will never be +a Pirate!” This may not cause any regret to Mrs. Monkhouse; +but in your own soul it will clang hollow—think +of it! Never! After all boyhood’s aspirations and +youth’s immoral day-dreams, you are condemned to sit +down, grossly draw in your chair to the fat board, and +be a beastly Burgess till you die. Can it be? Is there +not some escape, some furlough from the Moral Law, +some holiday jaunt contrivable into a Better Land? +Shall we never shed blood? This prospect is too grey.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Here lies a man who never did</p> +<p>Anything but what he was bid;</p> +<p>Who lived his life in paltry ease,</p> +<p>And died of commonplace disease.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>To confess plainly, I had intended to spend my life +(or any leisure I might have from Piracy upon the high +seas) as the leader of a great horde of irregular cavalry, +devastating whole valleys. I can still, looking back, see +myself in many favourite attitudes; signalling for a boat +from my pirate ship with a pocket-handkerchief, I at the +jetty end, and one or two of my bold blades keeping the +crowd at bay; or else turning in the saddle to look back +at my whole command (some five thousand strong) following +me at the hand-gallop up the road out of the burning +valley: this last by moonlight.</p> + +<p><i>Et point du tout.</i> I am a poor scribe, and have scarce +broken a commandment to mention, and have recently +dined upon cold veal! As for you (who probably had +some ambitions), I hear of you living at Dover, in lodgings, +like the beasts of the field. But in heaven, when we get +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>87</span> +there, we shall have a good time, and see some real carnage. +For heaven is—must be—that great Kingdom of Antinomia, +which Lamb saw dimly adumbrated in the <i>Country +Wife</i>, where the worm which never dies (the conscience) +peacefully expires, and the sinner lies down beside the +Ten Commandments. Till then, here a sheer hulk lies +poor Tom Bowling, with neither health nor vice for anything +more spirited than procrastination, which I may +well call the Consolation Stakes of Wickedness; and by +whose diligent practice, without the least amusement to +ourselves, we can rob the orphan and bring down grey +hairs with sorrow to the dust.</p> + +<p>This astonishing gush of nonsense I now hasten to +close, envelope, and expedite to Shakespeare’s Cliff. +Remember me to Shakespeare, and believe me, yours very +sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mr. Gosse had written describing the office which he then +occupied, a picturesque old-fashioned chamber in the upper stories +of the Board of Trade.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, March</i> 17, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—Your office—office is profanely said—your +bower upon the leads is divine. Have you, like +Pepys, “the right to fiddle” there? I see you mount +the companion, barbiton in hand, and, fluttered about by +city sparrows, pour forth your spirit in a voluntary. Now +when the spring begins, you must lay in your flowers: +how do you say about a potted hawthorn? Would it +bloom? Wallflower is a choice pot-herb; lily-of-the-valley, +too, and carnation, and Indian cress trailed about +the window, is not only beautiful by colour, but the leaves +are good to eat. I recommend thyme and rosemary for +the aroma, which should not be left upon one side; they +are good quiet growths.</p> + +<p>On one of your tables keep a great map spread out; a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>88</span> +chart is still better—it takes one further—the havens with +their little anchors, the rocks, banks, and soundings, are +adorably marine; and such furniture will suit your ship-shape +habitation. I wish I could see those cabins; they +smile upon me with the most intimate charm. From +your leads, do you behold St. Paul’s? I always like to +see the Foolscap; it is London <i>per se</i> and no spot from +which it is visible is without romance. Then it is good +company for the man of letters, whose veritable nursing +Pater-Noster is so near at hand.</p> + +<p>I am all at a standstill; as idle as a painted ship, but +not so pretty. My romance, which has so nearly butchered +me in the writing, not even finished; though so near, +thank God, that a few days of tolerable strength will see +the roof upon that structure. I have worked very hard +at it, and so do not expect any great public favour. <i>In +moments of effort, one learns to do the easy things that people +like.</i> There is the golden maxim; thus one should strain +and then play, strain again and play again. The strain +is for us, it educates; the play is for the reader, and pleases. +Do you not feel so? We are ever threatened by two +contrary faults: both deadly. To sink into what my +forefathers would have called “rank conformity,” and to +pour forth cheap replicas, upon the one hand; upon the +other, and still more insidiously present, to forget that +art is a diversion and a decoration, that no triumph or +effort is of value, nor anything worth reaching except +charm.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Soon after the date of the following letter Miss Ferrier went out +to her friends and stayed with them through the trying weeks +which followed.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>March</i> 22, 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS FERRIER</span>,—Are you really going to fail +us? This seems a dreadful thing. My poor wife, who is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89"></a>89</span> +not well off for friends on this bare coast, has been promising +herself, and I have been promising her, a rare acquisition. +And now Miss Burn has failed, and you utter a +very doubtful note. You do not know how delightful this +place is, nor how anxious we are for a visit. Look at the +names: “The Solitude”—is that romantic? The palm-trees?—how +is that for the gorgeous East? “Var”? +the name of a river—“the quiet waters by”! ’Tis true, +they are in another department, and consist of stones and +a biennial spate; but what a music, what a plash of brooks, +for the imagination! We have hills; we have skies; +the roses are putting forth, as yet sparsely; the meadows +by the sea are one sheet of jonquils; the birds sing as in +an English May—for, considering we are in France and +serve up our song-birds, I am ashamed to say, on a little +field of toast and with a sprig of thyme (my own receipt) +in their most innocent and now unvocal bellies—considering +all this, we have a wonderfully fair wood-music round +this Solitude of ours. What can I say more?—All this +awaits you. <i>Kennst du das Land</i>, in short.—Your sincere +friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The verses enclosed were the set entitled “The Canoe Speaks,” +afterwards printed in <i>Underwoods</i>. Stevenson was suffering at +this time from a temporary weakness of the eyesight.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>April</i> 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—The blind man in these sprawled lines +sends greeting. I have been ill, as perhaps the papers +told you. The news—“great news—glorious news—sec-ond +ed-ition!”—went the round in England.</p> + +<p>Anyway, I now thank you for your pictures, which, +particularly the Arcadian one, we all (Bob included, he +was here sick-nursing me) much liked.</p> + +<p>Herewith are a set of verses which I thought pretty +enough to send to press. Then I thought of the Manhattan, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>90</span> +towards whom I have guilty and compunctious +feelings. Last, I had the best thought of all—to send +them to you in case you might think them suitable for +illustration. It seemed to me quite in your vein. If so, +good; if not, hand them on to Manhattan, Century, or +Lippincott, at your pleasure, as all three desire my work +or pretend to. But I trust the lines will not go unattended. +Some riverside will haunt you; and O! be +tender to my bathing girls. The lines are copied in my +wife’s hand, as I cannot see to write otherwise than with +the pen of Cormoran, Gargantua, or Nimrod. Love to +your wife.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p>Copied it myself.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, April</i> 19, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—Yesterday I very powerfully stated +the <i>Hæresis Stevensoniana</i>, or the complete body of divinity +of the family theologian, to Miss Ferrier. She was much +impressed; so was I. You are a great heresiarch; and +I know no better. Whaur the devil did ye get thon about +the soap? Is it altogether your own? I never heard it +elsewhere; and yet I suspect it must have been held at +some time or other, and if you were to look up you would +probably find yourself condemned by some Council.</p> + +<p>I am glad to hear you are so well. The hear is excellent. +The Cornhills came; I made Miss Ferrier read us +<i>Thrawn Janet</i>, and was quite bowled over by my own +works. <i>The Merry Men</i> I mean to make much longer, +with a whole new dénouement, not yet quite clear to me. +<i>The Story of a Lie</i> I must rewrite entirely also, as it is +too weak and ragged, yet is worth saving for the Admiral. +Did I ever tell you that the Admiral was recognised in +America?</p> + +<p>When they are all on their legs this will make an excellent +collection.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>91</span></p> + +<p>Has Davie never read <i>Guy Mannering</i>, <i>Rob Roy</i>, or <i>The +Antiquary</i>? All of which are worth three <i>Waverleys</i>. +I think <i>Kenilworth</i> better than <i>Waverley</i>; <i>Nigel</i>, too; +and <i>Quentin Durward</i> about as good. But it shows a +true piece of insight to prefer <i>Waverley</i>, for it <i>is</i> different; +and though not quite coherent, better worked in parts +than almost any other: surely more carefully. It is +undeniable that the love of the slap-dash and the shoddy +grew upon Scott with success. Perhaps it does on many +of us, which may be the granite on which D.’s opinion +stands. However, I hold it, in Patrick Walker’s phrase, +for an “old, condemned, damnable error.” Dr. Simson +was condemned by P. W. as being “a bagful of” such. +One of Patrick’s amenities!</p> + +<p>Another ground there may be to D.’s opinion; those +who avoid (or seek to avoid) Scott’s facility are apt to +be continually straining and torturing their style to get +in more of life. And to many the extra significance does +not redeem the strain.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Doctor Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, April 20th,</i> 1884.</p> + +<p>I have been really ill for two days, hemorrhage, weakness, +extreme nervousness that will not let me lie a moment, +and damned sciatica o’ nights; but to-day I am on the +recovery. Time; for I was miserable. It is not often +that I suffer, with all my turns and tumbles, from the +sense of serious illness; and I hate it, as I believe everybody +does. And then the combination of not being able +to read, not being allowed to speak, being too weak to +write, and not wishing to eat, leaves a man with some +empty seconds. But I bless God, it’s over now; to-day +I am much mended.</p> + +<p>Insatiable gulf, greedier than hell, and more silent +than the woods of Styx, have you or have you not lost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92"></a>92</span> +the dedication to the <i>Child’s Garden</i>? Answer that +plain question as otherwise I must try to tackle to it +once again.</p> + +<p>Sciatica is a word employed much by Shakespeare in +a certain connection. ’Tis true, he was no physician, but +as I read, he had smarted in his day. I, too, do smart. +And yet this keen soprano agony, these veins of fire and +bombshell explosions in the knee, are as nothing to a +certain dull, drowsy pain I had when my kidneys were +congested at Nice; there was death in that; the creak +of Charon’s rowlocks, and the miasmas of the Styx. I +may say plainly, much as I have lost the power of bearing +pain, I had still rather suffer much than die. Not +only the love of life grows on me, but the fear of certain +odd end-seconds grows as well. ’Tis a suffocating business, +take it how you will; and Tyrrel and Forest only +bunglers.</p> + +<p>Well, this is an essay on death, or worse, on dying: +to return to daylight and the winds, I perceive I have +grown to live too much in my work and too little in life. +’Tis the dollars do it: the world is too much. Whenever +I think I would like to live a little, I hear the butcher’s +cart resounding through the neighbourhood; and so to +plunge again. The fault is a good fault for me; to be +able to do so, is to succeed in life; and my life has been +a huge success. I can live with joy and without disgust +in the art by which I try to support myself; I have the +best wife in the world; I have rather more praise and +nearly as much coin as I deserve; my friends are many +and true-hearted. Sir, it is a big thing in successes. +And if mine anchorage lies something open to the wind, +Sciatica, if the crew are blind, and the captain spits blood, +one cannot have all, and I may be patched up again, who +knows? “His timbers yet are (indifferently) sound, and +he may float again.”</p> + +<p>Thanks for the word on <i>Silverado</i>.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">The Sciaticated Bard.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>93</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Trevor Haddon</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The allusions to Skelt, the last of the designers and etchers of +cheap sheets illustrating the popular dramas and melodramas of +the day, will need no explanation to readers familiar with the +essay <i>A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères, April 23rd,</i> 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. HADDON</span>,—I am pleased to see your hand +again, and, waiting my wife’s return, to guess at some +of the contents. For various things have befallen me of +late. First, as you see, I had to change my hand; lastly +I have fallen into a kind of blindness, and cannot read. +This more inclines me for something to do, to answer +your letter before I have read it, a safe plan familiar to +diplomatists.</p> + +<p>I gather from half shut eyes that you were a Skeltist; +now seriously that is a good beginning; there is a deal +of romance (cheap) in Skelt. Look at it well, and you +will see much of Dickens. And even Skelt is better than +conscientious, grey back-gardens, and conscientious, dull +still lives. The great lack of art just now is a spice of +life and interest; and I prefer galvanism to acquiescence +in the grave. All do not; ’tis an affair of tastes; and +mine are young. Those who like death have their innings +to-day with art that is like mahogany and horse-hair +furniture, solid, true, serious and as dead as Cæsar. I +wish I could read <i>Treasure Island</i>; I believe I should like +it. But work done, for the artist, is the Golden Goose +killed; you sell its feathers and lament the eggs. To-morrow +the fresh woods!</p> + +<p>I have been seriously ill, and do not pick up with that +finality that I should like to see. I linger over and digest +my convalescence like a favourite wine; and what with +blindness, green spectacles, and seclusion, cut but a poor +figure in the world.</p> + +<p>I made out at the end that you were asking some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>94</span> +advice—but what, my failing eyes refuse to inform me. +I must keep a sheet for the answer; and Mrs. Stevenson +still delays, and still I have no resource against tedium +but the waggling of this pen.</p> + +<p>You seem to me to be a pretty lucky young man; keep +your eyes open to your mercies. That part of piety is +eternal; and the man who forgets to be grateful has +fallen asleep in life. Please to recognise that you are +unworthy of all that befalls you—unworthy, too, I hear +you wail, of this terrible sermon; but indeed we are not +worthy of our fortunes; love takes us in a counterfeit, +success comes to us at play, health stays with us while +we abuse her; and even when we gird at our fellow-men, +we should remember that it is of their good will alone, +that we still live and still have claims to honour. The +sins of the most innocent, if they were exactly visited, +would ruin them to the doer. And if you know any man +who believes himself to be worthy of a wife’s love, a friend’s +affection, a mistress’s caress, even if venal, you may rest +assured he is worthy of nothing but a kicking. I fear +men who have no open faults; what do they conceal? +We are not meant to be good in this world, but to try to +be, and fail, and keep on trying; and when we get a +cake to say, “Thank God!” and when we get a buffet, +to say, “Just so: well hit!”</p> + +<p>I have been getting some of the buffets of late; but +have amply earned them—you need not pity me. Pity +sick children and the individual poor man; not the mass. +Don’t pity anybody else, and never pity fools. The +optimistic Stevenson; but there is a sense in these wanderings.</p> + +<p>Now I have heard your letter, and my sermon was not +mal-à-propos. For you seem to be complaining. Everybody’s +home is depressing, I believe; it is their difficult +business to make it less so. There is an unpleasant saying, +which would have pricked me sharply at your age.—Yours +truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>95</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Cosmo Monkhouse</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>April</i> 24, 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MONKHOUSE</span>,—If you are in love with repose, +here is your occasion: change with me. I am too blind +to read, hence no reading; I am too weak to walk, hence +no walking; I am not allowed to speak, hence no talking; +but the great simplification has yet to be named; for, if +this goes on, I shall soon have nothing to eat—and hence, +O Hallelujah! hence no eating. The offer is a fair one: +I have not sold myself to the devil, for I could never find +him. I am married, but so are you. I sometimes write +verses, but so do you. Come! <i>Hic quies!</i> As for the +commandments, I have broken them so small that they +are the dust of my chambers; you walk upon them, +triturate and toothless; and with the Golosh of Philosophy, +they shall not bite your heel. True, the tenement +is falling. Ay, friend, but yours also. Take a larger +view; what is a year or two? dust in the balance! ’Tis +done, behold you Cosmo Stevenson, and me R. L. Monkhouse; +you at Hyères, I in London; you rejoicing in +the clammiest repose, me proceeding to tear your tabernacle +into rags, as I have already so admirably torn my +own.</p> + +<p>My place to which I now introduce you—it is yours—is +like a London house, high and very narrow; upon the +lungs I will not linger; the heart is large enough for a +ballroom; the belly greedy and inefficient; the brain +stocked with the most damnable explosives, like a dynamiter’s +den. The whole place is well furnished, though +not in a very pure taste; Corinthian much of it; showy +and not strong.</p> + +<p>About your place I shall try to find my way above, +an interesting exploration. Imagine me, as I go to bed, +falling over a blood-stained remorse; opening that cupboard +in the cerebellum and being welcomed by the spirit +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96"></a>96</span> +of your murdered uncle. I should probably not like your +remorses; I wonder if you will like mine; I have a spirited +assortment; they whistle in my ear o’ nights like a north-easter. +I trust yours don’t dine with the family; mine +are better mannered; you will hear nought of them till +2 <span class="sc">A.M.</span>, except one, to be sure, that I have made a pet of, +but he is small; I keep him in buttons, so as to avoid +commentaries; you will like him much—if you like what +is genuine.</p> + +<p>Must we likewise change religions? Mine is a good +article, with a trick of stopping; cathedral bell note; +ornamental dial; supported by Venus and the Graces; +quite a summer-parlour piety. Of yours, since your last, +I fear there is little to be said.</p> + +<p>There is one article I wish to take away with me: my +spirits. They suit me. I don’t want yours; I like +my own; I have had them a long while in bottle. It is my +only reservation.—Yours (as you decide),</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Monkhouse.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>La Solitude, Hyères</i> [<i>May</i> 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOY</span>,—<i>Old Mortality</i><a name="FnAnchor_9" id="FnAnchor_9" href="#Footnote_9"><span class="sp">9</span></a> is out, and I am glad to +say Coggie likes it. We like her immensely.</p> + +<p>I keep better, but no great shakes yet; cannot work—cannot: +that is flat, not even verses: as for prose, +that more active place is shut on me long since.</p> + +<p>My view of life is essentially the comic; and the +romantically comic. <i>As You Like It</i> is to me the most +bird-haunted spot in letters; <i>Tempest</i> and <i>Twelfth Night</i> +follow. These are what I mean by poetry and nature. I +make an effort of my mind to be quite one with Molière, +except upon the stage, where his inimitable <i>jeux de scène</i> +beggar belief; but you will observe they are stage-plays—things +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id="page97"></a>97</span> +<i>ad hoc</i>; not great Olympian debauches of the +heart and fancy; hence more perfect, and not so great. +Then I come, after great wanderings, to Carmosine and +to Fantasio; to one part of La Dernière Aldini (which, +by the by, we might dramatise in a week), to the notes +that Meredith has found, Evan and the postillion, Evan +and Rose, Harry in Germany. And to me these things +are the good; beauty, touched with sex and laughter; +beauty with God’s earth for the background. Tragedy +does not seem to me to come off; and when it does, it +does so by the heroic illusion; the anti-masque has been +omitted; laughter, which attends on all our steps in life, +and sits by the deathbed, and certainly redacts the +epitaph, laughter has been lost from these great-hearted +lies. But the comedy which keeps the beauty and touches +the terrors of our life (laughter and tragedy-in-a-good-humour +having kissed), that is the last word of moved +representation; embracing the greatest number of elements +of fate and character; and telling its story, not with the +one eye of pity, but with the two of pity and mirth.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Early in May Stevenson again fell very dangerously ill with +hemorrhage of the lungs, and lay for several weeks between life and +death, until towards the end of June he was brought sufficiently +round to venture by slow stages on the journey to England, staying +for two or three weeks at Royat on the way. His correspondent +had lately been appointed Clark Reader in English Literature at +Trinity College, Cambridge.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>La Solitude, Hyères</i>] <i>From my bed, May</i> 29, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR GOSSE</span>,—The news of the Professorate found me +in the article of—well, of heads or tails; I am still in bed, +and a very poor person. You must thus excuse my +damned delay; but, I assure you, I was delighted. You +will believe me the more, if I confess to you that my +first sentiment was envy; yes, sir, on my blood-boltered +couch I envied the professor. However, it was not of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98"></a>98</span> +long duration; the double thought that you deserved and +that you would thoroughly enjoy your success fell like +balsam on my wounds. How came it that you never +communicated my rejection of Gilder’s offer for the Rhone? +But it matters not. Such earthly vanities are over for the +present. This has been a fine well-conducted illness. A +month in bed; a month of silence; a fortnight of not +stirring my right hand; a month of not moving without +being lifted. Come! <i>Ça y est</i>: devilish like being dead.—Yours, +dear Professor, academically,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">I am soon to be moved to Royat; an invalid valet +goes with me! I got him cheap—second-hand.</p> + +<p>In turning over my late friend Ferrier’s commonplace +book, I find three poems from <i>Viol and Flute</i> copied out +in his hand: “When Flower-time,” “Love in Winter,” +and “Mistrust.” They are capital too. But I thought +the fact would interest you. He was no poetist either; +so it means the more. “Love in W.!” I like the best.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Enclosing some supplementary verses for the <i>Child’s Garden</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Marseilles, June</i> 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR S. C.,</span>—Are these four in time? No odds about +order. I am at Marseille and stood the journey wonderfully. +Better address Hotel Chabassière, Royat, Puy de +Dôme. You see how this d—d poeshie flows from me in +sickness: Are they good or bad? Wha kens? But I +like the <i>Little Land</i>, I think, as well as any. As time goes +on I get more fancy in. We have no money, but a valet +and a maid. The valet is no end; how long can you +live on a valet? Vive le valet! I am tempted to call +myself a valetudinarian. I love my love with a V because +he is a Valetudinarian; I took him to Valetta or Valais, gave +him his Vails and tenderly addressed him with one word,</p> + +<p class="center">Vale.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>99</span></p> + +<p><i>P.S.</i>—It does not matter of course about order. As +soon as I have all the slips I shall organise the book for +the publisher. A set of 8 will be put together under the +title <i>An Only Child</i>; another cycle of 10 will be called +<i>In the Garden</i>, and other six called <i>Bedtime</i> to end all up. +It will now make quite a little volume of a good way +upwards of 100 pp. Will you instruct Bain to send me +a Bible; of a type that I can read without blindness; the +better if with notes; there is a Clarendon Press Bible, +pray see it yourself. I also want Ewald’s History in a +translation.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The play of <i>Deacon Brodie</i>, the joint work of R. L. S. and W. E. H., +was to be performed in London early in July.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hotel Chabassière, Royat, July</i> 1884.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR S. C.,</span>—Books received with great thanks. Very +nice books, though I see you underrate my cecity: I +could no more read their beautiful Bible than I could sail +in heaven. However I have sent for another and can +read the rest for patience.</p> + +<p>I quite understand your feelings about the <i>Deacon</i>, +which is a far way behind; but I get miserable when I +think of Henley cutting this splash and standing, I fear, +to lose a great deal of money. It is about Henley, not +Brodie, that I care. I fear my affections are not strong +to my past works; they are blotted out by others; and +anyhow the <i>Deacon</i> is damn bad.</p> + +<p>I am half asleep and can no more discourse. Say to +your friends, “Look here, some friends of mine are bringing +out a play; it has some stuff; suppose you go and +see it.” But I know I am a cold, unbelieving fellow, +incapable of those hot claps that honour you and Henley +and therefore—I am asleep. <i>Child’s Garden</i> (first instalment) +come. Fanny ill; self asleep.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id="page100"></a>100</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Hotel Chabassière, Royat</i> [<i>July</i> 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—The weather has been demoniac; +I have had a skiff of cold, and was finally obliged to take +to bed entirely; to-day, however, it has cleared, the sun +shines, and I begin to</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>Several days after.</i>—I have been out once, but now +am back in bed. I am better, and keep better, but the +weather is a mere injustice. The imitation of Edinburgh +is, at times, deceptive; there is a note among the chimney +pots that suggests Howe Street; though I think the +shrillest spot in Christendom was not upon the Howe +Street side, but in front, just under the Miss Graemes’ +big chimney stack. It had a fine alto character—a sort +of bleat that used to divide the marrow in my joints—say +in the wee, slack hours. That music is now lost to us by +rebuilding; another air that I remember, not regret, +was the solo of the gas-burner in the little front room; +a knickering, flighty, fleering, and yet spectral cackle. +I mind it above all on winter afternoons, late, when the +window was blue and spotted with rare rain-drops, and, +looking out, the cold evening was seen blue all over, with +the lamps of Queen’s and Frederick’s Street dotting it with +yellow, and flaring eastward in the squalls. Heavens, how +unhappy I have been in such circumstances—I, who have +now positively forgotten the colour of unhappiness; who am +full like a fed ox, and dull like a fresh turf, and have no +more spiritual life, for good or evil, than a French +bagman.</p> + +<p>We are at Chabassière’s, for of course it was nonsense +to go up the hill when we could not walk.</p> + +<p>The child’s poems in a far extended form are likely +soon to be heard of—which Cummy I dare say will be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101"></a>101</span> +glad to know. They will make a book of about one +hundred pages.—Ever your affectionate,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>I had reported to Stevenson a remark made by one of his greatest +admirers, Sir E. Burne-Jones, on some particular analogy, I forget +what, between a passage of Defoe and one in <i>Treasure Island</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hotel Chabassière, Royat, July</i> 1884.]</p> + +<p>... Here is a quaint thing, I have read <i>Robinson</i>, +<i>Colonel Jack</i>, <i>Moll Flanders</i>, <i>Memoirs of a Cavalier</i>, <i>History +of the Plague</i>, <i>History of the Great Storm</i>, <i>Scotch Church and +Union</i>. And there my knowledge of Defoe ends—except +a book, the name of which I forget, about Peterborough +in Spain, which Defoe obviously did not write, and could +not have written if he wanted. To which of these does +B. J. refer? I guess it must be the history of the Scottish +Church. I jest; for, of course, I <i>know</i> it must be a book +I have never read, and which this makes me keen to read—I +mean <i>Captain Singleton</i>. Can it be got and sent to +me? If <i>Treasure Island</i> is at all like it, it will be delightful. +I was just the other day wondering at my folly in +not remembering it, when I was writing <i>T. I.</i>, as a mine +for pirate tips. <i>T. I.</i> came out of Kingsley’s <i>At Last</i>, +where I got the Dead Man’s Chest—and that was the seed—and +out of the great Captain Johnson’s <i>History of +Notorious Pirates</i>. The scenery is Californian in part, and +in part <i>chic</i>.</p> + +<p>I was downstairs to-day! So now I am a made man—till +the next time.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">If it was <i>Captain Singleton</i>, send it to me, won’t you?</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>Later.</i>—My life dwindles into a kind of valley of the +shadow picnic. I cannot read; so much of the time (as +to-day) I must not speak above my breath, that to play +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102"></a>102</span> +patience, or to see my wife play it, is become the be-all +and the end-all of my dim career. To add to my gaiety, +I may write letters, but there are few to answer. Patience +and Poesy are thus my rod and staff; with these I not +unpleasantly support my days.</p> + +<p>I am very dim, dumb, dowie, and damnable. I hate +to be silenced; and if to talk by signs is my forte (as I +contend), to understand them cannot be my wife’s. Do +not think me unhappy; I have not been so for years; +but I am blurred, inhabit the debatable frontier of sleep, +and have but dim designs upon activity. All is at a standstill; +books closed, paper put aside, the voice, the eternal +voice of R. L. S., well silenced. Hence this plaint reaches +you with no very great meaning, no very great purpose, +and written part in slumber by a heavy, dull, somnolent, +superannuated son of a bedpost.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>I suppose, but cannot remember, that I had in the meantime +sent him <i>Captain Singleton</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Hotel Chabassière, Royat, July</i> 1884.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOY</span>,—I am glad that —— —— has disappointed +you. Depend upon it, nobody is so bad as to be worth +scalping, except your dearest friends and parents; and +scalping them may sometimes be avoided by scalping +yourself. I grow daily more lymphatic and benign; bring +me a dynamiter, that I may embrace and bless him!—So, +if I continue to evade the friendly hemorrhage, I shall +be spared in anger to pour forth senile and insignificant +volumes, and the clever lads in the journals, not doubting +of the eye of Nemesis, shall mock and gird at me.</p> + +<p>All this seems excellent news of the <i>Deacon</i>. But O! +that the last tableau, on from Leslie’s entrance, were +re-written! We had a great opening there and missed +it. I read for the first time <i>Captain Singleton</i>; it has +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id="page103"></a>103</span> +points; and then I re-read <i>Colonel Jack</i> with ecstasy; +the first part is as much superior to <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> as +<i>Robinson</i> is to—<i>The Inland Voyage</i>. It is pretty, good, +philosophical, dramatic, and as picturesque as a promontory +goat in a gale of wind. Get it and fill your belly +with honey.</p> + +<p>Fanny hopes to be in time for the <i>Deacon</i>. I was out +yesterday, and none the worse. We leave Monday.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1"><span class="fn">1</span></a> For many years fellow of and historical lecturer at Trinity +College, Cambridge.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2"><span class="fn">2</span></a> <i>Paillon.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3"><span class="fn">3</span></a> The name of the Delectable Land in one of Heine’s <i>Lieder</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4"><span class="fn">4</span></a> <i>Silverado Squatters</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5" href="#FnAnchor_5"><span class="fn">5</span></a> The allusion is to a specimen I had been used to hear quoted +of the Duke of Wellington’s table-talk in his latter years. He had +said that musk-rats were sometimes kept alive in bottles in India. +Curate, or other meek dependent: “I presume, your Grace, they +are small rats and large bottles.” His Grace: “No, large rats, +small bottles; large rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6" href="#FnAnchor_6"><span class="fn">6</span></a> <i>Croûtes</i>: crude studies from nature.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7" href="#FnAnchor_7"><span class="fn">7</span></a> Mr. J. Comyns Carr, at this time editing the English Illustrated +Magazine.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8" href="#FnAnchor_8"><span class="fn">8</span></a> A favourite Skye terrier. Mr. Stevenson was a great lover of +dogs.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9" href="#FnAnchor_9"><span class="fn">9</span></a> The essay so called, suggested by the death of J. W. Ferrier. +See <i>Memories and Portraits</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id="page104"></a>104</span></p> +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<h3>LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH</h3> + +<h5><span class="sc">September</span> 1884—<span class="sc">August</span> 1887</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Arriving</span> in England at the end of July 1884, Stevenson +took up his quarters first for a few weeks at Richmond. +He was compelled to abandon the hope of making his +permanent home at Hyères, partly by the renewed failure +there of his own health, partly by a bad outbreak of cholera +which occurred in the old Provençal town about the time +he left it. After consultation with several doctors, all of +whom held out hopes of ultimate recovery despite the +gravity of his present symptoms, he moved to Bournemouth. +Here he found in the heaths and pinewoods some +distant semblance of the landscape of his native Scotland, +and in the sandy curves of the Channel coast a passable +substitute for the bays and promontories of his beloved +Mediterranean. At all events, he liked the place well +enough to be willing to try it for a home; and such it +became for all but three years, from September 1884 to +August 1887. These, although in the matter of health +the worst and most trying years of his life, were in the +matter of work some of the most active and successful. +For the first two or three months the Stevensons occupied +a lodging on the West Cliff called Wensleydale; for the +next five, from mid-November 1884 to mid-April 1885, +they were tenants of a house named Bonallie Towers, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" id="page105"></a>105</span> +pleasantly situated amid the pinewoods of Branksome +Park, and by its name recalling familiar Midlothian associations. +Lastly, about Easter 1885, they entered into +occupation of a house of their own, given by the elder +Mr. Stevenson as a special gift to his daughter-in-law, +and renamed by its new occupants Skerryvore, in reminiscence +of one of the great lighthouse works carried out by +the family firm off the Scottish coast.</p> + +<p>During all the time of Stevenson’s residence at Bournemouth +he was compelled to lead the life, irksome to him +above all men, but borne with invincible spirit and patience, +of a chronic invalid and almost constant prisoner to the +house. A great part of his time had perforce to be spent +in bed, and there almost all his literary work was produced. +Often for days, and sometimes for whole weeks together, +he was forbidden to speak aloud, and compelled to carry +on conversation with his family and friends in whispers +or with the help of pencil and paper. The few excursions +to a distance which he attempted—most commonly to +my house at the British Museum, once to Cambridge, +once to Matlock, once to Exeter, and once in 1886 as +far as Paris—these excursions generally ended in a breakdown +and a hurried retreat to home and bed. Nevertheless, +he was able in intervals of comparative ease to +receive and enjoy the visits of friends from a distance +both old and new—among the most welcome of the latter +being Mr. Henry James, Mr. William Archer, and Mr. +John S. Sargent; while among Bournemouth residents +who attached themselves to him on terms of special intimacy +and affection were Sir Percy and Lady Shelley and Sir +Henry and Lady Taylor and their daughters.</p> + +<p>At the same time, seizing and making the most of +every week, nay, every day and hour of respite, he contrived +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>106</span> +to produce work surprising, under the circumstances, +alike by quantity and quality. During the first +two months of his life at Bournemouth the two plays +<i>Admiral Guinea</i> and <i>Beau Austin</i> were written in collaboration +with Mr. Henley, and many other dramatic schemes +were broached which health and leisure failed him to carry +out. In the course of the next few months he finished +<i>Prince Otto</i>, <i>The Child’s Garden of Verses</i>, and <i>More New +Arabian Nights</i>, all three of which had been begun, and +the two first almost completed, before he left Hyères. +He at the same time attacked two new tasks—a highway +novel called <i>The Great North Road</i>, and a <i>Life of Wellington</i> +for a series edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, both of which +he had in the sequel to abandon; and a third, the boys’ +story of <i>Kidnapped</i>, which in its turn had to be suspended, +but on its publication next year turned out one of the +most brilliant of his successes.</p> + +<p>About midsummer of this year, 1885, he was distressed +by the sudden death of his old and kind friend +Professor Fleeming Jenkin, and after a while undertook +the task of writing a memoir of him to be prefixed to +his collected papers. Towards the close of the same year +he was busy with what proved to be the most popular +of all his writings, <i>The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and +Mr. Hyde</i>, and with the Christmas story of <i>Olalla</i>. <i>Jekyll +and Hyde</i> was published in January 1886, and after threatening +for the first week or two to fall flat, in no long time +caught the attention of all classes of readers, was quoted +from a hundred pulpits, and made the writer’s name +familiar to multitudes both in England and America whom +it had never reached before. A success scarcely inferior, +though of another kind, was made a few months afterwards +by <i>Kidnapped</i>, which Stevenson had taken up again +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id="page107"></a>107</span> +in the early spring, and which was published about midsummer. +After completing this task in March, he was +able to do little work during the remainder of the year, +except in preparing materials for the <i>Life of Fleeming +Jenkin</i>, and in writing occasional verses which helped to +make up the collection published in the following year +under the title <i>Underwoods</i>. In the early autumn of the +same year, 1886, he took a longer and more successful +excursion from home than usual, staying without breakdown +for two or three weeks at the Monument, as he +always called my house at the British Museum, and seeing +something of kindred spirits among his elders, such as +Robert Browning, James Russell Lowell, the painters +Burne-Jones and W. B. Richmond, and others who had +hitherto delighted in his work and now learned to delight +no less in his society.</p> + +<p>Thence he went with Mr. Henley for a short trip to +Paris, chiefly in order to see the sculptor Rodin and his +old friends Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Low. From this trip he +returned none the worse, but during all the later autumn +and winter at Bournemouth was again hampered in his +work by renewed and prolonged attacks of illness. A +further cause of trouble was the distressing failure of +his father’s health and spirits, attended by symptoms +which plainly indicated the beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>For some weeks of April, 1887, he was much taken up +with a scheme which had nothing to do with literature, +and which the few friends to whom he confided it regarded +as wildly Quixotic and unwise. In these years he had, +as we have seen, taken deeply to heart both what he +thought the guilty remissness of Government action in +the matter of the Soudan garrisons and of Gordon, and +the tameness of acquiescence with which the national +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108"></a>108</span> +conscience appeared to take the result. He had been +not less disturbed at the failure, hitherto, of successive +administrations to assert the reign of law in Ireland. +He was no blind partisan of the English cause in that +country, and had even written of the hereditary hatred +of Irish for English as a sentiment justified by the facts +of history. But he held strongly that private warfare, +the use of dynamite and the knife, with the whole system +of agrarian vengeances and the persecution of the weak, +were means which no end could justify; and that redress +of grievances, whatever form it might ultimately take, +must be preceded by the re-establishment of law. In +<i>More New Arabian Nights</i>, published the year before, +he had endeavoured “to make dynamite ridiculous if he +could not make it horrible,” and to the old elements of +fantastic invention, and humorously solemn realism in +the unreal, had added the new element of a witty and +scornful criminal psychology. A case that now appealed +to him with especial force was that of the cruel persecution +kept up against the widow and daughters of the +murdered man Curtin. He determined that if no one +else would take up the duty of resisting such persecution +without regard to consequences, he would take it up himself, +in the hope of more effectually rousing the public +conscience to the evils of the time. His plan was to go +with his family, occupy and live upon the derelict farm, +and let happen what would. This, as the letters referring +to the matter plainly show, was no irresponsible dream +or whim, but a purpose conceived in absolute and sober +earnest. His wife and household were prepared to follow, +though under protest, had he persisted; as it seemed +for some weeks that he certainly would, until at last the +arguments of his friends, and still more the unmistakable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>109</span> +evidence that his father’s end was near, persuaded him +to give up his purpose. But to the last, I think he was +never well satisfied that in giving way he had not been a +coward, preferring fireside ease and comfort to the call of +a public duty.</p> + +<p>After spending a part of the winter at Bournemouth +and a part at Torquay, both Stevenson’s parents returned +to Edinburgh in April 1887; and within a few weeks +after their arrival he was summoned north to his father’s +death-bed. He stayed at Edinburgh the short time +necessary for the dispatch of business, and returned to his +own sick-room life at Skerryvore.</p> + +<p>During the two years and nine months of Stevenson’s +residence at Bournemouth, preceding the date of his +father’s death, he had made no apparent progress towards +recovery. Every period of respite had been quickly +followed by a relapse, and all his work, brilliant and varied +as it was, had been done under conditions which would +have reduced almost any other man to inactivity. The +close and frequently recurring struggles against the danger +of death from hemorrhage and exhaustion, which he had +been used, when they first occurred, to find exciting, grew +in the long run merely irksome; and even his persistent +high courage and gaiety, sustained as they were by the +devoted affection of his wife and many friends, began +occasionally, for the first time, to fail him. Accordingly, +when in May 1887 the death of his father severed the +strongest of the ties which bound him to the old country, +he was very ready to listen to the advice of his physicians, +who were unanimous in thinking his case not hopeless, +but urged him to try some complete change of climate, +surroundings, and mode of life. His wife’s connections +pointing to the West, he thought of the mountain health-resorts +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>110</span> +of Colorado, and of their growing reputation for +the cure of lung patients. Having let his house at Bournemouth, +he accordingly took passage on board the <span class="sc">S.S.</span> +<i>Ludgate Hill</i>, sailing for New York from London on August +21st, 1887, with his whole party, consisting of his wife, +his widowed mother, whom they had persuaded to join +them, his young stepson, and a trusted servant, Valentine +Roch. The concluding letters of the present section tell +of the preparations for this departure.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Wensleydale, Bournemouth, Sunday, +28th September</i> 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—I keep better, and am to-day downstairs +for the first time. I find the lockers entirely empty; +not a cent to the front. Will you pray send us some? +It blows an equinoctial gale, and has blown for nearly a +week. Nimbus Britannicus; piping wind, lashing rain; +the sea is a fine colour, and wind-bound ships lie at anchor +under the Old Harry rocks, to make one glad to be ashore.</p> + +<p>The Henleys are gone, and two plays practically done. +I hope they may produce some of the ready.—I am, ever +affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Andrew Chatto</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>During the earlier Bournemouth days were firmly established +Stevenson’s cordial relations with the several English publishers +Cassell & Co., Chatto & Windus, and Longmans, and a little later +with C. Scribner’s Sons in America.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October</i> 3, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. CHATTO</span>,—I have an offer of £25 for <i>Otto</i> +from America. I do not know if you mean to have the +American rights; from the nature of the contract, I think +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>111</span> +not; but if you understood that you were to sell the +sheets, I will either hand over the bargain to you, or finish +it myself and hand you over the money if you are pleased +with the amount. You see, I leave this quite in your +hands. To parody an old Scotch story of servant and +master: if you don’t know that you have a good author, +I know that I have a good publisher. Your fair, open, +and handsome dealings are a good point in my life, and +do more for my crazy health than has yet been done by +any doctor.—Very truly yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>There is no certain clue to the date of the following; neither has +it been possible to make sure what was the enclosure mentioned. +The special illness referred to seems to be that of the preceding +May at Hyères.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October</i> 1884?]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOY</span>,—I trust this finds you well; it leaves me +so-so. The weather is so cold that I must stick to bed, +which is rotten and tedious, but can’t be helped.</p> + +<p>I find in the blotting book the enclosed, which I wrote +to you the eve of my blood. Is it not strange? That +night, when I naturally thought I was coopered, the +thought of it was much in my mind; I thought it had +gone; and I thought what a strange prophecy I had made +in jest, and how it was indeed like to be the end of many +letters. But I have written a good few since, and the +spell is broken. I am just as pleased, for I earnestly desire +to live. This pleasant middle age into whose port we are +steering is quite to my fancy. I would cast anchor here, +and go ashore for twenty years and see the manners of +the place. Youth was a great time, but somewhat fussy. +Now in middle age (bar lucre) all seems mighty placid. It +likes me; I spy a little bright café in one corner of the +port, in front of which I now propose we should sit down. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112"></a>112</span> +There is just enough of the bustle of the harbour and +no more; and the ships are close in, regarding us with +stern-windows—the ships that bring deals from Norway +and parrots from the Indies. Let us sit down here for +twenty years, with a packet of tobacco and a drink, and +talk of art and women. By-and-by, the whole city will +sink, and the ships too, and the table, and we also; but +we shall have sat for twenty years and had a fine talk; +and by that time, who knows? exhausted the subject.</p> + +<p>I send you a book which (or I am mistook) will please +you; it pleased me. But I do desire a book of adventure—a +romance—and no man will get or write me one. Dumas +I have read and re-read too often; Scott, too and I am +short. I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to +begin in a good way; a book, I guess, like <i>Treasure Island</i>, +alas! which I have never read, and cannot though I +live to ninety. I would God that some one else had +written it! By all that I can learn, it is the very book +for my complaint. I like the way I hear it opens; and +they tell me John Silver is good fun. And to me it is, +and must ever be, a dream unrealised, a book unwritten. +O my sighings after romance, or even Skeltery, and O! +the weary age which will produce me neither!</p> + +<p class="center pt2">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p>The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The +single horseman, cloaked and booted, who pursued his +way across Willesden Common, had not met a traveller, +when the sound of wheels——</p> + +<p class="center pt2">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said the old pilot, “she must have dropped +into the bay a little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks.”</p> + +<p>“She shows no colours,” returned the young gentleman +musingly.</p> + +<p>“They’re a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark,” +resumed the old salt. “We shall soon know more of her.” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113"></a>113</span></p> + +<p>“Ay,” replied the young gentleman called Mark, “and +here, Mr. Seadrift, comes your sweet daughter Nancy +tripping down the cliff.”</p> + +<p>“God bless her kind heart, sir,” ejaculated old Seadrift.</p> + +<p class="center pt2">CHAPTER I</p> + +<p>The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to +the top of a great house in the Isle St. Louis to make a +will; and now, his duties finished, wrapped in a warm +roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from one hand, +he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little +did he think what strange adventures were to befall +him!——</p> + +<p class="pt2">That is how stories should begin. And I am offered +<span class="sc">HUSKS</span> instead.</p> + +<table class="nobctr" width="80%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">What should be:</td> <td class="tc1">What is:</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">The Filibuster’s Cache.</td> <td class="tc3">Aunt Anne’s Tea Cosy.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">Jerry Abershaw.</td> <td class="tc3">Mrs. Brierly’s Niece.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">Blood Money: A Tale.</td> <td class="tc3">Society: A Novel.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To the Rev. Professor Lewis Campbell</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In reply to a gift of books, including the correspondent’s well-known +translation of Sophocles.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November</i> 1884.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CAMPBELL</span>,—The books came duly to hand. +My wife has occupied the translation ever since, nor have +I yet been able to dislodge her. As for the primer, I have +read it with a very strange result: that I find no fault. +If you knew how, dogmatic and pugnacious, I stand +warden on the literary art, you would the more appreciate +your success and my—well, I will own it—disappointment. +For I love to put people right (or wrong) about +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id="page114"></a>114</span> +the arts. But what you say of Tragedy and of Sophocles +very amply satisfies me; it is well felt and well said; a +little less technically than it is my weakness to desire to +see it put, but clear and adequate. You are very right +to express your admiration for the resource displayed +in Œdipus King; it is a miracle. Would it not have been +well to mention Voltaire’s interesting onslaught, a thing +which gives the best lesson of the difference of neighbour +arts?—since all his criticisms, which had been fatal to a +narrative, do not amount among them to exhibit one +flaw in this masterpiece of drama. For the drama, it is +perfect; though such a fable in a romance might make +the reader crack his sides, so imperfect, so ethereally slight +is the verisimilitude required of these conventional, rigid, +and egg-dancing arts.</p> + +<p>I was sorry to see no more of you; but shall conclude +by hoping for better luck next time. My wife begs to be +remembered to both of you.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The “Arabs” mentioned below are the stories comprised in the +volume <i>More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter</i>, written by +Stevenson and his wife in collaboration.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR HENLEY</span>,—We are all to pieces in health, and +heavily handicapped with Arabs. I have a dreadful +cough, whose attacks leave me <i>ætat</i>. 90. I never let up +on the Arabs, all the same, and rarely get less than eight +pages out of hand, though hardly able to come downstairs +for twittering knees.</p> + +<p>I shall put in ——’s letter. He says so little of his +circumstances that I am in an impossibility to give him +advice more specific than a copybook. Give him my +love, however, and tell him it is the mark of the parochial +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115"></a>115</span> +gentleman who has never travelled to find all wrong in +a foreign land. Let him hold on, and he will find one +country as good as another; and in the meanwhile let +him resist the fatal British tendency to communicate his +dissatisfaction with a country to its inhabitants. ’Tis a +good idea, but it somehow fails to please. In a fortnight, +if I can keep my spirit in the box at all, I should be nearly +through this Arabian desert; so can tackle something +fresh.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>It was some twenty months since the plan of publishing the +<i>Child’s Garden</i> in the first instance as a picture-book had been +mooted (see above, pp. 18, foll.). But it had never taken effect, and +in the following March the volume appeared without illustrations +in England, and also, I believe, in America.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth,<br /> +Hants, England, First week in November, I guess,</i> 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—Now, look here, the above is my +address for three months, I hope; continue, on your part, +if you please, to write to Edinburgh, which is safe; but +if Mrs. Low thinks of coming to England, she might take +a run down from London (four hours from Waterloo, +main line) and stay a day or two with us among the pines. +If not, I hope it will be only a pleasure deferred till you +can join her.</p> + +<p>My Children’s Verses will be published here in a volume +called <i>A Child’s Garden</i>. The sheets are in hand; I will +see if I cannot send you the lot, so that you might have +a bit of a start. In that case I would do nothing to publish +in the States, and you might try an illustrated edition +there; which, if the book went fairly over here, might, +when ready, be imported. But of this more fully ere +long. You will see some verses of mine in the last Magazine +of Art, with pictures by a young lady; rather pretty, I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116"></a>116</span> +think. If we find a market for <i>Phasellulus loquitur</i>, we +can try another. I hope it isn’t necessary to put the verse +into that rustic printing. I am Philistine enough to prefer +clean printer’s type; indeed, I can form no idea of the +verses thus transcribed by the incult and tottering hand +of the draughtsman, nor gather any impression beyond +one of weariness to the eyes. Yet the other day, in the +Century, I saw it imputed as a crime to Vedder that he +had not thus travestied Omar Khayyàm. We live in a +rum age of music without airs, stories without incident, +pictures without beauty, American wood engravings that +should have been etchings, and dry-point etchings that +ought to have been mezzotints. I think of giving ’em +literature without words; and I believe if you were to try +invisible illustration, it would enjoy a considerable vogue. +So long as an artist is on his head, is painting with a flute, +or writes with an etcher’s needle, or conducts the orchestra +with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along +with roses. But any plain man who tries to follow the +obtrusive canons of his art, is but a commonplace figure. +To hell with him is the motto, or at least not that; for +he will have his reward, but he will never be thought a +person of parts.</p> + +<p><i>January 3, 1885.</i>—And here has this been lying near +two months. I have failed to get together a preliminary +copy of the Child’s Verses for you, in spite of doughty +efforts; but yesterday I sent you the first sheet of the +definitive edition, and shall continue to send the others +as they come. If you can, and care to, work them—why +so, well. If not, I send you fodder. But the time presses; +for though I will delay a little over the proofs, and though +it is even possible they may delay the English issue until +Easter, it will certainly not be later. Therefore perpend, +and do not get caught out. Of course, if you can do +pictures, it will be a great pleasure to me to see our names +joined; and more than that, a great advantage, as I +dare say you may be able to make a bargain for some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117"></a>117</span> +share a little less spectral than the common for the poor +author. But this is all as you shall choose; I give you +<i>carte blanche</i> to do or not to do.—Yours most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">O, Sargent has been and painted my portrait; a very +nice fellow he is, and is supposed to have done well; it +is a poetical but very chicken-boned figure-head, as thus +represented.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.  Go on.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.P.S.</i>—Your picture came; and let me thank you +for it very much. I am so hunted I had near forgotten. +I find it very graceful; and I mean to have it framed.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sir Walter Simpson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth</i> +[<i>first week of November</i> 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SIMPSON</span>,—At last, after divers adventures +here we are: not Pommery and Greno as you see, “but +jist plain auld Bonellie, no very faur frae Jenniper Green,” +as I might say if I were writing to Charles. I hope now +to receive a good bundle from you ere long; and I will +try to be both prompt and practical in response. I hope +to hear your boy is better: ah, that’s where it bites, I +know, that is where the childless man rejoices; although, +to confess fully, my whole philosophy of life renounces +these renunciations; I am persuaded we gain nothing in +the least comparable to what we lose, by holding back +the hand from any province of life; the intrigue, the +imbroglio, such as it is, was made for the plunger and +not for the teetotaller. And anyway I hope your news +is good.</p> + +<p>I have nearly finished Lawson’s most lively pamphlet. +It is very clear and interesting. For myself, I am in our +house—a home of our own, in a most lovely situation, +among forest trees, where I hope you will come and see +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>118</span> +us and find me in a repaired and more comfortable condition—greatly +pleased with it—rather hard-up, verging +on the dead-broke—and full tilt at hammering up some +New Arabians for the pot.</p> + +<p>I wonder what you do without regular habits of work. +I am capable of only two theories of existence: the industrious +worker’s, the spreester’s; all between seems blank +to me. We grow too old, and I, at least, am too much +deteriorated, for the last; and the first becomes a bedrock +necessary. My father is in a gloomy state and has +the yellow flag at the peak, or the fore, or wherever it +should be; and he has just emptied some melancholy +vials on me; I am also, by way of change, spitting blood. +This somewhat clouds the termination of my note.—Yours +ever affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>About this time Mr. Stevenson was in some hesitation as to +letting himself be proposed for the office of President of the Royal +Society of Edinburgh.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 1884.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—I have no hesitation in recommending +you to let your name go up; please yourself +about an address; though I think, if we could meet, we +could arrange something suitable. What you propose +would be well enough in a way, but so modest as to suggest +a whine. From that point of view it would be better to +change a little; but this, whether we meet or not, we +must discuss. Tait, Chrystal, the Royal Society, and I, +all think you amply deserve this honour and far more; +it is not the True Blue to call this serious compliment +a “trial”; you should be glad of this recognition. As +for resigning, that is easy enough if found necessary; but +to refuse would be husky and unsatisfactory. <i>Sic subs.</i></p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">My cold is still very heavy; but I carry it well. Fanny +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>119</span> +is very very much out of sorts, principally through perpetual +misery with me. I fear I have been a little in the +dumps, which, <i>as you know, sir</i>, is a very great sin. I +must try to be more cheerful; but my cough is so severe +that I have sometimes most exhausting nights and very +peevish wakenings. However, this shall be remedied, and +last night I was distinctly better than the night before. +There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise blandly +as we sit together on the devil’s garden-wall), no more +abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguy peevishness; +why (say I) what matters it if we be a little +uncomfortable—that is no reason for mangling our unhappy +wives. And then I turn and <i>girn</i> on the unfortunate +Cassandra.—Your fellow culprit,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mr. Stevenson, the elder, had read the play of <i>Admiral Guinea</i>, +written in September by his son and Mr. Henley in collaboration, +and had protested, with his usual vehemence of feeling and expression, +against the stage confrontation of profane blackguardry +in the person of Pew with evangelical piety in that of the reformed +slaving captain who gives his name to the piece.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth +(The three B’s)</i> [<i>November</i> 5, 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—Allow me to say, in a strictly Pickwickian +sense, that you are a silly fellow. I am pained +indeed, but how should I be offended? I think you +exaggerate; I cannot forget that you had the same +impression of the <i>Deacon</i>; and yet, when you saw it +played, were less revolted than you looked for; and I +will still hope that the <i>Admiral</i> also is not so bad as you +suppose. There is one point, however, where I differ +from you very frankly. Religion is in the world; I do +not think you are the man to deny the importance of its +rôle; and I have long decided not to leave it on one side +in art. The opposition of the Admiral and Mr. Pew is +not, to my eyes, either horrible or irreverent; but it may +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>120</span> +be, and it probably is, very ill done: what then? This is +a failure; better luck next time; more power to the +elbow, more discretion, more wisdom in the design, and +the old defeat becomes the scene of the new victory. +Concern yourself about no failure; they do not cost lives +as in engineering; they are the <i>pierres perdues</i> of successes. +Fame is (truly) a vapour; do not think of it; if +the writer means well and tries hard, no failure will injure +him, whether with God or man.</p> + +<p>I wish I could hear a brighter account of yourself; +but I am inclined to acquit the <i>Admiral</i> of having a share +in the responsibility. My very heavy cold is, I hope, +drawing off; and the change to this charming house in +the forest will, I hope, complete my re-establishment.—With +love to all, believe me, your ever affectionate</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, +November</i> 11, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOY</span>,—I have been nearly smashed altogether; +fever and chills, with really very considerable suffering; +and to my deep gloom and some fear about the future, +work has had to stop. There was no way out of it; yesterday +and to-day nothing would come, it was a mere waste +of tissue, productive of spoiled paper.</p> + +<p>I hope it will not last long; for the bum-baily is panting +at my rump, and when I turn a scared eye across my +shoulder, I behold his talons quivering above my frock-coat +tails.</p> + +<p>Gosse has writ to offer me £40 for a Christmas number +ghost story for the Pall Mall: eight thousand words. I +have, with some conditions, accepted; I pray Heaven I may +be able to do it. But I am not sure that my incapacity +to work is wholly due to illness; I believe the morphine +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121"></a>121</span> +I have been taking for my bray may have a hand in it. +It moderates the bray, but, I think, sews up the donkey.</p> + +<p>I think my wife is a little better. If only I could get +in trim, and get this work done, I should be quite chipper.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The two next letters, on the same subject, are written in the +styles and characters of the two Edinburgh ex-elders, Johnstone +(or Johnson) and Thomson alternately.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, +Bournemouth, November</i> 11 [1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—I am in my new house, thus +proudly styled, as you perceive; but the deevil a tower +ava’ can be perceived (except out of window); this is not +as it should be; one might have hoped, at least, a turret. +We are all vilely unwell. I put in the dark watches +imitating a donkey with some success, but little pleasure; +and in the afternoon I indulge in a smart fever, accompanied +by aches and shivers. There is thus little monotony +to be deplored. I at least am a <i>regular</i> invalid; I would +scorn to bray in the afternoon; I would indignantly +refuse the proposal to fever in the night. What is bred +in the bone will come out, sir, in the flesh; and the same +spirit that prompted me to date my letter regulates the +hour and character of my attacks.—I am, sir, yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Thomson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The controversy here mentioned had been one in which Mr. +Samuel Smiles and others had taken part, concerning the rival +claims of Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of R. L. S., and John +Rennie to have been the chief engineers of the Bell Rock Lighthouse +(see <i>A Family of Engineers</i>, chap. iii.).</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov.</i> 12, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COGGIE</span>,—Many thanks for the two photos +which now decorate my room. I was particularly glad +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122"></a>122</span> +to have the Bell Rock. I wonder if you saw me plunge, +lance in rest, into a controversy thereanent? It was a +very one-sided affair. The man I attacked cried “Boo-hoo!” +and referred me to his big brother. And the big +brother refused to move. So I slept upon the field of +battle, paraded, sang Te Deum, and came home after a +review rather than a campaign.</p> + +<p>Please tell Campbell I got his letter. The Wild Woman +of the West has been much amiss and complaining sorely. +I hope nothing more serious is wrong with her than just +my ill-health, and consequent anxiety and labour; but +the deuce of it is, that the cause continues. I am about +knocked out of time now: a miserable, snuffling, shivering, +fever-stricken, nightmare-ridden, knee-jottering, hoast-hoast-hoasting +shadow and remains of man. But we’ll no +gie ower jist yet a bittie. We’ve seen waur; and dod, +mem, it’s my belief that we’ll see better. I dinna ken +’at I’ve muckle mair to say to ye, or, indeed, onything; +but jist here’s guid-fallowship, guid health, and the wale +o’ guid fortune to your bonny sel’; and my respecs to +the Perfessor and his wife, and the Prinshiple, an’ the +Bell Rock, an’ ony ither public chara’ters that I’m +acquaunt wi’.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Bournemouth, November</i> 13, 1884.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR THOMSON</span>,—It’s a maist remarkable fac’, but +nae shüner had I written yon braggin’, blawin’ letter aboot +ma business habits, when bang! that very day, ma hoast<a name="FnAnchor_10" id="FnAnchor_10" href="#Footnote_10"><span class="sp">10</span></a> +begude in the aifternune. It is really remaurkable; it’s +providenshle, I believe. The ink wasnae fair dry, the +words werenae weel ooten ma mouth, when bang, I got +the lee. The mair ye think o’t, Thomson, the less ye’ll +like the looks o’t. Proavidence (I’m no’ sayin’) is all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id="page123"></a>123</span> +verra weel <i>in its place</i>; but if Proavidence has nae mainners, +wha’s to learn’t? Proavidence is a fine thing, but hoo +would you like Proavidence to keep your till for ye? +The richt place for Proavidence is in the kirk; it has +naething to do wi’ private correspondence between twa +gentlemen, nor freendly cracks, nor a wee bit word of +sculduddery<a name="FnAnchor_11" id="FnAnchor_11" href="#Footnote_11"><span class="sp">11</span></a> ahint the door, nor, in shoart, wi’ ony +<i>hole-and-corner wark</i>, what I would call. I’m pairfec’ly +willin’ to meet in wi’ Proavidence, I’ll be prood to meet +in wi’ him, when my time’s come and I cannae dae nae +better; but if he’s to come skulking aboot my stair-fit, +damned, I micht as weel be deid for a’ the comfort I’ll can +get in life. Cannae he no be made to understand that +it’s beneath him? Gosh, if I was in his business, I wouldnae +steir my heid for a plain, auld ex-elder that, tak him the +way he taks himsel’, ’s just aboot as honest as he can +weel afford, an’ but for a wheen auld scandals, near forgotten +noo, is a pairfec’ly respectable and thoroughly +decent man. Or if I fashed wi’ him ava’, it wad be kind +o’ handsome like; a pun’-note under his stair door, or +a bottle o’ auld, blended malt to his bit marnin’, as a +teshtymonial like yon ye ken sae weel aboot, but mair +successfu’.</p> + +<p>Dear Thomson, have I ony money? If I have, <i>send +it</i>, for the loard’s sake.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Johnstone.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov.</i> 13, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BOY</span>,—A thousand thanks for the <i>Molière</i>. I +have already read, in this noble presentment, <i>La Comtesse +d’Escarbaguas</i>, <i>Le Malade Imaginaire</i>, and a part of <i>Les +Femmes Savantes</i>; I say, Poquelin took damned good +care of himself: Argan and Arysule, what parts! Many +thanks also for John Silver’s pistol; I recognise it; that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124"></a>124</span> +was the one he gave Jim Hawkins at the mouth +of the pit; I shall get a plate put upon it to that +effect.</p> + +<p>My birthday was a great success; I was better in +health; I got delightful presents; I received the definite +commission from the P.M.G., and began to write the tale; +and in the evening Bob arrived, a simple seraph. We +have known each other ten years; and here we are, too, +like the pair that met in the infirmary: why can we not +mellow into kindness and sweetness like Bob? What is +the reason? Does nature, even in my octogenarian carcase, +run too strong that I must be still a bawler and a +brawler and a treader upon corns? You, at least, have +achieved the miracle of embellishing your personal appearance +to that point that, unless your mother is a woman +of even more perspicacity than I suppose, it is morally +impossible that she can recognise you. When I saw you +ten years ago, you looked rough and—kind of stigmatised, +a look of an embittered political shoemaker; where is it +now? You now come waltzing around like some light-hearted +monarch; essentially jovial, essentially royal; +radiant of smiles. And in the meanwhile, by a complementary +process, I turn into a kind of hunchback +with white hair! The devil.</p> + +<p>Well, let us be thankful for our mercies; in these ten +years what a change from the cell in the hospital, and +the two sick boys in the next bed, to the influence, the +recognition, the liberty, and the happiness of to-day! +Well, well; fortune is not so blind as people say; you +dreed a good long weird; but you have got into a fine +green paddock now to kick your heels in. And I, too, +what a difference; what a difference in my work, in my +situation, and unfortunately, also in my health! But one +need not complain of a pebble in the shoe, when by mere +justice one should rot in a dungeon.</p> + +<p>Many thanks to both of you; long life to our friendship, +and that means, I do most firmly believe, to these +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125"></a>125</span> +clay continents on which we fly our colours; good luck +to one and all, and may God continue to be merciful.—Your +old and warm friend,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson had been unable to finish for the Pall Mall Christmas +number the tale he had first intended; had tried the publishers +with <i>Markheim</i> (afterwards printed in the collection called <i>Merry +Men</i>), which proved too short; had then furbished up as well as +he could a tale drafted in the Pitlochry days, <i>The Body Snatcher</i>, +which was advertised in the streets of London by sandwich-men +carrying posters so horrific that they were suppressed, if I remember +right, by the police. Stevenson rightly thought the tale not up to +his best mark, and would not take the full payment which had been +bargained for. His correspondent was just about to start on a tour +to the United States.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov.</i> 15, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—This Mr. Morley<a name="FnAnchor_12" id="FnAnchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"><span class="sp">12</span></a> of yours is a most +desperate fellow. He has sent me (for my opinion) the +most truculent advertisement I ever saw, in which the +white hairs of Gladstone are dragged round Troy behind +my chariot wheels. What can I say? I say nothing to +him; and to you, I content myself with remarking that +he seems a desperate fellow.</p> + +<p>All luck to you on your American adventure; may +you find health, wealth, and entertainment! If you see, +as you likely will, Frank R. Stockton, pray greet him +from me in words to this effect:—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>My Stockton if I failed to like,</p> + <p class="i1">It were a sheer depravity,</p> +<p>For I went down with the <i>Thomas Hyke</i></p> + <p class="i1">And up with the <i>Negative Gravity</i>!</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">I adore these tales.</p> + +<p>I hear flourishing accounts of your success at Cambridge, +so you leave with a good omen. Remember me +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126"></a>126</span> +to <i>green corn</i> if it is in season; if not, you had better +hang yourself on a sour apple tree, for your voyage has +been lost.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Austin Dobson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written in acknowledgment of the gift of a desk.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth</i> [<i>December</i> 1884 ?].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR DOBSON</span>,—Set down my delay to your own fault; +I wished to acknowledge such a gift from you in some +of my inapt and slovenly rhymes; but you should have +sent me your pen and not your desk. The verses stand +up to the axles in a miry cross-road, whence the coursers +of the sun shall never draw them; hence I am constrained +to this uncourtliness, that I must appear before one of +the kings of that country of rhyme without my singing +robes. For less than this, if we may trust the book of +Esther, favourites have tasted death; but I conceive the +kingdom of the Muses mildlier mannered; and in particular +that county which you administer and which I seem to +see as a half-suburban land; a land of hollyhocks and +country houses; a land where at night, in thorny and +sequestered bypaths, you will meet masqueraders going +to a ball in their sedans, and the rector steering homeward +by the light of his lantern; a land of the windmill, +and the west wind, and the flowering hawthorn with a +little scented letter in the hollow of its trunk, and the +kites flying over all in the season of kites, and the far +away blue spires of a cathedral city.</p> + +<p>Will you forgive me, then, for my delay and accept +my thanks not only for your present, but for the letter +which followed it, and which perhaps I more particularly +value, and believe me to be, with much admiration, yours +very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id="page127"></a>127</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson and his wife were still busy on <i>More New Arabian +Nights</i> (the romance of the <i>Great North Road</i> having been begun and +postponed). The question here touched is, to what publishers +should they be offered.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 1884.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—For Cassell, I thought the G.N.R. (not +railway this time) was the motto. What are Cassells to +do with this eccentric mass of blague and seriousness? +Their poor auld pows will a’ turn white as snaw, man. +They would skriegh with horror. You see, the lot of tales +is now coming to a kind of bearing. They are being quite +rehandled; all the three intercalary narratives have been +condemned and are being replaced—two by picturesque +and highly romantic adventures; one by a comic tale of +character; and the thing as it goes together so far, is, +I do think, singularly varied and vivid, coming near to +laughter and touching tears.</p> + +<p>Will Cassell stand it? No.</p> + +<p><i>Et de deux.</i></p> + +<p>I vote for the syndicate, and to give Cassell the <i>North +Road</i> when done. <i>Et sic subscr.</i></p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">My health is better. I never sleep, to be sure; Cawdor +hath butchered sleep; and I am twinged a bit by aches +and rheumatism; but I get my five to seven hours of +work; and if that is not health, it is the nearest I am +like to have.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following to Mr. Henry James refers to the essay of R. L. S. +called <i>A Humble Remonstrance</i>, which had just appeared in Longman’s +Magazine. Mr. James had written holding out the prospect +of a continuance of the friendly controversy which had thus been +opened up between them on the aims and qualities of fiction.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, +Bournemouth, December</i> 8, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,—This is a very brave hearing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id="page128"></a>128</span> +from more points than one. The first point is that there +is a hope of a sequel. For this I laboured. Seriously, +from the dearth of information and thoughtful interest +in the art of literature, those who try to practise it with +any deliberate purpose run the risk of finding no fit +audience. People suppose it is “the stuff” that interests +them; they think, for instance, that the prodigious fine +thoughts and sentiments in Shakespeare impress by their +own weight, not understanding that the unpolished diamond +is but a stone. They think that striking situations, or +good dialogue, are got by studying life; they will not +rise to understand that they are prepared by deliberate +artifice and set off by painful suppressions. Now, I want +the whole thing well ventilated, for my own education +and the public’s; and I beg you to look as quick as you +can, to follow me up with every circumstance of defeat +where we differ, and (to prevent the flouting of the laity) +to emphasise the points where we agree. I trust your +paper will show me the way to a rejoinder; and that +rejoinder I shall hope to make with so much art as to woo +or drive you from your threatened silence. I would not +ask better than to pass my life in beating out this quarter +of corn with such a seconder as yourself.</p> + +<p>Point the second—I am rejoiced indeed to hear you +speak so kindly of my work; rejoiced and surprised. I +seem to myself a very rude, left-handed countryman; not +fit to be read, far less complimented, by a man so accomplished, +so adroit, so craftsmanlike as you. You will +happily never have cause to understand the despair with +which a writer like myself considers (say) the park scene +in <i>Lady Barberina</i>. Every touch surprises me by its +intangible precision; and the effect when done, as light +as syllabub, as distinct as a picture, fills me with envy. +Each man among us prefers his own aim, and I prefer +mine; but when we come to speak of performance, I recognise +myself, compared with you, to be a lout and slouch +of the first water.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id="page129"></a>129</span></p> + +<p>Where we differ, both as to the design of stories and +the delineation of character, I begin to lament. Of course, +I am not so dull as to ask you to desert your walk; but +could you not, in one novel, to oblige a sincere admirer, +and to enrich his shelves with a beloved volume, could +you not, and might you not, cast your characters in a +mould a little more abstract and academic (dear Mrs. +Pennyman had already, among your other work, a taste +of what I mean), and pitch the incidents, I do not say +in any stronger, but in a slightly more emphatic key—as +it were an episode from one of the old (so-called) novels +of adventure? I fear you will not; and I suppose I must +sighingly admit you to be right. And yet, when I see, as +it were, a book of Tom Jones handled with your exquisite +precision and shot through with those side-lights of reflection +in which you excel, I relinquish the dear vision with +regret. Think upon it.</p> + +<p>As you know, I belong to that besotted class of man, +the invalid: this puts me to a stand in the way of visits. +But it is possible that some day you may feel that a day +near the sea and among pinewoods would be a pleasant +change from town. If so, please let us know; and my +wife and I will be delighted to put you up, and give you +what we can to eat and drink (I have a fair bottle of claret).—On +the back of which, believe me, yours sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—I reopen this to say that I have re-read my +paper, and cannot think I have at all succeeded in being +either veracious or polite. I knew, of course, that I took +your paper merely as a pin to hang my own remarks +upon; but, alas! what a thing is any paper! What fine +remarks can you not hang on mine! How I have sinned +against proportion, and with every effort to the contrary, +against the merest rudiments of courtesy to you! You +are indeed a very acute reader to have divined the real +attitude of my mind; and I can only conclude, not without +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>130</span> +closed eyes and shrinking shoulders, in the well-worn +words,</p> + +<p class="rt">Lay on, Macduff!</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December</i> 9, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—The dreadful tragedy of the Pall +Mall has come to a happy but ludicrous ending: I am to +keep the money, the tale writ for them is to be buried +certain fathoms deep, and they are to flash out before +the world with our old friend of Kinnaird, <i>The Body Snatcher</i>. +When you come, please to bring—</p> + +<div class="list"> +<p>(1) My Montaigne, or, at least, the two last +volumes.</p> + +<p>(2) My Milton in the three vols. in green.</p> + +<p>(3) The Shakespeare that Babington sent me for a +wedding-gift.</p> + +<p>(4) Hazlitt’s <i>Table Talk and Plain Speaker</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p>If you care to get a box of books from Douglas and +Foulis, let them be <i>solid</i>. <i>Croker Papers</i>, <i>Correspondence +of Napoleon</i>, <i>History of Henry IV.</i>, Lang’s <i>Folk Lore</i>, +would be my desires.</p> + +<p>I had a charming letter from Henry James about my +Longman paper. I did not understand queries about the +verses; the pictures to the Seagull I thought charming; +those to the second have left me with a pain in my poor +belly and a swimming in the head.</p> + +<p>About money, I am afloat and no more, and I warn +you, unless I have great luck, I shall have to fall upon +you at the New Year like a hundredweight of bricks. +Doctor, rent, chemist, are all threatening; sickness has +bitterly delayed my work; and unless, as I say, I have +the mischief’s luck, I shall completely break down. <i>Verbum +sapientibus.</i> I do not live cheaply, and I question if I +ever shall; but if only I had a halfpenny worth of +health, I could now easily suffice. The last breakdown +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131"></a>131</span> +of my head is what makes this bankruptcy +probable.</p> + +<p>Fanny is still out of sorts; Bogue better; self fair, but +a stranger to the blessings of sleep.—Ever affectionate +son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth</i> [<i>December</i> 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—I have made up my mind about the P. M. G., +and send you a copy, which please keep or return. As for +not giving a reduction, what are we? Are we artists or +city men? Why do we sneer at stockbrokers? O nary; +I will not take the £40. I took that as a fair price for +my best work; I was not able to produce my best; and +I will be damned if I steal with my eyes open. <i>Sufficit.</i> +This is my lookout. As for the paper being rich, certainly +it is; but I am honourable. It is no more above +me in money than the poor slaveys and cads from whom +I look for honesty are below me. Am I Pepys, that because +I can find the countenance of “some of our ablest +merchants,” that because—and—pour forth languid twaddle +and get paid for it, I, too, should “cheerfully continue to +steal”? I am not Pepys. I do not live much to God and +honour; but I will not wilfully turn my back on both. +I am, like all the rest of us, falling ever lower from the +bright ideas I began with, falling into greed, into idleness, +into middle-aged and slippered fireside cowardice; but is +it you, my bold blade, that I hear crying this sordid and +rank twaddle in my ear? Preaching the dankest Grundyism +and upholding the rank customs of our trade—you +who are so cruel hard upon the customs of the publishers? +O man, look at the Beam in our own Eyes; and whatever +else you do, do not plead Satan’s cause, or plead it for +all; either embrace the bad, or respect the good when +you see a poor devil trying for it. If this is the honesty +of authors—to take what you can get and console yourself +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>132</span> +because publishers are rich—take my name from the +rolls of that association. ’Tis a caucus of weaker thieves, +jealous of the stronger.—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">The Roaring R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">You will see from the enclosed that I have stuck to +what I think my dues pretty tightly in spite of this flourish: +these are my words for a poor ten-pound note!</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This refers to the death of Sir Alexander Grant, the distinguished +Aristotelian scholar and Principal of Edinburgh University.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec.</i> 1884.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COGGIE</span>,—We are very much distressed to +hear of this which has befallen your family. As for Sir +Alexander, I can but speak from my own feelings: he +survived to finish his book and to conduct, with such a +great success, the tercentenary. Ah, how many die just +upon the threshold! Had he died a year ago, how +great a disappointment! But all this is nothing to the +survivors. Do please, as soon as you are able, let us know +how it goes and <i>how it is likely to go</i> with the family; and +believe that both my wife and I are most anxious to have +good news, or the best possible. My poor Coggie, I know +very well how you must feel; you are passing a bad time.</p> + +<p>Our news must seem very impertinent. We have both +been ill; I, pretty bad, my wife, pretty well down; but +I, at least, am better. The Bogue, who is let out every +night for half an hour’s yapping, is anchored in the moonlight +just before the door, and, under the belief that he +is watchdog at a lone farm beleaguered by moss-troopers, +is simply raising Cain.</p> + +<p>I can add nothing more, but just that we wish to hear +as soon as you have nothing else to do—not to hurry, +of course,—if it takes three months, no matter—but bear +us in mind.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133"></a>133</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth</i> [<i>Winter</i> 1884].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—Here was I in bed; not writing, not +hearing, and finding myself gently and agreeably ill used; +and behold I learn you are bad yourself. Get your wife +to send us a word how you are. I am better decidedly. +Bogue got his Christmas card, and behaved well for three +days after. It may interest the cynical to learn that I +started my last hemorrhage by too sedulous attentions to +my dear Bogue. The stick was broken; and that night +Bogue, who was attracted by the extraordinary aching of +his bones, and is always inclined to a serious view of his +own ailments, announced with his customary pomp that +he was dying. In this case, however, it was not the dog +that died. (He had tried to bite his mother’s ankles.) I +have written a long and peculiarly solemn paper on the +technical elements of style. It is path-breaking and +epoch-making; but I do not think the public will be readily +convoked to its perusal. Did I tell you that S. C. had +risen to the paper on James? At last! O but I was +pleased; he’s (like Johnnie) been lang, lang o’ comin’, +but here he is. He will not object to my future manœuvres +in the same field, as he has to my former. All the family +are here; my father better than I have seen him these +two years; my mother the same as ever. I do trust you +are better, and I am yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To H. A. Jones</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec.</i> 30, 1884.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,—I am so accustomed to hear nonsense +spoken about all the arts, and the drama in particular, +that I cannot refrain from saying “Thank you” for your +paper. In my answer to Mr. James, in the December +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134"></a>134</span> +Longman, you may see that I have merely touched, I +think in a parenthesis, on the drama; but I believe +enough was said to indicate our agreement in +essentials.</p> + +<p>Wishing you power and health to further enunciate and +to act upon these principles, believe me, dear sir, yours +truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson had begun with great eagerness to prepare material +for a volume on the Duke of Wellington for the series of <i>English +Worthies</i> published by Messrs. Longman and edited by Mr. Andrew +Lang, but beyond preparation the scheme never went.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Jan.</i> 4, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR S. C.</span>,—I am on my feet again, and getting on +my boots to do the Iron Duke. Conceive my glee: I have +refused the £100, and am to get some sort of royalty, not +yet decided, instead. ’Tis for Longman’s <i>English Worthies</i>, +edited by A. Lang. Aw haw, haw!</p> + +<p>Now, look here, could you get me a loan of the +Despatches, or is that a dream? I should have to mark +passages I fear, and certainly note pages on the fly. If +you think it a dream, will Bain get me a second-hand +copy, or who would? The sooner, and cheaper, I can +get it the better. If there is anything in your weird +library that bears on either the man or the period, put it +in a mortar and fire it here instanter; I shall catch. I +shall want, of course, an infinity of books: among which, +any lives there may be; a life of the Marquis Marmont +(the Maréchal), <i>Marmont’s Memoirs</i>, <i>Greville’s Memoirs</i>, +<i>Peel’s Memoirs</i>, <i>Napier</i>, that blind man’s history of England +you once lent me, Hamley’s <i>Waterloo</i>; can you get me +any of these? Thiers, idle Thiers also. Can you help a +man getting into his boots for such a huge campaign? +How are you? A Good New Year to you. I mean to +have a good one, but on whose funds I cannot fancy: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135"></a>135</span> +not mine leastways, as I am a mere derelict and drift +beam-on to bankruptcy.</p> + +<p>For God’s sake, remember the man who set out for to +conquer Arthur Wellesley, with a broken bellows and an +empty pocket.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson had been asked by his father to look over the proofs +of a paper which the latter was about to read, as President of the +Royal Society of Edinburgh, “On the Principal Causes of Silting +in Estuaries,” in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal Scheme.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, 14th January</i> 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—I am glad you like the changes. +I own I was pleased with my hand’s darg; you may +observe, I have corrected several errors which (you may +tell Mr. Dick) he had allowed to pass his eagle eye; I +wish there may be none in mine; at least, the order is +better. The second title, “Some New Engineering Questions +involved in the M. S. C. Scheme of last Session of +P.,” likes me the best. I think it a very good paper; +and I am vain enough to think I have materially helped +to polish the diamond. I ended by feeling quite proud +of the paper, as if it had been mine; the next time you +have as good a one, I will overhaul it for the wages of +feeling as clever as I did when I had managed to understand +and helped to set it clear. I wonder if I anywhere +misapprehended you? I rather think not at the last; at +the first shot I know I missed a point or two. Some of +what may appear to you to be wanton changes, a little +study will show to be necessary.</p> + +<p>Yes, Carlyle was ashamed of himself as few men have +been; and let all carpers look at what he did. He prepared +all these papers for publication with his own hand; +all his wife’s complaints, all the evidence of his own misconduct: +who else would have done so much? Is repentance, +which God accepts, to have no avail with men? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136"></a>136</span> +nor even with the dead? I have heard too much against +the thrawn, discomfortable dog: dead he is, and we may +be glad of it; but he was a better man than most of us, +no less patently than he was a worse. To fill the world +with whining is against all my views: I do not like impiety. +But—but—there are two sides to all things, and the old +scalded baby had his noble side.—Ever affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, January</i> 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR S. C.</span>,—I have addressed a letter to the G. O. M. +<i>à propos</i> of Wellington; and I became aware, you will +be interested to hear, of an overwhelming respect for the +old gentleman. I can <i>blaguer</i> his failures; but when you +actually address him, and bring the two statures and +records to confrontation, dismay is the result. By mere +continuance of years, he must impose; the man who +helped to rule England before I was conceived, strikes +me with a new sense of greatness and antiquity, when I +must actually beard him with the cold forms of correspondence. +I shied at the necessity of calling him plain +“Sir”! Had he been “My lord,” I had been happier; +no, I am no equalitarian. Honour to whom honour is +due; and if to none, why, then, honour to the old!</p> + +<p>These, O Slade Professor, are my unvarnished sentiments: +I was a little surprised to find them so extreme, +and therefore I communicate the fact.</p> + +<p>Belabour thy brains, as to whom it would be well to +question. I have a small space; I wish to make a popular +book, nowhere obscure, nowhere, if it can be helped, +unhuman. It seems to me the most hopeful plan to tell +the tale, so far as may be, by anecdote. He did not die +till so recently, there must be hundreds who remember +him, and thousands who have still ungarnered stories. +Dear man, to the breach! Up, soldier of the iron dook, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137"></a>137</span> +up, Slades, and at ’em! (which, conclusively, he did not +say: the at ’em-ic theory is to be dismissed). You know +piles of fellows who must reek with matter; help! help! +I am going to try Happy-and-Glorious-long-to-reign-over-us. +H.M. must remember things: and it is my belief, if +my letter could be discreetly introduced, she would like +to tell them. So I jest, when I don’t address my mind +to it: when I do, shall I be smit louting to my knee, as +before the G. O. M.? Problème!—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In the two following letters are expressed some of the distress +and bitterness with which, in common with most Englishmen, +Stevenson felt the circumstances of Gordon’s abandonment in the +Soudan and the failure of the belated attempt to rescue him. The +advice to go on with “my book” refers, if I remember right, to +some scheme for the republication in book form of stray magazine +papers of mine of a more or less personal or biographical nature.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February</i> 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—You are indeed a backward correspondent, +and much may be said against you. But in +this weather, and O dear! in this political scene of degradation, +much must be forgiven. I fear England is dead +of Burgessry, and only walks about galvanised. I do not +love to think of my countrymen these days; nor to +remember myself. Why was I silent? I feel I have no +right to blame any one; but I won’t write to the G. O. M. +I do really not see my way to any form of signature, unless +“your fellow criminal in the eyes of God,” which might +disquiet the proprieties.</p> + +<p>About your book, I have always said: go on. The +drawing of character is a different thing from publishing +the details of a private career. No one objects to the first, +or should object, if his name be not put upon it; at +the other, I draw the line. In a preface, if you chose, +you might distinguish; it is, besides, a thing for which you +are eminently well equipped, and which you would do +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138"></a>138</span> +with taste and incision. I long to see the book. People +like themselves (to explain a little more); no one likes +his life, which is a misbegotten issue, and a tale of failure. +To see these failures either touched upon, or <i>coasted</i>, to +get the idea of a spying eye and blabbing tongue about +the house, is to lose all privacy in life. To see that thing, +which we do love, our character, set forth, is ever gratifying. +See how my <i>Talk and Talkers</i> went; every one +liked his own portrait, and shrieked about other people’s; +so it will be with yours. If you are the least true to the +essential, the sitter will be pleased; very likely not his +friends, and that from <i>various motives</i>.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">When will your holiday be? I sent your letter to my +wife, and forget. Keep us in mind, and I hope we shall +be able to receive you.</p> + + +<p class="to">To J. A. Symonds</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February</i> 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SYMONDS</span>,—Yes we have both been very +neglectful. I had horrid luck, catching two thundering +influenzas in August and November. I recovered from +the last with difficulty, but have come through this blustering +winter with some general success; in the house, up +and down. My wife, however, has been painfully upset +by my health. Last year, of course, was cruelly trying +to her nerves; Nice and Hyères are bad experiences; +and though she is not ill, the doctor tells me that prolonged +anxiety may do her a real mischief.</p> + +<p>I feel a little old and fagged, and chary of speech, and +not very sure of spirit in my work; but considering what +a year I have passed, and how I have twice sat on Charon’s +pierhead, I am surprising.</p> + +<p>My father has presented us with a very pretty home +in this place, into which we hope to move by May. My +<i>Child’s Verses</i> come out next week. <i>Otto</i> begins to appear +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139"></a>139</span> +in April; <i>More New Arabian Nights</i> as soon as possible. +Moreover, I am neck deep in Wellington; also a story +on the stocks, <i>The Great North Road</i>. O, I am busy! +Lloyd is at college in Edinburgh. That is, I think, all +that can be said by way of news.</p> + +<p>Have you read <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>? It contains many +excellent things; above all, the whole story of a +healthy boy’s dealings with his conscience, incredibly well +done.</p> + +<p>My own conscience is badly seared; a want of piety; +yet I pray for it, tacitly, every day; believing it, after +courage, the only gift worth having; and its want, in a +man of any claims to honour, quite unpardonable. The +tone of your letter seemed to me very sound. In these +dark days of public dishonour, I do not know that one +can do better than carry our private trials piously. What +a picture is this of a nation! No man that I can see, on +any side or party, seems to have the least sense of our +ineffable shame: the desertion of the garrisons. I tell my +little parable that Germany took England, and then there +was an Indian Mutiny, and Bismarck said: “Quite right: +let Delhi and Calcutta and Bombay fall; and let the +women and children be treated Sepoy fashion,” and +people say, “O, but that is very different!” And then I +wish I were dead. Millais (I hear) was painting Gladstone +when the news came of Gordon’s death; Millais was +much affected, and Gladstone said, “Why? <i>It is the +man’s own temerity!</i>” Voilà le Bourgeois! le voilà nu! +But why should I blame Gladstone, when I too am a +Bourgeois? when I have held my peace? Why did I +hold my peace? Because I am a sceptic: <i>i.e.</i> a Bourgeois. +We believe in nothing, Symonds; you don’t, and +I don’t; and these are two reasons, out of a handful +of millions, why England stands before the world dripping +with blood and daubed with dishonour. I will first try +to take the beam out of my own eye, trusting that even +private effort somehow betters and braces the general +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>140</span> +atmosphere. See, for example, if England has shown (I +put it hypothetically) one spark of manly sensibility, they +have been shamed into it by the spectacle of Gordon. +Police-Officer Cole is the only man that I see to admire. +I dedicate my <i>New Arabs</i> to him and Cox, in default of +other great public characters.—Yours ever most affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following refers to an edition of Gray, with notes and a +short prefatory Life by Mr. Gosse; and to the publication of the +<i>Child’s Garden of Verses</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March</i> 12, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—I was indeed much exercised how I +could be worked into Gray; and lo! when I saw it, the +passage seemed to have been written with a single eye +to elucidate the—worst?—well, not a very good poem of +Gray’s. Your little life is excellent, clean, neat, efficient. +I have read many of your notes, too, with pleasure. Your +connection with Gray was a happy circumstance; it was +a suitable conjunction.</p> + +<p>I did not answer your letter from the States, for what +was I to say? I liked getting it and reading it; I was +rather flattered that you wrote it to me; and then I’ll +tell you what I did—I put it in the fire. Why? Well, +just because it was very natural and expansive; and +thinks I to myself, if I die one of these fine nights, this +is just the letter that Gosse would not wish to go into +the hands of third parties. Was I well inspired? And I +did not answer it because you were in your high places, +sailing with supreme dominion, and seeing life in a particular +glory; and I was peddling in a corner, confined +to the house, overwhelmed with necessary work, which I +was not always doing well, and, in the very mild form in +which the disease approaches me, touched with a sort of +bustling cynicism. Why throw cold water? How ape +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141"></a>141</span> +your agreeable frame of mind? In short, I held my +tongue.</p> + +<p>I have now published on 101 small pages <i>The Complete +Proof of Mr. R. L. Stevenson’s Incapacity to Write Verse</i>, +in a series of graduated examples with table of contents. +I think I shall issue a companion volume of exercises: +“Analyse this poem. Collect and comminate the ugly +words. Distinguish and condemn the <i>chevilles</i>. State Mr. +Stevenson’s faults of taste in regard to the measure. +What reasons can you gather from this example for your +belief that Mr. S. is unable to write any other measure?”</p> + +<p>They look ghastly in the cold light of print; but there +is something nice in the little ragged regiment for all; +the blackguards seem to me to smile, to have a kind of +childish treble note that sounds in my ears freshly; not +song, if you will, but a child’s voice.</p> + +<p>I was glad you enjoyed your visit to the States. Most +Englishmen go there with a confirmed design of patronage, +as they go to France for that matter; and patronage +will not pay. Besides, in this year of—grace, said I?—of +disgrace, who should creep so low as an Englishman? +“It is not to be thought of that the flood”—ah, Wordsworth, +you would change your note were you alive +to-day!</p> + +<p>I am now a beastly householder, but have not yet +entered on my domain. When I do, the social revolution +will probably cast me back upon my dung heap. There +is a person called Hyndman whose eye is on me; his step +is beHynd me as I go. I shall call my house Skerryvore +when I get it: <span class="scs">SKERRYVORE</span>: <i>c’est bon pour la poéshie</i>. +I will conclude with my favourite sentiment: “The world +is too much with me.”</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson,</p> +<p class="sc rt1"><i>The Hermit of Skerryvore</i>,</p> + +<p class="noind pt1">Author of “John Vane Tempest: a Romance,” “Herbert +and Henrietta: or the Nemesis of Sentiment,” “The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142"></a>142</span> +Life and Adventures of Colonel Bludyer Fortescue,” +“Happy Homes and Hairy Faces,” “A Pound of Feathers +and a Pound of Lead,” part author of “Minn’s Complete +Capricious Correspondent: a Manual of Natty, Natural, +and Knowing Letters,” and editor of the “Poetical Remains +of Samuel Burt Crabbe, known as the melodious +Bottle-Holder.”</p> + +<p class="center">Uniform with the above:</p> + +<p class="noind">“The Life and Remains of the Reverend Jacob Degray +Squah,” author of “Heave-yo for the New Jerusalem,” +“A Box of Candles; or the Patent Spiritual Safety +Match,” and “A Day with the Heavenly Harriers.”</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The “dedication” referred to was that of a forthcoming illustrated +edition of Keats’s <i>Lamia</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March</i> 13, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—Your success has been immense. I +wish your letter had come two days ago: <i>Otto</i>, alas! has +been disposed of a good while ago; but it was only day +before yesterday that I settled the new volume of Arabs. +However, for the future, you and the sons of the deified +Scribner are the men for me. Really they have behaved +most handsomely. I cannot lay my hand on the papers, +or I would tell you exactly how it compares with my +English bargain; but it compares well. Ah, if we had +that copyright, I do believe it would go far to make me +solvent, ill-health and all.</p> + +<p>I wrote you a letter to the Rembrandt, in which I stated +my views about the dedication in a very brief form. It +will give me sincere pleasure, and will make the second +dedication I have received, the other being from John +Addington Symonds. It is a compliment I value much; +I don’t know any that I should prefer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id="page143"></a>143</span></p> + +<p>I am glad to hear you have windows to do; that is a +fine business, I think; but, alas! the glass is so bad +nowadays; realism invading even that, as well as the +huge inferiority of our technical resource corrupting every +tint. Still, anything that keeps a man to decoration is, +in this age, good for the artist’s spirit.</p> + +<p>By the way, have you seen James and me on the +novel? James, I think in the August or September—R. +L. S. in the December Longman. I own I think the +<i>école bête</i>, of which I am the champion, has the whip hand +of the argument; but as James is to make a rejoinder, +I must not boast. Anyway the controversy is amusing +to see. I was terribly tied down to space, which has +made the end congested and dull. I shall see if I can +afford to send you the April Contemporary—but I dare +say you see it anyway—as it will contain a paper of mine +on style, a sort of continuation of old arguments on art +in which you have wagged a most effective tongue. It +is a sort of start upon my Treatise on the Art of +Literature: a small, arid book that shall some day +appear.</p> + +<p>With every good wish from me and mine (should I not +say “she and hers”?) to you and yours, believe me +yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To P.G. Hamerton</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The work of his correspondent’s which R. L. S. notices in the +following is the sumptuous volume <i>Landscape</i>: Seeley & Co., 1885. +The passages specially referred to will be found pp. 46-62 of that +work.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bournemouth, March</i> 16, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HAMERTON</span>,—Various things have been reminding +me of my misconduct: First, Swan’s application +for your address; second, a sight of the sheets of your +<i>Landscape</i> book; and last, your note to Swan, which he +was so kind as to forward. I trust you will never suppose +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id="page144"></a>144</span> +me to be guilty of anything more serious than an idleness, +partially excusable. My ill-health makes my rate of life +heavier than I can well meet, and yet stops me from +earning more. My conscience, sometimes perhaps too +easily stifled, but still (for my time of life and the public +manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual +and almost endless transcriptions. On the back +of all this, my correspondence hangs like a thundercloud; +and just when I think I am getting through my troubles, +crack, down goes my health, I have a long, costly sickness, +and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me +I have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the +opportunity of the aid makes the necessity none the more +welcome. My father has presented me with a beautiful +house here—or so I believe, for I have not yet seen it, +being a cage bird but for nocturnal sorties in the garden. +I hope we shall soon move into it, and I tell myself that +some day perhaps we may have the pleasure of seeing +you as our guest. I trust at least that you will take me +as I am, a thoroughly bad correspondent, and a man, a +hater, indeed, of rudeness in others, but too often rude +in all unconsciousness himself; and that you will never +cease to believe the sincere sympathy and admiration that +I feel for you and for your work.</p> + +<p>About the <i>Landscape</i>, which I had a glimpse of while +a friend of mine was preparing a review, I was greatly +interested, and could write and wrangle for a year on +every page; one passage particularly delighted me, the +part about Ulysses—jolly. Then, you know, that is just +what I fear I have come to think landscape ought to be +in literature; so there we should be at odds. Or perhaps +not so much as I suppose, as Montaigne says it is a pot +with two handles, and I own I am wedded to the technical +handle, which (I likewise own and freely) you do well to +keep for a mistress. I should much like to talk with you +about some other points; it is only in talk that one gets +to understand. Your delightful Wordsworth trap I have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145" id="page145"></a>145</span> +tried on two hardened Wordsworthians, not that I am not +one myself. By covering up the context, and asking +them to guess what the passage was, both (and both +are very clever people, one a writer, one a painter) pronounced +it a guide-book. “Do you think it an unusually +good guide-book?” I asked, and both said, “No, not +at all!” Their grimace was a picture when I showed the +original.</p> + +<p>I trust your health and that of Mrs. Hamerton keep +better; your last account was a poor one. I was unable +to make out the visit I had hoped, as (I do not know if +you heard of it) I had a very violent and dangerous hemorrhage +last spring. I am almost glad to have seen death +so close with all my wits about me, and not in the customary +lassitude and disenchantment of disease. Even +thus clearly beheld I find him not so terrible as we suppose. +But, indeed, with the passing of years, the decay +of strength, the loss of all my old active and pleasant +habits, there grows more and more upon me that belief +in the kindness of this scheme of things, and the goodness +of our veiled God, which is an excellent and pacifying +compensation. I trust, if your health continues to trouble +you, you may find some of the same belief. But perhaps +my fine discovery is a piece of art, and belongs to a character +cowardly, intolerant of certain feelings, and apt to +self-deception. I don’t think so, however; and when I +feel what a weak and fallible vessel I was thrust into +this hurly-burly, and with what marvellous kindness +the wind has been tempered to my frailties, I think I +should be a strange kind of ass to feel anything but +gratitude.</p> + +<p>I do not know why I should inflict this talk upon you; +but when I summon the rebellious pen, he must go his +own way; I am no Michael Scott, to rule the fiend of +correspondence. Most days he will none of me; and +when he comes, it is to rape me where he will.—Yours +very sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>146</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson was by this time beginning to realise that work at +play-writing in collaboration with Mr. Henley was doing much +more to exhaust his strength than to replenish either of their purses, +and Mr. Henley, who had built hopes of fame and fortune on their +collaboration, was very unwilling to face the fact.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Bournemouth, March</i> 1885.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—That is all right, and a good job. +About coming down, you cannot get into us for a while, +as you may imagine; we are in desperate vortex, and +everybody ’most dead. I have been two days in bed +with liver and slight bleeding.</p> + +<p>Do you think you are right to send <i>Macaire</i> and the +<i>Admiral</i> about? Not a copy have I sent, nor (speaking +for myself personally) do I want sent. The reperusal of +the <i>Admiral</i>, by the way, was a sore blow; eh, God, man, +it is a low, black, dirty, blackguard, ragged piece: vomitable +in many parts—simply vomitable. Pew is in places +a reproach to both art and man. But of all that afterwards. +What I mean is that I believe in playing dark +with second and third-rate work. Macaire is a piece of +job-work, hurriedly bockled; might have been worse, +might have been better; happy-go-lucky; act it or-let-it-rot +piece of business. Not a thing, I think, to send in +presentations. Do not let us <i>gober</i> ourselves—and, above +all, not <i>gober</i> dam pot-boilers—and p.b.’s with an obvious +flaw and hole in them, such as is our unrealised Bertrand +in this one. But of this also, on a meeting.</p> + +<p>I am not yet done with my proofs, I am sorry to say; +so soon as I am, I must tackle <i>Kidnapped</i> seriously, or be +content to have no bread, which you would scarcely recommend. +It is all I shall be able to do to wait for the +Young Folk money, on which I’ll have to live as best I +can till the book comes in.</p> + +<p>Plays at that rate I do not think I can possibly look +at before July; so let that be a guide to you in your +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147"></a>147</span> +views. July, or August, or September, or thereabouts: +these must be our times, whichever we attack. I think +you had better suspend a visit till we can take you in +and till I can speak. It seems a considerable waste of +money; above all, as just now I could not even offer you +meals with my woman in such a state of overwork. My +father and mother have had to go to lodgings.—Post.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Bournemouth, March</i> 1885.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—Much better, but rather unequal to do +what I ought, a common complaint. The change of +weather much helped me, not too soon.</p> + +<p>I have thought as well as I could of what you said; +and I come unhesitatingly to the opinion that the stage +is only a lottery, must not be regarded as a trade, and +must never be preferred to drudgery. If money comes +from any play, let us regard it as a legacy, but never count +upon it in our income for the year. In other words, I +must go on and drudge at <i>Kidnapped</i>, which I hate, and +am unfit to do; and you will have to get some journalism +somehow. These are my cold and blighting sentiments. +It is bad enough to have to live by an art—but to think +to live by an art combined with commercial speculation—that +way madness lies.</p> + +<p>Time is our only friend. The <i>Admiral</i>, pulled simply +in pieces and about half deleted, will act some day: +such is my opinion. I can no more.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>An anonymous review of the <i>Child’s Garden</i>, appearing in March, +gave R. L. S. so much pleasure that he wrote (in the four words, +“Now who are you?”) to inquire the name of its writer, and learned +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148"></a>148</span> +that it was Mr. Archer; with whom he had hitherto had no acquaintance. +He thereupon entered into friendly correspondence with his +critic.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bournemouth, March</i> 29, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. ARCHER</span>,—Yes, I have heard of you and +read some of your work; but I am bound in particular +to thank you for the notice of my verses. “There,” I +said, throwing it over to the friend who was staying with +me, “it’s worth writing a book to draw an article like +that.” Had you been as hard upon me as you were +amiable, I try to tell myself I should have been no blinder +to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire +and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an +enviable touch; the marks of a reader, such as one imagines +for one’s self in dreams, thoughtful, critical, and kind; +and to put the top on this memorial column, a greater +readiness to describe the author criticised than to display +the talents of his censor.</p> + +<p>I am a man <i>blasé</i> to injudicious praise (though I hope +some of it may be judicious too), but I have to thank +you for <span class="sc">the best criticism I ever had</span>; and am therefore, +dear Mr. Archer, the most grateful critickee now +extant.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—I congratulate you on living in the corner of +all London that I like best. <i>À propos</i>, you are very right +about my voluntary aversion from the painful sides of +life. My childhood was in reality a very mixed experience, +full of fever, nightmare, insomnia, painful days +and interminable nights; and I can speak with less +authority of gardens than of that other “land of counterpane.” +But to what end should we renew these sorrows? +The sufferings of life may be handled by the very greatest +in their hours of insight; it is of its pleasures that our +common poems should be formed; these are the experiences +that we should seek to recall or to provoke; and I +say with Thoreau, “What right have I to complain, who +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149"></a>149</span> +have not ceased to wonder?” and, to add a rider of +my own, who have no remedy to offer.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pennell</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Acknowledging the dedication of an illustrated <i>Canterbury +Pilgrimage</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer</i> 1885.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR AND MADAM</span>,—This horrible delay must be +forgiven me. It was not caused by any want of gratitude; +but by the desire to acknowledge the dedication +more suitably (and to display my wit) in a copy of verses. +Well, now I give that up, and tell you in plain prose, +that you have given me much pleasure by the dedication +of your graceful book.</p> + +<p>As I was writing the above, I received a visit from +Lady Shelley, who mentioned to me that she was reading +Mrs. Pennell’s <i>Mary Wollstonecraft</i> with pleasure. It is +odd how streams cross. Mr. Pennell’s work I have, of +course, long known and admired: and I believe there +was once some talk, on the part of Mr. Gilder, that we +should work together; but the scheme fell through from +my rapacity; and since then has been finally rendered +impossible (or so I fear) by my health.</p> + +<p>I should say that when I received the <i>Pilgrimage</i>, I +was in a state (not at all common with me) of depression; +and the pleasant testimony that my work had not all +been in vain did much to set me up again. You will +therefore understand, late as is the hour, with what sincerity +I am able to sign myself—Gratefully yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><span class="scs">MR. AND MRS. PENNELL</span>,—I see I should explain that +this is all in my own hand, I have not fobbed you off +with an amanuensis; but as I have two handwritings +(both equally bad in these days) I might lead you to +think so.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>150</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>On the death of Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who in Stevenson’s +early student days at Edinburgh had been both the warmest and +the wisest of his elder friends (died June 12, 1885).</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June</i> 1885.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,—You know how much and for +how long I have loved, respected, and admired him; I +am only able to feel a little with you. But I know how +he would have wished us to feel. I never knew a better +man, nor one to me more lovable; we shall all feel the +loss more greatly as time goes on. It scarce seems life +to me; what must it be to you? Yet one of the last +things that he said to me was, that from all these sad +bereavements of yours he had learned only more than +ever to feel the goodness and what we, in our feebleness, +call the support of God; he had been ripening so much—to +other eyes than ours, we must suppose he was ripe, +and try to feel it. I feel it is better not to say much +more. It will be to me a great pride to write a notice of +him: the last I can now do. What more in any way I +can do for you, please to think and let me know. For +his sake and for your own, I would not be a useless friend: +I know, you know me a most warm one; please command +me or my wife, in any way. Do not trouble to write to +me; Austin, I have no doubt, will do so, if you are, as I +fear you will be, unfit.</p> + +<p>My heart is sore for you. At least you know what you +have been to him; how he cherished and admired you; +how he was never so pleased as when he spoke of you; +with what a boy’s love, up to the last, he loved you. This +surely is a consolation. Yours is the cruel part—to survive; +you must try and not grudge to him his better +fortune, to go first. It is the sad part of such relations +that one must remain and suffer; I cannot see my poor +Jenkin without you. Nor you indeed without him; but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151"></a>151</span> +you may try to rejoice that he is spared that extremity. +Perhaps I (as I was so much his confidant) know even +better than you can do what your loss would have been +to him; he never spoke of you but his face changed; it +was—you were—his religion.</p> + +<p>I write by this post to Austin and to the Academy.—Yours +most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June</i> 1885.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,—I should have written sooner, +but we are in a bustle, and I have been very tired, though +still well. Your very kind note was most welcome to me. +I shall be very much pleased to have you call me Louis, +as he has now done for so many years. Sixteen, you +say? is it so long? It seems too short now; but of that +we cannot judge, and must not complain.</p> + +<p>I wish that either I or my wife could do anything for +you; when we can, you will, I am sure, command us.</p> + +<p>I trust that my notice gave you as little pain as was +possible. I found I had so much to say, that I preferred +to keep it for another place and make but a note in the +Academy. To try to draw my friend at greater length, +and say what he was to me and his intimates, what a +good influence in life and what an example, is a desire +that grows upon me. It was strange, as I wrote the note, +how his old tests and criticisms haunted me; and it +reminded me afresh with every few words how much I +owe to him.</p> + +<p>I had a note from Henley, very brief and very sad. +We none of us yet feel the loss; but we know what he +would have said and wished.</p> + +<p>Do you know that Dew Smith has two photographs of +him, neither very bad? and one giving a lively, though +not flattering air of him in conversation? If you have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id="page152"></a>152</span> +not got them, would you like me to write to Dew and ask +him to give you proofs?</p> + +<p>I was so pleased that he and my wife made friends; +that is a great pleasure. We found and have preserved +one fragment (the head) of the drawing he made and tore +up when he was last here. He had promised to come +and stay with us this summer. May we not hope, at +least, some time soon to have one from you?—Believe me, +my dear Mrs. Jenkin, with the most real sympathy, your +sincere friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Dear me, what happiness I owe to both of you!</p> + + +<p class="to">To C. Howard Carrington</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In answer to an inquiry from a correspondent not personally +known to him, who had by some means heard of the <i>Great North +Road</i> project.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 9th</i> [1885].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,—<i>The Great North Road</i> is still unfinished; +it is scarce I should say beyond Highgate: but it will be +finished some day, bar the big accident. It will not however +gratify your taste; the highwayman is not grasped: +what you would have liked (and I, believe me) would have +been <i>Jerry Abershaw</i>: but Jerry was not written at the +fit moment; I have outgrown the taste—and his romantic +horse-shoes clatter faintlier down the incline towards +Lethe.—Truly yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Katharine De Mattos</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer</i> 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CATHERINE</span>,—’Tis the most complete blague +and folly to write to you; you never answer and, even +when you do, your letters crackle under the teeth like +ashes; containing nothing as they do but unseasonable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153"></a>153</span> +japes and a great cloudy vagueness as of the realm of +chaos. In this I know well they are like mine; and it +becomes me well to write such—but not you—for reasons +too obvious to mention. We have both been sick; but +to-day I am up, though with an aching back. But I +hope all will be better. Of your views, state, finances, +etc. etc., I know nothing. We were mighty near the end +of all things financially, when a strange shape of a hand +giving appeared in Heaven or from Hell, and set us up +again for the moment; yet still we totter on a whoreson +brink. I beg pardon. I forgot I was writing to a lady; +but the word shall stay: it is the only word; I would +say it to the Q——n of E——d.</p> + +<p>How do you like letters of this kind? It is your kind. +They mean nothing; they are blankly insignificant; and +impudently put one in the wrong. One has learnt nothing; +and forsooth one must reply.—Yours, the Inexpressive +Correspondent,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Hey-ey-ey! Sold again. Hey-ey-ey!</p> + +<p class="pt1">Postscript: sold again.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In August of this year Stevenson made with his wife an excursion +to the west country (stopping at Dorchester on the way, for the +pleasure of seeing Mr. Thomas Hardy at home), and was detained +for several weeks at The New London inn, Exeter, by a bad fit of +hemorrhage. His correspondence is not resumed until the autumn.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October</i> 22, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—I trust you are not annoyed with me +beyond forgiveness; for indeed my silence has been +devilish prolonged. I can only tell you that I have been +nearly six months (more than six) in a strange condition +of collapse, when it was impossible to do any work, and +difficult (more difficult than you would suppose) to write +the merest note. I am now better, but not yet my own +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>154</span> +man in the way of brains, and in health only so-so. I +suppose I shall learn (I begin to think I am learning) to +fight this vast, vague feather-bed of an obsession that +now overlies and smothers me; but in the beginnings of +these conflicts, the inexperienced wrestler is always worsted, +and I own I have been quite extinct. I wish you to know, +though it can be no excuse, that you are not the only +one of my friends by many whom I have thus neglected; +and even now, having come so very late into the possession +of myself, with a substantial capital of debts, and +my work still moving with a desperate slowness—as a +child might fill a sandbag with its little handfuls—and my +future deeply pledged, there is almost a touch of virtue +in my borrowing these hours to write to you. Why I +said “hours” I know not; it would look blue for both +of us if I made good the word.</p> + +<p>I was writing your address the other day, ordering a +copy of my next, <i>Prince Otto</i>, to go your way. I hope +you have not seen it in parts; it was not meant to be +so read; and only my poverty (dishonourably) consented +to the serial evolution.</p> + +<p>I will send you with this a copy of the English edition +of the <i>Child’s Garden</i>. I have heard there is some vile +rule of the post-office in the States against inscriptions; so +I send herewith a piece of doggerel which Mr. Bunner +may, if he thinks fit, copy off the fly-leaf.</p> + +<p>Sargent was down again and painted a portrait of me +walking about in my own dining-room, in my own velveteen +jacket, and twisting as I go my own moustache; at one +corner a glimpse of my wife, in an Indian dress, and seated +in a chair that was once my grandfather’s, but since +some months goes by the name of Henry James’s—for it +was there the novelist loved to sit—adds a touch of poesy +and comicality. It is, I think, excellent, but is too eccentric +to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my +wife, in this wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at +the extreme other end; between us an open door exhibits +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155" id="page155"></a>155</span> +my palatial entrance hall and a part of my respected +staircase. All this is touched in lovely, with that witty +touch of Sargent’s; but, of course, it looks dam queer +as a whole.</p> + +<p>Pray let me hear from you, and give me good news of +yourself and your wife, to whom please remember me.—Yours +most sincerely, my dear Low,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p><i>Prince Otto</i> was published in October of this year; and the +following refers to two reviews of it—one of them by Mr. Henley, +which to the writer’s displeasure had been pruned by the editor before +printing; the other by a writer in the Saturday Review who declared +that Otto was “a fool and a wittol,” and could see nothing but +false style in the story of Seraphina’s flight through the forest.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Autumn</i> 1885.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—If there was any more praise in what you +wrote, I think [the editor] has done us both a service; +some of it stops my throat. What, it would not have +been the same if Dumas or Musset had done it, would it +not? Well, no, I do not think it would, do you know, +now; I am really of opinion it would not; and a dam +good job too. Why, think what Musset would have made +of Otto! Think how gallantly Dumas would have carried +his crowd through! And whatever you do, don’t quarrel +with ——. It gives me much pleasure to see your work +there; I think you do yourself great justice in that +field; and I would let no annoyance, petty or justifiable, +debar me from such a market. I think you do good +there. Whether (considering our intimate relations) you +would not do better to refrain from reviewing me, I will +leave to yourself: were it all on my side, you could foresee +my answer; but there is your side also, where you must +be the judge.</p> + +<p>As for the Saturday. Otto is no “fool,” the reader +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id="page156"></a>156</span> +is left in no doubt as to whether or not Seraphina was a +Messalina (though much it would matter, if you come to +that); and therefore on both these points the reviewer +has been unjust. Secondly, the romance lies precisely in +the freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues; and +here I think the reviewer showed himself dull. Lastly, if +Otto’s speech is offensive to him, he is one of the large +class of unmanly and ungenerous dogs who arrogate and +defile the name of manly. As for the passages quoted, I +do confess that some of them reek Gongorically; they are +excessive, but they are not inelegant after all. However, +had he attacked me only there, he would have +scored.</p> + +<p>Your criticism on Gondremark is, I fancy, right. I +thought all your criticisms were indeed; only your praise—chokes +me.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The paper referred to in this and the following letters is one +which Mr. Archer wrote over his own signature in the November +number of Time, a magazine now extinct.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October</i> 28, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. ARCHER</span>,—I have read your paper with my +customary admiration; it is very witty, very adroit; it +contains a great deal that is excellently true (particularly +the parts about my stories and the description of me as +an artist in life); but you will not be surprised if I do +not think it altogether just. It seems to me, in particular, +that you have wilfully read all my works in terms +of my earliest; my aim, even in style, has quite changed +in the last six or seven years; and this I should have +thought you would have noticed. Again, your first +remark upon the affectation of the italic names; a practice +only followed in my two affected little books of travel, +where a typographical <i>minauderie</i> of the sort appeared to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>157</span> +me in character; and what you say of it, then, is quite +just. But why should you forget yourself and use these +same italics as an index to my theology some pages further +on? This is lightness of touch indeed; may I say, it is +almost sharpness of practice?</p> + +<p>Excuse these remarks. I have been on the whole much +interested, and sometimes amused. Are you aware that +the praiser of this “brave gymnasium” has not seen a +canoe nor taken a long walk since ’79? that he is rarely +out of the house nowadays, and carries his arm in a sling? +Can you imagine that he is a back-slidden communist, +and is sure he will go to hell (if there be such an excellent +institution) for the luxury in which he lives? And +can you believe that, though it is gaily expressed, the +thought is hag and skeleton in every moment of vacuity +or depression? Can you conceive how profoundly I am +irritated by the opposite affectation to my own, when I +see strong men and rich men bleating about their sorrows +and the burthen of life, in a world full of “cancerous +paupers,” and poor sick children, and the fatally bereaved, +ay, and down even to such happy creatures as myself, +who has yet been obliged to strip himself, one after another, +of all the pleasures that he had chosen except smoking +(and the days of that I know in my heart ought to be +over), I forgot eating, which I still enjoy, and who sees +the circle of impotence closing very slowly but quite +steadily around him? In my view, one dank, dispirited +word is harmful, a crime of <i>lèse-humanité</i>, a piece of acquired +evil; every gay, every bright word or picture, like every +pleasant air of music, is a piece of pleasure set afloat; +the reader catches it, and, if he be healthy, goes on his +way rejoicing; and it is the business of art so to send him, +as often as possible.</p> + +<p>For what you say, so kindly, so prettily, so precisely, +of my style, I must in particular thank you; though even +here, I am vexed you should not have remarked on my +attempted change of manner: seemingly this attempt is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id="page158"></a>158</span> +still quite unsuccessful! Well, we shall fight it out on +this line if it takes all summer.</p> + +<p>And now for my last word: Mrs. Stevenson is very +anxious that you should see me, and that she should +see you, in the flesh. If you at all share in these views, +I am a fixture. Write or telegraph (giving us time, however, +to telegraph in reply, lest the day be impossible), +and come down here to a bed and a dinner. What do you +say, my dear critic? I shall be truly pleased to see you; +and to explain at greater length what I meant by saying +narrative was the most characteristic mood of literature, +on which point I have great hopes I shall persuade you.—Yours +truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—My opinion about Thoreau, and the passage in +The Week, is perhaps a fad, but it is sincere and stable. +I am still of the same mind five years later; did you +observe that I had said “modern” authors? and will you +observe again that this passage touches the very joint of +our division? It is one that appeals to me, deals with +that part of life that I think the most important, and you, +if I gather rightly, so much less so? You believe in the +extreme moment of the facts that humanity has acquired +and is acquiring; I think them of moment, but still of +much less than those inherent or inherited brute principles +and laws that sit upon us (in the character of conscience) +as heavy as a shirt of mail, and that (in the +character of the affections and the airy spirit of pleasure) +make all the light of our lives. The house is, indeed, a +great thing, and should be rearranged on sanitary principles; +but my heart and all my interest are with the +dweller, that ancient of days and day-old infant man.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">An excellent touch is p. 584. “By instinct or design +he eschews what demands constructive patience.” I believe +it is both; my theory is that literature must always +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>159</span> +be most at home in treating movement and change; +hence I look for them.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>October</i> 28, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAREST FATHER</span>,—Get the November number of +Time, and you will see a review of me by a very clever +fellow, who is quite furious at bottom because I am too +orthodox, just as Purcell was savage because I am not +orthodox enough. I fall between two stools. It is odd, +too, to see how this man thinks me a full-blooded fox-hunter, +and tells me my philosophy would fail if I lost +my health or had to give up exercise!</p> + +<p>An illustrated <i>Treasure Island</i> will be out next month. +I have had an early copy, and the French pictures are +admirable. The artist has got his types up in Hogarth; +he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can compose, +and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one +or two little accidents, such as making the <i>Hispaniola</i> +a brig. I would send you my copy, <i>but I cannot</i>; it +is my new toy, and I cannot divorce myself from this +enjoyment.</p> + +<p>I am keeping really better, and have been out about +every second day, though the weather is cold and very wild.</p> + +<p>I was delighted to hear you were keeping better; you +and Archer would agree, more shame to you! (Archer is +my pessimist critic.) Good-bye to all of you, with my +best love. We had a dreadful overhauling of my conduct +as a son the other night; and my wife stripped me of +my illusions and made me admit I had been a detestable +bad one. Of one thing in particular she convicted me in +my own eyes: I mean, a most unkind reticence, which +hung on me then, and I confess still hangs on me now, +when I try to assure you that I do love you.—Ever your +bad son,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160"></a>160</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October</i> 28, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,—At last, my wife being at a +concert, and a story being done, I am at some liberty to +write and give you of my views. And first, many thanks +for the works that came to my sickbed. And second, and +more important, as to the <i>Princess</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_13" id="FnAnchor_13" href="#Footnote_13"><span class="sp">13</span></a> Well, I think you +are going to do it this time; I cannot, of course, foresee, +but these two first numbers seem to me picturesque and +sound and full of lineament, and very much a new departure. +As for your young lady, she is all there; yes, sir, +you can do low life, I believe. The prison was excellent; +it was of that nature of touch that I sometimes achingly +miss from your former work; with some of the grime, +that is, and some of the emphasis of skeleton there is in +nature. I pray you to take grime in a good sense; it +need not be ignoble: dirt may have dignity; in nature +it usually has; and your prison was imposing.</p> + +<p>And now to the main point: why do we not see you? +Do not fail us. Make an alarming sacrifice, and let us +see “Henry James’s chair” properly occupied. I never +sit in it myself (though it was my grandfather’s); it has +been consecrated to guests by your approval, and now +stands at my elbow gaping. We have a new room, too, +to introduce to you—our last baby, the drawing-room; it +never cries, and has cut its teeth. Likewise, there is a +cat now. It promises to be a monster of laziness and +self-sufficiency.</p> + +<p>Pray see, in the November Time (a dread name for a +magazine of light reading), a very clever fellow, W. Archer, +stating his views of me; the rosy-gilled “athletico-æsthete”; +and warning me, in a fatherly manner, that a +rheumatic fever would try my philosophy (as indeed it +would), and that my gospel would not do for “those who +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>161</span> +are shut out from the exercise of any manly virtue save +renunciation.” To those who know that rickety and +cloistered spectre, the real R. L. S., the paper, besides +being clever in itself, presents rare elements of sport. +The critical parts are in particular very bright and neat, +and often excellently true. Get it by all manner of means.</p> + +<p>I hear on all sides I am to be attacked as an immoral +writer; this is painful. Have I at last got, like you, to +the pitch of being attacked? ’Tis the consecration I lack—and +could do without. Not that Archer’s paper is an +attack, or what either he or I, I believe, would call one; +’tis the attacks on my morality (which I had thought a +gem of the first water) I referred to.</p> + +<p>Now, my dear James, come—come—come. The spirit +(that is me) says, Come; and the bride (and that is my +wife) says, Come; and the best thing you can do for us +and yourself and your work is to get up and do so right +away.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>October</i> 30, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. ARCHER</span>,—It is possible my father may be +soon down with me; he is an old man and in bad health +and spirits; and I could neither leave him alone, nor +could we talk freely before him. If he should be here +when you offer your visit, you will understand if I have +to say no, and put you off.</p> + +<p>I quite understand your not caring to refer to things +of private knowledge. What still puzzles me is how you +(“in the witness box”—ha! I like the phrase) should +have made your argument actually hinge on a contention +which the facts answered.</p> + +<p>I am pleased to hear of the correctness of my guess. +It is then as I supposed; you are of the school of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162"></a>162</span> +generous and not the sullen pessimists; and I can feel +with you. I used myself to rage when I saw sick folk +going by in their Bath-chairs; since I have been sick +myself (and always when I was sick myself), I found life, +even in its rough places, to have a property of easiness. +That which we suffer ourselves has no longer the same +air of monstrous injustice and wanton cruelty that suffering +wears when we see it in the case of others. So we +begin gradually to see that things are not black, but +have their strange compensations; and when they draw +towards their worst, the idea of death is like a bed to lie +on. I should bear false witness if I did not declare life +happy. And your wonderful statement that happiness +tends to die out and misery to continue, which was what +put me on the track of your frame of mind, is diagnostic +of the happy man raging over the misery of others; it +could never be written by the man who had tried what +unhappiness was like. And at any rate, it was a slip of +the pen: the ugliest word that science has to declare is +a reserved indifference to happiness and misery in the +individual; it declares no leaning toward the black, no +iniquity on the large scale in fate’s doings, rather a marble +equality, dread not cruel, giving and taking away and +reconciling.</p> + +<p>Why have I not written my <i>Timon</i>? Well, here is my +worst quarrel with you. You take my young books as +my last word. The tendency to try to say more has +passed unperceived (my fault, that). And you make no +allowance for the slowness with which a man finds and +tries to learn his tools. I began with a neat brisk little +style, and a sharp little knack of partial observation; I +have tried to expand my means, but still I can only utter +a part of what I wish to say, and am bound to feel; and +much of it will die unspoken. But if I had the pen of +Shakespeare, I have no <i>Timon</i> to give forth. I feel kindly +to the powers that be; I marvel they should use me so +well; and when I think of the case of others, I wonder +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163" id="page163"></a>163</span> +too, but in another vein, whether they may not, whether +they must not, be like me, still with some compensation, +some delight. To have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen +edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a great +truth, and has to be learned in the fire.—Yours very +truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">We expect you, remember that.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, November</i> 1, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. ARCHER</span>,—You will see that I had already +had a sight of your article and what were my thoughts.</p> + +<p>One thing in your letter puzzles me. Are you, too, not +in the witness-box? And if you are, why take a wilfully +false hypothesis? If you knew I was a chronic invalid, +why say that my philosophy was unsuitable to such a +case? My call for facts is not so general as yours, but +an essential fact should not be put the other way +about.</p> + +<p>The fact is, consciously or not, you doubt my honesty; +you think I am making faces, and at heart disbelieve my +utterances. And this I am disposed to think must spring +from your not having had enough of pain, sorrow, and +trouble in your existence. It is easy to have too much; +easy also or possible to have too little; enough is required +that a man may appreciate what elements of consolation +and joy there are in everything but absolutely overpowering +physical pain or disgrace, and how in almost +all circumstances the human soul can play a fair part. +You fear life, I fancy, on the principle of the hand of +little employment. But perhaps my hypothesis is as +unlike the truth as the one you chose. Well, if it be so, +if you have had trials, sickness, the approach of death, +the alienation of friends, poverty at the heels, and have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164"></a>164</span> +not felt your soul turn round upon these things and spurn +them under—you must be very differently made from +me, and I earnestly believe from the majority of men. +But at least you are in the right to wonder and +complain.</p> + +<p>To “say all”? Stay here. All at once? That would +require a word from the pen of Gargantua. We say each +particular thing as it comes up, and “with that sort of +emphasis that for the time there seems to be no other.” +Words will not otherwise serve us; no, nor even Shakespeare, +who could not have put <i>As You Like It</i> and <i>Timon</i> +into one without ruinous loss both of emphasis and substance. +Is it quite fair then to keep your face so steadily +On my most light-hearted works, and then say I recognise +no evil? Yet in the paper on Burns, for instance, I show +myself alive to some sorts of evil. But then, perhaps, +they are not your sorts.</p> + +<p>And again: “to say all”? All: yes. Everything: +no. The task were endless, the effect nil. But my all, +in such a vast field as this of life, is what interests me, +what stands out, what takes on itself a presence for my +imagination or makes a figure in that little tricky abbreviation +which is the best that my reason can conceive. +That I must treat, or I shall be fooling with my readers. +That, and not the all of some one else.</p> + +<p>And here we come to the division: not only do I believe +that literature should give joy, but I see a universe, +I suppose, eternally different from yours; a solemn, a +terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe, where +suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls +with dispassionate partiality, but where it may be and +generally is nobly borne; where, above all (this I believe; +probably you don’t: I think he may, with cancer), <i>any +brave man may make</i> out a life which shall be happy for +himself, and, by so being, beneficent to those about him. +And if he fails, why should I hear him weeping? I mean +if I fail, why should I weep? Why should <i>you</i> hear <i>me</i>? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165" id="page165"></a>165</span> +Then to me morals, the conscience, the affections, and +the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly, so +infinitely more important than the other parts of life, +that I conceive men rather triflers who become immersed +in the latter; and I will always think the man who keeps +his lip stiff, and makes “a happy fireside clime,” and +carries a pleasant face about to friends and neighbours, +infinitely greater (in the abstract) than an atrabilious +Shakespeare or a backbiting Kant or Darwin. No offence +to any of these gentlemen, two of whom probably (one +for certain) came up to my standard.</p> + +<p>And now enough said; it were hard if a poor man +could not criticise another without having so much ink +shed against him. But I shall still regret you should have +written on an hypothesis you knew to be untenable, and +that you should thus have made your paper, for those who +do not know me, essentially unfair. The rich, fox-hunting +squire speaks with one voice; the sick man of letters with +another.—Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt1">Robert Louis Stevenson</p> +<p class="sc rt">(<i>Prometheus-Heine in minimis</i>).</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Here I go again. To me, the medicine bottles +on my chimney and the blood on my handkerchief are +accidents; they do not colour my view of life, as you +would know, I think, if you had experience of sickness; +they do not exist in my prospect; I would as soon drag +them under the eyes of my readers as I would mention +a pimple I might chance to have (saving your presence) +on my posteriors. What does it prove? what does it +change? it has not hurt, it has not changed me in any +essential part; and I should think myself a trifler and in +bad taste if I introduced the world to these unimportant +privacies.</p> + +<p>But, again, there is this mountain-range between us—<i>that +you do not believe me</i>. It is not flattering, but the +fault is probably in my literary art.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>166</span></p> + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The “other thing coming out” mentioned below in the last +paragraph but one was <i>The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December</i> 26, 1885.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—<i>Lamia</i> has not yet turned up, but +your letter came to me this evening with a scent of the +Boulevard Montparnasse that was irresistible. The sand +of Lavenue’s crumbled under my heel; and the bouquet +of the old Fleury came back to me, and I remembered the +day when I found a twenty franc piece under my fetish. +Have you that fetish still? and has it brought you luck? +I remembered, too, my first sight of you in a frock-coat +and a smoking-cap, when we passed the evening at the +Café de Medicis; and my last when we sat and talked +in the Parc Monceau; and all these things made me feel +a little young again, which, to one who has been mostly +in bed for a month, was a vivifying change.</p> + +<p>Yes, you are lucky to have a bag that holds you comfortably. +Mine is a strange contrivance; I don’t die, +damme, and I can’t get along on both feet to save my +soul; I am a chronic sickist; and my work cripples along +between bed and the parlour, between the medicine bottle +and the cupping glass. Well, I like my life all the same; +and should like it none the worse if I could have another +talk with you, though even my talks now are measured out +to me by the minute hand like poisons in a minim glass.</p> + +<p>A photograph will be taken of my ugly mug and sent +to you for ulterior purposes: I have another thing coming +out, which I did not put in the way of the Scribners, I +can scarce tell how; but I was sick and penniless and +rather back on the world, and mismanaged it. I trust +they will forgive me.</p> + +<p>I am sorry to hear of Mrs. Low’s illness, and glad to +hear of her recovery. I will announce the coming <i>Lamia</i> +to Bob: he steams away at literature like smoke. I have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167"></a>167</span> +a beautiful Bob on my walls, and a good Sargent, and a +delightful Lemon; and your etching now hangs framed +in the dining-room. So the arts surround me.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. de Mattos</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>With this cousin the writer had always been on terms of close +affection, and he now dedicated to her <i>The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll +and Mr. Hyde</i>. In the dedication as published only the second +verse stands.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>January 1st,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAREST KATHARINE</span>,—Here, on a very little book and +accompanied with lame verses, I have put your name. +Our kindness is now getting well on in years; it must be +nearly of age; and it gets more valuable to me with +every time I see you. It is not possible to express any +sentiment, and it is not necessary to try, at least between +us. You know very well that I love you dearly, and that +I always will. I only wish the verses were better, but at +least you like the story; and it is sent to you by the one +that loves you—Jekyll, and not Hyde.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1 center"><i>Ave!</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Bells upon the city are ringing in the night;</p> +<p>High above the gardens are the houses full of light;</p> +<p>On the heathy Pentlands is the curlew flying free;</p> +<p>And the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.</p> + +<p class="s">We cannae break the bonds that God decreed to bind,</p> +<p>Still we’ll be the children of the heather and the wind;</p> +<p>Far away from home, O, it’s still for you and me</p> +<p>That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>Jan. 1st,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR KINNICUM</span>,<a name="FnAnchor_14" id="FnAnchor_14" href="#Footnote_14"><span class="sp">14</span></a>—I am a very bad dog, but not +for the first time. Your book, which is very interesting, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168"></a>168</span> +came duly; and I immediately got a very bad cold indeed, +and have been fit for nothing whatever. I am a bit better +now, and aye on the mend; so I write to tell you, I thought +of you on New Year’s Day; though, I own, it would have +been more decent if I had thought in time for you to get +my letter then. Well, what can’t be cured must be +endured, Mr. Lawrie; and you must be content with what +I give. If I wrote all the letters I ought to write, and +at the proper time, I should be very good and very happy; +but I doubt if I should do anything else.</p> + +<p>I suppose you will be in town for the New Year; and +I hope your health is pretty good. What you want is +diet; but it is as much use to tell you that as it is to +tell my father. And I quite admit a diet is a beastly +thing. I doubt, however, if it be as bad as not being +allowed to speak, which I have tried fully, and do not +like. When, at the same time, I was not allowed to read, +it passed a joke. But these are troubles of the past, and +on this day, at least, it is proper to suppose they won’t +return. But we are not put here to enjoy ourselves: it +was not God’s purpose; and I am prepared to argue, it +is not our sincere wish. As for our deserts, the less said +of them the better, for somebody might hear, and nobody +cares to be laughed at. A good man is a very noble thing +to see, but not to himself; what he seems to God is, +fortunately, not our business; that is the domain of +faith; and whether on the first of January or the thirty-first +of December, faith is a good word to end on.</p> + +<p>My dear Cummy, many happy returns to you and my +best love.—The worst correspondent in the world,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>January 1st,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—Many happy returns of the day to +you all; I am fairly well and in good spirits; and much +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169" id="page169"></a>169</span> +and hopefully occupied with dear Jenkin’s life. The inquiry +in every detail, every letter that I read, makes me +think of him more nobly. I cannot imagine how I got +his friendship; I did not deserve it. I believe the notice +will be interesting and useful.</p> + +<p>My father’s last letter, owing to the use of a quill pen +and the neglect of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. +Every one tried, and every one failed to decipher an +important word on which the interest of one whole clause +(and the letter consisted of two) depended.</p> + +<p>I find I can make little more of this; but I’ll spare +the blots.—Dear people, ever your loving son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">I will try again, being a giant refreshed by the house +being empty. The presence of people is the great obstacle +to letter-writing. I deny that letters should contain news +(I mean mine; those of other people should). But mine +should contain appropriate sentiments and humorous nonsense, +or nonsense without the humour. When the house +is empty, the mind is seized with a desire—no, that is +too strong—a willingness to pour forth unmitigated rot, +which constitutes (in me) the true spirit of correspondence. +When I have no remarks to offer (and nobody to +offer them to), my pen flies, and you see the remarkable +consequence of a page literally covered with words and +genuinely devoid of sense. I can always do that, if quite +alone, and I like doing it; but I have yet to learn that +it is beloved by correspondents. The deuce of it is, that +there is no end possible but the end of the paper; and +as there is very little left of that—if I cannot stop writing—suppose +you give up reading. It would all come to the +same thing; and I think we should all be happier....</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In the following letter R. L. S. accepts the dedication of Mr. +Low’s illustrated edition of Keats’s <i>Lamia</i>, and sends him in return +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id="page170"></a>170</span> +the newly published <i>Jekyll and Hyde</i>, and a set of verses afterwards +printed in the Century Magazine and <i>Underwoods</i>, and inscribed +by Mr. St. Gaudens on his medallion portrait of the author. The +terms of the <i>Lamia</i> dedication are as follows: “In testimony of +loyal friendship and of a common faith in doubtful tales from +Faery-Land, I dedicate to Robert Louis Stevenson my work in this +book.” The Latin legend inscribed above the design runs: “Neque +est ullum certius amicitiae vinculum quam consensus et societas +consiliorum et voluntatum.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>Jan. 2nd,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—<i>Lamia</i> has come, and I do not know +how to thank you, not only for the beautiful art of the +designs, but for the handsome and apt words of the dedication. +My favourite is “Bathes unseen,” which is a +masterpiece; and the next, “Into the green recessed +woods,” is perhaps more remarkable, though it does not +take my fancy so imperiously. The night scene at Corinth +pleases me also. The second part offers fewer opportunities. +I own I should like to see both <i>Isabella</i> and the +<i>Eve</i> thus illustrated; and then there’s <i>Hyperion</i>—O, yes, +and <i>Endymion</i>! I should like to see the lot: beautiful +pictures dance before me by hundreds: I believe <i>Endymion</i> +would suit you best. It also is in faery-land; and I see +a hundred opportunities, cloudy and flowery glories, things +as delicate as the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in +themselves of any mighty purport, but made for the +pencil: the feast of Pan, Peona’s isle, the “slabbed +margin of a well,” the chase of the butterfly, the nymph, +Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of unconnected +beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the +bosom of the publisher.</p> + +<p>What is more important, I accept the terms of the +dedication with a frank heart, and the terms of your Latin +legend fairly. The sight of your pictures has once more +awakened me to my right mind; something may come +of it; yet one more bold push to get free of this prison-yard +of the abominably ugly, where I take my daily exercise +with my contemporaries. I do not know, I have a +feeling in my bones, a sentiment which may take on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171"></a>171</span> +forms of imagination, or may not. If it does, I shall owe +it to you; and the thing will thus descend from Keats +even if on the wrong side of the blanket. If it can be +done in prose—that is the puzzle—I divagate again. +Thank you again: you can draw and yet you do not +love the ugly: what are you doing in this age? Flee, +while it is yet time; they will have your four limbs pinned +upon a stable door to scare witches. The ugly, my unhappy +friend, is <i>de rigueur</i>: it is the only wear! What +a chance you threw away with the serpent! Why had +Apollonius no pimples? Heavens, my dear Low, you do +not know your business....</p> + +<p>I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek +nymph; but the gnome is interesting, I think, and he +came out of a deep mine, where he guards the fountain +of tears. It is not always the time to rejoice.—Yours +ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="pt1">The gnome’s name is <i>Jekyll & Hyde</i>; I believe you +will find he is likewise quite willing to answer to the name +of Low or Stevenson.</p> + +<p><i>Same day.</i>—I have copied out on the other sheet some +bad verses, which somehow your picture suggested; as a +kind of image of things that I pursue and cannot reach, +and that you seem—no, not to have reached—but to have +come a thought nearer to than I. This is the life we +have chosen: well, the choice was mad, but I should +make it again.</p> + +<p>What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be +printed in (say) the Century for the sake of my +name; and if that were possible, they might advertise +your book. It might be headed as sent in acknowledgment +of your <i>Lamia</i>. Or perhaps it might be introduced +by the phrases I have marked above. I dare say +they would stick it in: I want no payment, being +well paid by <i>Lamia</i>. If they are not, keep them to +yourself.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172"></a>172</span></p> + +<p class="to">to will h. low</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Damned bad lines in return for a beautiful book</i></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + + <p><span class="sc">Youth</span> now flees on feathered foot.</p> + <p>Faint and fainter sounds the flute;</p> + <p>Rarer songs of Gods.</p> + <p style="margin-left: 8em;">And still,</p> + <p>Somewhere on the sunny hill,</p> + <p>Or along the winding stream.</p> + <p>Through the willows, flits a dream;</p> + <p>Flits, but shows a smiling face,</p> + <p>Flees, but with so quaint a grace,</p> + <p>None can choose to stay at home,</p> + <p>All must follow—all must roam.</p> + + <p class="s">This is unborn beauty: she</p> + <p>Now in air floats high and free,</p> + <p>Takes the sun, and breaks the blue;—</p> + <p>Late, with stooping pinion flew</p> + <p>Raking hedgerow trees, and wet</p> + <p>Her wing in silver streams, and set</p> + <p>Shining foot on temple roof.</p> + <p>Now again she flies aloof,</p> + <p>Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed</p> + <p>By the evening’s amethyst.</p> + + <p class="s">In wet wood and miry lane</p> + <p>Still we pound and pant in vain;</p> + <p>Still with earthy foot we chase</p> + <p>Waning pinion, fainting face;</p> + <p>Still, with grey hair, we stumble on</p> + <p>Till—behold!—the vision gone!</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id="page173"></a>173</span></p> + <p>Where has fleeting beauty led?</p> + <p>To the doorway of the dead!</p> + <p>[Life is gone, but life was gay:</p> + <p>We have come the primrose way!]<a name="FnAnchor_15" id="FnAnchor_15" href="#Footnote_15"><span class="sp">15</span></a></p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—Thank you for your letter, so interesting +to my vanity. There is a review in the St. James’s, +which, as it seems to hold somewhat of your opinions, +and is besides written with a pen and not a poker, we +think may possibly be yours. The <i>Prince</i><a name="FnAnchor_16" id="FnAnchor_16" href="#Footnote_16"><span class="sp">16</span></a> has done +fairly well in spite of the reviews, which have been bad: +he was, as you doubtless saw, well slated in the Saturday; +one paper received it as a child’s story; another (picture +my agony) described it as a “Gilbert comedy.” It was +amusing to see the race between me and Justin M’Carthy: +the Milesian has won by a length.</p> + +<p>That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and +you take longer over your work, and it will not be so successful +as if you had aimed low and rushed it. What the +public likes is work (of any kind) a little loosely executed; +so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a little dim +and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if possible) +be a little dull into the bargain. I know that good work +sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my heart, I think +it is by an accident. And I know also that good work +must succeed at last; but that is not the doing of the +public; they are only shamed into silence or affectation. +I do not write for the public; I do write for money, a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174"></a>174</span> +nobler deity; and most of all for myself, not perhaps +any more noble, but both more intelligent and nearer +home.</p> + +<p>Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of +the beast whom we feed. What he likes is the newspaper; +and to me the press is the mouth of a sewer, where +lying is professed as from an university chair, and everything +prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its +abode and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but men, and +not all of these—and fewer women. As for respecting the +race, and, above all, that fatuous rabble of burgesses +called “the public,” God save me from such irreligion!—that +way lies disgrace and dishonour. There +must be something wrong in me, or I would not be +popular.</p> + +<p>This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and +permanent opinion. Not much, I think. As for the art +that we practise, I have never been able to see why its +professors should be respected. They chose the primrose +path; when they found it was not all primroses, but +some of it brambly, and much of it uphill, they began +to think and to speak of themselves as holy martyrs. +But a man is never martyred in any honest sense in the +pursuit of his pleasure; and <i>delirium tremens</i> has more +of the honour of the cross. We were full of the pride of +life, and chose, like prostitutes, to live by a pleasure. We +should be paid if we give the pleasure we pretend to give; +but why should we be honoured?</p> + +<p>I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a +Sunday; but we must wait till I am able to see people. +I am very full of Jenkin’s life; it is painful, yet very +pleasant, to dig into the past of a dead friend, and find +him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I own, as I read, +I wonder more and more why he should have taken me +to be a friend. He had many and obvious faults upon +the face of him; the heart was pure gold. I feel it little +pain to have lost him, for it is a loss in which I cannot +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>175</span> +believe; I take it, against reason, for an absence; if not +to-day, then to-morrow, I still fancy I shall see him in the +door; and then, now when I know him better, how glad +a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in the immortality +business, the world would indeed be too good to be true; +but we were put here to do what service we can, for honour +and not for hire: the sods cover us, and the worm that +never dies, the conscience, sleeps well at last; these are +the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly day by +day; and they are enough for a man who knows his +own frailty and sees all things in the proportion of reality. +The soul of piety was killed long ago by that idea of reward. +Nor is happiness, whether eternal or temporal, the reward +that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but his wayside +campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for +the struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the +condition that he is opposed. How, then, is such a creature, +so fiery, so pugnacious, so made up of discontent and +aspiration, and such noble and uneasy passions—how can +he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud; +for man’s cherished belief is that he loves that happiness +which he continually spurns and passes by; and this +belief in some ulterior happiness exactly fits him. He +does not require to stop and taste it; he can be about +the rugged and bitter business where his heart lies; and +yet he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, +and enjoy the notion that he is both himself +and something else; and that his friends will yet meet +him, all ironed out and emasculate, and still be lovable,—as +if love did not live in the faults of the beloved only, +and draw its breath in an unbroken round of forgiveness! +But the truth is, we must fight until we die; and when +we die there can be no quiet for mankind but complete +resumption into—what?—God, let us say—when all these +desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last.</p> + +<p>Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short—<i>excusez</i>.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>176</span></p> + +<p class="to">To James Payn</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The late Mrs. Buckle, a daughter of Mr. James Payn married to +the editor of the Times, had laughingly remonstrated, through her +father, on recognising some features of her own house in Queen +Square, Bloomsbury, in the description of that tenanted by the +fair Cuban in the section of Stevenson’s <i>Dynamiter</i> which tells +the story of the Brown Box.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR JAMES PAYN</span>,—Your very kind letter came very +welcome; and still more welcome the news that you see +——’s tale. I will now tell you (and it was very good +and very wise of me not to tell it before) that he is one +of the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money +into a pharmacy at Hyères, when the cholera (certainly +not his fault) swept away his customers in a body. Thus +you can imagine the pleasure I have to announce to him +a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy, doing +nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts +inexorably mount up.</p> + +<p>To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps +aware, is not one of those that can be read running; and +the name of your daughter remains for me undecipherable. +I call her, then, your daughter—and a very good +name too—and I beg to explain how it came about that +I took her house. The hospital was a point in my tale; +but there is a house on each side. Now the true house +is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If not, +what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what +is true? Everything in the <i>Dynamiter</i> is not true; but +the story of the Brown Box is, in almost every particular; +I lay my hand on my heart and swear to it. It took place +in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in that +house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very +bad society.</p> + +<p>But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter’s house +has not a balcony at the back? I cannot answer for that; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>177</span> +I only know that side of Queen Square from the pavement +and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence +I saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there +is none to the particular house in question, it must have +been so arranged to spite me.</p> + +<p>I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address +three questions to your daughter:—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>1st. Has her house the proper terrace?</p> +<p>2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital?</p> +<p>3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884?</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may +have deceived me on some trifling points, for she is not +a lady of peddling exactitude. If this should prove to +be so, I will give your daughter a proper certificate, and +her house property will return to its original value.</p> + +<p>Can man say more?—Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised +from <i>Lost Sir Massingberd</i>: good again, sir! I wish he +would plagiarise the death of Zero.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The late Sir Percy and Lady Shelley had in these days attached +themselves warmly to R. L. S., and saw in his ways and character +a living image of those of the poet, Sir Percy’s father, as they +imagined him.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. Somethingorother-th,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—I send you two photographs: they are +both done by Sir Percy Shelley, the poet’s son, which may +interest. The sitting down one is, I think, the best; but +if they choose that, see that the little reflected light on +the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be +tragic. Don’t forget “Baronet” to Sir Percy’s name.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>178</span></p> + +<p>We all think a heap of your book; and I am well +pleased with my dedication.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Apropos of the odd controversy about Shelley’s +nose: I have before me four photographs of myself, done +by Shelley’s son: my nose is hooked, not like the eagle, +indeed, but like the accipitrine family in man: well, out +of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it +straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood +of light on calumnious man—and the scandal-mongering +sun. For personally I cling to my curve. To continue +the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all his +sisters had noses like mine: Sir Percy has a marked +hook; all the family had high cheek-bones like mine; +what doubt, then, but that this turn-up (of which Jeaffreson +accuses the poet, along with much other <i>fatras</i>) is the +result of some accident similar to what has happened in +my photographs by his son?</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles J. Guthrie</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“The lad” is Lloyd Osbourne, at this time a student at Edinburgh +University.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 18th,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GUTHRIE</span>,—I hear the lad has got into the +Spec. and I write to thank you very warmly for the part +you have played. I only wish we were both going there +together to-morrow night, and you would be in the secretary’s +place (that so well became you, sir) and I were to +open a debate or harry you on “Private Business,” and +Omond perhaps to read us a few glowing pages on—the +siege of Saragossa, was it? or the Battle of Saratoga? +my memory fails me, but I have not forgotten a certain +white charger that careered over the fields of incoherent +fight with a prodigious consequence of laughter: have +you? I wonder, has Omond?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>179</span></p> + +<p>Well, well, <i>perierunt</i>, but, I hope, <i>non imputantur</i>. +We have had good fun.</p> + +<p>Again thanking you sincerely, I remain, my dear +Guthrie, your old comrade,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p><i>Kidnapped</i> had at this time just been taken up again, and +Stevenson explains the course of the story to his father, who had +taken the deepest interest in it since they visited together the scene +of the Appin murder.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January</i> 25, 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—Many thanks for a letter quite like +yourself. I quite agree with you, and had already planned +a scene of religion in <i>Balfour</i>; the Society for the Propagation +of Christian Knowledge furnishes me with a +catechist whom I shall try to make the man. I have +another catechist, the blind, pistol-carrying highway +robber, whom I have transferred from the Long Island to +Mull. I find it a most picturesque period, and wonder +Scott let it escape. The <i>Covenant</i> is lost on one of the +Tarrans, and David is cast on Earraid, where (being from +inland) he is nearly starved before he finds out the island +is tidal; then he crosses Mull to Toronsay, meeting the +blind catechist by the way; then crosses Morven from +Kinlochaline to Kingairloch, where he stays the night +with the good catechist; that is where I am; next day +he is to be put ashore in Appin, and be present at Colin +Campbell’s death. To-day I rest, being a little run down. +Strange how liable we are to brain fag in this scooty +family! But as far as I have got, all but the last chapter, +I think David is on his feet, and (to my mind) a far better +story and far sounder at heart than <i>Treasure Island</i>.</p> + +<p>I have no earthly news, living entirely in my story, +and only coming out of it to play patience. The Shelleys +are gone; the Taylors kinder than can be imagined. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>180</span> +other day, Lady Taylor drove over and called on me; she +is a delightful old lady, and great fun. I mentioned a +story about the Duchess of Wellington—which I had heard +Sir Henry tell; and though he was very tired, he looked +it up and copied it out for me in his own hand.—Your most +affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To C. W. Stoddard</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 13th,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR STODDARD</span>,—I am a dreadful character; but, +you see, I have at last taken pen in hand; how long I +may hold it, God knows. This is already my sixth letter +to-day, and I have many more waiting; and my wrist +gives me a jog on the subject of scrivener’s cramp, which +is not encouraging.</p> + +<p>I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you +wrote your last. I am as usual pretty cheerful, but not +very strong. I stay in the house all winter, which is base; +but, as you continue to see, the pen goes from time to +time, though neither fast enough nor constantly enough +to please me.</p> + +<p>My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and +the interval of widowery explains my writing. Another +person writing for you when you have done work is a great +enemy to correspondence. To-day I feel out of health, +and shan’t work; and hence this so much over-due reply.</p> + +<p>I was re-reading some of your <i>South Sea Idyls</i> the other +day: some of the chapters are very good indeed; some +pages as good as they can be.</p> + +<p>How does your class get along? If you like to touch +on <i>Otto</i>, any day in a by-hour, you may tell them—as the +author’s last dying confession—that it is a strange example +of the difficulty of being ideal in an age of realism; that the +unpleasant giddy-mindedness, which spoils the book and +often gives it a wanton air of unreality and juggling with air-bells, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>181</span> +comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too great +realism of some chapters and passages—some of which I have +now spotted, others I dare say I shall never spot—which +disprepares the imagination for the cast of the remainder.</p> + +<p>Any story can be made <i>true</i> in its own key; any story +can be made <i>false</i> by the choice of a wrong key of detail +or style: <i>Otto</i> is made to reel like a drunken—I was going +to say man, but let us substitute cipher—by the variations +of the key. Have you observed that the famous problem +of realism and idealism is one purely of detail? Have +you seen my <i>Note on Realism</i> in Cassell’s Magazine of +Art; and <i>Elements of Style</i> in the Contemporary; and +<i>Romance</i> and <i>Humble Apology</i> in Longman’s? They are +all in your line of business; let me know what you have +not seen and I’ll send ’em.</p> + +<p>I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was +a pleasant old spot, and I remember you there, though +still more dearly in your own strange den upon a hill in +San Francisco; and one of the most San Francisco-y parts +of San Francisco.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Concerning the payment which Mr. Gosse had procured him +from an American magazine for the set of verses addressed to +Mr. Low (see above, p. 172).</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb.</i> 17, 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR GOSSE</span>,—Non, c’est honteux! for a set of shambling +lines that don’t know whether they’re trochees or +what they are, that you or any of the crafty ones would +blush all over if you had so much as thought upon, all +by yourselves, in the water-closet. But God knows, I +am glad enough of five pounds; and this is almost as +honest a way to get it as plain theft, so what should I +care?—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>182</span></p> + +<p class="to">To J. A. Symonds</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i> [<i>Spring</i> 1886].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SYMONDS</span>,—If we have lost touch, it is (I +think) only in a material sense; a question of letters, not +hearts. You will find a warm welcome at Skerryvore +from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed, we never tell +ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run to +Davos is a prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship; +and I think I can promise you you have a pair of +trusty well-wishers and friends in Bournemouth: whether +they write or not is but a small thing; the flag may not +be waved, but it is there.</p> + +<p><i>Jekyll</i> is a dreadful thing, I own; but the only thing +I feel dreadful about is that damned old business of the +war in the members. This time it came out; I hope it +will stay in, in future.</p> + +<p>Raskolnikoff<a name="FnAnchor_17" id="FnAnchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"><span class="sp">17</span></a> is easily the greatest book I have read +in ten years; I am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: +Henry James could not finish it: all I can say is, it nearly +finished me. It was like having an illness. James did not +care for it because the character of Raskolnikoff was not +objective; and at that I divined a great gulf between us, +and, on further reflection, the existence of a certain impotence +in many minds of to-day, which prevents them from +living in a book or a character, and keeps them standing +afar off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I suppose +the book may seem empty in the centre; to the others +it is a room, a house of life, into which they themselves +enter, and are tortured and purified. The Juge d’Instruction +I thought a wonderful, weird, touching, ingenious +creation: the drunken father, and Sonia, and the student +friend, and the uncircumscribed, protoplasmic humanity +of Raskolnikoff, all upon a level that filled me with wonder: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>183</span> +the execution also, superb in places. Another has been +translated—<i>Humiliés et Offensés</i>. It is even more incoherent +than <i>Le Crime et le Châtiment</i>, but breathes much +of the same lovely goodness, and has passages of power. +Dostoieffsky is a devil of a swell, to be sure. Have you +heard that he became a stout, imperialist conservative? +It is interesting to know. To something of that side, the +balance leans with me also in view of the incoherency +and incapacity of all. The old boyish idea of the march +on Paradise being now out of season, and all plans and +ideas that I hear debated being built on a superb indifference +to the first principles of human character, a helpless +desire to acquiesce in anything of which I know the worst +assails me. Fundamental errors in human nature of two +sorts stand on the skyline of all this modern world of +aspirations. First, that it is happiness that men want; +and second, that happiness consists of anything but an +internal harmony. Men do not want, and I do not think +they would accept, happiness; what they live for is +rivalry, effort, success—the elements our friends wish to +eliminate. And, on the other hand, happiness is a question +of morality—or of immorality, there is no difference—and +conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his +worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I +suppose, in his ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy +in the detested camp; Pepys was pretty happy, and I am +pretty happy on the whole, because we both somewhat +crowingly accepted a <i>via media</i>, both liked to attend to +our affairs, and both had some success in managing the +same. It is quite an open question whether Pepys and I +ought to be happy; on the other hand, there is no doubt +that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he +said it) that he was <i>la misère humaine</i>, cureless misery—unless +perhaps by the gallows. Death is a great and +gentle solvent; it has never had justice done it, no, not by +Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece ornaments, +the bourgeois (<i>quorum pars</i>), and their cowardly dislike +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>184</span> +of dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand +how utterly they have got out of touch of life. Their +dislike of capital punishment and their treatment of their +domestic servants are for me the two flaunting emblems +of their hollowness.</p> + +<p>God knows where I am driving to. But here comes +my lunch.</p> + +<p>Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have +stayed the issue. I have now nothing to say, that had +formerly such a pressure of twaddle. Pray don’t fail to +come this summer. It will be a great disappointment, +now it has been spoken of, if you do,—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To F. W. H. Myers</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In reply to a paper of criticisms on <i>Jekyll and Hyde</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1st,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SIR</span>,—I know not how to thank you: this is +as handsome as it is clever. With almost every word I +agree—much of it I even knew before—much of it, I must +confess, would never have been, if I had been able to do +what I like, and lay the thing by for the matter of a year. +But the wheels of Byles the Butcher drive exceeding +swiftly, and <i>Jekyll</i> was conceived, written, re-written, re-rewritten, +and printed inside ten weeks. Nothing but +this white-hot haste would explain the gross error of +Hyde’s speech at Lanyon’s. Your point about the specialised +fiend is more subtle, but not less just: I had not seen +it.—About the picture, I rather meant that Hyde had +brought it himself; and Utterson’s hypothesis of the gift +(p. 42) an error.—The tidiness of the room, I thought, +but I dare say my psychology is here too ingenious to +be sound, was due to the dread weariness and horror of +the imprisonment. Something has to be done: he would +tidy the room. But I dare say it is false.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>185</span></p> + +<p>I shall keep your paper; and if ever my works come +to be collected, I will put my back into these suggestions. +In the meanwhile, I do truly lack words in which to express +my sense of gratitude for the trouble you have taken. +The receipt of such a paper is more than a reward for +my labours. I have read it with pleasure, and as I say, +I hope to use it with profit.—Believe me, your most +obliged,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following letter relates to a suggestion which Mr. Gilder, +as editor of the Century Magazine, had already made in the Hyères +time nearly three years previously, and had now lately revived, +that Stevenson and his friend Mr. W. H. Low should make a joint +excursion down the Saône and Rhone, the result to be a book +written by R. L. S. and illustrated by Mr. Low. Considerations of +health caused the plan to be promptly abandoned for the second +time.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—This is the most enchanting picture. +Now understand my state: I am really an invalid, but of +a mysterious order. I might be a <i>malade imaginaire</i>, but +for one too tangible symptom, my tendency to bleed from +the lungs. If we could go (<i>1st</i>) We must have money +enough to travel with <i>leisure and comfort</i>—especially the +first. (<i>2nd</i>) You must be prepared for a comrade who +would go to bed some part of every day and often stay +silent. (<i>3rd</i>) You would have to play the part of a +thoughtful courier, sparing me fatigue, looking out that +my bed was warmed, etc. (<i>4th</i>) If you are very nervous, +you must recollect a bad hemorrhage is always on the +cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and horror for +those who are beside me.</p> + +<p>Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it.</p> + +<p>If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, +I believe the trip might do me good, and I feel +sure that, working together, we might produce a fine book. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>186</span> +The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have adored +it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train.</p> + +<p>Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. +I have stood the winter hitherto with some credit, but +the dreadful weather still continues, and I cannot holloa +till I am through the wood.</p> + +<p>Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I +embrace the prospect with glorious feelings.</p> + +<p>I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no +circumstance of pleasure except your letter. That, however, +counts for much. I am glad you liked the doggerel: +I have already had a liberal cheque, over which I licked +my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to +make money by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is +only too welcome in my handsome but impecunious house.</p> + +<p>Let me know soon what is to be expected—as far as +it does not hang by that inconstant quantity, my want +of health. Remember me to Madam with the best thanks +and wishes; and believe me your friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written just before a visit to London; not, this time, as my +guest at the British Museum, but to stay with his father at an +hotel in Fitzroy Square.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I have been reading the Vth and +VIth Aeneid—the latter for the first time—and am overpowered. +That is one of the most astonishing pieces of +literature, or rather it contains the best, I ever met with. +We are all damned small fry, and Virgil is one of the tops +of human achievement; I never appreciated this; you +should have a certain age to feel this; it is no book for +boys, who grind under the lack of enterprise and dash, +and pass ignorantly over miracles of performance that +leave an old hoary-headed practitioner like me stricken +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>187</span> +down with admiration. Even as a boy, the Sibyl would +have bust me; but I never read the VIth till I began it +two days ago; it is all fresh and wonderful; do you +envy me? If only I knew any Latin! if you had a decent +edition with notes—many notes—I should like well to +have it; mine is a damned Didot with not the ghost of +a note, type that puts my eyes out, and (I suspect) no +very splendid text—but there, the carnal feelings of the man +who can’t construe are probably parents to the suspicion.</p> + +<p>My dear fellow, I would tenfold rather come to the +Monument; but my father is an old man, and if I go to +town, it shall be (this time) for his pleasure. He has +many marks of age, some of childhood; I wish this knighthood +business could come off, though even the talk of it +has been already something, but the change (to my eyes) +is thoroughly begun; and a very beautiful, simple, honourable, +high-spirited and child-like (and childish) man is +now in process of deserting us piecemeal. <i>Si quis piorum</i>—God +knows, not that he was pious, but he did his hand’s +darg or tried to do it; and if not,—well, it is a melancholy +business.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The first letter showing Stevenson’s new interest in the technicalities +of music.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,—I try to tell myself it is good +nature, but I know it is vanity that makes me write.</p> + +<p>I have drafted the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming +and his friends, his influence on me, his views on religion +and literature, his part at the Savile; it should boil down +to about ten pages, and I really do think it admirably +good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that +I found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after +a serious talk with him: surely that means it is good? +I had to write and tell you, being alone.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>188</span></p> + +<p>I have excellent news of Fanny, who is much better +for the change. My father is still very yellow, and very +old, and very weak, but yesterday he seemed happier, +and smiled, and followed what was said; even laughed, +I think. When he came away, he said to me, “Take care +of yourself, my dearie,” which had a strange sound of +childish days, and will not leave my mind.</p> + +<p>You must get Litolf’s <i>Gavottes Célèbres</i>: I have made +another trover there: a musette of Lully’s. The second +part of it I have not yet got the hang of; but the first—only +a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful and pretty +hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the +end of it, this musette enters with the most really thrilling +effect of simple beauty. O—it’s first-rate. I am quite +mad over it. If you find other books containing Lully, +Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you might +tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be +found. I write all morning, come down, and never leave +the piano till about five; write letters, dine, get down +again about eight, and never leave the piano till I go to +bed. This is a fine life.—Yours most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">If you get the musette (Lully’s), please tell me if I am +right, and it was probably written for strings. Anyway, +it is as neat as—as neat as Bach—on the piano; or seems +so to my ignorance.</p> + +<p>I play much of the Rigadoon; but it’s strange, it don’t +come off <i>quite</i> so well with me!</p> + +<div class="figcenter1"> +<img style="border:0; width:550px; height:228px" + src="images/img2.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>189</span></p> + +<p>There is the first part of the musette copied (from +memory, so I hope there’s nothing wrong). Is it not +angelic? But it ought, of course, to have the gavotte +before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote +thus (if I remember):—</p> + +<div class="figcenter1"> +<img style="border:0; width:450px; height:110px" + src="images/img3.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="noind">staccato, I think. Then you sail into the musette.</p> + +<p><i>N.B.</i>—Where I have put an “A” is that a dominant +eleventh, or what? or just a seventh on the D? and if +the latter, is that allowed? It sounds very funny. Never +mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which is +my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to +babble questions: all my friends know me now, and take +no notice whatever. The whole piece is marked allegro; +but surely could easily be played too fast? The dignity +must not be lost; the periwig feeling.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written after his return from an excursion to Matlock with his +father, following on their visit to London. “The verses” means +<i>Underwoods</i>. The suppressed poem is that headed “To ——,” +afterwards printed in <i>Songs of Travel</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—This is to announce to you, what +I believe should have been done sooner, that we are at +Skerryvore. We were both tired, and I was fighting my +second cold, so we came straight through by the west.</p> + +<p>We have a butler! He doesn’t buttle, but the point +of the thing is the style. When Fanny gardens, he stands +over her and looks genteel. He opens the door, and I am +told waits at table. Well, what’s the odds; I shall have +it on my tomb—“He ran a butler.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>190</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>He may have been this and that,</p> + <p class="i1">A drunkard or a guttler;</p> +<p>He may have been bald and fat—</p> + <p class="i1">At least he kept a butler.</p> + +<p class="s">He may have sprung from ill or well,</p> + <p class="i1">From Emperor or sutler;</p> +<p>He may be burning now in Hell—</p> + <p class="i1">On earth he kept a butler.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>I want to tell you also that I have suppressed your +poem. I shall send it you for yourself, and I hope you +will agree with me that it was not good enough in point +of view of merit, and a little too intimate as between +you and me. I would not say less of you, my friend, +but I scarce care to say so much in public while we live. +A man may stand on his own head; it is not fair to set +his friend on a pedestal.</p> + +<p>The verses are now at press; I have written a damn +fine ballad.—And I am, dear S. C., ever yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Tomnoddy.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Want of health preventing the author at this time from carrying +the adventures of David Balfour, as narrated in <i>Kidnapped</i>, through +to their issue as originally designed, it was resolved to wind them +up for the present with the discomfiture of the wicked uncle, leaving +open the possibility of a sequel, which was supplied six years later +in <i>Catriona</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—The David problem has to-day +been decided. I am to leave the door open for a sequel +if the public take to it, and this will save me from butchering +a lot of good material to no purpose. Your letter from +Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to +see; the hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am +for action quite unfit, and even a letter is beyond me; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>191</span> +so pray take these scraps at a vast deal more than their +intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about David, Colvin +agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it +far the most human of my labours hitherto. As to whether +the long-eared British public may take to it, all think it +more than doubtful; I wish they would, for I could do a +second volume with ease and pleasure, and Colvin thinks +it sin and folly to throw away David and Alan Breck +upon so small a field as this one.—Ever your affectionate +son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Monroe</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The next is in answer to criticisms on <i>Prince Otto</i> received from +a lady correspondent in Chicago.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, May 25th,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MISS MONROE</span>,—(I hope I have this rightly) I +must lose no time in thanking you for a letter singularly +pleasant to receive. It may interest you to know that I +read to the signature without suspecting my correspondent +was a woman; though in one point (a reference to the +Countess) I might have found a hint of the truth. You +are not pleased with Otto; since I judge you do not like +weakness; and no more do I. And yet I have more than +tolerance for Otto, whose faults are the faults of weakness, +but never of ignoble weakness, and who seeks before +all to be both kind and just. Seeks, not succeeds. But +what is man? So much of cynicism to recognise that +nobody does right is the best equipment for those who do +not wish to be cynics in good earnest. Think better of +Otto, if my plea can influence you; and this I mean for +your own sake—not his, poor fellow, as he will never learn +your opinion; but for yours, because, as men go in this +world (and women too), you will not go far wrong if you +light upon so fine a fellow; and to light upon one and not +perceive his merits is a calamity. In the flesh, of course, +I mean; in the book the fault, of course, is with my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>192</span> +stumbling pen. Seraphina made a mistake about her Otto; +it begins to swim before me dimly that you may have +some traits of Seraphina?</p> + +<p>With true ingratitude you see me pitch upon your +exception; but it is easier to defend oneself gracefully +than to acknowledge praise. I am truly glad that you +should like my books; for I think I see from what you +write that you are a reader worth convincing. Your name, +if I have properly deciphered it, suggests that you may +be also something of my countrywoman; for it is hard to +see where Monroe came from, if not from Scotland. I +seem to have here a double claim on your good nature: +being myself pure Scotch and having appreciated your +letter, make up two undeniable merits which, perhaps, if +it should be quite without trouble, you might reward with +your photograph.—Yours truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Evidently written about the 10th of June, very soon after the +decision of Mr. Gladstone to dissolve Parliament on the defeat of +the Home Rule Bill (June 8). As to the <i>Travelling Companion</i>, see +above, p. 68.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I am in bed again—bloodie jackery +and be damned to it. Lloyd is better, I think; and +money matters better; only my rascal carcase, and the +muddy and oily lees of what was once my immortal soul +are in a poor and pitiful condition.</p> + +<p class="center sc pt1">Litany</p> + +<table class="nobctr" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">Damn </td> <td class="tc3">the political situation</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc3">you</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc3">me</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"> </td> <td class="tc3">and</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc3">Gladstone.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>193</span></p> + +<p>I am a kind of dam home ruler, worse luck to it. I +would support almost anything but that bill. How am +I to vote? Great Cæsar’s Ghost!—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">O! the <i>Travelling Companion</i> won’t do; I am back +on it entirely: it is a foul, gross, bitter, ugly daub, with +lots of stuff in it, and no urbanity and no glee and no +true tragedy—to the crows with it, a carrion tale! I will +do no more carrion, I have done too much in this carrion +epoch; I will now be clean; and by clean, I don’t mean +any folly about purity, but such things as a healthy man +with his bowels open shall find fit to see and speak about +without a pang of nausea.—I am, yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">A Repentant Dankist.</p> + +<p class="pt1">The lakeists, the drainists, the brookists, and the +riverites; let me be a brookist, <i>faute de mieux</i>.</p> + +<p>I did enjoy myself in town, and was a thousandfold +the better of it.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Monroe</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS MONROE</span>,—I am ill in bed and stupid, +incoherently stupid; yet I have to answer your letter, +and if the answer is incomprehensible you must forgive +me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, +as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to +me. The interest taken in an author is fragile: his next +book, or your next year of culture, might see the interest +frosted or outgrown; and himself, in spite of all, you +might probably find the most distasteful person upon +earth. My case is different. I have bad health, am often +condemned to silence for days together—was so once for +six weeks, so that my voice was awful to hear when I first +used it, like the whisper of a shadow—have outlived all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>194</span> +my chief pleasures, which were active and adventurous, +and ran in the open air: and being a person who prefers +life to art, and who knows it is a far finer thing to be in +love, or to risk a danger, than to paint the finest picture +or write the noblest book, I begin to regard what remains +to me of my life as very shadowy. From a variety of +reasons, I am ashamed to confess I was much in this +humour when your letter came. I had a good many +troubles; was regretting a high average of sins; had been +recently reminded that I had outlived some friends, and +wondering if I had not outlived some friendships; and +had just, while boasting of better health, been struck +down again by my haunting enemy, an enemy who was +exciting at first, but has now, by the iteration of his strokes, +become merely annoying and inexpressibly irksome. Can +you fancy that to a person drawing towards the elderly +this sort of conjunction of circumstances brings a rather +aching sense of the past and the future? Well, it was +just then that your letter and your photograph were +brought to me in bed; and there came to me at once the +most agreeable sense of triumph. My books were still +young; my words had their good health and could go +about the world and make themselves welcome; and even +(in a shadowy and distant sense) make something in the +nature of friends for the sheer hulk that stays at home +and bites his pen over the manuscripts. It amused me +very much to remember that I had been in Chicago, not +so many years ago, in my proper person; where I had +failed to awaken much remark, except from the ticket +collector; and to think how much more gallant and +persuasive were the fellows that I now send instead of me, +and how these are welcome in that quarter to the sitter +of Herr Platz, while their author was not very welcome +even in the villainous restaurant where he tried to eat a +meal and rather failed.</p> + +<p>And this leads me directly to a confession. The +photograph which shall accompany this is not chosen +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195"></a>195</span> +as the most like, but the best-looking. Put yourself in +my place, and you will call this pardonable. Even as +it is, even putting forth a flattered presentment, I am a +little pained; and very glad it is a photograph and not +myself that has to go; for in this case, if it please you, +you can tell yourself it is my image—and if it displease +you, you can lay the blame on the photographer; but in +that, there were no help, and the poor author might belie +his labours.</p> + +<p><i>Kidnapped</i> should soon appear; I am afraid you may +not like it, as it is very unlike <i>Prince Otto</i> in every way; +but I am myself a great admirer of the two chief characters, +Alan and David. <i>Virginibus Puerisque</i> has never +been issued in the States. I do not think it is a book +that has much charm for publishers in any land; but I +am to bring out a new edition in England shortly, a copy +of which I must try to remember to send you. I say try +to remember, because I have some superficial acquaintance +with myself: and I have determined, after a galling +discipline, to promise nothing more until the day of my +death: at least, in this way, I shall no more break my +word, and I must now try being churlish instead of being +false.</p> + +<p>I do not believe you to be the least like Seraphina. +Your photograph has no trace of her, which somewhat +relieves me, as I am a good deal afraid of Seraphinas—they +do not always go into the woods and see the sunrise, +and some are so well-mailed that even that experience +would leave them unaffected and unsoftened. The “hair +and eyes of several complexions” was a trait taken from +myself; and I do not bind myself to the opinions of Sir +John. In this case, perhaps—but no, if the peculiarity is +shared by two such pleasant persons as you and I (as +you and me—the grammatical nut is hard), it must be a +very good thing indeed, and Sir John must be an ass.</p> + +<p>The Book Reader notice was a strange jumble of fact +and fancy. I wish you could have seen my father’s old +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>196</span> +assistant and present partner when he heard my father +described as an “inspector of lighthouses,” for we are all +very proud of the family achievements, and the name of +my house here in Bournemouth is stolen from one of the +sea-towers of the Hebrides which are our pyramids and +monuments. I was never at Cambridge, again; but +neglected a considerable succession of classes at Edinburgh. +But to correct that friendly blunderer were to +write an autobiography.—And so now, with many thanks, +believe me yours sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Accompanying a presentation copy of <i>Kidnapped</i>. Alison +Cunningham’s maiden name had been Hastie.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Bournemouth, July</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,—Herewith goes my new book, in +which you will find some places that you know: I hope +you will like it: I do. The name of the girl at Limekilns +(as will appear if the sequel is ever written) was Hastie, +and I conceive she was an ancestor of yours: as David +was no doubt some kind of relative of mine.</p> + +<p>I have no time for more, but send my love, and remembrances +to your brother.—Ever your affectionate</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To R. A. M. Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>During these months, as already indicated, Stevenson was very +much taken up, in by-hours, with trying to learn something of the +theory and practice of music, and spent much of his time “pickling,” +as he called it, in an elementary manner on the piano. He even +tried his hand in an experimental way at composition, and had +sent one of his attempts for criticism to his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. +Stevenson, who was better versed in the art.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,—Your foolish letter was unduly received. There +may be hidden fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>197</span> +spontaneous the thing was. I could tinker and tic-tac-toe +on a piece of paper, but scorned the act with a Threnody, +which was poured forth like blood and water on the +groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) +remained unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: +crystallised emotion, the statement and the reconciliation +of the sorrows of the race and the individual, is obviously +no more to you than supping sawdust. Well, well. If +ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably +be a Passepied and fugue in G (or D).</p> + +<p>The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. +of an aged Spanish filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now +pickle with some freedom (1) the refrain of <i>Martini’s +Moutons</i>; (2) <i>Sul margine d’un rio</i>, arranged for the +infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase +of Bach’s musette (Sweet Englishwoman,<a name="FnAnchor_18" id="FnAnchor_18" href="#Footnote_18"><span class="sp">18</span></a> No. 3), the rest +of the musette being one prolonged cropper, which I take +daily for the benefit of my health. All my other works +(of which there are many) are either arranged (by R. L. +Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or +else prolonged and melancholy croppers.... I find one +can get a notion of music very nicely. I have been pickling +deeply in the Magic Flute; and have arranged <i>La +dove prende</i>, almost to the end, for two melodious forefingers. +I am next going to score the really nobler +<i>Colomba o tortorella</i> for the same instruments.</p> + + <p class="center pt1">This day is published<br /> +The works of Ludwig van Beethoven<br /> + arranged<br /> + and wiederdurchgearbeiteted<br /> + for two melodious forefingers<br /> + by,</p> + <p class="rt1">Sir,—Your obedient servant,</p> + <p class="sc rt">Pimperly Stipple.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>198</span></p> + +<p class="noind pt1">That’s a good idea? There’s a person called Lenz who +actually does it—beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies +on him, and found the bleeding corpses of pieces of music +divorced from their keys, despoiled of their graces, and +even changed in time; I do not wish to regard music (nor +to be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You say you +are “a spoon-fed idiot”; but how about Lenz? And +how about me, sir, me?</p> + +<p>I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, +an empty matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a +bell from a cat’s collar, an iron kitchen spoon, and a piece +of coal more than half the superficies of this sheet of +paper. They are now (appropriately enough) speeding +towards the Silly Isles; I hope he will find them useful. +By that, and my telegram with prepaid answer to yourself, +you may judge of my spiritual state. The finances +have much brightened; and if <i>Kidnapped</i> keeps on as it +has begun, I may be solvent.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt1">Threnodiæ Avctor</p> +<p class="rt">(The author of ane Threnodie).</p> + +<p class="pt1">Op. 2: Scherzo (in G Major) expressive of the Sense +of favours to come.</p> + + +<p class="to">To R. A. M. Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore</i> [<i>Bournemouth, July</i> 1886].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR BOB</span>,—Herewith another shy; more melancholy +than before, but I think not so abjectly idiotic. The +musical terms seem to be as good as in Beethoven, and +that, after all, is the great affair. Bar the dam bareness +of the bass, it looks like a piece of real music from a distance. +I am proud to say it was not made one hand at +a time; the bass was of synchronous birth with the treble; +they are of the same age, sir, and may God have mercy +on their souls!—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">The Maestro.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>199</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. T. Stevenson had been thinking of trying a winter +at Bournemouth for the sake of being near their son, a plan which +was eventually carried out. The health of the former was now +fast and painfully breaking. Mr. J. W. Alexander, the well-known +American artist, had been down at Skerryvore with an introduction +from Mr. Gosse, and had made a drawing of Stevenson’s head.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 7th,</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR PEOPLE</span>,—It is probably my fault, and not +yours, that I did not understand. I think it would be +well worth trying the winter in Bournemouth; but I would +only take the house by the month—this after mature +discussion. My leakage still pursues its course; if I were +only well, I have a notion to go north and get in (if I +could) at the inn at Kirkmichael, which has always smiled +upon me much. If I did well there, we might then meet +and do what should most smile at the time.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, of course, I must not move, and am in a +rancid box here, feeling the heat a great deal, and pretty +tired of things. Alexander did a good thing of me at +last; it looks like a mixture of an aztec idol, a lion, an +Indian Rajah, and a woman; and certainly represents +a mighty comic figure. F. and Lloyd both think +it is the best thing that has been done of me up to +now.</p> + +<p>You should hear Lloyd on the penny whistle, and me +on the piano! Dear powers, what a concerto! I now +live entirely for the piano, he for the whistle; the neighbours, +in a radius of a furlong and a half, are packing up +in quest of brighter climes.—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Please say if you can afford to let us have money +for this trip, and if so, how much. I can see the year +through without help, I believe, and supposing my health +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>200</span> +to keep up; but can scarce make this change on my +own metal.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Doubtless, if all goes well, towards +the 1st of August we shall be begging at your door. Thanks +for a sight of the papers, which I return (you see) at once, +fearing further responsibility.</p> + +<p>Glad you like Dauvit; but eh, man, yon’s terrible +strange conduc’ o’ thon man Rankeillor. Ca’ him a legal +adviser! It would make a bonny law-shuit, the Shaws +case; and yon paper they signed, I’m thinking, wouldnae +be muckle thought o’ by Puggy Deas.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Hecky was a dog belonging to his correspondent’s brother. +Stevenson was always interested by his own retentiveness of memory +for childish things, and here asks Cummy some questions to test +the quality of hers.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,—I was sorry to get so poor account +of you and Hecky. Fanny thinks perhaps it might be +Hecky’s teeth. Sir Walter Simpson has a very clever vet. +I have forgotten his name; but if you like, I send a card +and you or James might ask the address.</p> + +<p>Now to what is more important. Do you remember +any of the following names: Lady Boothroyd, Barny Gee, +Andrew Silex, the Steward, Carus Rearn, Peter Mangles, +Richard Markham, Fiddler Dick? Please let me know +and I will tell you how I come to ask. I warn you, you +will have to cast back your eyes a good long way, close +upon thirty years, before you strike the trail on which +I wish to lead you.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201"></a>201</span></p> + +<p>When I have had an answer I will write you a decent +letter. To-day, though nothing much is wrong with me, +I am out of sorts and most disinclined for writing.—Yours +most affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Coolin,” mentioned below, had been a favourite Skye terrier of +Heriot Row days.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>July</i> 28, 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FATHER</span>,—We have decided not to come to +Scotland, but just to do as Dobell wished, and take an +outing. I believe this is wiser in all ways; but I own it +is a disappointment. I am weary of England; like Alan, +“I weary for the heather,” if not for the deer. Lloyd has +gone to Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with +whom he should have a good time. <i>David</i> seems really +to be going to succeed, which is a pleasant prospect on +all sides. I am, I believe, floated financially; a book +that sells will be a pleasant novelty. I enclose another +review; mighty complimentary, and calculated to sell +the book too.</p> + +<p>Coolin’s tombstone has been got out, honest man! and +it is to be polished, for it has got scratched, and have a +touch of gilding in the letters, and be sunk in the front +of the house. Worthy man, he, too, will maybe weary +for the heather, and the bents of Gullane, where (as I dare +say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and jumped on to +his crown from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of many +thousand rabbits. I can still hear the little cries of the +honest fellow as he disappeared; and my mother will +correct me, but I believe it was two days before he turned +up again at North Berwick: to judge by his belly, he +had caught not one out of these thousands, but he had +had some exercise.</p> + +<p>I keep well.—Ever your affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202"></a>202</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Anticipating the gift of a cupboard and answering the questions +set in his last. The date of the readings had been his seventh year. +Mr. Galpin was a partner in Cassell, Petter, Galpin, & Co.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, +July or August</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,—The cupboard has not yet turned +up, and I was hanging on to be able to say it had. However, +that is only a trick to escape another letter, and I +should despise myself if I kept it up. It was truly kind +of you, dear Cummy, to send it to us: and I will let you +know where we set it and how it looks.</p> + +<p>Carus Rearn and Andrew Silex and the others were +from a story you read me in Cassell’s Family Paper, and +which I have been reading again and found by no means +a bad story. Mr. Galpin lent me all the old volumes, and +I mean to re-read Custaloga also, but have not yet. It +was strangely like old times to read the other; don’t you +remember the poisoning with mushrooms? That was +Andrew Silex.—Yours most affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Having given up going to Scotland for a summer change, Stevenson +had started on the “outing” which he mentions in the last +letter. It took the shape of a ten days’ visit to my house at the +British Museum, followed by another made in the company of Mr. +Henley to Paris, chiefly for the sake of seeing the W. H. Lows and +the sculptor Rodin.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>British Museum</i> [<i>August 10th,</i> 1886].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MOTHER</span>,—We are having a capital holiday, +and I am much better, and enjoying myself to the nines. +Richmond is painting my portrait. To-day I lunch with +him, and meet Burne-Jones; to-night Browning dines +with us. That sounds rather lofty work, does it not? +His path was paved with celebrities. To-morrow we leave +for Paris, and next week, I suppose, or the week after, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id="page203"></a>203</span> +come home. Address here, as we may not reach Paris. +I am really very well.—Ever your affectionate son,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To T. Watts-Dunton</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written after his return from London and Paris.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i> [<i>September</i> 1886].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. WATTS</span>,—The sight of the last Athenæum +reminds me of you, and of my debt, now too long due. +I wish to thank you for your notice of <i>Kidnapped</i>; and +that not because it was kind, though for that also I valued +it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you before +now for a hundred articles on a hundred different writers. +A critic like you is one who fights the good fight, contending +with stupidity, and I would fain hope not all in +vain; in my own case, for instance, surely not in vain.</p> + +<p>What you say of the two parts in <i>Kidnapped</i> was felt +by no one more painfully than by myself. I began it +partly as a lark, partly as a pot-boiler; and suddenly it +moved, David and Alan stepped out from the canvas, and +I found I was in another world. But there was the cursed +beginning, and a cursed end must be appended; and our +old friend Byles the butcher was plainly audible tapping +at the back door. So it had to go into the world, one +part (as it does seem to me) alive, one part merely galvanised: +no work, only an essay. For a man of tentative +method, and weak health, and a scarcity of private means, +and not too much of that frugality which is the artist’s +proper virtue, the days of sinecures and patrons look +very golden: the days of professional literature very +hard. Yet I do not so far deceive myself as to think I +should change my character by changing my epoch; the +sum of virtue in our books is in a relation of equality to +the sum of virtues in ourselves; and my <i>Kidnapped</i> was +doomed, while still in the womb and while I was yet in +the cradle, to be the thing it is.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204"></a>204</span></p> + +<p>And now to the more genial business of defence. You +attack my fight on board the <i>Covenant</i>: I think it literal. +David and Alan had every advantage on their side—position, +arms, training, a good conscience; a handful of +merchant sailors, not well led in the first attack, not led +at all in the second, could only by an accident have taken +the round-house by attack; and since the defenders had +firearms and food, it is even doubtful if they could have +been starved out. The only doubtful point with me is +whether the seamen would have ever ventured on the +second onslaught; I half believe they would not; still the +illusion of numbers and the authority of Hoseason would +perhaps stretch far enough to justify the extremity.—I am, +dear Mr. Watts, your very sincere admirer,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CUMMY</span>,—I am home from a long holiday, +vastly better in health. My wife not home yet, as she is +being cured in some rather boisterous fashion by some +Swedish doctors. I hope it may do her good, as the process +seems not to be agreeable in itself.</p> + +<p>Your cupboard has come, and it is most beautiful: it +is certainly worth a lot of money, and is just what we +have been looking for in all the shops for quite a while: +so your present falls very pat. It is to go in our bedroom +I think; but perhaps my wife will think it too much of +a good thing to be put so much out of the way, so I shall +not put it in its place till her return. I am so well that I +am afraid to speak of it, being a coward as to boasting. +I take walks in the wood daily, and have got back to my +work after a long break. The story I wrote you about +was one you read to me in Cassell’s Family Paper long ago +when it came out. It was astonishing how clearly I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id="page205"></a>205</span> +remembered it all, pictures, characters, and incidents, +though the last were a little mixed and I had not the least +the hang of the story. It was very pleasant to read it +again, and remember old days, and the weekly excursion +to Mrs. Hoggs after that precious journal. Dear me, lang +syne now! God bless you, dear Cummy.—Your afft. boy,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mr. Locker-Lampson, better known as Frederick Locker, the +friend of Tennyson and most accomplished writer of <i>vers de société</i> +in his time, had through their common friend Mr. Andrew Lang +asked Stevenson for a set of verses, and he had sent the following—which +were first printed, I believe, at the head of a very scarce +volume:—“<i>Rowfant Rhymes</i>, by Frederick Locker, with an introduction +by Austin Dobson. Cleveland, The Rowfant Club, 1895. +127 copies only printed.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, September</i> 4, 1886.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Not roses to the rose, I trow,</p> + <p class="i1">The thistle sends, nor to the bee</p> +<p>Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now</p> + <p class="i1">Should Locker ask a verse from me?</p> + +<p class="s">Martial, perchance,—but he is dead,</p> + <p class="i1">And Herrick now must rhyme no more;</p> +<p>Still burning with the muse, they tread</p> + <p class="i1">(And arm in arm) the shadowy shore.</p> + +<p class="s">They, if they lived, with dainty hand,</p> + <p class="i1">To music as of mountain brooks,</p> +<p>Might bring you worthy words to stand</p> + <p class="i1">Unshamed, dear Locker, in your books.</p> + +<p class="s">But tho’ these fathers of your race</p> + <p class="i1">Be gone before, yourself a sire,</p> +<p>To-day you see before your face</p> + <p class="i1">Your stalwart youngsters touch the lyre.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>206</span></p> +<p class="s">On these—on Lang or Dobson—call,</p> + <p class="i1">Long leaders of the songful feast.</p> +<p>They lend a verse your laughing fall—</p> + <p class="i1">A verse they owe you at the least.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + + +<p class="to">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>To Mr. Locker’s acknowledgment of these verses Stevenson +replied as follows, asking his correspondent’s interest on behalf of +a friend who had been kind to him at Hyères, in procuring a +nomination for her son to the Blue-Coat School.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LOCKER</span>,—You take my verses too kindly, but +you will admit, for such a bluebottle of a versifier to enter +the house of Gertrude, where her necklace hangs, was not +a little brave. Your kind invitation, I fear, must remain +unaccepted; and yet—if I am very well—perhaps next +spring—(for I mean to be very well)—my wife might.... +But all that is in the clouds with my better health. +And now look here: you are a rich man and know many +people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of Christ’s +Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in +which I would (if I could) do anything. To approach you, +in this way, is not decent; and you may therefore judge +by my doing it, how near this matter lies to my heart. I +enclose you a list of the Governors, which I beg you to +return, whether or not you shall be able to do anything +to help me.</p> + +<p>The boy’s name is ——; he and his mother are very +poor. It may interest you in her cause if I tell you this: +that when I was dangerously ill at Hyères, this brave +lady, who had then a sick husband of her own (since dead) +and a house to keep and a family of four to cook for, all +with her own hands, for they could afford no servant, +yet took watch-about with my wife, and contributed not +only to my comfort, but to my recovery in a degree that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207"></a>207</span> +I am not able to limit. You can conceive how much I +suffer from my impotence to help her, and indeed I have +already shown myself a thankless friend. Let not my cry +go up before you in vain!—Yours in hope,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mr. Locker, apparently misunderstanding the application, had +replied with a cheque.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOCKER</span>,—That I should call myself a man +of letters, and land myself in such unfathomable +ambiguities! No, my dear Locker, I did not want a +cheque; and in my ignorance of business, which is greater +even than my ignorance of literature, I have taken the +liberty of drawing a pen through the document and returning +it; should this be against the laws of God or +man, forgive me. All that I meant by my excessively +disgusting reference to your material well-being was the +vague notion that a man who is well off was sure to know +a Governor of Christ’s Hospital; though how I quite +arrived at this conclusion I do not see. A man with a +cold in the head does not necessarily know a ratcatcher; +and the connection is equally close—as it now appears to +my awakened and somewhat humbled spirit. For all that, +let me thank you in the warmest manner for your friendly +readiness to contribute. You say you have hopes of +becoming a miser: I wish I had; but indeed I believe +you deceive yourself, and are as far from it as ever. I +wish I had any excuse to keep your cheque, for it is much +more elegant to receive than to return; but I have my +way of making it up to you, and I do sincerely beg you +to write to the two Governors. This extraordinary out-pouring +of correspondence would (if you knew my habits) +convince you of my great eagerness in this matter. I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208"></a>208</span> +would promise gratitude; but I have made a promise to +myself to make no more promises to anybody else, having +broken such a host already, and come near breaking my +heart in consequence; and as for gratitude, I am by +nature a thankless dog, and was spoiled from a child up. +But if you can help this lady in the matter of the Hospital, +you will have helped the worthy. Let me continue to +hope that I shall make out my visit in the spring, and +believe me, yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">It may amuse you to know that a very long while ago, +I broke my heart to try to imitate your verses, and failed +hopelessly. I saw some of the evidences the other day +among my papers, and blushed to the heels.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">I give up finding out your name in the meantime, and +keep to that by which you will be known—Frederick +Locker.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>24th September</i> 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOCKER</span>,—You are simply an angel of light, +and your two letters have gone to the post; I trust they +will reach the hearts of the recipients—at least, that could +not be more handsomely expressed. About the cheque: +well now, I am going to keep it; but I assure you Mrs. +—— has never asked me for money, and I would not dare +to offer any till she did. For all that I shall stick to the +cheque now, and act to that amount as your almoner. +In this way I reward myself for the ambiguity of my +epistolary style.</p> + +<p>I suppose, if you please, you may say your verses are +thin (would you so describe an arrow, by the way, and +one that struck the gold? It scarce strikes me as exhaustively +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>209</span> +descriptive), and, thin or not, they are (and I +have found them) inimitably elegant. I thank you again +very sincerely for the generous trouble you have taken in +this matter which was so near my heart, and you may be +very certain it will be the fault of my health and not my +inclination, if I do not see you before very long; for all +that has past has made me in more than the official sense +sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Auguste Rodin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written after another visit to me in London, in November, +which had been cut short by fogs. “Le Printemps” is Rodin’s +group so called.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December</i> 1886.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MON CHER AMI</span>,—Il y a bien longtemps déjà que je vous +dois des lettres par dizaines; mais bien que je vais mieux, +je ne vais toujours que doucement. Il a fallu faire le +voyage à Bournemouth comme une fuite en Egypte, par +crainte des brouillards qui me tuaient; et j’en ressentais +beaucoup de fatigue. Mais maintenant celà commence à +aller, et je puis vous donner de mes nouvelles.</p> + +<p>Le Printemps est arrivé, mais il avait le bras cassé, et +nous l’avons laissé, lors de notre fuite, aux soins d’un +médecin-de-statues. Je l’attends de jour en jour; et ma +maisonette en resplendira bientôt. Je regrette beaucoup +le dédicace; peutêtre, quand vous viendrez nous voir, ne +serait-il pas trop tard de l’ajouter? Je n’en sais rien, je +l’espère. L’œuvre, c’est pour tout le monde; le dédicace +est pour moi. L’œuvre est un cadeau, trop beau même; +c’est le mot d’amitié qui me le donne pour de bon. Je +suis si bête que je m’embrouille, et me perds; mais vous +me comprendrez, je pense.</p> + +<p>Je ne puis même pas m’exprimer en Anglais; comment +voudriez vous que je le pourrais en Français? Plus +heureux que vous, le Némésis des arts ne me visite pas +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210"></a>210</span> +sous le masque du désenchantement; elle me suce l’intelligence +et me laisse bayer aux corneilles, sans capacité +mais sans regret; sans espérance, c’est vrai, mais aussi, +Dieu merci, sans désespoir. Un doux étonnement me +tient; je ne m’habitue pas à me trouver si bûche, mais je +m’y résigne; même si celà durait, ce ne serait pas désagréable—mais +comme je mourrais certainement de faim, +ce serait tout au moins regrettable pour moi et ma famille.</p> + +<p>Je voudrais pouvoir vous écrire; mais ce n’est pas moi +qui tiens la plume—c’est l’autre, le bête, celui qui ne +connaît pas le Français, celui qui n’aime pas mes amis +comme je les aime, qui ne goûte pas aux choses de l’art +comme j’y goûte; celui que je renie, mais auquel je commande +toujours assez pour le faire prendre la plume en main +et écrire des tristes bavardages. Celui-là, mon cher Rodin, +vous ne l’aimez pas; vous ne devez jamais le connaître. +Votre ami, qui dort à present, comme un ours, au plus +profond de mon être, se réveillera sous peu. Alors, il +vous écrira de sa propre main. Attendez lui. L’autre ne +compte pas; ce n’est qu’un secrétaire infidèle et triste, +à l’âme gelée, à la tête de bois.</p> + +<p>Celui qui dort est toujours, mon cher ami, bien à vous; +celui qui écrit est chargé de vous en faire part et de signer +de la raison sociale,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson et Triple-Brute.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following refers first, if I remember right, to some steps that +were being taken to obtain recognition in the form of a knighthood +for the elder Stevenson’s public services; next, to the writer’s own +work at the time in hand; and lastly, to my volume on Keats then +in preparation for the <i>English Men of Letters</i> series.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Dec.</i> 14, 1886.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—This is first-rate of you, the Lord +love you for it! I am truly much obliged. He—my father—is +very changeable; at times, he seems only a slow +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>211</span> +quiet edition of himself; again, he will be very heavy +and blank; but never so violent as last spring; and +therefore, to my mind, better on the whole.</p> + +<p>Fanny is pretty peepy; I am splendid. I have been +writing much verse—quite the bard, in fact; and also a +dam tale to order, which will be what it will be: I don’t +love it, but some of it is passable in its mouldy way, <i>The +Misadventures of John Nicholson</i>. All my bardly exercises +are in Scotch; I have struck my somewhat ponderous +guitar in that tongue to no small extent: with what +success, I know not, but I think it’s better than my English +verse; more marrow and fatness, and more ruggedness.</p> + +<p>How goes <i>Keats</i>? Pray remark, if he (Keats) hung +back from Shelley, it was not to be wondered at, <i>when so +many of his friends were Shelley’s pensioners</i>. I forget if +you have made this point; it has been borne in upon me +reading Dowden and the <i>Shelley Papers</i>; and it will do +no harm if you have made it. I finished a poem to-day, +and writ 3000 words of a story, <i>tant bien que mal</i>; and +have a right to be sleepy, and (what is far nobler and +rarer) am so.—My dear Colvin, ever yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">The Real Mackay.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Lady Taylor</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson’s volume of tales <i>The Merry Men</i>, so called from the +story which heads the collection, was about to appear with a dedication +to Lady Taylor. Professor Dowden’s <i>Shelley</i> had lately +come out, and had naturally been read with eager interest in a +circle where Sir Percy (the poet’s son) and Lady Shelley were +intimate friends and neighbours.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i> [<i>New Year,</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR</span>,—This is to wish you all the +salutations of the year, with some regret that I cannot +offer them in person; yet less than I had supposed. For +hitherto your flight to London seems to have worked well; +and time flies and will soon bring you back again. Though +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>212</span> +time is ironical, too; and it would be like his irony if the +same tide that brought you back carried me away. That +would not be, at least, without some meeting.</p> + +<p>I feel very sorry to think the book to which I have +put your name will be no better, and I can make it no +better. The tales are of all dates and places; they are +like the box, the goose, and the cottage of the ferryman; +and must go floating down time together as best they +can. But I am after all a (superior) penny-a-liner; I +must do, in the Scotch phrase, as it will do with me; and +I cannot always choose what my books are to be, only seize +the chance they offer to link my name to a friend’s. I +hope the lot of them (the tales) will look fairly disciplined +when they are clapped in binding; but I fear they will +be but an awkward squad. I have a mild wish that you +at least would read them no further than the dedication.</p> + +<p>I suppose we have all been reading Dowden. It seems +to me a really first-rate book, full of justice, and humour +without which there can be no justice; and of fine intelligence +besides. Here and there, perhaps a trifle precious, +but this is to spy flaws in a fine work. I was weary +at my resemblances to Shelley; I seem but a Shelley with +less oil, and no genius; though I have had the fortune +to live longer and (partly) to grow up. He was growing +up. There is a manlier note in the last days; in spite +of such really sickening aberrations as the Emillia Viviani +business. I try to take a humorously-genial view of life; +but Emillia Viviani, if I have her detested name aright,<a name="FnAnchor_19" id="FnAnchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"><span class="sp">19</span></a> +is too much for my philosophy. I cannot smile when I +see all these grown folk waltzing and piping the eye about +an insubordinate and perfectly abominable schoolgirl, as +silly and patently as false as Blanche Amory.<a name="FnAnchor_20" id="FnAnchor_20" href="#Footnote_20"><span class="sp">20</span></a> I really +think it is one of those episodes that make the angels weep.</p> + +<p>With all kind regards and affectionate good wishes to +and for you and yours, believe me, your affectionate +friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>213</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Lady Taylor</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The reference in the last paragraph to a “vision” cannot be +explained, his correspondent’s daughters retaining no memory on +the subject.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR</span>,—I don’t know but what I +agree fairly well with all you say, only I like <i>The Merry +Men</i>, as a fantasia or vision of the sea, better than you +do. The trouble with <i>Olalla</i> is that it somehow sounds +false; and I think it must be this that gives you the feeling +of irreverence. Of <i>Thrawn Janet</i>, which I like very much +myself, you say nothing, thus uttering volumes; but it +is plain that people cannot always agree. I do not think +it is a wholesome part of me that broods on the evil in the +world and man; but I do not think that I get harm from +it; possibly my readers may, which is more serious; but at +any account, I do not purpose to write more in this vein. +But the odd problem is: what makes a story true? <i>Markheim</i> +is true; <i>Olalla</i> false; and I don’t know why, nor +did I feel it while I worked at them; indeed I had more +inspiration with <i>Olalla</i>, as the style shows. I am glad you +thought that young Spanish woman well dressed; I admire +the style of it myself, more than is perhaps good for me; +it is so solidly written. And that again brings back +(almost with the voice of despair) my unanswerable: why +is it false?</p> + +<p>Here is a great deal about my works. I am in bed +again; and my wife but so-so; and we have no news +recently from Lloyd; and the cat is well; and we see, +or I see, no one; so that other matters are all closed +against me.</p> + +<p>Your vision is strange indeed; but I see not how to +use it; I fear I am earthy enough myself to regard it as +a case of disease, but certainly it is a thrilling case to +hear of.—Ever affectionately yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>214</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This letter is written on the front page of a set of proofs of +<i>Memories and Portraits</i>. The “silly Xmas story” is <i>The Misadventures +of John Nicholson</i>; the “volume of verse” appeared +later in the year as <i>Underwoods</i>. The signature refers to the two +Scots poets of whom, “in his native speech,” he considered himself +the follower.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January</i> 1887.</p> + +<p class="center">All the salutations!</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES</span>,—I send you the first sheets of the new +volume, all that has yet reached me, the rest shall follow +in course. I am really a very fair sort of a fellow all +things considered, have done some work; a silly Xmas +story (with some larks in it) which won’t be out till I don’t +know when. I am also considering a volume of verse, +much of which will be cast in my native speech, that very +dark oracular medium: I suppose this is a folly, but what +then? As the nurse says in Marryat, “It was only a +little one.”</p> + +<p>My wife is peepy and dowie: two Scotch expressions +with which I will leave you to wrestle unaided, as a preparation +for my poetical works. She is a woman (as you +know) not without art: the art of extracting the gloom +of the eclipse from sunshine; and she has recently laboured +in this field not without success or (as we used to say) +not without a blessing. It is strange: “we fell out my +wife and I” the other night; she tackled me savagely for +being a canary-bird; I replied (bleatingly) protesting that +there was no use in turning life into King Lear; presently +it was discovered that there were two dead combatants +upon the field, each slain by an arrow of the truth, and +we tenderly carried off each other’s corpses. Here is a +little comedy for Henry James to write! The beauty was +each thought the other quite unscathed at first. But we +had dealt shrewd stabs.</p> + +<p>You say nothing of yourself, which I shall take to be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>215</span> +good news. Archer’s note has gone. He is, in truth, a +very clever fellow that Archer, and I believe a good one. +It is a pleasant thing to see a man who can use a pen; +he can: really says what he means, and says it with a +manner; comes into print like one at his ease, not shame-faced +and wrong-foot-foremost like the bulk of us. Well, +here is luck, and here are the kindest recollections from +the canary-bird and from King Lear, from the Tragic +Woman and the Flimsy Man.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Ramsay Fergusson Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Frederick Locker-Lampson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson suffered more even than usual after the turn of the +year and during the spring of 1887, and for several months his +correspondence almost entirely fails. This is in reply to an invitation +to Rowfant for Easter.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 5th,</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOCKER</span>,—Here I am in my bed as usual, and +it is indeed a long while since I went out to dinner. You +do not know what a crazy fellow this is. My winter has +not so far been luckily passed, and all hope of paying +visits at Easter has vanished for twelve calendar months. +But because I am a beastly and indurated invalid, I am +not dead to human feelings; and I neither have forgotten +you nor will forget you. Some day the wind may round +to the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am +still truly yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The volume of tales here mentioned is <i>The Merry Men</i>; that of +essays, <i>Memories and Portraits</i>; that of verse, <i>Underwoods</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES</span>,—My health has played me it in once +more in the absurdest fashion, and the creature who now +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>216</span> +addresses you is but a stringy and white-faced <i>bouilli</i> out +of the pot of fever, with the devil to pay in every corner +of his economy. I suppose (to judge by your letter) I +need not send you these sheets, which came during my +collapse by the rush. I am on the start with three volumes, +that one of tales, a second one of essays, and one of—ahem—verse. +This is a great order, is it not? After that +I shall have empty lockers. All new work stands still; +I was getting on well with Jenkin when this blessed malady +unhorsed me, and sent me back to the dung-collecting trade +of the republisher. I shall re-issue <i>Virg. Puer.</i> as vol. <span class="sc">I.</span> +of <i>Essays</i>, and the new vol. as vol. <span class="sc">II.</span> of ditto; to be sold, +however, separately. This is but a dry maundering; +however, I am quite unfit—“I am for action quite unfit +Either of exercise or wit.” My father is in a variable +state; many sorrows and perplexities environ the house +of Stevenson; my mother shoots north at this hour on +business of a distinctly rancid character; my father +(under my wife’s tutorage) proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; +I remain here in my bed and whistle; in no quarter +of heaven is anything encouraging apparent, except that +the good Colvin comes to the hotel here on a visit. This +dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the fact +that my head aches, which I always regard as a liberty +on the part of the powers that be. This is also my first +letter since my recovery. God speed your laudatory pen!</p> + +<p>My wife joins in all warm messages.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Auguste Rodin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MON CHER AMI</span>,—Je vous néglige, et cependant ce +n’est véritablement pas de ma faute. J’ai fait encore une +maladie; et je puis dire que je l’ai royalement bien faite. +Que celà vous aide à me pardonner. Certes je ne vous +oublie pas; et je puis dire que je ne vous oublierai jamais. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>217</span> +Si je n’écris pas, dites que je suis malade—c’est trop +souvent vrai, dites que je suis las d’écrivailler—ce sera +toujours vrai; mais ne dites pas, et ne pensez pas, que je +deviens indifférent. J’ai devant moi votre portrait tiré +d’un journal anglais (et encadré à mes frais), et je le regarde +avec amitié, je le regarde même avec une certaine complaisance—dirai-je, +de faux aloi? comme un certificat de +jeunesse. Je me croyais trop vieux—au moins trop +quarante-ans—pour faire de nouveaux amis; et quand je +regarde votre portrait, et quand je pense au plaisir de vous +revoir, je sens que je m’étais trompé. Écrivez-moi donc +un petit mot, pour me dire que vous ne gardez pas rancune +de mon silence, et que vous comptez bientôt venir en +Angleterre. Si vous tardez beaucoup, ce sera moi qui irai +vous relancer.—Bien à vous, mon cher ami,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mr. Low and his wife, who were at this time leaving Paris for +good, had been meditating a visit to the Stevensons at Bournemouth +on their way home to the United States.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>April</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—The fares to London may be found +in any continental Bradshaw or sich; from London to +Bournemouth impoverished parties who can stoop to the +third class get their ticket for the matter of 10s., or, as +my wife loves to phrase it, “a half a pound.” You will +also be involved in a 3s. fare to get to Skerryvore; but +this, I dare say, friends could help you in on your arrival; +so that you may reserve your energies for the two tickets—costing +the matter of a pound—and the usual gratuities +to porters. This does not seem to me much: considering +the intellectual pleasures that await you here, I call it dirt +cheap. I <i>believe</i> the third class from Paris to London +(<i>via</i> Dover) is <i>about</i> forty francs, but I cannot swear. +Suppose it to be fifty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218"></a>218</span></p> + +<table class="nobctr" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td> </td> <td class="tc2">frcs. </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">50 × 2 = 100</td> +<td class="tc2">100 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">The expense of spirit or spontaneous lapse of coin on the journey, + at 5 frcs. a head, 5 × 2 = 10</td> +<td class="tc2">10 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">Victuals on ditto, at 5 frcs. a head, 5 × 2 = 10</td> +<td class="tc2">10 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">Gratuity to stewardess, in case of severe prostration, at 3 francs</td> +<td class="tc2">3 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">One night in London, on a modest footing, say 20</td> +<td class="tc2">20 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">Two tickets to Bournemouth at 12.50, 12.50 × 2 = 25</td> +<td class="tc2">25 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">Porters and general devilment, say 5</td> +<td class="tc2">5 </td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3b">Cabs in London, say 2 shillings, and in Bournemouth, + 3 shillings = 5 shillings, 6 frcs. 25</td> +<td class="tc2">6.25</td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td> <td class="tc2">———</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc2">frcs.</td> +<td class="tc2">179.25</td></tr> +</table> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Or, the same in pounds, £7, 3s. 6½d.</p> +<p>Or, the same in dollars, $35.45,</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out +dinner in London in case you want to blow out, which +would come extry, and with the aid of <i>vangs fangs</i> might +easily double the whole amount—above all if you have a +few friends to meet you.</p> + +<p>In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered +for the first time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the +singular costliness of travelling with your wife. Anybody +would count the tickets double; but how few would +have remembered—or indeed has any one ever remembered?—to +count the spontaneous lapse of coin double also? +Yet there are two of you, each must do his daily leakage, +and it must be done out of your travelling fund. You +will tell me, perhaps, that you carry the coin yourself: +my dear sir, do you think you can fool your Maker? +Your wife has to lose her quota; and by God she will—if +you kept the coin in a belt. One thing I have omitted: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>219</span> +you will lose a certain amount on the exchange, but this +even I cannot foresee, as it is one of the few things that +vary with the way a man has.—I am, dear sir, yours +financially,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Samuel Budgett.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>I had lately sent him two books, the fifth volume of Huxley’s +<i>Collected Essays</i> and Cotter Morison’s <i>Service of Man</i>: the latter a +work of Positivist tendency, which its genial and accomplished +author had long meditated, but which unfortunately he only began +to write after a rapid decline of health and power had set in.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Spring</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I read Huxley, and a lot of it with +great interest. Eh, what a gulf between a man with a +mind like Huxley and a man like Cotter Morison. Truly +’tis the book of a boy; before I was twenty I was done +with all these considerations. Nor is there one happy +phrase, except “the devastating flood of children.” Why +should he din our ears with languid repetitions of the very +first ideas and facts that a bright lad gets hold of; and +how can a man be so destitute of historical perspective, +so full of cheap outworn generalisations—feudal ages, +time of suffering—<i>pas tant qu’aujourdhui</i>, M. Cotter! +Christianity—which? what? how? You must not attack +all forms, from Calvin to St. Thomas, from St. Thomas +to (One who should surely be considered) Jesus Christ, +with the same missiles: they do not all tell against all. +But there it is, as we said; a man joins a sect, and becomes +one-eyed. He affects a horror of vices which are +just the thing to stop his “devastating flood of babies,” and +just the thing above all to keep the vicious from procreating. +Where, then, is the ground of this horror in any intelligent +Servant of Humanity? O, beware of creeds and anti-creeds, +sects and anti-sects. There is but one truth, outside +science, the truth that comes of an earnest, smiling +survey of mankind “from China to Peru,” or further, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>220</span> +from to-day to the days of Probably Arboreal; and the +truth (however true it is) that robs you of sympathy with +any form of thought or trait of man, is false for you, and +heretical, and heretico-plastic. Hear Morison struggling +with his chains; hear me, hear all of us, when we suffer +our creeds or anti-creeds to degenerate towards the whine, +and begin to hate our neighbours, or our ancestors, like +ourselves. And yet in Morison, too, as in St. Thomas, as +in Rutherford, ay, or in Peden, truth struggles, or it would +not so deform them. The man has not a devil; it is an +angel that tears and blinds him. But Morison’s is an old, +almost a venerable seraph, with whom I dealt before I was +twenty, and had done before I was twenty-five.</p> + +<p>Behold how the voices of dead preachers speak hollowly +(and lengthily) within me!—Yours ever—and rather better—not +much,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Alison Cunningham</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Skerryvore, April 16th,</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAREST CUMMY</span>,—As usual, I have been a dreary +bad fellow and not written for ages; but you must just +try to forgive me, to believe (what is the truth) that the +number of my letters is no measure of the number of +times I think of you, and to remember how much writing +I have to do. The weather is bright, but still cold; and +my father, I’m afraid, feels it sharply. He has had—still +has, rather—a most obstinate jaundice, which has reduced +him cruelly in strength, and really upset him altogether. +I hope, or think, he is perhaps a little better; but he +suffers much, cannot sleep at night, and gives John and +my mother a severe life of it to wait upon him. My wife +is, I think, a little better, but no great shakes. I keep +mightily respectable myself.</p> + +<p>Coolin’s Tombstone is now built into the front wall +of Skerryvore, and poor Bogie’s (with a Latin inscription +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>221</span> +also) is set just above it. Poor, unhappy wee man, he +died, as you must have heard, in fight, which was what he +would have chosen; for military glory was more in his +line than the domestic virtues. I believe this is about +all my news, except that, as I write, there is a blackbird +singing in our garden trees, as it were at Swanston. I +would like fine to go up the burnside a bit, and sit by +the pool and be young again—or no, be what I am still, +only there instead of here, for just a little. Did you see +that I had written about John Todd? In this month’s +Longman it was; if you have not seen it, I will try and +send it you. Some day climb as high as Halkerside for +me (I am never likely to do it for myself), and sprinkle +some of the well water on the turf. I am afraid it is a +pagan rite, but quite harmless, and <i>ye can sain it wi’ a +bit prayer</i>. Tell the Peewies that I mind their forbears +well. My heart is sometimes heavy and sometimes glad +to mind it all. But for what we have received, the +Lord make us truly thankful. Don’t forget to sprinkle +the water, and do it in my name; I feel a childish +eagerness in this.</p> + +<p>Remember me most kindly to James, and with all sorts +of love to yourself, believe me, your laddie,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—I suppose Mrs. Todd ought to see the paper +about her man; judge of that, and if you think she would +not dislike it, buy her one from me, and let me know. +The article is called <i>Pastoral</i>, in Longman’s Magazine for +April. I will send you the money; I would to-day, but +it’s the Sabbie day, and I cannae.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Remembrances from all here.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following sets forth the <i>pros</i> and <i>cons</i> which were balancing +each other in his mind in regard to his scheme of going +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222"></a>222</span> +to make a stand in his own person against agrarian outrage in +Ireland.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>April 15 or 16<br /> +(the hour not being known),</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,—It is I know not what hour +of the night; but I cannot sleep, have lit the gas, and +here goes.</p> + +<p>First, all your packet arrived: I have dipped into the +Schumann already with great pleasure. Surely, in what +concerns us there is a sweet little chirrup; the <i>Good Words</i> +arrived in the morning just when I needed it, and the +famous notes that I had lost were recovered also in the +nick of time.</p> + +<p>And now I am going to bother you with my affairs: +premising, first, that this is <i>private</i>; second, that whatever +I do the <i>Life</i> shall be done first, and I am getting on +with it well; and third, that I do not quite know why I +consult you, but something tells me you will hear with +fairness.</p> + +<p>Here is my problem. The Curtin women are still +miserable prisoners; no one dare buy their farm of them, +all the manhood of England and the world stands aghast +before a threat of murder. (1) Now, my work can be +done anywhere; hence I can take up without loss a back-going +Irish farm, and live on, though not (as I had originally +written) in it: First Reason. (2) If I should be +killed, there are a good many who would feel it: writers +are so much in the public eye, that a writer being murdered +would attract attention, throw a bull’s-eye light +upon this cowardly business: Second Reason. (3) I am +not unknown in the States, from which the funds come +that pay for these brutalities: to some faint extent, my +death (if I should be killed) would tell there: Third +Reason. (4) <i>Nobody else is taking up this obvious and +crying duty:</i> Fourth Reason. (5) I have a crazy health +and may die at any moment, my life is of no purchase +in an insurance office, it is the less account to husband it, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>223</span> +and the business of husbanding a life is dreary and demoralising: +Fifth Reason.</p> + +<p>I state these in no order, but as they occur to me. +And I shall do the like with the objections.</p> + +<p>First Objection: It will do no good; you have seen +Gordon die, and nobody minded; nobody will mind if you +die. This is plainly of the devil. Second Objection: You +will not even be murdered, the climate will miserably kill +you, you will strangle out in a rotten damp heat, in congestion, +etc. Well, what then? It changes nothing: the +purpose is to brave crime; let me brave it, for such time +and to such an extent as God allows. Third Objection: +The Curtin women are probably highly uninteresting +females. I haven’t a doubt of it. But the Government +cannot, men will not, protect them. If I am the only +one to see this public duty, it is to the public and the +Right I should perform it—not to Mesdames Curtin. +Fourth Objection: I am married. “I have married a +wife!” I seem to have heard it before. It smells ancient! +what was the context? Fifth Objection: My wife has +had a mean life (1), loves me (2), could not bear to lose +me (3). (1) I admit: I am sorry. (2) But what does +she love me for? and (3) she must lose me soon or late. +And after all, because we run this risk, it does not follow +we should fail. Sixth Objection: My wife wouldn’t like +it. No, she wouldn’t. Who would? But the Curtins +don’t like it. And all those who are to suffer if this goes +on, won’t like it. And if there is a great wrong, somebody +must suffer. Seventh Objection: I won’t like it. +No, I will not; I have thought it through, and I will not. +But what of that? And both she and I may like it more +than we suppose. We shall lose friends, all comforts, all +society: so has everybody who has ever done anything; +but we shall have some excitement, and that’s a fine thing; +and we shall be trying to do the right, and that’s not to +be despised. Eighth Objection: I am an author with my +work before me. See Second Reason. Ninth Objection: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>224</span> +But am I not taken with the hope of excitement? I was +at first. I am not much now. I see what a dreary, friendless, +miserable, God-forgotten business it will be. And +anyway, is not excitement the proper reward of doing +anything both right and a little dangerous? Tenth +Objection: But am I not taken with a notion of glory? +I dare say I am. Yet I see quite clearly how all points to +nothing coming, to a quite inglorious death by disease +and from the lack of attendance; or even if I should be +knocked on the head, as these poor Irish promise, how +little any one will care. It will be a smile at a thousand +breakfast-tables. I am nearly forty now; I have not +many illusions. And if I had? I do not love this health-tending, +housekeeping life of mine. I have a taste for +danger, which is human, like the fear of it. Here is a fair +cause; a just cause; no knight ever set lance in rest for +a juster. Yet it needs not the strength I have not, only +the passive courage that I hope I could muster, and the +watchfulness that I am sure I could learn.</p> + +<p>Here is a long midnight dissertation; with myself; +with you. Please let me hear. But I charge you this: +if you see in this idea of mine the finger of duty, do not +dissuade me. I am nearing forty, I begin to love my ease +and my home and my habits, I never knew how much +till this arose; do not falsely counsel me to put my head +under the bed-clothes. And I will say this to you: my +wife, who hates the idea, does not refuse. “It is nonsense,” +says she, “but if you go, I will go.” Poor girl, +and her home and her garden that she was so proud of! +I feel her garden most of all, because it is a pleasure (I +suppose) that I do not feel myself to share.</p> + +<div class="list2"> + +<p> 1. Here is a great wrong.</p> +<p> 2. Here is a growing wrong.</p> +<p> 3. Here is a wrong founded on crime.</p> +<p> 4. Here is crime that the Government cannot prevent.</p> +<p> 5. Here is crime that it occurs to no man to defy.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id="page225"></a>225</span></p> +<p> 6. But it has occurred to me.</p> +<p> 7. Being a known person, some will notice my defiance.</p> +<p> 8. Being a writer, I can <i>make</i> people notice it.</p> +<p> 9. And, I think, <i>make</i> people imitate me.</p> +<p>10. Which would destroy in time this whole scaffolding of oppression.</p> +<p>11. And if I fail, however ignominiously, that is not my concern. + It is, with an odd mixture of reverence and humorous remembrances + of Dickens, be it said—it is A-nother’s.</p> +</div> + +<p class="pt2">And here, at I cannot think what hour of the morning, I +shall dry up, and remain—Yours, really in want of a little +help,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<table class="nobctr" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1">Sleepless</td> <td class="tc1">at midnight’s</td> <td class="tc3">dewy  hour.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc3">witching  ”</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc3">maudlin  ”</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td> </td><td class="tc1">etc.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><i>Next morning.</i>—Eleventh Objection: I have a father +and mother. And who has not? Macduff’s was a rare +case; if we must wait for a Macduff. Besides, my father +will not perhaps be long here. Twelfth Objection: The +cause of England in Ireland is not worth supporting. +<i>À qui le dites-vous?</i> And I am not supporting that. +Home Rule, if you like. Cause of decency, the idea that +populations should not be taught to gain public ends +by private crime, the idea that for all men to bow before +a threat of crime is to loosen and degrade beyond redemption +the whole fabric of man’s decency.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The first paragraph of the following refers to the <i>Life of Fleeming +Jenkin</i>; the second, to a remark of his correspondent that a task +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226"></a>226</span> +such as he had proposed to himself in Ireland should be undertaken +by a society rather than an individual.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,—The Book. It is all drafted: +I hope soon to send you for comments Chapters <span class="sc">III.</span>, <span class="sc">IV.</span>, +and <span class="sc">V.</span> Chapter <span class="sc">VII.</span> is roughly but satisfactorily drafted: +a very little work should put that to rights. But Chapter +<span class="sc">VI.</span> is no joke; it is a <i>mare magnum</i>: I swim and drown +and come up again; and it is all broken ends and mystification: +moreover, I perceive I am in want of more +matter. I must have, first of all, a little letter from +Mr. Ewing about the phonograph work: <i>If</i> you think +he would understand it is quite a matter of chance whether +I use a word or a fact out of it. If you think he would +not: I will go without. Also, could I have a look at +Ewing’s <i>précis</i>? And lastly, I perceive I must interview +you again about a few points; they are very few, and +might come to little; and I propose to go on getting +things as well together as I can in the meanwhile, and +rather have a final time when all is ready and only to be +criticised. I do still think it will be good. I wonder if +Trélat would let me cut? But no, I think I wouldn’t +after all; ’tis so quaint and pretty and clever and simple +and French, and gives such a good sight of Fleeming: +the plum of the book, I think.</p> + +<p>You misunderstood me in one point: I always hoped +to found such a society; that was the outside of my +dream, and would mean entire success. <i>But</i>—I cannot +play Peter the Hermit. In these days of the Fleet Street +journalist, I cannot send out better men than myself, with +wives or mothers just as good as mine, and sisters (I may +at least say) better, to a danger and a long-drawn dreariness +that I do not share. My wife says it’s cowardice; +what brave men are the leader-writers! Call it cowardice; +it is mine. Mind you, I may end by trying to do it by +the pen only: I shall not love myself if I do; and is it +ever a good thing to do a thing for which you despise +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227"></a>227</span> +yourself?—even in the doing? And if the thing you do +is to call upon others to do the thing you neglect? I have +never dared to say what I feel about men’s lives, because +my own was in the wrong: shall I dare to send them to +death? The physician must heal himself; he must +honestly <i>try</i> the path he recommends: if he does not +even try, should he not be silent?</p> + +<p>I thank you very heartily for your letter, and for the +seriousness you brought to it. You know, I think when +a serious thing is your own, you keep a saner man by +laughing at it and yourself as you go. So I do not write +possibly with all the really somewhat sickened gravity I +feel. And indeed, what with the book, and this business +to which I referred, and Ireland, I am scarcely in an +enviable state. Well, I ought to be glad, after ten years +of the worst training on earth—valetudinarianism—that I +can still be troubled by a duty. You shall hear more in +time; so far, I am at least decided: I will go and see +Balfour when I get to London.</p> + +<p>We have all had a great pleasure: a Mrs. Rawlinson +came and brought with her a nineteen-year-old daughter, +simple, human, as beautiful as—herself; I never admired +a girl before, you know it was my weakness: we are all +three dead in love with her. How nice to be able to do +so much good to harassed people by—yourself!—Ever +yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Rawlinson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Here follows a compliment in verse to the young lady last +mentioned, whose Christian name was May.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April</i> 1887.]</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Of the many flowers you brought me,</p> + <p class="i1">Only some were meant to stay,</p> +<p>And the flower I thought the sweetest</p> + <p class="i1">Was the flower that went away.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228"></a>228</span></p> +<p class="s">Of the many flowers you brought me,</p> + <p class="i1">All were fair and fresh and gay,</p> +<p>But the flower I thought the sweetest</p> + <p class="i1">Was the blossom of the May.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Within a fortnight after the date of the above Stevenson went +himself, and for the last time, to Scotland, and was present, too +late for recognition, at the death of his father (May 8, 1887). Business +detained him for some weeks, and the following was written +just before his return to Bournemouth.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Edinburgh, June</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR S. C.</span>,—At last I can write a word to you. +Your little note in the P.M.G. was charming. I have +written four pages in the Contemporary, which Bunting +found room for: they are not very good, but I shall do +more for his memory in time.</p> + +<p>About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long +before I could tell my mind; and now I know it, and can +but say that I am glad. If we could have had my father, +that would have been a different thing. But to keep that +changeling—suffering changeling—any longer, could better +none and nothing. Now he rests; it is more significant, it +is more like himself. He will begin to return to us in the +course of time, as he was and as we loved him.</p> + +<p>My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene—“O +let him pass,” Kent and Lear—was played for me here +in the first moment of my return. I believe Shakespeare +saw it with his own father. I had no words; but it was +shocking to see. He died on his feet, you know; was on +his feet the last day, knowing nobody—still he would be +up. This was his constant wish; also that he might +smoke a pipe on his last day. The funeral would have +pleased him; it was the largest private funeral in man’s +memory here.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id="page229"></a>229</span></p> + +<p>We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home +without going through town. I do not know; I have no +views yet whatever; nor can have any at this stage of +my cold and my business.—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sir Walter Simpson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written during a short visit to me between his return from +Scotland and his departure for New York.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>British Museum</i> [<i>July</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SIMPSON</span>,—This is a long time I have not +acknowledged the Art of Golf, though I read it through +within thirty-six hours of its arrival. I have been ill and +out of heart, and ill again and again ill, till I am weary +of it, and glad indeed to try the pitch-farthing hazard of +a trip to Colorado or New Mexico. There we go, if I prove +fit for the start, on August 20th.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the Art of Golf. A lot of it is very funny, +and I liked the fun very well; but what interested me +most was the more serious part, because it turns all the +while on a branch of psychology that no one has treated +and that interests me much: the psychology of athletics. +I had every reason to be interested in it, because I am +abnormal: I have no memory in athletics. I have forgotten +how to ride and how to skate; and I should +not be the least surprised if I had forgotten how to +swim.</p> + +<p>I find I can write no more: it is the first I have tried +since I was ill; and I am too weak.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>During the two months following his father’s death Stevenson +had suffered much both from his old complaints and from depression +of mind. His only work had been in preparing for press the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id="page230"></a>230</span> +verse collection <i>Underwoods</i>, the <i>Life of Fleeming Jenkin</i>, and the +volume of essays called <i>Memories and Portraits</i>. The opinions +quoted are those of physicians.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR LAD</span>,—I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson’s +well-known work, <i>Virginibus Puerisque</i>, is about to be +reprinted. At the same time a second volume called +<i>Memories and Portraits</i> will issue from the roaring loom. +Its interest will be largely autobiographical, Mr. S. having +sketched there the lineaments of many departed friends, +and dwelt fondly, and with a m’istened eye, upon by-gone +pleasures. The two will be issued under the common +title of <i>Familiar Essays</i>; but the volumes will be vended +separately to those who are mean enough not to hawk +at both.</p> + +<p>The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began +to think I should not get away. However, I hope—I +hope—remark the word—no boasting—I hope I may luff +up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw, gave as usual a good +account of my lungs, and expressed himself, like his +neighbours, hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle +says, Scott says, Brown says—they all say—You ought +not to be in such a state of health; you should recover. +Well, then, I mean to. My spirits are rising again after +three months of black depression: I almost begin to feel +as if I should care to live: I would, by God! And so I +believe I shall.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Bulletin M’Gurder.</p> + +<p>How has the <i>Deacon</i> gone?</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Skerryvore, Bournemouth</i>] <i>August 6th,</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—We—my mother, my wife, my stepson, +my maidservant, and myself, five souls—leave, if all +is well, Aug. 20th, per Wilson line s.s. Ludgate Hill. Shall +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231" id="page231"></a>231</span> +probably evade N. Y. at first, cutting straight to a watering-place: +Newport, I believe, its name. Afterwards we shall +steal incognito into <i>la bonne ville</i>, and see no one but you +and the Scribners, if it may be so managed. You must +understand I have been very seedy indeed, quite a dead +body; and unless the voyage does miracles, I shall have +to draw it dam fine. Alas, “The Canoe Speaks” is now +out of date; it will figure in my volume of verses now +imminent. However, I may find some inspiration some +day.—Till very soon, yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The lady to whom the following (and much correspondence yet +to come) is addressed had been an attached friend of the Skerryvore +household and a pupil of Stevenson’s in the art of writing. She had +given R. L. S. a paper-cutter by way of farewell token at his starting.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bournemouth, August 19th,</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS BOODLE</span>,—I promise you the paper-knife +shall go to sea with me; and if it were in my disposal, I +should promise it should return with me too. All that +you say, I thank you for very much; I thank you for all +the pleasantness that you have brought about our house; +and I hope the day may come when I shall see you again +in poor old Skerryvore, now left to the natives of Canada, +or to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am afraid my +attempt to jest is rather <i>à contre-cœur</i>.—Good-bye—<i>au +revoir</i>—and do not forget your friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Messrs. Chatto and Windus</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The titles and proofs mentioned in the text are presumably those +of <i>Underwoods</i> and <i>Memories and Portraits</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Bournemouth</i> [<i>August</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIRS</span>,—I here enclose the two titles. Had you +not better send me the bargains to sign? I shall be here +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id="page232"></a>232</span> +till Saturday; and shall have an address in London (which +I shall send you) till Monday, when I shall sail. Even if +the proofs do not reach you till Monday morning, you +could send a clerk from Fenchurch Street Station at 10.23 +<span class="sc">A.M.</span> for Galleons Station, and he would find me embarking +on board the <i>Ludgate Hill</i>, Island Berth, Royal Albert +Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be necessary to +catch this last chance. I am most anxious to have the +proofs with me on the voyage.—Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10" href="#FnAnchor_10"><span class="fn">10</span></a> Cough.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11" href="#FnAnchor_11"><span class="fn">11</span></a> Loose talk.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12" href="#FnAnchor_12"><span class="fn">12</span></a> Mr. Charles Morley, at this time manager or assistant-manager +of the Pall Mall Gazette.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13" href="#FnAnchor_13"><span class="fn">13</span></a> <i>Princess Casamassima.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14" href="#FnAnchor_14"><span class="fn">14</span></a> Lothian vernacular pronunciation of Cunningham.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15" href="#FnAnchor_15"><span class="fn">15</span></a> In <i>Underwoods</i> the lines thus bracketed as doubtful stand with +the change:</p> + +<p class="center">“Life is over; life was gay.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16" href="#FnAnchor_16"><span class="fn">16</span></a> <i>Prince Otto.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17" href="#FnAnchor_17"><span class="fn">17</span></a> The name of the hero in Dostoieffsky’s <i>Le Crime et le Châtiment</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18" href="#FnAnchor_18"><span class="fn">18</span></a> <i>Suite anglaise.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19" href="#FnAnchor_19"><span class="fn">19</span></a> As in fact he had, all except the double l.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20" href="#FnAnchor_20"><span class="fn">20</span></a> In <i>Pendennis</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233"></a>233</span></p> +<h3>IX</h3> + +<h3>THE UNITED STATES AGAIN</h3> + +<h3>WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS</h3> + +<h5><span class="sc">August 1887—June 1888</span></h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> letters printed in the following section are selected +from those which tell of Stevenson’s voyage to New York +and reception there at the beginning of September 1887; +of his winter’s life and work at Saranac Lake, and of +his decision taken in May 1888 to venture on a yachting +cruise in the South Seas.</p> + +<p>The moment of his arrival at New York was that when +his reputation had first reached its height in the United +States, owing to the popularity both of <i>Treasure Island</i> +and <i>Kidnapped</i>, but more especially to the immense +impression made by the <i>Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and +Mr. Hyde</i>. He experienced consequently for the first time +the pleasures, such as they were, of celebrity, and also its +inconveniences; found the most hospitable of refuges in +the house of his kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fairchild, +at Newport; and quickly made many other friends, +including the late Augustus St. Gaudens, the famous +sculptor, with Mr. C. Scribner and Mr. E. L. Burlingame, +the owner and the editor of Scribner’s Magazine, from +whom he immediately received and accepted very advantageous +offers of work. Having been dissuaded from +braving for the present the fatigue of the long journey to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id="page234"></a>234</span> +Colorado and the extreme rigour of its winter climate, he +determined to try instead a season at Saranac Lake in the +Adirondack Mountains, New York State, which had lately +been coming into reputation as a place of cure. There, +under the care of the well-known resident physician, Dr. +Trudeau, he spent nearly seven months, from the end of +September 1887 to the end of April 1888, with results +on the whole favourable to his own health, though not +to that of his wife, which could never support these winter +mountain cures. On the 16th of April, he and his party +left Saranac. After spending a fortnight in New York, +where, as always in cities, his health quickly flagged +again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters +at Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, +for the sake of fresh air and boating. Here he enjoyed +the occasional society of some of his New York friends, +including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was +initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the +meantime, Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco to +see her relatives; and holding that the climate of the +Pacific was likely to be better for the projected cruise than +that of the Atlantic, had inquired there whether a yacht +was to be hired for such a purpose. The schooner <i>Casco</i>, +Captain Otis, was found. Stevenson signified by telegraph +his assent to the arrangement; determined to risk +in the adventure the sum of £2000, of which his father’s +death had put him in possession, hoping to recoup himself +by a series of Letters recounting his experiences, for +which he had received a commission from Mr. S. S. M’Clure; +and on the 2nd of June started with his mother and stepson +for San Francisco, the first stage on that island cruise +from which he was destined never to return.</p> + +<p>His work during the season September 1887-May 1888 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235"></a>235</span> +had consisted of the twelve papers published in the course +of 1888 in Scribner’s Magazine, including perhaps the most +striking of all his essays, <i>A Chapter on Dreams</i>, <i>Pulvis et +Umbra</i>, <i>Beggars</i>, <i>The Lantern Bearers</i>, <i>Random Memories</i>, +etc.; as well as the greater part of the <i>Master of Ballantrae</i> +and <i>The Wrong Box</i>—the last originally conceived and +drafted by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>A succession of Stevenson’s friends had visited and spent part +of the day or the evening with him at Armfield’s hotel on Sunday, +August 20th, each bringing some farewell gift or another (as related +by Mr. Gosse in his volume <i>Critical Kitcats</i>, p. 297). Among these, +Mr. Henry James’s gift had been a case of champagne for consumption +during the journey. On the morning of the 21st I accompanied +him to the docks, saw him and his party embarked on board +the steamer <i>Ludgate Hill</i>, a vessel sailing from the port of London +and carrying animals and freight as well as passengers. They had +chosen to go by this route for the sake alike of economy and amusement, +rather than by one of the sumptuous liners sailing from +Liverpool or Southampton. Leaving the ship’s side as she weighed +anchor, and waving farewell to the party from the boat which +landed me, I little knew what was the truth, that I was looking on +the face of my friend for the last time. The letters next following +were written during or Immediately after his passage across the +Atlantic. “The Commodore” is of course R. L. S.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>H.M.S.</i> Vulgarium, <i>off Havre de Grace,<br /> +this 22nd day of August</i> [1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,—The weather has been hitherto inimitable. Inimitable +is the only word that I can apply to our fellow-voyagers, +whom a categorist, possibly premature, has been +already led to divide into two classes—the better sort +consisting of the baser kind of Bagman, and the worser +of undisguised Beasts of the Field. The berths are excellent, +the pasture swallowable, the champagne of H. James +(to recur to my favourite adjective) inimitable. As for +the Commodore, he slept awhile in the evening, tossed off +a cup of Henry James with his plain meal, walked the deck +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>236</span> +till eight, among sands and floating lights and buoys and +wrecked brigantines, came down (to his regret) a minute +too soon to see Margate lit up, turned in about nine, slept, +with some interruptions, but on the whole sweetly, until +six, and has already walked a mile or so of deck, among +a fleet of other steamers waiting for the tide, within view +of Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats, +hovering sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck +with endearments of primitive simplicity. There, sir, can +be viewed the sham quarrel, the sham desire for information, +and every device of these two poor ancient sexes (who +might, you might think, have learned in the course of the +ages something new) down to the exchange of head-gear.—I +am, sir, yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Bold Bob Boltsprit.</p> + +<p class="pt2">B. B. B. (<i>alias</i> the Commodore) will now turn to his +proofs. Havre de Grace is a city of some show. It is +for-ti-fied; and, so far as I can see, is a place of some +trade. It is situ-ated in France, a country of Europe. +You always complain there are no facts in my letters.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Newport, R.I., U.S.A.</i> [<i>September</i> 1887]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—So long it went excellent well, and +I had a time I am glad to have had; really enjoying my +life. There is nothing like being at sea, after all. And +O, why have I allowed myself to rot so long on land? +But on the Banks I caught a cold, and I have not yet got +over it. My reception here was idiotic to the last degree.... +It is very silly, and not pleasant, except where +humour enters; and I confess the poor interviewer lads +pleased me. They are too good for their trade; avoided +anything I asked them to avoid, and were no more vulgar +in their reports than they could help. I liked the lads.</p> + +<p>O, it was lovely on our stable-ship, chock full of stallions. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237"></a>237</span> +She rolled heartily, rolled some of the fittings out of our +state-room, and I think a more dangerous cruise (except +that it was summer) it would be hard to imagine. But +we enjoyed it to the masthead, all but Fanny; and even +she perhaps a little. When we got in, we had run out of +beer, stout, cocoa, soda-water, water, fresh meat, and +(almost) of biscuit. But it was a thousandfold pleasanter +than a great big Birmingham liner like a new hotel; and +we liked the officers, and made friends with the quarter-masters, +and I (at least) made a friend of a baboon (for +we carried a cargo of apes), whose embraces have pretty +near cost me a coat. The passengers improved, and were +a very good specimen lot, with no drunkard, no gambling +that I saw, and less grumbling and backbiting than one +would have asked of poor human nature. Apes, stallions, +cows, matches, hay, and poor men-folk, all, or almost all, +came successfully to land.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Newport, U.S.A., September</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES</span>,—Here we are at Newport in the house +of the good Fairchilds; and a sad burthen we have laid +upon their shoulders. I have been in bed practically ever +since I came. I caught a cold on the Banks after having +had the finest time conceivable, and enjoyed myself more +than I could have hoped on board our strange floating +menagerie: stallions and monkeys and matches made our +cargo; and the vast continent of these incongruities rolled +the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotised +by the motion, looking through the ports at our +dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; +and the little monkeys stared at each other in their cages, +and were thrown overboard like little bluish babies; and +the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested +willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238"></a>238</span> +man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, +and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a +picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, +when they were not sick, looked on and laughed. Take +all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound +unexpected notes and the fittings shall break loose in our +state-room, and you have the voyage of the <i>Ludgate Hill</i>. +She arrived in the port of New York, without beer, porter, +soda-water, curaçoa, fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet +we lived, and we regret her.</p> + +<p>My wife is a good deal run down, and I am no great +shakes.</p> + +<p>America is, as I remarked, a fine place to eat in, and +a great place for kindness; but, Lord, what a silly thing +is popularity! I envy the cool obscurity of Skerryvore. +If it even paid, said Meanness! and was abashed at himself.—Yours +most sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>New York, end of September</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR S. C.</span>,—Your delightful letter has just come, +and finds me in a New York hotel, waiting the arrival +of a sculptor (St. Gaudens) who is making a medallion of +yours truly and who is (to boot) one of the handsomest +and nicest fellows I have seen. I caught a cold on the +Banks; fog is not for me; nearly died of interviewers and +visitors, during twenty-four hours in New York; cut for +Newport with Lloyd and Valentine, a journey like fairyland +for the most engaging beauties, one little rocky and +pine-shaded cove after another, each with a house and a +boat at anchor, so that I left my heart in each and marvelled +why American authors had been so unjust to their +country; caught another cold on the train; arrived at +Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239"></a>239</span> +bed until I left again; the Fairchilds proving during this +time kindness itself; Mr. Fairchild simply one of the +most engaging men in the world, and one of the children, +Blair, <i>aet.</i> ten, a great joy and amusement in his solemn +adoring attitude to the author of <i>Treasure Island</i>.</p> + +<p>Here I was interrupted by the arrival of my sculptor.—I +withdraw calling him handsome; he is not quite that, his +eyes are too near together; he is only remarkable looking, +and like an Italian cinque-cento medallion; I have begged +him to make a medallion of himself and give me a copy. +I will not take up the sentence in which I was wandering +so long, but begin fresh. I was ten or twelve days at +Newport; then came back convalescent to New York. +Fanny and Lloyd are off to the Adirondacks to see if that +will suit; and the rest of us leave Monday (this is Saturday) +to follow them up. I hope we may manage to stay +there all winter. I have a splendid appetite and have on +the whole recovered well after a mighty sharp attack. +I am now on a salary of £500 a year for twelve articles +in Scribner’s Magazine on what I like; it is more than +£500, but I cannot calculate more precisely. You have +no idea how much is made of me here; I was offered +£2000 for a weekly article—eh heh! how is that? but I +refused that lucrative job. The success of <i>Underwoods</i> is +gratifying. You see, the verses are sane; that is their strong +point, and it seems it is strong enough to carry them.</p> + +<p>A thousand thanks for your grand letter.—Ever yours,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The verses herein alluded to were addressed to Rossetti’s friend, +Dr. Gordon Hake, physician and poet (1809-1895), in return for +some received from him. They are those beginning “In the beloved +hour that ushers day” and printed as No. xix. in <i>Songs of Travel</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>New York</i> [<i>September</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which +please communicate. I did my best with the interviewers; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>240</span> +I don’t know if Lloyd sent you the result; my heart was +too sick: you can do nothing with them; and yet —— +literally sweated with anxiety to please, and took me down +in long hand!</p> + +<p>I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not +busted, but medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, +plain, high-minded artist and honest fellow; you +would like him down to the ground. I believe sculptors +are fine fellows when they are not demons. O, I am now +a salaried person, £600, a year,<a name="FnAnchor_21" id="FnAnchor_21" href="#Footnote_21"><span class="sp">21</span></a> to write twelve articles +in Scribner’s Magazine; it remains to be seen if it really +pays, huge as the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh +me. I hope you will like my answer to Hake, and specially +that he will.</p> + +<p>Love to all.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt1">R. L. S.</p> +<p class="rt">(<i>le salarié</i>).</p> + + +<p class="to">To R. A. M. Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, +New York, U.S.A.</i> [<i>October</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BOB</span>,—The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous +for me; I could not risk the long railway voyage, and the +season was too late to risk the Eastern, Cape Hatteras +side of the steamer one; so here we stuck and stick. We +have a wooden house on a hill-top, overlooking a river, +and a village about a quarter of a mile away, and very +wooded hills; the whole scene is very Highland, bar want +of heather and the wooden houses.</p> + +<p>I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is +proved the sea agrees heartily with me, and my mother +likes it; so if I get any better, or no worse, my mother +will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in summer. Good +Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: +a yacht and a string quartette. For these two I will sell +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241"></a>241</span> +my soul. Except for these I hold that £700 a year is as +much as any body can possibly want; and I have had +more, so I know, for the extry coins were for no use, excepting +for illness, which damns everything.</p> + +<p>I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have +believed it possible. We had the beastliest weather, and +many discomforts; but the mere fact of its being a tramp-ship +gave us many comforts; we could cut about with the +men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all +manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And truly +there is nothing else. I had literally forgotten what happiness +was, and the full mind—full of external and physical +things, not full of cares and labours and rot about a fellow’s +behaviour. My heart literally sang; I truly care for +nothing so much as for that. We took so north a course, +that we saw Newfoundland; no one in the ship had ever +seen it before.</p> + +<p>It was beyond belief to me how she rolled; in seemingly +smooth water, the bell striking, the fittings bounding +out of our state-room. It is worth having lived these +last years, partly because I have written some better +books, which is always pleasant, but chiefly to have had +the joy of this voyage. I have been made a lot of here, +and it is sometimes pleasant, sometimes the reverse; but +I could give it all up, and agree that —— was the author +of my works, for a good seventy ton schooner and the +coins to keep her on. And to think there are parties with +yachts who would make the exchange! I know a little +about fame now; it is no good compared to a yacht; and +anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more genuine +fame; to cross the Atlantic and come to anchor in Newport +(say) with the Union Jack, and go ashore for your +letters and hang about the pier, among the holiday yachtsmen—that’s +fame, that’s glory, and nobody can take it +away; they can’t say your book is bad; you <i>have</i> crossed +the Atlantic. I should do it south by the West Indies, +to avoid the damned Banks; and probably come home +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242"></a>242</span> +by steamer, and leave the skipper to bring the yacht +home.</p> + +<p>Well, if all goes well, we shall maybe sail out of Southampton +water some of these days and take a run to Havre, +and try the Baltic, or somewhere.</p> + +<p>Love to you all—Ever your afft.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sir Walter Simpson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>It was supposed that Stevenson’s letters to this friend, like those +to Professor Fleeming Jenkin, had been destroyed or disappeared +altogether. But besides the two printed above (pp. 117 and 229) +here is a third, preserved by a friend to whom Sir Walter made a +present of it.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, October</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p class="scs">MY DEAR SIMPSON,</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 3em;">the address is</p> +<p style="padding-left: 5em;">c/o Charles Scribner’s Sons,</p> +<p style="padding-left: 7em;">243 Broadway, N.Y.,</p> + +<p class="noind">where I wish you would write and tell us you are better. +But the place of our abode is Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks; +it is a mighty good place too, and I mean it shall +do me good. Indeed the dreadful depression and collapse +of last summer has quite passed away; it was a thorough +change I wanted; I wonder perhaps if it wouldn’t pick +you up—if you are not picked up already; you have been +a long time in Great Britain; and that is a slow poison, +very slow for the strong, but certain for all. Old Dr. +Chepmell told Lloyd: any one can stay a year in England +and be the better for it, but no one can stay there steadily +and not be the worse.</p> + +<p>I have had a very curious experience here; being very +much made of, and called upon, and all that; quite the +famous party in fact: it is not so nice as people try to +make out, when you are young, and don’t want to bother +working. Fame is nothing to a yacht; <i>experto crede</i>. +There are nice bits of course; for you meet very pleasant +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243"></a>243</span> +and interesting people; but the thing at large is a bore +and a fraud; and I am much happier up here, where I +see no one and live my own life. One thing is they do +not stick for money to the Famed One; I was offered +£2000 a year for a weekly article; and I accepted (and +now enjoy) £720 a year for a monthly one: 720/12 (whatever +that may be) for each article, as long or as short as I please, +and on any mortal subject. I am sure it will do me harm to +do it; but the sum was irresistible. See calculations on verso +of last page, and observe, sir, the accuracy of my methods.</p> + +<p>Hulloh, I must get up, as I can’t lose any time. Good-bye, +remember me to her ladyship and salute the Kids.—Ever +your friend,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<div class="list1"> +<p class="noind">12 : 10 : : 72 : <i>x</i>, and this results in the</p> +<p style="padding-left: 3em;">same problem. Well—tackle it.<br /> + +12)720(60<br /> +   72</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 6em;">Is it possible?</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 3em;">£60!!??</p> + +<p class="noind">Let us cheque it by trying it in dollars, $3500 per an.</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 3em;">12)3500(291. 80</p> +<p style="padding-left: 4em;">24<br /> + ——<br /> + 110<br /> + 108<br /> + ——<br /> + 20</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 2em;">Well: $291.80</p> +<p class="noind">then divide by 5 for a rough test</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 6em;">5)291(58. 4. 4<br /> +  25          add 80 cents = 40d. = 3. 4d.<br /> +  —</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 7em;">    3. 4<br /> + —————<br /> + £58. 7. 8</p> + +<p>Well, call it</p> +<p style="padding-left: 6em;"> +  <span style="border-bottom: 3px black solid;">£58.10</span>.</p> + +<p style="padding-left: 9em;">and be done with it!</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id="page244"></a>244</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following refers to a review by Mr. Gosse of Stevenson’s +volume of verse called <i>Underwoods</i>. The book had been published +a few weeks previously, and is dedicated, as readers will remember, +to a number of physicians who had attended him at sundry times +and places.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Oct. 8th,</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—I have just read your article twice, +with cheers of approving laughter. I do not believe you +ever wrote anything so funny: Tyndall’s “shell,” the +passage on the Davos press and its invaluable issues, and +that on V. Hugo and Swinburne, are exquisite; so, I say +it more ruefully, is the touch about the doctors. For the +rest, I am very glad you like my verses so well; and the +qualities you ascribe to them seem to me well found and +well named. I own to that kind of candour you attribute +to me: when I am frankly interested, I suppose I fancy +the public will be so too; and when I am moved, I am +sure of it. It has been my luck hitherto to meet with no +staggering disillusion. “Before” and “After” may be +two; and yet I believe the habit is now too thoroughly +ingrained to be altered. About the doctors, you were +right, that dedication has been the subject of some pleasantries +that made me grind, and of your happily touched +reproof which made me blush. And to miscarry in a +dedication is an abominable form of book-wreck; I am +a good captain, I would rather lose the tent and save my +dedication.</p> + +<p>I am at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, I suppose +for the winter: it seems a first-rate place; we have a +house in the eye of many winds, with a view of a piece of +running water—Highland, all but the dear hue of peat—and +of many hills—Highland also, but for the lack of +heather. Soon the snow will close on us; we are here +some twenty miles—twenty-seven, they say, but this I +profoundly disbelieve—in the woods: communication by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245"></a>245</span> +letter is slow and (let me be consistent) aleatory; by +telegram is as near as may be possible.</p> + +<p>I had some experience of American appreciation; I +liked a little of it, but there is too much; a little of that +would go a long way to spoil a man; and I like myself +better in the woods. I am so damned candid and ingenuous +(for a cynic), and so much of a “cweatu’ of impulse—aw” +(if you remember that admirable Leech) that I begin +to shirk any more taffy; I think I begin to like it too +well. But let us trust the Gods; they have a rod in pickle; +reverently I doff my trousers, and with screwed eyes await +the <i>amari aliquid</i> of the great God Busby.</p> + +<p>I thank you for the article in all ways, and remain +yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, October</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">SIR</span>,—I have to trouble you with the following <i>paroles +bien senties</i>. We are here at a first-rate place. “Baker’s” +is the name of our house, but we don’t address there; we +prefer the tender care of the Post-Office, as more aristocratic +(it is no use to telegraph even to the care of the +Post-Office, who does not give a single damn<a name="FnAnchor_22" id="FnAnchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"><span class="sp">22</span></a>). Baker’s +has a prophet’s chamber, which the hypercritical might +describe as a garret with a hole in the floor: in that garret, +sir, I have to trouble you and your wife to come and +slumber. Not now, however: with manly hospitality, I +choke off any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife +and my mother are gone (a note for the latter, strongly +suspected to be in the hand of your talented wife, now +sits silent on the mantel shelf), one to Niagara and t’other +to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not yet installed. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246"></a>246</span> +And because, third, I won’t have you till I have a buffalo +robe and leggings, lest you should want to paint me as a +plain man, which I am not, but a rank Saranacker and +wild man of the woods.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Fairchild</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Post Office, Saranac Lake,<br /> +Adirondacks, N.Y.</i> [<i>October</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FAIRCHILD</span>,—I do not live in the Post Office; +that is only my address; I live at “Baker’s,” a house +upon a hill, and very jolly in every way. I believe this +is going to do: we have a kind of a garret of a spare room, +where hardy visitors can sleep, and our table (if homely) +is not bad.</p> + +<p>And here, appropriately enough, comes in the begging +part. We cannot get any fruit here: can you manage to +send me some grapes? I told you I would trouble you, +and I will say that I do so with pleasure, which means +a great deal from yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Remember us to all yours: my mother and my +wife are away skylarking; my mother to Niagara, my wife +to Indianapolis; and I live here to-day alone with Lloyd, +Valentine, some cold meat, and four salmon trout, one of +which is being grilled at this moment of writing; so that, +after the immortal pattern of the Indian boys, my household +will soon only reckon three. As usual with me, the +news comes in a P.S., and is mostly folly.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.P.S.</i>—My cold is so much better that I took another +yesterday. But the new one is a puny child; I fear him +not; and yet I fear to boast. If the postscript business +goes on, this establishment will run out of P’s; but I hope +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247" id="page247"></a>247</span> +it wasn’t you that made this paper—just for a last word—I +could not compliment you upon that. And Lord! if +you could see the ink—not what I am using—but the +local vintage! They don’t write much here; I bet what +you please.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The Wondrous Tale referred to in the following is Stevenson’s +<i>Black Arrow</i>, which had been through Mr. Archer’s hands in proof.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, October</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR ARCHER</span>,—Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. +It is scarcely a work of genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks +also for your pencillings; though I defend “shrew,” or +at least many of the shrews.</p> + +<p>We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, +a hill and forest country on the Canadian border +of New York State, very unsettled and primitive and cold, +and healthful, or we are the more bitterly deceived. I +believe it will do well for me; but must not boast.</p> + +<p>My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my +mother, Lloyd, and I remain here in the cold, which has +been exceeding sharp, and the hill air, which is inimitably +fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and make great +fires, and get along like one o’clock.</p> + +<p>I am now a salaried party; I am a <i>bourgeois</i> now; I +am to write a weekly paper for Scribner’s, at a scale of +payment which makes my teeth ache for shame and +diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to you; for +we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced +you, he said he had had his eye upon you from the first. +It is worth while, perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; +they are such thorough gentlefolk in all ways that it is +always a pleasure to deal with them. I am like to be a +millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at the +social revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id="page248"></a>248</span> +my bed; and it would be a godsend to my biographer, if +ever I have one. What are you about? I hope you are +all well and in good case and spirits, as I am now, after +a most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but +indeed I was quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. +Archer, and give my respects to Tom.—Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>“Gleeson White” in this letter means the collection of <i>Ballades, +Rondeaus, &c.</i>, edited by that gentleman and dedicated to R. L. S. +(Walter Scott, 1887).</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, October</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—I hear some vague reports of a success<a name="FnAnchor_23" id="FnAnchor_23" href="#Footnote_23"><span class="sp">23</span></a> +at Montreal.</p> + +<p>My news is not much, my mother is away to Niagara +and Fanny to Indiana; the Port Admiral and I and +Valentine keep house together in our verandahed cottage +near a wood. I am writing, and have got into the vein. +When I got to N. Y. a paper offered me £2000 a year to +do critical weekly articles for them; the sum was so enormous +that I tottered; however, Scribner at once offered +me the same scale to give him a monthly paper in his +magazine; indeed it is rather higher, £720 for the twelve +papers. This I could not decently refuse; and I am now +a yoked man, and after a fit of my usual impotence under +bondage, seem to have got into the swing. I suppose I +shall scarce manage to do much else; but there is the +fixed sum, which shines like a sun in the firmament. A +prophet has certainly a devil of a lot of honour (and much +coins) in another country, whatever he has in his own.</p> + +<p>I got Gleeson White; your best work and either the best +or second best in the book is the Ballade in Hot Weather; +that is really a masterpiece of melody and fancy. Damn +your Villanelles—and everybody’s. G. Macdonald comes +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>249</span> +out strong in his two pious rondels; <i>Fons Bandusiæ</i> +seems as exquisite as ever. To my surprise, I liked two +of the Pantoums, the blue-bottle, and the still better +after-death one from <i>Love in Idleness</i>. Lang cuts a poor +figure, except in the Cricket one; your patter ballade is +a great <i>tour de force</i>, but spoiled by similar cæsuras. On +the whole ’tis a ridiculous volume, and I had more pleasure +out of it than I expected. I forgot to praise Grant Allen’s +excellent ballade, which is the one that runs with yours,—and +here, to the point, a note from you at Margate—among +East Winds and Plain Women, damn them! Well, +what can we do or say? We are only at Saranac for the +winter; and if this <i>Deacon</i> comes off, why you may join +us there in glory; I would I had some news of it. Saranac +is not <i>quite</i> so dear, in some ways, as the rest of this land, +where it costs you a pound to sneeze, and fifty to blow +your nose; but even here it costs $2·50 to get a box from +the station! Think of it! Lift it up tenderly! They +had need to pay well! but how poor devils live; and how +it can pay to take a theatre company over to such a land, +is more than I can fancy. The devil of the States for +you is the conveyances, they are so dear—but O, what +is not!</p> + +<p>I have thrown off my cold in excellent style, though +still very groggy about the knees, so that when I climb +a paling, of which we have many, I feel as precarious +and nutatory as a man of ninety. Under this I grind; +but I believe the place will suit me. Must stop.—Ever +affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The “dear Alexander” mentioned below is Mr. J. W. Alexander, +the well-known American artist, who had been a welcome visitor to +Stevenson at Bournemouth, and had drawn his portrait there. The +humorous romance proceeding from Mr. Osbourne’s typewriter was +the first draft of <i>The Wrong Box</i>; or, as it was originally called, <i>The +Finsbury Tontine</i>, or <i>The Game of Bluff</i>. The article by Mr. Henry +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>250</span> +James referred to in the last paragraph is one on R. L. S. which +had appeared in the Century Magazine for October, and was reprinted +in <i>Partial Portraits</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p style="text-align: right;">[<i>Saranac Lake, October</i> 1887.] I know not the day; but<br /> + the month it is the + drear October by<br /> + the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,—This is to say <i>First</i>, the +voyage was a huge success. We all enjoyed it (bar my +wife) to the ground: sixteen days at sea with a cargo of +hay, matches, stallions, and monkeys, and in a ship with +no style on, and plenty of sailors to talk to, and the endless +pleasures of the sea—the romance of it, the sport of the +scratch dinner and the smashing crockery, the pleasure—an +endless pleasure—of balancing to the swell: well, it’s over.</p> + +<p><i>Second</i>, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport +and New York; saw much of and liked hugely the +Fairchilds, St. Gaudens the sculptor, Gilder of the Century—just +saw the dear Alexander—saw a lot of my old and +admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you knew and +appreciated—was medallioned by St. Gaudens, and at +last escaped to</p> + +<p><i>Third</i>, Saranac Lake, where we now are, and which I +believe we mean to like and pass the winter at. Our +house—emphatically “Baker’s”—is on a hill, and has a +sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley—bless the +face of running water!—and sees some hills too, and the +paganly prosaic roofs of Saranac itself; the Lake it does +not see, nor do I regret that; I like water (fresh water I +mean) either running swiftly among stones, or else largely +qualified with whisky. As I write, the sun (which has +been long a stranger) shines in at my shoulder; from the +next room, the bell of Lloyd’s typewriter makes an agreeable +music as it patters off (at a rate which astonishes this +experienced novelist) the early chapters of a humorous +romance; from still further off—the walls of Baker’s are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id="page251"></a>251</span> +neither ancient nor massive—rumours of Valentine about +the kitchen stove come to my ears; of my mother and +Fanny I hear nothing, for the excellent reason that they +have gone sparking off, one to Niagara, one to Indianapolis. +People complain that I never give news in my letters. I +have wiped out that reproach.</p> + +<p>But now, <i>Fourth</i>, I have seen the article; and it may +be from natural partiality, I think it the best you have +written. O—I remember the Gautier, which was an +excellent performance; and the Balzac, which was good; +and the Daudet, over which I licked my chops; but the +R. L. S. is better yet. It is so humorous, and it hits my +little frailties with so neat (and so friendly) a touch; and +Alan is the occasion for so much happy talk, and the +quarrel is so generously praised. I read it twice, though +it was only some hours in my possession; and Low, who +got it for me from the Century, sat up to finish it ere he +returned it; and, sir, we were all delighted. Here is the +paper out, nor will anything, not even friendship, not even +gratitude for the article, induce me to begin a second +sheet; so here, with the kindest remembrances and the +warmest good wishes, I remain, yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake</i>], <i>18th November</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—No likely I’m going to waste a +sheet of paper.... I am offered £1600 ($8000) for the +American serial rights on my next story! As you say, +times are changed since the Lothian Road. Well, the +Lothian Road was grand fun too; I could take an afternoon +of it with great delight. But I’m awfu’ grand noo, +and long may it last!</p> + +<p>Remember me to any of the faithful—if there are any +left. I wish I could have a crack with you.—Yours ever +affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252"></a>252</span></p> + +<p class="pt1">I find I have forgotten more than I remembered of +business.... Please let us know (if you know) for how +much Skerryvore is let; you will here detect the female +mind; I let it for what I could get; nor shall the possession +of this knowledge (which I am happy to have forgot) +increase the amount by so much as the shadow of a sixpenny +piece; but my females are agog.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Scribner</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Shortly after the date of the present correspondence Stevenson, +to his great advantage, put all his publishing arrangements (as he +had already put his private business) into the hands of his friend +Mr. Baxter. Meantime he was managing them himself; and an +occasional lapse of memory or attention betrayed him once or twice +into misunderstandings, and once at least conflicting agreements +with two different publishers, both his friends. He was the first to +denounce the error when he became aware of it, and suffered sharply +from the sense of his own unintentional fault. The next two letters, +and some allusions in those which follow, relate to this affair.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, November 20 or 21,</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MR. SCRIBNER</span>,—Heaven help me, I am under +a curse just now. I have played fast and loose with what +I said to you; and that, I beg you to believe, in the purest +innocence of mind. I told you you should have the power +over all my work in this country; and about a fortnight +ago, when M’Clure was here, I calmly signed a bargain for +the serial publication of a story. You will scarce believe +that I did this in mere oblivion; but I did; and all that +I can say is that I will do so no more, and ask you to +forgive me. Please write to me soon as to this.</p> + +<p>Will you oblige me by paying in for three articles, as +already sent, to my account with John Paton & Co., 52 +William Street? This will be most convenient for us.</p> + +<p>The fourth article is nearly done; and I am the more +deceived, or it is <i>A Buster</i>.</p> + +<p>Now as to the first thing in this letter, I do wish to +hear from you soon; and I am prepared to hear any reproach, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>253</span> +or (what is harder to hear) any forgiveness; for I +have deserved the worst.—Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This is the first of many letters, increasing in friendliness as the +correspondence goes on, to the editor of Scribner’s Magazine.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, November</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BURLINGAME</span>,—I enclose corrected proof of +<i>Beggars</i>, which seems good. I mean to make a second +sermon, which, if it is about the same length as <i>Pulvis et +Umbra</i>, might go in along with it as two sermons, in which +case I should call the first “The Whole Creation,” and the +second “Any Good.” We shall see; but you might say +how you like the notion.</p> + +<p>One word: if you have heard from Mr. Scribner of +my unhappy oversight in the matter of a story, you will +make me ashamed to write to you, and yet I wish to beg +you to help me into quieter waters. The oversight committed—and +I do think it was not so bad as Mr. Scribner +seems to think it—and discovered, I was in a miserable +position. I need not tell you that my first impulse was to +offer to share or to surrender the price agreed upon when +it should fall due; and it is almost to my credit that +I arranged to refrain. It is one of these positions from +which there is no escape; I cannot undo what I have done. +And I wish to beg you—should Mr. Scribner speak to you +in the matter—to try to get him to see this neglect of mine +for no worse than it is: unpardonable enough, because +a breach of an agreement; but still pardonable, because a +piece of sheer carelessness and want of memory, done, God +knows, without design and since most sincerely regretted. +I have no memory. You have seen how I omitted to +reserve the American rights in <i>Jekyll</i>: last winter I wrote +and demanded, as an increase, a less sum than had already +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254"></a>254</span> +been agreed upon for a story that I gave to Cassell’s. +For once that my forgetfulness has, by a cursed fortune, +seemed to gain, instead of lose, me money, it is painful +indeed that I should produce so poor an impression on the +mind of Mr. Scribner. But I beg you to believe, and if +possible to make him believe, that I am in no degree or +sense a <i>faiseur</i>, and that in matters of business my design, +at least, is honest. Nor (bating bad memory and self-deception) +am I untruthful in such affairs.</p> + +<p>If Mr. Scribner shall have said nothing to you in the +matter, please regard the above as unwritten, and believe +me, yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, November</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BURLINGAME</span>,—The revise seemed all right, +so I did not trouble you with it; indeed, my demand for +one was theatrical, to impress that obdurate dog, your +reader. Herewith a third paper: it has been a cruel long +time upon the road, but here it is, and not bad at last, I +fondly hope. I was glad you liked the <i>Lantern Bearers</i>; +I did, too. I thought it was a good paper, really contained +some excellent sense, and was ingeniously put together. +I have not often had more trouble than I have with these +papers; thirty or forty pages of foul copy, twenty is the +very least I have had. Well, you pay high; it is fit that +I should have to work hard, it somewhat quiets my conscience.—Yours +very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To John Addington Symonds</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Adirondack Mountains,<br /> +New York, U.S.A., November</i> 21, 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SYMONDS</span>,—I think we have both meant and +wanted to write to you any time these months; but we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255" id="page255"></a>255</span> +have been much tossed about, among new faces and old, +and new scenes and old, and scenes (like this of Saranac) +which are neither one nor other. To give you some clue +to our affairs, I had best begin pretty well back. We +sailed from the Thames in a vast bucket of iron that took +seventeen days from shore to shore. I cannot describe +how I enjoyed the voyage, nor what good it did me; but +on the Banks I caught friend catarrh. In New York and +then in Newport I was pretty ill; but on my return to +New York, lying in bed most of the time, with St. Gaudens +the sculptor sculping me, and my old friend Low around, +I began to pick up once more. Now here we are in a kind +of wilderness of hills and firwoods and boulders and snow +and wooden houses. So far as we have gone the climate +is grey and harsh, but hungry and somnolent; and although +not charming like that of Davos, essentially bracing and +briskening. The country is a kind of insane mixture of +Scotland and a touch of Switzerland and a dash of America, +and a thought of the British Channel in the skies. We have +a decent house—</p> + +<p class="pt2"><i>December 6th.</i>—A decent house, as I was saying, sir, +on a hill-top, with a look down a Scottish river in front, +and on one hand a Perthshire hill; on the other, the +beginnings and skirts of the village play hide and seek +among other hills. We have been below zero, I know not +how far (-10 at 8 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> once), and when it is cold it is delightful; +but hitherto the cold has not held, and we have +chopped in and out from frost to thaw, from snow to rain, +from quiet air to the most disastrous north-westerly curdlers +of the blood. After a week of practical thaw, the ice still +bears in favoured places. So there is hope.</p> + +<p>I wonder if you saw my book of verses? It went into +a second edition, because of my name, I suppose, and its +<i>prose</i> merits. I do not set up to be a poet. Only an +all-round literary man: a man who talks, not one who +sings. But I believe the very fact that it was only speech +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256"></a>256</span> +served the book with the public. Horace is much a +speaker, and see how popular! Most of Martial is only +speech, and I cannot conceive a person who does not love +his Martial; most of Burns, also, such as “The Louse,” +“The Toothache,” “The Haggis,” and lots more of his +best. Excuse this little apology for my house; but I +don’t like to come before people who have a note +of song, and let it be supposed I do not know the +difference.</p> + +<p>To return to the more important—news. My wife +again suffers in high and cold places; I again profit. She +is off to-day to New York for a change, as heretofore to +Berne, but I am glad to say in better case than then. Still +it is undeniable she suffers, and you must excuse her (at +least) if we both prove bad correspondents. I am decidedly +better, but I have been terribly cut up with business complications: +one disagreeable, as threatening loss; one, of +the most intolerable complexion, as involving me in dishonour. +The burthen of consistent carelessness: I have +lost much by it in the past; and for once (to my damnation) +I have gained. I am sure you will sympathise. It is hard +work to sleep; it is hard to be told you are a liar, and have +to hold your peace, and think, “Yes, by God, and a thief +too!” You remember my lectures on Ajax, or the Unintentional +Sin? Well, I know all about that now. Nothing +seems so unjust to the sufferer: or is more just in essence. +<i>Laissez passer la justice de Dieu.</i></p> + +<p>Lloyd has learned to use the typewriter, and has most +gallantly completed upon that the draft of a tale, which +seems to me not without merit and promise, it is so silly, +so gay, so absurd, in spots (to my partial eyes) so genuinely +humorous. It is true, he would not have written it but +for the <i>New Arabian Nights</i>; but it is strange to find a +young writer funny. Heavens, but I was depressing when +I took the pen in hand! And now I doubt if I am sadder +than my neighbours. Will this beginner move in the +inverse direction?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257"></a>257</span></p> + +<p>Let me have your news, and believe me, my dear +Symonds, with genuine affection, yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. E. Henley</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following refers to a volume on the elder Dumas, which +Mr. Henley was at this time preparing to write, and which he proposed +to dedicate to his friend.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac</i> [<i>December</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LAD</span>,—I was indeed overjoyed to hear of the +Dumas. In the matter of the dedication, are not cross +dedications a little awkward? Lang and Rider Haggard +did it, to be sure. Perpend. And if you should conclude +against a dedication, there is a passage in <i>Memories and +Portraits</i> written <i>at</i> you, when I was most desperate (to +stir you up a bit), which might be quoted: something +about Dumas still waiting his biographer. I have a decent +time when the weather is fine; when it is grey, or windy +or wet (as it too often is), I am merely degraded to the +dirt. I get some work done every day with a devil of a +heave; not extra good ever; and I regret my engagement. +Whiles I have had the most deplorable business +annoyances too; have been threatened with having to +refund money; got over that; and found myself in the +worst scrape of being a kind of unintentional swindler. +These have worried me a great deal; also old age with his +stealing steps seems to have clawed me in his clutch to +some tune.</p> + +<p>Do you play All Fours? We are trying it; it is still +all haze to me. Can the elder hand <i>beg</i> more than once? +The Port Admiral is at Boston mingling with millionaires. +I am but a weed on Lethe wharf. The wife is only so-so. +The Lord lead us all: if I can only get off the stage with +clean hands, I shall sing Hosanna. “Put” is described +quite differently from your version in a book I have; what +are your rules? The Port Admiral is using a game of Put +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>258</span> +in a tale of his, the first copy of which was gloriously +finished about a fortnight ago, and the revise gallantly +begun: <i>The Finsbury Tontine</i> it is named, and might fill +two volumes, and is quite incredibly silly, and in parts (it +seems to me) pretty humorous.—Love to all from</p> + +<p class="sc rt">An Old, Old Man.</p> + +<p class="pt1">I say, <i>Taine’s Origines de la France Contemporaine</i> is +no end; it would turn the dead body of Charles Fox into +a living Tory.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, December</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN</span>,—The Opal is very well; it is +fed with glycerine when it seems hungry. I am very well, +and get about much more than I could have hoped. My +wife is not very well; there is no doubt the high level does +not agree with her, and she is on the move for a holiday to +New York. Lloyd is at Boston on a visit, and I hope has +a good time. My mother is really first-rate; she and I, +despairing of other games for two, now play All Fours +out of a gamebook, and have not yet discovered its niceties, +if any.</p> + +<p>You will have heard, I dare say, that they made a great +row over me here. They also offered me much money, a +great deal more than my works are worth: I took some +of it, and was greedy and hasty, and am now very sorry. +I have done with big prices from now out. Wealth and +self-respect seem, in my case, to be strangers.</p> + +<p>We were talking the other day of how well Fleeming +managed to grow rich. Ah, that is a rare art; something +more intellectual than a virtue. The book has not yet +made its appearance here; the Life alone, with a little +preface, is to appear in the States; and the Scribners are +to send you half the royalties. I should like it to do well, +for Fleeming’s sake.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259"></a>259</span></p> + +<p>Will you please send me the Greek water-carrier’s +song? I have a particular use for it.</p> + +<p>Have I any more news, I wonder?—and echo wonders +along with me. I am strangely disquieted on all political +matters; and I do not know if it is “the signs of the +times” or the sign of my own time of life. But to me +the sky seems black both in France and England, and +only partly clear in America. I have not seen it so dark +in my time; of that I am sure.</p> + +<p>Please let us have some news; and excuse me, for the +sake of my well-known idleness; and pardon Fanny, who +is really not very well, for this long silence.—Very sincerely +your friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The lady at Bournemouth (the giver of the paper-knife) to whom +the following letter is addressed had been trusted to keep an eye +on Stevenson’s interests in connection with his house (which had +been let) and other matters, and to report thereon from time to time. +In their correspondence Stevenson is generally referred to as the +Squire and the lady as the Gamekeeper.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, December</i> 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS BOODLE</span>,—I am so much afraid our gamekeeper +may weary of unacknowledged reports! Hence, in +the midst of a perfect horror of detestable weathers of a quite +incongruous strain, and with less desire for correspondence +than—well, than—well, with no desire for correspondence, +behold me dash into the breach. Do keep up +your letters. They are most delightful to this exiled backwoods +family; and in your next, we shall hope somehow +or other to hear better news of you and yours—that in the +first place—and to hear more news of our beasts and birds +and kindly fruits of earth and those human tenants who +are (truly) too much with us.</p> + +<p>I am very well; better than for years: that is for good. +But then my wife is no great shakes; the place does not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260" id="page260"></a>260</span> +suit her—it is my private opinion that no place does—and +she is now away down to New York for a change, +which (as Lloyd is in Boston) leaves my mother and me +and Valentine alone in our wind-beleaguered hill-top hat-box +of a house. You should hear the cows butt against +the walls in the early morning while they feed; you should +also see our back log when the thermometer goes (as it +does go) away—away below zero, till it can be seen no +more by the eye of man—not the thermometer, which is +still perfectly visible, but the mercury, which curls up into +the bulb like a hibernating bear; you should also see the +lad who “does chores” for us, with his red stockings and +his thirteen-year-old face, and his highly manly tramp into +the room; and his two alternative answers to all questions +about the weather: either “Cold,” or with a really lyrical +movement of the voice, “<i>Lovely</i>—raining!”</p> + +<p>Will you take this miserable scrap for what it is worth? +Will you also understand that I am the man to blame, +and my wife is really almost too much out of health to +write, or at least doesn’t write?—And believe me, with +kind remembrances to Mrs. Boodle and your sisters, very +sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The supposed Lord Warmingpan of the following was really +Lord Pollexfen.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac, 12th December</i> ’87.</p> + +<p>Give us news of all your folk. A Merry Christmas +from all of us.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Will you please send £20 to —— +for a Christmas gift from ——? Moreover, I cannot +remember what I told you to send to ——; but as God +has dealt so providentially with me this year, I now propose +to make it £20.</p> + +<p>I beg of you also to consider my strange position. I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261"></a>261</span> +jined a club which it was said was to defend the Union; +and I had a letter from the secretary, which his name I +believe was Lord Warmingpan (or words to that effect), +to say I am elected, and had better pay up a certain sum +of money, I forget what. Now I cannae verra weel draw +a blank cheque and send to—</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="sc">Lord Warmingpan</span> (or words to that effect),<br /> +London, England.</p> + +<p class="noind">And, man, if it was possible, I would be dooms glad to be +out o’ this bit scrapie. Mebbe the club was ca’d “The +Union,” but I wouldnae like to sweir; and mebbe it wasnae, +or mebbe only words to that effec’—but I wouldnae +care just exac’ly about sweirin’. Do ye no think Henley, +or Pollick, or some o’ they London fellies, micht mebbe +perhaps find out for me? and just what the soom was? +And that you would aiblins pay for me? For I thocht +I was sae dam patriotic jinin’, and it would be a kind o’ +a come-doun to be turned out again. Mebbe Lang would +ken; or mebbe Rider Haggyard: they’re kind o’ Union +folks. But it’s my belief his name was Warmingpan whatever.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc" style="text-align: right; padding-right: 5em;">Thomson,</p> +<p class="rt"><i>alias</i> <span class="sc">Robert Louis Stevenson</span>.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Could it be Warminster?</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Monroe</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The play of <span class="sc">Deacon Brodie</span> was at this time being performed at +Chicago, with Mr. E. J. Henley in the title-part.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, New York</i> [<i>December</i> 19, 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MISS MONROE</span>,—Many thanks for your letter and +your good wishes. It was much my desire to get to +Chicago: had I done—or if I yet do—so, I shall hope to +see the original of my photograph, which is one of my show +possessions; but the fates are rather contrary. My wife +is far from well; I myself dread, worse than almost any +other imaginable peril, that miraculous and really insane +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262"></a>262</span> +invention the American Railroad Car. Heaven help the +man—may I add the woman—that sets foot in one! Ah, +if it were only an ocean to cross, it would be a matter of +small thought to me—and great pleasure. But the railroad +car—every man has his weak point; and I fear +the railroad car as abjectly as I do an earwig, and, on the +whole, on better grounds. You do not know how bitter +it is to have to make such a confession; for you have not +the pretension nor the weakness of a man. If I do get +to Chicago, you will hear of me: so much can be said. +And do you never come east?</p> + +<p>I was pleased to recognise a word of my poor old +<i>Deacon</i> in your letter. It would interest me very much +to hear how it went and what you thought of piece and +actors; and my collaborator, who knows and respects the +photograph, would be pleased too.—Still in the hope of +seeing you, I am, yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Winter</i> 1887-88.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,—It may please you to know +how our family has been employed. In the silence of the +snow the afternoon lamp has lighted an eager fireside +group: my mother reading, Fanny, Lloyd, and I devoted +listeners; and the work was really one of the best works +I ever heard; and its author is to be praised and honoured; +and what do you suppose is the name of it? and have you +ever read it yourself? and (I am bound I will get to the +bottom of the page before I blow the gaff, if I have to fight +it out on this line all summer; for if you have not to +turn a leaf, there can be no suspense, the conspectory eye +being swift to pick out proper names; and without suspense, +there can be little pleasure in this world, to my +mind at least)—and, in short, the name of it is <i>Roderick +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>263</span> +Hudson</i>, if you please. My dear James, it is very spirited, +and very sound, and very noble too. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, +Rowland, O, all first-rate: Rowland a very fine +fellow; Hudson as good as he can stick (did you know +Hudson? I suspect you did), Mrs. H. his real born mother, +a thing rarely managed in fiction.</p> + +<p>We are all keeping pretty fit and pretty hearty; but +this letter is not from me to you, it is from a reader of +<i>R. H.</i> to the author of the same, and it says nothing, and +has nothing to say, but thank you.</p> + +<p>We are going to re-read <i>Casamassima</i> as a proper +pendant. Sir, I think these two are your best, and care +not who knows it.</p> + +<p>May I beg you, the next time <i>Roderick</i> is printed off, +to go over the sheets of the last few chapters, and strike +out “immense” and “tremendous”? You have simply +dropped them there like your pocket-handkerchief; all +you have to do is to pick them up and pouch them, and +your room—what do I say?—your cathedral!—will be +swept and garnished.—I am, dear sir, your delighted +reader,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Perhaps it is a pang of causeless honesty, perhaps +I hope it will set a value on my praise of <i>Roderick</i>, perhaps +it’s a burst of the diabolic, but I must break out with the +news that I can’t bear the <i>Portrait of a Lady</i>. I read it all, +and I wept too; but I can’t stand your having written it; +and I beg you will write no more of the like. <i>Infra</i>, sir; +Below you: I can’t help it—it may be your favourite +work, but in my eyes it’s <span class="sc">BELOW YOU</span> to write and me to +read. I thought <i>Roderick</i> was going to be another such +at the beginning; and I cannot describe my pleasure as +I found it taking bones and blood, and looking out at me +with a moved and human countenance, whose lineaments +are written in my memory until my last of days.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">My wife begs your forgiveness; I believe for her silence.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>264</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake</i> [<i>December</i> 1887].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—This goes to say that we are all fit, +and the place is very bleak and wintry, and up to now +has shown no such charms of climate as Davos, but is a +place where men eat and where the cattarh, catarrh (cattarrh, +or cattarrhh) appears to be unknown. I walk in +my verandy in the snaw, sir, looking down over one of +those dabbled wintry landscapes that are (to be frank) so +chilly to the human bosom, and up at a grey, English—nay, +<i>mehercle</i>, Scottish—heaven; and I think it pretty bleak; +and the wind swoops at me round the corner, like a lion, +and fluffs the snow in my face; and I could aspire to be +elsewhere; but yet I do not catch cold, and yet, when I +come in, I eat. So that hitherto Saranac, if not deliriously +delectable, has not been a failure; nay, from the mere +point of view of the wicked body, it has proved a success. +But I wish I could still get to the woods; alas, <i>nous n’irons +plus au bois</i> is my poor song; the paths are buried, the +dingles drifted full, a little walk is grown a long one; till +spring comes, I fear the burthen will hold good.</p> + +<p>I get along with my papers for Scribner not fast, nor +so far specially well; only this last, the fourth one (which +makes a third part of my whole task), I do believe is +pulled off after a fashion. It is a mere sermon: “Smith +opens out”;<a name="FnAnchor_24" id="FnAnchor_24" href="#Footnote_24"><span class="sp">24</span></a> but it is true, and I find it touching and +beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine +writing in it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. <i>Pulvis +et Umbra</i>, I call it; I might have called it a Darwinian +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>265</span> +Sermon, if I had wanted. Its sentiments, although parsonic, +will not offend even you, I believe. The other three +papers, I fear, bear many traces of effort, and the ungenuine +inspiration of an income at so much per essay, +and the honest desire of the incomer to give good measure +for his money. Well, I did my damndest anyway.</p> + +<p>We have been reading H. James’s <i>Roderick Hudson</i>, +which I eagerly press you to get at once: it is a book of +a high order—the last volume in particular. I wish +Meredith would read it. It took my breath away.</p> + +<p>I am at the seventh book of the <i>Æneid</i>, and quite +amazed at its merits (also very often floored by its difficulties). +The Circe passage at the beginning, and the +sublime business of Amata with the simile of the boy’s +top—O Lord, what a happy thought!—have specially +delighted me.—I am, dear sir, your respected friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">John Gregg Gillson, J.P., M.R.I.A., etc.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following narrates the beginning of the author’s labours on +<i>The Master of Ballantrae</i>. An unfinished paper written some years +later in Samoa, and intended for Scribner’s Magazine, tells how the +story first took shape in his mind. See Edinburgh edition, <i>Miscellanies</i>, +vol. iv. p. 297: reprinted in <i>Essays on the Art of Writing</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, December</i> 24, 1887.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—Thank you for your explanations. +I have done no more Virgil since I finished the seventh +book, for I have first been eaten up with Taine, and next +have fallen head over heels into a new tale, <i>The Master of +Ballantrae</i>. No thought have I now apart from it, and I +have got along up to page ninety-two of the draft with +great interest. It is to me a most seizing tale: there are +some fantastic elements; the most is a dead genuine +human problem—human tragedy, I should say rather. It +will be about as long, I imagine, as <i>Kidnapped</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>266</span></p> + +<p class="center scs pt1">DRAMATIS PERSONAE:</p> + +<div class="list"> + +<p>(1) My old Lord Durrisdeer.</p> + +<p>(2) The Master of Ballantrae, <i>and</i></p> + +<p>(3) Henry Durie, <i>his sons</i>.</p> + +<p>(4) Clementina,<a name="FnAnchor_25" id="FnAnchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"><span class="sp">25</span></a> <i>engaged to the first, married to the +second</i>.</p> + +<p>(5) Ephraim Mackellar, <i>land steward at Durrisdeer +and narrator of the most of the book</i>.</p> + +<p>(6) Francis Burke, Chevalier de St. Louis, <i>one of +Prince Charlie’s Irishmen and narrator of the +rest</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="noind">Besides these, many instant figures, most of them dumb +or nearly so: Jessie Brown the whore, Captain Crail, +Captain MacCombie, our old friend Alan Breck, our old +friend Riach (both only for an instant), Teach the pirate +(vulgarly Blackbeard), John Paul and Macconochie, +servants at Durrisdeer. The date is from 1745 to ’65 +(about). The scene, near Kirkcudbright, in the States, +and for a little moment in the French East Indies. I +have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between +the brothers, and announcement of the death to Clementina +and my Lord—Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar +(nicknamed Squaretoes) are really very fine fellows; the +Master is all I know of the devil. I have known hints of +him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as +a lion, but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I +have watched with so much surprise in my two cowards. +’Tis true, I saw a hint of the same nature in another man +who was not a coward; but he had other things to attend +to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here +come my visitors—and have now gone, or the first relay +of them; and I hope no more may come. For mark you, +sir, this is our “day”—Saturday, as ever was; and here +we sit, my mother and I, before a large wood fire and await +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>267</span> +the enemy with the most steadfast courage; and without +snow and greyness: and the woman Fanny in New York +for her health, which is far from good; and the lad Lloyd +at the inn in the village because he has a cold; and the +handmaid Valentine abroad in a sleigh upon her messages; +and to-morrow Christmas and no mistake. Such is human +life: <i>la carrière humaine</i>. I will enclose, if I remember, +the required autograph.</p> + +<p>I will do better, put it on the back of this page. Love +to all, and mostly, my very dear Colvin, to yourself. For +whatever I say or do, or don’t say or do, you may be +very sure I am—Yours always affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Christmas</i> 1887.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS BOODLE</span>,—And a very good Christmas +to you all; and better fortune; and if worse, the more +courage to support it—which I think is the kinder wish +in all human affairs. Somewhile—I fear a good while—after +this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have +no tact and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic +brutality; and I dare say the present, even after my friend +Baxter has acted on and reviewed my hints, may prove a +White Elephant. That is why I dread presents. And +therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper +prove unwelcome, <i>it is to be exchanged</i>. I will not sit down +under the name of a giver of White Elephants. I never +had any elephant but one, and his initials were R. L. S.; +and he trod on my foot at a very early age. But this is +a fable, and not in the least to the point: which is that +if, for once in my life, I have wished to make things nicer +for anybody but the Elephant (see fable), do not suffer +me to have made them ineffably more embarrassing, and +exchange—ruthlessly exchange!</p> + +<p>For my part, I am the most cockered up of any mortal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>268</span> +being; and one of the healthiest, or thereabout, at some +modest distance from the bull’s eye. I am condemned to +write twelve articles in Scribner’s Magazine for the love +of gain; I think I had better send you them; what is far +more to the purpose, I am on the jump with a new story +which has bewitched me—I doubt it may bewitch no one +else. It is called <i>The Master of Ballantrae</i>—pronounce +B[=a]ll[)a]n-tray. If it is not good, well, mine will be the +fault; for I believe it is a good tale.</p> + +<p>The greetings of the season to you, and your mother, +and your sisters. My wife heartily joins.—And I am, +yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—You will think me an illiterate dog: I am, for +the first time, reading Robertson’s sermons. I do not +know how to express how much I think of them. If by +any chance you should be as illiterate as I, and not know +them, it is worth while curing the defect.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following letter invites Mr. Baxter to allow himself (under +an <i>alias</i>) and his office in Edinburgh to figure in a preface to the +new story. Such a preface was drafted accordingly, but on second +thoughts suppressed; to be, on renewed consideration, reinstated +in the final editions.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, January</i> ’88.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR CHARLES</span>,—You are the flower of Doers.... +Will my doer collaborate thus much in my new novel? +In the year 1794 or 5, Mr. Ephraim Mackellar, A.M., late +steward on the Durrisdeer estates, completed a set of +memoranda (as long as a novel) with regard to the death +of the (then) late Lord Durrisdeer, and as to that of his +attainted elder brother, called by the family courtesy title +the Master of Ballantrae. These he placed in the hand +of John Macbrair, W.S., the family agent, on the understanding +they were to be sealed until 1862, when a century +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>269</span> +would have elapsed since the affair in the wilderness (my +lord’s death). You succeeded Mr. Macbrair’s firm; the +Durrisdeers are extinct; and last year, in an old green +box, you found these papers with Macbrair’s indorsation. +It is that indorsation of which I want a copy; you may +remember, when you gave me the papers, I neglected to +take that, and I am sure you are a man too careful of +antiquities to have let it fall aside. I shall have a little +introduction descriptive of my visit to Edinburgh, arrival +there, denner with yoursel’, and first reading of the papers +in your smoking-room: all of which, of course, you well +remember.—Ever yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Your name is my friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, +W.S.!!!</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Winter</i> 1887-88.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BURLINGAME</span>,—I am keeping the sermon to +see if I can’t add another. Meanwhile, I will send you very +soon a different paper which may take its place. Possibly +some of these days soon I may get together a talk on things +current, which should go in (if possible) earlier than either. +I am now less nervous about these papers; I believe I can +do the trick without great strain, though the terror that +breathed on my back in the beginning is not yet forgotten.</p> + +<p>The <i>Master of Ballantrae</i> I have had to leave aside, as +I was quite worked out. But in about a week I hope to +try back and send you the first four numbers: these are +all drafted, it is only the revision that has broken me +down, as it is often the hardest work. These four I propose +you should set up for me at once, and we’ll copyright +’em in a pamphlet. I will tell you the names of the +<i>bona fide</i> purchasers in England.</p> + +<p>The numbers will run from twenty to thirty pages of +my manuscript. You can give me that much, can you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>270</span> +not? It is a howling good tale—at least these first four +numbers are; the end is a trifle more fantastic, but ’tis +all picturesque.</p> + +<p>Don’t trouble about any more French books; I am on +another scent, you see, just now. Only the <i>French in +Hindustan</i> I await with impatience, as that is for <i>Ballantrae</i>. +The scene of that romance is Scotland—the States—Scotland—India—Scotland—and +the States again; so +it jumps like a flea. I have enough about the States now, +and very much obliged I am; yet if Drake’s <i>Tragedies of +the Wilderness</i> is (as I gather) a collection of originals, I +should like to purchase it. If it is a picturesque vulgarisation, +I do not wish to look it in the face. Purchase, I say; +for I think it would be well to have some such collection +by me with a view to fresh works.—Yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—If you think of having the <i>Master</i> illustrated, I +suggest that Hole would be very well up to the Scottish, +which is the larger, part. If you have it done here, tell +your artist to look at the hall of Craigievar in Billing’s +<i>Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities</i>, and he will get a +broad hint for the hall at Durrisdeer: it is, I think, the +chimney of Craigievar and the roof of Pinkie, and perhaps +a little more of Pinkie altogether; but I should have to +see the book myself to be sure. Hole would be invaluable +for this. I dare say if you had it illustrated, you +could let me have one or two for the English edition.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following refers to Mr. Bernard Shaw’s novel, <i>Cashel Byron’s +Profession</i>, which had been sent Stevenson to read by their common +friend Mr. Archer.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, Winter</i> 1887-88.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ARCHER</span>,—What am I to say? I have read +your friend’s book with singular relish. If he has written +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>271</span> +any other, I beg you will let me see it; and if he has not, +I beg him to lose no time in supplying the deficiency. It +is full of promise; but I should like to know his age. There +are things in it that are very clever, to which I attach +small importance; it is the shape of the age. And there +are passages, particularly the rally in presence of the Zulu +king, that show genuine and remarkable narrative talent—a +talent that few will have the wit to understand, a talent +of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision, and sufficient +self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a narrator.</p> + +<p>As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most +feverish. Over Bashville the footman I howled with +derision and delight; I dote on Bashville—I could read +of him for ever; <i>de Bashville je suis le fervent</i>—there is +only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave; <i>Bashville +est magnifique, mais il n’est guère possible</i>. He is the note +of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; +the author has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott’s +or Dumas’, and then he daubs in little bits of socialism; +he soars away on the wings of the romantic griffon—even +the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at +the nature of the quest—and I believe in his heart he +thinks he is labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism.</p> + +<p>It is this that makes me—the most hardened adviser +now extant—stand back and hold my peace. If Mr. +Shaw is below five-and-twenty, let him go his path; if he +is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic, and +pursue romance with his eyes open;—or perhaps he knows +it;—God knows!—my brain is softened.</p> + +<p>It is <span class="sc">HORRID FUN</span>. All I ask is more of it. Thank you +for the pleasure you gave us, and tell me more of the +inimitable author.</p> + +<p>(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)—Yours very +truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">1 part Charles Reade; 1 part Henry James or some +kindred author badly assimilated; ½ part Disraeli (perhaps +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>272</span> +unconscious); 1½ parts struggling, over-laid original talent; +1 part blooming, gaseous folly. That is the equation as it +stands. What it may be, I don’t know, nor any other man. +<i>Vixere fortes</i>—O, let him remember that—let him beware +of his damned century; his gifts of insane chivalry and +animated narration are just those that might be slain and +thrown out like an untimely birth by the Daemon of the +epoch. And if he only knew how I have adored the +chivalry! Bashville!—<i>O Bashville! j’en chortle</i> (which is +fairly polyglot).</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, February</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ARCHER</span>,—Pretty sick in bed; but necessary +to protest and continue your education.</p> + +<p>Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think +because not amusing (I think he often was amusing). +The reason is this: I never, or almost never, saw two +pages of his work that I could not have put in one without +the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I +know of writing. If there is anywhere a thing said in +two sentences that could have been as clearly and as +engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then it’s amateur +work. Then you will bring me up with old Dumas. Nay, +the object of a story is to be long, to fill up hours; the +story-teller’s art of writing is to water out by continual +invention, historical and technical, and yet not seem to +water; seem on the other hand to practise that same wit +of conspicuous and declaratory condensation which is the +proper art of writing. That is one thing in which my +stories fail: I am always cutting the flesh off their bones.</p> + +<p>I would rise from the dead to preach!</p> + +<p>Hope all well. I think my wife better, but she’s not +allowed to write; and this (only wrung from me by desire +to Boss and Parsonise and Dominate, strong in sickness) +is my first letter for days, and will likely be my last for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>273</span> +many more. Not blame my wife for her silence: doctor’s +orders. All much interested by your last, and fragment +from brother, and anecdotes of Tomarcher.—The sick but +still Moral</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Tell Shaw to hurry up: I want another.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William Archer</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>In early days in Paris, Stevenson’s chivalrous feelings had once +been shocked by the scene in the <i>Demi-Monde</i> of Dumas fils, where +Suzanne d’Ange is trapped by Olivier de Jalin. His correspondent +had asked what exactly took place.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, February</i> 1888 ?]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR ARCHER</span>,—It happened thus. I came forth +from that performance in a breathing heat of indignation. +(Mind, at this distance of time and with my increased +knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the piece; but +I saw none then, except a problem in brutality; and I +still consider the problem in that case not established.) +On my way down the <i>Français</i> stairs, I trod on an old +gentleman’s toes, whereupon with that suavity that so +well becomes me, I turned about to apologise, and on +the instant, repenting me of that intention, stopped the +apology midway, and added something in French to this +effect: No, you are one of the <i>lâches</i> who have been +applauding that piece. I retract my apology. Said the +old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and with a +smile that was truly heavenly in temperance, irony, good-nature, +and knowledge of the world, “Ah, monsieur, vous +êtes bien jeune!”—Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, February</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BURLINGAME</span>,—Will you send me (from the +library) some of the works of my dear old G. P. R. James? +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>274</span> +With the following especially I desire to make or to renew +acquaintance: <i>The Songster</i>, <i>The Gipsy</i>, <i>The Convict</i>, +<i>The Stepmother</i>, <i>The Gentleman of the Old School</i>, <i>The +Robber</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Excusez du peu.</i></p> + +<p>This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon +an accident. The “Franklin County Library” contains +two works of his, <i>The Cavalier</i> and <i>Morley Ernstein</i>. I read +the first with indescribable amusement—it was worse than +I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; the second (to +my surprise) was better than I had dared to hope: a good, +honest, dull, interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned +talent in the invention when not strained; and a genuine +old-fashioned feeling for the English language. This +experience awoke appetite, and you see I have taken +steps to stay it.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, February</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MR. BURLINGAME</span>,—1. Of course then don’t use +it. Dear Man, I write these to please you, not myself, +and you know a main sight better than I do what is good. +In that case, however, I enclose another paper, and return +the corrected proof of <i>Pulvis et Umbra</i>, so that we may +be afloat.</p> + +<p>2. I want to say a word as to the <i>Master</i>. (The <i>Master +of Ballantrae</i> shall be the name by all means.) If you +like and want it, I leave it to you to make an offer. You +may remember I thought the offer you made when I was +still in England too small; by which I did not at all mean, +I thought it less than it was worth, but too little to tempt +me to undergo the disagreeables of serial publication. +This tale (if you want it) you are to have; for it is +the least I can do for you; and you are to observe that the +sum you pay me for my articles going far to meet my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>275</span> +wants, I am quite open to be satisfied with less than +formerly. I tell you I do dislike this battle of the dollars. +I feel sure you all pay too much here in America; and I +beg you not to spoil me any more. For I am getting +spoiled: I do not want wealth, and I feel these big sums +demoralise me.</p> + +<p>My wife came here pretty ill; she had a dreadful bad +night; to-day she is better. But now Valentine is ill; +and Lloyd and I have got breakfast, and my hand somewhat +shakes after washing dishes.—Yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Please order me the Evening Post for two +months. My subscription is run out. The <i>Mutiny</i> and +<i>Edwardes</i> to hand.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, March</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—Fanny has been very unwell. She +is not long home, has been ill again since her return, but +is now better again to a degree. You must not blame +her for not writing, as she is not allowed to write at all, +not even a letter. To add to our misfortunes, Valentine +is quite ill and in bed. Lloyd and I get breakfast; I have +now, 10.15, just got the dishes washed and the kitchen all +clear, and sit down to give you as much news as I have +spirit for, after such an engagement. Glass is a thing +that really breaks my spirit: I do not like to fail, and +with glass I cannot reach the work of my high calling—the +artist’s.</p> + +<p>I am, as you may gather from this, wonderfully better: +this harsh, grey, glum, doleful climate has done me good. +You cannot fancy how sad a climate it is. When the +thermometer stays all day below 10°, it is really cold; +and when the wind blows, O commend me to the result. +Pleasure in life is all delete; there is no red spot left, fires +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>276</span> +do not radiate, you burn your hands all the time on what +seem to be cold stones. It is odd, zero is like summer +heat to us now; and we like, when the thermometer outside +is really low, a room at about 48°: 60° we find oppressive. +Yet the natives keep their holes at 90° or even 100°.</p> + +<p>This was interrupted days ago by household labours. +Since then I have had and (I tremble to write it, but it +does seem as if I had) beaten off an influenza. The cold +is exquisite. Valentine still in bed. The proofs of the +first part of <i>The Master of Ballantrae</i> begin to come in; +soon you shall have it in the pamphlet form; and I hope +you will like it. The second part will not be near so good; +but there—we can but do as it’ll do with us. I have +every reason to believe this winter has done me real good, +so far as it has gone; and if I carry out my scheme for +next winter, and succeeding years, I should end by being +a tower of strength. I want you to save a good holiday +for next winter; I hope we shall be able to help you +to some larks. Is there any Greek Isle you would like to +explore? or any creek in Asia Minor?—Yours ever +affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To the Rev. Dr. Charteris</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The Rev. Dr. Charteris, of Edinburgh, had been one of the most +intimate and trusted friends of Stevenson’s father, and R. L. S. +turns to him accordingly for memories and impressions.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, Winter</i> 1887-88.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS</span>,—I have asked Douglas and +Foulis to send you my last volume, so that you may possess +my little paper on my father in a permanent shape; not +for what that is worth, but as a tribute of respect to one +whom my father regarded with such love, esteem, and +affection. Besides, as you will see, I have brought you +under contribution, and I have still to thank you for your +letter to my mother; so more than kind; in much, so +just. It is my hope, when time and health permit, to do +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>277</span> +something more definite for my father’s memory. You +are one of the very few who can (if you will) help me. +Pray believe that I lay on you no obligation; I know +too well, you may believe me, how difficult it is to put +even two sincere lines upon paper, where all, too, is to +order. But if the spirit should ever move you, and you +should recall something memorable of your friend, his son +will heartily thank you for a note of it.—With much +respect, believe me, yours sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Edmund Gosse</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, March</i> 31, 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GOSSE</span>,—Why so plaintive? Either the post-office +has played us false, or you were in my debt. In +case it should be my letter that has failed to come to post, +I must tell again the fate of Mrs. Gosse’s thermometer. +It hangs in our sitting-room, where it has often marked +freezing point and below; “See what Gosse says,” is a +common word of command. But the point is this: in +the verandah hangs another thermometer, condemned to +register minus 40° and that class of temperatures; and +to him, we have given the name of the Quarterly Reviewer. +I hope the jape likes you.</p> + +<p>Please tell the Fortnightly man that I am sorry but I +can do nothing of that sort this year, as I am under a +pledge to Scribner’s; and indeed my monthly articles +take the best of my time. It was a project I went into with +horrid diffidence; and lucre was my only motive. I get +on better than I expected, but it is difficult to find an +article of the sort required for each date, and to vary the +matter and keep up (if possible) the merit. I do not know +if you think I have at all succeeded; it seemed to me +this really worked paper was more money’s worth (as well +as probably better within my means) than the Lang +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>278</span> +business at the Sign of the Ship. Indeed I feel convinced +I could never have managed that; it takes a gift +to do it. Here is lunch.—Yours afftly.,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, March</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR DELIGHTFUL JAMES</span>,—To quote your heading +to my wife, I think no man writes so elegant a letter, I +am sure none so kind, unless it be Colvin, and there is +more of the stern parent about him. I was vexed at your +account of my admired Meredith: I wish I could go and +see him; as it is I will try to write; and yet (do you +understand me?) there is something in that potent, <i>genialisch</i> +affectation that puts one on the strain even to address +him in a letter. He is not an easy man to be yourself +with: there is so much of him, and veracity and the +high athletic intellectual humbug are so intermixed.<a name="FnAnchor_26" id="FnAnchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"><span class="sp">26</span></a> I +read with indescribable admiration your <i>Emerson</i>. I begin +to long for the day when these portraits of yours shall +be collected: do put me in. But Emerson is a higher +flight. Have you a <i>Tourgueneff</i>? You have told me +many interesting things of him, and I seem to see them +written, and forming a graceful and <i>bildend</i> sketch. (I +wonder whence comes this flood of German—I haven’t +opened a German book since I teethed.) My novel is a +tragedy; four parts out of six or seven are written, and +gone to Burlingame. Five parts of it are sound, human +tragedy; the last one or two, I regret to say, not so soundly +designed; I almost hesitate to write them; they are very +picturesque, but they are fantastic; they shame, perhaps +degrade, the beginning. I wish I knew; that was how +the tale came to me however. I got the situation; it was +an old taste of mine: The older brother goes out in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>279</span> +’45, the younger stays; the younger, of course, gets title +and estate and marries the bride designate of the elder—a +family match, but he (the younger) had always loved +her, and she had really loved the elder. Do you see the +situation? Then the devil and Saranac suggested this +<i>dénouement</i>, and I joined the two ends in a day or two of +constant feverish thought, and began to write. And now—I +wonder if I have not gone too far with the fantastic? +The elder brother is an <span class="sc">INCUBUS</span>: supposed to be killed +at Culloden, he turns up again and bleeds the family of +money; on that stopping he comes and lives with them, +whence flows the real tragedy, the nocturnal duel of the +brothers (very naturally, and indeed, I think, inevitably +arising), and second supposed death of the elder. Husband +and wife now really make up, and then the cloven hoof +appears. For the third supposed death and the manner +of the third reappearance is steep; steep, sir. It is even +very steep, and I fear it shames the honest stuff so far; +but then it is highly pictorial, and it leads up to the death +of the elder brother at the hands of the younger in a perfectly +cold-blooded murder, of which I wish (and mean) +the reader to approve. You see how daring is the design. +There are really but six characters, and one of these episodic, +and yet it covers eighteen years, and will be, I imagine, +the longest of my works.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>Read Gosse’s Raleigh.</i> First-rate.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To the Rev. Dr. Charteris</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, +New York, U.S.A.</i> [<i>Spring</i> 1888].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS</span>,—The funeral letter, your notes, +and many other things, are reserved for a book, <i>Memorials +of a Scottish Family</i>, if ever I can find time and opportunity. +I wish I could throw off all else and sit down +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>280</span> +to it to-day. Yes, my father was a “distinctly religious +man,” but not a pious. The distinction painfully and +pleasurably recalls old conflicts; it used to be my great +gun—and you, who suffered for the whole Church, know +how needful it was to have some reserve artillery! His +sentiments were tragic; he was a tragic thinker. Now, +granted that life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the +proper function of religion to make us accept and serve +in that tragedy, as officers in that other and comparable +one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the +military sense; and the religious man—I beg pardon, +the pious man—is he who has a military joy in duty—not +he who weeps over the wounded. We can do no more than +try to do our best. Really, I am the grandson of the +manse—I preach you a kind of sermon. Box the brat’s +ears!</p> + +<p>My mother—to pass to matters more within my competence—finely +enjoys herself. The new country, some +new friends we have made, the interesting experiment of +this climate—which (at least) is tragic—all have done her +good. I have myself passed a better winter than for years, +and now that it is nearly over have some diffident hopes +of doing well in the summer and “eating a little more +air” than usual.</p> + +<p>I thank you for the trouble you are taking, and my +mother joins with me in kindest regards to yourself and +Mrs. Charteris.—Yours very truly,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To S. R. Crockett</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, Spring</i> 1888].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK</span>,—For +O, man, I cannae read your name!—That I have been +so long in answering your delightful letter sits on my conscience +badly. The fact is I let my correspondence accumulate +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>281</span> +until I am going to leave a place; and then I pitch +in, overhaul the pile, and my cries of penitence might be +heard a mile about. Yesterday I despatched thirty-five +belated letters: conceive the state of my conscience, above +all as the Sins of Omission (see boyhood’s guide, the Shorter +Catechism) are in my view the only serious ones; I call it +my view, but it cannot have escaped you that it was +also Christ’s. However, all that is not to the purpose, +which is to thank you for the sincere pleasure afforded by +your charming letter. I get a good few such; how few +that please me at all, you would be surprised to learn—or +have a singularly just idea of the dulness of our race; +how few that please me as yours did, I can tell you in one +word—<i>None</i>. I am no great kirkgoer, for many reasons—and +the sermon’s one of them, and the first prayer +another, but the chief and effectual reason is the stuffiness. +I am no great kirkgoer, says I, but when I read yon letter +of yours, I thought I would like to sit under ye. And then +I saw ye were to send me a bit buik, and says I, I’ll wait +for the bit buik, and then I’ll mebbe can read the man’s +name, and anyway I’ll can kill twa birds wi’ ae stane. +And, man! the buik was ne’er heard tell o’!</p> + +<p>That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay.</p> + +<p>And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks +to you, and greeting to your wife, and may you have +good guidance in your difficult labours, and a blessing on +your life.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1" style="padding-left: 5em;">(No just sae young’s he was, though—</p> +<p style="padding-left: 7em;">I’m awfae near forty, man.)</p> +<p style="padding-left: 9em;">Address c/o Charles Scribner’s Sons,</p> +<p style="padding-left: 11em;">743 Broadway, New York.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Don’t put “N.B.” in your paper: put <span class="sc">Scotland</span>, and be +done with it. Alas, that I should be thus stabbed in the +home of my friends! The name of my native land is not +<span class="sc">North Britain</span>, whatever may be the name of yours.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282"></a>282</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Miss Ferrier</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake, April</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAREST COGGIE</span>,—I wish I could find the letter I +began to you some time ago when I was ill; but I can’t +and I don’t believe there was much in it anyway. We +have all behaved like pigs and beasts and barn-door +poultry to you; but I have been sunk in work, and the +lad is lazy and blind and has been working too; and as +for Fanny, she has been (and still is) really unwell. I had +a mean hope you might perhaps write again before I got +up steam: I could not have been more ashamed of +myself than I am, and I should have had another +laugh.</p> + +<p>They always say I cannot give news in my letters: I +shall shake off that reproach. On Monday, if she is well +enough, Fanny leaves for California to see her friends; it +is rather an anxiety to let her go alone; but the doctor +simply forbids it in my case, and she is better anywhere +than here—a bleak, blackguard, beggarly climate, of which +I can say no good except that it suits me and some others +of the same or similar persuasions whom (by all rights) +it ought to kill. It is a form of Arctic St. Andrews, I +should imagine; and the miseries of forty degrees below +zero, with a high wind, have to be felt to be appreciated. +The greyness of the heavens here is a circumstance eminently +revolting to the soul; I have near forgot the aspect of the +sun—I doubt if this be news; it is certainly no news to +us. My mother suffers a little from the inclemency of the +place, but less on the whole than would be imagined. +Among other wild schemes, we have been projecting yacht +voyages; and I beg to inform you that Cogia Hassan +was cast for the part of passenger. They may come off!—Again +this is not news. The lad? Well, the lad wrote +a tale this winter, which appeared to me so funny that I +have taken it in hand, and some of these days you will +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>283</span> +receive a copy of a work entitled “<i>A Game of Bluff</i>, by +Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson.”</p> + +<p>Otherwise he (the lad) is much as usual. There remains, +I believe, to be considered only R. L. S., the house-bond, +prop, pillar, bread-winner, and bully of the establishment. +Well, I do not think him much better; he is +making piles of money; the hope of being able to hire a +yacht ere long dances before his eyes; otherwise he is +not in very high spirits at this particular moment, though +compared with last year at Bournemouth an angel of joy.</p> + +<p>And now is this news, Cogia, or is it not? It all depends +upon the point of view, and I call it news. The devil of +it is that I can think of nothing else, except to send you +all our loves, and to wish exceedingly you were here to +cheer us all up. But we’ll see about that on board the +yacht.—Your affectionate friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The Mutiny novel here foreshadowed never got written.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Saranac Lake</i>] <i>April 9th!!</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I have been long without writing to +you, but am not to blame. I had some little annoyances +quite for a private eye, but they ran me so hard that I +could not write without lugging them in, which (for several +reasons) I did not choose to do. Fanny is off to San +Francisco, and next week I myself flit to New York: +address Scribner’s. Where we shall go I know not, nor +(I was going to say) care; so bald and bad is my frame +of mind. Do you know our—ahem!—fellow clubman, +Colonel Majendie? I had such an interesting letter from +him. Did you see my sermon? It has evoked the worst +feeling: I fear people don’t care for the truth, or else +I don’t tell it. Suffer me to wander without purpose. I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284"></a>284</span> +have sent off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck +at a twenty-first, and taken a copy of one which was on +business, and corrected several galleys of proof, and sorted +about a bushel of old letters; so if any one has a right +to be romantically stupid it is I—and I am. Really deeply +stupid, and at that stage when in old days I used to pour +out words without any meaning whatever and with my +mind taking no part in the performance. I suspect that +is now the case. I am reading with extraordinary pleasure +the life of Lord Lawrence: Lloyd and I have a mutiny +novel—</p> + +<p>(<i>Next morning, after twelve other letters</i>)—mutiny novel +on hand—a tremendous work—so we are all at Indian +books. The idea of the novel is Lloyd’s: I call it a novel. +’Tis a tragic romance, of the most tragic sort: I believe +the end will be almost too much for human endurance—when +the hero is thrown to the ground with one of his +own (Sepoy) soldier’s knees upon his chest, and the cries +begin in the Beebeeghar. O truly, you know it is a howler! +The whole last part is—well the difficulty is that, short of +resuscitating Shakespeare, I don’t know who is to write it.</p> + +<p>I still keep wonderful. I am a great performer before +the Lord on the penny whistle.—Dear sir, sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Andrew Jackson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<p class="rt1">[<i>Saranac Lake, April</i> 1888.]</p> +<p class="rt"><i>Address, c/o Messrs. Scribner’s Sons,</i> +743 <i>Broadway, N.Y.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR GAMEKEEPER</span>,—Your p.c. (proving you a good +student of Micawber) has just arrived, and it paves the +way to something I am anxious to say. I wrote a paper +the other day—<i>Pulvis et Umbra</i>;—I wrote it with great +feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and +healthful, it is in such a world (so seen by me), that I am +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>285</span> +very glad to fight out my battle, and see some fine sunsets, +and hear some excellent jests between whiles round the +camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision of +mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith +in God or pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; +for I do not know it. And I could wish in my heart that +I had not published this paper, if it troubles folk too much: +all have not the same digestion, nor the same sight of +things. And it came over me with special pain that perhaps +this article (which I was at the pains to send to her) +might give dismalness to my <i>Gamekeeper at Home</i>. Well, +I cannot take back what I have said; but yet I may add +this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that it +may be—to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth—surely +of all things it makes this world holier. There is +nothing in it but the moral side—but the great battle +and the breathing times with their refreshments. I see +no more and no less. And if you look again, it is not +ugly, and it is filled with promise.</p> + +<p>Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology. +My wife is away off to the uttermost parts of the States, +all by herself. I shall be off, I hope, in a week; but +where? Ah! that I know not. I keep wonderful, and +my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing. We now +perform duets on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to +make the bass; I think I must really send you one, which +I wish you would correct.... I may be said to live for +these instrumental labours now, but I have always some +childishness on hand.—I am, dear Gamekeeper, your +indulgent but intemperate Squire,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Having spent the last fortnight of April at New York, Stevenson +and his stepson moved at the beginning of May to the small New +Jersey watering-place from whence the following few letters are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286"></a>286</span> +dated: his wife having meanwhile gone to San Francisco, where +she presently made arrangements for the Pacific yachting trip.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union House, Manasquan, New Jersey</i> [<i>May</i> 1888].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—We are here at a delightful country +inn, like a country French place, the only people in the +house, a cat-boat at our disposal, the sea always audible +on the outer beach, the lagoon as smooth as glass, all the +little, queer, many coloured villas standing shuttered and +empty; in front of ours, across the lagoon, two long +wooden bridges; one for the rail, one for the road, sounding +with intermittent traffic. It is highly pleasant, and a +delightful change from Saranac. My health is much better +for the change; I am sure I walked about four miles +yesterday, one time with another—well, say three and a +half; and the day before, I was out for four hours in the +cat-boat, and was as stiff as a board in consequence. +More letters call.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union House, Manasquan, N. J., but address to<br /> +Scribner’s, 11th May</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><i>MY DEAR CHARLES</i>,—I have found a yacht, and we are +going the full pitch for seven months. If I cannot get +my health back (more or less), ’tis madness; but, of course, +there is the hope, and I will play big.... If this business +fails to set me up, well, £2000 is gone, and I know I +can’t get better. We sail from San Francisco, June 15th, +for the South Seas in the yacht <i>Casco</i>.—With a million +thanks for all your dear friendliness, ever yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Lady Taylor</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Manasquan, May</i> 1888.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR</span>,—I have to announce our great +news. On June 15th we sail from San Francisco in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>287</span> +schooner yacht <i>Casco</i>, for a seven months’ cruise in the +South Seas. You can conceive what a state of excitement +we are in; Lloyd perhaps first; but this is an old dream +of mine which actually seems to be coming true, and I +am sun-struck. It seems indeed too good to be true; +and that we have not deserved so much good fortune. +From Skerryvore to the Galapagos is a far cry! And +from poking in a sick-room all winter to the deck of one’s +own ship, is indeed a heavenly change.</p> + +<p>All these seven months I doubt if we can expect more +than three mails at the best of it: and I do hope we may +hear something of your news by each. I have no very +clear views as to where the three addresses ought to be, +but if you hear no later news, Charles Scribner’s Sons +will always have the run of our intended movements. +And an early letter there would probably catch us at the +Sandwich Islands. Tahiti will probably be the second +point: and (as I roughly guess) Quito the third. But +the whole future is invested with heavenly clouds.</p> + +<p>I trust you are all well and content, and have good +news of the Shelleys, to whom I wish you would pass on +ours. They should be able to sympathise with our delight.</p> + +<p>Now I have all my miserable Scribner articles to rake +together in the inside of a fortnight: so you must not +expect me to be more copious. I have you all in the kindest +memory, and am, your affectionate friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Remember me to Aubrey de Vere.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Homer St. Gaudens</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following is addressed from Manasquan to a boy, the son of +the writer’s friend, the sculptor St. Gaudens; for the rest, it explains +itself.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Manasquan, New Jersey, 27th May</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS</span>,—Your father has brought +you this day to see me, and he tells me it is his hope you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288"></a>288</span> +may remember the occasion. I am going to do what I +can to carry out his wish; and it may amuse you, years +after, to see this little scrap of paper and to read what I +write. I must begin by testifying that you yourself took +no interest whatever in the introduction, and in the most +proper spirit displayed a single-minded ambition to get +back to play, and this I thought an excellent and admirable +point in your character. You were also (I use the +past tense, with a view to the time when you shall read, +rather than to that when I am writing) a very pretty boy, +and (to my European views) startlingly self-possessed. +My time of observation was so limited that you must +pardon me if I can say no more: what else I marked, what +restlessness of foot and hand, what graceful clumsiness, +what experimental designs upon the furniture, was but the +common inheritance of human youth. But you may +perhaps like to know that the lean flushed man in bed, +who interested you so little, was in a state of mind extremely +mingled and unpleasant: harassed with work which he +thought he was not doing well, troubled with difficulties +to which you will in time succeed, and yet looking forward +to no less a matter than a voyage to the South Seas and +the visitation of savage and desert islands.—Your father’s +friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Manasquan (ahem!), New Jersey, May 28th,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES</span>,—With what a torrent it has come at +last! Up to now, what I like best is the first number of +a <i>London Life</i>. You have never done anything better, and +I don’t know if perhaps you have ever done anything so +good as the girl’s outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching +your later works in your native land. I had to present +the Beltraffio volume to Low, and it has brought him to +his knees; he was <i>amazed</i> at the first part of Georgina’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id="page289"></a>289</span> +Reasons, although (like me) not so well satisfied with +Part <span class="sc">II.</span> It is annoying to find the American public as +stupid as the English, but they will waken up in time: +I wonder what they will think of <i>Two Nations</i>?...</p> + +<p>This, dear James, is a valedictory. On June 15th the +schooner yacht <i>Casco</i> will (weather and a jealous providence +permitting) steam through the Golden Gates for +Honolulu, Tahiti, the Galapagos, Guayaquil, and—I hope +<i>not</i> the bottom of the Pacific. It will contain your +obedient ’umble servant and party. It seems too good to +be true, and is a very good way of getting through the +green-sickness of maturity which, with all its accompanying +ills, is now declaring itself in my mind and life. They +tell me it is not so severe as that of youth; if I (and the +<i>Casco</i>) are spared, I shall tell you more exactly, as I am +one of the few people in the world who do not forget their +own lives.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, then, my dear fellow, and please write us a +word; we expect to have three mails in the next two +months: Honolulu, Tahiti, and Guayaquil. But letters +will be forwarded from Scribner’s, if you hear nothing +more definite directly. In 3 (three) days I leave for San +Francisco.—Ever yours most cordially,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21" href="#FnAnchor_21"><span class="fn">21</span></a> For the actual sum, see below, p. 243.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22" href="#FnAnchor_22"><span class="fn">22</span></a></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“But she was more than usual calm,</p> +<p class="i05">She did not give a single dam.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt1"><i>Marjorie Fleming.</i></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23" href="#FnAnchor_23"><span class="fn">23</span></a> Of the play <i>Deacon Brodie</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24" href="#FnAnchor_24"><span class="fn">24</span></a></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“Smith opens out his cauld harangues</p> +<p class="i05">On practice and on morals.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>The Rev. George Smith of Galston, the minister thus referred to +by Burns (in the <i>Holy Fair</i>), was a great-grandfather of Stevenson +on the mother’s side; and against Stevenson himself, in his didactic +moods, the passage was often quoted by his friends when they +wished to tease him.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25" href="#FnAnchor_25"><span class="fn">25</span></a> Afterwards changed to Alison.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26" href="#FnAnchor_26"><span class="fn">26</span></a> Alluding to a kind of lofty, posturing manner of G. M.’s in mind +and speech, quite different from any real insincerity.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290"></a>290</span></p> +<h3>X</h3> + +<h3>PACIFIC VOYAGES</h3> + +<h4>YACHT <i>CASCO</i>—SCHOONER <i>EQUATOR</i>—S.S. +<i>JANET NICOLL</i></h4> + +<h5><span class="sc">June 1888-October 1890</span></h5> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> the following section are printed nearly all the letters +which reached Stevenson’s correspondents in England and +the United States, at intervals necessarily somewhat rare, +during the eighteen months of his Pacific voyages. It +was on the 28th of June 1888 that he started from the +harbour of San Francisco on what was only intended to +be a health and pleasure excursion of a few months’ duration, +but turned into a voluntary exile prolonged until +the hour of his death. His company consisted, besides +himself, of his wife, his mother, his stepson Mr. Lloyd +Osbourne, and the servant Valentine Roch. They sailed +on board the schooner yacht <i>Casco</i>, Captain Otis, and +made straight for the Marquesas, dropping anchor on the +28th of July in Anaho Bay, the harbour of the island of +Nukahiva. The magic effect of this first island landfall +on his mind he has described in the opening chapter of his +book <i>In the South Seas</i>. After spending six weeks in this +group they sailed south-eastwards, visiting (a sufficiently +perilous piece of navigation) several of the coral atolls of +the Paumotus or Low Archipelago. Thence they arrived +in the first week of October at the Tahitian group or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291"></a>291</span> +“Society” islands. In these their longest stay was not +at the chief town, Papeete, where Stevenson fell sharply +ill, but in a more secluded and very beautiful station, +Tautira, whither he went to recruit, and where they were +detained by the necessity of remasting the schooner. +Here Stevenson and one of the local chiefs, Ori a Ori, +made special friends and parted with heartfelt mutual +regret. Mrs. Stevenson is good enough to allow me to +supplement the somewhat fragmentary account of these +adventures given in his letters with one or two of her +own, in which they are told with full vividness and detail.</p> + +<p>Sailing from Tahiti due northwards through forty +degrees of latitude, the party arrived about Christmas at +Honolulu, the more than semi-civilised capital of the +Hawaiian group (Sandwich Islands), where they paid off +the yacht <i>Casco</i> and made a stay of nearly six months. +Here Stevenson finished <i>The Master of Ballantrae</i> and <i>The +Wrong Box</i>; and hence his mother returned for a while +to Scotland, to rejoin her son’s household when it was +fairly installed two years later at Vailima. From Honolulu +Stevenson made several excursions, including one, +which profoundly impressed him, to the leper settlement +at Molokai, the scene of Father Damien’s ministrations and +death.</p> + +<p>This first year of cruising and residence among the +Pacific Islands had resulted in so encouraging a renewal +of health, with so keen a zest added to life by the restored +capacity for outdoor activity and adventure, that Stevenson +determined to prolong his experiences in yet more +remote archipelagoes of the same ocean. He started +accordingly from Honolulu in June 1889 on a trading +schooner, the <i>Equator</i>, bound to the Gilberts, one of the +least visited and most primitively mannered of all the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id="page292"></a>292</span> +island groups of the Western Pacific; emerged towards +Christmas of the same year into semi-civilisation again at +Apia, on the island of Upolu in Samoa, where he wrote his +first Polynesian story, <i>The Bottle Imp</i>. Enchanted with +the scenery and the people, he stayed for six weeks, first +in the house of Mr. H. J. Moors, a leading American trader, +then with his family in a separate cottage not far off; +bought an estate on the densely wooded mountain side +above Apia, with the notion of making there, if not a home, +at least a place of rest and call on later projected excursions +among the islands; and began to make collections +for his studies in recent Samoan history. In February he +went on to Sydney to find his correspondence and consider +future plans. It was during this stay at Sydney that he +was moved to give expression to his righteous indignation +at the terms of a letter concerning Father Damien by the +Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Here also he fell once more +seriously ill, with a renewal of all his old symptoms; and +the conclusion was forced upon him that he must take up +his residence for the rest of his life in the tropics—though +with occasional excursions, as he then hoped, at least +half-way homeward to places where it might be possible +for friends from England to meet him. In order to shake +off the effects of this attack, he started with his party on +a fresh sea voyage from Sydney, this time on a trading +steamer, the <i>Janet Nicoll</i>, which took him by a very devious +course to the Gilberts again, the Marshalls, and among +many other remote islands during the months of April-August +1890. During the voyage he began to put into +shape the notes for a volume on the South Seas which +he had been compiling ever since he left San Francisco. +Unfortunately, he persisted in the endeavour to make his +work impersonal and full of information, or what he called +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>293</span> +“serious interest,” exactly in the manner which his wife +had foreseen before they left Honolulu, and from which +she had wisely tried to dissuade him (see her letter printed +on pp. 347 foll.). On the return voyage Stevenson left the +<i>Janet Nicoll</i> to land in New Caledonia, staying for some +days at Noumea before he went on to Sydney, where he +spent four or five weeks of later August and September. +Thence he returned in October to take up his abode for +good on his Samoan property, where the work of clearing, +planting, and building a habitable cottage had been going +on busily during his absence.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>It should be remembered that the Marquesas, the Paumotus, +and the Tahitian group are all dependencies of France.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Yacht</i> Casco, <i>Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, +Marquesas Islands</i> [<i>July</i> 1888].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—From this somewhat (ahem) out of +the way place, I write to say how d’ye do. It is all a +swindle: I chose these isles as having the most beastly +population, and they are far better, and far more civilised +than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal +in his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked +home from killing ’em, and he is a perfect gentleman and +exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: no fool, though.</p> + +<p>The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we +lie one of the loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening +we had near a score natives on board; lovely parties. +We have a native god; very rare now. Very rare and +equally absurd to view.</p> + +<p>This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: +it takes me all the little strength I have to go about and +see, and then come home and note, the strangeness around +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id="page294"></a>294</span> +us. I shouldn’t wonder if there came trouble here some +day, all the same. I could name a nation that is not +beloved in certain islands—and it does not know it! +Strange: like ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all +and much to yourself.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt1"><i>Yacht</i> Casco, <i>at sea, near the Paumotus,</i></p> +<p class="rt">7 <span class="sc">A.M.</span>, <i>September 6th,</i> 1888, <i>with a dreadful pen.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Last night as I lay under my +blanket in the cockpit, courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. +There was nothing visible but the southern stars, and the +steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we were all +looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the +morrow, praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms +which are to indicate the Dangerous Archipelago; the +night was as warm as milk, and all of a sudden I had a +vision of—Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash +of lightning: I simply returned thither, and into the +past. And when I remember all I hoped and feared as +I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east wind; +how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and yet +timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a +friend, far less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; +how I hoped (if I did not take to drink) I should possibly +write one little book, etc. etc. And then now—what a +change! I feel somehow as if I should like the incident +set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary thoroughfare +for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts +are down. And I felt I must write one word to you. +Excuse me if I write little: when I am at sea, it gives me +a headache; when I am in port, I have my diary crying +“Give, give.” I shall have a fine book of travels, I feel +sure; and will tell you more of the South Seas after very +few months than any other writer has done—except +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295"></a>295</span> +Herman Melville perhaps, who is a howling cheese. Good +luck to you, God bless you.—Your affectionate friend,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The signature used at foot of this letter and occasionally elsewhere, +“The Old Man Virulent,” alludes to the fits of uncontrollable +anger to which he was often in youth, but by this time very rarely, +subject: fits occasioned sometimes by instances of official stolidity +or impertinence or what he took for such, more often by acts savouring +of cruelty, meanness, or injustice.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Fakarava, Low Archipelago, September 21st,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—Only a word. Get out your big +atlas, and imagine a straight line from San Francisco to +Anaho, the N.E. corner of Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas +Islands; imagine three weeks there: imagine a +day’s sail on August 12th round the eastern end of the +island to Tai-o-hae, the capital; imagine us there till +August 22nd: imagine us skirt the east side of Ua-pu—perhaps +Rona-Poa on your atlas—and through the Bordelais +straits to Taa-hauku in Hiva-Oa, where we arrive on +the 23rd; imagine us there until September 4th, when +we sailed for Fakarava, which we reached on the 9th, +after a very difficult and dangerous passage among these +isles. Tuesday, we shall leave for Taiti, where I shall +knock off and do some necessary work ashore. It looks +pretty bald in the atlas; not in fact; nor I trust in the +130 odd pages of diary which I have just been looking up +for these dates: the interest, indeed, has been <i>incredible</i>: +I did not dream there were such places or such races. +My health has stood me splendidly; I am in for hours +wading over the knees for shells; I have been five hours +on horseback: I have been up pretty near all night waiting +to see where the <i>Casco</i> would go ashore, and with my +diary all ready—simply the most entertaining night of my +life. Withal I still have colds; I have one now, and feel +pretty sick too; but not as at home: instead of being in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id="page296"></a>296</span> +bed, for instance, I am at this moment sitting snuffling +and writing in an undershirt and trousers; and as for +colour, hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner +than the berry: only my trunk and the aristocratic spot +on which I sit retain the vile whiteness of the north.</p> + +<p>Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry +James, and any whom you see of well-wishers. Accept +from me the very best of my affection: and believe me +ever yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">The Old Man Virulent.</p> + + +<p class="rt pt2"><i>Papeete, Taiti, October 7th,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p>Never having found a chance to send this off, I may +add more of my news. My cold took a very bad turn, +and I am pretty much out of sorts at this particular, living +in a little bare one-twentieth-furnished house, surrounded +by mangoes, etc. All the rest are well, and I mean to be +soon. But these Taiti colds are very severe and, to children, +often fatal; so they were not the thing for me. Yesterday +the brigantine came in from San Francisco, so we can get +our letters off soon. There are in Papeete at this moment, +in a little wooden house with grated verandahs, two people +who love you very much, and one of them is</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Taiti, as ever was, 6th October</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,— ... You will receive a lot of +mostly very bad proofs of photographs: the paper was so +bad. Please keep them very private, as they are for the +book. We send them, having learned so dread a fear of the +sea, that we wish to put our eggs in different baskets. We +have been thrice within an ace of being ashore: we were +lost (!) for about twelve hours in the Low Archipelago, +but by God’s blessing had quiet weather all the time; and +once in a squall, we cam so near gaun heels ower hurdies, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297" id="page297"></a>297</span> +that I really dinnae ken why we didnae a’thegither. Hence, +as I say, a great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, +particularly on the Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean.</p> + +<p>You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, +owing to incidental beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, +owing to the intrinsic interest of these isles. I hope the +book will be a good one; nor do I really very much doubt +that—the stuff is so curious; what I wonder is, if the +public will rise to it. A copy of my journal, or as much +of it as is made, shall go to you also; it is, of course, quite +imperfect, much being to be added and corrected; but +O, for the eggs in the different baskets.</p> + +<p>All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the +cruise so far, in spite of its drawbacks. We have had an +awfae time in some ways, Mr. Baxter; and if I wasnae +sic a verra patient man (when I ken that I <i>have</i> to be) +there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I hadnae +happened to be on deck about three in the marnin’, I <i>think</i> +there would have been <i>murder</i> done. The American +Mairchant Marine is a kent service; ye’ll have heard its +praise, I’m thinkin’; an’ if ye never did, ye can get <i>Twa +Years Before the Mast</i>, by Dana, whaur forbye a great deal +o’ pleisure, ye’ll get a’ the needcessary information. Love +to your father and all the family.—Ever your affectionate +friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This lady, as we have seen, had made Stevenson a present of a +paper-cutter when he left Bournemouth; and it is in the character +of the paper-cutter that he now writes.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Taiti, October 10th,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR GIVER</span>,—I am at a loss to conceive your object +in giving me to a person so locomotory as my proprietor. +The number of thousand miles that I have travelled, +the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id="page298"></a>298</span> +acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make +clear to your imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows +would be a more exact expression, for the place of +my abode is in my master’s right-hand trouser-pocket; +and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of +Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of +Fakarava, I have been overwhelmed by and buried among +all manner of abominable South Sea shells, beautiful +enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular company +for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master—or +as I more justly call him, my bearer; for although I +occasionally serve him, does not he serve me daily and all +day long, carrying me like an African potentate on my +subject’s legs?—<i>he</i> is delighted with these isles, and this +climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. +He now blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes +the poor thing appears stifled with shame, sometimes it +screams with agony; he pursues his career with truculent +insensibility. Health appears to reign in the party. I +was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left +England, for here there are no books to be had, and without +books there is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your +affectionate</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Wooden Paper-Cutter.</p> + +<p class="pt1">A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your +direction.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the <i>Feast of +Famine</i>, published with others in the collection of 1890 <i>Ballads</i> +(Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his South Sea +ballads for any quality except their narrative vigour, thinking them +unequal and uncertain both in metre and style.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Taiti, October 16th,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—The cruiser for San Francisco +departs to-morrow morning bearing you some kind of a +scratch. This much more important packet will travel by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id="page299"></a>299</span> +way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a +better ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine +how you will wag your pow over it; and how ragged you +will find it, etc., but has it not spirit all the same? and +though the verse is not all your fancy painted it, has it +not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has +considerable merit! Read it, get a typewritten copy +taken, and send me that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. +I know I am only courting the most excruciating +mortification; but the real cause of my sending the thing +is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have +much MS. go down with me. To say truth, we are through +the most dangerous; but it has left in all minds a strong +sense of insecurity, and we are all for putting eggs in +various baskets.</p> + +<p>We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, +and the Sandwiches.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>O, how my spirit languishes</p> +<p>To step ashore on the Sanguishes;</p> +<p>For there my letters wait,</p> +<p>There shall I know my fate.</p> +<p>O, how my spirit languidges</p> +<p>To step ashore on the Sanguidges.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p><i>18th.</i>—I think we shall leave here if all is well on +Monday. I am quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. +It must be owned these climates and this voyage have +given me more strength than I could have thought possible. +And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the +mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, +the lack of space, the cruel publicity, the villainous tinned +foods, the sailors, the captain, the passengers—but you are +amply repaid when you sight an island, and drop anchor +in a new world. Much trouble has attended this trip, but +I must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, +as in the last few weeks, with the curing of my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300"></a>300</span> +illness indeed, as if that were the bursting of an abscess, +the cloud has risen from my spirits and to some degree from +my temper. Do you know what they called the <i>Casco</i> at +Fakarava? The <i>Silver Ship</i>. Is that not pretty? Pray +tell Mrs. Jenkin, <i>die silberne Frau</i>, as I only learned it +since I wrote her. I think of calling the book by that +name: <i>The Cruise of the Silver Ship</i>—so there will be +one poetic page at least—the title. At the Sandwiches +we shall say farewell to the <i>S. S.</i> with mingled feelings. +She is a lovely creature: the most beautiful thing at this +moment in Taiti.</p> + +<p>Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have +nothing to say. You would think I was bursting: but +the voyage is all stored up for the book, which is to pay +for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the time are +not worth telling; and our news is little.</p> + +<p>Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now +stored, and the Blue Peter metaphorically flies.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To William and Thomas Archer</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson addresses a part of this letter, as well as the whole +of another later on, to a young son of Mr. Archer’s, but rather to +amuse himself than his nominal correspondent, who was then aged +three.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Taiti, October 17th,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR ARCHER</span>,—Though quite unable to write letters +I nobly send you a line signifying nothing. The voyage +has agreed well with all; it has had its pains, and its +extraordinary pleasures; nothing in the world can equal +the excitement of the first time you cast anchor in some +bay of a tropical island, and the boats begin to surround +you, and the tattooed people swarm aboard. Tell Tomarcher, +with my respex, that hide-and-seek is not equal to +it; no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of +that, is a game for the unskilful: the artist prefers daylight, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301"></a>301</span> +a good-sized garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, +and—come on, Macduff.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Tomarcher</span>, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but +that was not the real bent of my genius. I was the best +player of hide-and-seek going; not a good runner, I was +up to every shift and dodge, I could jink very well, I could +crawl without any noise through leaves, I could hide under +a carrot plant, it used to be my favourite boast that I +always <i>walked</i> into the den. You may care to hear, +Tomarcher, about the children in these parts; their parents +obey them, they do not obey their parents; and I am +sorry to tell you (for I dare say you are already thinking +the idea a good one) that it does not pay one halfpenny. +There are three sorts of civilisation, Tomarcher: the real +old-fashioned one, in which children either had to find out +how to please their dear papas, or their dear papas cut +their heads off. This style did very well, but is now out +of fashion. Then the modern European style: in which +children have to behave reasonably well, and go to school +and say their prayers, or their dear papas <i>will know the +reason why</i>. This does fairly well. Then there is the +South Sea Island plan, which does not do one bit. The +children beat their parents here; it does not make their +parents any better; so do not try it.</p> + +<p>Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your +new house, but will send this to one of your papa’s +publishers. Remember us all to all of you, and believe +me, yours respectably,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Tautira (The Garden of the World), otherwise called<br /> +Hans-Christian-Andersen-ville</i> [<i>November</i> 1888].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Whether I have a penny left in +the wide world, I know not, nor shall know, till I get to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302"></a>302</span> +Honolulu, where I anticipate a devil of an awakening. It +will be from a mighty pleasant dream at least: Tautira +being mere Heaven. But suppose, for the sake of argument, +any money to be left in the hands of my painful +doer, what is to be done with it? Save us from exile +would be the wise man’s choice, I suppose; for the exile +threatens to be eternal. But yet I am of opinion—in case +there should be <i>some</i> dibbs in the hand of the P.D., <i>i.e.</i> +painful doer; because if there be none, I shall take to +my flageolet on the high-road, and work home the best +way I can, having previously made away with my +family—I am of opinion that if —— and his are in +the customary state, and you are thinking of an offering, +and there should be still some funds over, you +would be a real good P.D. to put some in with yours +and tak’ the credit o’t, like a wee man! I know it’s +a beastly thing to ask, but it, after all, does no +earthly harm, only that much good. And besides, +like enough there’s nothing in the till, and there is an +end. Yet I live here in the full lustre of millions; it is +thought I am the richest son of man that has yet been +to Tautira: I!—and I am secretly eaten with the fear of +lying in pawn, perhaps for the remainder of my days, in +San Francisco. As usual, my colds have much hashed +my finances.</p> + +<p>Do tell Henley I write this just after having dismissed +Ori the sub-chief, in whose house I live, Mrs. +Ori, and Pairai, their adopted child, from the evening +hour of music: during which I Publickly (with +a k) Blow on the Flageolet. These are words of truth. +Yesterday I told Ori about W. E. H., counterfeited +his playing on the piano and the pipe, and succeeded +in sending the six feet four there is of that +sub-chief somewhat sadly to his bed; feeling that his +was not the genuine article after all. Ori is exactly +like a colonel in the Guards.—I am, dear Charles, ever +yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id="page303"></a>303</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The stanzas which end this letter are well known, having been +printed, with one additional, in <i>Songs of Travel</i>; but they gain +effect, I think, from being given here in their place.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Tautira, 10th November</i> ’88.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Our mainmast is dry-rotten, and +we are all to the devil; I shall lie in a debtor’s jail. Never +mind, Tautira is first chop. I am so besotted that I shall +put on the back of this my attempt at words to Wandering +Willie; if you can conceive at all the difficulty, you +will also conceive the vanity with which I regard any +kind of result; and whatever mine is like, it has some +sense, and Burns’s has none.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?</p> + <p class="i1">Hunger my driver, I go where I must.</p> +<p>Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;</p> + <p class="i1">Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.</p> +<p>Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree;</p> + <p class="i1">The true word of welcome was spoken in the door—</p> +<p>Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,</p> + <p class="i1">Kind folks of old, you come again no more.</p> + +<p class="s">Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,</p> + <p class="i1">Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.</p> +<p>Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;</p> + <p class="i1">Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.</p> +<p>Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,</p> + <p class="i1">Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.</p> +<p>Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,</p> + <p class="i1">The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page304" id="page304"></a>304</span></p> + +<p class="to">To John Addington Symonds</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following is the draft of a proposed dedication to the South +Sea travel-book which was to be the fruit of the present voyages, as +is explained in a note at the end.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>November 11th,</i> 1888.</p> + +<p><i>One November night, in the village of Tautira, we sat at +the high table in the hall of assembly, hearing the natives sing. +It was dark in the hall, and very warm; though at times the +land wind blew a little shrewdly through the chinks, and at +times, through the larger openings, we could see the moonlight +on the lawn. As the songs arose in the rattling Tahitian +chorus, the chief translated here and there a verse. Farther +on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves; and I +am in hopes that not you only, but all who can find a savour +in the ancient poetry of places, will read them with some +pleasure. You are to conceive us, therefore, in strange circumstances +and very pleasing; in a strange land and climate, +the most beautiful on earth; surrounded by a foreign race +that all travellers have agreed to be the most engaging; and +taking a double interest in two foreign arts.</i></p> + +<p><i>We came forth again at last, in a cloudy moonlight, on +the forest lawn which is the street of Tautira. The Pacific +roared outside upon the reef. Here and there one of the +scattered palm-built lodges shone out under the shadow of the +wood, the lamplight bursting through the crannies of the wall. +We went homeward slowly, Ori a Ori carrying behind us the +lantern and the chairs, properties with which we had just been +enacting our part of the distinguished visitor. It was one of +those moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall +the names and deplore the absence of congenial friends; and +it was your name that first rose upon our lips. “How +Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!” said one, and +then another. The word caught in my mind; I went to bed, +and it was still there. The glittering, frosty solitudes in which +your days are cast arose before me: I seemed to see you walking +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305"></a>305</span> +there in the late night, under the pine-trees and the stars; +and I received the image with something like remorse.</i></p> + +<p><i>There is a modern attitude towards Fortune; in this +place I will not use a graver name. Staunchly to withstand +her buffets and to enjoy with equanimity her favours was the +code of the virtuous of old. Our fathers, it should seem, +wondered and doubted how they had merited their misfortunes: +we, rather how we have deserved our happiness. And we +stand often abashed, and sometimes revolted, at those partialities +of fate by which we profit most. It was so with me +on that November night: I felt that our positions should be +changed. It was you, dear Symonds, who should have gone +upon that voyage and written this account. With your rich +stores of knowledge, you could have remarked and understood +a thousand things of interest and beauty that escaped my +ignorance; and the brilliant colours of your style would have +carried into a thousand sickrooms the sea air and the strong +sun of tropic islands. It was otherwise decreed. But suffer +me at least to connect you, if only in name and only in the +fondness of imagination, with the voyage of the</i> Silver Ship.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><span class="scs">DEAR SYMONDS</span>,—I send you this (November 11th), the +morning of its completion. If I ever write an account of +this voyage, may I place this letter at the beginning? +It represents—I need not tell you, for you too are an +artist—a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake +last night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think +it a good piece of writing. We are <i>in heaven here</i>. Do +not forget.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Please keep this: I have no perfect copy.</p> + +<p><i>Tautira, on the peninsula of Taiti.</i></p> + + +<p class="to">To Thomas Archer</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Tautira, Island of Taiti</i> [<i>November</i> 1888].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR TOMARCHER</span>,—This is a pretty state of things! +seven o’clock and no word of breakfast! And I was awake +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id="page306"></a>306</span> +a good deal last night, for it was full moon, and they had +made a great fire of cocoa-nut husks down by the sea, +and as we have no blinds or shutters, this kept my room +very bright. And then the rats had a wedding or a school-feast +under my bed. And then I woke early, and I have +nothing to read except Virgil’s <i>Æneid</i>, which is not good +fun on an empty stomach, and a Latin dictionary, which +is good for naught, and by some humorous accident, your +dear papa’s article on Skerryvore. And I read the whole +of that, and very impudent it is, but you must not tell +your dear papa I said so, or it might come to a battle in +which you might lose either a dear papa or a valued correspondent, +or both, which would be prodigal. And still no +breakfast; so I said “Let’s write to Tomarcher.”</p> + +<p>This is a much better place for children than any I +have hitherto seen in these seas. The girls (and sometimes +the boys) play a very elaborate kind of hopscotch. The +boys play horses exactly as we do in Europe; and have +very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each other down, +in which they do not often succeed. The children of all +ages go to church and are allowed to do what they please, +running about the aisles, rolling balls, stealing mamma’s +bonnet and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to +sleep in the middle of the floor. I forgot to say that the +whips to play horses, and the balls to roll about the church—at +least I never saw them used elsewhere—grow ready +made on trees; which is rough on toy-shops. The whips +are so good that I wanted to play horses myself; but no +such luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, ugly +man. The balls are rather hard, but very light and quite +round. When you grow up and become offensively rich, +you can charter a ship in the port of London, and have +it come back to you entirely loaded with these balls; when +you could satisfy your mind as to their character, and give +them away when done with to your uncles and aunts. +But what I really wanted to tell you was this: besides the +tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on the tree-top!), I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307"></a>307</span> +have seen some real <i>made</i> toys, the first hitherto observed +in the South Seas.</p> + +<p>This was how. You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; +one horse; in the front seat two Tahiti natives, in their +Sunday clothes, blue coat, white shirt, kilt (a little longer +than the Scotch) of a blue stuff with big white or yellow +flowers, legs and feet bare; in the back seat me and my +wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, plenty of +lunch and things: among us a great deal of fun in broken +Tahitian, one of the natives, the sub-chief of the village, +being a great ally of mine. Indeed we have exchanged +names; so that he is now called Rui, the nearest they can +come to Louis, for they have no <i>l</i> and no <i>s</i> in their language. +Rui is six feet three in his stockings, and a magnificent +man. We all have straw hats, for the sun is strong. We +drive between the sea, which makes a great noise, and the +mountains; the road is cut through a forest mostly of +fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of our +ivy, heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than +your head and far nicer, called Barbedine. Presently we +came to a house in a pretty garden, quite by itself, very +nicely kept, the doors and windows open, no one about, and +no noise but that of the sea. It looked like a house in a +fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a river, and there +we saw the inhabitants. Just in the mouth of the river, +where it met the sea waves, they were ducking and bathing +and screaming together like a covey of birds: seven or +eight little naked brown boys and girls as happy as the day +was long; and on the banks of the stream beside them, +real toys—toy ships, full rigged, and with their sails set, +though they were lying in the dust on their beam ends. +And then I knew for sure they were all children in a fairy-story, +living alone together in that lonely house with the +only toys in all the island; and that I had myself driven, +in my four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, +and the question was, should I get out again? But it was +all right; I guess only one of the wheels of the gig had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308"></a>308</span> +got into the fairy-story; and the next jolt the whole thing +vanished, and we drove on in our sea-side forest as before, +and I have the honour to be Tomarcher’s valued correspondent, +<span class="sc">Teriitera</span>, which he was previously known as</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This letter from Mrs. Stevenson serves to fill out and explain +allusions in the three or four preceding. The beautiful brown +princess is Princess Moë, ex-queen of Raiatea, well known to readers +of Pierre Loti and Miss Gordon Cumming. The move away from +Papeete, where Stevenson had fallen seriously ill, had been made in +hopes of finding on the island a climate that would suit him better.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Tautira, Tahiti, Dec. 4th</i> [1888].</p> + +<p> <span class="scs">DEAR</span>, long neglected, though never forgotten Custodian, +I write you from fairyland, where we are living in a +fairy story, the guests of a beautiful brown princess. We +came to stay a week, five weeks have passed, and we are +still indefinite as to our time of leaving. It was chance +brought us here, for no one in Papeete could tell us a word +about this part of the island except that it was very fine +to look at, and inhabited by wild people—“almost as wild +as the people of Anaho!” That touch about the people +of Anaho inclined our hearts this way, so we finally concluded +to take a look at the other side of Tahiti. The place +of our landing was windy, uninhabited except by mosquitoes, +and Louis was ill. The first day Lloyd and the +Captain made an exploration, but came back disgusted. +They had found a Chinaman, a long way off, who seemed +to have some horses, but no desire to hire them to strangers, +and they had found nothing else whatever. The next +morning I took Valentine and went on a prospecting tour +of my own. I found the Chinaman, persuaded him to let +me have two horses and a wagon, and went back for the +rest of my family. When asked where I wished to go, I +could only say to the largest native village and the most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309"></a>309</span> +wild. Ill as Louis was, I brought him the next day, and +shall never cease to be thankful for my courage, for he has +gained health and strength every day. He takes sea baths +and swims, and lives almost entirely in the open air as +nearly without clothes as possible, a simple pyjama suit +of striped light flannel his only dress. As to shoes and +stockings we all have scorned them for months except +Mrs. Stevenson, who often goes barefoot and never, I +believe, wears stockings. Lloyd’s costume, in which he +looks remarkably well, consists of a striped flannel shirt +and a pareu. The pareu is no more or less than a large +figured blue and white cotton window curtain twisted about +the waist, and hanging a little below the bare knees. Both +Louis and Lloyd wear wreaths of artificial flowers, made +of the dried pandanus leaf, on their hats.</p> + +<p>Moë has gone to Papeete by the command of the king, +whose letter was addressed “To the great Princess at +Tautira. P.V.” P.V. stands for Pomaré 5th. Every +evening, before she went, we played Van John lying in a +circle on pillows in the middle of the floor with our heads +together: and hardly an evening passed but it struck us +afresh how very much you would like Moë, and we told +her of you again. The house (really here a palace) in +which we live, belongs to the sub-chief, Ori, a subject +and relation of the Princess. He, and his whole family, +consisting of his wife, his two little adopted sons, his +daughter and her two young babies, turned out to live in +a little bird-cage hut of one room. Ori is the very finest +specimen of a native we have seen yet; he is several inches +over six feet, of perfect though almost gigantic proportions, +and looks more like a Roman Emperor in bronze than +words can express. One day, when Moë gave a feast, it +being the correct thing to do, we all wore wreaths of golden +yellow leaves on our heads; when Ori walked in and sat +down at the table, as with one voice we all cried out in +admiration. His manners and I might say his habit of +thought are English. In some ways, he is so like a Colonel +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310"></a>310</span> +of the Guards that we often call him Colonel. It was +either the day before, or the morning of our public feast, +that Louis asked the Princess if she thought Ori would +accept his name. She was sure of it, and much pleased at +the idea. I wish you could have seen Louis, blushing like +a schoolgirl, when Ori came in, and the brotherhood was +offered. So now if you please, Louis is no more Louis, +having given that name away in the Tahitian form of +<i>Rui</i>, but is known as <i>Terii-Tera</i> (pronounced Ter<i>ee</i>terah) +that being Ori’s Christian name. “Ori a Ori” is his clan +name.</p> + +<p>Let me tell you of our village feast. The chief, who +was our guide in the matter, found four large fat hogs, +which Louis bought, and four cases of ship’s biscuit were +sent over from the <i>Casco</i>, which is lying at Papeete for +repairs. Our feast cost in all about eighty dollars. Every +Sunday all things of public interest are announced in the +Farehau (an enormous public bird cage) and the news of +the week read aloud from the Papeete journal, if it happens +to turn up. Our feast was given on a Wednesday, and was +announced by the chief the Sunday before, who referred +to Louis as “the rich one.” Our hogs were killed in the +morning, washed in the sea, and roasted whole in a pit +with hot stones. When done they were laid on their +stomachs in neat open coffins of green basket work, each +hog with his case of biscuits beside him. Early in the +morning the entire population began bathing, a bath being +the preliminary to everything. At about three o’clock—four +was the hour set—there was a general movement +towards our premises, so that I had to hurry Louis into his +clothes, all white, even to his shoes. Lloyd was also in +white, but barefoot. I was not prepared, so had to appear +in a red and white muslin gown, also barefoot. As Mrs. +Stevenson had had a feast of her own, conducted on +religious principles, she kept a little in the background, so +that her dress did not matter so much. The chief, who +speaks French very well, stood beside Louis to interpret +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a>311</span> +for him. By the time we had taken our respective places +on the veranda in front of our door, an immense crowd +had assembled. They came in five, instead of four detachments +which was what the chief expected, and he was a +little confused at first, as he and Louis had been arranging +a speech to four sets of people, which ran in this order. +The clergyman at the head of the Protestants: the chief, +council, and irreligious:—one of the council at their head. +The schoolmaster with the schoolchildren: the catechist +and the Catholics: but there was another very small +sect, by some strange mischance called Mormons, which it +was supposed would be broken up and swallowed by the +others. But no, the Mormons came in a body alone, +marshalled by the best and wittiest speaker—<i>bar Rui</i>—in +Tautira. Each set of people came bending under the +weight of bamboo poles laden with fruits, pigs, fowls, etc. +All were dressed in their gayest pareus, and many had +wreaths of leaves or flowers on their heads. The prettiest +sight of all was the children, who came marching two and +two abreast, the bamboo poles lying lengthwise across +their shoulders.</p> + +<p>When all the offerings had been piled in five great heaps +upon the ground, Louis made his oration to the accompaniment +of the squealing of pigs, the cackling of hens, and +the roar of the surf which beats man-high upon the roof. +A speech was made in return on behalf of the village, and +then each section sent forth its orator, the speeches following +in the order I have given above. Each speaker finished +by coming forward with one of the smaller things in his +hand, which he offered personally to Louis, and then shook +hands with us all and retired. Among these smaller presents +were many fish-hooks for large fishing, laboriously +carved from mother-of-pearl shell. One man came with +one egg in each hand saying, “carry these to Scotland +with you, let them hatch into cocks, and their song shall +remind you of Tautira.” The schoolmaster, with a leaf-basket +of rose apples, made his speech in French. Somehow +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312"></a>312</span> +the whole effect of the scene was like a story out of +the Bible, and I am not ashamed that Louis and I both +shed tears when we saw the enchanting procession of schoolchildren. +The Catholic priest, Father Bruno, a great friend +of ours, said that for the next fifty years the time of the +feast of the rich one will be talked of: which reminds me +of our friend Donat, of Fakarava, who was temporary +resident at the time we were there. “I am so glad,” he +said, “that the <i>Casco</i> came in just now, otherwise I should +be forgotten: but now the people will always say this or +that happened so long before—or so long after—the coming +of the <i>Silver Ship</i>, when Donat represented the government.”</p> + +<p>In front of our house is a broad stretch of grass, dotted +with cocoanuts, breadfruits, mangoes, and the strange +pandanus tree. I wish you could have seen them, their +lower branches glowing with the rich colours of the fruits +hung upon them by Ori and his men, and great heaps +lying piled against their roots, on the evening of our feast. +From the bamboo poles that they were carried upon, a +pen was made for the ten pigs, and a fowl house for the +twenty-three fowls that were among the presents. But +there was a day of reckoning at hand. Time after time +we ran down to the beach to look for the <i>Casco</i>, until we +were in despair. For over a month we had lived in Ori’s +house, causing him infinite trouble and annoyance, and +not even his, at that. Areia (the chief—Areia means the +Prince) went to Papeete and came back with a letter to +say that more work had to be done upon the <i>Casco</i>, and +it might be any time before she could get to Tautira. We +had used up all our stores, and had only a few dollars of +money left in Tautira, and not very much in Papeete. +Could we stand the journey to Papeete, we could not live +upon the yacht in the midst of the workmen, and we had +not money enough left to live at an hotel. We were playing +cards on the floor, as usual, when this message came, +and you can imagine its effect. I knew perfectly well that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id="page313"></a>313</span> +Rui would force us to stay on with him, but what depressed +me the most of all, was the fact of Louis having made +brothers with him just before this took place. Had there +been a shadow of doubt on our dear Rui’s face, I should +have fled from before him. Sitting there on the floor waiting +for him was too much for my nerves and I burst into +tears, upon which the princess wept bitterly. In the meantime +the priest had dropped in, so that we had him and +Moë, and Areia, as witnesses to our humiliating position. +First came Madame Rui, who heard the story, and sat down +on the floor in silence, which was very damping for a +beginning, and then Ori of Ori, the magnificent, who listened +to the tale of the shipwrecked mariners with serious dignity, +asking one or two questions, and then spoke to this effect. +“You are my brother: all that I have is yours. I know +that your food is done, but I can give you plenty of fish +and taro. We like you, and wish to have you here. Stay +where you are till the <i>Casco</i> comes. Be happy—<i>et ne +pleurez pas</i>.” Louis dropped his head into his hands and +wept, and then we all went up to Rui and shook hands +with him and accepted his offer. Madame Rui, who had +been silent only as a dutiful wife, that her husband might +speak first, poured forth manifold reasons for our staying +on as long as we could possibly manage. During all this +scene, an attendant of the princess had been sitting on the +floor behind us, a baby in his arms, where he had ensconced +himself for the purpose of watching the game. He understood +nothing of what was going on; we wondered afterwards +what he thought of it. Reduced as we were, we still +had a few bottles of champagne left. Champagne being +an especial weakness of our gigantic friend, it occurred to +some one that this was a proper occasion to open a couple +of bottles. Louis, the Princess, and I were quite, as the +Scotch so well say, “begrutten,” Areia’s immense eyes were +fairly melting out of his head with emotion, the priest was +wiping his eyes and blowing his nose: and then for no +apparent cause we suddenly fell to drinking and clinking +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314"></a>314</span> +glasses quite merrily: the bewildered attendant clinked +and drank too, and then sat down and waited in case there +should be any repetition of the drinking part of the performance. +And sure enough there was, for in the midst +of an animated discussion as to ways and means, Mrs. +Stevenson announced that it was St. Andrew’s day, so +again the attendant clinked and drank with Ori’s mad +foreigners.</p> + +<p>It is quite true that we live almost entirely upon native +food; our luncheon to-day consisted of raw fish with +sauce made of cocoanut milk mixed with sea water and +lime juice, taro poi-poi, and bananas roasted in hot stones +in a little pit in the ground, with cocoanut cream to eat +with them. Still we like coffee in the evening, a little wine +at dinner, and a few other products of civilisation. It +would be possible, the chief said, to send a boat, but that +would cost sixty dollars. A final arrangement, which we +were forced to accept, was that Rui should go in his own +boat, and the chief would appoint a substitute for some +public work that he was then engaged upon. Early the +next morning, amidst a raging sea and a storming wind, +Rui departed with three men to help him. It is forty miles +to Papeete, and Rui, starting in the early morning, arrived +there at nine o’clock; but alas, the wind was against +him, and it was altogether six days before he got back.</p> + +<p>Louis has done a great deal of work on his new story, +<i>The Master of Ballantrae</i>, almost finished it in fact, while +Mrs. Stevenson and I are deep in the mysteries of hatmaking, +which is a ladies’ accomplishment taking the place +of water-colour drawing in England. It is a small compliment +to present a hat to an acquaintance. Altogether +we have about thirteen. Next door to us is Areia’s out-of-door +house, where he and the ladies of his family sleep +and eat: it has a thatched roof of palm branches, and a +floor of boards, the sides and ends being open to the world. +On the floor are spread mats plaited of pandanus leaves, +and pillows stuffed with silk cotton from the cotton tree. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315"></a>315</span> +We make little calls upon the ladies, lie upon the mats, +and smoke cigarettes made of tobacco leaves rolled in a +bit of dried pandanus, and admire their work, or get a +lesson; or they call upon us, and lie upon our mats. One +day there was an election in the Farehau. It takes place +all over the island once a year, and among others, the +sub-chief and head-councillor is chosen. For the latter, +our Rui was a candidate. In the beginning, the French +deposed the born chiefs and told the people to elect +men for themselves. The choice of Tautira fell upon +Rui, who declined the honour, saying that Areia was +his natural chief, and he could not take a position that +should belong to his superior; upon which the people +elected Areia chief, and Rui sub-chief and head-councillor. +We all went over to the Farehau, where Areia sat in the +middle of his councillors on a dais behind a long table. +The Farehau is an immense bird-cage of bamboos tied +together with pandanus fibre, and thatched with palms. +In front of the dais the ground is deeply covered with +dried leaves. The costume of the dignitaries was rather +odd. Areia wore a white shirt and blue flannel coat, which +was well enough; but on his plump legs were a pair of the +most incredible trousers: light blue calico with a small red +pattern, such as servant girls wear for gowns in England: +on his feet were neat little shoes and stockings. Rui was +a fine sight, and we were very proud of him; he sat, +exactly like an English gentleman, holding himself well in +hand, alert as a fox and keen as a greyhound: several men +spoke from the farther end of the hall, making objections +of some sort, we could see. Rui listened with a half satirical, +half kindly smile in his eyes, and then dropped a quiet +answer without rising from his seat, which had the effect +of raising a shout of laughter, and quite demolishing his +opponent. Voters came up to the table and dropped their +bits of paper into a slit in a box: some led children by the +hand, and some carried babies in their arms; across the +centre of the great room children and dogs ran chasing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316" id="page316"></a>316</span> +each other and playing. I noticed two little maids who +walked up and down for a long time with their arms intertwined +about each other’s waists. Near where we sat (we +were on the dais, above the common herd), a pretty young +lady having tied up her dog’s mouth with a tuft of grass, +industriously caught and cracked fleas from its back. +Both Lloyd and I grew very sleepy, and as we did not like +to leave till the election was decided, we just threw ourselves +down and took a nap at the feet of the councillors: +nor did we wake till the chief called out to us in English +“it is finished.” I never thought I should be able to +calmly sleep at a public meeting on a platform in the face +of several hundred people: but it is wonderful how quickly +one takes up the ways of a people when you live with +them as intimately as we do.</p> + +<p>I hear dinner coming on the table, so with much love +from us all to you and other dear ones, including our +dear friend Henry James, believe me, affectionately yours,</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="sc">Fanny V.</span> de <span class="sc">G. Stevenson</span>.]</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Yacht Casco, at Sea, 14th January</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—Twenty days out from Papeete. +Yes, sir, all that, and only (for a guess) in 4° north or at +the best 4°30’, though already the wind seems to smell +a little of the North Pole. My handwriting you must take +as you get, for we are speeding along through a nasty +swell, and I can only keep my place at the table by means +of a foot against the divan, the unoccupied hand meanwhile +gripping the ink-bottle. As we begin (so very slowly) +to draw near to seven months of correspondence, we are +all in some fear; and I want to have letters written before +I shall be plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables +which I constantly expect at Honolulu. What is needful +can be added there.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page317" id="page317"></a>317</span></p> + +<p>We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of +my dear old friend, Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this +invaluable yacht had been repaired. It was all for the +best: Tautira being the most beautiful spot, and its people +the most amiable, I have ever found. Besides which, the +climate suited me to the ground; I actually went sea-bathing +almost every day, and in our feasts (we are all +huge eaters in Taiarapu) have been known to apply four +times for pig. And then again I got wonderful materials +for my book, collected songs and legends on the spot; +songs still sung in chorus by perhaps a hundred persons, +not two of whom can agree on their translation; legends, +on which I have seen half a dozen seniors sitting in conclave +and debating what came next. Once I went a day’s +journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high +chief of the Tevas—<i>my</i> chief that is, for I am now a Teva +and Teriitera, at your service—to collect more and correct +what I had already. In the meanwhile I got on with my +work, almost finished <i>The Master of Ballantrae</i>, which +contains more human work than anything of mine but +<i>Kidnapped</i>, and wrote the half of another ballad, the +<i>Song of Rahero</i>, on a Taiarapu legend of my own clan, sir—not +so much fire as the <i>Feast of Famine</i>, but promising +to be more even and correct. But the best fortune of our +stay at Tautira was my knowledge of Ori himself, one +of the finest creatures extant. The day of our parting +was a sad one. We deduced from it a rule for travellers: +not to stay two months in one place—which is to cultivate +regrets.</p> + +<p>At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we +went, bound for Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas +Day; and from then to now have experienced every +sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary winds +and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came +almost to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken. +Three days ago our luck seemed to improve, we struck a +leading breeze, got creditably through the doldrums, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318" id="page318"></a>318</span> +just as we looked to have the N.E. trades and a straight +run, the rains and squalls and calms began again about +midnight, and this morning, though there is breeze enough +to send us along, we are beaten back by an obnoxious swell +out of the north. Here is a page of complaint, when a +verse of thanksgiving had perhaps been more in place. For +all this time we must have been skirting past dangerous +weather, in the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and +getting only annoyance where we should have had peril, +and ill-humour instead of fear.</p> + +<p>I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this +time, or whether the usual damn hangs over my letter? +“The midwife whispered, Be thou dull!” or at least +inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted +with the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. +I cannot tell you how often we have planned our arrival +at the Monument: two nights ago, the 12th January, we +had it all planned out, arrived in the lights and whirl of +Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, over +the bridge, etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in +triumph and with indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, +I always think we are too sparing of assurances: +Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and Goneril in the +same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer I live, +the more dear do you become to me; nor does my heart +own any stronger sentiment. If the bloody schooner didn’t +send me flying in every sort of direction at the same time, +I would say better what I feel so much; but really, if you +were here, you would not be writing letters, I believe; +and even I, though of a more marine constitution, am much +perturbed by this bobbery and wish—O ye Gods, how I +wish!—that it was done, and we had arrived, and I had +Pandora’s Box (my mail-bag) in hand, and was in the lively +hope of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse, +tinned mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, +which now make up our whole repertory. O Pandora’s +Box! I wonder what you will contain. As like as not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id="page319"></a>319</span> +you will contain but little money: if that be so, we shall +have to retire to ’Frisco in the <i>Casco</i>, and thence by sea +<i>via</i> Panama to Southampton, where we should arrive in +April. I would like fine to see you on the tug: ten years +older both of us than the last time you came to welcome +Fanny and me to England. If we have money, however, +we shall do a little differently: send the <i>Casco</i> away from +Honolulu empty of its high-born lessees, for that voyage +to ’Frisco is one long dead beat in foul and at last in cold +weather; stay awhile behind, follow by steamer, cross the +States by train, stay awhile in New York on business, and +arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton. +But all this is a question of money. We shall have to lie +very dark awhile to recruit our finances: what comes from +the book of the cruise, I do not want to touch until the +capital is repaid.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, January</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,—Here at last I have arrived. +We could not get away from Tahiti till Christmas Day, +and then had thirty days of calms and squalls, a deplorable +passage. This has thrown me all out of gear in every +way. I plunge into business.</p> + +<p>1. <i>The Master.</i> Herewith go three more parts. You +see he grows in bulk; this making ten already, and I am +not yet sure if I can finish it in an eleventh; which shall +go to you <i>quam primum</i>—I hope by next mail.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Illustrations to M.</i> I totally forgot to try to write +to Hole. It was just as well, for I find it impossible to +forecast with sufficient precision. You had better throw +off all this and let him have it at once. <i>Please do: all, and +at once: see further;</i> and I should hope he would still be +in time for the later numbers. The three pictures I have +received are so truly good that I should bitterly regret +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320"></a>320</span> +having the volume imperfectly equipped. They are the +best illustrations I have seen since I don’t know when.</p> + +<p>3. <i>Money.</i> To-morrow the mail comes in, and I hope +it will bring me money either from you or home, but I +will add a word on that point.</p> + +<p>4. My address will be Honolulu—no longer Yacht +<i>Casco</i>, which I am packing off—till probably April.</p> + +<p>5. As soon as I am through with <i>The Master</i>, I shall +finish <i>The Game of Bluff</i>—now rechristened <i>The Wrong +Box</i>. This I wish to sell, cash down. It is of course +copyright in the States; and I offer it to you for five +thousand dollars. Please reply on this by return. Also +please tell the typewriter who was so good as to be amused +by our follies that I am filled with admiration for his piece +of work.</p> + +<p>6. <i>Master</i> again. Please see that I haven’t the name +of the Governor of New York wrong (1764 is the date) in +part ten. I have no book of reference to put me right. +Observe you now have up to August inclusive in hand, so +you should begin to feel happy.</p> + +<p>Is this all? I wonder, and fear not. Henry the Trader +has not yet turned up: I hope he may to-morrow, when +we expect a mail. Not one word of business have I received +either from the States or England, nor anything in the +shape of coin; which leaves me in a fine uncertainty and +quite penniless on these islands. H.M.<a name="FnAnchor_27" id="FnAnchor_27" href="#Footnote_27"><span class="sp">27</span></a> (who is a gentleman +of a courtly order and much tinctured with letters) +is very polite; I may possibly ask for the position of +palace doorkeeper. My voyage has been a singular mixture +of good and ill fortune. As far as regards interest +and material, the fortune has been admirable; as far as +regards time, money, and impediments of all kinds, from +squalls and calms to rotten masts and sprung spars, simply +detestable. I hope you will be interested to hear of two +volumes on the wing. The cruise itself, you are to know, +will make a big volume with appendices; some of it will +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id="page321"></a>321</span> +first appear as (what they call) letters in some of M’Clure’s +papers. I believe the book when ready will have a fair +measure of serious interest: I have had great fortune in +finding old songs and ballads and stories, for instance, +and have many singular instances of life in the last few +years among these islands.</p> + +<p>The second volume is of ballads. You know <i>Ticonderoga</i>. +I have written another: <i>The Feast of Famine</i>, a +Marquesan story. A third is half done: <i>The Song of +Rahero</i>, a genuine Tahitian legend. A fourth dances before, +me. A Hawaiian fellow this, <i>The Priest’s Drought</i>, or +some such name. If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects +out of the islands, <i>Ticonderoga</i> shall be suppressed, +and we’ll call the volume <i>South Sea Ballads</i>. In health, +spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do believe, refreshed +capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise folly. Still +we’re not home, and (although the friend of a crowned +head) are penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents +used to call them) “lovely but <i>fatil</i> islands.” By the +way, who wrote the <i>Lion of the Nile</i>? My dear sir, that +is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it has a true thought +and a true ring of language. Beg the anonymous from +me, to delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, +and end on “the lion of the Nile.” One Lampman has a +good sonnet on a “Winter Evening” in, I think, the same +number: he seems ill named, but I am tempted to hope +a man is not always answerable for his name.<a name="FnAnchor_28" id="FnAnchor_28" href="#Footnote_28"><span class="sp">28</span></a> For +instance, you would think you knew mine. No such matter. +It is—at your service and Mr. Scribner’s and that of all +of the faithful—Teriitera (pray pronounce Tayree-Tayra) +or (<i>gallicé</i>) Téri-téra.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p>More when the mail shall come.</p> + +<p class="pt2">I am an idiot. I want to be clear on one point. Some +of Hole’s drawings must of course be too late; and yet +they seem to me so excellent I would fain have the lot +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a>322</span> +complete. It is one thing for you to pay for drawings +which are to appear in that soul-swallowing machine, your +magazine: quite another if they are only to illustrate a +volume. I wish you to take a brisk (even a fiery) decision +on the point; and let Hole know. To resume my desultory +song, I desire you would carry the same fire (hereinbefore +suggested) into your decision on <i>The Wrong Box</i>; for in +my present state of benighted ignorance as to my affairs +for the last seven months—I know not even whether my +house or my mother’s house have been let—I desire to see +something definite in front of me—outside the lot of palace +doorkeeper. I believe the said <i>Wrong Box</i> is a real lark; +in which, of course, I may be grievously deceived; but +the typewriter is with me. I may also be deceived as +to the numbers of <i>The Master</i> now going and already gone; +but to me they seem First Chop, sir, First Chop. I hope +I shall pull off that damned ending; but it still depresses +me: this is your doing, Mr. Burlingame: you would have +it there and then, and I fear it—I fear that ending.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, February 8th,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—Here we are at Honolulu, and +have dismissed the yacht, and lie here till April anyway, +in a fine state of haze, which I am yet in hopes some letter +of yours (still on the way) may dissipate. No money, +and not one word as to money! However, I have got +the yacht paid off in triumph, I think; and though we +stay here impignorate, it should not be for long, even if +you bring us no extra help from home. The cruise has +been a great success, both as to matter, fun, and health; +and yet, Lord, man! we’re pleased to be ashore! Yon was +a very fine voyage from Tahiti up here, but—the dry land’s +a fine place too, and we don’t mind squalls any longer, and +eh, man, that’s a great thing. Blow, blow, thou wintry +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323" id="page323"></a>323</span> +wind, thou hast done me no appreciable harm beyond a +few grey hairs! Altogether, this foolhardy venture is +achieved; and if I have but nine months of life and any +kind of health, I shall have both eaten my cake and got it +back again with usury. But, man, there have been days +when I felt guilty, and thought I was in no position for +the head of a house.</p> + +<p>Your letter and accounts are doubtless at S. F., and +will reach me in course. My wife is no great shakes; she +is the one who has suffered most. My mother has had +a Huge Old Time; Lloyd is first chop; I so well that I +do not know myself—sea-bathing, if you please, and what +is far more dangerous, entertaining and being entertained +by His Majesty here, who is a very fine intelligent fellow, +but O, Charles! what a crop for the drink! He carries +it, too, like a mountain with a sparrow on its shoulders. +We calculated five bottles of champagne in three hours +and a half (afternoon), and the sovereign quite presentable, +although perceptibly more dignified at the end....</p> + +<p>The extraordinary health I enjoy and variety of interests +I find among these islands would tempt me to remain +here; only for Lloyd, who is not well placed in such +countries for a permanency; and a little for Colvin, to +whom I feel I owe a sort of filial duty. And these two +considerations will no doubt bring me back—to go to bed +again—in England.—Yours ever affectionately,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To R. A. M. Stevenson</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, +February</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BOB</span>,—My extremely foolhardy venture is +practically over. How foolhardy it was I don’t think +I realised. We had a very small schooner, and, like most +yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and like many +American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id="page324"></a>324</span> +waters we sailed in are, of course, entirely unlighted, and +very badly charted; in the Dangerous Archipelago, +through which we were fools enough to go, we were perfectly +in ignorance of where we were for a whole night +and half the next day, and this in the midst of invisible +islands and rapid and variable currents; and we were +lucky when we found our whereabouts at last. We have +twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as +I came on deck, I found the green sea over the cockpit +coamings and running down the companion like a brook +to meet me; at that same moment the foresail sheet +jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the only +occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, +but I worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility of +hemorrhage better than the certainty of drowning. Another +time I saw a rather singular thing: our whole ship’s company +as pale as paper from the captain to the cook; we +had a black squall astern on the port side and a white +squall ahead to starboard; the complication passed off +innocuous, the black squall only fetching us with its tail, +and the white one slewing off somewhere else. Twice we +were a long while (days) in the close vicinity of hurricane +weather, but again luck prevailed, and we saw none of it. +These are dangers incident to these seas and small craft. +What was an amazement, and at the same time a powerful +stroke of luck, both our masts were rotten, and we found +it out—I was going to say in time, but it was stranger and +luckier than that. The head of the mainmast hung over +so that hands were afraid to go to the helm; and less than +three weeks before—I am not sure it was more than a +fortnight—we had been nearly twelve hours beating off +the lee shore of Eimeo (or Moorea, next island to Tahiti) +in half a gale of wind with a violent head sea: she would +neither tack nor wear once, and had to be boxed off with +the mainsail—you can imagine what an ungodly show of +kites we carried—and yet the mast stood. The very day +after that, in the southern bight of Tahiti, we had a near +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325"></a>325</span> +squeak, the wind suddenly coming calm; the reefs were +close in with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought +we were gone, and the captain had a boat cleared, when +a lucky squall came to our rescue. My wife, hearing the +order given about the boats, remarked to my mother, +“Isn’t that nice? We shall soon be ashore!” Thus +does the female mind unconsciously skirt along the verge +of eternity. Our voyage up here was most disastrous—calms, +squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain, hurricane +weather all about, and we in the midst of the hurricane +season, when even the hopeful builder and owner of the +yacht had pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran +out of food, and were quite given up for lost in Honolulu: +people had ceased to speak to Belle<a name="FnAnchor_29" id="FnAnchor_29" href="#Footnote_29"><span class="sp">29</span></a> about the <i>Casco</i>, as +a deadly subject.</p> + +<p>But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; +and though I am very glad to be done with them for a +while and comfortably ashore, where a squall does not +matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall want +to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took +was financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink a +lot of money in the cruise, and if I didn’t get health, how +was I to get it back? I have got health to a wonderful +extent; and as I have the most interesting matter for +my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out +and a profit. But, second (what I own I never considered +till too late), there was the danger of collisions, of damages +and heavy repairs, of disablement, towing, and salvage; +indeed, the cruise might have turned round and cost me +double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear +the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken +the dust of her deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of +law) she is still mine till she gets there.</p> + +<p>From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326"></a>326</span> +a wonderful success. I never knew the world was so +amusing. On the last voyage we had grown so used to +sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a full month, +except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our visits +to the islands have been more like dreams than realities: +the people, the life, the beachcombers, the old stories and +songs I have picked up, so interesting; the climate, the +scenery, and (in some places) the women, so beautiful. +The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the +Marquesas; both as fine types as can be imagined. Lloyd +reminds me, I have not told you one characteristic incident +of the cruise from a semi-naval point of view. One night +we were going ashore in Anaho Bay; the most awful +noise on deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the +cabin; and there I had to sit below, entertaining in my +best style a negroid native chieftain, much the worse for +rum! You can imagine the evening’s pleasure.</p> + +<p>This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would +be incomplete without one other trait. On our voyage up +here I came one day into the dining-room, the hatch in +the floor was open, the ship’s boy was below with a baler, +and two of the hands were carrying buckets as for a fire; +this meant that the pumps had ceased working.</p> + +<p>One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. +It blew fair, but very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and +mainsail, all single-reefed, and she carried her lee rail under +water and flew. The swell, the heaviest I have ever been +out in—I tried in vain to estimate the height, <i>at least</i> +fifteen feet—came tearing after us about a point and a +half off the wind. We had the best hand—old Louis—at +the wheel; and, really, he did nobly, and had noble luck, +for it never caught us once. At times it seemed we must +have it; old Louis would look over his shoulder with the +queerest look and dive down his neck into his shoulders; +and then it missed us somehow, and only sprays came over +our quarter, turning the little outside lane of deck into a +mill race as deep as to the cockpit coamings. I never +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327" id="page327"></a>327</span> +remember anything more delightful and exciting. Pretty +soon after we were lying absolutely becalmed under the +lee of Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the +captain never confessed he had done it on purpose, but +when accused, he smiled. Really, I suppose he did quite +right, for we stood committed to a dangerous race, and to +bring her to the wind would have been rather a heart-sickening +manœuvre.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Marcel Schwob</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>At Honolulu, Stevenson found awaiting him, among the accumulations +of the mail-bag, two letters of friendly homage—the first, I +think, he had received from any foreign <i>confrère</i>—addressed to him +by the distinguished young French scholar and man of letters, +M. Marcel Schwob, since deceased.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, February 8th,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR SIR</span>,—I thank you—from the midst of such a +flurry as you can imagine, with seven months’ accumulated +correspondence on my table—for your two friendly +and clever letters. Pray write me again. I shall be home +in May or June, and not improbably shall come to Paris +in the summer. Then we can talk; or in the interval I +may be able to write, which is to-day out of the question. +Pray take a word from a man of crushing occupations, and +count it as a volume. Your little <i>conte</i> is delightful. Ah +yes, you are right, I love the eighteenth century; and so +do you, and have not listened to its voice in vain.—The +Hunted One,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, 8th March</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—At last I have the accounts: the +Doer has done excellently, and in the words of ——, “I +reciprocate every step of your behaviour.”... I send +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id="page328"></a>328</span> +a letter for Bob in your care, as I don’t know his Liverpool +address,<a name="FnAnchor_30" id="FnAnchor_30" href="#Footnote_30"><span class="sp">30</span></a> by which (for he is to show you part of it) +you will see we have got out of this adventure—or hope to +have—with wonderful fortune. I have the retrospective +horrors on me when I think of the liabilities I incurred; +but, thank God, I think I’m in port again, and I have +found one climate in which I can enjoy life. Even Honolulu +is too cold for me; but the south isles were a heaven +upon earth to a puir, catarrhal party like Johns’one. We +think, as Tahiti is too complete a banishment, to try +Madeira. It’s only a week from England, good communications, +and I suspect in climate and scenery not unlike +our dear islands; in people, alas! there can be no comparison. +But friends could go, and I could come in +summer, so I should not be quite cut off.</p> + +<p>Lloyd and I have finished a story, <i>The Wrong Box</i>. If +it is not funny, I am sure I do not know what is. I have +split over writing it. Since I have been here, I have been +toiling like a galley slave: three numbers of <i>The Master</i> +to rewrite, five chapters of <i>The Wrong Box</i> to write and +rewrite, and about five hundred lines of a narrative poem +to write, rewrite, and re-rewrite. Now I have <i>The Master</i> +waiting me for its continuation, two numbers more; when +that’s done, I shall breathe. This spasm of activity has +been chequered with champagne parties: Happy and +Glorious, Hawaii Ponoi paua: kou moi—(Native Hawaiians, +dote upon your monarch!) Hawaiian God save the +King. (In addition to my other labours, I am learning +the language with a native moonshee.) Kalakaua is a +terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry +to him; he thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon +as a whet for dinner. You should see a photograph of +our party after an afternoon with H. H. M.: my! what a +crew!—Yours ever affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id="page329"></a>329</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Ill-health and pressing preoccupations, together with uncertainty +as to when and where letters would reach him, had kept me from +writing during the previous autumn and winter.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, March</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—Still not a word from you! I am +utterly cast down; but I will try to return good for evil +and for once give you news. We are here in the suburb +of Honolulu in a rambling house or set of houses in a +great garden.</p> + +<div class="figcenter1"> +<img style="border:0; width:450px; height:349px" + src="images/img4.jpg" + alt="" /> +</div> + +<p>1. Lloyd’s room. 2. My mother’s room. 3. A room kept +dark for photographs. 4. The kitchen. 5. Balcony. 6. +The Lanai, an open room or summer parlour, partly surrounded +with Venetian shutters, in part quite open, which +is the living-room. 7. A crazy dirty cottage used for the +arts. 8. Another crazy dirty cottage, where Fanny and +I live. The town is some three miles away, but the house +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330"></a>330</span> +is connected by telephone with the chief shops, and the +tramway runs to within a quarter of a mile of us. I find +Honolulu a beastly climate after Tahiti and have been in +bed a little; but my colds <i>took on no catarrhal symptom</i>, +which is staggeringly delightful. I am studying Hawaiian +with a native, a Mr. Joseph Poepoe, a clever fellow too: +the tongue is a little bewildering; I am reading a pretty +story in native—no, really it is pretty, although wandering +and wordy; highly pretty with its continual traffic from +one isle to another of the soothsayer, pursuing rainbows. +Fanny is, I think, a good deal better on the whole, having +profited like me by the tropics; my mother and Lloyd +are first-rate. I do not think I have heard from you +since last May; certainly not since June; and this really +frightens me. Do write, even now. Scribner’s Sons it +should be; we shall probably be out of this some time in +April, home some time in June. But the world whirls +to me perceptibly, a mass of times and seasons and places +and engagements, and seas to cross, and continents to +traverse, so that I scarce know where I am. Well, I have +had a brave time. <i>Et ego in Arcadia</i>—though I don’t +believe Arcadia was a spot upon Tahiti. I have written +another long narrative poem: the <i>Song of Rahero</i>. +Privately, I think it good: but your ominous silence over +the <i>Feast of Famine</i> leads me to fear we shall not be agreed. +Is it possible I have wounded you in some way? I scarce +like to dream that it is possible; and yet I know too well +it may be so. If so, don’t write, and you can pitch into +me when we meet. I am, admittedly, as mild as London +Stout now; and the Old Man Virulent much a creature +of the past. My dear Colvin, I owe you and Fleeming +Jenkin, the two older men who took the trouble and knew +how to make a friend of me, everything that I have or am: +if I have behaved ill, just hold on and give me a chance, +you shall have the slanging of me and I bet I shall prefer +it to this silence.—Ever, my dear Colvin, your most +affectionate</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331"></a>331</span></p> + +<p class="to">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This letter brought to friends in England the first news of the +intended prolongation of the cruise among the remoter islands of the +Pacific.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, towards the end of March</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR FRIEND</span>,—Louis has improved so wonderfully +in the delicious islands of the South Seas, that we think +of trying yet one more voyage. We are a little uncertain +as to how we shall go, whether in a missionary ship, or by +hiring schooners from point to point, but the “unregenerate” +islands we must see. I suppose we shall be off some +time in June, which will fetch us back to England in +another year’s time. You could hardly believe it if you +could see Louis now. He looks as well as he ever did in +his life, and has had no sign of cough or hemorrhage (begging +pardon of Nemesis) for many months. It seems a +pity to return to England until his health is firmly reestablished, +and also a pity not to see all that we can see +quite easily starting from this place: and which will be +our only opportunity in life. Of course there is the usual +risk from hostile natives, and the horrible sea, but a positive +risk is so much more wholesome than a negative one, +and it is all such joy to Louis and Lloyd. As for me, I +hate the sea, and am afraid of it (though no one will believe +that because in time of danger I do not make an outcry—nevertheless +I <i>am</i> afraid of it, and it is not kind to me), +but I love the tropic weather, and the wild people, and +to see my two boys so happy. Mrs. Stevenson is going +back to Scotland in May, as she does not like to be longer +away from her old sister, who has been very ill. And +besides, we do not feel justified in taking her to the sort +of places we intend to visit. As for me, I can get comfort +out of very rough surroundings for my people, I can +work hard and enjoy it; I can even shoot pretty well, +and though I “don’t want to fight, by jingo if I must,” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id="page332"></a>332</span> +why I can. I don’t suppose there will be any occasion +for that sort of thing—only in case.</p> + +<p>I am not quite sure of the names, but I <i>think</i> our new +cruise includes the Gilberts, the Fijis, and the Solomons. +A letter might go from the Fijis; Louis will write the +particulars, of which I am not sure. As for myself, I +have had more cares than I was really fit for. To keep +house on a yacht is no easy thing. When Louis and I +broke loose from the ship and lived alone amongst the +natives I got on very well. It was when I was deathly +sea-sick, and the question was put to me by the cook, +“What shall we have for the cabin dinner, what for to-morrow’s +breakfast, what for lunch? and what about the +sailors’ food? Please come and look at the biscuits, for +the weevils have got into them, and show me how to make +yeast that will rise of itself, and smell the pork which seems +pretty high, and give me directions about making a pudding +with molasses—and what is to be done about the bugs?”—etc. +etc. In the midst of heavy dangerous weather, +when I was lying on the floor clutching a basin, down comes +the mate with a cracked head, and I must needs cut off +the hair matted with blood, wash and dress the wound, +and administer restoratives. I do not like being “the +lady of the yacht,” but ashore! O, then I felt I was repaid +for all. I wonder did any of my letters from beautiful +Tautira ever come to hand, with the descriptions of our +life with Louis’s adopted brother Ori a Ori? Ori wrote +to us, if no one else did, and I mean to give you a translation +of his letter. It begins with our native names.</p> + + +<p class="rt pt2"><i>Tautira, 26 Dec. 1888.</i></p> + +<p>To Teriitera (Louis) and Tapina Tutu (myself) and +Aromaiterai (Lloyd) and Teiriha (Mrs. Stevenson) Salutation +in the true Jesus.</p> + +<p>I make you to know my great affection. At the hour +when you left us, I was filled with tears; my wife, Rui +Tehini, also, and all of my household. When you embarked +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333"></a>333</span> +I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that I went upon the +road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you +on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor +and hoisted the sails. When the ship started, I ran along +the beach to see you still; and when you were on the +open sea I cried out to you, “farewell Louis”: and when +I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your +voice crying “Rui farewell.” Afterwards I watched the +ship as long as I could until the night fell; and when it +was dark I said to myself, “if I had wings I should fly to +the ship to meet you, and to sleep amongst you, so that I +might be able to come back to shore and to tell Rui Tehini, +’I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera.’” After that we +passed that night in the impatience of grief. Towards +eight o’clock I seemed to hear your voice, “Teriitera—Rui—here +is the hour for putter and tiro” (cheese and syrup). +I did not sleep that night, thinking continually of you, my +very dear friend, until the morning: being then awake I +went to see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not +there. Afterwards I looked into your rooms; they did +not please me as they used to do. I did not hear your +voice crying, “hail Rui.” I thought then that you had +gone, and that you had left me. Rising up I went to the +beach to see your ship, and I could not see it. I wept, +then, till the night, telling myself continually, “Teriitera +returns into his own country and leaves his dear Rui in +grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep for him.” I will +not forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I +desire to meet you again. It is my dear Teriitera makes +the only riches I desire in this world. It is your eyes that +I desire to see again. It must be that your body and my +body shall eat together at our table: there is what would +make my heart content. But now we are separated. May +God be with you all. May His word and His mercy go +with you, so that you may be well and we also, according +to the words of Paul.</p> + +<p class="rt"><span class="sc">Ori a Ori</span>; that is to say, <span class="sc">Rui</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a>334</span></p> + +<p class="pt1">After reading this to me Louis has left in tears saying +that he is not worthy that such a letter should be written +to him. We hope to so manage that we shall stop at +Tahiti and see Rui once more. I tell myself that pleasant +story when I wake in the night.</p> + +<p>I find my head swimming so that I cannot write any +more. I wish some rich Catholic would send a parlour +organ to Père Bruno of Tautira. I am going to try and +save money to do it myself, but he may die before I have +enough. I feel ashamed to be sitting here when I think +of that old man who cannot draw because of scrivener’s +paralysis, who has no one year in and year out to speak +to but natives (our Rui is a Protestant not bigoted like the +rest of them—but still a Protestant) and the only pastime +he has is playing on an old broken parlour organ whose +keys are mostly dumb. I know no more pathetic figure. +Have you no rich Catholic friends who would send him +an organ that he could play upon? Of course I am talking +nonsense, and yet I know somewhere that person exists +if only I knew the place.</p> + +<p>Our dearest love to you all.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Fanny.]</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu</i> [<i>March</i> 1889].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES</span>,—Yes—I own up—I am untrue to +friendship and (what is less, but still considerable) to +civilisation. I am not coming home for another year. +There it is, cold and bald, and now you won’t believe in +me at all, and serve me right (says you) and the devil take +me. But look here, and judge me tenderly. I have had +more fun and pleasure of my life these past months than +ever before, and more health than any time in ten long +years. And even here in Honolulu I have withered in the +cold; and this precious deep is filled with islands, which +we may still visit; and though the sea is a deathful place, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id="page335"></a>335</span> +I like to be there, and like squalls (when they are over); +and to draw near to a new island, I cannot say how much +I like. In short, I take another year of this sort of life, +and mean to try to work down among the poisoned arrows, +and mean (if it may be) to come back again when the +thing is through, and converse with Henry James as heretofore; +and in the meanwhile issue directions to H. J. to +write to me once more. Let him address here at Honolulu, +for my views are vague; and if it is sent here it will follow +and find me, if I am to be found; and if I am not to be +found, the man James will have done his duty, and we shall +be at the bottom of the sea, where no post-office clerk +can be expected to discover us, or languishing on a coral +island, the philosophic drudges of some barbarian potentate: +perchance, of an American Missionary. My wife +has just sent to Mrs. Sitwell a translation (<i>tant bien que +mal</i>) of a letter I have had from my chief friend in this +part of the world: go and see her, and get a hearing of +it; it will do you good; it is a better method of correspondence +than even Henry James’s. I jest, but seriously +it is a strange thing for a tough, sick, middle-aged scrivener +like R. L. S. to receive a letter so conceived from a man +fifty years old, a leading politician, a crack orator, and +the great wit of his village: boldly say, “the highly popular +M.P. of Tautira.” My nineteenth century strikes here, +and lies alongside of something beautiful and ancient. +I think the receipt of such a letter might humble, shall I +say even ——? and for me, I would rather have received +it than written <i>Redgauntlet</i> or the sixth <i>Æneid</i>. All told, +if my books have enabled or helped me to make this voyage, +to know Rui, and to have received such a letter, they have +(in the old prefatorial expression) not been writ in vain. +It would seem from this that I have been not so much +humbled as puffed up; but, I assure you, I have in fact +been both. A little of what that letter says is my own +earning; not all, but yet a little; and the little makes +me proud, and all the rest ashamed; and in the contrast, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>336</span> +how much more beautiful altogether is the ancient man +than him of to-day!</p> + +<p>Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he <i>is</i> +of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly. And to +curry favour with him, I wish I could be more explicit; +but, indeed, I am still of necessity extremely vague, and +cannot tell what I am to do, nor where I am to go for some +while yet. As soon as I am sure, you shall hear. All are +fairly well—the wife, your countrywoman, least of all; +troubles are not entirely wanting; but on the whole we +prosper, and we are all affectionately yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, April 2nd,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I am beginning to be ashamed of +writing on to you without the least acknowledgment, like +a tramp; but I do not care—I am hardened; and whatever +be the cause of your silence, I mean to write till all +is blue. I am outright ashamed of my news, which is +that we are not coming home for another year. I cannot +but hope it may continue the vast improvement of my +health: I think it good for Fanny and Lloyd; and we +have all a taste for this wandering and dangerous life. My +mother I send home, to my relief, as this part of our cruise +will be (if we can carry it out) rather difficult in places. +Here is the idea: about the middle of June (unless the +Boston Board objects) we sail from Honolulu in the missionary +ship (barquentine auxiliary steamer) <i>Morning +Star</i>: she takes us through the Gilberts and Marshalls, +and drops us (this is my great idea) on Ponape, one of +the volcanic islands of the Carolines. Here we stay +marooned among a doubtful population, with a Spanish +vice-governor and five native kings, and a sprinkling of +missionaries all at loggerheads, on the chance of fetching +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337"></a>337</span> +a passage to Sydney in a trader, a labour ship or (maybe, +but this appears too bright) a ship of war. If we can’t +get the <i>Morning Star</i> (and the Board has many reasons +that I can see for refusing its permission) I mean to try +to fetch Fiji, hire a schooner there, do the Fijis and +Friendlies, hit the course of the <i>Richmond</i> at Tonga Tabu, +make back by Tahiti, and so to S. F., and home: perhaps +in June 1890. For the latter part of the cruise will +likely be the same in either case. You can see for yourself +how much variety and adventure this promises, and +that it is not devoid of danger at the best; but if we +can pull it off in safety, gives me a fine book of travel, +and Lloyd a fine lecture and diorama, which should vastly +better our finances.</p> + +<p>I feel as if I were untrue to friendship; believe me, +Colvin, when I look forward to this absence of another +year, my conscience sinks at thought of the Monument; +but I think you will pardon me if you consider how much +this tropical weather mends my health. Remember me +as I was at home, and think of me sea-bathing and walking +about, as jolly as a sandboy: you will own the temptation +is strong; and as the scheme, bar fatal accidents, is +bound to pay into the bargain, sooner or later, it seems +it would be madness to come home now, with an imperfect +book, no illustrations to speak of, no diorama, and +perhaps fall sick again by autumn. I do not think I delude +myself when I say the tendency to catarrh has visibly +diminished.</p> + +<p>It is a singular thing that as I was packing up old +papers ere I left Skerryvore, I came on the prophecies of +a drunken Highland sibyl, when I was seventeen. She +said I was to be very happy, to visit America, and <i>to be +much upon the sea</i>. It seems as if it were coming true +with a vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong, +old, rooted belief that I shall die by drowning? I don’t +want that to come true, though it is an easy death; but +it occurs to me oddly, with these long chances in front. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338"></a>338</span> +I cannot say why I like the sea; no man is more cynically +and constantly alive to its perils; I regard it as the +highest form of gambling; and yet I love the sea as +much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean emotions; a world +all and always beautiful; air better than wine; interest +unflagging; there is upon the whole no better life.—Yours +ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt">[<i>Honolulu, April</i> 1889.]</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,—This is to announce the most +prodigious change of programme. I have seen so much +of the South Seas that I desire to see more, and I get so +much health here that I dread a return to our vile climates. +I have applied accordingly to the missionary folk to let +me go round in the <i>Morning Star</i>; and if the Boston +Board should refuse, I shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a +trading schooner, and see the Fijis and Friendlies and +Samoa. He would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. +Of course, if I go in the <i>Morning Star</i>, I see all the eastern +(or western?) islands.</p> + +<p>Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last +of <i>The Master</i>: though I tell you it sticks!—and I hope +to have had some proofs forbye, of the verses anyway. +And now to business.</p> + +<p>I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny +edition, if not, in some equally compact and portable +shape—Seaside Library, for instance—the Waverley Novels +entire, or as entire as you can get ’em, and the following +of Marryat: <i>Phantom Ship</i>, <i>Peter Simple</i>, <i>Percival Keene</i>, +<i>Privateersman</i>, <i>Children of the New Forest</i>, <i>Frank Mildmay</i>, +<i>Newton Forster</i>, <i>Dog Fiend (Snarleyyow)</i>. Also <i>Midshipman +Easy</i>, <i>Kingsburn</i>, Carlyle’s <i>French Revolution</i>, Motley’s +<i>Dutch Republic</i>, Lang’s <i>Letters on Literature</i>, a complete set +of my works, <i>Jenkin</i>, in duplicate; also <i>Familiar Studies</i>, +ditto.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339"></a>339</span></p> + +<p>I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory +indeed, and for the cheque for $1000. Another +account will have come and gone before I see you. I +hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite worked +out, and this cursed end of <i>The Master</i> hangs over me like +the arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before +dawn, and no doubt the clouds will soon rise; but it is a +difficult thing to write, above all in Mackellarese; and I +cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this off, <i>The Master</i> +will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived; +and even if I don’t pull if off, it’ll still have some stuff in it.</p> + +<p>We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; +but my mother leaves for Europe early in May. +Hence our mail should continue to come here; but not +hers. I will let you know my next address, which will +probably be Sydney. If we get on the <i>Morning Star</i>, I +propose at present to get marooned on Ponape, and take +my chance of getting a passage to Australia. It will leave +times and seasons mighty vague, and the cruise is risky; +but I shall know something of the South Seas when it is +done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. +It should give me a fine book of travels, anyway.</p> + +<p>Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. +Pray let him have them, they are for outfit. O, another +complete set of my books should go to Captain A. H. +Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht <i>Casco</i>, Oakland, Cal.—In +haste,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, April 6th,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS BOODLE</span>,—Nobody writes a better letter +than my Gamekeeper: so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly +particular, answering (by some delicate instinct) all the +questions she suggests. It is a shame you should get such +a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially +and originally incapable of the art epistolary. I would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>340</span> +let the paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to +say the little wooden seaman did after the manner of +seamen, and deserted in the Societies. The place he seems +to have stayed at—seems, for his absence was not observed +till we were near the Equator—was Tautira, and, I assure +you, he displayed good taste, Tautira being as “nigh hand +heaven” as a paper-cutter or anybody has a right to expect.</p> + +<p>I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and +I give the grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly—we +are not coming home for another year. My mother +returns next month. Fanny, Lloyd, and I push on again +among the islands on a trading schooner, the <i>Equator</i>—first +for the Gilbert group, which we shall have an opportunity +to explore thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to +the Marshalls and Carolines; and if occasion (or money) +fail, to Samoa, and back to Tahiti. I own we are deserters, +but we have excuses. You cannot conceive how these +climates agree with the wretched house-plant of Skerryvore: +he wonders to find himself sea-bathing, and cutting +about the world loose, like a grown-up person. They +agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her rheumatism, +and with Lloyd also. And the interest of the +islands is endless; and the sea, though I own it is a fearsome +place, is very delightful. We had applied for places +in the American missionary ship, the <i>Morning Star</i>, but +this trading schooner is a far preferable idea, giving us +more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we determined +to cut off the missionaries with a shilling.</p> + +<p>The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; +we live here, oppressed with civilisation, and look for good +things in the future. But it would surprise you if you +came out to-night from Honolulu (all shining with electric +lights, and all in a bustle from the arrival of the mail, +which is to carry you these lines) and crossed the long +wooden causeway along the beach, and came out on the +road through Kapiolani park, and seeing a gate in the +palings, with a tub of gold-fish by the wayside, entered +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id="page341"></a>341</span> +casually in. The buildings stand in three groups by the +edge of the beach, where an angry little spitfire sea continually +spirts and thrashes with impotent irascibility, the +big seas breaking further out upon the reef. The first is +a small house, with a very large summer parlour, or <i>lanai</i>, +as they call it here, roofed, but practically open. There +you will find the lamps burning and the family sitting +about the table, dinner just done: my mother, my wife, +Lloyd, Belle, my wife’s daughter, Austin her child, and +to-night (by way of rarity) a guest. All about the walls +our South Sea curiosities, war clubs, idols, pearl shells, +stone axes, etc.; and the walls are only a small part of +a lanai, the rest being glazed or latticed windows, or mere +open space. You will see there no sign of the Squire, +however; and being a person of a humane disposition, you +will only glance in over the balcony railing at the merrymakers +in the summer parlour, and proceed further afield +after the Exile. You look round, there is beautiful green +turf, many trees of an outlandish sort that drop thorns—look +out if your feet are bare; but I beg your pardon, you +have not been long enough in the South Seas—and many +oleanders in full flower. The next group of buildings is +ramshackle, and quite dark; you make out a coach-house +door, and look in—only some cocoanuts; you try round +to the left and come to the sea front, where Venus and +the moon are making luminous tracks on the water, and +a great swell rolls and shines on the outer reef; and here +is another door—all these places open from the outside—and +you go in, and find photography, tubs of water, negatives +steeping, a tap, and a chair and an ink-bottle, where +my wife is supposed to write; round a little further, a +third door, entering which you find a picture upon the +easel and a table sticky with paints; a fourth door admits +you to a sort of court, where there is a hen sitting—I +believe on a fallacious egg. No sign of the Squire in all +this. But right opposite the studio door you have +observed a third little house, from whose open door lamp-light +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>342</span> +streams and makes hay of the strong moonlight +shadows. You had supposed it made no part of the +grounds, for a fence runs round it lined with oleander; +but as the Squire is nowhere else, is it not just possible +he may be here? It is a grim little wooden shanty; cobwebs +bedeck it; friendly mice inhabit its recesses; the +mailed cockroach walks upon the wall; so also, I regret +to say, the scorpion. Herein are two pallet beds, two +mosquito curtains, strung to the pitch-boards of the roof, +two tables laden with books and manuscripts, three chairs, +and, in one of the beds, the Squire busy writing to yourself, +as it chances, and just at this moment somewhat +bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect +powder, and will be all right in no time; but just now +he contemplates large white blisters, and would like to +scratch them, but knows better. The house is not bare; +it has been inhabited by Kanakas, and—you know what +children are!—the bare wood walls are pasted over with +pages from the <i>Graphic</i>, <i>Harper’s Weekly</i>, etc. The floor +is matted, and I am bound to say the matting is filthy. +There are two windows and two doors, one of which is +condemned; on the panels of that last a sheet of paper +is pinned up, and covered with writing. I cull a few +plums:—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>“A duck-hammock for each person.</p> +<p class="i05">A patent organ like the commandant’s at Taiohae.</p> +<p class="i05">Cheap and bad cigars for presents.</p> +<p class="i05">Revolvers.</p> +<p class="i05">Permanganate of potass.</p> +<p class="i05">Liniment for the head and sulphur.</p> +<p class="i05">Fine tooth-comb.”</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>What do you think this is? Simply life in the South +Seas foreshortened. These are a few of our desiderata +for the next trip, which we jot down as they occur.</p> + +<p>There, I have really done my best and tried to send +something like a letter—one letter in return for all your +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343"></a>343</span> +dozens. Pray remember us all to yourself, Mrs. Boodle, +and the rest of your house. I do hope your mother will +be better when this comes. I shall write and give you +a new address when I have made up my mind as to the +most probable, and I do beg you will continue to write +from time to time and give us airs from home. To-morrow—think +of it—I must be off by a quarter to eight to drive +in to the palace and breakfast with his Hawaiian Majesty +at 8.30: I shall be dead indeed. Please give my news +to Scott, I trust he is better; give him my warm regards. +To you we all send all kinds of things, and I am the +absentee Squire,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, April</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—As usual, your letter is as good +as a cordial, and I thank you for it, and all your care, +kindness, and generous and thoughtful friendship, from +my heart. I was truly glad to hear a word of Colvin, +whose long silence has terrified me; and glad to hear +that you condoned the notion of my staying longer in the +South Seas, for I have decided in that sense. The first +idea was to go in the <i>Morning Star</i>, missionary ship; but +now I have found a trading schooner, the <i>Equator</i>, which +is to call for me here early in June and carry us through +the Gilberts. What will happen then, the Lord knows. +My mother does not accompany us: she leaves here for +home early in May, and you will hear of us from her; but +not, I imagine, anything more definite. We shall get +dumped on Butaritari, and whether we manage to go on +to the Marshalls and Carolines, or whether we fall back on +Samoa, Heaven must decide; but I mean to fetch back +into the course of the <i>Richmond</i>—(to think you don’t +know what the <i>Richmond</i> is!—<i>the</i> steamer of the Eastern +South Seas, joining New Zealand, Tongatabu, the Samoas, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344"></a>344</span> +Taheite, and Rarotonga, and carrying by last advices +sheep in the saloon!)—into the course of the <i>Richmond</i> +and make Tahiti again on the home track. Would I +like to see the Scots Observer? Wouldn’t I not? But +whaur? I’m direckit at space. They have nae post +offishes at the Gilberts, and as for the Car’lines! Ye see, +Mr. Baxter, we’re no just in the punkshewal <i>centre</i> o’ +civ’lisation. But pile them up for me, and when I’ve +decided on an address, I’ll let you ken, and ye’ll can +send them stavin’ after me.—Ever your affectionate</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The reference in the first paragraph is to the publication in the +press, which Mr. Baxter had permitted, of one of Stevenson’s letters +written during the earlier part of his voyage. R. L. S. had remonstrated, +always greatly disliking the publication of private letters +during the writer’s lifetime; and now writes to soften the effect of +his remonstrance.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, 10th May</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—I am appalled to gather from your +last just to hand that you have felt so much concern about +the letter. Pray dismiss it from your mind. But I think +you scarce appreciate how disagreeable it is to have your +private affairs and private unguarded expressions getting +into print. It would soon sicken any one of writing letters. +I have no doubt that letter was very wisely selected, but +it just shows how things crop up. There was a raging +jealousy between the two yachts; our captain was nearly +in a fight over it. However, no more; and whatever +you think, my dear fellow, do not suppose me angry with +you or ——; although I was <i>annoyed at the circumstance</i>—a +very different thing. But it is difficult to conduct life +by letter, and I continually feel I may be drifting into +some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no part.</p> + +<p>I must now turn to a point of business. This new +cruise of ours is somewhat venturesome; and I think it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345"></a>345</span> +needful to warn you not to be in a hurry to suppose us +dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is quite on the cards +we might be cast on some unvisited, or very rarely visited, +island; that there we might lie for a long time, even years, +unheard of; and yet turn up smiling at the hinder end. +So do not let me be “rowpit” till you get some certainty +we have gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or graced the +feast of some barbarian in the character of Long Pig.</p> + +<p>I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast +of Hawaii, the only white creature in many miles, riding +five and a half hours one day, living with a native, seeing +four lepers shipped off to Molokai, hearing native causes, +and giving my opinion as <i>amicus curiæ</i> as to the interpretation +of a statute in English; a lovely week among +God’s best—at least God’s sweetest works—Polynesians. +It has bettered me greatly. If I could only stay there the +time that remains, I could get my work done and be happy; +but the care of my family keeps me in vile Honolulu, +where I am always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and +cesspools and beastly <i>haoles</i>.<a name="FnAnchor_31" id="FnAnchor_31" href="#Footnote_31"><span class="sp">31</span></a> What is a haole? You are +one; and so, I am sorry to say, am I. After so long a +dose of whites, it was a blessing to get among Polynesians +again even for a week.</p> + +<p>Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel’, I’ll +say that for ye; and trust before I sail I shall get another +letter with more about yourself.—Ever your affectionate +friend,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To W. H. Low</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The allusions in the latter half of this letter are to the departure +for Europe of the young Hawaiian princess Kaiulani (see the poem +beginning “When from her land to mine she goes,” in <i>Songs of +Travel</i>), and to the circumstances of the great hurricane at Apia on +March 15th, 1889.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, (about) 20th May</i> ’89.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LOW</span>,—... The goods have come; many +daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346" id="page346"></a>346</span> +all.—I have at length finished <i>The Master</i>; it has been +a sore cross to me; but now he is buried, his body’s under +hatches,—his soul, if there is any hell to go to, gone to +hell; and I forgive him: it is harder to forgive Burlingame +for having induced me to begin the publication, or myself +for suffering the induction.—Yes, I think Hole has done +finely; it will be one of the most adequately illustrated +books of our generation; he gets the note, he tells the +story—<i>my</i> story: I know only one failure—the Master +standing on the beach.—You must have a letter for me +at Sydney—till further notice. Remember me to Mrs. +Will. H., the godlike sculptor, and any of the faithful. +If you want to cease to be a republican, see my little +Kaiulani, as she goes through—but she is gone already. +You will die a red: I wear the colours of that little royal +maiden, <i>Nous allons chanter à la ronde, si vous voulez!</i> +only she is not blonde by several chalks, though she is +but a half-blood, and the wrong half Edinburgh Scots like +mysel’. But, O Low, I love the Polynesian: this civilisation +of ours is a dingy, ungentlemanly business; it drops +out too much of man, and too much of that the very +beauty of the poor beast: who has his beauties in spite +of Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with no +news: I am a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt +Zola is a better correspondent.—Long live your fine old +English admiral—yours, I mean—the U.S.A. one at +Samoa; I wept tears and loved myself and mankind +when I read of him: he is not too much civilised. And +there was Gordon, too; and there are others, beyond +question. But if you could live, the only white folk, in +a Polynesian village; and drink that warm, light <i>vin du +pays</i> of human affection and enjoy that simple dignity +of all about you—I will not gush, for I am now in my +fortieth year, which seems highly unjust, but there +it is, Mr. Low, and the Lord enlighten your affectionate</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page347" id="page347"></a>347</span></p> + + +<p class="to">[Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This letter shows the writer in her character of wise and anxious +critic of her husband’s work. The result, in the judgment of most +of his friends, went far to justify her misgivings.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, May 21st,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">BEST OF FRIENDS</span>,—It was a joy inexpressible to get a +word from you at last. Fortunately for our peace of mind, +we were almost positive that your letters had been sent +to the places we had already left. Still it was a bitter +disappointment to get nothing from you when we arrived +here. I wish you could have seen us both throwing over +the immense package of letters searching for your handwriting. +Now that we know you have been ill, please +do let some one send us a line to our next address telling +us how you are. What that next address may be we do +not yet know, as our final movements are a little uncertain. +To begin with, a trading schooner, the <i>Equator</i>, will +come along some time in the first part of June, lie outside the +harbour here and signal to us. Within forty-eight hours +we shall pack up our possessions, our barrel of sauer kraut, +our barrel of salt onions, our bag of cocoanuts, our native +garments, our tobacco, fish hooks, red combs, and Turkey +red calicoes (all the latter for trading purposes), our hand +organ, photograph and painting materials, and finally our +magic lantern—all these upon a large whaleboat, and go +out to the <i>Equator</i>. Lloyd, also, takes a fiddle, a guitar, +a native instrument something like a banjo, called a taropatch +fiddle, and a lot of song books. We shall be carried +first to one of the Gilberts, landing at Butaritari. The +<i>Equator</i> is going about amongst the Gilbert group, and +we have the right to keep her over when we like within +reasonable limits. Finally she will leave us, and we shall +have to take the chances of what happens next. We hope +to see the Marshalls, the Carolines, the Fijis, Tonga and +Samoa (also other islands that I do not remember), perhaps +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>348</span> +staying a little while in Sydney, and stopping on our way +home to see our friends in Tahiti and the Marquesas. I am +very much exercised by one thing. Louis has the most +enchanting material that any one ever had in the whole +world for his book, and I am afraid he is going to spoil it +all. He has taken into his Scotch Stevenson head that a +stern duty lies before him, and that his book must be a +sort of scientific and historical impersonal thing, comparing +the different languages (of which he knows nothing, +really) and the different peoples, the object being to settle +the question as to whether they are of common Malay +origin or not. Also to compare the Protestant and Catholic +missions, etc., and the whole thing to be impersonal, leaving +out all he knows of the people themselves. And I believe +there is no one living who has got so near to them, or +who understands them as he does. Think of a small +treatise on the Polynesian races being offered to people +who are dying to hear about Ori a Ori, the making of +brothers with cannibals, the strange stories they told, and +the extraordinary adventures that befell us:—suppose +Herman Melville had given us his theories as to the Polynesian +language and the probable good or evil results of +the missionary influence instead of <i>Omoo</i> and <i>Typee</i>, or +Kinglake<a name="FnAnchor_32" id="FnAnchor_32" href="#Footnote_32"><span class="sp">32</span></a> instead of <i>Eothen</i>. Louis says it is a stern +sense of duty that is at the bottom of it, which is more +alarming than anything else. I am so sure that you +will agree with me that I am going to ask you to throw +the weight of your influence as heavily as possible in the +scales with me. Please refer to the matter in the letters +we shall receive at our first stopping place, otherwise Louis +will spend a great deal of time in Sydney actually reading +up other people’s books on the Islands. What a thing it +is to have a “man of genius” to deal with. It is like +managing an overbred horse. Why with my own feeble +hand I could write a book that the whole world would +jump at. Please keep any letters of mine that contain +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349"></a>349</span> +any incidents of our wanderings. They are very exact +as to facts, and Louis may, in this conscientious state of +mind (indeed I am afraid he has), put nothing in his diary +but statistics. Even if I thought it a desirable thing to +write what he proposes, I should still think it impossible +unless after we had lived and studied here some twenty +years or more.</p> + +<p>Now I am done with my complaining, and shall turn +to the pleasanter paths. Louis went to one of the other +islands a couple of weeks ago, quite alone, got drenched +with rain and surf, rode over mountain paths—five and a +half hours one day—and came back none the worse for it. +To-day he goes to Molokai, the leper island. He never has +a sign of hemorrhage, the air cushion is a thing of the +past, and altogether he is a new man. How he will do +in the English climate again I do not know, but in these +latitudes he is very nearly a well man, nothing seems to +do him harm but overwork. That, of course, is sometimes +difficult to prevent. Now, however, the <i>Master</i> is done, +we have enough money to go upon and there is no need +to work at all. I must stop. My dear love to you all.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Fanny V. de G. Stevenson.]</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. R. L. Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following two letters were written during and immediately +after Stevenson’s trip to the noted leper settlement, the scene of +Father Damien’s labours, at Molokai.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Kalawao, Molokai</i> [<i>May</i> 1889].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">DEAR FANNY</span>,—I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron +and Mr. Gilfillan, both born in the States, yet the first still +with a strong Highland, and the second still with a strong +Lowland accent, were good company; the night was warm, +the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gilfillan gave me his berth, +and I slept well, though I heard the sisters sick in the next +stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling woke me in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350"></a>350</span> +morning; I turned in all standing, so went right on the +upper deck. The day was on the peep out of a low morning +bank, and we were wallowing along under stupendous +cliffs. As the lights brightened, we could see certain abutments +and buttresses on their front where wood clustered +and grass grew brightly. But the whole brow seemed +quite impassable, and my heart sank at the sight. Two +thousand feet of rock making 19° (the Captain guesses) +seemed quite beyond my powers. However, I had come +so far; and, to tell you the truth, I was so cowed with +fear and disgust that I dared not go back on the adventure +in the interests of my own self-respect. Presently +we came up with the leper promontory: lowland, quite +bare and bleak and harsh, a little town of wooden houses, +two churches, a landing-stair, all unsightly, sour, northerly, +lying athwart the sunrise, with the great wall of the pali +cutting the world out on the south. Our lepers were sent +on the first boat, about a dozen, one poor child very horrid, +one white man, leaving a large grown family behind him +in Honolulu, and then into the second stepped the sisters +and myself. I do not know how it would have been with +me had the sisters not been there. My horror of the +horrible is about my weakest point; but the moral loveliness +at my elbow blotted all else out; and when I found +that one of them was crying, poor soul, quietly under her +veil, I cried a little myself; then I felt as right as a trivet, +only a little crushed to be there so uselessly. I thought +it was a sin and a shame she should feel unhappy; I turned +round to her, and said something like this: “Ladies, God +Himself is here to give you welcome. I’m sure it is good +for me to be beside you; I hope it will be blessed to me; +I thank you for myself and the good you do me.” It +seemed to cheer her up; but indeed I had scarce said it +when we were at the landing-stairs, and there was a great +crowd, hundreds of (God save us!) pantomime masks in +poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters and the +new patients.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id="page351"></a>351</span></p> + +<p>Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made +up my mind on the boat’s voyage <i>not</i> to give my hand; +that seemed less offensive than the gloves. So the sisters +and I went up among that crew, and presently I got aside +(for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot +across the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. +All horror was quite gone from me: to see these dread +creatures smile and look happy was beautiful. On my +way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful <i>alohas</i> +with the patients coming galloping over on their horses; +I was stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was happy, +only ashamed of myself that I was here for no good. One +woman was pretty, and spoke good English, and was +infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly; she +thought I was the new white patient; and when she found +I was only a visitor, a curious change came in her face +and voice—the only sad thing, morally sad, I mean—that +I met that morning. But for all that, they tell me none +want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses became +rare; dry stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick pandanus; +a dreary country; from overhead in the little +clinging wood shogs of the pali chirruping of birds fell; +the low sun was right in my face; the trade blew pure and +cool and delicious; I felt as right as ninepence, and stopped +and chatted with the patients whom I still met on their +horses, with not the least disgust. About half-way over, +I met the superintendent (a leper) with a horse for me, +and O, wasn’t I glad! But the horse was one of those +curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always dully want to +go somewhere else, and my traffic with him completed +my crushing fatigue. I got to the guest-house, an empty +house with several rooms, kitchen, bath, etc. There was +no one there, and I let the horse go loose in the garden, +lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.</p> + +<p>Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came +back and slept again while he was at the dispensary, and +he woke me for dinner; and I came back and slept again, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352"></a>352</span> +and he woke me about six for supper; and then in about +an hour I felt tired again, and came up to my solitary +guest-house, played the flageolet, and am now writing to +you. As yet, you see, I have seen nothing of the settlement, +and my crushing fatigue (though I believe that was +moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the doctor’s +opinion make me think the pali hopeless. “You don’t +look a strong man,” said the doctor; “but are you +sound?” I told him the truth; then he said it was out +of the question, and if I were to get up at all, I must be +carried up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses continually +fall on this ascent: the doctor goes up with a +change of clothes—it is plain that to be carried would in +itself be very fatiguing to both mind and body; and I +should then be at the beginning of thirteen miles of mountain +road to be ridden against time. How should I come +through? I hope you will think me right in my decision: +I mean to stay, and shall not be back in Honolulu till +Saturday, June first. You must all do the best you can +to make ready.</p> + +<p>Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to +toddle and run, and they live here as composed as brick +and mortar—at least the wife does, a Kentucky German, +a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite amazed +at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! +Gilfillan too, a good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, +kept up his hard Lowland Scottish talk in the boat while +the sister was covering her face; but I believe he knew, +and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and part perhaps +in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, +why I made my speech to them. Partly, too, I did it, +because I was ashamed to do so, and remembered one +of my golden rules, “When you are ashamed to speak, +speak up at once.” But, mind you, that rule is only +golden with strangers; with your own folks, there are +other considerations. This is a strange place to be in. +A bell has been sounded at intervals while I wrote, now +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353"></a>353</span> +all is still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike +the sound of telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and +pitch dark, with a small fine rain; one light over in the +leper settlement, one cricket whistling in the garden, my +lamp here by my bedside, and my pen cheeping between +my inky fingers.</p> + +<p>Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80° in the +shade, strong, sweet Anaho trade-wind.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Louis.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, June</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—I am just home after twelve days’ +journey to Molokai, seven of them at the leper settlement, +where I can only say that the sight of so much +courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high to +mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. I used to +ride over from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three miles +across the promontory, the cliff-wall, ivied with forest +and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my left), go to the +Sisters’ home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a game +of croquet with seven leper girls (90° in the shade), got a +little old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride +home again, tired enough, but not too tired. The girls +have all dolls, and love dressing them. You who know so +many ladies delicately clad, and they who know so many +dressmakers, please make it known it would be an acceptable +gift to send scraps for doll dressmaking to the Reverend +Sister Maryanne, Bishop Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, +Hawaiian Islands.</p> + +<p>I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard +stories that cannot be repeated: yet I never admired my +poor race so much, nor (strange as it may seem) loved life +more than in the settlement. A horror of moral beauty +broods over the place: that’s like bad Victor Hugo, but +it is the only way I can express the sense that lived with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>354</span> +me all these days. And this even though it was in great +part Catholic, and my sympathies flow never with so much +difficulty as towards Catholic virtues. The passbook kept +with heaven stirs me to anger and laughter. One of the +sisters calls the place “the ticket office to heaven.” Well, +what is the odds? They do their darg, and do it with +kindness and efficiency incredible; and we must take folks’ +virtues as we find them, and love the better part. Of old +Damien, whose weaknesses and worse perhaps I heard +fully, I think only the more. It was a European peasant: +dirty, bigoted, untruthful, unwise, tricky, but superb with +generosity, residual candour and fundamental good-humour: +convince him he had done wrong (it might take +hours of insult) and he would undo what he had done and +like his corrector better. A man, with all the grime and +paltriness of mankind, but a saint and hero all the more +for that. The place as regards scenery is grand, gloomy, +and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer along +the whole face of the island into a sea unusually deep; the +front of the mountain ivied and furred with clinging forest, +one viridescent cliff: about half-way from east to west, the +low, bare, stony promontory edged in between the cliff and +the ocean; the two little towns (Kalawao and Kalaupapa) +seated on either side of it, as bare almost as bathing machines +upon a beach; and the population—gorgons and chimaeras +dire. All this tear of the nerves I bore admirably; and +the day after I got away, rode twenty miles along the +opposite coast and up into the mountains: they call it +twenty, I am doubtful of the figures: I should guess it +nearer twelve; but let me take credit for what residents +allege; and I was riding again the day after, so I need +say no more about health. Honolulu does not agree with +me at all: I am always out of sorts there, with slight headache, +blood to the head, etc. I had a good deal of work +to do and did it with miserable difficulty; and yet all the +time I have been gaining strength, as you see, which is +highly encouraging. By the time I am done with this +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355"></a>355</span> +cruise I shall have the material for a very singular book of +travels: names of strange stories and characters, cannibals, +pirates, ancient legends, old Polynesian poetry,—never +was so generous a farrago. I am going down now +to get the story of a shipwrecked family, who were fifteen +months on an island with a murderer: there is a specimen. +The Pacific is a strange place; the nineteenth century +only exists there in spots: all round, it is a no man’s +land of the ages, a stir-about of epochs and races, barbarisms +and civilisations, virtues and crimes.</p> + +<p>It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had +known how ill you were, I should be now on my way +home. I had chartered my schooner and made all arrangements +before (at last) we got definite news. I feel highly +guilty; I should be back to insult and worry you a little. +Our address till further notice is to be c/o R. Towns & +Co., Sydney. That is final: I only got the arrangement +made yesterday; but you may now publish it abroad.—Yours +ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To James Payn</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following was written to his old friend of Cornhill Magazine +days, Mr. James Payn, on receiving in Hawaii news of that gentleman’s +ill health and gathering deafness.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, H.I., June 13th,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES PAYN</span>,—I get sad news of you here at +my offsetting for further voyages: I wish I could say +what I feel. Sure there was never any man less deserved +this calamity; for I have heard you speak time and +again, and I remember nothing that was unkind, nothing +that was untrue, nothing that was not helpful, from your +lips. It is the ill-talkers that should hear no more. God +knows, I know no word of consolation; but I do feel your +trouble. You are the more open to letters now; let me +talk to you for two pages. I have nothing but happiness +to tell; and you may bless God you are a man so sound-hearted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356" id="page356"></a>356</span> +that (even in the freshness of your calamity) I +can come to you with my own good fortune unashamed +and secure of sympathy. It is a good thing to be a good +man, whether deaf or whether dumb; and of all our fellow-craftsmen +(whom yet they count a jealous race), I never +knew one but gave you the name of honesty and kindness: +come to think of it gravely, this is better than the finest +hearing. We are all on the march to deafness, blindness, +and all conceivable and fatal disabilities; we shall not +all get there with a report so good. My good news is a +health astonishingly reinstated. This climate; these +voyagings; these landfalls at dawn; new islands peaking +from the morning bank; new forested harbours; new +passing alarms of squalls and surf; new interests of gentle +natives,—the whole tale of my life is better to me than +any poem.</p> + +<p>I am fresh just now from the leper settlement of Molokai, +playing croquet with seven leper girls, sitting and +yarning with old, blind, leper beachcombers in the hospital, +sickened with the spectacle of abhorrent suffering and +deformation amongst the patients, touched to the heart +by the sight of lovely and effective virtues in their helpers: +no stranger time have I ever had, nor any so moving. I +do not think it a little thing to be deaf, God knows, and +God defend me from the same!—but to be a leper, or +one of the self-condemned, how much more awful! and +yet there’s a way there also. “There are Molokais everywhere,” +said Mr. Dutton, Father Damien’s dresser; you +are but new landed in yours; and my dear and kind +adviser, I wish you, with all my soul, that patience and +courage which you will require. Think of me meanwhile +on a trading schooner bound for the Gilbert Islands, thereafter +for the Marshalls, with a diet of fish and cocoanut +before me; bound on a cruise of—well, of investigation to +what islands we can reach, and to get (some day or other) +to Sydney, where a letter addressed to the care of R. +Towns & Co. will find me sooner or later; and if it contain +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357"></a>357</span> +any good news, whether of your welfare or the courage +with which you bear the contrary, will do me good.—Yours +affectionately (although so near a stranger),</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Lady Taylor</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Honolulu, June 19th,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR</span>,—Our new home, the <i>Equator</i>, +trading schooner, rides at the buoy to-night, and we are +for sea shortly. All your folk of the Roost held us for +phantoms and things of the night from our first appearance; +but I do wish you would try to believe in our continued +existence, as flesh and blood obscurely tossed in +the Pacific, or walking coral shores, and in our affection, +which is more constant than becomes the breasts of such +absconders. My good health does not cease to be wonderful +to myself: Fanny is better in these warm places; it +is the very thing for Lloyd; and in the matter of interest, +the spice of life, etc., words cannot depict what fun we +have. Try to have a little more patience with the fugitives, +and think of us now and again among the Gilberts, +where we ought to be about the time when you receive +this scrap. They make no great figure on the atlas, I +confess; but you will see the name there, if you look—which +I wish you would, and try to conceive us as still +extant. We all send the kindest remembrances to all of +you; please make one of the girls write us the news to +the care of R. Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, +where we hope to bring up about the end of the year—or +later. Do not forget yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson and his party sailed accordingly on the trading +schooner <i>Equator</i>, “on a certain bright June day in 1889,” for the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358" id="page358"></a>358</span> +Gilbert Islands, a scattered group of atolls in the Western Pacific. +Their expectation was to come back into civilisation again by way +of the Carolines, Manila, and the China ports; but instead of this, +circumstances which occurred to change the trader’s course took +them southwards to Samoa, where they arrived in December of the +same year. Their second voyage was thus of six months’ duration; +in the course of it they spent two periods of about six weeks each +on land, first at one and then at another of the two island capitals, +Butaritari and Apemama. The following letter is the first which +reached Stevenson’s friends from this part of his voyage, and was +written in two instalments, the first from on board the <i>Equator</i> in +the lagoon of the island of Apaiang; the second, six weeks later, +from the settlement on shore at Apemama, which the king, his friend +Temhinoka, allowed him and his party to occupy during their stay. +The account of this stay at Apemama and of the character of the +king is far the most interesting and attractive part of the volume +called <i>In the South Seas</i>, which was the literary result of these voyages.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Schooner</i> Equator, <i>Apaiang Lagoon</i>, +<i>August 22nd,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—The missionary ship is outside the +reef trying (vainly) to get in; so I may have a chance to +get a line off. I am glad to say I shall be home by June +next for the summer, or we shall know the reason why. +For God’s sake be well and jolly for the meeting. I shall +be, I believe, a different character from what you have +seen this long while. This cruise is up to now a huge +success, being interesting, pleasant, and profitable. The +beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting character here; +the natives are very different, on the whole, from Polynesians: +they are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), +and protected by a dark tongue. It is delightful to meet +the few Hawaiians (mostly missionaries) that are dotted +about, with their Italian <i>brio</i> and their ready friendliness. +The whites are a strange lot, many of them good, kind, +pleasant fellows; others quite the lowest I have ever seen +even in the slums of cities. I wish I had time to narrate +to you the doings and character of three white murderers +(more or less proven) I have met. One, the only undoubted +assassin of the lot, quite gained my affection in +his big home out of a wreck, with his New Hebrides wife +in her savage turban of hair and yet a perfect lady, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359" id="page359"></a>359</span> +his three adorable little girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, +dancing to the hand organ, performing circus on the floor +with startling effects of nudity, and curling up together +on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, three Rob +Roy dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer +meanwhile brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your +whole heart went out to him; and yet his crime on the +face of it was dark: disembowelling, in his own house, +an old man of seventy, and him drunk.</p> + +<p>It is lunch-time, I see, and I must close up with my +warmest love to you. I wish you were here to sit upon +me when required. Ah! if you were but a good sailor! +I will never leave the sea, I think; it is only there that +a Briton lives: my poor grandfather, it is from him I +inherit the taste, I fancy, and he was round many islands +in his day; but I, please God, shall beat him at that +before the recall is sounded. Would you be surprised to +learn that I contemplate becoming a shipowner? I do, +but it is a secret. Life is far better fun than people dream +who fall asleep among the chimney stacks and telegraph +wires.</p> + +<p>Love to Henry James and others near.—Ever yours, +my dear fellow,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="rt pt2"><i>Equator Town, Apemama, October</i> 1889.</p> + +<p>No <i>Morning Star</i> came, however; and so now I try +to send this to you by the schooner <i>J. L. Tiernan</i>. We +have been about a month ashore, camping out in a kind +of town the king set up for us: on the idea that I was +really a “big chief” in England. He dines with us sometimes, +and sends up a cook for a share of our meals when +he does not come himself. This sounds like high living! +alas, undeceive yourself. Salt junk is the mainstay; a +low island, except for cocoanuts, is just the same as a +ship at sea: brackish water, no supplies, and very little +shelter. The king is a great character—a thorough tyrant, +very much of a gentleman, a poet, a musician, a historian, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id="page360"></a>360</span> +or perhaps rather more a genealogist—it is strange to see +him lying in his house among a lot of wives (nominal wives) +writing the History of Apemama in an account-book; his +description of one of his own songs, which he sang to me +himself, as “about sweethearts, and trees, and the sea—and +no true, all-the-same lie,” seems about as compendious +a definition of lyric poetry as a man could ask. Tembinoka +is here the great attraction: all the rest is heat +and tedium and villainous dazzle, and yet more villainous +mosquitoes. We are like to be here, however, many a +long week before we get away, and then whither? A +strange trade this voyaging: so vague, so bound-down, +so helpless. Fanny has been planting some vegetables, +and we have actually onions and radishes coming up: ah, +onion-despiser, were you but a while in a low island, how +your heart would leap at sight of a coster’s barrow! I +think I could shed tears over a dish of turnips. No doubt +we shall all be glad to say farewell to low islands—I had +near said for ever. They are very tame; and I begin to +read up the directory, and pine for an island with a profile, +a running brook, or were it only a well among the +rocks. The thought of a mango came to me early this +morning and set my greed on edge; but you do not know +what a mango is, so——.</p> + +<p>I have been thinking a great deal of you and the Monument +of late, and even tried to get my thoughts into a +poem, hitherto without success. God knows how you +are: I begin to weary dreadfully to see you—well, in nine +months, I hope; but that seems a long time. I wonder +what has befallen me too, that flimsy part of me that lives +(or dwindles) in the public mind; and what has befallen +<i>The Master</i>, and what kind of a Box the Merry Box has +been found. It is odd to know nothing of all this. We +had an old woman to do devil-work for you about a month +ago, in a Chinaman’s house on Apaiang (August 23rd or +24th), You should have seen the crone with a noble +masculine face, like that of an old crone [<i>sic</i>], a body like +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361"></a>361</span> +a man’s (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting +cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and +the good captain of the <i>Equator</i>, and the Chinaman and +his native wife and sister-in-law, all squatting on the +floor about the sibyl; and a crowd of dark faces watching +from behind her shoulder (she sat right in the doorway) +and tittering aloud with strange, appalled, embarrassed +laughter at each fresh adjuration. She informed us you +were in England, not travelling and now no longer sick; +she promised us a fair wind the next day, and we had it, +so I cherish the hope she was as right about Sidney Colvin. +The shipownering has rather petered out since I last +wrote, and a good many other plans beside.</p> + +<p>Health? Fanny very so-so; I pretty right upon the +whole, and getting through plenty work: I know not +quite how, but it seems to me not bad and in places +funny.</p> + +<p>South Sea Yarns:</p> + +<table class="nobctr" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc3">1. <i>The Wrecker</i></td> <td class="tc2" style="vertical-align: middle" rowspan="3"> + <span style="font-size: 300%;">}</span> by </td> <td class="tc1">R. L. S.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">2. <i>The Pearl Fisher</i></td> <td class="tc1">and</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc3">3. <i>The Beachcombers</i></td> <td class="tc1">Lloyd O.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><i>The Pearl Fisher</i>, part done, lies in Sydney. It is <i>The +Wrecker</i> we are now engaged upon: strange ways of +life, I think, they set forth: things that I can scarce touch +upon, or even not at all, in my travel book; and the yarns +are good, I do believe. <i>The Pearl Fisher</i> is for the New +York Ledger: the yarn is a kind of Monte Cristo one. +<i>The Wrecker</i> is the least good as a story, I think; but +the characters seem to me good. <i>The Beachcombers</i> is +more sentimental. These three scarce touch the out-skirts +of the life we have been viewing; a hot-bed of +strange characters and incidents: Lord, how different +from Europe or the Pallid States! Farewell. Heaven +knows when this will get to you. I burn to be in Sydney +and have news.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362"></a>362</span></p> + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following, written in the last days of the sail southwards from +the Gilberts to Samoa, contains the full plan of the South Sea book +as it had now been conceived. In the issue, Part I. (so far as I +know) was never written; Parts II. and III. appeared serially in the +New York Sun, and were reprinted with corrections in the volume +called <i>In the South Seas</i>; Part IV. was never written; Part V. was +written but has not been printed, at least in this country; Part VI. +(and far the most successful) closes the volume <i>In the South Seas</i>; +Part VII. developed itself into <i>A Footnote to History</i>. The verses at +the end of this letter have already been printed (<i>Songs of Travel</i>, +vol. xiv., p. 244); but I give them here with the context, as in +similar instances above. The allusion is to the two colossal images +from Easter Island which used to stand under the portico to the +right hand of the visitor entering the Museum, were for some years +removed, and are now restored to their old place.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Schooner</i> Equator, <i>at sea. 190 miles off Samoa.<br /> +Monday, December 2nd,</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR COLVIN</span>,—We are just nearing the end of our +long cruise. Rain, calms, squalls, bang—there’s the foretopmast +gone; rain, calm, squalls, away with the stay-sail; +more rain, more calm, more squalls; a prodigious +heavy sea all the time, and the <i>Equator</i> staggering and +hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great +square, crowded with wet human beings, and the rain +avalanching on the deck, and the leaks dripping everywhere: +Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, bearing up +wonderfully. But such voyages are at the best a trial. +We had one particularity: coming down on Winslow Reef, +p. d. (position doubtful): two positions in the directory, a +third (if you cared to count that) on the chart; heavy sea +running, and the night due. The boats were cleared, +bread put on board, and we made up our packets for a +boat voyage of four or five hundred miles, and turned in, +expectant of a crash. Needless to say it did not come, +and no doubt we were far to leeward. If we only had +twopenceworth of wind, we might be at dinner in Apia +to-morrow evening; but no such luck: here we roll, +dead before a light air—and that is no point of sailing at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id="page363"></a>363</span> +all for a fore and aft schooner—the sun blazing overhead, +thermometer 88°, four degrees above what I have learned to +call South Sea temperature; but for all that, land so near, +and so much grief being happily astern, we are all pretty +gay on board, and have been photographing and draught-playing +and sky-larking like anything. I am minded to +stay not very long in Samoa and confine my studies there +(as far as any one can forecast) to the history of the late +war. My book is now practically modelled: if I can +execute what is designed, there are few better books now +extant on this globe, bar the epics, and the big tragedies, +and histories, and the choice lyric poetics, and a novel +or so—none. But it is not executed yet; and let not +him that putteth on his armour, vaunt himself. At least, +nobody has had such stuff; such wild stories, such beautiful +scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners and +traditions, so incredible a mixture of the beautiful and +horrible, the savage and civilised. I will give you here +some idea of the table of contents, which ought to make +your mouth water. I propose to call the book <i>The South +Seas</i>: it is rather a large title, but not many people have +seen more of them than I, perhaps no one—certainly no +one capable of using the material.</p> + +<table class="reg1" width="100%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part I. General. “Of schooners, islands, and maroons”</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1 scs">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tc2 scs">I.</td> + <td class="tc3">Marine.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> + <td class="tc2 scs">II.</td> + <td class="tc3">Contraband (smuggling, barratry, labour traffic).</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> + <td class="tc2 scs">III.</td> + <td class="tc3">The Beachcomber.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> + <td class="tc2 scs">IV.</td> + <td class="tc3">Beachcomber stories, i. The Murder of the +Chinaman, ii. Death of a Beachcomber. +iii. A Character, iv. The Apia Blacksmith.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part II. The Marquesas</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">V.</td> + <td class="tc3">Anaho. i. Arrival, ii. Death, iii. The Tapu. +iv. Morals, v. Hoka.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364"></a>364</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">VI.</td> + <td class="tc3">Tai-o-hae. i. Arrival. ii. The French. iii. The +Royal Family. iv. Chiefless Folk. v. The +Catholics. vi. Hawaiian Missionaries.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">VII.</td> + <td class="tc3">Observations of a Long Pig. i. Cannibalism, +ii. Hatiheu. iii. Frère Michel, iv. Taa-hauku +and Atuona. v. The Vale of +Atuona. vi. Moipu. vii. Captain Hati.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part III. The Dangerous Archipelago</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">VIII.</td> + <td class="tc3">The Group.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">IX.</td> + <td class="tc3">A House to let in a Low Island.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">X.</td> + <td class="tc3">A Paumotuan Funeral, i. The Funeral, ii. +Tales of the Dead.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part IV. Tahiti</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XI.</td> + <td class="tc3">Tautira.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XII.</td> + <td class="tc3">Village Government in Tahiti.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XIII.</td> + <td class="tc3">A Journey in Quest of Legends.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XIV.</td> + <td class="tc3">Legends and Songs.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XV.</td> + <td class="tc3">Life in Eden.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XVI.</td> + <td class="tc3">Note on the French Regimen.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part V. The Eight Islands</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XVII.</td> + <td class="tc3">A Note on Missions.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XVIII.</td> + <td class="tc3">The Kona Coast of Hawaii. i. Hookena. +ii. A Ride in the Forest. iii. A Law Case. +iv. The City of Refuge. v. The Lepers.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XIX.</td> + <td class="tc3">Molokai. i. A Week in the Precinct. ii. History +of the Leper Settlement, iii. The +Mokolii. iv. The Free Island.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part VI. The Gilberts</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XX.</td> + <td class="tc3">The Group, ii. Position of Woman, iii. The +Missions. iv. Devilwork. v. Republics.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365"></a>365</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XXI.</td> + <td class="tc3">Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari, +its King and Court. ii. History of Three +Kings. iii. The Drink Question.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XXII.</td> + <td class="tc3">A Butaritarian Festival.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1">”</td> <td class="tc2 scs">XXIII.</td> + <td class="tc3">The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions. +ii. Equator Town and the Palace. +iii. The Three Corselets.</td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="tc1 pt2" colspan="3"><i>Part VII. Samoa</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc1" colspan="3">which I have not yet reached.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="noind">Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than +300 Cornhill pages; and I suspect not much under 500. +Samoa has yet to be accounted for: I think it will be +all history, and I shall work in observations on Samoan +manners, under the similar heads in other Polynesian +islands. It is still possible, though unlikely, that I may +add a passing visit to Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I +am growing impatient to see yourself, and I do not want +to be later than June of coming to England. Anyway, +you see it will be a large work, and as it will be copiously +illustrated, the Lord knows what it will cost. We shall +return, God willing, by Sydney, Ceylon, Suez and, I guess, +Marseilles the many-masted (copyright epithet). I shall +likely pause a day or two in Paris, but all that is too far +ahead—although now it begins to look near—so near, and +I can hear the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street, and +see the gates swing back, and feel myself jump out upon +the Monument steps—Hosanna!—home again. My dear +fellow, now that my father is done with his troubles, and +17 Heriot Row no more than a mere shell, you and that +gaunt old Monument in Bloomsbury are all that I have +in view when I use the word home; some passing thoughts +there may be of the rooms at Skerryvore, and the blackbirds +in the chine on a May morning; but the essence +is S.C. and the Museum. Suppose, by some damned +accident, you were no more; well, I should return just +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366"></a>366</span> +the same, because of my mother and Lloyd, whom I now +think to send to Cambridge; but all the spring would +have gone out of me, and ninety per cent. of the attraction +lost. I will copy for you here a copy of verses made in +Apemama.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>I heard the pulse of the besieging sea</p> +<p>Throb far away all night. I heard the wind</p> +<p>Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms.</p> +<p>I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand,</p> +<p>And flailing fans and shadows of the palm:</p> +<p>The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault—</p> +<p>The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept.</p> +<p>The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives,</p> +<p>Slept in the precinct of the palisade:</p> +<p>Where single, in the wind, under the moon,</p> +<p>Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire,</p> +<p>Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel.</p> + <p class="i1">To other lands and nights my fancy turned.</p> +<p>To London first, and chiefly to your house,</p> +<p>The many-pillared and the well-beloved.</p> +<p>There yearning fancy lighted; there again</p> +<p>In the upper room I lay and heard far off</p> +<p>The unsleeping city murmur like a shell;</p> +<p>The muffled tramp of the Museum guard</p> +<p>Once more went by me; I beheld again</p> +<p>Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street;</p> +<p>Again I longed for the returning morn,</p> +<p>The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds,</p> +<p>The consentancous trill of tiny song</p> +<p>That weaves round monumental cornices</p> +<p>A passing charm of beauty: most of all,</p> +<p>For your light foot I wearied, and your knock</p> +<p>That was the glad réveillé of my day.</p> + <p class="i1">Lo, now, when to your task in the great house</p> +<p>At morning through the portico you pass,</p> +<p>One moment glance where, by the pillared wall,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367"></a>367</span></p> +<p>Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke,</p> +<p>Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument</p> +<p>Of faiths forgot and races undivined;</p> +<p>Sit now disconsolate, remembering well</p> +<p>The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd,</p> +<p>The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice</p> +<p>Incessant, of the breakers on the shore.</p> +<p>As far as these from their ancestral shrine,</p> +<p>So far, so foreign, your divided friends</p> +<p>Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Schooner</i> Equator, <i>at sea, +Wednesday, 4th December</i> 1889.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,—We are now about to rise, like +whales, from this long dive, and I make ready a communication +which is to go to you by the first mail from +Samoa. How long we shall stay in that group I cannot +forecast; but it will be best still to address at Sydney, +where I trust, when I shall arrive, perhaps in one month +from now, more probably in two or three, to find all news.</p> + +<p><i>Business.</i>—Will you be likely to have a space in the +Magazine for a serial story, which should be ready, I +believe, by April, at latest by autumn? It is called <i>The +Wrecker</i>; and in book form will appear as number 1 of +<i>South Sea Yarns</i> by R. L. S. and Lloyd Osbourne. Here +is the table as far as fully conceived, and indeed executed.<a name="FnAnchor_33" id="FnAnchor_33" href="#Footnote_33"><span class="sp">33</span></a>...</p> + +<p>The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really +believe to be insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has +never been handled before, no more has San Francisco. +These seem all elements of success. There is, besides, +a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368"></a>368</span> +on whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of +the American merchant marine, opium smuggling in +Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three hundred +pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles +upon you, if you will have a vacancy, and what you will +be willing to pay. It will of course be copyright in +both the States and England. I am a little anxious to +have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of the +mystery.</p> + +<p><i>Pleasure.</i>—We have had a fine time in the Gilbert +group, though four months on low islands, which involves +low diet, is a largeish order; and my wife is rather down. +I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health, though our long +and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain, sails +carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets +made on the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me +of salt brine, and filled me with a longing for beef steak +and mangoes not to be depicted. The interest has been +immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the Napoleon +of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave +me the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and +his uncle, and, what pleased me more, told me their singular +story, then all manner of strange tales, facts, and experiences +for my South Sea book, which should be a Tearer, +Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff.</p> + +<p>We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the +heat is cruel—it is the only time when I suffer from heat: +I have nothing on but a pair of serge trousers, and a +singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze—O, yes, and a red +sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, +sweat streams from me. The rest are on deck under a +bit of awning; we are not much above a hundred miles +from port, and we might as well be in Kamschatka. However, +I should be honest: this is the first calm I have +endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the +intoxicated blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the +helpless ship.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id="page369"></a>369</span></p> + +<p>I wonder how you liked the end of <i>The Master</i>; that +was the hardest job I ever had to do; did I do it?</p> + +<p>My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. +Burlingame. Remember all of us to all friends, particularly +Low, in case I don’t get a word through for him.—I +am, yours very sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The following was written soon after the termination of the +voyage of the <i>Equator</i> and Stevenson’s first landing in Samoa, where +he was engaged in collecting materials for the account (then intended +to be the concluding part of his great projected South Sea book) +of the war and hurricane of the previous year.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Samoa</i> [<i>December</i> 1889].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BAXTER</span>,— ... I cannot return until I have +seen either Tonga or Fiji or both: and I must not leave +here till I have finished my collections on the war—a very +interesting bit of history, the truth often very hard to +come at, and the search (for me) much complicated by the +German tongue, from the use of which I have desisted +(I suppose) these fifteen years. The last two days I have +been mugging with a dictionary from five to six hours +a day; besides this, I have to call upon, keep sweet, and +judiciously interview all sorts of persons—English, American, +German, and Samoan. It makes a hard life; above +all, as after every interview I have to come and get my +notes straight on the nail. I believe I should have got +my facts before the end of January, when I shall make +for Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in the hurricane +season; but they had so bad a one last year, I don’t +imagine there will be much of an edition this. Say that +I get to Sydney some time in April, and I shall have done +well, and be in a position to write a very singular and +interesting book, or rather two; for I shall begin, I think, +with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id="page370"></a>370</span> +as long as <i>Kidnapped</i>, not very interesting, but valuable—and +a thing proper to be done. And then, hey! for the +big South Sea Book: a devil of a big one, and full of the +finest sport.</p> + +<p>This morning as I was going along to my breakfast +a little before seven, reading a number of Blackwood’s +Magazine, I was startled by a soft <i>talofa, alii</i> (note for +my mother: they are quite courteous here in the European +style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa +coming from early mass in his white coat and white linen +kilt, with three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest +thing to a hero in my history, and really a fine fellow; +plenty sense, and the most dignified, quiet, gentle manners. +Talking of Blackwood—a file of which I was lucky enough +to find here in the lawyer’s—Mrs. Oliphant seems in a +staggering state: from the <i>Wrong Box</i> to <i>The Master</i> I +scarce recognise either my critic or myself. I gather that +<i>The Master</i> should do well, and at least that notice is +agreeable reading. I expect to be home in June: you +will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to +my labours, I suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and +almost every day I ride up and see Fanny and Lloyd, who +are in a house in the bush with Ah Fu. I live in Apia +for history’s sake with Moors, an American trader. Day +before yesterday I was arrested and fined for riding fast +in the street, which made my blood bitter, as the wife of +the manager of the German Firm has twice almost ridden +me down, and there seems none to say her nay. The +Germans have behaved pretty badly here, but not in all +ways so ill as you may have gathered: they were doubtless +much provoked; and if the insane Knappe had not +appeared upon the scene, might have got out of the muddle +with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as +things occur to me.</p> + +<p>I hope from my outcries about printing you do not +think I want you to keep my news or letters in a Blue +Beard closet. I like all friends to hear of me; they all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371"></a>371</span> +should if I had ninety hours in the day, and strength for +all of them; but you must have gathered how hard +worked I am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty +tired man.</p> + + +<p class="rt pt2"><i>29th December</i> [1889].</p> + +<p>To-morrow (Monday, I won’t swear to my day of the +month; this is the Sunday between Christmas and New +Year) I go up the coast with Mr. Clarke, one of the London +Society missionaries, in a boat to examine schools, see +Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph. Pray Heaven +we have good weather; this is the rainy season; we shall +be gone four or five days; and if the rain keep off, I shall +be glad of the change; if it rain, it will be beastly. This +explains still further how hard pressed I am, as the mail +will be gone ere I return, and I have thus lost the days I +meant to write in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets +and copies for me, and is a great nuisance. He said he +wished to come to me in order to learn “long explessions.” +Henry goes up along with us; and as I am not fond of him, +he may before the trip is over hear some “stlong explessions.” +I am writing this on the back balcony at Moors’, +palms and a hill like the hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; +myself lying on the floor, and (like the parties in Handel’s +song) “clad in robes of virgin white”; the ink is dreadful, +the heat delicious, a fine going breeze in the palms, and from +the other side of the house the sudden angry splash and +roar of the Pacific on the reef, where the warships are +still piled from last year’s hurricane, some under water, +one high and dry upon her side, the strangest figure of +a ship was ever witnessed; the narrow bay there is full +of ships; the men-of-war covered with sail after the rains, +and (especially the German ship, which is fearfully and +awfully top heavy) rolling almost yards in, in what appears +to be calm water.</p> + +<p>Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the +Marquesas or Tahiti: a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, +a tamer face of nature; and this much aided, for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372" id="page372"></a>372</span> +the wanderer, by the great German plantations with their +countless regular avenues of palms. The island has beautiful +rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in the Lothians, +with pleasant pools and waterfalls and overhanging verdure, +and often a great volume of sound, so that once I thought +I was passing near a mill, and it was only the voice of +the river. I am not specially attracted by the people; +but they are courteous; the women very attractive, and +dress lovely; the men purposelike, well set up, tall, lean, +and dignified. As I write, the breeze is brisking up, doors +are beginning to slam, and shutters; a strong draught +sweeps round the balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow. +Here I shut up.—Ever your affectionate</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Lady Taylor</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This letter contains the first announcement of the purchase of +the Vailima estate (not yet so named). Sir Percy Shelley had died +in the previous December.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Apia, Samoa, Jan. 20th,</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR</span>,—I shall hope to see you in +some months from now, when I come home—to break up +my establishment—I know no diminutive of the word. +Your daughters cast a spell upon me; they were always +declaring I was a winged creature and would vanish into +the uttermost isle; and they were right, and I have made +my preparations. I am now the owner of an estate upon +Upolu, some two or three miles behind and above Apia; +three streams, two waterfalls, a great cliff, an ancient +native fort, a view of the sea and lowlands, or (to be more +precise) several views of them in various directions, are +now mine. It would be affectation to omit a good many +head of cattle; above all as it required much diplomacy +to have them thrown in, for the gentleman who sold to +me was staunch. Besides all this, there is a great deal +more forest than I have any need for; or to be plain the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>373</span> +whole estate is one impassable jungle, which must be cut +down and through at considerable expense. Then the +house has to be built; and then (as a climax) we may have +to stand a siege in it in the next native war.</p> + +<p>I do feel as if I was a coward and a traitor to desert +my friends; only, my dear lady, you know what a miserable +corrhyzal (is that how it is spelt?) creature I was at +home: and here I have some real health, I can walk, I +can ride, I can stand some exposure, I am up with the +sun, I have a real enjoyment of the world and of myself; +it would be hard to go back again to England and to +bed; and I think it would be very silly. I am sure it +would; and yet I feel shame, and I know I am not writing +like myself. I wish you knew how much I admired you, +and when I think of those I must leave, how early a place +your name occupies. I have not had the pleasure to +know you very long; and yet I feel as if my leaving +England were a special treachery to you, and my leaving +you a treachery to myself. I will only ask you to try to +forgive me: for I am sure I will never quite forgive myself. +Somebody might write to me in the care of R. Towns +& Co., Sydney, New South Wales, to tell me if you can +forgive. But you will do quite right if you cannot. Only +let me come and see you when we do return, or it will be +a lame home-coming.</p> + +<p>My wife suffered a good deal in our last, somewhat +arduous voyage; all our party indeed suffered except +myself. Fanny is now better but she is still no very famous +success in the way of health.</p> + +<p>All the while I have been writing, I have had another +matter in my eye; of which I scarce like to speak: You +know of course that I am thinking of Sir Percy and his +widow. The news has reached me in the shape of a newspaper +cutting, I have no particulars. He had a sweet, +original nature; I think I liked him better than ever I +should have liked his father; I am sorry he was always +a little afraid of me; if I had had more chance, he would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id="page374"></a>374</span> +have liked me too, we had so much in common, and I +valued so much his fine soul, as honest as a dog’s, and +the romance of him, which was like a dog’s too, and like +a poet’s at the same time. If he had not been Shelley’s +son, people would have thought more of him; and yet he +was the better of the two, bar verses.</p> + +<p>Please tell my dear Ida and Una that we think much +of them, as well as of your dear self, and believe me, in +words which you once allowed me to use (and I was very +much affected when you did so), your affectionate friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Dr. Scott</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>This gentleman is the physician to whose assiduous care and +kindness, as recorded in the dedication to <i>Underwoods</i>, Stevenson +owed so much during his invalid years at Bournemouth.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Apia, Samoa, January 20th,</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR SCOTT</span>,—Shameful indeed that you should +not have heard of me before! I have now been some +twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up to date) +a person whom you would scarce know. I think nothing +of long walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone +the other day, partly riding, partly climbing up a steep +ravine. I have stood a six months’ voyage on a copra +schooner with about three months ashore on coral atolls, +which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change +whatever from ship’s food. My wife suffered badly—it +was too rough a business altogether—Lloyd suffered—and, +in short, I was the only one of the party who “kept my +end up.”</p> + +<p>I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided +to settle; have even purchased a piece of land from three +to four hundred acres, I know not which till the survey +is completed, and shall only return next summer to wind +up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a +subject of the High Commissioner.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id="page375"></a>375</span></p> + +<p>Now you would have gone longer yet without news of +your truant patient, but that I have a medical discovery +to communicate. I find I can (almost immediately) fight +off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if obstinate) +three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from +one to five days sees the cold generally to the door. I +find it at once produces a glow, stops rigour, and though +it makes one very uncomfortable, prevents the advance +of the disease. Hearing of this influenza, it occurred to +me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps a stronger +exhibition—injections of cocaine, for instance—still better.</p> + +<p>If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, +which seems highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I +shall feel very much inclined to make the experiment. +See what a gulf you may save me from if you shall have +previously made it on <i>anima vili</i>, on some less important +sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless.</p> + +<p>How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your +brother and all friends in Bournemouth.—Yours very +sincerely,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>After a stay of four or five weeks at Apia, during which he had +fallen more and more in love with Samoa and the Samoans, Stevenson +took steamer again, this time for Sydney, where he had ordered +his letters to await him. This and the two following letters were +written during the passage. I again print in their original place +a set of verses separately published in <i>Songs of Travel</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Februar den 3en</i> 1890<br /> +<i>Dampfer</i> Lübeck, <i>zwischen Apia und Sydney.</i></p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—I have got one delightful letter +from you, and heard from my mother of your kindness in +going to see her. Thank you for that: you can in no +way more touch and serve me.... Ay, ay, it is sad to +sell 17; sad and fine were the old days: when I was away +in Apemama, I wrote two copies of verse about Edinburgh +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a>376</span> +and the past, so ink black, so golden bright. I will send +them, if I can find them, for they will say something to +you, and indeed one is more than half addressed to you. +This is it—</p> + +<p class="center scs">TO MY OLD COMRADES</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>Do you remember—can we e’er forget?—</p> +<p>How, in the coiled perplexities of youth,</p> +<p>In our wild climate, in our scowling town,</p> +<p>We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared?</p> +<p>The belching winter wind, the missile rain,</p> +<p>The rare and welcome silence of the snows,</p> +<p>The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,</p> +<p>The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,</p> +<p>Do you remember?—Ah, could one forget!</p> +<p>As when the fevered sick that all night long</p> +<p>Listed the wind intone, and hear at last</p> +<p>The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer</p> +<p>Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn,—</p> +<p>With sudden ardour, these desire the day:</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">(Here a squall sends all flying.)</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> + +<p>So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;</p> +<p>So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.</p> +<p>For lo! as in the palace porch of life</p> +<p>We huddled with chimeras, from within—</p> +<p>How sweet to hear!—the music swelled and fell,</p> +<p>And through the breach of the revolving doors</p> +<p>What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!</p> +<p>I have since then contended and rejoiced;</p> +<p>Amid the glories of the house of life</p> +<p>Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:</p> +<p>Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes</p> +<p>Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love</p> +<p>Fall insignificant on my closing ears,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377"></a>377</span></p> +<p>What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind</p> +<p>In our inclement city? what return</p> +<p>But the image of the emptiness of youth,</p> +<p>Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice</p> +<p>Of discontent and rapture and despair?</p> +<p>So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp,</p> +<p>The momentary pictures gleam and fade</p> +<p>And perish, and the night resurges—these</p> +<p>Shall I remember, and then all forget.</p> + +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>They’re pretty second-rate, but felt. I can’t be bothered +to copy the other.</p> + +<p>I have bought 314½ acres of beautiful land in the bush +behind Apia; when we get the house built, the garden +laid, and cattle in the place, it will be something to fall +back on for shelter and food; and if the island could +stumble into political quiet, it is conceivable it might even +bring a little income.... We range from 600 to 1500 +feet, have five streams, waterfalls, precipices, profound +ravines, rich tablelands, fifty head of cattle on the ground +(if any one could catch them), a great view of forest, sea, +mountains, the warships in the haven: really a noble +place. Some day you are to take a long holiday and come +and see us: it has been all planned.</p> + +<p>With all these irons in the fire, and cloudy prospects, +you may be sure I was pleased to hear a good account +of business. I believed <i>The Master</i> was a sure card: I +wonder why Henley thinks it grimy; grim it is, God +knows, but sure not grimy, else I am the more deceived. +I am sorry he did not care for it; I place it on the +line with <i>Kidnapped</i> myself. We’ll see as time goes on +whether it goes above or falls below.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The Editor of Scribner’s Magazine had written asking him for +fresh contributions, and he sends the set of verses addressed to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>378</span> +Tembinoka, the king at Butaritari, and afterwards reprinted in +<i>Songs of Travel</i>, beginning “Let us who part like brothers part like +bards.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>S.S.</i> Lübeck [<i>between Apia and Sydney, +February</i>] 1890</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,—I desire nothing better than +to continue my relation with the Magazine, to which it +pleases me to hear I have been useful. The only thing +I have ready is the enclosed barbaric piece. As soon as +I have arrived in Sydney I shall send you some photographs, +a portrait of Tembinoka, perhaps a view of the +palace or of the “matted men” at their singing; also +T.’s flag, which my wife designed for him: in a word, what +I can do best for you. It will be thus a foretaste of my +book of travels. I shall ask you to let me have, if I wish +it, the use of the plates made, and to make up a little +tract of the verses and illustrations, of which you might +send six copies to H.M. Tembinoka, King of Apemama, +via Butaritari, Gilbert Islands. It might be best to send +it by Crawford & Co., S.F. There is no postal service; and +schooners must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps +some such note as this might be prefixed:</p> + +<p><i>At my departure from the island of Apemama, for which +you will look in vain in most atlases, the king and I agreed, +since we both set up to be in the poetical way, that we should +celebrate our separation in verse. Whether or not his majesty +has been true to his bargain, the laggard posts of the Pacific +may perhaps inform me in six months, perhaps not before +a year. The following lines represent my part of the contract, +and it is hoped, by their pictures of strange manners, they +may entertain a civilised audience. Nothing throughout has +been invented or exaggerated; the lady herein referred to as +the author’s Muse, has confined herself to stringing into +rhyme facts and legends that I saw or heard during two +months’ residence upon the island.</i></p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">You will have received from me a letter about <i>The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379"></a>379</span> +Wrecker</i>. No doubt it is a new experiment for me, being +disguised so much as a study of manners, and the interest +turning on a mystery of the detective sort. I think there +need be no hesitation about beginning it in the fall of +the year. Lloyd has nearly finished his part, and I shall +hope to send you very soon the MS. of about the first +four-sevenths. At the same time, I have been employing +myself in Samoa, collecting facts about the recent war; +and I propose to write almost at once and to publish +shortly a small volume, called I know not what—the War +in Samoa, the Samoa Trouble, an Island War, the War +of the Three Consuls, I know not—perhaps you can suggest. +It was meant to be a part of my travel book; but material +has accumulated on my hands until I see myself forced +into volume form, and I hope it may be of use, if it come +soon. I have a few photographs of the war, which will +do for illustrations. It is conceivable you might wish to +handle this in the Magazine, although I am inclined to +think you won’t, and to agree with you. But if you think +otherwise, there it is. The travel letters (fifty of them) +are already contracted for in papers; these I was quite +bound to let M’Clure handle, as the idea was of his suggestion, +and I always felt a little sore as to one trick I played +him in the matter of the end-papers. The war-volume +will contain some very interesting and picturesque details: +more I can’t promise for it. Of course the fifty newspaper +letters will be simply patches chosen from the travel +volume (or volumes) as it gets written,</p> + +<p>But you see I have in hand:—</p> + +<table class="reg1" width="100%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr><td class="tc3" style="width: 50%;">Say half done.</td> +<td class="tc3">1. <i>The Wrecker</i>.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3">Lloyd’s copy half done, mine not touched.</td> +<td class="tc3">2. <i>The Pearl Fisher</i> (a novel promised to the Ledger, + and which will form, + when it comes in book + form, No. 2 of our <i>South + Sea Yarns</i>). +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380" id="page380"></a>380</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3">Not begun, but all material ready.</td> +<td class="tc3">3. The War volume.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3">Ditto.</td> +<td class="tc3">4. The Big Travel Book, which includes the letters.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3">You know how they stand.</td> +<td class="tc3">5. The <i>Ballads</i>.</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="pt1"><i>Excusez du peu!</i> And you see what madness it would +be to make any fresh engagements. At the same time, +you have <i>The Wrecker</i> and the War volume, if you like +either—or both—to keep my name in the Magazine.</p> + +<p>It begins to look as if I should not be able to get any +more ballads done this somewhile. I know the book +would sell better if it were all ballads; and yet I am +growing half tempted to fill up with some other verses. +A good few are connected with my voyage, such as the +“Home of Tembinoka” sent herewith, and would have +a sort of slight affinity to the <i>South Sea Ballads</i>. You +might tell me how that strikes a stranger.</p> + +<p>In all this, my real interest is with the travel volume, +which ought to be of a really extraordinary interest.</p> + +<p>I am sending you “Tembinoka” as he stands; but +there are parts of him that I hope to better, particularly +in stanzas <span class="sc">III.</span> and <span class="sc">II.</span> I scarce feel intelligent enough to +try just now; and I thought at any rate you had better +see it, set it up if you think well, and let me have a proof; +so, at least, we shall get the bulk of it straight. I have +spared you Teñkoruti, Tembaitake, Tembinatake, and +other barbarous names, because I thought the dentists +in the States had work enough without my assistance; +but my chief’s name is <span class="sc">Tembinoka</span>, pronounced, according +to the present quite modern habit in the Gilberts, +Tembinok’. Compare in the margin Tengkorootch; a +singular new trick, setting at defiance all South Sea analogy, +for nowhere else do they show even the ability, far less +the will, to end a word upon a consonant. Loia is Lloyd’s +name, ship becomes shipé, teapot tipoté, etc. Our admirable +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381"></a>381</span> +friend Herman Melville, of whom, since I could judge, +I have thought more than ever, had no ear for languages +whatever: his Hapar tribe should be Hapaa, etc.</p> + +<p>But this is of no interest to you: suffice it, you see +how I am as usual up to the neck in projects, and really +all likely bairns this time. When will this activity cease? +Too soon for me, I dare to say.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To James Payn</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>February 4th,</i> 1890, S.S. Lübeck.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR JAMES PAYN</span>,—In virtue of confessions in +your last, you would at the present moment, if you were +along of me, be sick; and I will ask you to receive that +as an excuse for my hand of write. Excuse a plain seaman +if he regards with scorn the likes of you pore land-lubbers +ashore now. (Reference to nautical ditty.) Which +I may however be allowed to add that when eight months’ +mail was laid by my side one evening in Apia, and my +wife and I sat up the most of the night to peruse the same—(precious +indisposed we were next day in consequence)—no +letter, out of so many, more appealed to our hearts +than one from the pore, stick-in-the-mud, land-lubbering, +common (or garden) Londoner, James Payn. Thank you +for it; my wife says, “Can’t I see him when we get back +to London?” I have told her the thing appeared to me +within the spear of practical politix. (Why can’t I spell +and write like an honest, sober, god-fearing litry gent? +I think it’s the motion of the ship.) Here I was interrupted +to play chess with the chief engineer; as I grow +old, I prefer the “athletic sport of cribbage,” of which (I +am sure I misquote) I have just been reading in your +delightful <i>Literary Recollections</i>. How you skim along, +you and Andrew Lang (different as you are), and yet the +only two who can keep a fellow smiling every page, and +ever and again laughing out loud. I joke wi’ deeficulty, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382" id="page382"></a>382</span> +I believe; I am not funny; and when I am, Mrs. Oliphant +says I’m vulgar, and somebody else says (in Latin) that +I’m a whore, which seems harsh and even uncalled for: +I shall stick to weepers; a 5s. weeper, 2s. 6d. laugher, +1s. shocker.</p> + +<p>My dear sir, I grow more and more idiotic; I cannot +even feign sanity. Some time in the month of June a +stalwart weather-beaten man, evidently of seafaring antecedents, +shall be observed wending his way between the +Athenæum Club and Waterloo Place. Arrived off No. 17, +he shall be observed to bring his head sharply to the +wind, and tack into the outer haven. “Captain Payn in +the harbour?”—“Ay, ay, sir. What ship?”—“Barquentin +R. L. S., nine hundred and odd days out from the +port of Bournemouth, homeward bound, with yarns and +curiosities.”</p> + +<p>Who was it said, “For God’s sake, don’t speak of it!” +about Scott and his tears? He knew what he was saying. +The fear of that hour is the skeleton in all our cupboards; +that hour when the pastime and the livelihood go together; +and—I am getting hard of hearing myself; a pore young +child of forty, but new come frae my Mammy, O!</p> + +<p>Excuse these follies, and accept the expression of all +my regards.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The <i>Solution</i> is a short story of Mr. Henry James, first published +in a periodical and reprinted in the collection called <i>The Lesson of +the Master</i> (Macmillans).</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney, February</i> 19, 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="sc">Here</span>—in this excellent civilised, antipodal club +smoking-room, I have just read the first part of your +<i>Solution</i>. Dear Henry James, it is an exquisite art; do +not be troubled by the shadows of your French competitors: +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383"></a>383</span> +not one, not de Maupassant, could have done +a thing more clean and fine; dry in touch, but the atmosphere +(as in a fine summer sunset) rich with colour and +with perfume. I shall say no more; this note is De +Solutione; except that I—that we—are all your sincere +friends and hope to shake you by the hand in June.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="center pt1">signed, sealed and<br /> +delivered as his act<br /> +and deed<br /> +and very thought of very thought,<br /> +this nineteenth of February in the year of our<br /> +Lord one thousand eight hundred ninety and<br /> +nothing.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Written while he was still in a white heat of indignation on behalf +of Father Damien. He was not aware that Dr. Hyde’s letter had +been a private one not meant for publicity, and later came to think +he might have struck as effectively on behalf of Damien without +striking so fiercely against Dr. Hyde (see below, p. 404). “Damon” +is the Rev. F. Damon, a missionary in Hawaii.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney, March</i> 5, 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MOTHER</span>,—I understand the family keeps +you somewhat informed. For myself I am in such a +whirl of work and society, I can ill spare a moment. My +health is excellent and has been here tried by abominable +wet weather, and (what’s waur) dinners and lunches. As +this is like to be our metropolis, I have tried to lay myself +out to be sociable with an eye to yoursel’. Several niceish +people have turned up: Fanny has an evening, but she +is about at the end of the virtuous effort, and shrinks +from the approach of any fellow creature.</p> + +<p>Have you seen Hyde’s (Dr. not Mr.) letter about +Damien? That has been one of my concerns; I have +an answer in the press; and have just written a difficult +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384"></a>384</span> +letter to Damon trying to prepare him for what (I fear) +must be to him extremely painful. The answer is to +come out as a pamphlet; of which I make of course a +present to the publisher. I am not a cannibal, I would +not eat the flesh of Dr. Hyde,—and it is conceivable it +will make a noise in Honolulu. I have struck as hard +as I knew how; nor do I think my answer can fail to +do away (in the minds of all who see it) with the effect +of Hyde’s incredible and really villainous production. +What a mercy I wasn’t this man’s <i>guest</i> in the <i>Morning +Star</i>! I think it would have broke my heart.</p> + +<p>Time for me to go!—I remain, with love,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Stevenson had not been long at Sydney—just long enough to +write and print the famous <i>Letter to Dr. Hyde</i> in defence of Father +Damien—when, to his heavy disappointment, he fell ill again with +one of his old bad attacks of fever and hemorrhage from the lungs. +It was this experience which finally determined him to settle for +good on his new island property in Samoa, which at first he had +thought of rather as an occasional refuge and resting-place in the +intervals between future projected yachting voyages.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney, March 7th,</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—I did not send off the enclosed +before from laziness; having gone quite sick, and being +a blooming prisoner here in the club, and indeed in my +bedroom. I was in receipt of your letters and your ornamental +photo, and was delighted to see how well you +looked, and how reasonably well I stood.... I am sure +I shall never come back home except to die; I may do it, +but shall always think of the move as suicidal, unless a +great change comes over me, of which as yet I see no +symptom. This visit to Sydney has smashed me handsomely; +and yet I made myself a prisoner here in the +club upon my first arrival. This is not encouraging for +further ventures; Sydney winter—or, I might almost say, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385"></a>385</span> +Sydney spring, for I came when the worst was over—is +so small an affair, comparable to our June depression +at home in Scotland.... The pipe is right again; it +was the springs that had rusted, and ought to have been +oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but, Lord! here +in the club I dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience +to be in my own backwoods and raise the sound of +minstrelsy. What pleasures are to be compared with +those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso.—Yours ever affectionately, +the Unvirtuous Virtuoso,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Sidney Colvin</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>To try and recover from the effects of his illness at Sydney, +Stevenson determined to take another voyage; and started accordingly +in April with his party on a trading steamer, the <i>Janet Nicoll</i>, +which took him by a long and devious course among many groups of +islands that he had not yet visited, returning to Sydney in August +by way of New Caledonia. On the first night out of Auckland +harbour the voyage nearly came to a premature end through the +blowing up of some trade fireworks, or materials for fireworks, which +had been packed in the stateroom.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>S.S.</i> Janet Nicoll, <i>off Upolu</i> [<i>Spring</i> 1890].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAREST COLVIN</span>,—I was sharply ill at Sydney, cut +off, right out of bed, in this steamer on a fresh island +cruise, and have already reaped the benefit. We are +excellently found this time, on a spacious vessel, with an +excellent table; the captain, supercargo, our one fellow-passenger, +etc., very nice; and the charterer, Mr. Henderson, +the very man I could have chosen. The truth is, I fear, +this life is the only one that suits me; so long as I cruise +in the South Seas, I shall be well and happy—alas, no, +I do not mean that, and <i>absit omen</i>!—I mean that, so soon +as I cease from cruising, the nerves are strained, the decline +commences, and I steer slowly but surely back to bedward. +We left Sydney, had a cruel rough passage to +Auckland, for the <i>Janet</i> is the worst roller I was ever aboard +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386"></a>386</span> +of. I was confined to my cabin, ports closed, self shied +out of the berth, stomach (pampered till the day I left on +a diet of perpetual egg-nogg) revolted at ship’s food and +ship eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging with one hand to +the plate, with the other to the glass, and using the knife +and fork (except at intervals) with the eyelid. No matter: +I picked up hand over hand. After a day in Auckland, we +set sail again; were blown up in the main cabin with +calcium fires, as we left the bay. Let no man say I am +unscientific: when I ran, on the alert, out of my stateroom, +and found the main cabin incarnadined with the +glow of the last scene of a pantomime, I stopped dead: +“What is this?” said I. “This ship is on fire, I see that; +but why a pantomime?” And I stood and reasoned the +point, until my head was so muddled with the fumes that +I could not find the companion. A few seconds later, the +captain had to enter crawling on his belly, and took days +to recover (if he has recovered) from the fumes. By +singular good fortune, we got the hose down in time and +saved the ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes and +a great part of our photographs was destroyed. Fanny +saw the native sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk; +she stopped them in time, and behold, it contained my +manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine +weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a +vexatious sea. As we drew into our anchorage in a bight +of Savage Island, a man ashore told me afterwards the +sight of the <i>Janet Nicoll</i> made him sick; and indeed it +was rough play, though nothing to the night before. All +through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem +spearing the ink-bottle like a flying fish, and holding my +papers together as I might. For, of all things, what I was at +was history—the Samoan business—and I had to turn +from one to another of these piles of manuscript notes, +and from one page to another in each, until I should +have found employment for the hands of Briareus. All +the same, this history is a godsend for a voyage; I can +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id="page387"></a>387</span> +put in time, getting events co-ordinated and the narrative +distributed, when my much-heaving numskull would be +incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met the +missionary barque <i>John Williams</i>. I tell you it was a +great day for Savage Island: the path up the cliffs was +crowded with gay islandresses (I like that feminine plural) +who wrapped me in their embraces, and picked my pockets +of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch would +have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, +like the Golden Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, +with a red flower behind her ear, had searched me with +extraordinary zeal; and when, soon after, I missed my +matches, I accused her (she still following us) of being +the thief. After some delay, and with a subtle smile, +she produced the box, gave me <i>one match</i>, and put the +rest away again. Too tired to add more.—Your most +affectionate</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The idea here discussed of a further series of essays to be contributed +to Scribner’s Magazine was never carried out.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>S.S.</i> Janet Nicoll, <i>off Peru Island, Kingsmills<br /> +Group, July 13th,</i> ’90.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,—I am moved to write to you +in the matter of the end papers. I am somewhat tempted +to begin them again. Follow the reasons <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>:—</p> + +<p>1st. I must say I feel as if something in the nature of +the end paper were a desirable finish to the number, and +that the substitutes of occasional essays by occasional +contributors somehow fail to fill the bill. Should you +differ with me on this point, no more is to be said. And +what follows must be regarded as lost words.</p> + +<p>2nd. I am rather taken with the idea of continuing +the work. For instance, should you have no distaste for +papers of the class called <i>Random Memories</i>, I should +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id="page388"></a>388</span> +enjoy continuing them (of course at intervals), and when +they were done I have an idea they might make a readable +book. On the other hand, I believe a greater freedom of +choice might be taken, the subjects more varied and more +briefly treated, in somewhat approaching the manner of +Andrew Lang in the <i>Sign of the Ship</i>; it being well understood +that the broken sticks<a name="FnAnchor_34" id="FnAnchor_34" href="#Footnote_34"><span class="sp">34</span></a> method is one not very +suitable (as Colonel Burke would say) to my genius, and +not very likely to be pushed far in my practice. Upon +this point I wish you to condense your massive brain. In +the last lot I was promised, and I fondly expected to +receive, a vast amount of assistance from intelligent and +genial correspondents. I assure you, I never had a scratch +of a pen from any one above the level of a village idiot, +except once, when a lady sowed my head full of grey +hairs by announcing that she was going to direct her life +in future by my counsels. Will the correspondents be +more copious and less irrelevant in the future? Suppose +that to be the case, will they be of any use to me in my +place of exile? Is it possible for a man in Samoa to be +in touch with the great heart of the People? And is it +not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so hopeless a +distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers? Upon +these points, perpend, and give me the results of your +perpensions.</p> + +<p>3rd. The emolument would be agreeable to your +humble servant.</p> + +<p>I have now stated all the <i>pros</i>, and the most of the +<i>cons</i> are come in by the way. There follows, however, one +immense Con (with a capital “C”), which I beg you to +consider particularly. I fear that, to be of any use for +your magazine, these papers should begin with the beginning +of a volume. Even supposing my hands were free, +this would be now impossible for next year. You have +to consider whether, supposing you have no other objection, +it would be worth while to begin the series in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389"></a>389</span> +middle of a volume, or desirable to delay the whole matter +until the beginning of another year.</p> + +<p>Now supposing that the <i>cons</i> have it, and you refuse +my offer, let me make another proposal, which you will +be very inclined to refuse at the first off-go, but which I +really believe might in time come to something. You +know how the penny papers have their answers to correspondents. +Why not do something of the same kind for +the “culchawed”? Why not get men like Stimson, +Brownell, Professor James, Goldwin Smith, and others +who will occur to you more readily than to me, to put and +to answer a series of questions of intellectual and general +interest, until at last you should have established a certain +standard of matter to be discussed in this part of the +Magazine?</p> + +<p>I want you to get me bound volumes of the Magazine +from its start. The Lord knows I have had enough copies; +where they are I know not. A wandering author gathers +no magazines.</p> + +<p><i>The Wrecker</i> is in no forrader state than in last reports. +I have indeed got to a period when I cannot well go on +until I can refresh myself on the proofs of the beginning. +My respected collaborator, who handles the machine +which is now addressing you, has indeed carried his +labours farther, but not, I am led to understand, with +what we used to call a blessing; at least, I have been +refused a sight of his latest labours. However, there is +plenty of time ahead, and I feel no anxiety about the tale, +except that it may meet with your approval.</p> + +<p>All this voyage I have been busy over my <i>Travels</i>, +which, given a very high temperature and the saloon of a +steamer usually going before the wind, and with the cabins +in front of the engines, has come very near to prostrating +me altogether. You will therefore understand that there +are no more poems. I wonder whether there are already +enough, and whether you think that such a volume would +be worth the publishing? I shall hope to find in Sydney +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a>390</span> +some expression of your opinion on this point. Living as +I do among—not the most cultured of mankind (“splendidly +educated and perfect gentlemen when sober”)—I attach +a growing importance to friendly criticisms from yourself.</p> + +<p>I believe that this is the most of our business. As for +my health, I got over my cold in a fine style, but have +not been very well of late. To my unaffected annoyance, +the blood-spitting has started again. I find the heat of +a steamer decidedly wearing and trying in these latitudes, +and I am inclined to think the superior expedition rather +dearly paid for. Still, the fact that one does not even +remark the coming of a squall, nor feel relief on its departure, +is a mercy not to be acknowledged without gratitude. +The rest of the family seem to be doing fairly well; both +seem less run down than they were on the <i>Equator</i>, and +Mrs. Stevenson very much less so. We have now been +three months away, have visited about thirty-five islands, +many of which were novel to us, and some extremely +entertaining; some also were old acquaintances, and +pleasant to revisit. In the meantime, we have really a +capital time aboard ship, in the most pleasant and interesting +society, and with (considering the length and nature +of the voyage) an excellent table. Please remember us all +to Mr. Scribner, the young chieftain of the house, and the +lady, whose health I trust is better. To Mrs. Burlingame +we all desire to be remembered, and I hope you will give +our news to Low, St. Gaudens, Faxon, and others of the +faithful in the city. I shall probably return to Samoa +direct, having given up all idea of returning to civilisation +in the meanwhile. There, on my ancestral acres, which +I purchased six months ago from a blind Scots blacksmith, +you will please address me until further notice. The +name of the ancestral acres is going to be Vailima; but as +at the present moment nobody else knows the name, except +myself and the co-patentees, it will be safer, if less ambitious, +to address R. L. S., Apia, Samoa. The ancestral acres run +to upwards of three hundred; they enjoy the ministrations +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391" id="page391"></a>391</span> +of five streams, whence the name. They are all at the +present moment under a trackless covering of magnificent +forest, which would be worth a great deal if it grew beside +a railway terminus. To me, as it stands, it represents a +handsome deficit. Obliging natives from the Cannibal +Islands are now cutting it down at my expense. You +would be able to run your magazine to much greater +advantage if the terms of authors were on the same scale +with those of my cannibals. We have also a house about +the size of a manufacturer’s lodge. ’Tis but the egg of +the future palace, over the details of which on paper +Mrs. Stevenson and I have already shed real tears; what +it will be when it comes to paying for it, I leave you +to imagine. But if it can only be built as now intended, +it will be with genuine satisfaction and a growunded pride +that I shall welcome you at the steps of my Old Colonial +Home, when you land from the steamer on a long-merited +holiday. I speak much at my ease; yet I do not know, +I may be now an outlaw, a bankrupt, the abhorred of all +good men. I do not know, you probably do. Has Hyde<a name="FnAnchor_35" id="FnAnchor_35" href="#Footnote_35"><span class="sp">35</span></a> +turned upon me? Have I fallen, like Danvers Carew?</p> + +<p>It is suggested to me that you might like to know what +will be my future society. Three consuls, all at loggerheads +with one another, or at the best in a clique of two +against one; three different sects of missionaries, not +upon the best of terms; and the Catholics and Protestants +in a condition of unhealable ill-feeling as to whether a +wooden drum ought or ought not to be beaten to announce +the time of school. The native population, very genteel, +very songful, very agreeable, very good-looking, chronically +spoiling for a fight (a circumstance not to be entirely +neglected in the design of the palace). As for the white +population of (technically, “The Beach”), I don’t suppose +it is possible for any person not thoroughly conversant +with the South Seas to form the smallest conception of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392"></a>392</span> +such a society, with its grog-shops, its apparently unemployed +hangers-on, its merchants of all degrees of respectability +and the reverse. The paper, of which I must really +send you a copy—if yours were really a live magazine, you +would have an exchange with the editor: I assure you, it +has of late contained a great deal of matter about one of +your contributors—rejoices in the name of Samoa Times +and South Sea Advertiser. The advertisements in the +Advertiser are permanent, being simply subsidies for its +existence. A dashing warfare of newspaper correspondence +goes on between the various residents, who are rather fond +of recurring to one another’s antecedents. But when all +is said, there are a lot of very nice, pleasant people, and I +don’t know that Apia is very much worse than half a +hundred towns that I could name.</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Charles Baxter</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>As above indicated, on the way between Samoa and Sydney +Stevenson left the <i>Janet Nicoll</i> for a week’s stay in New Caledonia, +during which he was hospitably received by the French officials.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Hotel Sebastopol, Noumea, August</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR CHARLES</span>,—I have stayed here a week while +Lloyd and my wife continue to voyage in the <i>Janet Nicoll</i>; +this I did, partly to see the convict system, partly to +shorten my stay in the extreme cold—hear me with my +extreme! <i>moi qui suis originaire d’Edimbourg</i>—of Sydney +at this season. I am feeling very seedy, utterly fatigued +and overborne with sleep. I have a fine old gentleman +of a doctor, who attends and cheers and entertains, if he +does not cure me; but even with his ministrations I am +almost incapable of the exertion sufficient for this letter; +and I am really, as I write, falling down with sleep. What +is necessary to say, I must try to say shortly. Lloyd goes +to clear out our establishments: pray keep him in funds, +if I have any; if I have not, pray try to raise them. Here +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id="page393"></a>393</span> +is the idea: to install ourselves, at the risk of bankruptcy, +in Samoa. It is not the least likely it will pay (although it +may); but it is almost certain it will support life, with +very few external expenses. If I die, it will be an endowment +for the survivors, at least for my wife and Lloyd; +and my mother, who might prefer to go home, has her +own. Hence I believe I shall do well to hurry my installation. +The letters are already in part done; in part done +is a novel for Scribner; in the course of the next twelve +months I should receive a considerable amount of money. +I am aware I had intended to pay back to my capital +some of this. I am now of opinion I should act foolishly. +Better to build the house and have a roof and farm of my +own; and thereafter, with a livelihood assured, save and +repay.... There is my livelihood, all but books and +wine, ready in a nutshell; and it ought to be more easy +to save and to repay afterwards. Excellent, say you, but +will you save and will you repay? I do not know, said +the Bell of Old Bow.... It seems clear to me.... +The deuce of the affair is that I do not know when I shall +see you and Colvin. I guess you will have to come and +see me: many a time already we have arranged the details +of your visit in the yet unbuilt house on the mountain. +I shall be able to get decent wine from Noumea. We +shall be able to give you a decent welcome, and talk of +old days. <i>Apropos</i> of old days, do you remember still +the phrase we heard in Waterloo Place? I believe you +made a piece for the piano on that phrase. Pray, if you +remember it, send it me in your next. If you find it +impossible to write correctly, send it me <i>à la récitative</i>, +and indicate the accents. Do you feel (you must) how +strangely heavy and stupid I am? I must at last give +up and go sleep; I am simply a rag.</p> + +<p><i>The morrow.</i>—I feel better, but still dim and groggy. +To-night I go to the governor’s; such a lark—no dress +clothes—twenty-four hours’ notice—able-bodied Polish +tailor—suit made for a man with the figure of a puncheon—same +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394"></a>394</span> +hastily altered for self with the figure of a bodkin—sight +inconceivable. Never mind; dress clothes, “which +nobody can deny”; and the officials have been all so civil +that I liked neither to refuse nor to appear in mufti. +Bad dress clothes only prove you are a grisly ass; no +dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of +respect. I wish you were here with me to help me dress +in this wild raiment, and to accompany me to M. Noel-Pardon’s. +I cannot say what I would give if there came +a knock now at the door and you came in. I guess Noel-Pardon +would go begging, and we might burn the fr. 200 +dress clothes in the back garden for a bonfire; or what +would be yet more expensive and more humorous, get +them once more expanded to fit you, and when that was +done, a second time cut down for my gossamer dimensions.</p> + +<p>I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, +who has always a place in my heart, as I hope I have a +little in his. His kindness helped me infinitely when you +and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and affection +in this town of convicts at the world’s end. There are +very few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a +retrospect of life, the day’s flash and colour, one day with +another, flames, dazzles, and puts to sleep; and when the +days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope, they make +but a single pattern. Only a few things stand out; and +among these—most plainly to me—Rutland Square.—Ever, +my dear Charles, your affectionate friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—Just returned from trying on the dress clo’. +Lord, you should see the coat! It stands out at the +waist like a bustle, the flaps cross in front, the sleeves +are like bags.</p> + + +<p class="to">To E. L. Burlingame</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Proceeding from New Caledonia to Sydney, Stevenson again +made a stay there of about a month, before going to settle in his new +island home and superintend the operations of planting and building. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395"></a>395</span> +The next letter is in acknowledgment of proofs received from +Messrs. Scribner of a proposed volume of verse to contain, besides +<i>Ticonderoga</i> and the two ballads on Marquesan and Tahitian legends, +a number of the other miscellaneous verses which he had written +in the course of his travels. In the end, the ballads only stood for +publication at this time; the other verses were reserved, and have +been posthumously published under the title <i>Songs of Travel</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney</i> [<i>August</i> 1890].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR BURLINGAME</span>,—</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Ballads.</i></p> + +<p>The deuce is in this volume. It has cost me more +botheration and dubiety than any other I ever took in +hand. On one thing my mind is made up: the verses at +the end have no business there, and throw them down. +Many of them are bad, many of the rest want nine years’ +keeping, and the remainder are not relevant—throw them +down; some I never want to hear of more, others will +grow in time towards decent items in a second <i>Underwoods</i>—and +in the meanwhile, down with them! At the same +time, I have a sneaking idea the ballads are not altogether +without merit—I don’t know if they’re poetry, but they’re +good narrative, or I’m deceived. (You’ve never said one +word about them, from which I astutely gather you are +dead set against: “he was a diplomatic man”—extract +from epitaph of E. L. B.—“and remained on good terms +with Minor Poets.”) You will have to judge: one of the +Gladstonian trinity of paths must be chosen. (1st) Either +publish the five ballads, such as they are, in a volume +called <i>Ballads</i>; in which case pray send sheets at once +to Chatto and Windus. Or (2nd) write and tell me you +think the book too small, and I’ll try and get into the +mood to do some more. Or (3rd) write and tell me the +whole thing is a blooming illusion; in which case draw +off some twenty copies for my private entertainment, and +charge me with the expense of the whole dream.</p> + +<p>In the matter of rhyme no man can judge himself; I +am at the world’s end, have no one to consult, and my +publisher holds his tongue. I call it unfair and almost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396" id="page396"></a>396</span> +unmanly. I do indeed begin to be filled with animosity; +Lord, wait till you see the continuation of <i>The Wrecker</i>, +when I introduce some New York publishers.... It’s a +good scene; the quantities you drink and the really +hideous language you are represented as employing may +perhaps cause you one tithe of the pain you have inflicted +by your silence on, sir, The Poetaster,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + +<p class="pt1">Lloyd is off home; my wife and I dwell sundered: she +in lodgings, preparing for the move; I here in the club, +and at my old trade—bedridden. Naturally, the visit +home is given up; we only wait our opportunity to get +to Samoa, where, please, address me.</p> + +<p>Have I yet asked you to despatch the books and papers +left in your care to me at Apia, Samoa? I wish you +would, <i>quam primum</i>.</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Henry James</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney, August</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR HENRY JAMES</span>,—Kipling is too clever to live. +The <i>Bête Humaine</i><a name="FnAnchor_36" id="FnAnchor_36" href="#Footnote_36"><span class="sp">36</span></a> I had already perused in Noumea, +listening the while to the strains of the convict band. +He is a Beast; but not human, and, to be frank, not very +interesting. “Nervous maladies: the homicidal ward,” +would be the better name: O, this game gets very tedious.</p> + +<p>Your two long and kind letters have helped to entertain +the old familiar sickbed. So has a book called <i>The +Bondman</i>, by Hall Caine; I wish you would look at it. +I am not half-way through yet. Read the book, and +communicate your views. Hall Caine, by the way, appears +to take Hugo’s view of History and Chronology (<i>Later</i>; +the book doesn’t keep up; it gets very wild.)</p> + +<p>I must tell you plainly—I can’t tell Colvin—I do not +think I shall come to England more than once, and then +it’ll be to die. Health I enjoy in the tropics; even here, +which they call sub- or semi-tropical, I come only to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397" id="page397"></a>397</span> +catch cold. I have not been out since my arrival; live +here in a nice bedroom by the fireside, and read books +and letters from Henry James, and send out to get his +<i>Tragic Muse</i>, only to be told they can’t be had as yet in +Sydney, and have altogether a placid time. But I can’t +go out! The thermometer was nearly down to 50° the +other day—no temperature for me, Mr. James: how +should I do in England? I fear not at all. Am I very +sorry? I am sorry about seven or eight people in England, +and one or two in the States. And outside of that, I +simply prefer Samoa. These are the words of honesty and +soberness. (I am fasting from all but sin, coughing, <i>The +Bondman</i>, a couple of eggs and a cup of tea.) I was +never fond of towns, houses, society, or (it seems) civilisation. +Nor yet it seems was I ever very fond of (what is +technically called) God’s green earth. The sea, islands, +the islanders, the island life and climate, make and keep +me truly happier. These last two years I have been much +at sea, and I have <i>never wearied</i>; sometimes I have indeed +grown impatient for some destination; more often I was +sorry that the voyage drew so early to an end; and never +once did I lose my fidelity to blue water and a ship. It is +plain, then, that for me my exile to the place of schooners +and islands can be in no sense regarded as a calamity.</p> + +<p>Good-bye just now: I must take a turn at my proofs.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>N.B.</i>—Even my wife has weakened about the sea. +She wearied, the last time we were ashore, to get afloat +again.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="rt">R. L. S.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Marcel Schwob</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney, August 19th,</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MR. SCHWOB</span>,—<i>Mais, alors, vous avez tous les +bonheurs, vous!</i> More about Villon; it seems incredible: +when it is put in order, pray send it me.</p> + +<p>You wish to translate the <i>Black Arrow</i>: dear sir, you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page398" id="page398"></a>398</span> +are hereby authorised; but I warn you, I do not like the +work. Ah, if you, who know so well both tongues, and +have taste and instruction—if you would but take a fancy +to translate a book of mine that I myself admired—for +we sometimes admire our own—or I do—with what satisfaction +would the authority be granted! But these things +are too much to expect. <i>Vous ne détestez pas alors mes +bonnes femmes? moi, je les déteste.</i> I have never pleased +myself with any women of mine save two character parts, +one of only a few lines—the Countess of Rosen, and Madame +Desprez in the <i>Treasure of Franchard</i>.</p> + +<p>I had indeed one moment of pride about my poor +<i>Black Arrow</i>: Dickon Crookback I did, and I do, think +is a spirited and possible figure. Shakespeare’s—O, if we +can call that cocoon Shakespeare!—Shakespeare’s is +spirited—one likes to see the untaught athlete butting +against the adamantine ramparts of human nature, head +down, breech up; it reminds us how trivial we are to-day, +and what safety resides in our triviality. For spirited it +may be, but O, sure not possible! I love Dumas and I +love Shakespeare: you will not mistake me when I say +that the Richard of the one reminds me of the Porthos +of the other; and if by any sacrifice of my own literary +baggage I could clear the <i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i> of Porthos, +<i>Jekyll</i> might go, and the <i>Master</i>, and the <i>Black Arrow</i>, you +may be sure, and I should think my life not lost for mankind +if half a dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in.</p> + +<p>The tone of your pleasant letters makes me egotistical; +you make me take myself too gravely. Comprehend how +I have lived much of my time in France, and loved your +country, and many of its people, and all the time was +learning that which your country has to teach—breathing +in rather that atmosphere of art which can only there be +breathed; and all the time knew—and raged to know—that +I might write with the pen of angels or of heroes, +and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps +in M. Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page399" id="page399"></a>399</span> +and reads and understands, and is kind enough to +like my work.</p> + +<p>I am just now overloaded with work. I have two +huge novels on hand—<i>The Wrecker</i> and the <i>Pearl Fisher</i>,<a name="FnAnchor_37" id="FnAnchor_37" href="#Footnote_37"><span class="sp">37</span></a> +in collaboration with my stepson: the latter, the <i>Pearl +Fisher</i>, I think highly of, for a black, ugly, trampling, +violent story, full of strange scenes and striking characters. +And then I am about waist-deep in my big book on the +South Seas: <i>the</i> big book on the South Seas it ought to +be, and shall. And besides, I have some verses in the +press, which, however, I hesitate to publish. For I am +no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so facile. +All this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa +keep me very busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed.</p> + +<p>Alas, I shall not have the pleasure to see you yet awhile, +if ever. You must be content to take me as a wandering +voice, and in the form of occasional letters from recondite +islands; and address me, if you will be good enough +to write, to Apia, Samoa. My stepson, Mr. Osbourne, +goes home meanwhile to arrange some affairs; it is not +unlikely he may go to Paris to arrange about the illustrations +to my South Seas; in which case I shall ask him +to call upon you, and give you some word of our outlandish +destinies. You will find him intelligent, I think; +and I am sure, if (<i>par hasard</i>) you should take any interest +in the islands, he will have much to tell you.—Herewith I +conclude, and am your obliged and interested correspondent,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + +<p class="pt1"><i>P.S.</i>—The story you refer to has got lost in the post.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Andrew Lang</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney</i> [<i>August</i> 1890].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR LANG</span>,—I observed with a great deal of surprise +and interest that a controversy in which you have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page400" id="page400"></a>400</span> +been taking sides at home, in yellow London, hinges in +part at least on the Gilbert Islanders and their customs +in burial. Nearly six months of my life has been passed +in the group: I have revisited it but the other day; and +I make haste to tell you what I know. The upright stones—I +enclose you a photograph of one on Apemama—are +certainly connected with religion; I do not think they +are adored. They stand usually on the windward shore +of the islands, that is to say, apart from habitation (on +<i>enclosed islands</i>, where the people live on the sea side, I +do not know how it is, never having lived on one). I +gathered from Tembinoka, Rex Apemamae, that the +pillars were supposed to fortify the island from invasion: +spiritual martellos. I think he indicated they were connected +with the cult of Tenti—pronounce almost as chintz +in English, the <i>t</i> being explosive; but you must take this +with a grain of salt, for I knew no word of Gilbert Island; +and the King’s English, although creditable, is rather +vigorous than exact. Now, here follows the point of +interest to you: such pillars, or standing stones, have no +connection with graves. The most elaborate grave that +I have ever seen in the group—to be certain—is in the +form of a <i>raised border</i> of gravel, usually strewn with +broken glass. One, of which I cannot be sure that it was +a grave, for I was told by one that it was, and by another +that it was not—consisted of a mound about breast high +in an excavated taro swamp, on the top of which was a +child’s house, or rather <i>maniapa</i>—that is to say, shed, or +open house, such as is used in the group for social or +political gatherings—so small that only a child could +creep under its eaves. I have heard of another great +tomb on Apemama, which I did not see; but here again, +by all accounts, no sign of a standing stone. My report +would be—no connection between standing stones and +sepulture. I shall, however, send on the terms of the +problem to a highly intelligent resident trader, who knows +more than perhaps any one living, white or native, of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page401" id="page401"></a>401</span> +Gilbert group; and you shall have the result. In Samoa, +whither I return for good, I shall myself make inquiries; +up to now, I have neither seen nor heard of any standing +stones in that group.—Yours,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">R. L. Stevenson.</p> + + +<p class="to">To Miss Adelaide Boodle</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Exactly what tale of doings in the garret at Skerryvore had been +related to Stevenson (in the character of Robin Lewison) by his +correspondent (in the character of Miss Green) cannot well be +gathered from this reply. But the letter is interesting as containing +the only mention of certain schemes of romance afterwards abandoned.</p> +</div> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney, 1st September</i> 1890.</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MISS BOODLE</span>,—I find you have been behaving +very ill: <i>been</i> very ill, in fact. I find this hard to forgive; +probably should not forgive it at all if Robin Lewison +had not been sick himself and a wretched sick-room +prisoner in this club for near a month. Well, the best and +bravest sometimes fail. But who is Miss Green? Don’t +know her! I knew a lady of an exceedingly generous +and perfervid nature—worthy to be suspected of Scotch +blood for the pertervidness—equipped with a couple—perhaps +a brace sounds better English—of perfervid eyes—with +a certain graceful gaucherie of manner, almost like +a child’s, and that is at once the highest point of gaucherie +and grace—a friend everybody I ever saw was delighted +to see come and sorry to see go. Yes, I knew that lady, +and can see her now. But who was Miss Green? There +is something amiss here. Either the Robin Lewisons +have been very shabbily treated, or—and this is the serious +part of the affair—somebody unknown to me has been +entrusted with the key of the Skerryvore garret. This +may go as far as the Old Bailey, ma’am.</p> + +<p>But why should I gird at you or anybody, when the +truth is we are the most miserable sinners in the world? +For we are not coming home, I dare not. Even coming +to Sydney has made me quite ill, and back I go to Samoa, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page402" id="page402"></a>402</span> +whither please address—Apia, Samoa—(and remember it is +Sámó-a, a spondee to begin with, or Sahmoa, if you prefer +that writing)—back I and my wife go to Samoa to live +on our landed estate with four black labour boys in a kind +of a sort of house, which Lloyd will describe to you. For +he has gone to England: receive him like a favour and a +piece of cake; he is our greeting to friends.</p> + +<p>I paused here to put in the date on the first page. I +am precious nearly through my fortieth year, thinks I to +myself. Must be nearly as old as Miss Green, thinks I. +O, come! I exclaimed, not as bad as that! Some lees +of youth about the old remnant yet.</p> + +<p>My amiable Miss Green, I beg you to give me news +of your health, and if it may be good news. And when +you shall have seen Lloyd, to tell me how his reports of +the South Seas and our new circumstances strike such an +awfully old person as yourself, and to tell me if you ever +received a letter I sent you from Hawaii. I remember +thinking—or remember remembering rather—it was (for +me) quite a long respectable communication. Also, you +might tell me if you got my war-whoop and scalping-knife +assault on <i>le nommé</i> Hyde.</p> + +<p>I ought not to forget to say your tale fetched me (Miss +Green) by its really vile probability. If we had met that +man in Honolulu he would have done it, and Miss Green +would have done it. Only, alas! there is no completed +novel lying in the garret: would there were! It should +be out to-morrow with the name to it, and relieve a kind +of tightness in the money market much deplored in our +immediate circle. To be sure (now I come to think of +it) there are some seven chapters of <i>The Great North Road</i>; +three, I think, of <i>Robin Run the Hedge</i>, given up when some +nefarious person pre-empted the name; and either there—or +somewhere else—likely New York—one chapter of +<i>David Balfour</i>, and five or six of the <i>Memoirs of Henry +Shovel</i>. That’s all. But Lloyd and I have one-half of +The Wrecker in type, and a good part of <i>The Pearl Fisher</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page403" id="page403"></a>403</span> +(O, a great and grisly tale that!) in MS. And I have a +projected, entirely planned love-story—everybody will +think it dreadfully improper, I’m afraid—called <i>Cannonmills</i>. +And I’ve a vague, rosy haze before me—a love-story +too, but not improper—called <i>The Rising Sun</i>. (It’s +the name of the wayside inn where the story, or much of +the story, runs; but it’s a kind of a pun: it means the +stirring up of a boy by falling in love, and how he rises +in the estimation of a girl who despised him, though she +liked him, and had befriended him; I really scarce see +beyond their childhood yet, but I want to go beyond, +and make each out-top the other by successions: it should +be pretty and true if I could do it.) Also I have my big +book, <i>The South Seas</i>, always with me, and a sair handfu’—if +I may be allowed to speak Scotch to Miss Green—a +sair handfu’ it is likely to be. All this literary gossip I +bestow upon you <i>entre confrères</i>, Miss Green, which is little +more than fair, Miss Green.</p> + +<p>Allow me to remark that it is now half-past twelve +o’clock of the living night; I should certainly be ashamed +of myself, and you also; for this is no time of the night +for Miss Green to be colloguing with a comparatively young +gentleman of forty. So with all the kindest wishes to +yourself, and all at Lostock, and all friends in Hants, or +over the borders in Dorset, I bring my folly to an end. +Please believe, even when I am silent, in my real affection; +I need not say the same for Fanny, more obdurately silent, +not less affectionate than I.—Your friend,</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert—Robin Lewison.</p> + +<p class="pt1">(Nearly had it wrong—force of habit.)</p> + + +<p class="to">To Mrs. Charles Fairchild</p> + +<p class="rt"><i>Union Club, Sydney</i> [<i>September</i> 1890].</p> + +<p><span class="scs">MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD</span>,—I began a letter to you on +board the <i>Janet Nicoll</i> on my last cruise, wrote, I believe, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page404" id="page404"></a>404</span> +two sheets, and ruthlessly destroyed the flippant trash. +Your last has given me great pleasure and some pain, for +it increased the consciousness of my neglect. Now, this +must go to you, whatever it is like.</p> + +<p>... It is always harshness that one regrets.... I +regret also my letter to Dr. Hyde. Yes, I do; I think +it was barbarously harsh; if I did it now, I would defend +Damien no less well, and give less pain to those who are +alive. These promptings of good-humour are not all +sound; the three times three, cheer boys cheer, and general +amiability business rests on a sneaking love of popularity, +the most insidious enemy of virtue. On the whole, it +was virtuous to defend Damien; but it was harsh to +strike so hard at Dr. Hyde. When I wrote the letter, I +believed he would bring an action, in which case I knew +I could be beggared. And as yet there has come no action; +the injured Doctor has contented himself up to now with +the (truly innocuous) vengeance of calling me a “Bohemian +Crank,” and I have deeply wounded one of his colleagues +whom I esteemed and liked.</p> + +<p>Well, such is life. You are quite right; our civilisation +is a hollow fraud, all the fun of life is lost by it; all it +gains is that a larger number of persons can continue to +be contemporaneously unhappy on the surface of the +globe. O, unhappy!—there is a big word and a false—continue +to be not nearly—by about twenty per cent.—so +happy as they might be: that would be nearer the +mark.</p> + +<p>When—observe that word, which I will write again and +larger—<span class="sc">WHEN</span> you come to see us in Samoa, you will see +for yourself a healthy and happy people.</p> + +<p>You see, you are one of the very few of our friends +rich enough to come and see us; and when my house is +built, and the road is made, and we have enough fruit +planted and poultry and pigs raised, it is undeniable that +you must come—must is the word; that is the way in +which I speak to ladies. You and Fairchild, anyway—perhaps +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page405" id="page405"></a>405</span> +my friend Blair—we’ll arrange details in good +time. It will be the salvation of your souls, and make +you willing to die.</p> + +<p>Let me tell you this: In ’74 or 5 there came to stay +with my father and mother a certain Mr. Seed, a prime +minister or something of New Zealand. He spotted what +my complaint was; told me that I had no business to +stay in Europe; that I should find all I cared for, and all +that was good for me, in the Navigator Islands; sat up +till four in the morning persuading me, demolishing my +scruples. And I resisted: I refused to go so far from my +father and mother. O, it was virtuous, and O, wasn’t it +silly! But my father, who was always my dearest, got +to his grave without that pang; and now in 1890, I (or +what is left of me) go at last to the Navigator Islands. +God go with us! It is but a Pisgah sight when all is +said; I go there only to grow old and die; but when you +come, you will see it is a fair place for the purpose.</p> + +<p>Flaubert<a name="FnAnchor_38" id="FnAnchor_38" href="#Footnote_38"><span class="sp">38</span></a> has not turned up; I hope he will soon; I +knew of him only through Maxime Descamps.—With +kindest messages to yourself and all of yours, I remain</p> + +<p class="sc rt">Robert Louis Stevenson.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27" href="#FnAnchor_27"><span class="fn">27</span></a> King Kalakaua.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28" href="#FnAnchor_28"><span class="fn">28</span></a> This is the Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (d. 1899).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29" href="#FnAnchor_29"><span class="fn">29</span></a> Stevenson’s stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time +living at Honolulu, and joined his party and family for good after +they arrived at Sydney in the following autumn.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30" href="#FnAnchor_30"><span class="fn">30</span></a> R. A. M. Stevenson was at this time professor of Fine Art in the +University of Liverpool.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31" href="#FnAnchor_31"><span class="fn">31</span></a> The Hawaiian name for white men.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32" href="#FnAnchor_32"><span class="fn">32</span></a> The writer has omitted something here.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33" href="#FnAnchor_33"><span class="fn">33</span></a> Table of chapter headings follows.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34" href="#FnAnchor_34"><span class="fn">34</span></a> French <i>bâtons rompus</i>: disconnected thoughts or studies.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35" href="#FnAnchor_35"><span class="fn">35</span></a> The Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu: in reference to Stevenson’s +letter on Father Damien.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36" href="#FnAnchor_36"><span class="fn">36</span></a> By Émile Zola.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37" href="#FnAnchor_37"><span class="fn">37</span></a> Afterwards re-named <i>The Ebb-Tide</i>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38" href="#FnAnchor_38"><span class="fn">38</span></a> His <i>Letters</i>.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="art" /> +<div class="pt2"> </div> +<h5>END OF VOL. XXIV.</h5> + +<div style="padding-top: 2em; "> </div> +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="center noind sc" style="font-size: 65%;">Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.</p> +<hr class="full" /> +<div class="pt2"> </div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - +Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25), by Robert Louis Stevenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON *** + +***** This file should be named 31809-h.htm or 31809-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/0/31809/ + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25) + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Other: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: March 28, 2010 [EBook #31809] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF STEVENSON *** + + + + +Produced by Marius Masi, Jonathan Ingram and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + SWANSTON EDITION + + VOLUME XXIV + + + _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: TEMBINOKA, KING OF APEMAMA, WITH THE HEIR-APPARENT] + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON + + + VOLUME TWENTY-FOUR + + + 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 VII-X + + + + +CONTENTS + + +VII. THE RIVIERA AGAIN--MARSEILLES AND HYERES + + PAGE + INTRODUCTORY 3 + + LETTERS-- + To the Editor of the New York Tribune 7 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 8 + To Thomas Stevenson 9 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 9 + To Trevor Haddon 10 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to John Addington + Symonds] 11 + To Charles Baxter 14 + To Sidney Colvin 15 + To Alison Cunningham 16 + To W. E. Henley 17 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 21 + To Thomas Stevenson 22 + To W. E. Henley 23 + To Mrs. Sitwell 24 + To Edmund Gosse 26 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 27 + To the Same 28 + To Edmund Gosse 29 + To the Same 30 + To W. E. Henley 31 + To the Same 32 + To Sidney Colvin 33 + To W. E. Henley 34 + To the Same 36 + To Jules Simoneau 36 + To W. E. Henley 37 + To Trevor Haddon 39 + To Jules Simoneau 41 + To Alison Cunningham 44 + To Edmund Gosse 45 + To Miss Ferrier 46 + To W. E. Henley 47 + To Edmund Gosse 50 + To Miss Ferrier 52 + To W. E. Henley 54 + To Sidney Colvin 55 + To W. E. Henley 57 + To W. H. Low 57 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 59 + To Thomas Stevenson 62 + To W. H. Low 63 + To W. E. Henley 65 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 66 + To Sidney Colvin 67 + To Sidney Colvin 69 + To Mrs. Milne 70 + To Miss Ferrier 71 + To W. E. Henley 72 + To W. H. Low 73 + To Thomas Stevenson 74 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 75 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 76 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 78 + To W. E. Henley 79 + To Sidney Colvin 81 + To Mr. Dick 83 + To Cosmo Monkhouse 85 + To Edmund Gosse 87 + To Miss Ferrier 88 + To W. H. Low 89 + To Thomas Stevenson 90 + To W. E. Henley 91 + To Trevor Haddon 93 + To Cosmo Monkhouse 95 + To W. E. Henley 96 + To Edmund Gosse 97 + To Sidney Colvin 98 + To the Same 99 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 100 + To Sidney Colvin 101 + To W. E. Henley 102 + + +VIII. LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH + + INTRODUCTORY 104 + + LETTERS-- + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 110 + To Andrew Chatto 110 + To W. E. Henley 111 + To the Rev. Professor Lewis Campbell 113 + To W. E. Henley 114 + To W. H. Low 115 + To Sir Walter Simpson 117 + To Thomas Stevenson 118 + To the Same 119 + To W. E. Henley 120 + To Charles Baxter 121 + To Miss Ferrier 121 + To Charles Baxter 122 + To W. E. Henley 123 + To Edmund Gosse 125 + To Austin Dobson 126 + To W. E. Henley 127 + To Henry James 127 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 130 + To W. E. Henley 131 + To Miss Ferrier 132 + To W. E. Henley 133 + To H. A. Jones 133 + To Sidney Colvin 134 + To Thomas Stevenson 135 + To Sidney Golvin 136 + To the Same 137 + To J. A. Symonds 138 + To Edmund Gosse 140 + To W. H. Low 142 + To P. G. Hamerton 143 + To W. E. Henley 146 + To the Same 147 + To William Archer 147 + To Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pennell 149 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 150 + To the Same 151 + To C. Howard Carrington 152 + To Katharine de Mattos 152 + To W. H. Low 153 + To W. E. Henley 155 + To William Archer 156 + To Thomas Stevenson 159 + To Henry James 160 + To William Archer 161 + To the Same 163 + To W. H. Low 166 + To Mrs. de Mattos 167 + To Alison Cunningham 167 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 168 + To W. H. Low 169 + To Edmund Gosse 173 + To James Payn 176 + To W. H. Low 177 + To Charles J. Guthrie 178 + To Thomas Stevenson 179 + To C. W. Stoddard 180 + To Edmund Gosse 181 + To J. A. Symonds 183 + To F. W. H. Myers 184 + To W. H. Low 185 + To Sidney Colvin 186 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 187 + To Sidney Colvin 189 + To Thomas Stevenson 190 + To Miss Monroe 191 + To Sidney Colvin 192 + To Miss Monroe 193 + To Alison Cunningham 196 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 196 + To the Same 198 + To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 199 + To Charles Baxter 200 + To Alison Cunningham 200 + To Thomas Stevenson 201 + To Alison Cunningham 202 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 202 + To T. Watts-Dunton 203 + To Alison Cunningham 204 + To Frederick Locker-Lampson 205 + To the Same 206 + To the Same 207 + To the Same 208 + To Auguste Rodin 209 + To Sidney Colvin 210 + To Lady Taylor 211 + To the Same 213 + To Henry James 214 + To Frederick Locker-Lampson 215 + To Henry James 215 + To Auguste Rodin 216 + To W. H. Low 217 + To Sidney Colvin 219 + To Alison Cunningham 220 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 221 + To the Same 225 + To Miss Rawlinson 227 + To Sidney Colvin 228 + To Sir Walter Simpson 229 + To W. E. Henley 229 + To W. H. Low 230 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 231 + To Messrs. Chatto and Windus 231 + + +IX. THE UNITED STATES AGAIN + + WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS + + INTRODUCTORY 233 + + LETTERS-- + To Sidney Colvin 235 + To the Same 236 + To Henry James 237 + To Sidney Colvin 238 + To W. E. Henley 239 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 240 + To Sir Walter Simpson 242 + To Edmund Gosse 244 + To W. H. Low 245 + To Charles Fairchild 246 + To William Archer 247 + To W. E. Henley 248 + To Henry James 249 + To Charles Baxter 251 + To Charles Scribner 252 + To E. L. Burlingame 253 + To the Same 254 + To John Addington Symonds 254 + To W. E. Henley 257 + To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 258 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 259 + To Charles Baxter 260 + To Miss Munroe 261 + To Henry James 262 + To Sidney Colvin 264 + To the Same 265 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 267 + To Charles Baxter 268 + To E. L. Burlingame 268 + To William Archer 270 + To the Same 272 + To the Same 273 + To E. L. Burlingame 273 + To the Same 274 + To Sidney Colvin 275 + To the Rev. Dr. Charteris 276 + To Edmund Gosse 277 + To Henry James 278 + To the Rev. Dr. Charteris 279 + To S. R. Crockett 280 + To Miss Ferrier 282 + To Sidney Colvin 283 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 284 + To Sidney Colvin 285 + To Charles Baxter 286 + To Lady Taylor 286 + To Homer St. Gaudens 287 + To Henry James 288 + + +X. PACIFIC VOYAGES + + YACHT CASCO--SCHOONER EQUATOR-- + S.S. JANET NICOLL + + INTRODUCTORY 290 + + LETTERS-- + To Sidney Colvin 293 + To Charles Baxter 294 + To Sidney Colvin 295 + To Charles Baxter 296 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 297 + To Sidney Colvin 298 + To William and Thomas Archer 300 + To Charles Baxter 301 + To the Same 303 + To John Addington Symonds 304 + To Thomas Archer 305 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin] 308 + To Sidney Colvin 316 + To E. L. Burlingame 319 + To Charles Baxter 322 + To R. A. M. Stevenson 323 + To Marcel Schwob 327 + To Charles Baxter 327 + To Sidney Colvin 329 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Mrs. Sitwell] 331 + To Henry James 334 + To Sidney Colvin 336 + To E. L. Burlingame 338 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 339 + To Charles Baxter 343 + To the Same 344 + To W. H. Low 345 + [Mrs. R. L. Stevenson to Sidney Colvin] 347 + To Mrs. R. L. Stevenson 349 + To Sidney Colvin 353 + To James Payn 355 + To Lady Taylor 357 + To Sidney Colvin 357 + To the Same 362 + To E. L. Burlingame 367 + To Charles Baxter 369 + To Lady Taylor 372 + To Dr. Scott 374 + To Charles Baxter 375 + To E. L. Burlingame 377 + To James Payn 381 + To Henry James 382 + To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson 383 + To Charles Baxter 384 + To Sidney Colvin 385 + To E. L. Burlingame 387 + To Charles Baxter 392 + To E. L. Burlingame 394 + To Henry James 396 + To Marcel Schwob 397 + To Andrew Lang 399 + To Miss Adelaide Boodle 401 + To Mrs. Charles Fairchild 403 + + + + +THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +1882-1890 + + + + +THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +VII + +THE RIVIERA AGAIN--MARSEILLES AND HYERES + +OCTOBER 1882--AUGUST 1884 + + +In the two years and odd months since his return from California, +Stevenson had made no solid gain of health. His winters, and especially +his second winter, at Davos had seemed to do him much temporary good; +but during the summers in Scotland he had lost as much as he had gained, +or more. Loving the Mediterranean shores of France from of old, he now +made up his mind to try them once again. + +As the ways and restrictions of a settled invalid were repugnant to +Stevenson's character and instincts, so were the life and society of a +regular invalid station depressing and uncongenial to him. He +determined, accordingly, to avoid settling in one of these, and hoped to +find a suitable climate and habitation that should be near, though not +in, some centre of the active and ordinary life of man, with accessible +markets, libraries, and other resources. In September 1882 he started +with his cousin Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson in search of a new home, and +thought first of trying the Languedoc coast, a region new to him. At +Montpellier, he was laid up again with a bad bout of his lung troubles; +and, the doctor not recommending him to stay, returned to Marseilles. +Here he was rejoined by his wife, and after a few days' exploration in +the neighbourhood they lighted on what seemed exactly the domicile they +wanted. This was a roomy and attractive enough house and garden called +the Campagne Defli, near the manufacturing suburb of St. Marcel, in a +sheltered position in full view of the shapely coastward hills. By the +third week in October they were installed, and in eager hopes of +pleasant days to come and a return to working health. These hopes were +not realised. Week after week went on, and the hemorrhages and fits of +fever and exhaustion did not diminish. Work, except occasional verses, +and a part of the story called _The Treasure of Franchard_, would not +flow, and the time had to be whiled away with games of patience and +other resources of the sick man. Nearly two months were thus passed; +during the whole of one of them Stevenson had not been able to go beyond +the garden; and by Christmas he had to face the fact that the air of the +place was tainted. An epidemic of fever, due to some defect of drainage, +broke out, and it became clear that this could be no home for Stevenson. +Accordingly, at his wife's instance, though having scarce the strength +to travel, he left suddenly for Nice, she staying behind to pack their +chattels and wind up their affairs and responsibilities as well as might +be. Various misadventures, miscarriages of telegrams, journeys taken at +cross purposes and the like, making existence uncomfortably dramatic at +the moment, caused the couple to believe for a while that they had +fairly lost each other. Mrs. Stevenson allows me to print a letter from +herself to Mr. J. A. Symonds vividly relating these predicaments (see +p. 11 foll.). At last, in the course of January, they came safely +together at Marseilles, and next made a few weeks' stay at Nice, where +Stevenson's health quickly mended. Thence they returned as far as +Hyeres. Staying here through the greater part of February, at the Hotel +des Iles d'Or, and finding the place to their liking, they cast about +once more for a resting-place, and were this time successful. + +The house chosen by the Stevensons at Hyeres was not near the sea, but +inland, on the road above the old town and beneath the ruins of the +castle. The Chalet La Solitude it was called; a cramped but habitable +cottage built in the Swiss manner, with a pleasant strip of garden, and +a view and situation hardly to be bettered. Here he and his family lived +for the next sixteen months (March 1883 to July 1884). To the first part +of this period he often afterwards referred as the happiest time of his +life. His malady remained quiescent enough to afford, at least to his +own buoyant spirit, a strong hope of ultimate recovery. He delighted in +his surroundings, and realised for the first time the joys of a true +home of his own. The last shadow of a cloud between himself and his +parents had long passed away; and towards his father, now in declining +health, and often suffering from moods of constitutional depression, the +son begins on his part to assume, how touchingly and tenderly will be +seen from the following letters, a quasi-paternal attitude of +encouragement and monition. At the same time his work on the completion +of the _Silverado Squatters_, on _Prince Otto_, the _Child's Garden of +Verses_ (for which his own name was _Penny Whistles_), on the _Black +Arrow_ (designated hereinafter, on account of its Old English dialect, +as "tushery"), and other undertakings prospered well. In the autumn the +publication of _Treasure Island_ in book form brought with it the first +breath of popular applause. The reader will see how modest a price +Stevenson was content, nay, delighted, to receive for this classic. It +was two or three years yet before he could earn enough to support +himself and his family by literature: a thing he had always been +earnestly bent on doing, regarding it as the only justification for his +chosen way of life. In the meantime, it must be understood, whatever +help he needed from his father was from the hour of his marriage always +amply and ungrudgingly given. + +In September of the same year, 1883, Stevenson had felt deeply the death +of his old friend James Walter Ferrier (see the essay _Old Mortality_ +and the references in the following letters). But still his health held +out fairly, until, in January 1884, on a visit to Nice, he was +unexpectedly prostrated anew by an acute congestion of the internal +organs, which for the time being brought him to death's door. Returning +to his home, his recovery had been only partial when, after four months +(May 1884), a recurrence of violent hemorrhages from the lung once more +prostrated him completely; soon after which he quitted Hyeres, and the +epidemic of cholera which broke out there the same summer prevented all +thoughts of his return. + +The Hyeres time, both during the happy and hard-working months of +March-December 1883, and the semi-convalescence of February-May 1884, +was a prolific one in the way of correspondence; and there is perhaps no +period of his life when his letters reflect so fully the variety of his +moods and the eagerness of his occupations. + + + + +TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE + + + At Marseilles, while waiting to occupy the house which he had leased + in the suburbs of that city, Stevenson learned that his old friend + and kind adviser, Mr. James Payn, with whom he had been intimate as + sub-editor of the Cornhill Magazine under Mr. Leslie Stephen in the + '70's, had been inadvertently represented in the columns of the New + York Tribune as a plagiarist of R. L. S. In order to put matters + right, he at once sent the following letter both to the Tribune and + to the London Athenaeum:-- + + _Terminus Hotel, Marseilles, October 16, 1882._ + +SIR,--It has come to my ears that you have lent the authority of your +columns to an error. + +More than half in pleasantry--and I now think the pleasantry +ill-judged--I complained in a note to my _New Arabian Nights_ that some +one, who shall remain nameless for me, had borrowed the idea of a story +from one of mine. As if I had not borrowed the ideas of the half of my +own! As if any one who had written a story ill had a right to complain +of any other who should have written it better! I am indeed thoroughly +ashamed of the note, and of the principle which it implies. + +But it is no mere abstract penitence which leads me to beg a corner of +your paper--it is the desire to defend the honour of a man of letters +equally known in America and England, of a man who could afford to lend +to me and yet be none the poorer; and who, if he would so far +condescend, has my free permission to borrow from me all that he can +find worth borrowing. + +Indeed, sir, I am doubly surprised at your correspondent's error. That +James Payn should have borrowed from me is already a strange conception. +The author of _Lost Sir Massingberd_ and _By Proxy_ may be trusted to +invent his own stories. The author of _A Grape from a Thorn_ knows +enough, in his own right, of the humorous and pathetic sides of human +nature. + +But what is far more monstrous--what argues total ignorance of the man +in question--is the idea that James Payn could ever have transgressed +the limits of professional propriety. I may tell his thousands of +readers on your side of the Atlantic that there breathes no man of +letters more inspired by kindness and generosity to his brethren of the +profession, and, to put an end to any possibility of error, I may be +allowed to add that I often have recourse, and that I had recourse once +more but a few weeks ago, to the valuable practical help which he makes +it his pleasure to extend to younger men. + +I send a duplicate of this letter to a London weekly; for the mistake, +first set forth in your columns, has already reached England, and my +wanderings have made me perhaps last of the persons interested to hear a +word of it.--I am, etc., + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Terminus Hotel, Marseille_, _Saturday_ [_October 1882_]. + +MY DEAR BOB,--We have found a house!--at Saint Marcel, Banlieue de +Marseille. In a lovely valley between hills part wooded, part white +cliffs; a house of a dining-room, of a fine salon--one side lined with a +long divan--three good bedrooms (two of them with dressing-rooms), three +small rooms (chambers of _bonne_ and sich), a large kitchen, a lumber +room, many cupboards, a back court, a large olive yard, cultivated by a +resident _paysan_, a well, a berceau, a good deal of rockery, a little +pine shrubbery, a railway station in front, two lines of omnibus to +Marseille. + + L48 per annum. + +It is called Campagne Defli! query Campagne Debug? The Campagne +Demosquito goes on here nightly, and is very deadly. Ere we can get +installed, we shall be beggared to the door, I see. + +I vote for separations; F.'s arrival here, after our separation, was +better fun to me than being married was by far. A separation completed +is a most valuable property; worth piles.--Ever your affectionate +cousin, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Terminus Hotel, Marseille, le 17th October 1882._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--We grow, every time we see it, more delighted with our +house. It is five miles out of Marseilles, in a lovely spot, among +lovely wooded and cliffy hills--most mountainous in line--far lovelier, +to my eyes, than any Alps. To-day we have been out inventorying; and +though a mistral blew, it was delightful in an open cab, and our house +with the windows open was heavenly, soft, dry, sunny, southern. I fear +there are fleas--it is called Campagne Defli--and I look forward to tons +of insecticide being employed. + +I have had to write a letter to the New York Tribune and the Athenaeum. +Payn was accused of stealing my stories! I think I have put things +handsomely for him. + +Just got a servant!!!--Ever affectionate son, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + +Our servant is a Muckle Hash of a Weedy! + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + The next two months' letters had perforce to consist of little save + bulletins of back-going health, and consequent disappointment and + incapacity for work. + + _Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, + Banlieue de Marseille, November 13, 1882._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--Your delightful letters duly arrived this morning. They +were the only good feature of the day, which was not a success. Fanny +was in bed--she begged I would not split upon her, she felt so guilty; +but as I believe she is better this evening, and has a good chance to +be right again in a day or two, I will disregard her orders. I do not go +back, but do not go forward--or not much. It is, in one way, +miserable--for I can do no work; a very little wood-cutting, the +newspapers, and a note about every two days to write, completely +exhausts my surplus energy; even Patience I have to cultivate with +parsimony. I see, if I could only get to work, that we could live here +with comfort, almost with luxury. Even as it is, we should be able to +get through a considerable time of idleness. I like the place immensely, +though I have seen so little of it--I have only been once outside the +gate since I was here! It puts me in mind of a summer at Prestonpans and +a sickly child you once told me of. + +Thirty-two years now finished! My twenty-ninth was in San Francisco, I +remember--rather a bleak birthday. The twenty-eighth was not much +better; but the rest have been usually pleasant days in pleasant +circumstances. + +Love to you and to my father and to Cummy. + + From me and Fanny and Wogg. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO TREVOR HADDON + + + _Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, Dec. 29th, 1882._ + +DEAR SIR,--I am glad you sent me your note, I had indeed lost your +address, and was half thinking to try the Ringstown one; but far from +being busy, I have been steadily ill. I was but three or four days in +London, waiting till one of my friends was able to accompany me, and had +neither time nor health to see anybody but some publisher people. Since +then I have been worse and better, better and worse, but never able to +do any work and for a large part of the time forbidden to write and even +to play Patience, that last of civilised amusements. In brief, I have +been "the sheer hulk" to a degree almost outside of my experience, and I +desire all my friends to forgive me my sins of omission this while +back. I only wish you were the only one to whom I owe a letter, or many +letters. + +But you see, at least, you had done nothing to offend me; and I dare say +you will let me have a note from time to time, until we shall have +another chance to meet.--Yours sincerely, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + +An excellent new year to you, and many of them. + +If you chance to see a paragraph in the papers describing my illness, +and the "delicacies suitable to my invalid condition" cooked in copper, +and the other ridiculous and revolting yarns, pray regard it as a +spectral illusion, and pass by. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + I intercalate here Mrs. Stevenson's extremely vivid and + characteristic account of the weird misadventures that befell the + pair during their retreat from St. Marcel in search of a healthier + home. + + [_Campagne Defli, St. Marcel, January 1883._] + +MY DEAR MR. SYMONDS,--What must you think of us? I hardly dare write to +you. What do you do when people to whom you have been the dearest of +friends requite you by acting like fiends? I do hope you heap coals of +fire on their heads in the good old Christian sense. + +Louis has been very ill again. I hasten to say that he is now better. +But I thought at one time he would never be better again. He had +continual hemorrhages and became so weak that he was twice insensible in +one day, and was for a long time like one dead. At the worst fever broke +out in this village, typhus, I think, and all day the death-bells rang, +and we could hear the chanting whilst the wretched villagers carried +about their dead lying bare to the sun on their coffin-lids, so +spreading the contagion through the streets. The evening of the day when +Louis was so long insensible the weather changed, becoming very clear +and fine and greatly refreshing and reviving him. Then I said if it held +good he should start in the morning for Nice and try what a change might +do. Just at that time there was not money enough for the two of us, so +he had to start alone, though I expected soon to be able to follow him. +During the night a peasant-man died in a house in our garden, and in the +morning the corpse, hideously swollen in the stomach, was lying on its +coffin-lid at our gates. Fortunately it was taken away just before Louis +went, and he didn't see it nor hear anything about it until afterwards. +I had been back and forth all the morning from the door to the gates, +and from the gates to the door, in an agony lest Louis should have to +pass it on his way out. + +I was to have a despatch from Toulon where Louis was to pass the night, +two hours from St. Marcel, and another from Nice, some few hours +further, the next day. I waited one, two, three, four days, and no word +came. Neither telegram nor letter. The evening of the fourth day I went +to Marseilles and telegraphed to the Toulon and Nice stations and to the +bureau of police. I had been pouring out letters to every place I could +think of. The people at Marseilles were very kind and advised me to take +no further steps to find my husband. He was certainly dead, they said. +It was plain that he stopped at some little station on the road, +speechless and dying, and it was now too late to do anything; I had much +better return at once to my friends. "Eet ofen 'appens so," said the +Secretary, and "Oh yes, all right, very well," added a Swiss in a +sympathetic voice. I waited all night at Marseilles and got no answer, +all the next day and got no answer; then I went back to St. Marcel and +there was nothing there. At eight I started on the train with Lloyd who +had come for his holidays, but it only took us to Toulon where again I +telegraphed. At last I got an answer the next day at noon. I waited at +Toulon for the train I had reason to believe Louis travelled by, +intending to stop at every station and inquire for him until I got to +Nice. Imagine what those days were to me. I never received any of the +letters Louis had written to me, and he was reading the first he had +received from me when I knocked at his door. A week afterwards I had an +answer from the police. Louis was much better: the change and the +doctor, who seems very clever, have done wonderful things for him. It +was during this first day of waiting that I received your letter. There +was a vague comfort in it like a hand offered in the darkness, but I did +not read it until long after. + +We have had many other wild misadventures, Louis has twice (started) +actually from Nice under a misapprehension. At this moment I believe him +to be at Marseilles, stopping at the Hotel du Petit Louvre; I am +supposed to be packing here at St. Marcel, afterwards we are to go +somewhere, perhaps to the Lake of Geneva. My nerves were so shattered by +the terrible suspense I endured that memorable week that I have not been +fit to do much. When I was returning from Nice a dreadful old man with a +fat wife and a weak granddaughter sat opposite me and plied me with the +most extraordinary questions. He began by asking if Lloyd was any +connection of mine, and ended I believe by asking my mother's maiden +name. Another of the questions he put to me was where Louis wished to be +buried, and whether I could afford to have him embalmed when he died. +When the train stopped the only other passenger, a quiet man in a corner +who looked several times as if he wished to interfere and stop the old +man but was too shy, came to me and said that he knew Sidney Colvin and +he knew you, and that you were both friends of Louis; and that his name +was Basil Hammond,[1] and he wished to stay on a day in Marseilles and +help me work off my affairs. I accepted his offer with heartfelt thanks. +I was extremely ill next day, but we two went about and arranged about +giving up this house and what compensation, and did some things that I +could not have managed alone. My French is useful only in domestic +economy, and even that, I fear, is very curious and much of it patois. +Wasn't that a good fellow, and a kind fellow?--I cannot tell you how +grateful I am, words are such feeble things--at least for that purpose. +For anger, justifiable wrath, they are all too forcible. It was very bad +of me not to write to you, we talked of you so often and thought of you +so much, and I always said--"now I will write"--and then somehow I could +not.... + + FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON.] + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + After his Christmas flight to Marseilles and thence to Nice, + Stevenson began to mend quickly. In this letter to Mr. Baxter he + acknowledges the receipt of a specimen proof, set up for their + private amusement, of _Brashiana_, the series of burlesque sonnets he + had written at Davos in memory of the Edinburgh publican already + mentioned. It should be explained that in their correspondence + Stevenson and Mr. Baxter were accustomed to keep up an old play of + their student days by merging their identities in those of two + fictitious personages, Thomson and Johnson, imaginary types of + Edinburgh character, and ex-elders of the Scottish Kirk. + + _Grand Hotel, Nice, 12th January '83._ + +DEAR CHARLES,--Thanks for your good letter. It is true, man, God's +trueth, what ye say about the body Stevison. The deil himsel, it's my +belief, couldnae get the soul harled oot o' the creature's wame, or he +had seen the hinder end o' they proofs. Ye crack o' Maecenas, he's +naebody by you! He gied the lad Horace a rax forrit by all accounts; but +he never gied him proofs like yon. Horace may hae been a better hand at +the clink than Stevison--mind, I'm no sayin' 't--but onyway he was never +sae weel prentit. Damned, but it's bonny! Hoo mony pages will there be, +think ye? Stevison maun hae sent ye the feck o' twenty sangs--fifteen +I'se warrant. Weel, that'll can make thretty pages, gin ye were to prent +on ae side only, whilk wad be perhaps what a man o' your _great_ idees +would be ettlin' at, man Johnson. Then there wad be the Pre-face, an' +prose ye ken prents oot langer than po'try at the hinder end, for ye hae +to say things in't. An' then there'll be a title-page and a dedication +and an index wi' the first lines like, and the deil an' a'. Man, it'll +be grand. Nae copies to be given to the Liberys. + +I am alane myself, in Nice, they ca't, but damned, I think they micht as +well ca't Nesty. The Pile-on,[2] 's they ca't, 's aboot as big as the +river Tay at Perth; and it's rainin' maist like Greenock. Dod, I've seen +'s had mair o' what they ca' the I-talian at Muttonhole. I-talian! I +haenae seen the sun for eicht and forty hours. Thomson's better, I +believe. But the body's fair attenyated. He's doon to seeven stane +eleeven, an' he sooks awa' at cod liver ile, till it's a fair disgrace. +Ye see he tak's it on a drap brandy; and it's my belief, it's just an +excuse for a dram. He an' Stevison gang aboot their lane, maistly; +they're company to either, like, an' whiles they'll speak o' Johnson. +But _he's_ far awa', losh me! Stevison's last book 's in a third +edeetion; an' it's bein' translated (like the psaulms of David, nae +less) into French; and an eediot they ca' Asher--a kind o' rival of +Tauchnitz--is bringin' him oot in a paper book for the Frenchies and the +German folk in twa volumes. Sae he's in luck, ye see.--Yours, + + THOMSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Stevenson here narrates in his own fashion by what generalship he at + last got rid of the Campagne Defli without having to pay compensation + as his wife expected. + + _Hotel du Petit Louvre, Marseille, 15 Feb. 1883._ + +DEAR SIR,--This is to intimate to you that Mr. and Mrs. Robert Louis +Stevenson were yesterday safely delivered + + of a + Campagne. + +The parents are both doing much better than could be expected; +particularly the dear papa. + +There, Colvin, I did it this time. Huge success. The proprietaires were +scattered like chaff. If it had not been the agent, may Israel now say, +if it had not been the agent who was on our side! But I made the agent +march! I threatened law; I was Immense--what do I say?--Immeasurable. +The agent, however, behaved well and is a fairly honest little +one-eared, white-eyed tom-cat of an opera-going gold-hunter. The +proprietaire _non est inventa_; we countermarched her, got in valuators; +and in place of a hundred francs in her pocket, she got nothing, and I +paid _one_ silver biscuit! It _might_ go further but I am convinced will +not, and anyway, I fear not the consequences. + +The weather is incredible; my heart sings; my health satisfies even my +wife. I did jolly well right to come after all and she now admits it. +For she broke down as I knew she would, and I from here, without passing +a night at the Defli, though with a cruel effusion of coach-hires, took +up the wondrous tale and steered the ship through. I now sit crowned +with laurel and literally exulting in kudos. The affair has been better +managed than our two last winterings,--I am yours, + + BRABAZON DRUM. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + The verses referred to in the following are those of the _Child's + Garden_. + + [_Nice, February 1883._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--You must think, and quite justly, that I am one of the +meanest rogues in creation. But though I do not write (which is a thing +I hate), it by no means follows that people are out of my mind. It is +natural that I should always think more or less about you, and still +more natural that I should think of you when I went back to Nice. But +the real reason why you have been more in my mind than usual is because +of some little verses that I have been writing, and that I mean to make +a book of; and the real reason of this letter (although I ought to have +written to you anyway) is that I have just seen that the book in +question must be dedicated to + + ALISON CUNNINGHAM, + +the only person who will really understand it, I don't know when it may +be ready, for it has to be illustrated, but I hope in the meantime you +may like the idea of what is to be; and when the time comes, I shall try +to make the dedication as pretty as I can make it. Of course, this is +only a flourish, like taking off one's hat; but still, a person who has +taken the trouble to write things does not dedicate them to any one +without meaning it; and you must just try to take this dedication in +place of a great many things that I might have said, and that I ought to +have done, to prove that I am not altogether unconscious of the great +debt of gratitude I owe you. This little book, which is all about my +childhood, should indeed go to no other person but you, who did so much +to make that childhood happy. + +Do you know, we came very near sending for you this winter. If we had +not had news that you were ill too, I almost believe we should have done +so, we were so much in trouble. + +I am now very well; but my wife has had a very, very bad spell, through +overwork and anxiety, when I was _lost_! I suppose you heard of that. +She sends you her love, and hopes you will write to her, though she no +more than I deserves it. She would add a word herself, but she is too +played out.--I am, ever your old boy, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Stevenson was by this time beginning to send home some of the MS. of + the _Child's Garden_, the title of which had not yet been settled. + The pieces as first numbered are in a different order from that + afterwards adopted, but the reader will easily identify the + references. + + [_Nice, March 1883._] + +MY DEAR LAD,--This is to announce to you the MS. of Nursery Verses, now +numbering XLVIII. pieces or 599 verses, which, of course, one might +augment _ad infinitum_. + +But here is my notion to make all clear. + +I do not want a big ugly quarto; my soul sickens at the look of a +quarto. I want a refined octavo, not large--not _larger_ than the Donkey +book, at any price. + +I think the full page might hold four verses of four lines, that is to +say, counting their blanks at two, of twenty-two lines in height. The +first page of each number would only hold two verses or ten lines, the +title being low down. At this rate, we should have seventy-eight or +eighty pages of letterpress. + +The designs should not be in the text, but facing the poem; so that if +the artist liked, he might give two pages of design to every poem that +turned the leaf, _i.e._ longer than eight lines, _i.e._ to twenty-eight +out of the forty-six. I should say he would not use this privilege (?) +above five times, and some he might scorn to illustrate at all, so we +may say fifty drawings. I shall come to the drawings next. + +But now you see my book of the thickness, since the drawings count two +pages, of 180 pages; and since the paper will perhaps be thicker, of +near two hundred by bulk. It is bound in a quiet green with the words in +thin gilt. Its shape is a slender, tall octavo. And it sells for the +publisher's fancy, and it will be a darling to look at; in short, it +would be like one of the original Heine books in type and spacing. + +Now for the pictures. I take another sheet and begin to jot notes for +them when my imagination serves: I will run through the book, writing +when I have an idea. There, I have jotted enough to give the artist a +notion. Of course, I don't do more than contribute ideas, but I will be +happy to help in any and every way. I may as well add another idea; when +the artist finds nothing much to illustrate, a good drawing of any +_object_ mentioned in the text, were it only a loaf of bread or a +candlestick, is a most delightful thing to a young child. I remember +this keenly. + +Of course, if the artist insists on a larger form, I must, I suppose, +bow my head. But my idea I am convinced is the best, and would make the +book truly, not fashionably pretty. + +I forgot to mention that I shall have a dedication; I am going to +dedicate 'em to Cummy; it will please her, and lighten a little my +burthen of ingratitude. A low affair is the Muse business. + +I will add no more to this lest you should want to communicate with the +artist; try another sheet. I wonder how many I'll keep wandering to. + +O I forgot. As for the title, I think "Nursery Verses" the best. Poetry +is not the strong point of the text, and I shrink from any title that +might seem to claim that quality; otherwise we might have "Nursery +Muses" or "New Songs of Innocence" (but that were a blasphemy), or +"Rimes of Innocence": the last not bad, or--an idea--"The Jews' Harp," +or--now I have it--"The Penny Whistle." + + THE PENNY WHISTLE + + NURSERY VERSES + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + ILLUSTRATED BY ---- ---- ---- + +And here we have an excellent frontispiece, of a party playing on a P. +W. to a little ring of dancing children. + + THE PENNY WHISTLE + is the name for me. + + +Fool! this is all wrong, here is the true name:-- + + PENNY WHISTLES + FOR SMALL WHISTLERS. + +The second title is queried, it is perhaps better, as simply PENNY +WHISTLES. + + Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge + That I your instrument debase: + By worse performers still we judge, + And give that fife a second place! + +Crossed penny whistles on the cover, or else a sheaf of 'em. + + SUGGESTIONS + +IV. The procession--the child running behind it. The procession tailing +off through the gates of a cloudy city. + +IX. _Foreign Lands._--This will, I think, want two plates--the child +climbing, his first glimpse over the garden wall, with what he sees--the +tree shooting higher and higher like the beanstalk, and the view +widening. The river slipping in. The road arriving in Fairyland. + +X. _Windy Nights._--The child in bed listening--the horseman galloping. + +XII. The child helplessly watching his ship--then he gets smaller, and +the doll joyfully comes alive--the pair landing on the island--the +ship's deck with the doll steering and the child firing the penny +cannon. Query two plates? The doll should never come properly alive. + +XV. Building of the ship--storing her--Navigation--Tom's accident, the +other child paying no attention. + +XXXI. _The Wind._--I sent you my notion of already. + +XXXVII. _Foreign Children._--The foreign types dancing in a jing-a-ring, +with the English child pushing in the middle. The foreign children +looking at and showing each other marvels. The English child at the +leeside of a roast of beef. The English child sitting thinking with his +picture-books all round him, and the jing-a-ring of the foreign +children in miniature dancing over the picture-books. + +XXXIX. Dear artist, can you do me that? + +XLII. The child being started off--the bed sailing, curtains and all, +upon the sea--the child waking and finding himself at home; the corner +of toilette might be worked in to look like the pier. + +XLVII. The lighted part of the room, to be carefully distinguished from +my child's dark hunting grounds. A shaded lamp. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Hotel des Iles d'Or, Hyeres, Var, March 2 [1883]._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--It must be at least a fortnight since we have had a +scratch of a pen from you; and if it had not been for Cummy's letter, I +should have feared you were worse again: as it is, I hope we shall hear +from you to-day or to-morrow at latest. + +_Health._--Our news is good: Fanny never got so bad as we feared, and we +hope now that this attack may pass off in threatenings. I am greatly +better, have gained flesh, strength, spirits; eat well, walk a good +deal, and do some work without fatigue. I am off the sick list. + +_Lodging._--We have found a house up the hill, close to the town, an +excellent place though very, very little. If I can get the landlord to +agree to let us take it by the month just now, and let our month's rent +count for the year in case we take it on, you may expect to hear we are +again installed, and to receive a letter dated thus:-- + + La Solitude, + Hyeres-les-Palmiers, + Var. + +If the man won't agree to that, of course I must just give it up, as the +house would be dear enough anyway at 2000 f. However, I hope we may get +it, as it is healthy, cheerful, and close to shops, and society, and +civilisation. The garden, which is above, is lovely, and will be cool in +summer. There are two rooms below with a kitchen, and four rooms above, +all told.--Ever your affectionate son, R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + "Cassandra" was a nickname of the elder Mr. Stevenson for his + daughter-in-law. The scheme of a play to be founded on _Great + Expectations_ was one of a hundred formed in these days and + afterwards given up. + + _Hotel des Iles d'Or, but my address will be Chalet la Solitude, + Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var, France, March 17, 1883._ + +DEAR SIR,--Your undated favour from Eastbourne came to hand in course of +post, and I now hasten to acknowledge its receipt. We must ask you in +future, for the convenience of our business arrangements, to struggle +with and tread below your feet this most unsatisfactory and uncommercial +habit. Our Mr. Cassandra is better; our Mr. Wogg expresses himself +dissatisfied with our new place of business; when left alone in the +front shop, he bawled like a parrot; it is supposed the offices are +haunted. + +To turn to the matter of your letter, your remarks on _Great +Expectations_ are very good. We have both re-read it this winter, and I, +in a manner, twice. The object being a play; the play, in its rough +outline, I now see: and it is extraordinary how much of Dickens had to +be discarded as unhuman, impossible, and ineffective: all that really +remains is the loan of a file (but from a grown-up young man who knows +what he was doing, and to a convict who, although he does not know it is +his father--the father knows it is his son), and the fact of the +convict-father's return and disclosure of himself to the son whom he has +made rich. Everything else has been thrown aside; and the position has +had to be explained by a prologue which is pretty strong. I have great +hopes of this piece, which is very amiable and, in places, very strong +indeed: but it was curious how Dickens had to be rolled away; he had +made his story turn on such improbabilities, such fantastic trifles, not +on a good human basis, such as I recognised. You are right about the +casts, they were a capital idea; a good description of them at first, +and then afterwards, say second, for the lawyer to have illustrated +points out of the history of the originals, dusting the particular +bust--that was all the development the thing would bear. Dickens killed +them. The only really well _executed_ scenes are the riverside ones; the +escape in particular is excellent; and I may add, the capture of the two +convicts at the beginning. Miss Havisham is, probably, the worst thing +in human fiction. But Wemmick I like; and I like Trabb's boy; and Mr. +Wopsle as Hamlet is splendid. + +The weather here is greatly improved, and I hope in three days to be in +the chalet. That is, if I get some money to float me there. + +I hope you are all right again, and will keep better. The month of March +is past its mid career; it must soon begin to turn toward the lamb; here +it has already begun to do so; and I hope milder weather will pick you +up. Wogg has eaten a forpet of rice and milk, his beard is streaming, +his eyes wild. I am besieged by demands of work from America. + +The L50 has just arrived; many thanks; I am now at ease.--Ever your +affectionate son, _pro_ Cassandra, Wogg and Co., + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + [_Chalet la Solitude, Hyeres, April 1883._] + +My head is singing with _Otto_; for the first two weeks I wrote and +revised and only finished IV chapters: last week, I have just drafted +straight ahead, and I have just finished Chapter XI. It will want a heap +of oversight and much will not stand, but the pace is good; about 28 +Cornhill pp. drafted in seven days, and almost all of it +dialogue--indeed I may say all, for I have dismissed the rest very +summarily in the draft: one can always tickle at that. At the same rate, +the draft should be finished in ten days more; and then I shall have the +pleasure of beginning again at the beginning. Ah damned job! I have no +idea whether or not Otto will be good. It is all pitched pretty high and +stilted; almost like the Arabs, at that; but of course there is +love-making in Otto, and indeed a good deal of it. I sometimes feel very +weary; but the thing travels--and I like it when I am at it. + +Remember me kindly to all.--Your ex-contributor, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. SITWELL + + His correspondent had at his request been writing and despatching to + him fair copies of the various sets of verses for the _Child's + Garden_ (as the collection was ultimately called), which he had been + from time to time sending home. + + _Chalet la Solitude, Hyeres [April 1883]._ + +MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am one of the lowest of the--but that's understood. I +received the copy, excellently written, with I think only one slip from +first to last. I have struck out two, and added five or six; so they now +number forty-five; when they are fifty, they shall out on the world. I +have not written a letter for a cruel time; I have been, and am, so +busy, drafting a long story (for me, I mean), about a hundred Cornhill +pages, or say about as long as the Donkey book: _Prince Otto_ it is +called, and is, at the present hour, a sore burthen but a hopeful. If I +had him all drafted, I should whistle and sing. But no: then I'll have +to rewrite him; and then there will be the publishers, alas! But some +time or other, I shall whistle and sing, I make no doubt. + +I am going to make a fortune, it has not yet begun, for I am not yet +clear of debt; but as soon as I can, I begin upon the fortune. I shall +begin it with a halfpenny, and it shall end with horses and yachts and +all the fun of the fair. This is the first real grey hair in my +character: rapacity has begun to show, the greed of the protuberant +guttler. Well, doubtless, when the hour strikes, we must all guttle and +protube. But it comes hard on one who was always so willow-slender and +as careless as the daisies. + +Truly I am in excellent spirits. I have crushed through a financial +crisis; Fanny is much better; I am in excellent health, and work from +four to five hours a day--from one to two above my average, that is; and +we all dwell together and make fortunes in the loveliest house you ever +saw, with a garden like a fairy story, and a view like a classical +landscape. + +Little? Well, it is not large. And when you come to see us, you will +probably have to bed at the hotel, which is hard by. But it is Eden, +madam, Eden and Beulah and the Delectable Mountains and Eldorado and the +Hesperidean Isles and Bimini.[3] + +We both look forward, my dear friend, with the greatest eagerness to +have you here. It seems it is not to be this season: but I appoint you +with an appointment for next season. You cannot see us else: remember +that. Till my health has grown solid like an oak-tree, till my fortune +begins really to spread its boughs like the same monarch of the woods +(and the acorn, ay de mi! is not yet planted), I expect to be a prisoner +among the palms. + +Yes, it is like old times to be writing you from the Riviera, and after +all that has come and gone, who can predict anything? How fortune +tumbles men about! Yet I have not found that they change their friends, +thank God. + +Both of our loves to your sister and yourself. As for me, if I am here +and happy, I know to whom I owe it; I know who made my way for me in +life, if that were all, and I remain, with love, your faithful friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + "Gilder" in the following is of course the late R. W. Gilder, for + many years the admirable editor of the Century Magazine. + + _Chalet la Solitude, Hyeres [April 1883]._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I am very guilty; I should have written to you long ago; +and now, though it must be done, I am so stupid that I can only boldly +recapitulate. A phrase of three members is the outside of my syntax. + +First, I like the _Rover_ better than any of your other verse. I believe +you are right, and can make stories in verse. The last two stanzas and +one or two in the beginning--but the two last above all--I thought +excellent. I suggest a pursuit of the vein. If you want a good story to +treat, get the _Memoirs of the Chevalier Johnstone_, and do his passage +of the Tay; it would be excellent: the dinner in the field, the woman he +has to follow, the dragoons, the timid boatmen, the brave lasses. It +would go like a charm; look at it, and you will say you owe me one. + +Second, Gilder asking me for fiction, I suddenly took a great resolve, +and have packed off to him my new work, _The Silverado Squatters_. I do +not for a moment suppose he will take it; but pray say all the good +words you can for it. I should be awfully glad to get it taken. But if +it does not mean dibbs at once, I shall be ruined for life. Pray write +soon and beg Gilder your prettiest for a poor gentleman in pecuniary +sloughs. + +Fourth, next time I am supposed to be at death's door write to me like +a Christian, and let not your correspondence attend on business.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + +_P.S._--I see I have led you to conceive the _Squatters_ are fiction. +They are not, alas! + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Chalet la Solitude, May 5 [1883]._ + +MY DEAREST PEOPLE,--I have had a great piece of news. There has been +offered for _Treasure Island_--how much do you suppose? I believe it +would be an excellent jest to keep the answer till my next letter. For +two cents I would do so. Shall I? Anyway, I'll turn the page first. +No--well--A hundred pounds, all alive, O! A hundred jingling, tingling, +golden, minted quid. Is not this wonderful? Add that I have now +finished, in draft, the fifteenth chapter of my novel, and have only +five before me, and you will see what cause of gratitude I have. + +The weather, to look at the per contra sheet, continues vomitable; and +Fanny is quite out of sorts. But, really, with such cause of gladness, I +have not the heart to be dispirited by anything. My child's verse book +is finished, dedication and all, and out of my hands--you may tell +Cummy; _Silverado_ is done, too, and cast upon the waters; and this +novel so near completion, it does look as if I should support myself +without trouble in the future. If I have only health, I can, I thank +God. It is dreadful to be a great, big man, and not be able to buy +bread. + +O that this may last! + +I have to-day paid my rent for the half year, till the middle of +September, and got my lease: why they have been so long, I know not. + +I wish you all sorts of good things. + +When is our marriage day?--Your loving and ecstatic son, + + TREESURE EILAAN. + +It has been for me a Treasure Island verily. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, May 8, 1883._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--I was disgusted to hear my father was not so well. I +have a most troubled existence of work and business. But the work goes +well, which is the great affair. I meant to have written a most +delightful letter; too tired, however, and must stop. Perhaps I'll find +time to add to it ere post. + +I have returned refreshed from eating, but have little time, as Lloyd +will go soon with the letters on his way to his tutor, Louis Robert +(!!!!), with whom he learns Latin in French, and French, I suppose, in +Latin, which seems to me a capital education. He, Lloyd, is a great +bicycler already, and has been long distances; he is most new-fangled +over his instrument, and does not willingly converse on other subjects. + +Our lovely garden is a prey to snails; I have gathered about a bushel, +which, not having the heart to slay, I steal forth withal and deposit +near my neighbour's garden wall. As a case of casuistry, this presents +many points of interest. I loathe the snails, but from loathing to +actual butchery, trucidation of multitudes, there is still a step that I +hesitate to take. What, then, to do with them? My neighbour's vineyard, +pardy! It is a rich, villa, pleasure-garden of course; if it were a +peasant's patch, the snails, I suppose, would have to perish. + +The weather these last three days has been much better, though it is +still windy and unkind. I keep splendidly well, and am cruelly busy, +with mighty little time even for a walk. And to write at all, under such +pressure, must be held to lean to virtue's side. + +My financial prospects are shining. O if the health will hold, I should +easily support myself.--Your ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var [May 20, 1883]._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I enclose the receipt and the corrections. As for your +letter and Gilder's, I must take an hour or so to think; the matter much +importing--to me. The L40 was a heavenly thing. + +I send the MS. by Henley, because he acts for me in all matters, and had +the thing, like all my other books, in his detention. He is my unpaid +agent--an admirable arrangement for me, and one that has rather more +than doubled my income on the spot. + +If I have been long silent, think how long you were so and blush, sir, +blush. + +I was rendered unwell by the arrival of your cheque, and, like Pepys, +"my hand still shakes to write of it." To this grateful emotion, and not +to D.T., please attribute the raggedness of my hand. + +This year I should be able to live and keep my family on my own +earnings, and that in spite of eight months and more of perfect idleness +at the end of last and beginning of this. It is a sweet thought. + +This spot, our garden and our view, are sub-celestial. I sing daily with +my Bunyan, that great bard, + + "I dwell already the next door to Heaven!" + +If you could see my roses, and my aloes, and my fig-marigolds, and my +olives, and my view over a plain, and my view of certain mountains as +graceful as Apollo, as severe as Zeus, you would not think the phrase +exaggerated. + +It is blowing to-day a _hot_ mistral, which is the devil or a near +connection of his. + +This to catch the post.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var, France, May 21, 1883._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--The night giveth advice, generally bad advice; but I +have taken it. And I have written direct to Gilder to tell him to keep +the book[4] back and go on with it in November at his leisure. I do not +know if this will come in time; if it doesn't, of course things will go +on in the way proposed. The L40, or, as I prefer to put it, the 1000 +francs, has been such a piercing sun-ray as my whole grey life is gilt +withal. On the back of it I can endure. If these good days of Longman +and the Century only last, it will be a very green world, this that we +dwell in and that philosophers miscall. I have no taste for that +philosophy; give me large sums paid on the receipt of the MS. and +copyright reserved, and what do I care about the non-beent? Only I know +it can't last. The devil always has an imp or two in every house, and my +imps are getting lively. The good lady, the dear, kind lady, the sweet, +excellent lady, Nemesis, whom alone I adore, has fixed her wooden eye +upon me. I fall prone; spare me, Mother Nemesis! But catch her! + +I must now go to bed; for I have had a whoreson influenza cold, and have +to lie down all day, and get up only to meals and the delights, June +delights, of business correspondence. + +You said nothing about my subject for a poem. Don't you like it? My own +fishy eye has been fixed on it for prose, but I believe it could be +thrown out finely in verse, and hence I resign and pass the hand. Twig +the compliment?--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + "Tushery" had been a name in use between Stevenson and Mr. Henley for + romances of the _Ivanhoe_ type. He now applies it to his own tale of + the Wars of the Roses, _The Black Arrow_, written for Mr. Henderson's + Young Folks, of which the office was in Red Lion Court. + + [Hyeres, May 1883.] + +... The influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring, and am +headachy. So, as my good Red Lion Courier begged me for another +Butcher's Boy--I turned me to--what thinkest 'ou?--to Tushery, by the +mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so +free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. _The +Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest_ is his name: tush! a poor thing! + +Will _Treasure Island_ proofs be coming soon, think you? + +I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength +and masterfulness that begot John Silver in _Treasure Island_. Of +course, he is not in any other quality or feature the least like you; +but the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was +entirely taken from you. + +Otto is, as you say, not a thing to extend my public on. It is queer and +a little, little bit free; and some of the parties are immoral; and the +whole thing is not a romance, nor yet a comedy; nor yet a romantic +comedy; but a kind of preparation of some of the elements of all three +in a glass jar. I think it is not without merit, but I am not always on +the level of my argument, and some parts are false, and much of the rest +is thin; it is more a triumph for myself than anything else; for I see, +beyond it, better stuff. I have nine chapters ready, or almost ready, +for press. My feeling would be to get it placed anywhere for as much as +could be got for it, and rather in the shadow, till one saw the look of +it in print.--Ever yours, + + PRETTY SICK. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres-les-Palmiers, May 1883._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--The books came some time since, but I have not had the +pluck to answer: a shower of small troubles having fallen in, or +troubles that may be very large. + +I have had to incur a huge vague debt for cleaning sewers; our house was +(of course) riddled with hidden cesspools, but that was infallible. I +have the fever, and feel the duty to work very heavy on me at times; yet +go it must. I have had to leave _Fontainebleau_, when three hours would +finish it, and go full-tilt at tushery for a while. But it will come +soon. + +I think I can give you a good article on Hokusai; but that is for +afterwards; _Fontainebleau_ is first in hand. + +By the way, my view is to give the _Penny Whistles_ to Crane or +Greenaway. But Crane, I think, is likeliest; he is a fellow who, at +least, always does his best. + +Shall I ever have money enough to write a play? + +O dire necessity! + +A word in your ear: I don't like trying to support myself. I hate the +strain and the anxiety; and when unexpected expenses are foisted on me, +I feel the world is playing with false dice.--Now I must Tush, adieu. + + AN ACHING, FEVERED, PENNY-JOURNALIST. + + + A lytle Jape of TUSHERIE. + + By A. Tusher. + + The pleasant river gushes + Among the meadows green; + At home the author tushes; + For him it flows unseen. + + The Birds among the Bushes + May wanton on the spray; + But vain for him who tushes + The brightness of the day! + + The frog among the rushes + Sits singing in the blue. + By'r la'kin! but these tushes + Are wearisome to do! + + The task entirely crushes + The spirit of the bard: + God pity him who tushes-- + His task is very hard. + + The filthy gutter slushes, + The clouds are full of rain, + But doomed is he who tushes + To tush and tush again. + + At morn with his hair-br_u_shes, + Still "tush" he says, and weeps; + At night again he tushes, + And tushes till he sleeps. + + And when at length he pushes + Beyond the river dark-- + 'Las, to the man who tushes, + "Tush," shall be God's remark! + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + [_Chalet la Solitude, Hyeres, May 1883._] + +COLVIN,--The attempt to correspond with you is vain. Well, well, then so +be it. I will from time to time write you an insulting letter, brief but +monstrous harsh. I regard you in the light of a genteel impostor. Your +name figures in the papers but never to a piece of letter-paper: well, +well. + +News. I am well: Fanny been ill but better: _Otto_ about three-quarters +done; _Silverado_ proofs a terrible job--it is a most unequal work--new +wine in old bottles--large rats, small bottles:[5] as usual, +penniless--O but penniless: still, with four articles in hand (say L35) +and the L100 for _Silverado_ imminent, not hopeless. + +Why am I so penniless, ever, ever penniless, ever, ever +penny-penny-penniless and dry? + + The birds upon the thorn, + The poppies in the corn, + They surely are more fortunate or prudenter than I! + +In Arabia, everybody is called the Father of something or other for +convenience or insult's sake. Thus you are "the Father of Prints," or of +"Bummkopferies," or "Father of Unanswered Correspondence." They would +instantly dub Henley "the Father of Wooden Legs"; me they would +denominate the "Father of Bones," and Matthew Arnold "the Father of +Eyeglasses." + +I have accepted most of the excisions. Proposed titles:-- + + The Innocent Muse. + A Child's Garden of Rhymes. + Songs of the Playroom. + Nursery Songs. + +I like the first? + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, May or June 1883._ + +DEAR LAD,--Snatches in return for yours; for this little once, I'm well +to windward of you. + +Seventeen chapters of _Otto_ are now drafted, and finding I was working +through my voice and getting screechy, I have turned back again to +rewrite the earlier part. It has, I do believe, some merit: of what +order, of course, I am the last to know; and, triumph of triumphs, my +wife--my wife who hates and loathes and slates my women--admits a great +part of my Countess to be on the spot. + +Yes, I could borrow, but it is the joy of being before the public, for +once. Really, L100 is a sight more than _Treasure Island_ is worth. + +The reason of my _deche_? Well, if you begin one house, have to desert +it, begin another, and are eight months without doing any work, you will +be in a _deche_ too. I am not in a _deche_, however; _distingue_--I +would fain distinguish; I am rather a swell, but _not solvent_. At a +touch the edifice, _aedificium_, might collapse. If my creditors began to +babble around me, I would sink with a slow strain of music into the +crimson west. The difficulty in my elegant villa is to find oil, +_oleum_, for the dam axles. But I've paid my rent until September; and +beyond the chemist, the grocer, the baker, the doctor, the gardener, +Lloyd's teacher, and the great chief creditor Death, I can snap my +fingers at all men. Why will people spring bills on you? I try to make +'em charge me at the moment; they won't, the money goes, the debt +remains.--The Required Play is in the _Merry Men_. + + Q. E. F. + + +I thus render honour to your _flair_; it came on me of a clap; I do not +see it yet beyond a kind of sunset glory. But it's there: passion, +romance, the picturesque, involved: startling, simple, horrid: a +sea-pink in sea-froth! _S'agit de la desenterrer._ "Help!" cries a +buried masterpiece. + +Once I see my way to the year's end, clear, I turn to plays; till then I +grind at letters; finish _Otto_; write, say, a couple of my _Traveller's +Tales_; and then, if all my ships come home, I will attack the drama in +earnest. I cannot mix the skeins. Thus, though I'm morally sure there +is a play in _Otto_, I dare not look for it: I shoot straight at the +story. + +As a story, a comedy, I think _Otto_ very well constructed; the echoes +are very good, all the sentiments change round, and the points of view +are continually, and, I think (if you please), happily contrasted. None +of it is exactly funny, but some of it is smiling. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The verses alluded to are some of those afterwards collected in + _Underwoods_. + + [_Chalet la Solitude, Hyeres, May or June 1883._] + +DEAR HENLEY,--You may be surprised to hear that I am now a great writer +of verses; that is, however, so. I have the mania now like my betters, +and faith, if I live till I am forty, I shall have a book of rhymes like +Pollock, Gosse, or whom you please. Really, I have begun to learn some +of the rudiments of that trade, and have written three or four pretty +enough pieces of octosyllabic nonsense, semi-serious, semi-smiling. A +kind of prose Herrick, divested of the gift of verse, and you behold the +Bard. But I like it. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JULES SIMONEAU + + + This friend was the keeper of the inn and restaurant where Stevenson + had boarded at Monterey in the autumn of 1879. In writing French, as + will be seen, Stevenson had always more grip of idiom than of + grammar. + + [_La Solitude, Hyeres, May or June 1883_.] + +MON CHER ET BON SIMONEAU,--J'ai commence plusieurs fois de vous ecrire; +et voila-t-il pas qu'un empechement quelconque est arrive toujours. La +lettre ne part pas; et je vous laisse toujours dans le droit de +soupconner mon coeur. Mon bon ami, ne pensez pas que je vous ai +oublie ou que je vous oublierai jamais. Il n'en est de rien. Votre bon +souvenir me tient de bien pres, et je le garderai jusqu'a la mort. + +J'ai failli mourir de bien pres; mais me voici bien retabli, bien que +toujours un peu chetif et malingre. J'habite, comme vous voyez, la +France. Je travaille beaucoup, et je commence a ne pas etre le dernier; +deja on me dispute ce que j'ecris, et je n'ai pas a me plaindre de ce +que l'on appelle les honoraires. Me voici alors tres affaire, tres +heureux dans mon menage, gate par ma femme, habitant la plus petite +maisonette dans le plus beau jardin du monde, et voyant de mes fen etres +la mer, les isles d'Hyeres, et les belles collines, montagnes et forts +de Toulon. + +Et vous, mon tres cher ami? Comment cela va-t-il? Comment vous +portez-vous? Comment va le commerce? Comment aimez vous le pays? et +l'enfant? et la femme? Et enfin toutes les questions possibles. +Ecrivez-moi donc bien vite, cher Simoneau. Et quant a moi, je vous +promets que vous entendrez bien vite parler de moi; je vous _recrirai_ +sous peu, et je vous enverrai un de mes livres. Ceci n'est qu'un +serrement de main, _from the bottom of my heart, dear and kind old +man_.--Your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The "new dictionary" means, of course, the first instalments of the + great Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, edited by Dr. J. A. + H. Murray. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [June 1883]._ + +DEAR LAD,--I was delighted to hear the good news about ----. Bravo, he +goes uphill fast. Let him beware of vanity, and he will go higher; let +him be still discontented, and let him (if it might be) see the merits +and not the faults of his rivals, and he may swarm at last to the +top-gallant. There is no other way. Admiration is the only road to +excellence; and the critical spirit kills, but envy and injustice are +putrefaction on its feet. + +Thus far the moralist. The eager author now begs to know whether you may +have got the other Whistles, and whether a fresh proof is to be taken; +also whether in that case the dedication should not be printed +therewith; _B_ulk _D_elights _P_ublishers (original aphorism; to be said +sixteen times in succession as a test of sobriety). + +Your wild and ravening commands were received; but cannot be obeyed. And +anyway, I do assure you I am getting better every day; and if the +weather would but turn, I should soon be observed to walk in hornpipes. +Truly I am on the mend. I am still very careful. I have the new +dictionary; a joy, a thing of beauty, and--bulk. I shall be raked i' the +mools before it's finished; that is the only pity; but meanwhile I sing. + +I beg to inform you that I, Robert Louis Stevenson, author of +_Brashiana_ and other works, am merely beginning to commence to prepare +to make a first start at trying to understand my profession. O the +height and depth of novelty and worth in any art! and O that I am +privileged to swim and shoulder through such oceans! Could one get out +of sight of land--all in the blue? Alas not, being anchored here in +flesh, and the bonds of logic being still about us. + +But what a great space and a great air there is in these small shallows +where alone we venture! and how new each sight, squall, calm, or +sunrise! An art is a fine fortune, a palace in a park, a band of music, +health, and physical beauty; all but love--to any worthy practiser. I +sleep upon my art for a pillow; I waken in my art; I am unready for +death, because I hate to leave it. I love my wife, I do not know how +much, nor can, nor shall, unless I lost her; but while I can conceive my +being widowed, I refuse the offering of life without my art. I _am_ not +but in my art; it is me; I am the body of it merely. + +And yet I produce nothing, am the author of _Brashiana_ and other works: +tiddy-iddity--as if the works one wrote were anything but 'prentice's +experiments. Dear reader, I deceive you with husks, the real works and +all the pleasure are still mine and incommunicable. After this break in +my work, beginning to return to it, as from light sleep, I wax +exclamatory, as you see. + + Sursum Corda: + Heave ahead: + Here's luck. + Art and Blue Heaven, + April and God's Larks. + Green reeds and the sky-scattering river. + A stately music. + Enter God! + + R. L. S. + + +Ay, but you know, until a man can write that "Enter God," he has made no +art! None! Come, let us take counsel together and make some! + + + + +TO TREVOR HADDON + + + During the height of the Provencal summer, for July and part of + August, Stevenson went with his wife to the Baths of Royat in + Auvergne (travelling necessarily by way of Clermont-Ferrand). His + parents joined them at Royat for part of their visit. This and + possibly the next following letters were written during the trip. The + news here referred to was that his correspondent had won a + scholarship at the Slade School. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres. But just now writing from + Clermont-Ferrand, July 5, 1883._ + +DEAR MR. HADDON,--Your note with its piece of excellent news duly +reached me. I am delighted to hear of your success: selfishly so; for it +is pleasant to see that one whom I suppose I may call an admirer is no +fool. I wish you more and more prosperity, and to be devoted to your +art. An art is the very gist of life; it grows with you; you will never +weary of an art at which you fervently and superstitiously labour. +Superstitiously: I mean, think more of it than it deserves; be blind to +its faults, as with a wife or father; forget the world in a technical +trifle. The world is very serious; art is the cure of that, and must be +taken very lightly; but to take art lightly, you must first be stupidly +owlishly in earnest over it. When I made Casimir say "Tiens" at the end, +I made a blunder. I thought it was what Casimir would have said and I +put it down. As your question shows, it should have been left out. It +was a "patch" of realism, and an anti-climax. Beware of realism; it is +the devil; 'tis one of the means of art, and now they make it the end! +And such is the farce of the age in which a man lives, that we all, even +those of us who most detest it, sin by realism. + +Notes for the student of any art. + +1. Keep an intelligent eye upon _all_ the others. It is only by doing so +that you come to see what Art is: Art is the end common to them all, it +is none of the points by which they differ. + +2. In this age beware of realism. + +3. In your own art, bow your head over technique. Think of technique +when you rise and when you go to bed. Forget purposes in the meanwhile; +get to love technical processes; to glory in technical successes; get to +see the world entirely through technical spectacles, to see it entirely +in terms of what you can do. Then when you have anything to say, the +language will be apt and copious. + +My health is better. + +I have no photograph just now; but when I get one you shall have a copy. +It will not be like me; sometimes I turn out a capital, fresh bank +clerk; once I came out the image of Runjeet Singh; again the treacherous +sun has fixed me in the character of a travelling evangelist. It's quite +a lottery; but whatever the next venture proves to be, soldier, sailor, +tinker, tailor, you shall have a proof. Reciprocate. The truth is I have +no appearance; a certain air of disreputability is the one constant +character that my face presents: the rest change like water. But still I +am lean, and still disreputable. + +Cling to your youth. It is an artistic stock in trade. Don't give in +that you are ageing, and you won't age. I have exactly the same faults +and qualities still; only a little duller, greedier and better tempered; +a little less tolerant of pain and more tolerant of tedium. The last is +a great thing for life but--query?--a bad endowment for art? + +Another note for the art student. + +4. See the good in other people's work; it will never be yours. See the +bad in your own, and don't cry about it; it will be there always. Try to +use your faults; at any rate use your knowledge of them, and don't run +your head against stone walls. Art is not like theology; nothing is +forced. You have not to represent the world. You have to represent only +what you can represent with pleasure and effect, and the only way to +find out what that is is by technical exercise.--Yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO JULES SIMONEAU + + + [_Hyeres or Royat, Summer 1883._] + +MY DEAR FRIEND SIMONEAU,--It would be difficult to tell how glad I was +to get your letter with your good news and kind remembrances, it did my +heart good to the bottom. I shall never forget the good time we had +together, the many long talks, the games of chess, the flute on an +occasion, and the excellent food. Now I am in clover, only my health a +mere ruined temple; the ivy grows along its shattered front, otherwise, +I have no wish that is not fulfilled: a beautiful large garden, a fine +view of plain, sea and mountain; a wife that suits me down to the +ground, and a barrel of good Beaujolais. To this I must add that my +books grow steadily more popular, and if I could only avoid illness I +should be well to do for money, as it is, I keep pretty near the wind. +Have I other means? I doubt it. I saw Francois here; and it was in some +respects sad to see him, pining in the ungenial life and not, I think, +very well pleased with his relatives. The young men, it is true, adored +him, but his niece tried to pump me about what money I had, with an +effrontery I was glad to disappoint. How he spoke of you I need not tell +you. He is your true friend, dear Simoneau, and your ears should have +tingled when we met, for we talked of little but yourself. + +The papers you speak about are past dates but I will send you a paper +from time to time, as soon as I am able to go out again. We were both +well pleased to hear of your marriage, and both Mrs. Stevenson and +myself beg to be remembered with the kindest wishes to Mrs. Simoneau. I +am glad you have done this. All races are better away from their own +country; but I think you French improve the most of all. At home, I like +you well enough, but give me the Frenchman abroad! Had you stayed at +home, you would probably have acted otherwise. Consult your +consciousness, and you will think as I do. How about a law condemning +the people of every country to be educated in another, to change sons in +short? Should we not gain all around? Would not the Englishman unlearn +hypocrisy? Would not the Frenchman learn to put some heart into his +friendships? I name what strikes me as the two most obvious defects of +the two nations. The French might also learn to be a little less +rapacious to women and the English to be a little more honest. + +Indeed their merits and defects make a balance. + + The English. The French. + hypocrites free from hypocrisy + good, stout reliable friends incapable of friendship + dishonest to the root fairly honest + fairly decent to women. rather indecent to women. + +There is my table, not at all the usual one, but yes, I think you will +agree with it. And by travel, each race can cure much of its defects and +acquire much of the others' virtues. Let us say that you and I are +complete! You are anyway: I would not change a hair of you. The +Americans hold the English faults: dishonest and hypocrites, perhaps not +so strongly but still to the exclusion of others. It is strange that +such mean defects should be so hard to eradicate, after a century of +separation, and so great an admixture of other blood. + +Your stay in Mexico must have been interesting indeed: and it is natural +you should be so keen against the Church on this side, we have a painful +exhibition of the other side: the _libre-penseur_ a mere priest without +the sacraments, the narrowest tyranny of intolerance popular, and in +fact a repetition in the XIXth century of theological ill-feeling minus +the sermons. We have speeches instead. I met the other day one of the +new lay schoolmasters of France; a pleasant cultivated man, and for some +time listened to his ravings. "In short," I said, "you are like Louis +Quatorze, you wish to drive out of France all who do not agree with +you." I thought he would protest; not he!--"Oui, Monsieur," was his +answer. And that is the cause of liberty and free thought! But the race +of man was born tyrannical; doubtless Adam beat Eve, and when all the +rest are dead the last man will be found beating the last dog. In the +land of Padre d. R. you see the old tyranny still active on its +crutches; in this land, I begin to see the new, a fat fellow, out of +leading-strings and already killing flies. + +This letter drones along unprofitably enough. Let me put a period to my +divagations. Write again soon, and let me hear good news of you, and I +will try to be more quick of answer. + +And with the best wishes to yourself and all your family, believe me, +your sincere friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + The persons mentioned below in the third paragraph are cousins of the + writer and playmates of his childhood; two of them, christened Lewis + like himself after their Balfour grandfather, had been nicknamed + after their birthplaces "Delhi" and "Cramond" to avoid confusion. + Mount Chessie is a beautiful place near Lasswade: "Cummy" has + described his delight when she cut whistles for him there out of a + plane-tree. + + [_Hyeres or Royat, Summer_ 1883.] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--Yes, I own I am a real bad correspondent, and am as bad +as can be in most directions. + +I have been adding some more poems to your book. I wish they would look +sharp about it; but, you see, they are trying to find a good artist to +make the illustrations, without which no child would give a kick for it. +It will be quite a fine work, I hope. The dedication is a poem too, and +has been quite a long while written, but I do not mean you to see it +till you get the book; keep the jelly for the last, you know, as you +would often recommend in former days, so now you can take your own +medicine. + +I am very sorry to hear you have been so poorly; I have been very well; +it used to be quite the other way, used it not? Do you remember making +the whistle at Mount Chessie? I do not think it _was_ my knife; I +believe it was yours; but rhyme is a very great monarch, and goes before +honesty, in these affairs at least. Do you remember, at Warriston, one +autumn Sunday, when the beech nuts were on the ground, seeing heaven +open? I would like to make a rhyme of that, but cannot. + +Is it not strange to think of all the changes: Bob, Cramond, Delhi, +Minnie, and Henrietta, all married, and fathers and mothers, and your +humble servant just the one point better off? And such a little while +ago all children together! The time goes swift and wonderfully even; and +if we are no worse than we are, we should be grateful to the power that +guides us. For more than a generation I have now been to the fore in +this rough world, and been most tenderly helped, and done cruelly wrong, +and yet escaped; and here I am still, the worse for wear, but with some +fight in me still, and not unthankful--no, surely not unthankful, or I +were then the worst of human things! + +My little dog is a very much better child in every way, both more loving +and more amiable; but he is not fond of strangers, and is, like most of +his kind, a great, specious humbug. + +Fanny has been ill, but is much better again; she now goes donkey rides +with an old woman, who compliments her on her French. That old +woman--seventy odd--is in a parlous spiritual state. + +Pretty soon, in the new sixpenny illustrated magazine, Wogg's picture is +to appear: this is a great honour! And the poor soul, whose vanity would +just explode if he could understand it, will never be a bit the +wiser!--With much love, in which Fanny joins, believe me, your +affectionate boy, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + The reference is to Mr. Gosse's volume called _Seventeenth Century + Studies_. + + [_Hyeres or Royat, Summer 1883._] + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have now leisurely read your volume; pretty soon, by +the way, you will receive one of mine. + +It is a pleasant, instructive, and scholarly volume. The three best +being, quite out of sight--Crashaw, Otway, and Etherege. They are +excellent; I hesitate between them; but perhaps Crashaw is the most +brilliant. + +Your Webster is not my Webster; nor your Herrick my Herrick. On these +matters we must fire a gun to leeward, show our colours, and go by. +Argument is impossible. They are two of my favourite authors: Herrick +above all: I suppose they are two of yours. Well, Janus-like, they do +behold us two with diverse countenances, few features are common to +these different avatars; and we can but agree to differ, but still with +gratitude to our entertainers, like two guests at the same dinner, one +of whom takes clear and one white soup. By my way of thinking, neither +of us need be wrong. + +The other papers are all interesting, adequate, clear, and with a +pleasant spice of the romantic. It is a book you may be well pleased to +have so finished, and will do you much good. The Crashaw is capital: +capital; I like the taste of it. Preface clean and dignified. The +handling throughout workmanlike, with some four or five touches of +preciosity, which I regret. + +With my thanks for information, entertainment, and a pleasurable envy +here and there.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + Soon after he was settled again at Hyeres, Stevenson had a great + shock in the death of one of the oldest and most intimate of his + friends of Edinburgh days, Mr. James Walter Ferrier (see the essay + _Old Mortality_ in _Memories and Portraits_). It is in accordance + with the expressed wish of this gentleman's surviving sister that + publicity is given to the following letters:-- + + _La Solitude, Hyeres_ [_Sept. 1883_]. + +MY DEAR MISS FERRIER,--They say Walter is gone. You, who know how I have +neglected him, will conceive my remorse. I had another letter written; +when I heard he was worse, I promised myself to wake up for the last +time. Alas, too late! + +My dear Walter, set apart that terrible disease, was, in his right mind, +the best and gentlest gentleman. God knows he would never intentionally +hurt a soul. + +Well, he is done with his troubles and out of his long sickness, and I +dare say is glad to be at peace and out of the body, which in him seemed +the enemy of the fine and kind spirit. He is the first friend I have +ever lost, and I find it difficult to say anything and fear to intrude +upon your grief. But I had to try to tell you how much I shared it. + +Could you get any one to tell me particulars? Do not write yourself of +course--I do not mean that; but some one else. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, September 19, 1883._ + +DEAR BOY,--Our letters vigorously cross: you will ere this have received +a note to Coggie: God knows what was in it. + +It is strange, a little before the first word you sent me--so +late--kindly late, I know and feel--I was thinking in my bed, when I +knew you I had six friends--Bob I had by nature; then came the good +James Walter--with all his failings--the _gentleman_ of the lot, alas to +sink so low, alas to do so little, but now, thank God, in his quiet +rest; next I found Baxter--well do I remember telling Walter I had +unearthed "a W.S. that I thought would do"--it was in the Academy Lane, +and he questioned me as to the Signet's qualifications; fourth came +Simpson; somewhere about the same time, I began to get intimate with +Jenkin; last came Colvin. Then, one black winter afternoon, long Leslie +Stephen, in his velvet jacket, met me in the Spec. by appointment, took +me over to the infirmary, and in the crackling, blighting gas-light +showed me that old head whose excellent representation I see before me +in the photograph. Now when a man has six friends, to introduce a +seventh is usually hopeless. Yet when you were presented, you took to +them and they to you upon the nail. You must have been a fine fellow; +but what a singular fortune I must have had in my six friends that you +should take to all. I don't know if it is good Latin, most probably +not: but this is enscrolled before my eyes for Walter: _Tandem e nubibus +in apricum properat_. Rest, I suppose, I know, was all that remained; +but O to look back, to remember all the mirth, all the kindness, all the +humorous limitations and loved defects of that character; to think that +he was young with me, sharing that weather-beaten, Fergussonian youth, +looking forward through the clouds to the sunburst; and now clean gone +from my path, silent--well, well. This has been a strange awakening. +Last night, when I was alone in the house, with the window open on the +lovely still night, I could have sworn he was in the room with me; I +could show you the spot; and, what was very curious, I heard his rich +laughter, a thing I had not called to mind for I know not how long. + +I see his coral waistcoat studs that he wore the first time he dined in +my house; I see his attitude, leaning back a little, already with +something of a portly air, and laughing internally. How I admired him! +And now in the West Kirk. + +I am trying to write out this haunting bodily sense of absence; besides, +what else should I write of? + +Yes, looking back, I think of him as one who was good, though sometimes +clouded. He was the only gentle one of all my friends, save perhaps the +other Walter. And he was certainly the only modest man among the lot. He +never gave himself away; he kept back his secret; there was always a +gentle problem behind all. Dear, dear, what a wreck; and yet how +pleasant is the retrospect! God doeth all things well, though by what +strange, solemn, and murderous contrivances! + +It is strange: he was the only man I ever loved who did not habitually +interrupt. The fact draws my own portrait. And it is one of the many +reasons why I count myself honoured by his friendship. A man like you +_had_ to like me; you could not help yourself; but Ferrier was above me, +we were not equals; his true self humoured and smiled paternally upon +my failings, even as I humoured and sorrowed over his. + +Well, first his mother, then himself, they are gone: "in their resting +graves." + +When I come to think of it, I do not know what I said to his sister, and +I fear to try again. Could you send her this? There is too much both +about yourself and me in it; but that, if you do not mind, is but a mark +of sincerity. It would let her know how entirely, in the mind of (I +suppose) his oldest friend, the good, true Ferrier obliterates the +memory of the other, who was only his "lunatic brother." + +Judge of this for me, and do as you please; anyway, I will try to write +to her again; my last was some kind of scrawl that I could not see for +crying. This came upon me, remember, with terrible suddenness; I was +surprised by this death; and it is fifteen or sixteen years since first +I saw the handsome face in the Spec. I made sure, besides, to have died +first. Love to you, your wife, and her sisters.--Ever yours, dear boy, + + R. L. S. + + +I never knew any man so superior to himself as poor James Walter. The +best of him only came as a vision, like Corsica from the Corniche. He +never gave his measure either morally or intellectually. The curse was +on him. Even his friends did not know him but by fits. I have passed +hours with him when he was so wise, good, and sweet, that I never knew +the like of it in any other. And for a beautiful good humour he had no +match. I remember breaking in upon him once with a whole red-hot story +(in my worst manner), pouring words upon him by the hour about some +truck not worth an egg that had befallen me; and suddenly, some half +hour after, finding that the sweet fellow had some concern of his own of +infinitely greater import, that he was patiently and smilingly waiting +to consult me on. It sounds nothing; but the courtesy and the +unselfishness were perfect. It makes me rage to think how few knew him, +and how many had the chance to sneer at their better. + +Well, he was not wasted, that we know; though if anything looked liker +irony than this fitting of a man out with these rich qualities and +faculties to be wrecked and aborted from the very stocks, I do not know +the name of it. Yet we see that he has left an influence; the memory of +his patient courtesy has often checked me in rudeness; has it not you? + +You can form no idea of how handsome Walter was. At twenty he was +splendid to see; then, too, he had the sense of power in him, and great +hopes; he looked forward, ever jesting of course, but he looked to see +himself where he had the right to expect. He believed in himself +profoundly; but _he never disbelieved in others_. To the roughest +Highland student he always had his fine, kind, open dignity of manner; +and a good word behind his back. + +The last time that I saw him before leaving for America--it was a sad +blow to both of us. When he heard I was leaving, and that might be the +last time we might meet--it almost was so--he was terribly upset, and +came round at once. We sat late, in Baxter's empty house, where I was +sleeping. My dear friend Walter Ferrier: O if I had only written to him +more! if only one of us in these last days had been well! But I ever +cherished the honour of his friendship, and now when he is gone, I know +what I have lost still better. We live on, meaning to meet; but when the +hope is gone, the pang comes. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, 26th September 1883._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--It appears a bolt from Transatlantica is necessary to +produce four lines from you. It is not flattering; but as I was always a +bad correspondent, 'tis a vice to which I am lenient. I give you to +know, however, that I have already twice (this makes three times) sent +you what I please to call a letter, and received from you in return a +subterfuge--or nothing.... + +My present purpose, however, which must not be postponed, is to ask you +to telegraph to the Americans. + +After a summer of good health of a very radiant order, toothache and the +death of a very old friend, which came upon me like a thunderclap, have +rather shelved my powers. I stare upon the paper, not write. I wish I +could write like your Sculptors; yet I am well aware that I should not +try in that direction. A certain warmth (tepid enough) and a certain +dash of the picturesque are my poor essential qualities; and if I went +fooling after the too classical, I might lose even these. But I envied +you that page. + +I am, of course, deep in schemes; I was so ever. Execution alone +somewhat halts. How much do you make per annum, I wonder? This year, for +the first time, I shall pass L300; I may even get halfway to the next +milestone. This seems but a faint remuneration; and the devil of it is, +that I manage, with sickness, and moves, and education, and the like, to +keep steadily in front of my income. However, I console myself with +this, that if I were anything else under God's Heaven, and had the same +crank health, I should make an even zero. If I had, with my present +knowledge, twelve months of my old health, I would, could, and should do +something neat. As it is, I have to tinker at my things in little +sittings; and the rent, or the butcher, or something, is always calling +me off to rattle up a pot-boiler. And then comes a back-set of my +health, and I have to twiddle my fingers and play patience. + +Well, I do not complain, but I do envy strong health where it is +squandered. Treasure your strength, and may you never learn by +experience the profound _ennui_ and irritation of the shelved artist. +For then, what is life? All that one has done to make one's life +effective then doubles the itch of inefficiency. + +I trust also you may be long without finding out the devil that there is +in a bereavement. After love it is the one great surprise that life +preserves for us. Now I don't think I can be astonished any more.--Yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, 30th Sept. 1883._ + +MY DEAR MISS FERRIER,--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and +was interested by all you told me. Yes, I know it is better for him to +be gone, and what you say helps me to realise that it is so--I did not +know how much he had suffered; it is so that we are cured of life. I am +a little afraid to write or think much of Walter just yet; as I have not +quite recovered the news and I have my work and my wife to think of. + +Some day soon when the sharpness passes off (if it does) I must try to +write some more of what he was: he was so little understood. I don't +suppose any one knew him better than I did. But just now it is difficult +to think of him. For you I do mourn indeed, and admire your courage: the +loss is terrible. I have no portrait of him. Is there one? If so please +let me have it: if it has to be copied please let it be. + +Henley seems to have been as good to dear Walter as he is to all. That +introduction was a good turn I did to both. It seems so strange for a +friendship to begin all these years ago with so much mirth and now to +end with this sorrow. Our little lives are moments in the wake of the +eternal silence: but how crowded while they last. His has gone down in +peace. + +I was not certainly the best companion for Walter, but I do believe I +was the best he had. In these early days he was not fortunate in +friends--looking back I see most clearly how much we both wanted a man +of riper wisdom. We had no religion between the pair of us--that was the +flaw. How very different was our last intimacy in Gladstone Terrace. But +youth must learn--looking back over these wasted opportunities, I must +try rather to remember what I did right, than to bewail the much that I +left undone and knew not how to do. I see that even you have allowed +yourself to have regrets. Dear Miss Ferrier, sure you were his angel. We +all had something to be glad of, in so far as we had understood and +loved and perhaps a little helped the gentle spirit; but you may +certainly be proud. He always loved you; and I remember in his worst +days spoke of you with great affection; a thing unusual with him; for he +was walking very wild and blind and had no true idea whether of himself +or life. The lifting afterwards was beautiful and touching. Dear Miss +Ferrier I have given your kind messages to my wife who feels for you and +reciprocates the hope to meet. When it may come off I know not. I feel +almost ashamed to say that I keep better, I feel as if like Mrs. Leslie +"you must hate me for it"--still I can very easily throw back whether by +fatigue or want of care, and I do not like to build plans for my return +to my own land. Is there no chance of your coming hereabouts? Though we +cannot in our small and disorderly house offer a lady a room, one can be +got close by and we can offer possible board and a most lovely little +garden for a lounge. Please remember me kindly to your brother John and +Sir A. and Lady Grant and believe me with hearty sympathy--Yours most +sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +I was rejoiced to hear he never doubted of my love, but I must cure my +hate of correspondence. This has been a sharp lesson. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + It will be remembered that "Whistles" or "Penny Whistles" was his own + name for the verses of the _Child's Garden_. The proposal referred to + at the end of this letter was one which had reached him from Messrs. + Lippincott, the American publishers, for a sailing trip to be taken + among the Greek islands and made the subject of a book. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [October 1883]._ + +My dear excellent, admired, volcanic angel of a lad, trusty as a dog, +eruptive as Vesuvius, in all things great, in all the soul of loyalty: +greeting. + +That you are better spirits me up good. I have had no colour of a Mag. +of Art. From here, here in Highairs the Palm-trees, I have heard your +conversation. It came here in the form of a Mistral, and I said to +myself, Damme, there is some Henley at the foot of this! + +I shall try to do the Whistle as suggested; but I can usually do +whistles only by giving my whole mind to it: to produce even such +limping verse demanding the whole forces of my untuneful soul. I have +other two anyway: better or worse. I am now deep, deep, ocean deep in +_Otto_: a letter is a curst distraction. About 100 pp. are near fit for +publication; I am either making a spoon or spoiling the horn of a +Caledonian bull, with that airy potentate. God help me, I bury a lot of +labour in that principality; and if I am not greatly a gainer, I am a +great loser and a great fool. However, _sursum corda_; faint heart never +writ romance. + +Your Dumas I think exquisite; it might even have been stronglier said: +the brave old godly pagan, I adore his big footprints on the earth. + +Have you read Meredith's _Love in the Valley_? It got me, I wept; I +remembered that poetry existed. + + "When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror." + +I propose if they (Lippincotts) will let me wait till next Autumn, and +go when it is safest, to accept L450 with L100 down; but it is now too +late to go this year. November and December are the months when it is +safest; and the back of the season is broken. I shall gain much +knowledge by the trip; this I look upon as one of the main inducements. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following is in answer to a letter containing remarks on the + proofs of the _Child's Garden_, then going round among some of his + friends, and on the instalments of _Silverado Squatters_ and the + _Black Arrow_, which were appearing in the Century Magazine and Young + Folks respectively. The remarks on Professor Seeley's literary manner + are _apropos_ of the _Expansion of England_, which I had lately sent + him. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [October 1883]._ + +COLVIN, COLVIN, COLVIN,--Yours received; also interesting copy of _P. +Whistles_. "In the multitude of councillors the Bible declares there is +wisdom," said my great-uncle, "but I have always found in them +distraction." It is extraordinary how tastes vary: these proofs have +been handed about, it appears, and I have had several letters; +and--distraction. AEsop: the Miller and the Ass. + +Notes on details:-- + +1. I love the occasional trochaic line; and so did many excellent +writers before me. + +2. If you don't like _A Good Boy_, I do. + +3. In _Escape at Bedtime_, I found two suggestions. "Shove" for "above" +is a correction of the press; it was so written. "Twinkled" is just the +error; to the child the stars appear to be there; any word that suggests +illusion is a horror. + +4. I don't care; I take a different view of the vocative. + +5. Bewildering and childering are good enough for me. These are rhymes, +jingles; I don't go for eternity and the three unities. + +I will delete some of those condemned, but not all. I don't care for the +name Penny Whistles; I sent a sheaf to Henley when I sent 'em. But I've +forgot the others. I would just as soon call 'em "Rimes for Children" as +anything else. I am not proud nor particular. + +Your remarks on the _Black Arrow_ are to the point. I am pleased you +liked Crookback; he is a fellow whose hellish energy has always fixed my +attention. I wish Shakespeare had written the play after he had learned +some of the rudiments of literature and art rather than before. Some +day, I will re-tickle the Sable Missile, and shoot it, _moyennant +finances_, once more into the air; I can lighten it of much, and devote +some more attention to Dick o' Gloucester. It's great sport to write +tushery. + +By this I reckon you will have heard of my proposed excursiolorum to the +Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, and kindred sites. If the +excursiolorum goes on, that is if _moyennant finances_ comes off, I +shall write to beg you to collect introductiolorums for me. + +Distinguo: 1. _Silverado_ was not written in America, but in +Switzerland's icy mountains. 2. What you read is the bleeding and +disembowelled remains of what I wrote. 3. The good stuff is all to +come--so I think. "The Sea Fogs," "The Hunter's Family," "Toils and +Pleasures"--_belles pages_.--Yours ever, + + RAMNUGGER. + + +O!--Seeley is too clever to live, and the book a gem. But why has he +read too much Arnold? Why will he avoid--obviously avoid--fine writing +up to which he has led? This is a winking, curled-and-oiled, +ultra-cultured, Oxford-don sort of an affectation that infuriates my +honest soul. "You see"--they say--"how unbombastic _we_ are; we come +right up to eloquence, and, when it's hanging on the pen, dammy, we +scorn it!" It is literary Deronda-ism. If you don't want the woman, the +image, or the phrase, mortify your vanity and avoid the appearance of +wanting them. + + + + +TO W.E. HENLEY + + + The first paragraph of the following refers to contributions of R. L. + S. to the Magazine of Art under Mr. Henley's editorship:-- + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [Autumn 1883]._ + +DEAR LAD,--Glad you like _Fontainebleau_. I am going to be the means, +under heaven, of aerating or literating your pages. The idea that +because a thing is a picture-book all the writing should be on the wrong +tack is _triste_ but widespread. Thus _Hokusai_ will be really a gossip +on convention, or in great part. And the Skelt will be as like a Charles +Lamb as I can get it. The writer should write, and not illustrate +pictures: else it's bosh.... + +Your remarks about the ugly are my eye. Ugliness is only the prose of +horror. It is when you are not able to write _Macbeth_ that you write +_Therese Raquin_. Fashions are external: the essence of art only varies +in so far as fashion widens the field of its application; art is a mill +whose thirlage, in different ages, widens and contracts; but, in any +case and under any fashion, the great man produces beauty, terror, and +mirth, and the little man produces cleverness (personalities, +psychology) instead of beauty, ugliness instead of terror, and jokes +instead of mirth. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be ever, +world without end. Amen! + +And even as you read, you say, "Of course, _quelle rengaine_!" + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + Manhattan mentioned below is the name of a short-lived New York + magazine, the editor of which had asked through Mr. Low for a + contribution from R. L. S. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, October [1883]._ + +MY DEAR LOW,-- ... Some day or other, in Cassell's Magazine of Art, you +will see a paper which will interest you, and where your name appears. +It is called _Fontainebleau: Village Communities of Artists_, and the +signature of R. L. Stevenson will be found annexed. + +Please tell the editor of Manhattan the following secrets for me: 1_st_, +That I am a beast; 2_nd_, that I owe him a letter; 3_rd_, that I have +lost his, and cannot recall either his name or address; 4_th_, that I am +very deep in engagements, which my absurd health makes it hard for me to +overtake; but 5_th_, that I will bear him in mind; 6_th_ and last, that +I am a brute. + +My address is still the same, and I live in a most sweet corner of the +universe, sea and fine hills before me, and a rich variegated plain; and +at my back a craggy hill, loaded with vast feudal ruins. I am very +quiet; a person passing by my door half startles me; but I enjoy the +most aromatic airs, and at night the most wonderful view into a moonlit +garden. By day this garden fades into nothing, overpowered by its +surroundings and the luminous distance; but at night and when the moon +is out, that garden, the arbour, the flight of stairs that mount the +artificial hillock, the plumed blue gum-trees that hang trembling, +become the very skirts of Paradise. Angels I know frequent it; and it +thrills all night with the flutes of silence. Damn that garden;--and by +day it is gone. + +Continue to testify boldly against realism. Down with Dagon, the fish +god! All art swings down towards imitation, in these days, fatally. But +the man who loves art with wisdom sees the joke; it is the lustful that +tremble and respect her ladyship; but the honest and romantic lovers of +the Muse can see a joke and sit down to laugh with Apollo. + +The prospect of your return to Europe is very agreeable; and I was +pleased by what you said about your parents. One of my oldest friends +died recently, and this has given me new thoughts of death. Up to now I +had rather thought of him as a mere personal enemy of my own; but now +that I see him hunting after my friends, he looks altogether darker. My +own father is not well; and Henley, of whom you must have heard me +speak, is in a questionable state of health. These things are very +solemn, and take some of the colour out of life. It is a great thing, +after all, to be a man of reasonable honour and kindness. Do you +remember once consulting me in Paris whether you had not better +sacrifice honesty to art; and how, after much confabulation, we agreed +that your art would suffer if you did? We decided better than we knew. +In this strange welter where we live, all hangs together by a million +filaments; and to do reasonably well by others, is the first +pre-requisite of art. Art is a virtue; and if I were the man I should +be, my art would rise in the proportion of my life. + +If you were privileged to give some happiness to your parents, I know +your art will gain by it. _By God it will!_--_Sic subscribitur_, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [October 1883]._ + +MY DEAR BOB,--Yes, I got both your letters at Lyons, but have been since +then decading in several steps. Toothache; fever; Ferrier's death; lung. +Now it is decided I am to leave to-morrow, penniless, for Nice to see +Dr. Williams. + +I was much struck by your last. I have written a breathless note on +Realism for Henley; a fifth part of the subject hurriedly touched, which +will show you how my thoughts are driving. You are now at last beginning +to think upon the problems of executive, plastic art, for you are now +for the first time attacking them. Hitherto you have spoken and thought +of two things--technique and the _ars artium_, or common background of +all arts. Studio work is the real touch. That is the genial error of the +present French teaching. Realism I regard as a mere question of method. +The "brown foreground," "old mastery," and the like, ranking with +villanelles, as technical sports and pastimes. Real art, whether ideal +or realistic, addresses precisely the same feeling, and seeks the same +qualities--significance or charm. And the same--very same--inspiration +is only methodically differentiated according as the artist is an arrant +realist or an arrant idealist. Each, by his own method, seeks to save +and perpetuate the same significance or charm; the one by suppressing, +the other by forcing, detail. All other idealism is the brown foreground +over again, and hence only art in the sense of a game, like cup and +ball. All other realism is not art at all--but not at all. It is, then, +an insincere and showy handicraft. + +Were you to re-read some Balzac, as I have been doing, it would greatly +help to clear your eyes. He was a man who never found his method. An +inarticulate Shakespeare, smothered under forcible-feeble detail. It is +astounding to the riper mind how bad he is, how feeble, how untrue, how +tedious; and, of course, when he surrendered to his temperament, how +good and powerful. And yet never plain nor clear. He could not consent +to be dull, and thus became so. He would leave nothing undeveloped, and +thus drowned out of sight of land amid the multitude of crying and +incongruous details. There is but one art--to omit! O if I knew how to +omit, I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knew how to omit would +make an _Iliad_ of a daily paper. + +Your definition of seeing is quite right. It is the first part of +omission to be partly blind. Artistic sight is judicious blindness. Sam +Bough must have been a jolly blind old boy. He would turn a corner, look +for one-half or quarter minute, and then say, "This'll do, lad." Down he +sat, there and then, with whole artistic plan, scheme of colour, and the +like, and begin by laying a foundation of powerful and seemingly +incongruous colour on the block. He saw, not the scene, but the +water-colour sketch. Every artist by sixty should so behold nature. +Where does he learn that? In the studio, I swear. He goes to nature for +facts, relations, values--material; as a man, before writing a +historical novel, reads up memoirs. But it is not by reading memoirs +that he has learned the selective criterion. He has learned that in the +practice of his art; and he will never learn it well, but when +disengaged from the ardent struggle of immediate representation, of +realistic and _ex facto_ art. He learns it in the crystallisation of +day-dreams; in changing, not in copying, fact; in the pursuit of the +ideal, not in the study of nature. These temples of art are, as you say, +inaccessible to the realistic climber. It is not by looking at the sea +that you get + + "The multitudinous seas incarnadine," + +nor by looking at Mont Blanc that you find + + "And visited all night by troops of stars." + +A kind of ardour of the blood is the mother of all this; and according +as this ardour is swayed by knowledge and seconded by craft, the art +expression flows clear, and significance and charm, like a moon rising, +are born above the barren juggle of mere symbols. + +The painter must study more from nature than the man of words. By why? +Because literature deals with men's business and passions which, in the +game of life, we are irresistibly obliged to study; but painting with +relations of light, and colour, and significances, and form, which, from +the immemorial habit of the race, we pass over with an unregardful eye. +Hence this crouching upon camp-stools, and these crusts.[6] But neither +one nor other is a part of art, only preliminary studies. + +I want you to help me to get people to understand that realism is a +method, and only methodic in its consequences; when the realist is an +artist, that is, and supposing the idealist with whom you compare him to +be anything but a _farceur_ and a _dilettante_. The two schools of +working do, and should, lead to the choice of different subjects. But +that is a consequence, not a cause. See my chaotic note, which will +appear, I fancy, in November in Henley's sheet. + +Poor Ferrier, it bust me horrid. He was, after you, the oldest of my +friends. + +I am now very tired, and will go to bed having prelected freely. Fanny +will finish. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Some pages of MS. exist in which the writer at this time attempted to + re-cast and expand a portion of the _Lay Morals_ of 1879. A letter + written some days earlier to his father, and partly quoted in Mr. + Graham Balfour's _Life_ (ed. 1906, p. 209), explains his purpose. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, 12th October 1883._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I have just lunched; the day is exquisite, the air +comes through the open window rich with odour, and I am by no means +spiritually minded. Your letter, however, was very much valued, and has +been read oftener than once. What you say about yourself I was glad to +hear; a little decent resignation is not only becoming a Christian, but +is likely to be excellent for the health of a Stevenson. To fret and +fume is undignified, suicidally foolish, and theologically unpardonable; +we are here not to make, but to tread predestined, pathways; we are the +foam of a wave, and to preserve a proper equanimity is not merely the +first part of submission to God, but the chief of possible kindnesses to +those about us. I am lecturing myself, but you also. To do our best is +one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequence is the next +part, of any sensible virtue. + +I have come, for the moment, to a pause in my moral works; for I have +many irons in the fire, and I wish to finish something to bring coin +before I can afford to go on with what I think doubtfully to be a duty. +It is a most difficult work; a touch of the parson will drive off those +I hope to influence; a touch of overstrained laxity, besides disgusting, +like a grimace, may do harm. Nothing that I have ever seen yet speaks +directly and efficaciously to young men; and I do hope I may find the +art and wisdom to fill up a gap. The great point, as I see it, is to ask +as little as possible, and meet, if it may be, every view or absence of +view; and it should be, must be, easy. Honesty is the one desideratum; +but think how hard a one to meet. I think all the time of Ferrier and +myself; these are the pair that I address. Poor Ferrier, so much a +better man than I, and such a temporal wreck. But the thing of which we +must divest our minds is to look partially upon others; all is to be +viewed; and the creature judged, as he must be by his Creator, not +dissected through a prism of morals, but in the unrefracted ray. So +seen, and in relation to the almost omnipotent surroundings, who is to +distinguish between F. and such a man as Dr. Candlish, or between such a +man as David Hume and such an one as Robert Burns? To compare my poor +and good Walter with myself is to make me startle; he, upon all grounds +above the merely expedient, was the nobler being. Yet wrecked utterly +ere the full age of manhood; and the last skirmishes so well fought, so +humanly useless, so pathetically brave, only the leaps of an expiring +lamp. All this is a very pointed instance. It shuts the mouth. I have +learned more, in some ways, from him than from any other soul I ever +met; and he, strange to think, was the best gentleman, in all kinder +senses, that I ever knew.--Ever your affectionate son, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The paper referred to at the beginning of the second paragraph is one + on R. L. S. in the Century Magazine, the first seriously critical + notice, says Mr. Low, which appeared of him in the States. + + [_La Solitude, Hyeres, Oct. 23, 1883._] + +MY DEAR LOW,--_C'est d'un bon camarade_; and I am much obliged to you +for your two letters and the inclosure. Times are a lityle changed with +all of us since the ever memorable days of Lavenue: hallowed be his +name! hallowed his old Fleury!--of which you did not see--I think--as I +did--the glorious apotheosis: advanced on a Tuesday to three francs, on +the Thursday to six, and on Friday swept off, holus bolus, for the +proprietor's private consumption. Well, we had the start of that +proprietor. Many a good bottle came our way, and was, I think, worthily +made welcome. + +I am pleased that Mr. Gilder should like my literature; and I ask you +particularly to thank Mr. Bunner (have I the name right?) for his +notice, which was of that friendly, headlong sort that really pleases an +author like what the French call a "shake-hands." It pleased me the more +coming from the States, where I have met not much recognition, save from +the buccaneers, and above all from pirates who misspell my name. I saw +my book advertised in a number of the Critic as the work of one R. L. +Stephenson; and, I own, I boiled. It is so easy to know the name of the +man whose book you have stolen; for there it is, at full length, on the +title-page of your booty. But no, damn him, not he! He calls me +Stephenson. These woes I only refer to by the way, as they set a higher +value on the Century notice. + +I am now a person with an established ill-health--a wife--a dog +possessed with an evil, a Gadarene spirit--a chalet on a hill, looking +out over the Mediterranean--a certain reputation--and very obscure +finances. Otherwise, very much the same, I guess; and were a bottle of +Fleury a thing to be obtained, capable of developing theories along with +a fit spirit even as of yore. Yet I now draw near to the Middle Ages; +nearly three years ago, that fatal Thirty struck; and yet the great work +is not yet done--not yet even conceived. But so, as one goes on, the +wood seems to thicken, the footpath to narrow, and the House Beautiful +on the hill's summit to draw further and further away. We learn, indeed, +to use our means; but only to learn, along with it, the paralysing +knowledge that these means are only applicable to two or three poor +commonplace motives. Eight years ago, if I could have slung ink as I can +now, I should have thought myself well on the road after Shakespeare; +and now--I find I have only got a pair of walking-shoes and not yet +begun to travel. And art is still away there on the mountain summit. But +I need not continue; for, of course, this is your story just as much as +it is mine; and, strange to think, it was Shakespeare's too, and +Beethoven's, and Phidias's. It is a blessed thing that, in this forest +of art, we can pursue our woodlice and sparrows, _and not catch them_, +with almost the same fervour of exhilaration as that with which +Sophocles hunted and brought down the Mastodon. + +Tell me something of your work, and your wife.--My dear fellow, I am +yours ever, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + +My wife begs to be remembered to both of you; I cannot say as much for +my dog, who has never seen you, but he would like, on general +principles, to bite you. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + By this time _Treasure Island_ was out in book form, and the + following is in reply to some reflections on its seamanship which had + been conveyed to him through Mr. Henley:-- + + [_La Solitude, Hyeres, November 1883._] + +MY DEAR LAD,-- ... Of course, my seamanship is jimmy: did I not beseech +you I know not how often to find me an ancient mariner--and you, whose +own wife's own brother is one of the ancientest, did nothing for me? As +for my seamen, did Runciman ever know eighteenth century Buccaneers? No? +Well, no more did I. But I have known and sailed with seamen too, and +lived and eaten with them; and I made my put-up shot in no great +ignorance, but as a put-up thing has to be made, _i.e._ to be coherent +and picturesque, and damn the expense. Are they fairly lively on the +wires? Then, favour me with your tongues. Are they wooden, and dim, and +no sport? Then it is I that am silent, otherwise not. The work, strange +as it may sound in the ear, is not a work of realism. The next thing I +shall hear is that the etiquette is wrong in Otto's Court! With a +warrant, and I mean it to be so, and the whole matter never cost me half +a thought. I make these paper people to please myself, and Skelt, and +God Almighty, and with no ulterior purpose. Yet am I mortal myself; for, +as I remind you, I begged for a supervising mariner. However, my heart +is in the right place. I have been to sea, but I never crossed the +threshold of a court; and the courts shall be the way I want 'em. + +I'm glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all the +reviews I ever had; the one I liked best before that was ----'s on the +_Arabians_. These two are the flowers of the collection, according to +me. To live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans--sich is my +aspiration. + +Whenever you come you will be equally welcome. I am trying to finish +_Otto_ ere you shall arrive, so as to take and be able to enjoy a +well-earned--O yes, a well-earned--holiday. Longman fetched by _Otto_: +is it a spoon or a spoilt horn? Momentous, if the latter; if the former, +a spoon to dip much praise and pudding, and to give, I do think, much +pleasure. The last part, now in hand, much smiles upon me.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [November 1883]._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--You must not blame me too much for my silence; I am +over head and ears in work, and do not know what to do first. I have +been hard at _Otto_, hard at _Silverado_ proofs, which I have worked +over again to a tremendous extent; cutting, adding, rewriting, until +some of the worst chapters of the original are now, to my mind, as good +as any. I was the more bound to make it good, as I had such liberal +terms; it's not for want of trying if I have failed. + +I got your letter on my birthday; indeed, that was how I found it out +about three in the afternoon, when postie comes. Thank you for all you +said. As for my wife, that was the best investment ever made by man; but +"in our branch of the family" we seem to marry well. I, considering my +piles of work, am wonderfully well; I have not been so busy for I know +not how long. I hope you will send me the money I asked however, as I am +not only penniless, but shall remain so in all human probability for +some considerable time. I have got in the mass of my expectations; and +the L100 which is to float us on the new year cannot come due till +_Silverado_ is all ready; I am delaying it myself for the moment; then +will follow the binders and the travellers and an infinity of other +nuisances; and only at the last, the jingling-tingling. + +Do you know that _Treasure Island_ has appeared? In the November number +of Henley's Magazine, a capital number anyway, there is a funny +publisher's puff of it for your book; also a bad article by me. Lang +dotes on _Treasure Island_: "Except _Tom Sawyer_ and the _Odyssey_," he +writes, "I never liked any romance so much." I will inclose the letter +though. The Bogue is angelic, although very dirty. It has rained--at +last! It was jolly cold when the rain came. + +I was overjoyed to hear such good news of my father. Let him go on at +that!--Ever your affectionate, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Of the "small ships" here mentioned, _Fontainebleau_ and _The + Character of Dogs_ are well known: _A Misadventure in France_ is + probably a draft of the _Epilogue to an Inland Voyage_, not + published till five years later. The _Travelling Companion_ (of which + I remember little except that its scene was partly laid in North + Italy and that a publisher to whom it was shown declared it a work of + genius but indecent) was abandoned some two years later, as set forth + on p. 193 of this volume. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [November 1883]._ + + L10,000 Pounds Reward! + +WHEREAS Sidney Colvin, more generally known as the Guardian Angel, has +vanished from the gaze of Mr. R. L. Stevenson, the above reward is +offered as a means to discover the whereabouts of the misguided +gentleman. He was known as a man of irregular habits, and his rowdy +exterior would readily attract attention in a crowd. He was never known +to resist a drink; whisky was his favourite dish. If any one will bring +him to Mr. Stevenson's back area door, dead or alive, the greatest +rejoicing will be felt by a bereaved and uneasy family. + +Also, wherefore not a word, dear Colvin? My news is: splendid health; +great success of the _Black Arrow_; another tale demanded, readers this +time (the Lord lighten them!) pleased; a great variety of small ships +launched or still upon the stocks--(also, why not send the annotated +proof of _Fontainebleau_? ce n'est pas d'un bon camarade); a paper on +dogs for Carr;[7] a paper called _Old Mortality_, a paper called _A +Misadventure in France_, a tale entituled _The Travelling Companion_; +_Otto_ arrested one foot in air; and last and not least, a great demand +for news of Sidney Colvin and others. Herewith I pause, for why should I +cast pearls before swine? + +A word, Guardian Angel. You are much loved in this house, not by me +only, but by the wife. The Wogg himself is anxious.--Ever yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [November 1883]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been bad, but as you were worse, I feel no +shame. I raise a blooming countenance, not the evidence of a +self-righteous spirit. + +I continue my uphill fight with the twin spirits of bankruptcy and +indigestion. Duns rage about my portal, at least to fancy's ear. + +I suppose you heard of Ferrier's death: my oldest friend, except Bob. It +has much upset me. I did not fancy how much. I am strangely concerned +about it. + +My house is the loveliest spot in the universe; the moonlight nights we +have are incredible; love, poetry and music, and the Arabian Nights, +inhabit just my corner of the world--nest there like mavises. + + Here lies + The carcase + of + Robert Louis Stevenson, + An active, austere, and not inelegant + writer, + who, + at the termination of a long career, + wealthy, wise, benevolent, and honoured by + the attention of two hemispheres, + yet owned it to have been his crowning favour + TO INHABIT + LA SOLITUDE. + +(with the consent of the intelligent edility of Hyeres, he has been +interred, below this frugal stone, in the garden which he honoured for +so long with his poetic presence.) + +I must write more solemn letters. Adieu. Write. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. MILNE + + + This is to a cousin who had been one of his favourite playmates in + childhood, and had recognised some allusions in the proof slips of + the _Child's Garden_ (the piece called _A Pirate Story_). + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [November 1883]._ + +MY DEAR HENRIETTA,--Certainly; who else would they be? More by token, on +that particular occasion, you were sailing under the title of Princess +Royal; I, after a furious contest, under that of Prince Alfred; and +Willie, still a little sulky, as the Prince of Wales. We were all in a +buck basket about half-way between the swing and the gate; and I can +still see the Pirate Squadron heave in sight upon the weather bow. + +I wrote a piece besides on Giant Bunker; but I was not happily inspired, +and it is condemned. Perhaps I'll try again; he was a horrid fellow, +Giant Bunker! and some of my happiest hours were passed in pursuit of +him. You were a capital fellow to play: how few there were who could! +None better than yourself. I shall never forget some of the days at +Bridge of Allan; they were one golden dream. See "A Good Boy" in the +_Penny Whistles_, much of the sentiment of which is taken direct from +one evening at B. of A. when we had had a great play with the little +Glasgow girl. Hallowed be that fat book of fairy tales! Do you remember +acting the Fair One with Golden Locks? What a romantic drama! Generally +speaking, whenever I think of play, it is pretty certain that you will +come into my head. I wrote a paper called _Child's Play_ once, where, I +believe, you or Willie would recognise things.... + +Surely Willie is just the man to marry; and if his wife wasn't a happy +woman, I think I could tell her who was to blame. Is there no word of +it? Well, these things are beyond arrangement; and the wind bloweth +where it listeth--which, I observe, is generally towards the west in +Scotland. Here it prefers a south-easterly course, and is called the +Mistral--usually with an adjective in front. But if you will remember my +yesterday's toothache and this morning's crick, you will be in a +position to choose an adjective for yourself. Not that the wind is +unhealthy; only when it comes strong, it is both very high and very +cold, which makes it the d-v-l. But as I am writing to a lady, I had +better avoid this topic; winds requiring a great scope of language. + +Please remember me to all at home; give Ramsay a pennyworth of +acidulated drops for his good taste.--And believe me, your affectionate +cousin, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [November 22, 1883]._ + +DEAR MISS FERRIER,--Many thanks for the photograph. It is---well, it is +like most photographs. The sun is an artist of too much renown; and, at +any rate, we who knew Walter "in the brave days of old" will be +difficult to please. + +I was inexpressibly touched to get a letter from some lawyers as to some +money. I have never had any account with my friends; some have gained +and some lost; and I should feel there was something dishonest in a +partial liquidation even if I could recollect the facts, _which I +cannot_. But the fact of his having put aside this memorandum touched me +greatly. + +The mystery of his life is great. Our chemist in this place, who had +been at Malvern, recognised the picture. You may remember Walter had a +romantic affection for all pharmacies? and the bottles in the window +were for him a poem? He said once that he knew no pleasure like driving +through a lamplit city, waiting for the chemists to go by. + +All these things return now. + +He had a pretty full translation of Schiller's _AEsthetic Letters_, which +we read together, as well as the second part of _Faust_, in Gladstone +Terrace, he helping me with the German. There is no keepsake I should +more value than the MS. of that translation. They were the best days I +ever had with him, little dreaming all would so soon be over. It needs a +blow like this to convict a man of mortality and its burthen. I always +thought I should go by myself; not to survive. But now I feel as if the +earth were undermined, and all my friends have lost one thickness of +reality since that one passed. Those are happy who can take it +otherwise; with that I found things all beginning to dislimn. Here we +have no abiding city, and one felt as though he had--and O too much +acted. + +But if you tell me, he did not feel my silence. However, he must have +done so; and my guilt is irreparable now. I thank God at least heartily +that he did not resent it. + +Please remember me to Sir Alexander and Lady Grant, to whose care I will +address this. When next I am in Edinburgh I will take flowers, alas! to +the West Kirk. Many a long hour we passed in graveyards, the man who has +gone and I--or rather not that man--but the beautiful, genial, witty +youth who so betrayed him.--Dear Miss Ferrier, I am yours most +sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + This refers to some dispute which had arisen with an editor (I forget + whom) concerning the refusal of an article on Salvini. The nickname + "Fastidious Brisk," from Ben Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_, + was applied by Mr. Henley to Stevenson--very inappropriately as I + always thought. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, Autumn_ 1883. + +MY DEAR LAD,--You know your own business best; but I wish your honesty +were not so warfaring. These conflicts pain Lucretian sitters on the +shore; and one wonders--one wonders--wonders and whimpers. I do not say +my attitude is noble; but is yours conciliatory? I revere Salvini, but I +shall never see him--nor anybody--play again. That is all a matter of +history, heroic history, to me. Were I in London, I should be the liker +Tantalus--no more. But as for these quarrels: in not many years shall we +not all be clay-cold and safe below ground, you with your loud-mouthed +integrity, I with my fastidious briskness--and--with all their faults +and merits, swallowed in silence. It seems to me, in ignorance of cause, +that when the dustman has gone by, these quarrellings will prick the +conscience. Am I wrong? I am a great sinner; so, my brave friend, are +you; the others also. Let us a little imitate the divine patience and +the divine sense of humour, and smilingly tolerate those faults and +virtues that have so brief a period and so intertwined a being. + +I fear I was born a parson; but I live very near upon the margin +(though, by your leave, I may outlive you all!), and too much rigour in +these daily things sounds to me like clatter on the kitchen dishes. If +it might be--could it not be smoothed? This very day my father writes me +he has gone to see, upon his deathbed, an old friend to whom for years +he has not spoken or written. On his deathbed; no picking up of the lost +stitches; merely to say: my little fury, my spotted uprightness, after +having split our lives, have not a word of quarrel to say more. And the +same post brings me the news of another--War! Things in this troubled +medium are not so clear, dear Henley; there are faults upon all hands; +and the end comes, and Ferrier's grave gapes for us all. + + THE PROSY PREACHER + + (But written in deep dejection, my dear man). + +Suppose they _are_ wrong? Well, am I not tolerated, are you not +tolerated?--we and _our_ faults? + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, Var, 13th December 1883._ + +MY DEAR LOW,-- ... I was much pleased with what you said about my work. +Ill-health is a great handicapper in the race. I have never at command +that press of spirits that are necessary to strike out a thing red-hot. +_Silverado_ is an example of stuff worried and pawed about, God knows +how often, in poor health, and you can see for yourself the result: good +pages, an imperfect fusion, a certain languor of the whole. Not, in +short, art. I have told Roberts to send you a copy of the book when it +appears, where there are some fair passages that will be new to you. My +brief romance, _Prince Otto_--far my most difficult adventure up to +now--is near an end. I have still one chapter to write _de fond en +comble_, and three or four to strengthen or recast. The rest is done. I +do not know if I have made a spoon, or only spoiled a horn; but I am +tempted to hope the first. If the present bargain hold, it will not see +the light of day for some thirteen months. Then I shall be glad to know +how it strikes you. There is a good deal of stuff in it, both dramatic +and, I think, poetic; and the story is not like these purposeless fables +of to-day, but is, at least, intended to stand firm upon a base of +philosophy--or morals--as you please. It has been long gestated, and is +wrought with care. _Enfin, nous verrons._ My labours have this year for +the first time been rewarded with upwards of L350; that of itself, so +base we are! encourages me; and the better tenor of my health yet +more.--Remember me to Mrs. Low, and believe me, yours most sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, December 20, 1883._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I do not know which of us is to blame; I suspect it is +you this time. The last accounts of you were pretty good, I was pleased +to see; I am, on the whole, very well--suffering a little still from my +fever and liver complications, but better. + +I have just finished re-reading a book, which I counsel you above all +things _not_ to read, as it has made me very ill, and would make you +worse--Lockhart's _Scott_. It is worth reading, as all things are from +time to time that keep us nose to nose with fact; though I think such +reading may be abused, and that a great deal of life is better spent in +reading of a light and yet chivalrous strain. Thus, no Waverley novel +approaches in power, blackness, bitterness, and moral elevation to the +diary and Lockhart's narrative of the end; and yet the Waverley novels +are better reading for every day than the Life. You may take a tonic +daily, but not phlebotomy. + +The great double danger of taking life too easily, and taking it too +hard, how difficult it is to balance that! But we are all too little +inclined to faith; we are all, in our serious moments, too much inclined +to forget that all are sinners, and fall justly by their faults, and +therefore that we have no more to do with that than with the +thundercloud; only to trust, and do our best, and wear as smiling a face +as may be for others and ourselves. But there is no royal road among +this complicated business. Hegel the German got the best word of all +philosophy with his antinomies: the contrary of everything is its +postulate. That is, of course, grossly expressed, but gives a hint of +the idea, which contains a great deal of the mysteries of religion, and +a vast amount of the practical wisdom of life. For your part, there is +no doubt as to your duty--to take things easy and be as happy as you +can, for your sake, and my mother's, and that of many besides. Excuse +this sermon.--Ever your loving son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, December 25, 1883._ + +MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--This it is supposed will reach you about +Christmas, and I believe I should include Lloyd in the greeting. But I +want to lecture my father; he is not grateful enough; he is like Fanny; +his resignation is not the "true blue." A man who has gained a stone; +whose son is better, and, after so many fears to the contrary, I dare to +say, a credit to him; whose business is arranged; whose marriage is a +picture--what I should call resignation in such a case as his would be +to "take down his fiddle and play as lood as ever he could." That and +nought else. And now, you dear old pious ingrate, on this Christmas +morning, think what your mercies have been; and do not walk too far +before your breakfast--as far as to the top of India Street, then to the +top of Dundas Street, and then to your ain stair heid; and do not forget +that even as _laborare_, so _joculari_, _est orare_; and to be happy the +first step to being pious. + +I have as good as finished my novel, and a hard job it has been--but now +practically over, _laus deo_! My financial prospects better than ever +before; my excellent wife a touch dolorous, like Mr. Tommy; my Bogue +quite converted, and myself in good spirits. O, send Curry Powder per +Baxter. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _[La Solitude, Hyeres] last Sunday of '83._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I give my father up. I give him a parable: that the +Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the tragic Life. +And he takes it backside foremost, and shakes his head, and is gloomier +than ever. Tell him that I give him up. I don't want no such a parent. +This is not the man for my money. I do not call that by the name of +religion which fills a man with bile. I write him a whole letter, +bidding him beware of extremes, and telling him that his gloom is +gallows-worthy; and I get back an answer--Perish the thought of it. + +Here am I on the threshold of another year, when, according to all human +foresight, I should long ago have been resolved into my elements; here +am I, who you were persuaded was born to disgrace you--and, I will do +you the justice to add, on no such insufficient grounds--no very burning +discredit when all is done; here am I married, and the marriage +recognised to be a blessing of the first order, A1 at Lloyd's. There is +he, at his not first youth, able to take more exercise than I at +thirty-three, and gaining a stone's weight, a thing of which I am +incapable. There are you; has the man no gratitude? There is +Smeoroch[8]: is he blind? Tell him from me that all this is + + NOT THE TRUE BLUE! + +I will think more of his prayers when I see in him a spirit of _praise_. +Piety is a more childlike and happy attitude than he admits. Martha, +Martha, do you hear the knocking at the door? But Mary was happy. Even +the Shorter Catechism, not the merriest epitome of religion, and a work +exactly as pious although not quite so true as the multiplication +table--even that dry-as-dust epitome begins with a heroic note. What is +man's chief end? Let him study that; and ask himself if to refuse to +enjoy God's kindest gifts is in the spirit indicated. Up, Dullard! It is +better service to enjoy a novel than to mump. + +I have been most unjust to the Shorter Catechism, I perceive. I wish to +say that I keenly admire its merits as a performance; and that all that +was in my mind was its peculiarly unreligious and unmoral texture; from +which defect it can never, of course, exercise the least influence on +the minds of children. But they learn fine style and some austere +thinking unconsciously.--Ever your loving son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var, January 1 (1884)._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--A Good New Year to you. The year closes, leaving me +with L50 in the bank, owing no man nothing, L100 more due to me in a +week or so, and L150 more in the course of the month; and I can look +back on a total receipt of L465, 0s. 6d. for the last twelve months! + +And yet I am not happy! + +Yet I beg! Here is my beggary:-- + + 1. Sellar's Trial. + 2. George Borrow's Book about Wales. + 3. My Grandfather's Trip to Holland. + 4. And (but this is, I fear, impossible) the Bell Rock Book. + +When I think of how last year began, after four months of sickness and +idleness, all my plans gone to water, myself starting alone, a kind of +spectre, for Nice--should I not be grateful? Come, let us sing unto the +Lord! + +Nor should I forget the expected visit, but I will not believe in that +till it befall; I am no cultivator of disappointments, 'tis a herb that +does not grow in my garden; but I get some good crops both of remorse +and gratitude. The last I can recommend to all gardeners; it grows best +in shiny weather, but once well grown, is very hardy; it does not +require much labour; only that the husbandman should smoke his pipe +about the flower-plots and admire God's pleasant wonders. Winter green +(otherwise known as Resignation, or the "false gratitude plant") springs +in much the same soil; is little hardier, if at all; and requires to be +so dug about and dunged, that there is little margin left for profit. +The variety known as the Black Winter green (H. V. Stevensoniana) is +rather for ornament than profit. + +"John, do you see that bed of resignation?"--"It's doin' bravely, +sir."--"John, I will not have it in my garden; it flatters not the eye +and comforts not the stomach; root it out."--"Sir, I ha'e seen o' them +that rase as high as nettles; gran' plants!"--"What then? Were they as +tall as alps, if still unsavoury and bleak, what matters it? Out with +it, then; and in its place put Laughter and a Good Conceit (that capital +home evergreen), and a bush of Flowering Piety--but see it be the +flowering sort--the other species is no ornament to any gentleman's Back +Garden." + + JNO. BUNYAN. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Early in January, Stevenson, after a week's visit at Hyeres from his + friends Charles Baxter and W. E. Henley, accompanied them as far as + Nice, and there suddenly went down with an attack of acute + congestion, first of the lungs and then of the kidneys. At one moment + there seemed no hope, but he recovered slowly and returned to Hyeres. + His friends had not written during his illness, fearing him to be too + far gone to care for letters. As he got better he began to chafe at + their silence. + + _[Hyeres, February or March 1884]._ + + + TANDEM DESINO* + +I cannot read, work, sleep, lie still, walk, or even play patience. +These plagues will overtake all damned silencists; among whom, from this +day out, number + + Eructavit cor Timonis.** + + the fiery indignator + Roland Little Stevenson. + + I counted miseries by the heap, + But now have had my fill, + I cannot see, I do not sleep, + _But shortly I shall kill_. + + Of many letters, here is a + Full End. + + The last will and testament of + a demitting correspondent. + + My indefatigable pen + I here lay down forever. Men + Have used, and left me, and forgot; + Men are entirely off the spot; + Men are a _blague_ and an abuse; + And I commit them to the deuce! + + RODERICK LAMOND STEVENSON. + + I had companions, I had friends, + I had of whisky various blends. + The whisky was all drunk; and lo! + The friends were gone for evermo! + + * * * * * + + The loquacious man at peace.* + + And when I marked the ingratitude, + I to my maker turned, and spewed. + + RANDOLPH LOVEL STEVENSON. + + + A pen broken, a subverted ink-pot. + + Here endeth the Familiar Correspondence of R. L. S.** + + Explicuerunt Epistolae Stevensonianae Omnes.** + + All men are rot; but there are two-- + Sidney, the oblivious Slade, and you-- + Who from that rabble stand confest + Ten million times the rottenest. + + R. L. S. + + + When I was sick and safe in gaol + I thought my friends would never fail. + One wrote me nothing; t'other bard + Sent me an insolent post-card. + + R. L. S. + + + Terminus: Silentia.** + + FINIS Finaliter finium** + +IF NOBODY WRITES TO ME I SHALL DIE + +I now write no more. + + RICHARD LEFANU STEVENSON, + Duke of Indignation + + Mark Tacebo, Isaac Blood } + Secretary John Blind } + Vain-hope Go-to-bed } witnesses + Israel Sciatica } + + ----- + The finger on the mouth. + ----- + +* Originally reversed print. +** Originally sideways print. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The allusions in the second paragraph are to the commanders in the + Nile campaigns of those years. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, 9th March 1884._ + +MY DEAR S. C.,--You will already have received a not very sane note from +me; so your patience was rewarded--may I say, your patient silence? +However, now comes a letter, which on receipt, I thus acknowledge. + +I have already expressed myself as to the political aspect. About +Grahame, I feel happier; it does seem to have been really a good, neat, +honest piece of work. We do not seem to be so badly off for commanders: +Wolseley and Roberts, and this pile of Woods, Stewarts, Alisons, +Grahames, and the like. Had we but ONE statesman on any side of the +house! + +Two chapters of _Otto_ do remain: one to rewrite, one to create; and I +am not yet able to tackle them. For me it is my chief o' works; hence +probably not so for others, since it only means that I have here +attacked the greatest difficulties. But some chapters towards the end: +three in particular--I do think come off. I find them stirring, +dramatic, and not unpoetical. We shall see, however; as like as not, +the effort will be more obvious than the success. For, of course, I +strung myself hard to carry it out. The next will come easier, and +possibly be more popular. I believe in the covering of much paper, each +time with a definite and not too difficult artistic purpose; and then, +from time to time, drawing oneself up and trying, in a superior effort, +to combine the facilities thus acquired or improved. Thus one +progresses. But, mind, it is very likely that the big effort, instead of +being the masterpiece, may be the blotted copy, the gymnastic exercise. +This no man can tell; only the brutal and licentious public, snouting in +Mudie's wash-trough, can return a dubious answer. + +I am to-day, thanks to a pure heaven and a beneficent, loud-talking, +antiseptic mistral, on the high places as to health and spirits. Money +holds out wonderfully. Fanny has gone for a drive to certain meadows +which are now one sheet of jonquils: sea-bound meadows, the thought of +which may freshen you in Bloomsbury. "Ye have been fresh and fair, Ye +have been filled with flowers"--I fear I misquote. Why do people babble? +Surely Herrick, in his true vein, is superior to Martial himself, though +Martial is a very pretty poet. + +Did you ever read St. Augustine? The first chapters of the _Confessions_ +are marked by a commanding genius: Shakespearian in depth. I was struck +dumb, but, alas! when you begin to wander into controversy, the poet +drops out. His description of infancy is most seizing. And how is this: +"Sed majorum nugae negotia vocantur; puerorum autem talia cum sint +puniuntur a majoribus." Which is quite after the heart of R. L. S. See +also his splendid passage about the "luminosus limes amicitiae" and the +"nebulae de limosa concupiscentia carnis"; going on "_Utrumque_ in +confuso aestuabat et rapiebat imbecillam aetatem per abrupta +cupiditatum." That "Utrumque" is a real contribution to life's science. +Lust _alone_ is but a pigmy; but it never, or rarely, attacks us +single-handed. + +Do you ever read (to go miles off, indeed) the incredible Barbey +d'Aurevilly? A psychological Poe--to be for a moment Henley. I own with +pleasure I prefer him with all his folly, rot, sentiment, and mixed +metaphors, to the whole modern school in France. It makes me laugh when +it's nonsense; and when he gets an effect (though it's still nonsense +and mere Poery, not poesy) it wakens me. _Ce qui ne meurt pas_ nearly +killed me with laughing, and left me--well, it left me very nearly +admiring the old ass. At least, it's the kind of thing one feels one +couldn't do. The dreadful moonlight, when they all three sit silent in +the room--by George, sir, it's imagined--and the brief scene between the +husband and wife is all there. _Quant au fond_, the whole thing, of +course, is a fever dream, and worthy of eternal laughter. Had the young +man broken stones, and the two women been hard-working honest +prostitutes, there had been an end of the whole immoral and baseless +business: you could at least have respected them in that case. + +I also read _Petronius Arbiter_, which is a rum work, not so immoral as +most modern works, but singularly silly. I tackled some Tacitus too. I +got them with a dreadful French crib on the same page with the text, +which helps me along and drives me mad. The French do not even try to +translate. They try to be much more classical than the classics, with +astounding results of barrenness and tedium. Tacitus, I fear, was too +solid for me. I liked the war part; but the dreary intriguing at Rome +was too much. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. DICK + + + This correspondent was for many years head clerk and confidential + assistant in the family firm at Edinburgh. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, 12th March 1884._ + +MY DEAR MR. DICK,--I have been a great while owing you a letter; but I +am not without excuses, as you have heard. I overworked to get a piece +of work finished before I had my holiday, thinking to enjoy it more; and +instead of that, the machinery near hand came sundry in my hands! like +Murdie's uniform. However, I am now, I think, in a fair way of recovery; +I think I was made, what there is of me, of whipcord and thorn-switches; +surely I am tough! But I fancy I shall not overdrive again, or not so +long. It is my theory that work is highly beneficial, but that it +should, if possible, and certainly for such partially broken-down +instruments as the thing I call my body, be taken in batches, with a +clear break and breathing space between. I always do vary my work, +laying one thing aside to take up another, not merely because I believe +it rests the brain, but because I have found it most beneficial to the +result. Reading, Bacon says, makes a full man, but what makes me full on +any subject is to banish it for a time from all my thoughts. However, +what I now propose is, out of every quarter to work two months, and rest +the third. I believe I shall get more done, as I generally manage, on my +present scheme, to have four months' impotent illness and two of +imperfect health--one before, one after, I break down. This, at least, +is not an economical division of the year. + +I re-read the other day that heartbreaking book, the _Life of Scott_. +One should read such works now and then, but O, not often. As I live, I +feel more and more that literature should be cheerful and +brave-spirited, even if it cannot be made beautiful and pious and +heroic. We wish it to be a green place; the Waverley Novels are better +to re-read than the over-true _Life_, fine as dear Sir Walter was. The +Bible, in most parts, is a cheerful book; it is our little piping +theologies, tracts, and sermons that are dull and dowie; and even the +Shorter Catechism, which is scarcely a work of consolation, opens with +the best and shortest and completest sermon ever written--upon Man's +chief end.--Believe me, my dear Mr. Dick, very sincerely yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--You see I have changed my hand. I was threatened apparently with +scrivener's cramp, and at any rate had got to write so small, that the +revisal of my MS. tried my eyes, hence my signature alone remains upon +the old model; for it appears that if I changed that, I should be cut +off from my "vivers." + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO COSMO MONKHOUSE + + + This amiable and excellent public servant, art-critic, and versifier + was a friend of old Savile Club days; the drift of his letter can + easily be guessed from this reply. The reference to Lamb is to the + essay on the Restoration dramatists. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, March 16, 1884._ + +MY DEAR MONKHOUSE,--You see with what promptitude I plunge into +correspondence; but the truth is, I am condemned to a complete inaction, +stagnate dismally, and love a letter. Yours, which would have been +welcome at any time, was thus doubly precious. + +Dover sounds somewhat shiveringly in my ears. You should see the weather +_I_ have--cloudless, clear as crystal, with just a punkah-draft of the +most aromatic air, all pine and gum tree. You would be ashamed of Dover; +you would scruple to refer, sir, to a spot so paltry. To be idle at +Dover is a strange pretension; pray, how do you warm yourself? If I were +there I should grind knives or write blank verse, or---- But at least +you do not bathe? It is idle to deny it: I have--I may say I nourish--a +growing jealousy of the robust, large-legged, healthy Britain-dwellers, +patient of grog, scorners of the timid umbrella, innocuously breathing +fog: all which I once was, and I am ashamed to say liked it. How +ignorant is youth! grossly rolling among unselected pleasures; and how +nobler, purer, sweeter, and lighter, to sip the choice tonic, to recline +in the luxurious invalid chair, and to tread, well-shawled, the little +round of the constitutional. Seriously, do you like to repose? Ye gods, +I hate it. I never rest with any acceptation; I do not know what people +mean who say they like sleep and that damned bedtime which, since long +ere I was breeched, has rung a knell to all my day's doings and beings. +And when a man, seemingly sane, tells me he has "fallen in love with +stagnation," I can only say to him, "You will never be a Pirate!" This +may not cause any regret to Mrs. Monkhouse; but in your own soul it will +clang hollow--think of it! Never! After all boyhood's aspirations and +youth's immoral day-dreams, you are condemned to sit down, grossly draw +in your chair to the fat board, and be a beastly Burgess till you die. +Can it be? Is there not some escape, some furlough from the Moral Law, +some holiday jaunt contrivable into a Better Land? Shall we never shed +blood? This prospect is too grey. + + Here lies a man who never did + Anything but what he was bid; + Who lived his life in paltry ease, + And died of commonplace disease. + +To confess plainly, I had intended to spend my life (or any leisure I +might have from Piracy upon the high seas) as the leader of a great +horde of irregular cavalry, devastating whole valleys. I can still, +looking back, see myself in many favourite attitudes; signalling for a +boat from my pirate ship with a pocket-handkerchief, I at the jetty end, +and one or two of my bold blades keeping the crowd at bay; or else +turning in the saddle to look back at my whole command (some five +thousand strong) following me at the hand-gallop up the road out of the +burning valley: this last by moonlight. + +_Et point du tout._ I am a poor scribe, and have scarce broken a +commandment to mention, and have recently dined upon cold veal! As for +you (who probably had some ambitions), I hear of you living at Dover, in +lodgings, like the beasts of the field. But in heaven, when we get +there, we shall have a good time, and see some real carnage. For heaven +is--must be--that great Kingdom of Antinomia, which Lamb saw dimly +adumbrated in the _Country Wife_, where the worm which never dies (the +conscience) peacefully expires, and the sinner lies down beside the Ten +Commandments. Till then, here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling, with +neither health nor vice for anything more spirited than procrastination, +which I may well call the Consolation Stakes of Wickedness; and by whose +diligent practice, without the least amusement to ourselves, we can rob +the orphan and bring down grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. + +This astonishing gush of nonsense I now hasten to close, envelope, and +expedite to Shakespeare's Cliff. Remember me to Shakespeare, and believe +me, yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + Mr. Gosse had written describing the office which he then occupied, a + picturesque old-fashioned chamber in the upper stories of the Board + of Trade. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, March 17, 1884._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--Your office--office is profanely said--your bower upon +the leads is divine. Have you, like Pepys, "the right to fiddle" there? +I see you mount the companion, barbiton in hand, and, fluttered about by +city sparrows, pour forth your spirit in a voluntary. Now when the +spring begins, you must lay in your flowers: how do you say about a +potted hawthorn? Would it bloom? Wallflower is a choice pot-herb; +lily-of-the-valley, too, and carnation, and Indian cress trailed about +the window, is not only beautiful by colour, but the leaves are good to +eat. I recommend thyme and rosemary for the aroma, which should not be +left upon one side; they are good quiet growths. + +On one of your tables keep a great map spread out; a chart is still +better--it takes one further--the havens with their little anchors, the +rocks, banks, and soundings, are adorably marine; and such furniture +will suit your ship-shape habitation. I wish I could see those cabins; +they smile upon me with the most intimate charm. From your leads, do you +behold St. Paul's? I always like to see the Foolscap; it is London _per +se_ and no spot from which it is visible is without romance. Then it is +good company for the man of letters, whose veritable nursing +Pater-Noster is so near at hand. + +I am all at a standstill; as idle as a painted ship, but not so pretty. +My romance, which has so nearly butchered me in the writing, not even +finished; though so near, thank God, that a few days of tolerable +strength will see the roof upon that structure. I have worked very hard +at it, and so do not expect any great public favour. _In moments of +effort, one learns to do the easy things that people like._ There is the +golden maxim; thus one should strain and then play, strain again and +play again. The strain is for us, it educates; the play is for the +reader, and pleases. Do you not feel so? We are ever threatened by two +contrary faults: both deadly. To sink into what my forefathers would +have called "rank conformity," and to pour forth cheap replicas, upon +the one hand; upon the other, and still more insidiously present, to +forget that art is a diversion and a decoration, that no triumph or +effort is of value, nor anything worth reaching except charm.--Yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + Soon after the date of the following letter Miss Ferrier went out to + her friends and stayed with them through the trying weeks which + followed. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres_ [_March_ 22, 1884]. + +MY DEAR MISS FERRIER,--Are you really going to fail us? This seems a +dreadful thing. My poor wife, who is not well off for friends on this +bare coast, has been promising herself, and I have been promising her, a +rare acquisition. And now Miss Burn has failed, and you utter a very +doubtful note. You do not know how delightful this place is, nor how +anxious we are for a visit. Look at the names: "The Solitude"--is that +romantic? The palm-trees?--how is that for the gorgeous East? "Var"? the +name of a river--"the quiet waters by"! 'Tis true, they are in another +department, and consist of stones and a biennial spate; but what a +music, what a plash of brooks, for the imagination! We have hills; we +have skies; the roses are putting forth, as yet sparsely; the meadows by +the sea are one sheet of jonquils; the birds sing as in an English +May--for, considering we are in France and serve up our song-birds, I am +ashamed to say, on a little field of toast and with a sprig of thyme (my +own receipt) in their most innocent and now unvocal bellies--considering +all this, we have a wonderfully fair wood-music round this Solitude of +ours. What can I say more?--All this awaits you. _Kennst du das Land_, +in short.--Your sincere friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The verses enclosed were the set entitled "The Canoe Speaks," + afterwards printed in _Underwoods_. Stevenson was suffering at this + time from a temporary weakness of the eyesight. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [April 1884]._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--The blind man in these sprawled lines sends greeting. I +have been ill, as perhaps the papers told you. The news--"great +news--glorious news--sec-ond ed-ition!"--went the round in England. + +Anyway, I now thank you for your pictures, which, particularly the +Arcadian one, we all (Bob included, he was here sick-nursing me) much +liked. + +Herewith are a set of verses which I thought pretty enough to send to +press. Then I thought of the Manhattan, towards whom I have guilty and +compunctious feelings. Last, I had the best thought of all--to send them +to you in case you might think them suitable for illustration. It seemed +to me quite in your vein. If so, good; if not, hand them on to +Manhattan, Century, or Lippincott, at your pleasure, as all three desire +my work or pretend to. But I trust the lines will not go unattended. +Some riverside will haunt you; and O! be tender to my bathing girls. The +lines are copied in my wife's hand, as I cannot see to write otherwise +than with the pen of Cormoran, Gargantua, or Nimrod. Love to your +wife.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + +Copied it myself. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, April 19, 1884._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--Yesterday I very powerfully stated the _Haeresis +Stevensoniana_, or the complete body of divinity of the family +theologian, to Miss Ferrier. She was much impressed; so was I. You are a +great heresiarch; and I know no better. Whaur the devil did ye get thon +about the soap? Is it altogether your own? I never heard it elsewhere; +and yet I suspect it must have been held at some time or other, and if +you were to look up you would probably find yourself condemned by some +Council. + +I am glad to hear you are so well. The hear is excellent. The Cornhills +came; I made Miss Ferrier read us _Thrawn Janet_, and was quite bowled +over by my own works. _The Merry Men_ I mean to make much longer, with a +whole new denouement, not yet quite clear to me. _The Story of a Lie_ I +must rewrite entirely also, as it is too weak and ragged, yet is worth +saving for the Admiral. Did I ever tell you that the Admiral was +recognised in America? + +When they are all on their legs this will make an excellent collection. + + +Has Davie never read _Guy Mannering_, _Rob Roy_, or _The Antiquary_? All +of which are worth three _Waverleys_. I think _Kenilworth_ better than +_Waverley_; _Nigel_, too; and _Quentin Durward_ about as good. But it +shows a true piece of insight to prefer _Waverley_, for it _is_ +different; and though not quite coherent, better worked in parts than +almost any other: surely more carefully. It is undeniable that the love +of the slap-dash and the shoddy grew upon Scott with success. Perhaps it +does on many of us, which may be the granite on which D.'s opinion +stands. However, I hold it, in Patrick Walker's phrase, for an "old, +condemned, damnable error." Dr. Simson was condemned by P. W. as being +"a bagful of" such. One of Patrick's amenities! + +Another ground there may be to D.'s opinion; those who avoid (or seek to +avoid) Scott's facility are apt to be continually straining and +torturing their style to get in more of life. And to many the extra +significance does not redeem the strain. + + DOCTOR STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, April 20th, 1884._ + +I have been really ill for two days, hemorrhage, weakness, extreme +nervousness that will not let me lie a moment, and damned sciatica o' +nights; but to-day I am on the recovery. Time; for I was miserable. It +is not often that I suffer, with all my turns and tumbles, from the +sense of serious illness; and I hate it, as I believe everybody does. +And then the combination of not being able to read, not being allowed to +speak, being too weak to write, and not wishing to eat, leaves a man +with some empty seconds. But I bless God, it's over now; to-day I am +much mended. + +Insatiable gulf, greedier than hell, and more silent than the woods of +Styx, have you or have you not lost the dedication to the _Child's +Garden_? Answer that plain question as otherwise I must try to tackle to +it once again. + +Sciatica is a word employed much by Shakespeare in a certain connection. +'Tis true, he was no physician, but as I read, he had smarted in his +day. I, too, do smart. And yet this keen soprano agony, these veins of +fire and bombshell explosions in the knee, are as nothing to a certain +dull, drowsy pain I had when my kidneys were congested at Nice; there +was death in that; the creak of Charon's rowlocks, and the miasmas of +the Styx. I may say plainly, much as I have lost the power of bearing +pain, I had still rather suffer much than die. Not only the love of life +grows on me, but the fear of certain odd end-seconds grows as well. 'Tis +a suffocating business, take it how you will; and Tyrrel and Forest only +bunglers. + +Well, this is an essay on death, or worse, on dying: to return to +daylight and the winds, I perceive I have grown to live too much in my +work and too little in life. 'Tis the dollars do it: the world is too +much. Whenever I think I would like to live a little, I hear the +butcher's cart resounding through the neighbourhood; and so to plunge +again. The fault is a good fault for me; to be able to do so, is to +succeed in life; and my life has been a huge success. I can live with +joy and without disgust in the art by which I try to support myself; I +have the best wife in the world; I have rather more praise and nearly as +much coin as I deserve; my friends are many and true-hearted. Sir, it is +a big thing in successes. And if mine anchorage lies something open to +the wind, Sciatica, if the crew are blind, and the captain spits blood, +one cannot have all, and I may be patched up again, who knows? "His +timbers yet are (indifferently) sound, and he may float again." + +Thanks for the word on _Silverado_.--Yours ever, + + THE SCIATICATED BARD. + + + + +TO TREVOR HADDON + + + The allusions to Skelt, the last of the designers and etchers of + cheap sheets illustrating the popular dramas and melodramas of the + day, will need no explanation to readers familiar with the essay _A + Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured_. + + _La Solitude, Hyeres, April 23rd, 1884._ + +DEAR MR. HADDON,--I am pleased to see your hand again, and, waiting my +wife's return, to guess at some of the contents. For various things have +befallen me of late. First, as you see, I had to change my hand; lastly +I have fallen into a kind of blindness, and cannot read. This more +inclines me for something to do, to answer your letter before I have +read it, a safe plan familiar to diplomatists. + +I gather from half shut eyes that you were a Skeltist; now seriously +that is a good beginning; there is a deal of romance (cheap) in Skelt. +Look at it well, and you will see much of Dickens. And even Skelt is +better than conscientious, grey back-gardens, and conscientious, dull +still lives. The great lack of art just now is a spice of life and +interest; and I prefer galvanism to acquiescence in the grave. All do +not; 'tis an affair of tastes; and mine are young. Those who like death +have their innings to-day with art that is like mahogany and horse-hair +furniture, solid, true, serious and as dead as Caesar. I wish I could +read _Treasure Island_; I believe I should like it. But work done, for +the artist, is the Golden Goose killed; you sell its feathers and lament +the eggs. To-morrow the fresh woods! + +I have been seriously ill, and do not pick up with that finality that I +should like to see. I linger over and digest my convalescence like a +favourite wine; and what with blindness, green spectacles, and +seclusion, cut but a poor figure in the world. + +I made out at the end that you were asking some advice--but what, my +failing eyes refuse to inform me. I must keep a sheet for the answer; +and Mrs. Stevenson still delays, and still I have no resource against +tedium but the waggling of this pen. + +You seem to me to be a pretty lucky young man; keep your eyes open to +your mercies. That part of piety is eternal; and the man who forgets to +be grateful has fallen asleep in life. Please to recognise that you are +unworthy of all that befalls you--unworthy, too, I hear you wail, of +this terrible sermon; but indeed we are not worthy of our fortunes; love +takes us in a counterfeit, success comes to us at play, health stays +with us while we abuse her; and even when we gird at our fellow-men, we +should remember that it is of their good will alone, that we still live +and still have claims to honour. The sins of the most innocent, if they +were exactly visited, would ruin them to the doer. And if you know any +man who believes himself to be worthy of a wife's love, a friend's +affection, a mistress's caress, even if venal, you may rest assured he +is worthy of nothing but a kicking. I fear men who have no open faults; +what do they conceal? We are not meant to be good in this world, but to +try to be, and fail, and keep on trying; and when we get a cake to say, +"Thank God!" and when we get a buffet, to say, "Just so: well hit!" + +I have been getting some of the buffets of late; but have amply earned +them--you need not pity me. Pity sick children and the individual poor +man; not the mass. Don't pity anybody else, and never pity fools. The +optimistic Stevenson; but there is a sense in these wanderings. + +Now I have heard your letter, and my sermon was not mal-a-propos. For +you seem to be complaining. Everybody's home is depressing, I believe; +it is their difficult business to make it less so. There is an +unpleasant saying, which would have pricked me sharply at your +age.--Yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO COSMO MONKHOUSE + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [April 24, 1884]._ + +DEAR MONKHOUSE,--If you are in love with repose, here is your occasion: +change with me. I am too blind to read, hence no reading; I am too weak +to walk, hence no walking; I am not allowed to speak, hence no talking; +but the great simplification has yet to be named; for, if this goes on, +I shall soon have nothing to eat--and hence, O Hallelujah! hence no +eating. The offer is a fair one: I have not sold myself to the devil, +for I could never find him. I am married, but so are you. I sometimes +write verses, but so do you. Come! _Hic quies!_ As for the commandments, +I have broken them so small that they are the dust of my chambers; you +walk upon them, triturate and toothless; and with the Golosh of +Philosophy, they shall not bite your heel. True, the tenement is +falling. Ay, friend, but yours also. Take a larger view; what is a year +or two? dust in the balance! 'Tis done, behold you Cosmo Stevenson, and +me R. L. Monkhouse; you at Hyeres, I in London; you rejoicing in the +clammiest repose, me proceeding to tear your tabernacle into rags, as I +have already so admirably torn my own. + +My place to which I now introduce you--it is yours--is like a London +house, high and very narrow; upon the lungs I will not linger; the heart +is large enough for a ballroom; the belly greedy and inefficient; the +brain stocked with the most damnable explosives, like a dynamiter's den. +The whole place is well furnished, though not in a very pure taste; +Corinthian much of it; showy and not strong. + +About your place I shall try to find my way above, an interesting +exploration. Imagine me, as I go to bed, falling over a blood-stained +remorse; opening that cupboard in the cerebellum and being welcomed by +the spirit of your murdered uncle. I should probably not like your +remorses; I wonder if you will like mine; I have a spirited assortment; +they whistle in my ear o' nights like a north-easter. I trust yours +don't dine with the family; mine are better mannered; you will hear +nought of them till 2 A.M., except one, to be sure, that I have made a +pet of, but he is small; I keep him in buttons, so as to avoid +commentaries; you will like him much--if you like what is genuine. + +Must we likewise change religions? Mine is a good article, with a trick +of stopping; cathedral bell note; ornamental dial; supported by Venus +and the Graces; quite a summer-parlour piety. Of yours, since your last, +I fear there is little to be said. + +There is one article I wish to take away with me: my spirits. They suit +me. I don't want yours; I like my own; I have had them a long while in +bottle. It is my only reservation.--Yours (as you decide), + + R. L. MONKHOUSE. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _La Solitude, Hyeres [May 1884]._ + +DEAR BOY,--_Old Mortality_[9] is out, and I am glad to say Coggie likes +it. We like her immensely. + +I keep better, but no great shakes yet; cannot work--cannot: that is +flat, not even verses: as for prose, that more active place is shut on +me long since. + +My view of life is essentially the comic; and the romantically comic. +_As You Like It_ is to me the most bird-haunted spot in letters; +_Tempest_ and _Twelfth Night_ follow. These are what I mean by poetry +and nature. I make an effort of my mind to be quite one with Moliere, +except upon the stage, where his inimitable _jeux de scene_ beggar +belief; but you will observe they are stage-plays--things _ad hoc_; not +great Olympian debauches of the heart and fancy; hence more perfect, and +not so great. Then I come, after great wanderings, to Carmosine and to +Fantasio; to one part of La Derniere Aldini (which, by the by, we might +dramatise in a week), to the notes that Meredith has found, Evan and the +postillion, Evan and Rose, Harry in Germany. And to me these things are +the good; beauty, touched with sex and laughter; beauty with God's earth +for the background. Tragedy does not seem to me to come off; and when it +does, it does so by the heroic illusion; the anti-masque has been +omitted; laughter, which attends on all our steps in life, and sits by +the deathbed, and certainly redacts the epitaph, laughter has been lost +from these great-hearted lies. But the comedy which keeps the beauty and +touches the terrors of our life (laughter and tragedy-in-a-good-humour +having kissed), that is the last word of moved representation; embracing +the greatest number of elements of fate and character; and telling its +story, not with the one eye of pity, but with the two of pity and mirth. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + Early in May Stevenson again fell very dangerously ill with + hemorrhage of the lungs, and lay for several weeks between life and + death, until towards the end of June he was brought sufficiently + round to venture by slow stages on the journey to England, staying + for two or three weeks at Royat on the way. His correspondent had + lately been appointed Clark Reader in English Literature at Trinity + College, Cambridge. + + _[La Solitude, Hyeres] From my bed, May 29, 1884._ + +DEAR GOSSE,--The news of the Professorate found me in the article +of--well, of heads or tails; I am still in bed, and a very poor person. +You must thus excuse my damned delay; but, I assure you, I was +delighted. You will believe me the more, if I confess to you that my +first sentiment was envy; yes, sir, on my blood-boltered couch I envied +the professor. However, it was not of long duration; the double thought +that you deserved and that you would thoroughly enjoy your success fell +like balsam on my wounds. How came it that you never communicated my +rejection of Gilder's offer for the Rhone? But it matters not. Such +earthly vanities are over for the present. This has been a fine +well-conducted illness. A month in bed; a month of silence; a fortnight +of not stirring my right hand; a month of not moving without being +lifted. Come! _Ca y est_: devilish like being dead.--Yours, dear +Professor, academically, + + R. L. S. + + +I am soon to be moved to Royat; an invalid valet goes with me! I got him +cheap--second-hand. + +In turning over my late friend Ferrier's commonplace book, I find three +poems from _Viol and Flute_ copied out in his hand: "When Flower-time," +"Love in Winter," and "Mistrust." They are capital too. But I thought +the fact would interest you. He was no poetist either; so it means the +more. "Love in W.!" I like the best. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Enclosing some supplementary verses for the _Child's Garden_. + + _Marseilles, June 1884._ + +DEAR S. C.,--Are these four in time? No odds about order. I am at +Marseille and stood the journey wonderfully. Better address Hotel +Chabassiere, Royat, Puy de Dome. You see how this d--d poeshie flows +from me in sickness: Are they good or bad? Wha kens? But I like the +_Little Land_, I think, as well as any. As time goes on I get more fancy +in. We have no money, but a valet and a maid. The valet is no end; how +long can you live on a valet? Vive le valet! I am tempted to call myself +a valetudinarian. I love my love with a V because he is a +Valetudinarian; I took him to Valetta or Valais, gave him his Vails and +tenderly addressed him with one word, + + Vale. + + +_P.S._--It does not matter of course about order. As soon as I have all +the slips I shall organise the book for the publisher. A set of 8 will +be put together under the title _An Only Child_; another cycle of 10 +will be called _In the Garden_, and other six called _Bedtime_ to end +all up. It will now make quite a little volume of a good way upwards of +100 pp. Will you instruct Bain to send me a Bible; of a type that I can +read without blindness; the better if with notes; there is a Clarendon +Press Bible, pray see it yourself. I also want Ewald's History in a +translation. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The play of _Deacon Brodie_, the joint work of R. L. S. and W. E. H., + was to be performed in London early in July. + + [_Hotel Chabassiere, Royat, July 1884._] + +DEAR S. C.,--Books received with great thanks. Very nice books, though I +see you underrate my cecity: I could no more read their beautiful Bible +than I could sail in heaven. However I have sent for another and can +read the rest for patience. + +I quite understand your feelings about the _Deacon_, which is a far way +behind; but I get miserable when I think of Henley cutting this splash +and standing, I fear, to lose a great deal of money. It is about Henley, +not Brodie, that I care. I fear my affections are not strong to my past +works; they are blotted out by others; and anyhow the _Deacon_ is damn +bad. + +I am half asleep and can no more discourse. Say to your friends, "Look +here, some friends of mine are bringing out a play; it has some stuff; +suppose you go and see it." But I know I am a cold, unbelieving fellow, +incapable of those hot claps that honour you and Henley and therefore--I +am asleep. _Child's Garden_ (first instalment) come. Fanny ill; self +asleep. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Hotel Chabassiere, Royat [July 1884]._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--The weather has been demoniac; I have had a skiff of +cold, and was finally obliged to take to bed entirely; to-day, however, +it has cleared, the sun shines, and I begin to + + * * * * * + +_Several days after._--I have been out once, but now am back in bed. I +am better, and keep better, but the weather is a mere injustice. The +imitation of Edinburgh is, at times, deceptive; there is a note among +the chimney pots that suggests Howe Street; though I think the shrillest +spot in Christendom was not upon the Howe Street side, but in front, +just under the Miss Graemes' big chimney stack. It had a fine alto +character--a sort of bleat that used to divide the marrow in my +joints--say in the wee, slack hours. That music is now lost to us by +rebuilding; another air that I remember, not regret, was the solo of the +gas-burner in the little front room; a knickering, flighty, fleering, +and yet spectral cackle. I mind it above all on winter afternoons, late, +when the window was blue and spotted with rare rain-drops, and, looking +out, the cold evening was seen blue all over, with the lamps of Queen's +and Frederick's Street dotting it with yellow, and flaring eastward in +the squalls. Heavens, how unhappy I have been in such circumstances--I, +who have now positively forgotten the colour of unhappiness; who am full +like a fed ox, and dull like a fresh turf, and have no more spiritual +life, for good or evil, than a French bagman. + +We are at Chabassiere's, for of course it was nonsense to go up the hill +when we could not walk. + +The child's poems in a far extended form are likely soon to be heard +of--which Cummy I dare say will be glad to know. They will make a book +of about one hundred pages.--Ever your affectionate, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + I had reported to Stevenson a remark made by one of his greatest + admirers, Sir E. Burne-Jones, on some particular analogy, I forget + what, between a passage of Defoe and one in _Treasure Island_. + + [_Hotel Chabassiere, Royat, July 1884._] + +... Here is a quaint thing, I have read _Robinson_, _Colonel Jack_, +_Moll Flanders_, _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, _History of the Plague_, +_History of the Great Storm_, _Scotch Church and Union_. And there my +knowledge of Defoe ends--except a book, the name of which I forget, +about Peterborough in Spain, which Defoe obviously did not write, and +could not have written if he wanted. To which of these does B. J. refer? +I guess it must be the history of the Scottish Church. I jest; for, of +course, I _know_ it must be a book I have never read, and which this +makes me keen to read--I mean _Captain Singleton_. Can it be got and +sent to me? If _Treasure Island_ is at all like it, it will be +delightful. I was just the other day wondering at my folly in not +remembering it, when I was writing _T. I._, as a mine for pirate tips. +_T. I._ came out of Kingsley's _At Last_, where I got the Dead Man's +Chest--and that was the seed--and out of the great Captain Johnson's +_History of Notorious Pirates_. The scenery is Californian in part, and +in part _chic_. + +I was downstairs to-day! So now I am a made man--till the next time. + + R. L. STEVENSON. + +If it was _Captain Singleton_, send it to me, won't you? + + +_Later._--My life dwindles into a kind of valley of the shadow picnic. I +cannot read; so much of the time (as to-day) I must not speak above my +breath, that to play patience, or to see my wife play it, is become the +be-all and the end-all of my dim career. To add to my gaiety, I may +write letters, but there are few to answer. Patience and Poesy are thus +my rod and staff; with these I not unpleasantly support my days. + +I am very dim, dumb, dowie, and damnable. I hate to be silenced; and if +to talk by signs is my forte (as I contend), to understand them cannot +be my wife's. Do not think me unhappy; I have not been so for years; but +I am blurred, inhabit the debatable frontier of sleep, and have but dim +designs upon activity. All is at a standstill; books closed, paper put +aside, the voice, the eternal voice of R. L. S., well silenced. Hence +this plaint reaches you with no very great meaning, no very great +purpose, and written part in slumber by a heavy, dull, somnolent, +superannuated son of a bedpost. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + I suppose, but cannot remember, that I had in the meantime sent him + _Captain Singleton_. + + [_Hotel Chabassiere, Royat, July 1884._] + +DEAR BOY,--I am glad that ---- ---- has disappointed you. Depend upon +it, nobody is so bad as to be worth scalping, except your dearest +friends and parents; and scalping them may sometimes be avoided by +scalping yourself. I grow daily more lymphatic and benign; bring me a +dynamiter, that I may embrace and bless him!--So, if I continue to evade +the friendly hemorrhage, I shall be spared in anger to pour forth senile +and insignificant volumes, and the clever lads in the journals, not +doubting of the eye of Nemesis, shall mock and gird at me. + +All this seems excellent news of the _Deacon_. But O! that the last +tableau, on from Leslie's entrance, were re-written! We had a great +opening there and missed it. I read for the first time _Captain +Singleton_; it has points; and then I re-read _Colonel Jack_ with +ecstasy; the first part is as much superior to _Robinson Crusoe_ as +_Robinson_ is to--_The Inland Voyage_. It is pretty, good, +philosophical, dramatic, and as picturesque as a promontory goat in a +gale of wind. Get it and fill your belly with honey. + +Fanny hopes to be in time for the _Deacon_. I was out yesterday, and +none the worse. We leave Monday. + + R. L. S. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] For many years fellow of and historical lecturer at Trinity + College, Cambridge. + + [2] _Paillon._ + + [3] The name of the Delectable Land in one of Heine's _Lieder_. + + [4] _Silverado Squatters_. + + [5] The allusion is to a specimen I had been used to hear quoted of + the Duke of Wellington's table-talk in his latter years. He had said + that musk-rats were sometimes kept alive in bottles in India. Curate, + or other meek dependent: "I presume, your Grace, they are small rats + and large bottles." His Grace: "No, large rats, small bottles; large + rats, small bottles; large rats, small bottles." + + [6] _Croutes_: crude studies from nature. + + [7] Mr. J. Comyns Carr, at this time editing the English Illustrated + Magazine. + + [8] A favourite Skye terrier. Mr. Stevenson was a great lover of dogs. + + [9] The essay so called, suggested by the death of J. W. Ferrier. See + _Memories and Portraits_. + + + + +VIII + +LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH + +SEPTEMBER 1884--AUGUST 1887 + + +Arriving in England at the end of July 1884, Stevenson took up his +quarters first for a few weeks at Richmond. He was compelled to abandon +the hope of making his permanent home at Hyeres, partly by the renewed +failure there of his own health, partly by a bad outbreak of cholera +which occurred in the old Provencal town about the time he left it. +After consultation with several doctors, all of whom held out hopes of +ultimate recovery despite the gravity of his present symptoms, he moved +to Bournemouth. Here he found in the heaths and pinewoods some distant +semblance of the landscape of his native Scotland, and in the sandy +curves of the Channel coast a passable substitute for the bays and +promontories of his beloved Mediterranean. At all events, he liked the +place well enough to be willing to try it for a home; and such it became +for all but three years, from September 1884 to August 1887. These, +although in the matter of health the worst and most trying years of his +life, were in the matter of work some of the most active and successful. +For the first two or three months the Stevensons occupied a lodging on +the West Cliff called Wensleydale; for the next five, from mid-November +1884 to mid-April 1885, they were tenants of a house named Bonallie +Towers, pleasantly situated amid the pinewoods of Branksome Park, and +by its name recalling familiar Midlothian associations. Lastly, about +Easter 1885, they entered into occupation of a house of their own, given +by the elder Mr. Stevenson as a special gift to his daughter-in-law, and +renamed by its new occupants Skerryvore, in reminiscence of one of the +great lighthouse works carried out by the family firm off the Scottish +coast. + +During all the time of Stevenson's residence at Bournemouth he was +compelled to lead the life, irksome to him above all men, but borne with +invincible spirit and patience, of a chronic invalid and almost constant +prisoner to the house. A great part of his time had perforce to be spent +in bed, and there almost all his literary work was produced. Often for +days, and sometimes for whole weeks together, he was forbidden to speak +aloud, and compelled to carry on conversation with his family and +friends in whispers or with the help of pencil and paper. The few +excursions to a distance which he attempted--most commonly to my house +at the British Museum, once to Cambridge, once to Matlock, once to +Exeter, and once in 1886 as far as Paris--these excursions generally +ended in a breakdown and a hurried retreat to home and bed. +Nevertheless, he was able in intervals of comparative ease to receive +and enjoy the visits of friends from a distance both old and new--among +the most welcome of the latter being Mr. Henry James, Mr. William +Archer, and Mr. John S. Sargent; while among Bournemouth residents who +attached themselves to him on terms of special intimacy and affection +were Sir Percy and Lady Shelley and Sir Henry and Lady Taylor and their +daughters. + +At the same time, seizing and making the most of every week, nay, every +day and hour of respite, he contrived to produce work surprising, under +the circumstances, alike by quantity and quality. During the first two +months of his life at Bournemouth the two plays _Admiral Guinea_ and +_Beau Austin_ were written in collaboration with Mr. Henley, and many +other dramatic schemes were broached which health and leisure failed him +to carry out. In the course of the next few months he finished _Prince +Otto_, _The Child's Garden of Verses_, and _More New Arabian Nights_, +all three of which had been begun, and the two first almost completed, +before he left Hyeres. He at the same time attacked two new tasks--a +highway novel called _The Great North Road_, and a _Life of Wellington_ +for a series edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, both of which he had in the +sequel to abandon; and a third, the boys' story of _Kidnapped_, which in +its turn had to be suspended, but on its publication next year turned +out one of the most brilliant of his successes. + +About midsummer of this year, 1885, he was distressed by the sudden +death of his old and kind friend Professor Fleeming Jenkin, and after a +while undertook the task of writing a memoir of him to be prefixed to +his collected papers. Towards the close of the same year he was busy +with what proved to be the most popular of all his writings, _The +Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, and with the Christmas story +of _Olalla_. _Jekyll and Hyde_ was published in January 1886, and after +threatening for the first week or two to fall flat, in no long time +caught the attention of all classes of readers, was quoted from a +hundred pulpits, and made the writer's name familiar to multitudes both +in England and America whom it had never reached before. A success +scarcely inferior, though of another kind, was made a few months +afterwards by _Kidnapped_, which Stevenson had taken up again in the +early spring, and which was published about midsummer. After completing +this task in March, he was able to do little work during the remainder +of the year, except in preparing materials for the _Life of Fleeming +Jenkin_, and in writing occasional verses which helped to make up the +collection published in the following year under the title _Underwoods_. +In the early autumn of the same year, 1886, he took a longer and more +successful excursion from home than usual, staying without breakdown for +two or three weeks at the Monument, as he always called my house at the +British Museum, and seeing something of kindred spirits among his +elders, such as Robert Browning, James Russell Lowell, the painters +Burne-Jones and W. B. Richmond, and others who had hitherto delighted in +his work and now learned to delight no less in his society. + +Thence he went with Mr. Henley for a short trip to Paris, chiefly in +order to see the sculptor Rodin and his old friends Mr. and Mrs. W. H. +Low. From this trip he returned none the worse, but during all the later +autumn and winter at Bournemouth was again hampered in his work by +renewed and prolonged attacks of illness. A further cause of trouble was +the distressing failure of his father's health and spirits, attended by +symptoms which plainly indicated the beginning of the end. + +For some weeks of April, 1887, he was much taken up with a scheme which +had nothing to do with literature, and which the few friends to whom he +confided it regarded as wildly Quixotic and unwise. In these years he +had, as we have seen, taken deeply to heart both what he thought the +guilty remissness of Government action in the matter of the Soudan +garrisons and of Gordon, and the tameness of acquiescence with which the +national conscience appeared to take the result. He had been not less +disturbed at the failure, hitherto, of successive administrations to +assert the reign of law in Ireland. He was no blind partisan of the +English cause in that country, and had even written of the hereditary +hatred of Irish for English as a sentiment justified by the facts of +history. But he held strongly that private warfare, the use of dynamite +and the knife, with the whole system of agrarian vengeances and the +persecution of the weak, were means which no end could justify; and that +redress of grievances, whatever form it might ultimately take, must be +preceded by the re-establishment of law. In _More New Arabian Nights_, +published the year before, he had endeavoured "to make dynamite +ridiculous if he could not make it horrible," and to the old elements of +fantastic invention, and humorously solemn realism in the unreal, had +added the new element of a witty and scornful criminal psychology. A +case that now appealed to him with especial force was that of the cruel +persecution kept up against the widow and daughters of the murdered man +Curtin. He determined that if no one else would take up the duty of +resisting such persecution without regard to consequences, he would take +it up himself, in the hope of more effectually rousing the public +conscience to the evils of the time. His plan was to go with his family, +occupy and live upon the derelict farm, and let happen what would. This, +as the letters referring to the matter plainly show, was no +irresponsible dream or whim, but a purpose conceived in absolute and +sober earnest. His wife and household were prepared to follow, though +under protest, had he persisted; as it seemed for some weeks that he +certainly would, until at last the arguments of his friends, and still +more the unmistakable evidence that his father's end was near, +persuaded him to give up his purpose. But to the last, I think he was +never well satisfied that in giving way he had not been a coward, +preferring fireside ease and comfort to the call of a public duty. + +After spending a part of the winter at Bournemouth and a part at +Torquay, both Stevenson's parents returned to Edinburgh in April 1887; +and within a few weeks after their arrival he was summoned north to his +father's death-bed. He stayed at Edinburgh the short time necessary for +the dispatch of business, and returned to his own sick-room life at +Skerryvore. + +During the two years and nine months of Stevenson's residence at +Bournemouth, preceding the date of his father's death, he had made no +apparent progress towards recovery. Every period of respite had been +quickly followed by a relapse, and all his work, brilliant and varied as +it was, had been done under conditions which would have reduced almost +any other man to inactivity. The close and frequently recurring +struggles against the danger of death from hemorrhage and exhaustion, +which he had been used, when they first occurred, to find exciting, grew +in the long run merely irksome; and even his persistent high courage and +gaiety, sustained as they were by the devoted affection of his wife and +many friends, began occasionally, for the first time, to fail him. +Accordingly, when in May 1887 the death of his father severed the +strongest of the ties which bound him to the old country, he was very +ready to listen to the advice of his physicians, who were unanimous in +thinking his case not hopeless, but urged him to try some complete +change of climate, surroundings, and mode of life. His wife's +connections pointing to the West, he thought of the mountain +health-resorts of Colorado, and of their growing reputation for the +cure of lung patients. Having let his house at Bournemouth, he +accordingly took passage on board the S.S. _Ludgate Hill_, sailing for +New York from London on August 21st, 1887, with his whole party, +consisting of his wife, his widowed mother, whom they had persuaded to +join them, his young stepson, and a trusted servant, Valentine Roch. The +concluding letters of the present section tell of the preparations for +this departure. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Wensleydale, Bournemouth, Sunday, 28th September 1884._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--I keep better, and am to-day downstairs for the first +time. I find the lockers entirely empty; not a cent to the front. Will +you pray send us some? It blows an equinoctial gale, and has blown for +nearly a week. Nimbus Britannicus; piping wind, lashing rain; the sea is +a fine colour, and wind-bound ships lie at anchor under the Old Harry +rocks, to make one glad to be ashore. + +The Henleys are gone, and two plays practically done. I hope they may +produce some of the ready.--I am, ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ANDREW CHATTO + + + During the earlier Bournemouth days were firmly established + Stevenson's cordial relations with the several English publishers + Cassell & Co., Chatto & Windus, and Longmans, and a little later with + C. Scribner's Sons in America. + + _Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October 3, 1884._ + +DEAR MR. CHATTO,--I have an offer of L25 for _Otto_ from America. I do +not know if you mean to have the American rights; from the nature of the +contract, I think not; but if you understood that you were to sell the +sheets, I will either hand over the bargain to you, or finish it myself +and hand you over the money if you are pleased with the amount. You see, +I leave this quite in your hands. To parody an old Scotch story of +servant and master: if you don't know that you have a good author, I +know that I have a good publisher. Your fair, open, and handsome +dealings are a good point in my life, and do more for my crazy health +than has yet been done by any doctor.--Very truly yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + There is no certain clue to the date of the following; neither has it + been possible to make sure what was the enclosure mentioned. The + special illness referred to seems to be that of the preceding May at + Hyeres. + + [_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, October 1884?_] + +DEAR BOY,--I trust this finds you well; it leaves me so-so. The weather +is so cold that I must stick to bed, which is rotten and tedious, but +can't be helped. + +I find in the blotting book the enclosed, which I wrote to you the eve +of my blood. Is it not strange? That night, when I naturally thought I +was coopered, the thought of it was much in my mind; I thought it had +gone; and I thought what a strange prophecy I had made in jest, and how +it was indeed like to be the end of many letters. But I have written a +good few since, and the spell is broken. I am just as pleased, for I +earnestly desire to live. This pleasant middle age into whose port we +are steering is quite to my fancy. I would cast anchor here, and go +ashore for twenty years and see the manners of the place. Youth was a +great time, but somewhat fussy. Now in middle age (bar lucre) all seems +mighty placid. It likes me; I spy a little bright cafe in one corner of +the port, in front of which I now propose we should sit down. There is +just enough of the bustle of the harbour and no more; and the ships are +close in, regarding us with stern-windows--the ships that bring deals +from Norway and parrots from the Indies. Let us sit down here for twenty +years, with a packet of tobacco and a drink, and talk of art and women. +By-and-by, the whole city will sink, and the ships too, and the table, +and we also; but we shall have sat for twenty years and had a fine talk; +and by that time, who knows? exhausted the subject. + +I send you a book which (or I am mistook) will please you; it pleased +me. But I do desire a book of adventure--a romance--and no man will get +or write me one. Dumas I have read and re-read too often; Scott, too and +I am short. I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to begin in a +good way; a book, I guess, like _Treasure Island_, alas! which I have +never read, and cannot though I live to ninety. I would God that some +one else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is the very book +for my complaint. I like the way I hear it opens; and they tell me John +Silver is good fun. And to me it is, and must ever be, a dream +unrealised, a book unwritten. O my sighings after romance, or even +Skeltery, and O! the weary age which will produce me neither! + + +CHAPTER I + +The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The single horseman, +cloaked and booted, who pursued his way across Willesden Common, had not +met a traveller, when the sound of wheels---- + + +CHAPTER I + +"Yes, sir," said the old pilot, "she must have dropped into the bay a +little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks." + +"She shows no colours," returned the young gentleman musingly. + +"They're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark," resumed the old salt. +"We shall soon know more of her." + +"Ay," replied the young gentleman called Mark, "and here, Mr. Seadrift, +comes your sweet daughter Nancy tripping down the cliff." + +"God bless her kind heart, sir," ejaculated old Seadrift. + + +CHAPTER I + +The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great +house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties +finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from +one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little did he +think what strange adventures were to befall him!---- + +That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead. + + What should be: What is: + The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy. + Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece. + Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THE REV. PROFESSOR LEWIS CAMPBELL + + + In reply to a gift of books, including the correspondent's well-known + translation of Sophocles. + + [_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._] + +MY DEAR CAMPBELL,--The books came duly to hand. My wife has occupied the +translation ever since, nor have I yet been able to dislodge her. As for +the primer, I have read it with a very strange result: that I find no +fault. If you knew how, dogmatic and pugnacious, I stand warden on the +literary art, you would the more appreciate your success and my--well, I +will own it--disappointment. For I love to put people right (or wrong) +about the arts. But what you say of Tragedy and of Sophocles very amply +satisfies me; it is well felt and well said; a little less technically +than it is my weakness to desire to see it put, but clear and adequate. +You are very right to express your admiration for the resource displayed +in Oedipus King; it is a miracle. Would it not have been well to mention +Voltaire's interesting onslaught, a thing which gives the best lesson of +the difference of neighbour arts?--since all his criticisms, which had +been fatal to a narrative, do not amount among them to exhibit one flaw +in this masterpiece of drama. For the drama, it is perfect; though such +a fable in a romance might make the reader crack his sides, so +imperfect, so ethereally slight is the verisimilitude required of these +conventional, rigid, and egg-dancing arts. + +I was sorry to see no more of you; but shall conclude by hoping for +better luck next time. My wife begs to be remembered to both of +you.--Yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The "Arabs" mentioned below are the stories comprised in the volume + _More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter_, written by Stevenson and + his wife in collaboration. + + _Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._ + +DEAR HENLEY,--We are all to pieces in health, and heavily handicapped +with Arabs. I have a dreadful cough, whose attacks leave me _aetat_. 90. +I never let up on the Arabs, all the same, and rarely get less than +eight pages out of hand, though hardly able to come downstairs for +twittering knees. + +I shall put in ----'s letter. He says so little of his circumstances +that I am in an impossibility to give him advice more specific than a +copybook. Give him my love, however, and tell him it is the mark of the +parochial gentleman who has never travelled to find all wrong in a +foreign land. Let him hold on, and he will find one country as good as +another; and in the meanwhile let him resist the fatal British tendency +to communicate his dissatisfaction with a country to its inhabitants. +'Tis a good idea, but it somehow fails to please. In a fortnight, if I +can keep my spirit in the box at all, I should be nearly through this +Arabian desert; so can tackle something fresh.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + It was some twenty months since the plan of publishing the _Child's + Garden_ in the first instance as a picture-book had been mooted (see + above, pp. 18, foll.). But it had never taken effect, and in the + following March the volume appeared without illustrations in England, + and also, I believe, in America. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, Hants, England, + First week in November, I guess, 1884._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--Now, look here, the above is my address for three months, +I hope; continue, on your part, if you please, to write to Edinburgh, +which is safe; but if Mrs. Low thinks of coming to England, she might +take a run down from London (four hours from Waterloo, main line) and +stay a day or two with us among the pines. If not, I hope it will be +only a pleasure deferred till you can join her. + +My Children's Verses will be published here in a volume called _A +Child's Garden_. The sheets are in hand; I will see if I cannot send you +the lot, so that you might have a bit of a start. In that case I would +do nothing to publish in the States, and you might try an illustrated +edition there; which, if the book went fairly over here, might, when +ready, be imported. But of this more fully ere long. You will see some +verses of mine in the last Magazine of Art, with pictures by a young +lady; rather pretty, I think. If we find a market for _Phasellulus +loquitur_, we can try another. I hope it isn't necessary to put the +verse into that rustic printing. I am Philistine enough to prefer clean +printer's type; indeed, I can form no idea of the verses thus +transcribed by the incult and tottering hand of the draughtsman, nor +gather any impression beyond one of weariness to the eyes. Yet the other +day, in the Century, I saw it imputed as a crime to Vedder that he had +not thus travestied Omar Khayyam. We live in a rum age of music without +airs, stories without incident, pictures without beauty, American wood +engravings that should have been etchings, and dry-point etchings that +ought to have been mezzotints. I think of giving 'em literature without +words; and I believe if you were to try invisible illustration, it would +enjoy a considerable vogue. So long as an artist is on his head, is +painting with a flute, or writes with an etcher's needle, or conducts +the orchestra with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along +with roses. But any plain man who tries to follow the obtrusive canons +of his art, is but a commonplace figure. To hell with him is the motto, +or at least not that; for he will have his reward, but he will never be +thought a person of parts. + +_January 3, 1885._--And here has this been lying near two months. I have +failed to get together a preliminary copy of the Child's Verses for you, +in spite of doughty efforts; but yesterday I sent you the first sheet of +the definitive edition, and shall continue to send the others as they +come. If you can, and care to, work them--why so, well. If not, I send +you fodder. But the time presses; for though I will delay a little over +the proofs, and though it is even possible they may delay the English +issue until Easter, it will certainly not be later. Therefore perpend, +and do not get caught out. Of course, if you can do pictures, it will be +a great pleasure to me to see our names joined; and more than that, a +great advantage, as I dare say you may be able to make a bargain for +some share a little less spectral than the common for the poor author. +But this is all as you shall choose; I give you _carte blanche_ to do or +not to do.--Yours most sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +O, Sargent has been and painted my portrait; a very nice fellow he is, +and is supposed to have done well; it is a poetical but very +chicken-boned figure-head, as thus represented. + + R. L. S. Go on. + + +_P.P.S._--Your picture came; and let me thank you for it very much. I am +so hunted I had near forgotten. I find it very graceful; and I mean to +have it framed. + + + + +TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON + + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth [first week of + November 1884]._ + +MY DEAR SIMPSON,--At last, after divers adventures here we are: not +Pommery and Greno as you see, "but jist plain auld Bonellie, no very +faur frae Jenniper Green," as I might say if I were writing to Charles. +I hope now to receive a good bundle from you ere long; and I will try to +be both prompt and practical in response. I hope to hear your boy is +better: ah, that's where it bites, I know, that is where the childless +man rejoices; although, to confess fully, my whole philosophy of life +renounces these renunciations; I am persuaded we gain nothing in the +least comparable to what we lose, by holding back the hand from any +province of life; the intrigue, the imbroglio, such as it is, was made +for the plunger and not for the teetotaller. And anyway I hope your news +is good. + +I have nearly finished Lawson's most lively pamphlet. It is very clear +and interesting. For myself, I am in our house--a home of our own, in a +most lovely situation, among forest trees, where I hope you will come +and see us and find me in a repaired and more comfortable +condition--greatly pleased with it--rather hard-up, verging on the +dead-broke--and full tilt at hammering up some New Arabians for the pot. + +I wonder what you do without regular habits of work. I am capable of +only two theories of existence: the industrious worker's, the +spreester's; all between seems blank to me. We grow too old, and I, at +least, am too much deteriorated, for the last; and the first becomes a +bedrock necessary. My father is in a gloomy state and has the yellow +flag at the peak, or the fore, or wherever it should be; and he has just +emptied some melancholy vials on me; I am also, by way of change, +spitting blood. This somewhat clouds the termination of my note.--Yours +ever affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + About this time Mr. Stevenson was in some hesitation as to letting + himself be proposed for the office of President of the Royal Society + of Edinburgh. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 1884._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I have no hesitation in recommending you to let your +name go up; please yourself about an address; though I think, if we +could meet, we could arrange something suitable. What you propose would +be well enough in a way, but so modest as to suggest a whine. From that +point of view it would be better to change a little; but this, whether +we meet or not, we must discuss. Tait, Chrystal, the Royal Society, and +I, all think you amply deserve this honour and far more; it is not the +True Blue to call this serious compliment a "trial"; you should be glad +of this recognition. As for resigning, that is easy enough if found +necessary; but to refuse would be husky and unsatisfactory. _Sic subs._ + + R. L. S. + + +My cold is still very heavy; but I carry it well. Fanny is very very +much out of sorts, principally through perpetual misery with me. I fear +I have been a little in the dumps, which, _as you know, sir_, is a very +great sin. I must try to be more cheerful; but my cough is so severe +that I have sometimes most exhausting nights and very peevish wakenings. +However, this shall be remedied, and last night I was distinctly better +than the night before. There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise +blandly as we sit together on the devil's garden-wall), no more +abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguy peevishness; why (say I) +what matters it if we be a little uncomfortable--that is no reason for +mangling our unhappy wives. And then I turn and _girn_ on the +unfortunate Cassandra.--Your fellow culprit, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Mr. Stevenson, the elder, had read the play of _Admiral Guinea_, + written in September by his son and Mr. Henley in collaboration, and + had protested, with his usual vehemence of feeling and expression, + against the stage confrontation of profane blackguardry in the person + of Pew with evangelical piety in that of the reformed slaving captain + who gives his name to the piece. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth (The three B's) + [November 5, 1884]._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--Allow me to say, in a strictly Pickwickian sense, that +you are a silly fellow. I am pained indeed, but how should I be +offended? I think you exaggerate; I cannot forget that you had the same +impression of the _Deacon_; and yet, when you saw it played, were less +revolted than you looked for; and I will still hope that the _Admiral_ +also is not so bad as you suppose. There is one point, however, where I +differ from you very frankly. Religion is in the world; I do not think +you are the man to deny the importance of its role; and I have long +decided not to leave it on one side in art. The opposition of the +Admiral and Mr. Pew is not, to my eyes, either horrible or irreverent; +but it may be, and it probably is, very ill done: what then? This is a +failure; better luck next time; more power to the elbow, more +discretion, more wisdom in the design, and the old defeat becomes the +scene of the new victory. Concern yourself about no failure; they do not +cost lives as in engineering; they are the _pierres perdues_ of +successes. Fame is (truly) a vapour; do not think of it; if the writer +means well and tries hard, no failure will injure him, whether with God +or man. + +I wish I could hear a brighter account of yourself; but I am inclined to +acquit the _Admiral_ of having a share in the responsibility. My very +heavy cold is, I hope, drawing off; and the change to this charming +house in the forest will, I hope, complete my re-establishment.--With +love to all, believe me, your ever affectionate + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 11, 1884._ + +DEAR BOY,--I have been nearly smashed altogether; fever and chills, with +really very considerable suffering; and to my deep gloom and some fear +about the future, work has had to stop. There was no way out of it; +yesterday and to-day nothing would come, it was a mere waste of tissue, +productive of spoiled paper. + +I hope it will not last long; for the bum-baily is panting at my rump, +and when I turn a scared eye across my shoulder, I behold his talons +quivering above my frock-coat tails. + +Gosse has writ to offer me L40 for a Christmas number ghost story for +the Pall Mall: eight thousand words. I have, with some conditions, +accepted; I pray Heaven I may be able to do it. But I am not sure that +my incapacity to work is wholly due to illness; I believe the morphine +I have been taking for my bray may have a hand in it. It moderates the +bray, but, I think, sews up the donkey. + +I think my wife is a little better. If only I could get in trim, and get +this work done, I should be quite chipper. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The two next letters, on the same subject, are written in the styles + and characters of the two Edinburgh ex-elders, Johnstone (or Johnson) + and Thomson alternately. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, November 11 [1884]._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am in my new house, thus proudly styled, as you +perceive; but the deevil a tower ava' can be perceived (except out of +window); this is not as it should be; one might have hoped, at least, a +turret. We are all vilely unwell. I put in the dark watches imitating a +donkey with some success, but little pleasure; and in the afternoon I +indulge in a smart fever, accompanied by aches and shivers. There is +thus little monotony to be deplored. I at least am a _regular_ invalid; +I would scorn to bray in the afternoon; I would indignantly refuse the +proposal to fever in the night. What is bred in the bone will come out, +sir, in the flesh; and the same spirit that prompted me to date my +letter regulates the hour and character of my attacks.--I am, sir, +yours, + + THOMSON. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + The controversy here mentioned had been one in which Mr. Samuel + Smiles and others had taken part, concerning the rival claims of + Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of R. L. S., and John Rennie to + have been the chief engineers of the Bell Rock Lighthouse (see _A + Family of Engineers_, chap. iii.). + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 12, 1884._ + +MY DEAR COGGIE,--Many thanks for the two photos which now decorate my +room. I was particularly glad to have the Bell Rock. I wonder if you +saw me plunge, lance in rest, into a controversy thereanent? It was a +very one-sided affair. The man I attacked cried "Boo-hoo!" and referred +me to his big brother. And the big brother refused to move. So I slept +upon the field of battle, paraded, sang Te Deum, and came home after a +review rather than a campaign. + +Please tell Campbell I got his letter. The Wild Woman of the West has +been much amiss and complaining sorely. I hope nothing more serious is +wrong with her than just my ill-health, and consequent anxiety and +labour; but the deuce of it is, that the cause continues. I am about +knocked out of time now: a miserable, snuffling, shivering, +fever-stricken, nightmare-ridden, knee-jottering, hoast-hoast-hoasting +shadow and remains of man. But we'll no gie ower jist yet a bittie. +We've seen waur; and dod, mem, it's my belief that we'll see better. I +dinna ken 'at I've muckle mair to say to ye, or, indeed, onything; but +jist here's guid-fallowship, guid health, and the wale o' guid fortune +to your bonny sel'; and my respecs to the Perfessor and his wife, and +the Prinshiple, an' the Bell Rock, an' ony ither public chara'ters that +I'm acquaunt wi'. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + [_Bournemouth, November 13, 1884._] + +MY DEAR THOMSON,--It's a maist remarkable fac', but nae shuener had I +written yon braggin', blawin' letter aboot ma business habits, when +bang! that very day, ma hoast[10] begude in the aifternune. It is really +remaurkable; it's providenshle, I believe. The ink wasnae fair dry, the +words werenae weel ooten ma mouth, when bang, I got the lee. The mair ye +think o't, Thomson, the less ye'll like the looks o't. Proavidence (I'm +no' sayin') is all verra weel _in its place_; but if Proavidence has +nae mainners, wha's to learn't? Proavidence is a fine thing, but hoo +would you like Proavidence to keep your till for ye? The richt place for +Proavidence is in the kirk; it has naething to do wi' private +correspondence between twa gentlemen, nor freendly cracks, nor a wee bit +word of sculduddery[11] ahint the door, nor, in shoart, wi' ony +_hole-and-corner wark_, what I would call. I'm pairfec'ly willin' to +meet in wi' Proavidence, I'll be prood to meet in wi' him, when my +time's come and I cannae dae nae better; but if he's to come skulking +aboot my stair-fit, damned, I micht as weel be deid for a' the comfort +I'll can get in life. Cannae he no be made to understand that it's +beneath him? Gosh, if I was in his business, I wouldnae steir my heid +for a plain, auld ex-elder that, tak him the way he taks himsel', 's +just aboot as honest as he can weel afford, an' but for a wheen auld +scandals, near forgotten noo, is a pairfec'ly respectable and thoroughly +decent man. Or if I fashed wi' him ava', it wad be kind o' handsome +like; a pun'-note under his stair door, or a bottle o' auld, blended +malt to his bit marnin', as a teshtymonial like yon ye ken sae weel +aboot, but mair successfu'. + +Dear Thomson, have I ony money? If I have, _send it_, for the loard's +sake. + + JOHNSTONE. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 13, 1884._ + +MY DEAR BOY,--A thousand thanks for the _Moliere_. I have already read, +in this noble presentment, _La Comtesse d'Escarbaguas_, _Le Malade +Imaginaire_, and a part of _Les Femmes Savantes_; I say, Poquelin took +damned good care of himself: Argan and Arysule, what parts! Many thanks +also for John Silver's pistol; I recognise it; that was the one he gave +Jim Hawkins at the mouth of the pit; I shall get a plate put upon it to +that effect. + +My birthday was a great success; I was better in health; I got +delightful presents; I received the definite commission from the P.M.G., +and began to write the tale; and in the evening Bob arrived, a simple +seraph. We have known each other ten years; and here we are, too, like +the pair that met in the infirmary: why can we not mellow into kindness +and sweetness like Bob? What is the reason? Does nature, even in my +octogenarian carcase, run too strong that I must be still a bawler and a +brawler and a treader upon corns? You, at least, have achieved the +miracle of embellishing your personal appearance to that point that, +unless your mother is a woman of even more perspicacity than I suppose, +it is morally impossible that she can recognise you. When I saw you ten +years ago, you looked rough and--kind of stigmatised, a look of an +embittered political shoemaker; where is it now? You now come waltzing +around like some light-hearted monarch; essentially jovial, essentially +royal; radiant of smiles. And in the meanwhile, by a complementary +process, I turn into a kind of hunchback with white hair! The devil. + +Well, let us be thankful for our mercies; in these ten years what a +change from the cell in the hospital, and the two sick boys in the next +bed, to the influence, the recognition, the liberty, and the happiness +of to-day! Well, well; fortune is not so blind as people say; you dreed +a good long weird; but you have got into a fine green paddock now to +kick your heels in. And I, too, what a difference; what a difference in +my work, in my situation, and unfortunately, also in my health! But one +need not complain of a pebble in the shoe, when by mere justice one +should rot in a dungeon. + +Many thanks to both of you; long life to our friendship, and that means, +I do most firmly believe, to these clay continents on which we fly our +colours; good luck to one and all, and may God continue to be +merciful.--Your old and warm friend, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + Stevenson had been unable to finish for the Pall Mall Christmas + number the tale he had first intended; had tried the publishers with + _Markheim_ (afterwards printed in the collection called _Merry Men_), + which proved too short; had then furbished up as well as he could a + tale drafted in the Pitlochry days, _The Body Snatcher_, which was + advertised in the streets of London by sandwich-men carrying posters + so horrific that they were suppressed, if I remember right, by the + police. Stevenson rightly thought the tale not up to his best mark, + and would not take the full payment which had been bargained for. His + correspondent was just about to start on a tour to the United States. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 15, 1884._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--This Mr. Morley[12] of yours is a most desperate fellow. +He has sent me (for my opinion) the most truculent advertisement I ever +saw, in which the white hairs of Gladstone are dragged round Troy behind +my chariot wheels. What can I say? I say nothing to him; and to you, I +content myself with remarking that he seems a desperate fellow. + +All luck to you on your American adventure; may you find health, wealth, +and entertainment! If you see, as you likely will, Frank R. Stockton, +pray greet him from me in words to this effect:-- + + My Stockton if I failed to like, + It were a sheer depravity, + For I went down with the _Thomas Hyke_ + And up with the _Negative Gravity_! + +I adore these tales. + +I hear flourishing accounts of your success at Cambridge, so you leave +with a good omen. Remember me to _green corn_ if it is in season; if +not, you had better hang yourself on a sour apple tree, for your voyage +has been lost.--Yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO AUSTIN DOBSON + + + Written in acknowledgment of the gift of a desk. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [December 1884 ?]._ + +DEAR DOBSON,--Set down my delay to your own fault; I wished to +acknowledge such a gift from you in some of my inapt and slovenly +rhymes; but you should have sent me your pen and not your desk. The +verses stand up to the axles in a miry cross-road, whence the coursers +of the sun shall never draw them; hence I am constrained to this +uncourtliness, that I must appear before one of the kings of that +country of rhyme without my singing robes. For less than this, if we may +trust the book of Esther, favourites have tasted death; but I conceive +the kingdom of the Muses mildlier mannered; and in particular that +county which you administer and which I seem to see as a half-suburban +land; a land of hollyhocks and country houses; a land where at night, in +thorny and sequestered bypaths, you will meet masqueraders going to a +ball in their sedans, and the rector steering homeward by the light of +his lantern; a land of the windmill, and the west wind, and the +flowering hawthorn with a little scented letter in the hollow of its +trunk, and the kites flying over all in the season of kites, and the far +away blue spires of a cathedral city. + +Will you forgive me, then, for my delay and accept my thanks not only +for your present, but for the letter which followed it, and which +perhaps I more particularly value, and believe me to be, with much +admiration, yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Stevenson and his wife were still busy on _More New Arabian Nights_ + (the romance of the _Great North Road_ having been begun and + postponed). The question here touched is, to what publishers should + they be offered. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 1884._ + +DEAR LAD,--For Cassell, I thought the G.N.R. (not railway this time) was +the motto. What are Cassells to do with this eccentric mass of blague +and seriousness? Their poor auld pows will a' turn white as snaw, man. +They would skriegh with horror. You see, the lot of tales is now coming +to a kind of bearing. They are being quite rehandled; all the three +intercalary narratives have been condemned and are being replaced--two +by picturesque and highly romantic adventures; one by a comic tale of +character; and the thing as it goes together so far, is, I do think, +singularly varied and vivid, coming near to laughter and touching tears. + +Will Cassell stand it? No. + +_Et de deux._ + +I vote for the syndicate, and to give Cassell the _North Road_ when +done. _Et sic subscr._ + + R. L. S. + + +My health is better. I never sleep, to be sure; Cawdor hath butchered +sleep; and I am twinged a bit by aches and rheumatism; but I get my five +to seven hours of work; and if that is not health, it is the nearest I +am like to have. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The following to Mr. Henry James refers to the essay of R. L. S. + called _A Humble Remonstrance_, which had just appeared in Longman's + Magazine. Mr. James had written holding out the prospect of a + continuance of the friendly controversy which had thus been opened up + between them on the aims and qualities of fiction. + + _Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, December 8, 1884._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--This is a very brave hearing from more points +than one. The first point is that there is a hope of a sequel. For this +I laboured. Seriously, from the dearth of information and thoughtful +interest in the art of literature, those who try to practise it with any +deliberate purpose run the risk of finding no fit audience. People +suppose it is "the stuff" that interests them; they think, for instance, +that the prodigious fine thoughts and sentiments in Shakespeare impress +by their own weight, not understanding that the unpolished diamond is +but a stone. They think that striking situations, or good dialogue, are +got by studying life; they will not rise to understand that they are +prepared by deliberate artifice and set off by painful suppressions. +Now, I want the whole thing well ventilated, for my own education and +the public's; and I beg you to look as quick as you can, to follow me up +with every circumstance of defeat where we differ, and (to prevent the +flouting of the laity) to emphasise the points where we agree. I trust +your paper will show me the way to a rejoinder; and that rejoinder I +shall hope to make with so much art as to woo or drive you from your +threatened silence. I would not ask better than to pass my life in +beating out this quarter of corn with such a seconder as yourself. + +Point the second--I am rejoiced indeed to hear you speak so kindly of my +work; rejoiced and surprised. I seem to myself a very rude, left-handed +countryman; not fit to be read, far less complimented, by a man so +accomplished, so adroit, so craftsmanlike as you. You will happily never +have cause to understand the despair with which a writer like myself +considers (say) the park scene in _Lady Barberina_. Every touch +surprises me by its intangible precision; and the effect when done, as +light as syllabub, as distinct as a picture, fills me with envy. Each +man among us prefers his own aim, and I prefer mine; but when we come to +speak of performance, I recognise myself, compared with you, to be a +lout and slouch of the first water. + +Where we differ, both as to the design of stories and the delineation of +character, I begin to lament. Of course, I am not so dull as to ask you +to desert your walk; but could you not, in one novel, to oblige a +sincere admirer, and to enrich his shelves with a beloved volume, could +you not, and might you not, cast your characters in a mould a little +more abstract and academic (dear Mrs. Pennyman had already, among your +other work, a taste of what I mean), and pitch the incidents, I do not +say in any stronger, but in a slightly more emphatic key--as it were an +episode from one of the old (so-called) novels of adventure? I fear you +will not; and I suppose I must sighingly admit you to be right. And yet, +when I see, as it were, a book of Tom Jones handled with your exquisite +precision and shot through with those side-lights of reflection in which +you excel, I relinquish the dear vision with regret. Think upon it. + +As you know, I belong to that besotted class of man, the invalid: this +puts me to a stand in the way of visits. But it is possible that some +day you may feel that a day near the sea and among pinewoods would be a +pleasant change from town. If so, please let us know; and my wife and I +will be delighted to put you up, and give you what we can to eat and +drink (I have a fair bottle of claret).--On the back of which, believe +me, yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--I reopen this to say that I have re-read my paper, and cannot +think I have at all succeeded in being either veracious or polite. I +knew, of course, that I took your paper merely as a pin to hang my own +remarks upon; but, alas! what a thing is any paper! What fine remarks +can you not hang on mine! How I have sinned against proportion, and with +every effort to the contrary, against the merest rudiments of courtesy +to you! You are indeed a very acute reader to have divined the real +attitude of my mind; and I can only conclude, not without closed eyes +and shrinking shoulders, in the well-worn words, + + Lay on, Macduff! + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 9, 1884._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--The dreadful tragedy of the Pall Mall has come to a +happy but ludicrous ending: I am to keep the money, the tale writ for +them is to be buried certain fathoms deep, and they are to flash out +before the world with our old friend of Kinnaird, _The Body Snatcher_. +When you come, please to bring-- + + (1) My Montaigne, or, at least, the two last volumes. + + (2) My Milton in the three vols. in green. + + (3) The Shakespeare that Babington sent me for a wedding-gift. + + (4) Hazlitt's _Table Talk and Plain Speaker_. + +If you care to get a box of books from Douglas and Foulis, let them be +_solid_. _Croker Papers_, _Correspondence of Napoleon_, _History of +Henry IV._, Lang's _Folk Lore_, would be my desires. + +I had a charming letter from Henry James about my Longman paper. I did +not understand queries about the verses; the pictures to the Seagull I +thought charming; those to the second have left me with a pain in my +poor belly and a swimming in the head. + +About money, I am afloat and no more, and I warn you, unless I have +great luck, I shall have to fall upon you at the New Year like a +hundredweight of bricks. Doctor, rent, chemist, are all threatening; +sickness has bitterly delayed my work; and unless, as I say, I have the +mischief's luck, I shall completely break down. _Verbum sapientibus._ I +do not live cheaply, and I question if I ever shall; but if only I had a +halfpenny worth of health, I could now easily suffice. The last +breakdown of my head is what makes this bankruptcy probable. + +Fanny is still out of sorts; Bogue better; self fair, but a stranger to +the blessings of sleep.--Ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [December 1884]._ + +DEAR LAD,--I have made up my mind about the P. M. G., and send you a +copy, which please keep or return. As for not giving a reduction, what +are we? Are we artists or city men? Why do we sneer at stockbrokers? O +nary; I will not take the L40. I took that as a fair price for my best +work; I was not able to produce my best; and I will be damned if I steal +with my eyes open. _Sufficit._ This is my lookout. As for the paper +being rich, certainly it is; but I am honourable. It is no more above me +in money than the poor slaveys and cads from whom I look for honesty are +below me. Am I Pepys, that because I can find the countenance of "some +of our ablest merchants," that because--and--pour forth languid twaddle +and get paid for it, I, too, should "cheerfully continue to steal"? I am +not Pepys. I do not live much to God and honour; but I will not wilfully +turn my back on both. I am, like all the rest of us, falling ever lower +from the bright ideas I began with, falling into greed, into idleness, +into middle-aged and slippered fireside cowardice; but is it you, my +bold blade, that I hear crying this sordid and rank twaddle in my ear? +Preaching the dankest Grundyism and upholding the rank customs of our +trade--you who are so cruel hard upon the customs of the publishers? O +man, look at the Beam in our own Eyes; and whatever else you do, do not +plead Satan's cause, or plead it for all; either embrace the bad, or +respect the good when you see a poor devil trying for it. If this is the +honesty of authors--to take what you can get and console yourself +because publishers are rich--take my name from the rolls of that +association. 'Tis a caucus of weaker thieves, jealous of the +stronger.--Ever yours, + + THE ROARING R. L. S. + + +You will see from the enclosed that I have stuck to what I think my dues +pretty tightly in spite of this flourish: these are my words for a poor +ten-pound note! + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + This refers to the death of Sir Alexander Grant, the distinguished + Aristotelian scholar and Principal of Edinburgh University. + + [_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 1884._] + +MY DEAR COGGIE,--We are very much distressed to hear of this which has +befallen your family. As for Sir Alexander, I can but speak from my own +feelings: he survived to finish his book and to conduct, with such a +great success, the tercentenary. Ah, how many die just upon the +threshold! Had he died a year ago, how great a disappointment! But all +this is nothing to the survivors. Do please, as soon as you are able, +let us know how it goes and _how it is likely to go_ with the family; +and believe that both my wife and I are most anxious to have good news, +or the best possible. My poor Coggie, I know very well how you must +feel; you are passing a bad time. + +Our news must seem very impertinent. We have both been ill; I, pretty +bad, my wife, pretty well down; but I, at least, am better. The Bogue, +who is let out every night for half an hour's yapping, is anchored in +the moonlight just before the door, and, under the belief that he is +watchdog at a lone farm beleaguered by moss-troopers, is simply raising +Cain. + +I can add nothing more, but just that we wish to hear as soon as you +have nothing else to do--not to hurry, of course,--if it takes three +months, no matter--but bear us in mind. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [Winter 1884]._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--Here was I in bed; not writing, not hearing, and finding +myself gently and agreeably ill used; and behold I learn you are bad +yourself. Get your wife to send us a word how you are. I am better +decidedly. Bogue got his Christmas card, and behaved well for three days +after. It may interest the cynical to learn that I started my last +hemorrhage by too sedulous attentions to my dear Bogue. The stick was +broken; and that night Bogue, who was attracted by the extraordinary +aching of his bones, and is always inclined to a serious view of his own +ailments, announced with his customary pomp that he was dying. In this +case, however, it was not the dog that died. (He had tried to bite his +mother's ankles.) I have written a long and peculiarly solemn paper on +the technical elements of style. It is path-breaking and epoch-making; +but I do not think the public will be readily convoked to its perusal. +Did I tell you that S. C. had risen to the paper on James? At last! O +but I was pleased; he's (like Johnnie) been lang, lang o' comin', but +here he is. He will not object to my future manoeuvres in the same +field, as he has to my former. All the family are here; my father better +than I have seen him these two years; my mother the same as ever. I do +trust you are better, and I am yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO H. A. JONES + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 30, 1884._ + +DEAR SIR,--I am so accustomed to hear nonsense spoken about all the +arts, and the drama in particular, that I cannot refrain from saying +"Thank you" for your paper. In my answer to Mr. James, in the December +Longman, you may see that I have merely touched, I think in a +parenthesis, on the drama; but I believe enough was said to indicate our +agreement in essentials. + +Wishing you power and health to further enunciate and to act upon these +principles, believe me, dear sir, yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Stevenson had begun with great eagerness to prepare material for a + volume on the Duke of Wellington for the series of _English Worthies_ + published by Messrs. Longman and edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, but + beyond preparation the scheme never went. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Jan. 4, 1885._ + +DEAR S. C.,--I am on my feet again, and getting on my boots to do the +Iron Duke. Conceive my glee: I have refused the L100, and am to get some +sort of royalty, not yet decided, instead. 'Tis for Longman's _English +Worthies_, edited by A. Lang. Aw haw, haw! + +Now, look here, could you get me a loan of the Despatches, or is that a +dream? I should have to mark passages I fear, and certainly note pages +on the fly. If you think it a dream, will Bain get me a second-hand +copy, or who would? The sooner, and cheaper, I can get it the better. If +there is anything in your weird library that bears on either the man or +the period, put it in a mortar and fire it here instanter; I shall +catch. I shall want, of course, an infinity of books: among which, any +lives there may be; a life of the Marquis Marmont (the Marechal), +_Marmont's Memoirs_, _Greville's Memoirs_, _Peel's Memoirs_, _Napier_, +that blind man's history of England you once lent me, Hamley's +_Waterloo_; can you get me any of these? Thiers, idle Thiers also. Can +you help a man getting into his boots for such a huge campaign? How are +you? A Good New Year to you. I mean to have a good one, but on whose +funds I cannot fancy: not mine leastways, as I am a mere derelict and +drift beam-on to bankruptcy. + +For God's sake, remember the man who set out for to conquer Arthur +Wellesley, with a broken bellows and an empty pocket.--Yours ever, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Stevenson had been asked by his father to look over the proofs of a + paper which the latter was about to read, as President of the Royal + Society of Edinburgh, "On the Principal Causes of Silting in + Estuaries," in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal Scheme. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, 14th January 1885._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I am glad you like the changes. I own I was pleased +with my hand's darg; you may observe, I have corrected several errors +which (you may tell Mr. Dick) he had allowed to pass his eagle eye; I +wish there may be none in mine; at least, the order is better. The +second title, "Some New Engineering Questions involved in the M. S. C. +Scheme of last Session of P.," likes me the best. I think it a very good +paper; and I am vain enough to think I have materially helped to polish +the diamond. I ended by feeling quite proud of the paper, as if it had +been mine; the next time you have as good a one, I will overhaul it for +the wages of feeling as clever as I did when I had managed to understand +and helped to set it clear. I wonder if I anywhere misapprehended you? I +rather think not at the last; at the first shot I know I missed a point +or two. Some of what may appear to you to be wanton changes, a little +study will show to be necessary. + +Yes, Carlyle was ashamed of himself as few men have been; and let all +carpers look at what he did. He prepared all these papers for +publication with his own hand; all his wife's complaints, all the +evidence of his own misconduct: who else would have done so much? Is +repentance, which God accepts, to have no avail with men? nor even with +the dead? I have heard too much against the thrawn, discomfortable dog: +dead he is, and we may be glad of it; but he was a better man than most +of us, no less patently than he was a worse. To fill the world with +whining is against all my views: I do not like impiety. But--but--there +are two sides to all things, and the old scalded baby had his noble +side.--Ever affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, January 1885._ + +DEAR S. C.,--I have addressed a letter to the G. O. M. _a propos_ of +Wellington; and I became aware, you will be interested to hear, of an +overwhelming respect for the old gentleman. I can _blaguer_ his +failures; but when you actually address him, and bring the two statures +and records to confrontation, dismay is the result. By mere continuance +of years, he must impose; the man who helped to rule England before I +was conceived, strikes me with a new sense of greatness and antiquity, +when I must actually beard him with the cold forms of correspondence. I +shied at the necessity of calling him plain "Sir"! Had he been "My +lord," I had been happier; no, I am no equalitarian. Honour to whom +honour is due; and if to none, why, then, honour to the old! + +These, O Slade Professor, are my unvarnished sentiments: I was a little +surprised to find them so extreme, and therefore I communicate the fact. + +Belabour thy brains, as to whom it would be well to question. I have a +small space; I wish to make a popular book, nowhere obscure, nowhere, if +it can be helped, unhuman. It seems to me the most hopeful plan to tell +the tale, so far as may be, by anecdote. He did not die till so +recently, there must be hundreds who remember him, and thousands who +have still ungarnered stories. Dear man, to the breach! Up, soldier of +the iron dook, up, Slades, and at 'em! (which, conclusively, he did not +say: the at 'em-ic theory is to be dismissed). You know piles of fellows +who must reek with matter; help! help! I am going to try +Happy-and-Glorious-long-to-reign-over-us. H.M. must remember things: and +it is my belief, if my letter could be discreetly introduced, she would +like to tell them. So I jest, when I don't address my mind to it: when I +do, shall I be smit louting to my knee, as before the G. O. M.? +Probleme!--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + In the two following letters are expressed some of the distress and + bitterness with which, in common with most Englishmen, Stevenson felt + the circumstances of Gordon's abandonment in the Soudan and the + failure of the belated attempt to rescue him. The advice to go on + with "my book" refers, if I remember right, to some scheme for the + republication in book form of stray magazine papers of mine of a more + or less personal or biographical nature. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are indeed a backward correspondent, and much may +be said against you. But in this weather, and O dear! in this political +scene of degradation, much must be forgiven. I fear England is dead of +Burgessry, and only walks about galvanised. I do not love to think of my +countrymen these days; nor to remember myself. Why was I silent? I feel +I have no right to blame any one; but I won't write to the G. O. M. I do +really not see my way to any form of signature, unless "your fellow +criminal in the eyes of God," which might disquiet the proprieties. + +About your book, I have always said: go on. The drawing of character is +a different thing from publishing the details of a private career. No +one objects to the first, or should object, if his name be not put upon +it; at the other, I draw the line. In a preface, if you chose, you might +distinguish; it is, besides, a thing for which you are eminently well +equipped, and which you would do with taste and incision. I long to see +the book. People like themselves (to explain a little more); no one +likes his life, which is a misbegotten issue, and a tale of failure. To +see these failures either touched upon, or _coasted_, to get the idea of +a spying eye and blabbing tongue about the house, is to lose all privacy +in life. To see that thing, which we do love, our character, set forth, +is ever gratifying. See how my _Talk and Talkers_ went; every one liked +his own portrait, and shrieked about other people's; so it will be with +yours. If you are the least true to the essential, the sitter will be +pleased; very likely not his friends, and that from _various motives_. + + R. L. S. + + +When will your holiday be? I sent your letter to my wife, and forget. +Keep us in mind, and I hope we shall be able to receive you. + + + + +TO J. A. SYMONDS + + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._ + +MY DEAR SYMONDS,--Yes we have both been very neglectful. I had horrid +luck, catching two thundering influenzas in August and November. I +recovered from the last with difficulty, but have come through this +blustering winter with some general success; in the house, up and down. +My wife, however, has been painfully upset by my health. Last year, of +course, was cruelly trying to her nerves; Nice and Hyeres are bad +experiences; and though she is not ill, the doctor tells me that +prolonged anxiety may do her a real mischief. + +I feel a little old and fagged, and chary of speech, and not very sure +of spirit in my work; but considering what a year I have passed, and how +I have twice sat on Charon's pierhead, I am surprising. + +My father has presented us with a very pretty home in this place, into +which we hope to move by May. My _Child's Verses_ come out next week. +_Otto_ begins to appear in April; _More New Arabian Nights_ as soon as +possible. Moreover, I am neck deep in Wellington; also a story on the +stocks, _The Great North Road_. O, I am busy! Lloyd is at college in +Edinburgh. That is, I think, all that can be said by way of news. + +Have you read _Huckleberry Finn_? It contains many excellent things; +above all, the whole story of a healthy boy's dealings with his +conscience, incredibly well done. + +My own conscience is badly seared; a want of piety; yet I pray for it, +tacitly, every day; believing it, after courage, the only gift worth +having; and its want, in a man of any claims to honour, quite +unpardonable. The tone of your letter seemed to me very sound. In these +dark days of public dishonour, I do not know that one can do better than +carry our private trials piously. What a picture is this of a nation! No +man that I can see, on any side or party, seems to have the least sense +of our ineffable shame: the desertion of the garrisons. I tell my little +parable that Germany took England, and then there was an Indian Mutiny, +and Bismarck said: "Quite right: let Delhi and Calcutta and Bombay fall; +and let the women and children be treated Sepoy fashion," and people +say, "O, but that is very different!" And then I wish I were dead. +Millais (I hear) was painting Gladstone when the news came of Gordon's +death; Millais was much affected, and Gladstone said, "Why? _It is the +man's own temerity!_" Voila le Bourgeois! le voila nu! But why should I +blame Gladstone, when I too am a Bourgeois? when I have held my peace? +Why did I hold my peace? Because I am a sceptic: _i.e._ a Bourgeois. We +believe in nothing, Symonds; you don't, and I don't; and these are two +reasons, out of a handful of millions, why England stands before the +world dripping with blood and daubed with dishonour. I will first try to +take the beam out of my own eye, trusting that even private effort +somehow betters and braces the general atmosphere. See, for example, if +England has shown (I put it hypothetically) one spark of manly +sensibility, they have been shamed into it by the spectacle of Gordon. +Police-Officer Cole is the only man that I see to admire. I dedicate my +_New Arabs_ to him and Cox, in default of other great public +characters.--Yours ever most affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + The following refers to an edition of Gray, with notes and a short + prefatory Life by Mr. Gosse; and to the publication of the _Child's + Garden of Verses_. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March 12, 1885._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I was indeed much exercised how I could be worked into +Gray; and lo! when I saw it, the passage seemed to have been written +with a single eye to elucidate the--worst?--well, not a very good poem +of Gray's. Your little life is excellent, clean, neat, efficient. I have +read many of your notes, too, with pleasure. Your connection with Gray +was a happy circumstance; it was a suitable conjunction. + +I did not answer your letter from the States, for what was I to say? I +liked getting it and reading it; I was rather flattered that you wrote +it to me; and then I'll tell you what I did--I put it in the fire. Why? +Well, just because it was very natural and expansive; and thinks I to +myself, if I die one of these fine nights, this is just the letter that +Gosse would not wish to go into the hands of third parties. Was I well +inspired? And I did not answer it because you were in your high places, +sailing with supreme dominion, and seeing life in a particular glory; +and I was peddling in a corner, confined to the house, overwhelmed with +necessary work, which I was not always doing well, and, in the very mild +form in which the disease approaches me, touched with a sort of bustling +cynicism. Why throw cold water? How ape your agreeable frame of mind? +In short, I held my tongue. + +I have now published on 101 small pages _The Complete Proof of Mr. R. L. +Stevenson's Incapacity to Write Verse_, in a series of graduated +examples with table of contents. I think I shall issue a companion +volume of exercises: "Analyse this poem. Collect and comminate the ugly +words. Distinguish and condemn the _chevilles_. State Mr. Stevenson's +faults of taste in regard to the measure. What reasons can you gather +from this example for your belief that Mr. S. is unable to write any +other measure?" + +They look ghastly in the cold light of print; but there is something +nice in the little ragged regiment for all; the blackguards seem to me +to smile, to have a kind of childish treble note that sounds in my ears +freshly; not song, if you will, but a child's voice. + +I was glad you enjoyed your visit to the States. Most Englishmen go +there with a confirmed design of patronage, as they go to France for +that matter; and patronage will not pay. Besides, in this year +of--grace, said I?--of disgrace, who should creep so low as an +Englishman? "It is not to be thought of that the flood"--ah, Wordsworth, +you would change your note were you alive to-day! + +I am now a beastly householder, but have not yet entered on my domain. +When I do, the social revolution will probably cast me back upon my dung +heap. There is a person called Hyndman whose eye is on me; his step is +beHynd me as I go. I shall call my house Skerryvore when I get it: +SKERRYVORE: _c'est bon pour la poeshie_. I will conclude with my +favourite sentiment: "The world is too much with me." + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, + _The Hermit of Skerryvore_, + + +Author of "John Vane Tempest: a Romance," "Herbert and Henrietta: or the +Nemesis of Sentiment," "The Life and Adventures of Colonel Bludyer +Fortescue," "Happy Homes and Hairy Faces," "A Pound of Feathers and a +Pound of Lead," part author of "Minn's Complete Capricious +Correspondent: a Manual of Natty, Natural, and Knowing Letters," and +editor of the "Poetical Remains of Samuel Burt Crabbe, known as the +melodious Bottle-Holder." + + Uniform with the above: + +"The Life and Remains of the Reverend Jacob Degray Squah," author of +"Heave-yo for the New Jerusalem," "A Box of Candles; or the Patent +Spiritual Safety Match," and "A Day with the Heavenly Harriers." + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The "dedication" referred to was that of a forthcoming illustrated + edition of Keats's _Lamia_. + + _Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March 13, 1885._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--Your success has been immense. I wish your letter had come +two days ago: _Otto_, alas! has been disposed of a good while ago; but +it was only day before yesterday that I settled the new volume of Arabs. +However, for the future, you and the sons of the deified Scribner are +the men for me. Really they have behaved most handsomely. I cannot lay +my hand on the papers, or I would tell you exactly how it compares with +my English bargain; but it compares well. Ah, if we had that copyright, +I do believe it would go far to make me solvent, ill-health and all. + +I wrote you a letter to the Rembrandt, in which I stated my views about +the dedication in a very brief form. It will give me sincere pleasure, +and will make the second dedication I have received, the other being +from John Addington Symonds. It is a compliment I value much; I don't +know any that I should prefer. + +I am glad to hear you have windows to do; that is a fine business, I +think; but, alas! the glass is so bad nowadays; realism invading even +that, as well as the huge inferiority of our technical resource +corrupting every tint. Still, anything that keeps a man to decoration +is, in this age, good for the artist's spirit. + +By the way, have you seen James and me on the novel? James, I think in +the August or September--R. L. S. in the December Longman. I own I think +the _ecole bete_, of which I am the champion, has the whip hand of the +argument; but as James is to make a rejoinder, I must not boast. Anyway +the controversy is amusing to see. I was terribly tied down to space, +which has made the end congested and dull. I shall see if I can afford +to send you the April Contemporary--but I dare say you see it anyway--as +it will contain a paper of mine on style, a sort of continuation of old +arguments on art in which you have wagged a most effective tongue. It is +a sort of start upon my Treatise on the Art of Literature: a small, arid +book that shall some day appear. + +With every good wish from me and mine (should I not say "she and hers"?) +to you and yours, believe me yours ever, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO P.G. HAMERTON + + + The work of his correspondent's which R. L. S. notices in the + following is the sumptuous volume _Landscape_: Seeley & Co., 1885. + The passages specially referred to will be found pp. 46-62 of that + work. + + _Bournemouth, March 16, 1885._ + +MY DEAR HAMERTON,--Various things have been reminding me of my +misconduct: First, Swan's application for your address; second, a sight +of the sheets of your _Landscape_ book; and last, your note to Swan, +which he was so kind as to forward. I trust you will never suppose me +to be guilty of anything more serious than an idleness, partially +excusable. My ill-health makes my rate of life heavier than I can well +meet, and yet stops me from earning more. My conscience, sometimes +perhaps too easily stifled, but still (for my time of life and the +public manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual and +almost endless transcriptions. On the back of all this, my +correspondence hangs like a thundercloud; and just when I think I am +getting through my troubles, crack, down goes my health, I have a long, +costly sickness, and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me I +have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the opportunity of +the aid makes the necessity none the more welcome. My father has +presented me with a beautiful house here--or so I believe, for I have +not yet seen it, being a cage bird but for nocturnal sorties in the +garden. I hope we shall soon move into it, and I tell myself that some +day perhaps we may have the pleasure of seeing you as our guest. I trust +at least that you will take me as I am, a thoroughly bad correspondent, +and a man, a hater, indeed, of rudeness in others, but too often rude in +all unconsciousness himself; and that you will never cease to believe +the sincere sympathy and admiration that I feel for you and for your +work. + +About the _Landscape_, which I had a glimpse of while a friend of mine +was preparing a review, I was greatly interested, and could write and +wrangle for a year on every page; one passage particularly delighted me, +the part about Ulysses--jolly. Then, you know, that is just what I fear +I have come to think landscape ought to be in literature; so there we +should be at odds. Or perhaps not so much as I suppose, as Montaigne +says it is a pot with two handles, and I own I am wedded to the +technical handle, which (I likewise own and freely) you do well to keep +for a mistress. I should much like to talk with you about some other +points; it is only in talk that one gets to understand. Your delightful +Wordsworth trap I have tried on two hardened Wordsworthians, not that I +am not one myself. By covering up the context, and asking them to guess +what the passage was, both (and both are very clever people, one a +writer, one a painter) pronounced it a guide-book. "Do you think it an +unusually good guide-book?" I asked, and both said, "No, not at all!" +Their grimace was a picture when I showed the original. + +I trust your health and that of Mrs. Hamerton keep better; your last +account was a poor one. I was unable to make out the visit I had hoped, +as (I do not know if you heard of it) I had a very violent and dangerous +hemorrhage last spring. I am almost glad to have seen death so close +with all my wits about me, and not in the customary lassitude and +disenchantment of disease. Even thus clearly beheld I find him not so +terrible as we suppose. But, indeed, with the passing of years, the +decay of strength, the loss of all my old active and pleasant habits, +there grows more and more upon me that belief in the kindness of this +scheme of things, and the goodness of our veiled God, which is an +excellent and pacifying compensation. I trust, if your health continues +to trouble you, you may find some of the same belief. But perhaps my +fine discovery is a piece of art, and belongs to a character cowardly, +intolerant of certain feelings, and apt to self-deception. I don't think +so, however; and when I feel what a weak and fallible vessel I was +thrust into this hurly-burly, and with what marvellous kindness the wind +has been tempered to my frailties, I think I should be a strange kind of +ass to feel anything but gratitude. + +I do not know why I should inflict this talk upon you; but when I summon +the rebellious pen, he must go his own way; I am no Michael Scott, to +rule the fiend of correspondence. Most days he will none of me; and when +he comes, it is to rape me where he will.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + Stevenson was by this time beginning to realise that work at + play-writing in collaboration with Mr. Henley was doing much more to + exhaust his strength than to replenish either of their purses, and + Mr. Henley, who had built hopes of fame and fortune on their + collaboration, was very unwilling to face the fact. + + [_Bournemouth, March 1885._] + +MY DEAR LAD,--That is all right, and a good job. About coming down, you +cannot get into us for a while, as you may imagine; we are in desperate +vortex, and everybody 'most dead. I have been two days in bed with liver +and slight bleeding. + +Do you think you are right to send _Macaire_ and the _Admiral_ about? +Not a copy have I sent, nor (speaking for myself personally) do I want +sent. The reperusal of the _Admiral_, by the way, was a sore blow; eh, +God, man, it is a low, black, dirty, blackguard, ragged piece: vomitable +in many parts--simply vomitable. Pew is in places a reproach to both art +and man. But of all that afterwards. What I mean is that I believe in +playing dark with second and third-rate work. Macaire is a piece of +job-work, hurriedly bockled; might have been worse, might have been +better; happy-go-lucky; act it or-let-it-rot piece of business. Not a +thing, I think, to send in presentations. Do not let us _gober_ +ourselves--and, above all, not _gober_ dam pot-boilers--and p.b.'s with +an obvious flaw and hole in them, such as is our unrealised Bertrand in +this one. But of this also, on a meeting. + +I am not yet done with my proofs, I am sorry to say; so soon as I am, I +must tackle _Kidnapped_ seriously, or be content to have no bread, which +you would scarcely recommend. It is all I shall be able to do to wait +for the Young Folk money, on which I'll have to live as best I can till +the book comes in. + +Plays at that rate I do not think I can possibly look at before July; so +let that be a guide to you in your views. July, or August, or +September, or thereabouts: these must be our times, whichever we attack. +I think you had better suspend a visit till we can take you in and till +I can speak. It seems a considerable waste of money; above all, as just +now I could not even offer you meals with my woman in such a state of +overwork. My father and mother have had to go to lodgings.--Post. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + [_Bournemouth, March 1885._] + +DEAR LAD,--Much better, but rather unequal to do what I ought, a common +complaint. The change of weather much helped me, not too soon. + +I have thought as well as I could of what you said; and I come +unhesitatingly to the opinion that the stage is only a lottery, must not +be regarded as a trade, and must never be preferred to drudgery. If +money comes from any play, let us regard it as a legacy, but never count +upon it in our income for the year. In other words, I must go on and +drudge at _Kidnapped_, which I hate, and am unfit to do; and you will +have to get some journalism somehow. These are my cold and blighting +sentiments. It is bad enough to have to live by an art--but to think to +live by an art combined with commercial speculation--that way madness +lies. + +Time is our only friend. The _Admiral_, pulled simply in pieces and +about half deleted, will act some day: such is my opinion. I can no +more.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + An anonymous review of the _Child's Garden_, appearing in March, gave + R. L. S. so much pleasure that he wrote (in the four words, "Now who + are you?") to inquire the name of its writer, and learned that it + was Mr. Archer; with whom he had hitherto had no acquaintance. He + thereupon entered into friendly correspondence with his critic. + + _Bournemouth, March 29, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--Yes, I have heard of you and read some of your work; +but I am bound in particular to thank you for the notice of my verses. +"There," I said, throwing it over to the friend who was staying with me, +"it's worth writing a book to draw an article like that." Had you been +as hard upon me as you were amiable, I try to tell myself I should have +been no blinder to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire +and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an enviable touch; +the marks of a reader, such as one imagines for one's self in dreams, +thoughtful, critical, and kind; and to put the top on this memorial +column, a greater readiness to describe the author criticised than to +display the talents of his censor. + +I am a man _blase_ to injudicious praise (though I hope some of it may +be judicious too), but I have to thank you for THE BEST CRITICISM I EVER +HAD; and am therefore, dear Mr. Archer, the most grateful critickee now +extant. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--I congratulate you on living in the corner of all London that I +like best. _A propos_, you are very right about my voluntary aversion +from the painful sides of life. My childhood was in reality a very mixed +experience, full of fever, nightmare, insomnia, painful days and +interminable nights; and I can speak with less authority of gardens than +of that other "land of counterpane." But to what end should we renew +these sorrows? The sufferings of life may be handled by the very +greatest in their hours of insight; it is of its pleasures that our +common poems should be formed; these are the experiences that we should +seek to recall or to provoke; and I say with Thoreau, "What right have I +to complain, who have not ceased to wonder?" and, to add a rider of my +own, who have no remedy to offer. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH PENNELL + + Acknowledging the dedication of an illustrated _Canterbury + Pilgrimage_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer 1885._] + +DEAR SIR AND MADAM,--This horrible delay must be forgiven me. It was not +caused by any want of gratitude; but by the desire to acknowledge the +dedication more suitably (and to display my wit) in a copy of verses. +Well, now I give that up, and tell you in plain prose, that you have +given me much pleasure by the dedication of your graceful book. + +As I was writing the above, I received a visit from Lady Shelley, who +mentioned to me that she was reading Mrs. Pennell's _Mary +Wollstonecraft_ with pleasure. It is odd how streams cross. Mr. +Pennell's work I have, of course, long known and admired: and I believe +there was once some talk, on the part of Mr. Gilder, that we should work +together; but the scheme fell through from my rapacity; and since then +has been finally rendered impossible (or so I fear) by my health. + +I should say that when I received the _Pilgrimage_, I was in a state +(not at all common with me) of depression; and the pleasant testimony +that my work had not all been in vain did much to set me up again. You +will therefore understand, late as is the hour, with what sincerity I am +able to sign myself--Gratefully yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +MR. AND MRS. PENNELL,--I see I should explain that this is all in my own +hand, I have not fobbed you off with an amanuensis; but as I have two +handwritings (both equally bad in these days) I might lead you to think +so. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + On the death of Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who in Stevenson's early + student days at Edinburgh had been both the warmest and the wisest of + his elder friends (died June 12, 1885). + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1885._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--You know how much and for how long I have loved, +respected, and admired him; I am only able to feel a little with you. +But I know how he would have wished us to feel. I never knew a better +man, nor one to me more lovable; we shall all feel the loss more greatly +as time goes on. It scarce seems life to me; what must it be to you? Yet +one of the last things that he said to me was, that from all these sad +bereavements of yours he had learned only more than ever to feel the +goodness and what we, in our feebleness, call the support of God; he had +been ripening so much--to other eyes than ours, we must suppose he was +ripe, and try to feel it. I feel it is better not to say much more. It +will be to me a great pride to write a notice of him: the last I can now +do. What more in any way I can do for you, please to think and let me +know. For his sake and for your own, I would not be a useless friend: I +know, you know me a most warm one; please command me or my wife, in any +way. Do not trouble to write to me; Austin, I have no doubt, will do so, +if you are, as I fear you will be, unfit. + +My heart is sore for you. At least you know what you have been to him; +how he cherished and admired you; how he was never so pleased as when he +spoke of you; with what a boy's love, up to the last, he loved you. This +surely is a consolation. Yours is the cruel part--to survive; you must +try and not grudge to him his better fortune, to go first. It is the sad +part of such relations that one must remain and suffer; I cannot see my +poor Jenkin without you. Nor you indeed without him; but you may try to +rejoice that he is spared that extremity. Perhaps I (as I was so much +his confidant) know even better than you can do what your loss would +have been to him; he never spoke of you but his face changed; it +was--you were--his religion. + +I write by this post to Austin and to the Academy.--Yours most +sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1885_.] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--I should have written sooner, but we are in a +bustle, and I have been very tired, though still well. Your very kind +note was most welcome to me. I shall be very much pleased to have you +call me Louis, as he has now done for so many years. Sixteen, you say? +is it so long? It seems too short now; but of that we cannot judge, and +must not complain. + +I wish that either I or my wife could do anything for you; when we can, +you will, I am sure, command us. + +I trust that my notice gave you as little pain as was possible. I found +I had so much to say, that I preferred to keep it for another place and +make but a note in the Academy. To try to draw my friend at greater +length, and say what he was to me and his intimates, what a good +influence in life and what an example, is a desire that grows upon me. +It was strange, as I wrote the note, how his old tests and criticisms +haunted me; and it reminded me afresh with every few words how much I +owe to him. + +I had a note from Henley, very brief and very sad. We none of us yet +feel the loss; but we know what he would have said and wished. + +Do you know that Dew Smith has two photographs of him, neither very bad? +and one giving a lively, though not flattering air of him in +conversation? If you have not got them, would you like me to write to +Dew and ask him to give you proofs? + +I was so pleased that he and my wife made friends; that is a great +pleasure. We found and have preserved one fragment (the head) of the +drawing he made and tore up when he was last here. He had promised to +come and stay with us this summer. May we not hope, at least, some time +soon to have one from you?--Believe me, my dear Mrs. Jenkin, with the +most real sympathy, your sincere friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + +Dear me, what happiness I owe to both of you! + + + + +TO C. HOWARD CARRINGTON + + + In answer to an inquiry from a correspondent not personally known to + him, who had by some means heard of the _Great North Road_ project. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 9th [1885]._ + +DEAR SIR,--_The Great North Road_ is still unfinished; it is scarce I +should say beyond Highgate: but it will be finished some day, bar the +big accident. It will not however gratify your taste; the highwayman is +not grasped: what you would have liked (and I, believe me) would have +been _Jerry Abershaw_: but Jerry was not written at the fit moment; I +have outgrown the taste--and his romantic horse-shoes clatter faintlier +down the incline towards Lethe.--Truly yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO KATHARINE DE MATTOS + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer 1885._ + +MY DEAR CATHERINE,--'Tis the most complete blague and folly to write to +you; you never answer and, even when you do, your letters crackle under +the teeth like ashes; containing nothing as they do but unseasonable +japes and a great cloudy vagueness as of the realm of chaos. In this I +know well they are like mine; and it becomes me well to write such--but +not you--for reasons too obvious to mention. We have both been sick; but +to-day I am up, though with an aching back. But I hope all will be +better. Of your views, state, finances, etc. etc., I know nothing. We +were mighty near the end of all things financially, when a strange shape +of a hand giving appeared in Heaven or from Hell, and set us up again +for the moment; yet still we totter on a whoreson brink. I beg pardon. I +forgot I was writing to a lady; but the word shall stay: it is the only +word; I would say it to the Q----n of E----d. + +How do you like letters of this kind? It is your kind. They mean +nothing; they are blankly insignificant; and impudently put one in the +wrong. One has learnt nothing; and forsooth one must reply.--Yours, the +Inexpressive Correspondent, + + R. L. S. + + +Hey-ey-ey! Sold again. Hey-ey-ey! + +Postscript: sold again. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + In August of this year Stevenson made with his wife an excursion to + the west country (stopping at Dorchester on the way, for the pleasure + of seeing Mr. Thomas Hardy at home), and was detained for several + weeks at The New London inn, Exeter, by a bad fit of hemorrhage. His + correspondence is not resumed until the autumn. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 22, 1885._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--I trust you are not annoyed with me beyond forgiveness; +for indeed my silence has been devilish prolonged. I can only tell you +that I have been nearly six months (more than six) in a strange +condition of collapse, when it was impossible to do any work, and +difficult (more difficult than you would suppose) to write the merest +note. I am now better, but not yet my own man in the way of brains, and +in health only so-so. I suppose I shall learn (I begin to think I am +learning) to fight this vast, vague feather-bed of an obsession that now +overlies and smothers me; but in the beginnings of these conflicts, the +inexperienced wrestler is always worsted, and I own I have been quite +extinct. I wish you to know, though it can be no excuse, that you are +not the only one of my friends by many whom I have thus neglected; and +even now, having come so very late into the possession of myself, with a +substantial capital of debts, and my work still moving with a desperate +slowness--as a child might fill a sandbag with its little handfuls--and +my future deeply pledged, there is almost a touch of virtue in my +borrowing these hours to write to you. Why I said "hours" I know not; it +would look blue for both of us if I made good the word. + +I was writing your address the other day, ordering a copy of my next, +_Prince Otto_, to go your way. I hope you have not seen it in parts; it +was not meant to be so read; and only my poverty (dishonourably) +consented to the serial evolution. + +I will send you with this a copy of the English edition of the _Child's +Garden_. I have heard there is some vile rule of the post-office in the +States against inscriptions; so I send herewith a piece of doggerel +which Mr. Bunner may, if he thinks fit, copy off the fly-leaf. + +Sargent was down again and painted a portrait of me walking about in my +own dining-room, in my own velveteen jacket, and twisting as I go my own +moustache; at one corner a glimpse of my wife, in an Indian dress, and +seated in a chair that was once my grandfather's, but since some months +goes by the name of Henry James's--for it was there the novelist loved +to sit--adds a touch of poesy and comicality. It is, I think, excellent, +but is too eccentric to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my +wife, in this wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at the extreme +other end; between us an open door exhibits my palatial entrance hall +and a part of my respected staircase. All this is touched in lovely, +with that witty touch of Sargent's; but, of course, it looks dam queer +as a whole. + +Pray let me hear from you, and give me good news of yourself and your +wife, to whom please remember me.--Yours most sincerely, my dear Low, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + _Prince Otto_ was published in October of this year; and the + following refers to two reviews of it--one of them by Mr. Henley, + which to the writer's displeasure had been pruned by the editor + before printing; the other by a writer in the Saturday Review who + declared that Otto was "a fool and a wittol," and could see nothing + but false style in the story of Seraphina's flight through the + forest. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Autumn 1885.]_ + +DEAR LAD,--If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I think [the +editor] has done us both a service; some of it stops my throat. What, it +would not have been the same if Dumas or Musset had done it, would it +not? Well, no, I do not think it would, do you know, now; I am really of +opinion it would not; and a dam good job too. Why, think what Musset +would have made of Otto! Think how gallantly Dumas would have carried +his crowd through! And whatever you do, don't quarrel with ----. It +gives me much pleasure to see your work there; I think you do yourself +great justice in that field; and I would let no annoyance, petty or +justifiable, debar me from such a market. I think you do good there. +Whether (considering our intimate relations) you would not do better to +refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to yourself: were it all on my +side, you could foresee my answer; but there is your side also, where +you must be the judge. + +As for the Saturday. Otto is no "fool," the reader is left in no doubt +as to whether or not Seraphina was a Messalina (though much it would +matter, if you come to that); and therefore on both these points the +reviewer has been unjust. Secondly, the romance lies precisely in the +freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues; and here I think the +reviewer showed himself dull. Lastly, if Otto's speech is offensive to +him, he is one of the large class of unmanly and ungenerous dogs who +arrogate and defile the name of manly. As for the passages quoted, I do +confess that some of them reek Gongorically; they are excessive, but +they are not inelegant after all. However, had he attacked me only +there, he would have scored. + +Your criticism on Gondremark is, I fancy, right. I thought all your +criticisms were indeed; only your praise--chokes me.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + The paper referred to in this and the following letters is one which + Mr. Archer wrote over his own signature in the November number of + Time, a magazine now extinct. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 28, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--I have read your paper with my customary admiration; +it is very witty, very adroit; it contains a great deal that is +excellently true (particularly the parts about my stories and the +description of me as an artist in life); but you will not be surprised +if I do not think it altogether just. It seems to me, in particular, +that you have wilfully read all my works in terms of my earliest; my +aim, even in style, has quite changed in the last six or seven years; +and this I should have thought you would have noticed. Again, your first +remark upon the affectation of the italic names; a practice only +followed in my two affected little books of travel, where a +typographical _minauderie_ of the sort appeared to me in character; and +what you say of it, then, is quite just. But why should you forget +yourself and use these same italics as an index to my theology some +pages further on? This is lightness of touch indeed; may I say, it is +almost sharpness of practice? + +Excuse these remarks. I have been on the whole much interested, and +sometimes amused. Are you aware that the praiser of this "brave +gymnasium" has not seen a canoe nor taken a long walk since '79? that he +is rarely out of the house nowadays, and carries his arm in a sling? Can +you imagine that he is a back-slidden communist, and is sure he will go +to hell (if there be such an excellent institution) for the luxury in +which he lives? And can you believe that, though it is gaily expressed, +the thought is hag and skeleton in every moment of vacuity or +depression? Can you conceive how profoundly I am irritated by the +opposite affectation to my own, when I see strong men and rich men +bleating about their sorrows and the burthen of life, in a world full of +"cancerous paupers," and poor sick children, and the fatally bereaved, +ay, and down even to such happy creatures as myself, who has yet been +obliged to strip himself, one after another, of all the pleasures that +he had chosen except smoking (and the days of that I know in my heart +ought to be over), I forgot eating, which I still enjoy, and who sees +the circle of impotence closing very slowly but quite steadily around +him? In my view, one dank, dispirited word is harmful, a crime of +_lese-humanite_, a piece of acquired evil; every gay, every bright word +or picture, like every pleasant air of music, is a piece of pleasure set +afloat; the reader catches it, and, if he be healthy, goes on his way +rejoicing; and it is the business of art so to send him, as often as +possible. + +For what you say, so kindly, so prettily, so precisely, of my style, I +must in particular thank you; though even here, I am vexed you should +not have remarked on my attempted change of manner: seemingly this +attempt is still quite unsuccessful! Well, we shall fight it out on +this line if it takes all summer. + +And now for my last word: Mrs. Stevenson is very anxious that you should +see me, and that she should see you, in the flesh. If you at all share +in these views, I am a fixture. Write or telegraph (giving us time, +however, to telegraph in reply, lest the day be impossible), and come +down here to a bed and a dinner. What do you say, my dear critic? I +shall be truly pleased to see you; and to explain at greater length what +I meant by saying narrative was the most characteristic mood of +literature, on which point I have great hopes I shall persuade +you.--Yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--My opinion about Thoreau, and the passage in The Week, is +perhaps a fad, but it is sincere and stable. I am still of the same mind +five years later; did you observe that I had said "modern" authors? and +will you observe again that this passage touches the very joint of our +division? It is one that appeals to me, deals with that part of life +that I think the most important, and you, if I gather rightly, so much +less so? You believe in the extreme moment of the facts that humanity +has acquired and is acquiring; I think them of moment, but still of much +less than those inherent or inherited brute principles and laws that sit +upon us (in the character of conscience) as heavy as a shirt of mail, +and that (in the character of the affections and the airy spirit of +pleasure) make all the light of our lives. The house is, indeed, a great +thing, and should be rearranged on sanitary principles; but my heart and +all my interest are with the dweller, that ancient of days and day-old +infant man. + + R. L. S. + + +An excellent touch is p. 584. "By instinct or design he eschews what +demands constructive patience." I believe it is both; my theory is that +literature must always be most at home in treating movement and change; +hence I look for them. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 28, 1885._ + +MY DEAREST FATHER,--Get the November number of Time, and you will see a +review of me by a very clever fellow, who is quite furious at bottom +because I am too orthodox, just as Purcell was savage because I am not +orthodox enough. I fall between two stools. It is odd, too, to see how +this man thinks me a full-blooded fox-hunter, and tells me my philosophy +would fail if I lost my health or had to give up exercise! + +An illustrated _Treasure Island_ will be out next month. I have had an +early copy, and the French pictures are admirable. The artist has got +his types up in Hogarth; he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can +compose, and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one or two +little accidents, such as making the _Hispaniola_ a brig. I would send +you my copy, _but I cannot_; it is my new toy, and I cannot divorce +myself from this enjoyment. + +I am keeping really better, and have been out about every second day, +though the weather is cold and very wild. + +I was delighted to hear you were keeping better; you and Archer would +agree, more shame to you! (Archer is my pessimist critic.) Good-bye to +all of you, with my best love. We had a dreadful overhauling of my +conduct as a son the other night; and my wife stripped me of my +illusions and made me admit I had been a detestable bad one. Of one +thing in particular she convicted me in my own eyes: I mean, a most +unkind reticence, which hung on me then, and I confess still hangs on me +now, when I try to assure you that I do love you.--Ever your bad son, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 28, 1885._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--At last, my wife being at a concert, and a story +being done, I am at some liberty to write and give you of my views. And +first, many thanks for the works that came to my sickbed. And second, +and more important, as to the _Princess_.[13] Well, I think you are +going to do it this time; I cannot, of course, foresee, but these two +first numbers seem to me picturesque and sound and full of lineament, +and very much a new departure. As for your young lady, she is all there; +yes, sir, you can do low life, I believe. The prison was excellent; it +was of that nature of touch that I sometimes achingly miss from your +former work; with some of the grime, that is, and some of the emphasis +of skeleton there is in nature. I pray you to take grime in a good +sense; it need not be ignoble: dirt may have dignity; in nature it +usually has; and your prison was imposing. + +And now to the main point: why do we not see you? Do not fail us. Make +an alarming sacrifice, and let us see "Henry James's chair" properly +occupied. I never sit in it myself (though it was my grandfather's); it +has been consecrated to guests by your approval, and now stands at my +elbow gaping. We have a new room, too, to introduce to you--our last +baby, the drawing-room; it never cries, and has cut its teeth. Likewise, +there is a cat now. It promises to be a monster of laziness and +self-sufficiency. + +Pray see, in the November Time (a dread name for a magazine of light +reading), a very clever fellow, W. Archer, stating his views of me; the +rosy-gilled "athletico-aesthete"; and warning me, in a fatherly manner, +that a rheumatic fever would try my philosophy (as indeed it would), and +that my gospel would not do for "those who are shut out from the +exercise of any manly virtue save renunciation." To those who know that +rickety and cloistered spectre, the real R. L. S., the paper, besides +being clever in itself, presents rare elements of sport. The critical +parts are in particular very bright and neat, and often excellently +true. Get it by all manner of means. + +I hear on all sides I am to be attacked as an immoral writer; this is +painful. Have I at last got, like you, to the pitch of being attacked? +'Tis the consecration I lack--and could do without. Not that Archer's +paper is an attack, or what either he or I, I believe, would call one; +'tis the attacks on my morality (which I had thought a gem of the first +water) I referred to. + +Now, my dear James, come--come--come. The spirit (that is me) says, +Come; and the bride (and that is my wife) says, Come; and the best thing +you can do for us and yourself and your work is to get up and do so +right away.--Yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 30, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--It is possible my father may be soon down with me; he +is an old man and in bad health and spirits; and I could neither leave +him alone, nor could we talk freely before him. If he should be here +when you offer your visit, you will understand if I have to say no, and +put you off. + +I quite understand your not caring to refer to things of private +knowledge. What still puzzles me is how you ("in the witness box"--ha! I +like the phrase) should have made your argument actually hinge on a +contention which the facts answered. + +I am pleased to hear of the correctness of my guess. It is then as I +supposed; you are of the school of the generous and not the sullen +pessimists; and I can feel with you. I used myself to rage when I saw +sick folk going by in their Bath-chairs; since I have been sick myself +(and always when I was sick myself), I found life, even in its rough +places, to have a property of easiness. That which we suffer ourselves +has no longer the same air of monstrous injustice and wanton cruelty +that suffering wears when we see it in the case of others. So we begin +gradually to see that things are not black, but have their strange +compensations; and when they draw towards their worst, the idea of death +is like a bed to lie on. I should bear false witness if I did not +declare life happy. And your wonderful statement that happiness tends to +die out and misery to continue, which was what put me on the track of +your frame of mind, is diagnostic of the happy man raging over the +misery of others; it could never be written by the man who had tried +what unhappiness was like. And at any rate, it was a slip of the pen: +the ugliest word that science has to declare is a reserved indifference +to happiness and misery in the individual; it declares no leaning toward +the black, no iniquity on the large scale in fate's doings, rather a +marble equality, dread not cruel, giving and taking away and +reconciling. + +Why have I not written my _Timon_? Well, here is my worst quarrel with +you. You take my young books as my last word. The tendency to try to say +more has passed unperceived (my fault, that). And you make no allowance +for the slowness with which a man finds and tries to learn his tools. I +began with a neat brisk little style, and a sharp little knack of +partial observation; I have tried to expand my means, but still I can +only utter a part of what I wish to say, and am bound to feel; and much +of it will die unspoken. But if I had the pen of Shakespeare, I have no +_Timon_ to give forth. I feel kindly to the powers that be; I marvel +they should use me so well; and when I think of the case of others, I +wonder too, but in another vein, whether they may not, whether they +must not, be like me, still with some compensation, some delight. To +have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the +agreeable. This is a great truth, and has to be learned in the +fire.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +We expect you, remember that. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, November 1, 1885._ + +DEAR MR. ARCHER,--You will see that I had already had a sight of your +article and what were my thoughts. + +One thing in your letter puzzles me. Are you, too, not in the +witness-box? And if you are, why take a wilfully false hypothesis? If +you knew I was a chronic invalid, why say that my philosophy was +unsuitable to such a case? My call for facts is not so general as yours, +but an essential fact should not be put the other way about. + +The fact is, consciously or not, you doubt my honesty; you think I am +making faces, and at heart disbelieve my utterances. And this I am +disposed to think must spring from your not having had enough of pain, +sorrow, and trouble in your existence. It is easy to have too much; easy +also or possible to have too little; enough is required that a man may +appreciate what elements of consolation and joy there are in everything +but absolutely overpowering physical pain or disgrace, and how in almost +all circumstances the human soul can play a fair part. You fear life, I +fancy, on the principle of the hand of little employment. But perhaps my +hypothesis is as unlike the truth as the one you chose. Well, if it be +so, if you have had trials, sickness, the approach of death, the +alienation of friends, poverty at the heels, and have not felt your +soul turn round upon these things and spurn them under--you must be very +differently made from me, and I earnestly believe from the majority of +men. But at least you are in the right to wonder and complain. + +To "say all"? Stay here. All at once? That would require a word from the +pen of Gargantua. We say each particular thing as it comes up, and "with +that sort of emphasis that for the time there seems to be no other." +Words will not otherwise serve us; no, nor even Shakespeare, who could +not have put _As You Like It_ and _Timon_ into one without ruinous loss +both of emphasis and substance. Is it quite fair then to keep your face +so steadily On my most light-hearted works, and then say I recognise no +evil? Yet in the paper on Burns, for instance, I show myself alive to +some sorts of evil. But then, perhaps, they are not your sorts. + +And again: "to say all"? All: yes. Everything: no. The task were +endless, the effect nil. But my all, in such a vast field as this of +life, is what interests me, what stands out, what takes on itself a +presence for my imagination or makes a figure in that little tricky +abbreviation which is the best that my reason can conceive. That I must +treat, or I shall be fooling with my readers. That, and not the all of +some one else. + +And here we come to the division: not only do I believe that literature +should give joy, but I see a universe, I suppose, eternally different +from yours; a solemn, a terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe, +where suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls with +dispassionate partiality, but where it may be and generally is nobly +borne; where, above all (this I believe; probably you don't: I think he +may, with cancer), _any brave man may make_ out a life which shall be +happy for himself, and, by so being, beneficent to those about him. And +if he fails, why should I hear him weeping? I mean if I fail, why should +I weep? Why should _you_ hear _me_? Then to me morals, the conscience, +the affections, and the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly, +so infinitely more important than the other parts of life, that I +conceive men rather triflers who become immersed in the latter; and I +will always think the man who keeps his lip stiff, and makes "a happy +fireside clime," and carries a pleasant face about to friends and +neighbours, infinitely greater (in the abstract) than an atrabilious +Shakespeare or a backbiting Kant or Darwin. No offence to any of these +gentlemen, two of whom probably (one for certain) came up to my +standard. + +And now enough said; it were hard if a poor man could not criticise +another without having so much ink shed against him. But I shall still +regret you should have written on an hypothesis you knew to be +untenable, and that you should thus have made your paper, for those who +do not know me, essentially unfair. The rich, fox-hunting squire speaks +with one voice; the sick man of letters with another.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + (_Prometheus-Heine in minimis_). + + +_P.S._--Here I go again. To me, the medicine bottles on my chimney and +the blood on my handkerchief are accidents; they do not colour my view +of life, as you would know, I think, if you had experience of sickness; +they do not exist in my prospect; I would as soon drag them under the +eyes of my readers as I would mention a pimple I might chance to have +(saving your presence) on my posteriors. What does it prove? what does +it change? it has not hurt, it has not changed me in any essential part; +and I should think myself a trifler and in bad taste if I introduced the +world to these unimportant privacies. + +But, again, there is this mountain-range between us--_that you do not +believe me_. It is not flattering, but the fault is probably in my +literary art. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + The "other thing coming out" mentioned below in the last paragraph + but one was _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December 26, 1885._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--_Lamia_ has not yet turned up, but your letter came to me +this evening with a scent of the Boulevard Montparnasse that was +irresistible. The sand of Lavenue's crumbled under my heel; and the +bouquet of the old Fleury came back to me, and I remembered the day when +I found a twenty franc piece under my fetish. Have you that fetish +still? and has it brought you luck? I remembered, too, my first sight of +you in a frock-coat and a smoking-cap, when we passed the evening at the +Cafe de Medicis; and my last when we sat and talked in the Parc Monceau; +and all these things made me feel a little young again, which, to one +who has been mostly in bed for a month, was a vivifying change. + +Yes, you are lucky to have a bag that holds you comfortably. Mine is a +strange contrivance; I don't die, damme, and I can't get along on both +feet to save my soul; I am a chronic sickist; and my work cripples along +between bed and the parlour, between the medicine bottle and the cupping +glass. Well, I like my life all the same; and should like it none the +worse if I could have another talk with you, though even my talks now +are measured out to me by the minute hand like poisons in a minim glass. + +A photograph will be taken of my ugly mug and sent to you for ulterior +purposes: I have another thing coming out, which I did not put in the +way of the Scribners, I can scarce tell how; but I was sick and +penniless and rather back on the world, and mismanaged it. I trust they +will forgive me. + +I am sorry to hear of Mrs. Low's illness, and glad to hear of her +recovery. I will announce the coming _Lamia_ to Bob: he steams away at +literature like smoke. I have a beautiful Bob on my walls, and a good +Sargent, and a delightful Lemon; and your etching now hangs framed in +the dining-room. So the arts surround me.--Yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. DE MATTOS + + With this cousin the writer had always been on terms of close + affection, and he now dedicated to her _The Strange Case of Dr. + Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. In the dedication as published only the second + verse stands. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] January 1st, 1886._ + +DEAREST KATHARINE,--Here, on a very little book and accompanied with +lame verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is now getting well on +in years; it must be nearly of age; and it gets more valuable to me with +every time I see you. It is not possible to express any sentiment, and +it is not necessary to try, at least between us. You know very well that +I love you dearly, and that I always will. I only wish the verses were +better, but at least you like the story; and it is sent to you by the +one that loves you--Jekyll, and not Hyde. + + _R. L. S._ + + + _Ave!_ + + Bells upon the city are ringing in the night; + High above the gardens are the houses full of light; + On the heathy Pentlands is the curlew flying free; + And the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie. + + We cannae break the bonds that God decreed to bind, + Still we'll be the children of the heather and the wind; + Far away from home, O, it's still for you and me + That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] Jan. 1st, 1886._ + +MY DEAR KINNICUM,[14]--I am a very bad dog, but not for the first time. +Your book, which is very interesting, came duly; and I immediately got +a very bad cold indeed, and have been fit for nothing whatever. I am a +bit better now, and aye on the mend; so I write to tell you, I thought +of you on New Year's Day; though, I own, it would have been more decent +if I had thought in time for you to get my letter then. Well, what can't +be cured must be endured, Mr. Lawrie; and you must be content with what +I give. If I wrote all the letters I ought to write, and at the proper +time, I should be very good and very happy; but I doubt if I should do +anything else. + +I suppose you will be in town for the New Year; and I hope your health +is pretty good. What you want is diet; but it is as much use to tell you +that as it is to tell my father. And I quite admit a diet is a beastly +thing. I doubt, however, if it be as bad as not being allowed to speak, +which I have tried fully, and do not like. When, at the same time, I was +not allowed to read, it passed a joke. But these are troubles of the +past, and on this day, at least, it is proper to suppose they won't +return. But we are not put here to enjoy ourselves: it was not God's +purpose; and I am prepared to argue, it is not our sincere wish. As for +our deserts, the less said of them the better, for somebody might hear, +and nobody cares to be laughed at. A good man is a very noble thing to +see, but not to himself; what he seems to God is, fortunately, not our +business; that is the domain of faith; and whether on the first of +January or the thirty-first of December, faith is a good word to end on. + +My dear Cummy, many happy returns to you and my best love.--The worst +correspondent in the world, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _January 1st, 1886_. + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--Many happy returns of the day to you all; I am fairly +well and in good spirits; and much and hopefully occupied with dear +Jenkin's life. The inquiry in every detail, every letter that I read, +makes me think of him more nobly. I cannot imagine how I got his +friendship; I did not deserve it. I believe the notice will be +interesting and useful. + +My father's last letter, owing to the use of a quill pen and the neglect +of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. Every one tried, and every +one failed to decipher an important word on which the interest of one +whole clause (and the letter consisted of two) depended. + +I find I can make little more of this; but I'll spare the blots.--Dear +people, ever your loving son, + + R. L. S. + + +I will try again, being a giant refreshed by the house being empty. The +presence of people is the great obstacle to letter-writing. I deny that +letters should contain news (I mean mine; those of other people should). +But mine should contain appropriate sentiments and humorous nonsense, or +nonsense without the humour. When the house is empty, the mind is seized +with a desire--no, that is too strong--a willingness to pour forth +unmitigated rot, which constitutes (in me) the true spirit of +correspondence. When I have no remarks to offer (and nobody to offer +them to), my pen flies, and you see the remarkable consequence of a page +literally covered with words and genuinely devoid of sense. I can always +do that, if quite alone, and I like doing it; but I have yet to learn +that it is beloved by correspondents. The deuce of it is, that there is +no end possible but the end of the paper; and as there is very little +left of that--if I cannot stop writing--suppose you give up reading. It +would all come to the same thing; and I think we should all be +happier.... + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + In the following letter R. L. S. accepts the dedication of Mr. Low's + illustrated edition of Keats's _Lamia_, and sends him in return the + newly published _Jekyll and Hyde_, and a set of verses afterwards + printed in the Century Magazine and _Underwoods_, and inscribed by + Mr. St. Gaudens on his medallion portrait of the author. The terms of + the _Lamia_ dedication are as follows: "In testimony of loyal + friendship and of a common faith in doubtful tales from Faery-Land, I + dedicate to Robert Louis Stevenson my work in this book." The Latin + legend inscribed above the design runs: "Neque est ullum certius + amicitiae vinculum quam consensus et societas consiliorum et + voluntatum." + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _Jan. 2nd, 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--_Lamia_ has come, and I do not know how to thank you, not +only for the beautiful art of the designs, but for the handsome and apt +words of the dedication. My favourite is "Bathes unseen," which is a +masterpiece; and the next, "Into the green recessed woods," is perhaps +more remarkable, though it does not take my fancy so imperiously. The +night scene at Corinth pleases me also. The second part offers fewer +opportunities. I own I should like to see both _Isabella_ and the _Eve_ +thus illustrated; and then there's _Hyperion_--O, yes, and _Endymion_! I +should like to see the lot: beautiful pictures dance before me by +hundreds: I believe _Endymion_ would suit you best. It also is in +faery-land; and I see a hundred opportunities, cloudy and flowery +glories, things as delicate as the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in +themselves of any mighty purport, but made for the pencil: the feast of +Pan, Peona's isle, the "slabbed margin of a well," the chase of the +butterfly, the nymph, Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of +unconnected beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the bosom of +the publisher. + +What is more important, I accept the terms of the dedication with a +frank heart, and the terms of your Latin legend fairly. The sight of +your pictures has once more awakened me to my right mind; something may +come of it; yet one more bold push to get free of this prison-yard of +the abominably ugly, where I take my daily exercise with my +contemporaries. I do not know, I have a feeling in my bones, a sentiment +which may take on the forms of imagination, or may not. If it does, I +shall owe it to you; and the thing will thus descend from Keats even if +on the wrong side of the blanket. If it can be done in prose--that is +the puzzle--I divagate again. Thank you again: you can draw and yet you +do not love the ugly: what are you doing in this age? Flee, while it is +yet time; they will have your four limbs pinned upon a stable door to +scare witches. The ugly, my unhappy friend, is _de rigueur_: it is the +only wear! What a chance you threw away with the serpent! Why had +Apollonius no pimples? Heavens, my dear Low, you do not know your +business.... + +I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph; but the gnome +is interesting, I think, and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards +the fountain of tears. It is not always the time to rejoice.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + +The gnome's name is _Jekyll & Hyde_; I believe you will find he is +likewise quite willing to answer to the name of Low or Stevenson. + +_Same day._--I have copied out on the other sheet some bad verses, which +somehow your picture suggested; as a kind of image of things that I +pursue and cannot reach, and that you seem--no, not to have reached--but +to have come a thought nearer to than I. This is the life we have +chosen: well, the choice was mad, but I should make it again. + +What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be printed in (say) the +Century for the sake of my name; and if that were possible, they might +advertise your book. It might be headed as sent in acknowledgment of +your _Lamia_. Or perhaps it might be introduced by the phrases I have +marked above. I dare say they would stick it in: I want no payment, +being well paid by _Lamia_. If they are not, keep them to yourself. + + + + +TO WILL H. LOW + + +_Damned bad lines in return for a beautiful book_ + + YOUTH now flees on feathered foot. + Faint and fainter sounds the flute; + Rarer songs of Gods. + And still, + Somewhere on the sunny hill, + Or along the winding stream. + Through the willows, flits a dream; + Flits, but shows a smiling face, + Flees, but with so quaint a grace, + None can choose to stay at home, + All must follow--all must roam. + + This is unborn beauty: she + Now in air floats high and free, + Takes the sun, and breaks the blue;-- + Late, with stooping pinion flew + Raking hedgerow trees, and wet + Her wing in silver streams, and set + Shining foot on temple roof. + Now again she flies aloof, + Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed + By the evening's amethyst. + + In wet wood and miry lane + Still we pound and pant in vain; + Still with earthy foot we chase + Waning pinion, fainting face; + Still, with grey hair, we stumble on + Till--behold!--the vision gone! + Where has fleeting beauty led? + To the doorway of the dead! + [Life is gone, but life was gay: + We have come the primrose way!][15] + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--Thank you for your letter, so interesting to my vanity. +There is a review in the St. James's, which, as it seems to hold +somewhat of your opinions, and is besides written with a pen and not a +poker, we think may possibly be yours. The _Prince_[16] has done fairly +well in spite of the reviews, which have been bad: he was, as you +doubtless saw, well slated in the Saturday; one paper received it as a +child's story; another (picture my agony) described it as a "Gilbert +comedy." It was amusing to see the race between me and Justin M'Carthy: +the Milesian has won by a length. + +That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and you take longer +over your work, and it will not be so successful as if you had aimed low +and rushed it. What the public likes is work (of any kind) a little +loosely executed; so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a +little dim and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if +possible) be a little dull into the bargain. I know that good work +sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my heart, I think it is by an +accident. And I know also that good work must succeed at last; but that +is not the doing of the public; they are only shamed into silence or +affectation. I do not write for the public; I do write for money, a +nobler deity; and most of all for myself, not perhaps any more noble, +but both more intelligent and nearer home. + +Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast whom +we feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press is the +mouth of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an university chair, +and everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its +abode and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but men, and not all of +these--and fewer women. As for respecting the race, and, above all, that +fatuous rabble of burgesses called "the public," God save me from such +irreligion!--that way lies disgrace and dishonour. There must be +something wrong in me, or I would not be popular. + +This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and permanent opinion. +Not much, I think. As for the art that we practise, I have never been +able to see why its professors should be respected. They chose the +primrose path; when they found it was not all primroses, but some of it +brambly, and much of it uphill, they began to think and to speak of +themselves as holy martyrs. But a man is never martyred in any honest +sense in the pursuit of his pleasure; and _delirium tremens_ has more of +the honour of the cross. We were full of the pride of life, and chose, +like prostitutes, to live by a pleasure. We should be paid if we give +the pleasure we pretend to give; but why should we be honoured? + +I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a Sunday; but we must +wait till I am able to see people. I am very full of Jenkin's life; it +is painful, yet very pleasant, to dig into the past of a dead friend, +and find him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I own, as I read, I +wonder more and more why he should have taken me to be a friend. He had +many and obvious faults upon the face of him; the heart was pure gold. I +feel it little pain to have lost him, for it is a loss in which I cannot +believe; I take it, against reason, for an absence; if not to-day, then +to-morrow, I still fancy I shall see him in the door; and then, now when +I know him better, how glad a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in the +immortality business, the world would indeed be too good to be true; but +we were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire: +the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps +well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly +day by day; and they are enough for a man who knows his own frailty and +sees all things in the proportion of reality. The soul of piety was +killed long ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether +eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but +his wayside campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for the +struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the condition that +he is opposed. How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, +so made up of discontent and aspiration, and such noble and uneasy +passions--how can he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud; +for man's cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he +continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior +happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop and taste it; he +can be about the rugged and bitter business where his heart lies; and +yet he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, and +enjoy the notion that he is both himself and something else; and that +his friends will yet meet him, all ironed out and emasculate, and still +be lovable,--as if love did not live in the faults of the beloved only, +and draw its breath in an unbroken round of forgiveness! But the truth +is, we must fight until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet +for mankind but complete resumption into--what?--God, let us say--when +all these desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last. + +Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short--_excusez_. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JAMES PAYN + + + The late Mrs. Buckle, a daughter of Mr. James Payn married to the + editor of the Times, had laughingly remonstrated, through her father, + on recognising some features of her own house in Queen Square, + Bloomsbury, in the description of that tenanted by the fair Cuban in + the section of Stevenson's _Dynamiter_ which tells the story of the + Brown Box. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886._ + +DEAR JAMES PAYN,--Your very kind letter came very welcome; and still +more welcome the news that you see ----'s tale. I will now tell you (and +it was very good and very wise of me not to tell it before) that he is +one of the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money into a +pharmacy at Hyeres, when the cholera (certainly not his fault) swept +away his customers in a body. Thus you can imagine the pleasure I have +to announce to him a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy, +doing nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts inexorably +mount up. + +To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not one +of those that can be read running; and the name of your daughter remains +for me undecipherable. I call her, then, your daughter--and a very good +name too--and I beg to explain how it came about that I took her house. +The hospital was a point in my tale; but there is a house on each side. +Now the true house is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If +not, what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true? +Everything in the _Dynamiter_ is not true; but the story of the Brown +Box is, in almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear +to it. It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in +that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very bad +society. + +But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter's house has not a balcony at +the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that side of Queen +Square from the pavement and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence I +saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there is none to the +particular house in question, it must have been so arranged to spite me. + +I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three questions +to your daughter:-- + + 1st. Has her house the proper terrace? + 2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital? + 3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884? + +You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on +some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If +this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper +certificate, and her house property will return to its original value. + +Can man say more?--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir +Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of +Zero. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The late Sir Percy and Lady Shelley had in these days attached + themselves warmly to R. L. S., and saw in his ways and character a + living image of those of the poet, Sir Percy's father, as they + imagined him. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. Somethingorother-th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--I send you two photographs: they are both done by Sir +Percy Shelley, the poet's son, which may interest. The sitting down one +is, I think, the best; but if they choose that, see that the little +reflected light on the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be +tragic. Don't forget "Baronet" to Sir Percy's name. + +We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my +dedication.--Yours ever, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Apropos of the odd controversy about Shelley's nose: I have +before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley's son: my nose is +hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the accipitrine family in +man: well, out of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it +straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood of light on +calumnious man--and the scandal-mongering sun. For personally I cling to +my curve. To continue the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all +his sisters had noses like mine: Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the +family had high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this +turn-up (of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other +_fatras_) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened in +my photographs by his son? + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES J. GUTHRIE + + + "The lad" is Lloyd Osbourne, at this time a student at Edinburgh + University. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 18th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR GUTHRIE,--I hear the lad has got into the Spec. and I write to +thank you very warmly for the part you have played. I only wish we were +both going there together to-morrow night, and you would be in the +secretary's place (that so well became you, sir) and I were to open a +debate or harry you on "Private Business," and Omond perhaps to read us +a few glowing pages on--the siege of Saragossa, was it? or the Battle of +Saratoga? my memory fails me, but I have not forgotten a certain white +charger that careered over the fields of incoherent fight with a +prodigious consequence of laughter: have you? I wonder, has Omond? + +Well, well, _perierunt_, but, I hope, _non imputantur_. We have had good +fun. + +Again thanking you sincerely, I remain, my dear Guthrie, your old +comrade, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + _Kidnapped_ had at this time just been taken up again, and Stevenson + explains the course of the story to his father, who had taken the + deepest interest in it since they visited together the scene of the + Appin murder. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 25, 1886._] + +MY DEAR FATHER,--Many thanks for a letter quite like yourself. I quite +agree with you, and had already planned a scene of religion in +_Balfour_; the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge +furnishes me with a catechist whom I shall try to make the man. I have +another catechist, the blind, pistol-carrying highway robber, whom I +have transferred from the Long Island to Mull. I find it a most +picturesque period, and wonder Scott let it escape. The _Covenant_ is +lost on one of the Tarrans, and David is cast on Earraid, where (being +from inland) he is nearly starved before he finds out the island is +tidal; then he crosses Mull to Toronsay, meeting the blind catechist by +the way; then crosses Morven from Kinlochaline to Kingairloch, where he +stays the night with the good catechist; that is where I am; next day he +is to be put ashore in Appin, and be present at Colin Campbell's death. +To-day I rest, being a little run down. Strange how liable we are to +brain fag in this scooty family! But as far as I have got, all but the +last chapter, I think David is on his feet, and (to my mind) a far +better story and far sounder at heart than _Treasure Island_. + +I have no earthly news, living entirely in my story, and only coming out +of it to play patience. The Shelleys are gone; the Taylors kinder than +can be imagined. The other day, Lady Taylor drove over and called on +me; she is a delightful old lady, and great fun. I mentioned a story +about the Duchess of Wellington--which I had heard Sir Henry tell; and +though he was very tired, he looked it up and copied it out for me in +his own hand.--Your most affectionate son, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO C. W. STODDARD + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 13th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR STODDARD,--I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have at +last taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This is +already my sixth letter to-day, and I have many more waiting; and my +wrist gives me a jog on the subject of scrivener's cramp, which is not +encouraging. + +I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you wrote your last. I +am as usual pretty cheerful, but not very strong. I stay in the house +all winter, which is base; but, as you continue to see, the pen goes +from time to time, though neither fast enough nor constantly enough to +please me. + +My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and the interval of +widowery explains my writing. Another person writing for you when you +have done work is a great enemy to correspondence. To-day I feel out of +health, and shan't work; and hence this so much over-due reply. + +I was re-reading some of your _South Sea Idyls_ the other day: some of +the chapters are very good indeed; some pages as good as they can be. + +How does your class get along? If you like to touch on _Otto_, any day +in a by-hour, you may tell them--as the author's last dying +confession--that it is a strange example of the difficulty of being +ideal in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy-mindedness, which +spoils the book and often gives it a wanton air of unreality and +juggling with air-bells, comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too +great realism of some chapters and passages--some of which I have now +spotted, others I dare say I shall never spot--which disprepares the +imagination for the cast of the remainder. + +Any story can be made _true_ in its own key; any story can be made +_false_ by the choice of a wrong key of detail or style: _Otto_ is made +to reel like a drunken--I was going to say man, but let us substitute +cipher--by the variations of the key. Have you observed that the famous +problem of realism and idealism is one purely of detail? Have you seen +my _Note on Realism_ in Cassell's Magazine of Art; and _Elements of +Style_ in the Contemporary; and _Romance_ and _Humble Apology_ in +Longman's? They are all in your line of business; let me know what you +have not seen and I'll send 'em. + +I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was a pleasant old spot, +and I remember you there, though still more dearly in your own strange +den upon a hill in San Francisco; and one of the most San Francisco-y +parts of San Francisco. + +Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + Concerning the payment which Mr. Gosse had procured him from an + American magazine for the set of verses addressed to Mr. Low (see + above, p. 172). + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 17, 1886._] + +DEAR GOSSE,--Non, c'est honteux! for a set of shambling lines that don't +know whether they're trochees or what they are, that you or any of the +crafty ones would blush all over if you had so much as thought upon, all +by yourselves, in the water-closet. But God knows, I am glad enough of +five pounds; and this is almost as honest a way to get it as plain +theft, so what should I care?--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO J. A. SYMONDS + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth [Spring 1886]._ + +MY DEAR SYMONDS,--If we have lost touch, it is (I think) only in a +material sense; a question of letters, not hearts. You will find a warm +welcome at Skerryvore from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed, we never +tell ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run to Davos is a +prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship; and I think I can +promise you you have a pair of trusty well-wishers and friends in +Bournemouth: whether they write or not is but a small thing; the flag +may not be waved, but it is there. + +_Jekyll_ is a dreadful thing, I own; but the only thing I feel dreadful +about is that damned old business of the war in the members. This time +it came out; I hope it will stay in, in future. + +Raskolnikoff[17] is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years; I +am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: Henry James could not finish +it: all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was like having an +illness. James did not care for it because the character of Raskolnikoff +was not objective; and at that I divined a great gulf between us, and, on +further reflection, the existence of a certain impotence in many minds of +to-day, which prevents them from living in a book or a character, and +keeps them standing afar off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I +suppose the book may seem empty in the centre; to the others it is a +room, a house of life, into which they themselves enter, and are tortured +and purified. The Juge d'Instruction I thought a wonderful, weird, +touching, ingenious creation: the drunken father, and Sonia, and the +student friend, and the uncircumscribed, protoplasmic humanity of +Raskolnikoff, all upon a level that filled me with wonder: the execution +also, superb in places. Another has been translated--_Humilies et +Offenses_. It is even more incoherent than _Le Crime et le Chatiment_, +but breathes much of the same lovely goodness, and has passages of power. +Dostoieffsky is a devil of a swell, to be sure. Have you heard that he +became a stout, imperialist conservative? It is interesting to know. To +something of that side, the balance leans with me also in view of the +incoherency and incapacity of all. The old boyish idea of the march on +Paradise being now out of season, and all plans and ideas that I hear +debated being built on a superb indifference to the first principles of +human character, a helpless desire to acquiesce in anything of which I +know the worst assails me. Fundamental errors in human nature of two +sorts stand on the skyline of all this modern world of aspirations. +First, that it is happiness that men want; and second, that happiness +consists of anything but an internal harmony. Men do not want, and I do +not think they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry, +effort, success--the elements our friends wish to eliminate. And, on the +other hand, happiness is a question of morality--or of immorality, there +is no difference--and conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his +worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I suppose, in his +ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy in the detested camp; Pepys was +pretty happy, and I am pretty happy on the whole, because we both +somewhat crowingly accepted a _via media_, both liked to attend to our +affairs, and both had some success in managing the same. It is quite an +open question whether Pepys and I ought to be happy; on the other hand, +there is no doubt that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he +said it) that he was _la misere humaine_, cureless misery--unless perhaps +by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had +justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece +ornaments, the bourgeois (_quorum pars_), and their cowardly dislike of +dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly +they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment +and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two +flaunting emblems of their hollowness. + +God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch. + +Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I +have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle. +Pray don't fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment, +now it has been spoken of, if you do,--Yours ever, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO F. W. H. MYERS + + + In reply to a paper of criticisms on _Jekyll and Hyde_. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1st, 1886._ + +MY DEAR SIR,--I know not how to thank you: this is as handsome as it is +clever. With almost every word I agree--much of it I even knew +before--much of it, I must confess, would never have been, if I had been +able to do what I like, and lay the thing by for the matter of a year. +But the wheels of Byles the Butcher drive exceeding swiftly, and +_Jekyll_ was conceived, written, re-written, re-rewritten, and printed +inside ten weeks. Nothing but this white-hot haste would explain the +gross error of Hyde's speech at Lanyon's. Your point about the +specialised fiend is more subtle, but not less just: I had not seen +it.--About the picture, I rather meant that Hyde had brought it himself; +and Utterson's hypothesis of the gift (p. 42) an error.--The tidiness of +the room, I thought, but I dare say my psychology is here too ingenious +to be sound, was due to the dread weariness and horror of the +imprisonment. Something has to be done: he would tidy the room. But I +dare say it is false. + +I shall keep your paper; and if ever my works come to be collected, I +will put my back into these suggestions. In the meanwhile, I do truly +lack words in which to express my sense of gratitude for the trouble you +have taken. The receipt of such a paper is more than a reward for my +labours. I have read it with pleasure, and as I say, I hope to use it +with profit.--Believe me, your most obliged, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The following letter relates to a suggestion which Mr. Gilder, as + editor of the Century Magazine, had already made in the Hyeres time + nearly three years previously, and had now lately revived, that + Stevenson and his friend Mr. W. H. Low should make a joint excursion + down the Saone and Rhone, the result to be a book written by R. L. S. + and illustrated by Mr. Low. Considerations of health caused the plan + to be promptly abandoned for the second time. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._] + +MY DEAR LOW,--This is the most enchanting picture. Now understand my +state: I am really an invalid, but of a mysterious order. I might be a +_malade imaginaire_, but for one too tangible symptom, my tendency to +bleed from the lungs. If we could go (_1st_) We must have money enough +to travel with _leisure and comfort_--especially the first. (_2nd_) You +must be prepared for a comrade who would go to bed some part of every +day and often stay silent. (_3rd_) You would have to play the part of a +thoughtful courier, sparing me fatigue, looking out that my bed was +warmed, etc. (_4th_) If you are very nervous, you must recollect a bad +hemorrhage is always on the cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and +horror for those who are beside me. + +Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it. + +If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, I believe the +trip might do me good, and I feel sure that, working together, we might +produce a fine book. The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have +adored it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train. + +Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. I have stood the +winter hitherto with some credit, but the dreadful weather still +continues, and I cannot holloa till I am through the wood. + +Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I embrace the prospect +with glorious feelings. + +I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no circumstance of +pleasure except your letter. That, however, counts for much. I am glad +you liked the doggerel: I have already had a liberal cheque, over which +I licked my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to make +money by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is only too welcome +in my handsome but impecunious house. + +Let me know soon what is to be expected--as far as it does not hang by +that inconstant quantity, my want of health. Remember me to Madam with +the best thanks and wishes; and believe me your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Written just before a visit to London; not, this time, as my guest at + the British Museum, but to stay with his father at an hotel in + Fitzroy Square. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been reading the Vth and VIth Aeneid--the latter +for the first time--and am overpowered. That is one of the most +astonishing pieces of literature, or rather it contains the best, I ever +met with. We are all damned small fry, and Virgil is one of the tops of +human achievement; I never appreciated this; you should have a certain +age to feel this; it is no book for boys, who grind under the lack of +enterprise and dash, and pass ignorantly over miracles of performance +that leave an old hoary-headed practitioner like me stricken down with +admiration. Even as a boy, the Sibyl would have bust me; but I never +read the VIth till I began it two days ago; it is all fresh and +wonderful; do you envy me? If only I knew any Latin! if you had a decent +edition with notes--many notes--I should like well to have it; mine is a +damned Didot with not the ghost of a note, type that puts my eyes out, +and (I suspect) no very splendid text--but there, the carnal feelings of +the man who can't construe are probably parents to the suspicion. + +My dear fellow, I would tenfold rather come to the Monument; but my +father is an old man, and if I go to town, it shall be (this time) for +his pleasure. He has many marks of age, some of childhood; I wish this +knighthood business could come off, though even the talk of it has been +already something, but the change (to my eyes) is thoroughly begun; and +a very beautiful, simple, honourable, high-spirited and child-like (and +childish) man is now in process of deserting us piecemeal. _Si quis +piorum_--God knows, not that he was pious, but he did his hand's darg or +tried to do it; and if not,--well, it is a melancholy business.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + The first letter showing Stevenson's new interest in the + technicalities of music. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--I try to tell myself it is good nature, but I know +it is vanity that makes me write. + +I have drafted the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming and his friends, +his influence on me, his views on religion and literature, his part at +the Savile; it should boil down to about ten pages, and I really do +think it admirably good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that +I found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after a serious talk +with him: surely that means it is good? I had to write and tell you, +being alone. + +I have excellent news of Fanny, who is much better for the change. My +father is still very yellow, and very old, and very weak, but yesterday +he seemed happier, and smiled, and followed what was said; even laughed, +I think. When he came away, he said to me, "Take care of yourself, my +dearie," which had a strange sound of childish days, and will not leave +my mind. + +You must get Litolf's _Gavottes Celebres_: I have made another trover +there: a musette of Lully's. The second part of it I have not yet got +the hang of; but the first--only a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful +and pretty hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the end of +it, this musette enters with the most really thrilling effect of simple +beauty. O--it's first-rate. I am quite mad over it. If you find other +books containing Lully, Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you +might tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be found. I +write all morning, come down, and never leave the piano till about five; +write letters, dine, get down again about eight, and never leave the +piano till I go to bed. This is a fine life.--Yours most sincerely, + + R. L. S. + + +If you get the musette (Lully's), please tell me if I am right, and it +was probably written for strings. Anyway, it is as neat as--as neat as +Bach--on the piano; or seems so to my ignorance. + +I play much of the Rigadoon; but it's strange, it don't come off _quite_ +so well with me! + +[Illustration] + +There is the first part of the musette copied (from memory, so I hope +there's nothing wrong). Is it not angelic? But it ought, of course, to +have the gavotte before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote +thus (if I remember):-- + +[Illustration] + +staccato, I think. Then you sail into the musette. + + +_N.B._--Where I have put an "A" is that a dominant eleventh, or what? or +just a seventh on the D? and if the latter, is that allowed? It sounds +very funny. Never mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which +is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble +questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The +whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could easily be played too +fast? The dignity must not be lost; the periwig feeling. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Written after his return from an excursion to Matlock with his + father, following on their visit to London. "The verses" means + _Underwoods_. The suppressed poem is that headed "To ----," + afterwards printed in _Songs of Travel_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is to announce to you, what I believe should have +been done sooner, that we are at Skerryvore. We were both tired, and I +was fighting my second cold, so we came straight through by the west. + +We have a butler! He doesn't buttle, but the point of the thing is the +style. When Fanny gardens, he stands over her and looks genteel. He +opens the door, and I am told waits at table. Well, what's the odds; I +shall have it on my tomb--"He ran a butler." + + He may have been this and that, + A drunkard or a guttler; + He may have been bald and fat-- + At least he kept a butler. + + He may have sprung from ill or well, + From Emperor or sutler; + He may be burning now in Hell-- + On earth he kept a butler. + +I want to tell you also that I have suppressed your poem. I shall send +it you for yourself, and I hope you will agree with me that it was not +good enough in point of view of merit, and a little too intimate as +between you and me. I would not say less of you, my friend, but I scarce +care to say so much in public while we live. A man may stand on his own +head; it is not fair to set his friend on a pedestal. + +The verses are now at press; I have written a damn fine ballad.--And I +am, dear S. C., ever yours, + + TOMNODDY. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Want of health preventing the author at this time from carrying the + adventures of David Balfour, as narrated in _Kidnapped_, through to + their issue as originally designed, it was resolved to wind them up + for the present with the discomfiture of the wicked uncle, leaving + open the possibility of a sequel, which was supplied six years later + in _Catriona_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886._] + +MY DEAR FATHER,--The David problem has to-day been decided. I am to +leave the door open for a sequel if the public take to it, and this will +save me from butchering a lot of good material to no purpose. Your +letter from Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to +see; the hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am for action quite +unfit, and even a letter is beyond me; so pray take these scraps at a +vast deal more than their intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about +David, Colvin agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it far +the most human of my labours hitherto. As to whether the long-eared +British public may take to it, all think it more than doubtful; I wish +they would, for I could do a second volume with ease and pleasure, and +Colvin thinks it sin and folly to throw away David and Alan Breck upon +so small a field as this one.--Ever your affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS MONROE + + + The next is in answer to criticisms on _Prince Otto_ received from a + lady correspondent in Chicago. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, May 25th, 1886._ + +DEAR MISS MONROE,--(I hope I have this rightly) I must lose no time in +thanking you for a letter singularly pleasant to receive. It may +interest you to know that I read to the signature without suspecting my +correspondent was a woman; though in one point (a reference to the +Countess) I might have found a hint of the truth. You are not pleased +with Otto; since I judge you do not like weakness; and no more do I. And +yet I have more than tolerance for Otto, whose faults are the faults of +weakness, but never of ignoble weakness, and who seeks before all to be +both kind and just. Seeks, not succeeds. But what is man? So much of +cynicism to recognise that nobody does right is the best equipment for +those who do not wish to be cynics in good earnest. Think better of +Otto, if my plea can influence you; and this I mean for your own +sake--not his, poor fellow, as he will never learn your opinion; but for +yours, because, as men go in this world (and women too), you will not go +far wrong if you light upon so fine a fellow; and to light upon one and +not perceive his merits is a calamity. In the flesh, of course, I mean; +in the book the fault, of course, is with my stumbling pen. Seraphina +made a mistake about her Otto; it begins to swim before me dimly that +you may have some traits of Seraphina? + +With true ingratitude you see me pitch upon your exception; but it is +easier to defend oneself gracefully than to acknowledge praise. I am +truly glad that you should like my books; for I think I see from what +you write that you are a reader worth convincing. Your name, if I have +properly deciphered it, suggests that you may be also something of my +countrywoman; for it is hard to see where Monroe came from, if not from +Scotland. I seem to have here a double claim on your good nature: being +myself pure Scotch and having appreciated your letter, make up two +undeniable merits which, perhaps, if it should be quite without trouble, +you might reward with your photograph.--Yours truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Evidently written about the 10th of June, very soon after the + decision of Mr. Gladstone to dissolve Parliament on the defeat of the + Home Rule Bill (June 8). As to the _Travelling Companion_, see above, + p. 68. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am in bed again--bloodie jackery and be damned to it. +Lloyd is better, I think; and money matters better; only my rascal +carcase, and the muddy and oily lees of what was once my immortal soul +are in a poor and pitiful condition. + + LITANY + Damn the political situation + " you + " me + and + " Gladstone. + +I am a kind of dam home ruler, worse luck to it. I would support almost +anything but that bill. How am I to vote? Great Caesar's Ghost!--Ever +yours, + + R. L. S. + + +O! the _Travelling Companion_ won't do; I am back on it entirely: it is +a foul, gross, bitter, ugly daub, with lots of stuff in it, and no +urbanity and no glee and no true tragedy--to the crows with it, a +carrion tale! I will do no more carrion, I have done too much in this +carrion epoch; I will now be clean; and by clean, I don't mean any folly +about purity, but such things as a healthy man with his bowels open +shall find fit to see and speak about without a pang of nausea.--I am, +yours, + + A REPENTANT DANKIST. + + +The lakeists, the drainists, the brookists, and the riverites; let me be +a brookist, _faute de mieux_. + +I did enjoy myself in town, and was a thousandfold the better of it. + + + + +TO MISS MONROE + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886._] + +MY DEAR MISS MONROE,--I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; +yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible +you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, +as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The +interest taken in an author is fragile: his next book, or your next year +of culture, might see the interest frosted or outgrown; and himself, in +spite of all, you might probably find the most distasteful person upon +earth. My case is different. I have bad health, am often condemned to +silence for days together--was so once for six weeks, so that my voice +was awful to hear when I first used it, like the whisper of a +shadow--have outlived all my chief pleasures, which were active and +adventurous, and ran in the open air: and being a person who prefers +life to art, and who knows it is a far finer thing to be in love, or to +risk a danger, than to paint the finest picture or write the noblest +book, I begin to regard what remains to me of my life as very shadowy. +From a variety of reasons, I am ashamed to confess I was much in this +humour when your letter came. I had a good many troubles; was regretting +a high average of sins; had been recently reminded that I had outlived +some friends, and wondering if I had not outlived some friendships; and +had just, while boasting of better health, been struck down again by my +haunting enemy, an enemy who was exciting at first, but has now, by the +iteration of his strokes, become merely annoying and inexpressibly +irksome. Can you fancy that to a person drawing towards the elderly this +sort of conjunction of circumstances brings a rather aching sense of the +past and the future? Well, it was just then that your letter and your +photograph were brought to me in bed; and there came to me at once the +most agreeable sense of triumph. My books were still young; my words had +their good health and could go about the world and make themselves +welcome; and even (in a shadowy and distant sense) make something in the +nature of friends for the sheer hulk that stays at home and bites his +pen over the manuscripts. It amused me very much to remember that I had +been in Chicago, not so many years ago, in my proper person; where I had +failed to awaken much remark, except from the ticket collector; and to +think how much more gallant and persuasive were the fellows that I now +send instead of me, and how these are welcome in that quarter to the +sitter of Herr Platz, while their author was not very welcome even in +the villainous restaurant where he tried to eat a meal and rather +failed. + +And this leads me directly to a confession. The photograph which shall +accompany this is not chosen as the most like, but the best-looking. +Put yourself in my place, and you will call this pardonable. Even as it +is, even putting forth a flattered presentment, I am a little pained; +and very glad it is a photograph and not myself that has to go; for in +this case, if it please you, you can tell yourself it is my image--and +if it displease you, you can lay the blame on the photographer; but in +that, there were no help, and the poor author might belie his labours. + +_Kidnapped_ should soon appear; I am afraid you may not like it, as it +is very unlike _Prince Otto_ in every way; but I am myself a great +admirer of the two chief characters, Alan and David. _Virginibus +Puerisque_ has never been issued in the States. I do not think it is a +book that has much charm for publishers in any land; but I am to bring +out a new edition in England shortly, a copy of which I must try to +remember to send you. I say try to remember, because I have some +superficial acquaintance with myself: and I have determined, after a +galling discipline, to promise nothing more until the day of my death: +at least, in this way, I shall no more break my word, and I must now try +being churlish instead of being false. + +I do not believe you to be the least like Seraphina. Your photograph has +no trace of her, which somewhat relieves me, as I am a good deal afraid +of Seraphinas--they do not always go into the woods and see the sunrise, +and some are so well-mailed that even that experience would leave them +unaffected and unsoftened. The "hair and eyes of several complexions" +was a trait taken from myself; and I do not bind myself to the opinions +of Sir John. In this case, perhaps--but no, if the peculiarity is shared +by two such pleasant persons as you and I (as you and me--the +grammatical nut is hard), it must be a very good thing indeed, and Sir +John must be an ass. + +The Book Reader notice was a strange jumble of fact and fancy. I wish +you could have seen my father's old assistant and present partner when +he heard my father described as an "inspector of lighthouses," for we +are all very proud of the family achievements, and the name of my house +here in Bournemouth is stolen from one of the sea-towers of the Hebrides +which are our pyramids and monuments. I was never at Cambridge, again; +but neglected a considerable succession of classes at Edinburgh. But to +correct that friendly blunderer were to write an autobiography.--And so +now, with many thanks, believe me yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + Accompanying a presentation copy of _Kidnapped_. Alison Cunningham's + maiden name had been Hastie. + + [_Bournemouth, July 1886._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--Herewith goes my new book, in which you will find some +places that you know: I hope you will like it: I do. The name of the +girl at Limekilns (as will appear if the sequel is ever written) was +Hastie, and I conceive she was an ancestor of yours: as David was no +doubt some kind of relative of mine. + +I have no time for more, but send my love, and remembrances to your +brother.--Ever your affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + During these months, as already indicated, Stevenson was very much + taken up, in by-hours, with trying to learn something of the theory + and practice of music, and spent much of his time "pickling," as he + called it, in an elementary manner on the piano. He even tried his + hand in an experimental way at composition, and had sent one of his + attempts for criticism to his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, who was + better versed in the art. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._ + +SIR,--Your foolish letter was unduly received. There may be hidden +fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam spontaneous the thing was. I +could tinker and tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper, but scorned the act +with a Threnody, which was poured forth like blood and water on the +groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) remained +unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: crystallised emotion, the +statement and the reconciliation of the sorrows of the race and the +individual, is obviously no more to you than supping sawdust. Well, +well. If ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably be a +Passepied and fugue in G (or D). + +The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged Spanish +filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some freedom (1) the +refrain of _Martini's Moutons_; (2) _Sul margine d'un rio_, arranged for +the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase of Bach's +musette (Sweet Englishwoman,[18] No. 3), the rest of the musette being +one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health. +All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R. +L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged +and melancholy croppers.... I find one can get a notion of music very +nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have +arranged _La dove prende_, almost to the end, for two melodious +forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler _Colomba o +tortorella_ for the same instruments. + + This day is published + The works of Ludwig van Beethoven + arranged + and wiederdurchgearbeiteted + for two melodious forefingers + by, + Sir,--Your obedient servant, + PIMPERLY STIPPLE. + +That's a good idea? There's a person called Lenz who actually does +it--beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies on him, and found the +bleeding corpses of pieces of music divorced from their keys, despoiled +of their graces, and even changed in time; I do not wish to regard music +(nor to be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You say you are "a +spoon-fed idiot"; but how about Lenz? And how about me, sir, me? + +I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, an empty +matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a bell from a cat's collar, an +iron kitchen spoon, and a piece of coal more than half the superficies +of this sheet of paper. They are now (appropriately enough) speeding +towards the Silly Isles; I hope he will find them useful. By that, and +my telegram with prepaid answer to yourself, you may judge of my +spiritual state. The finances have much brightened; and if _Kidnapped_ +keeps on as it has begun, I may be solvent.--Yours, + + THRENODIAE AVCTOR + (The author of ane Threnodie). + + +Op. 2: Scherzo (in G Major) expressive of the Sense of favours to come. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Skerryvore [Bournemouth, July 1886]._ + +DEAR BOB,--Herewith another shy; more melancholy than before, but I +think not so abjectly idiotic. The musical terms seem to be as good as +in Beethoven, and that, after all, is the great affair. Bar the dam +bareness of the bass, it looks like a piece of real music from a +distance. I am proud to say it was not made one hand at a time; the bass +was of synchronous birth with the treble; they are of the same age, sir, +and may God have mercy on their souls!--Yours, + + THE MAESTRO. + + + + +TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Mr. and Mrs. T. Stevenson had been thinking of trying a winter at + Bournemouth for the sake of being near their son, a plan which was + eventually carried out. The health of the former was now fast and + painfully breaking. Mr. J. W. Alexander, the well-known American + artist, had been down at Skerryvore with an introduction from Mr. + Gosse, and had made a drawing of Stevenson's head. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 7th, 1886._ + +MY DEAR PEOPLE,--It is probably my fault, and not yours, that I did not +understand. I think it would be well worth trying the winter in +Bournemouth; but I would only take the house by the month--this after +mature discussion. My leakage still pursues its course; if I were only +well, I have a notion to go north and get in (if I could) at the inn at +Kirkmichael, which has always smiled upon me much. If I did well there, +we might then meet and do what should most smile at the time. + +Meanwhile, of course, I must not move, and am in a rancid box here, +feeling the heat a great deal, and pretty tired of things. Alexander did +a good thing of me at last; it looks like a mixture of an aztec idol, a +lion, an Indian Rajah, and a woman; and certainly represents a mighty +comic figure. F. and Lloyd both think it is the best thing that has been +done of me up to now. + +You should hear Lloyd on the penny whistle, and me on the piano! Dear +powers, what a concerto! I now live entirely for the piano, he for the +whistle; the neighbours, in a radius of a furlong and a half, are +packing up in quest of brighter climes.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + +_P.S._--Please say if you can afford to let us have money for this trip, +and if so, how much. I can see the year through without help, I believe, +and supposing my health to keep up; but can scarce make this change on +my own metal. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._] + +DEAR CHARLES,--Doubtless, if all goes well, towards the 1st of August we +shall be begging at your door. Thanks for a sight of the papers, which I +return (you see) at once, fearing further responsibility. + +Glad you like Dauvit; but eh, man, yon's terrible strange conduc' o' +thon man Rankeillor. Ca' him a legal adviser! It would make a bonny +law-shuit, the Shaws case; and yon paper they signed, I'm thinking, +wouldnae be muckle thought o' by Puggy Deas.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + Hecky was a dog belonging to his correspondent's brother. Stevenson + was always interested by his own retentiveness of memory for childish + things, and here asks Cummy some questions to test the quality of + hers. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--I was sorry to get so poor account of you and Hecky. +Fanny thinks perhaps it might be Hecky's teeth. Sir Walter Simpson has a +very clever vet. I have forgotten his name; but if you like, I send a +card and you or James might ask the address. + +Now to what is more important. Do you remember any of the following +names: Lady Boothroyd, Barny Gee, Andrew Silex, the Steward, Carus +Rearn, Peter Mangles, Richard Markham, Fiddler Dick? Please let me know +and I will tell you how I come to ask. I warn you, you will have to cast +back your eyes a good long way, close upon thirty years, before you +strike the trail on which I wish to lead you. + +When I have had an answer I will write you a decent letter. To-day, +though nothing much is wrong with me, I am out of sorts and most +disinclined for writing.--Yours most affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO THOMAS STEVENSON + + + "Coolin," mentioned below, had been a favourite Skye terrier of + Heriot Row days. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _July 28, 1886._ + +MY DEAR FATHER,--We have decided not to come to Scotland, but just to do +as Dobell wished, and take an outing. I believe this is wiser in all +ways; but I own it is a disappointment. I am weary of England; like +Alan, "I weary for the heather," if not for the deer. Lloyd has gone to +Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with whom he should have a good +time. _David_ seems really to be going to succeed, which is a pleasant +prospect on all sides. I am, I believe, floated financially; a book that +sells will be a pleasant novelty. I enclose another review; mighty +complimentary, and calculated to sell the book too. + +Coolin's tombstone has been got out, honest man! and it is to be +polished, for it has got scratched, and have a touch of gilding in the +letters, and be sunk in the front of the house. Worthy man, he, too, +will maybe weary for the heather, and the bents of Gullane, where (as I +dare say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and jumped on to his crown +from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of many thousand rabbits. I can +still hear the little cries of the honest fellow as he disappeared; and +my mother will correct me, but I believe it was two days before he +turned up again at North Berwick: to judge by his belly, he had caught +not one out of these thousands, but he had had some exercise. + +I keep well.--Ever your affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + Anticipating the gift of a cupboard and answering the questions set + in his last. The date of the readings had been his seventh year. Mr. + Galpin was a partner in Cassell, Petter, Galpin, & Co. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July or August 1886._] + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--The cupboard has not yet turned up, and I was hanging on +to be able to say it had. However, that is only a trick to escape +another letter, and I should despise myself if I kept it up. It was +truly kind of you, dear Cummy, to send it to us: and I will let you know +where we set it and how it looks. + +Carus Rearn and Andrew Silex and the others were from a story you read +me in Cassell's Family Paper, and which I have been reading again and +found by no means a bad story. Mr. Galpin lent me all the old volumes, +and I mean to re-read Custaloga also, but have not yet. It was strangely +like old times to read the other; don't you remember the poisoning with +mushrooms? That was Andrew Silex.--Yours most affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Having given up going to Scotland for a summer change, Stevenson had + started on the "outing" which he mentions in the last letter. It took + the shape of a ten days' visit to my house at the British Museum, + followed by another made in the company of Mr. Henley to Paris, + chiefly for the sake of seeing the W. H. Lows and the sculptor Rodin. + + _British Museum [August 10th, 1886]._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--We are having a capital holiday, and I am much better, +and enjoying myself to the nines. Richmond is painting my portrait. +To-day I lunch with him, and meet Burne-Jones; to-night Browning dines +with us. That sounds rather lofty work, does it not? His path was paved +with celebrities. To-morrow we leave for Paris, and next week, I +suppose, or the week after, come home. Address here, as we may not +reach Paris. I am really very well.--Ever your affectionate son, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO T. WATTS-DUNTON + + + Written after his return from London and Paris. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth [September 1886]._ + +DEAR MR. WATTS,--The sight of the last Athenaeum reminds me of you, and +of my debt, now too long due. I wish to thank you for your notice of +_Kidnapped_; and that not because it was kind, though for that also I +valued it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you before now for a +hundred articles on a hundred different writers. A critic like you is +one who fights the good fight, contending with stupidity, and I would +fain hope not all in vain; in my own case, for instance, surely not in +vain. + +What you say of the two parts in _Kidnapped_ was felt by no one more +painfully than by myself. I began it partly as a lark, partly as a +pot-boiler; and suddenly it moved, David and Alan stepped out from the +canvas, and I found I was in another world. But there was the cursed +beginning, and a cursed end must be appended; and our old friend Byles +the butcher was plainly audible tapping at the back door. So it had to +go into the world, one part (as it does seem to me) alive, one part +merely galvanised: no work, only an essay. For a man of tentative +method, and weak health, and a scarcity of private means, and not too +much of that frugality which is the artist's proper virtue, the days of +sinecures and patrons look very golden: the days of professional +literature very hard. Yet I do not so far deceive myself as to think I +should change my character by changing my epoch; the sum of virtue in +our books is in a relation of equality to the sum of virtues in +ourselves; and my _Kidnapped_ was doomed, while still in the womb and +while I was yet in the cradle, to be the thing it is. + +And now to the more genial business of defence. You attack my fight on +board the _Covenant_: I think it literal. David and Alan had every +advantage on their side--position, arms, training, a good conscience; a +handful of merchant sailors, not well led in the first attack, not led +at all in the second, could only by an accident have taken the +round-house by attack; and since the defenders had firearms and food, it +is even doubtful if they could have been starved out. The only doubtful +point with me is whether the seamen would have ever ventured on the +second onslaught; I half believe they would not; still the illusion of +numbers and the authority of Hoseason would perhaps stretch far enough +to justify the extremity.--I am, dear Mr. Watts, your very sincere +admirer, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._ + +MY DEAR CUMMY,--I am home from a long holiday, vastly better in health. +My wife not home yet, as she is being cured in some rather boisterous +fashion by some Swedish doctors. I hope it may do her good, as the +process seems not to be agreeable in itself. + +Your cupboard has come, and it is most beautiful: it is certainly worth +a lot of money, and is just what we have been looking for in all the +shops for quite a while: so your present falls very pat. It is to go in +our bedroom I think; but perhaps my wife will think it too much of a +good thing to be put so much out of the way, so I shall not put it in +its place till her return. I am so well that I am afraid to speak of it, +being a coward as to boasting. I take walks in the wood daily, and have +got back to my work after a long break. The story I wrote you about was +one you read to me in Cassell's Family Paper long ago when it came out. +It was astonishing how clearly I remembered it all, pictures, +characters, and incidents, though the last were a little mixed and I had +not the least the hang of the story. It was very pleasant to read it +again, and remember old days, and the weekly excursion to Mrs. Hoggs +after that precious journal. Dear me, lang syne now! God bless you, dear +Cummy.--Your afft. boy, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + Mr. Locker-Lampson, better known as Frederick Locker, the friend of + Tennyson and most accomplished writer of _vers de societe_ in his + time, had through their common friend Mr. Andrew Lang asked Stevenson + for a set of verses, and he had sent the following--which were first + printed, I believe, at the head of a very scarce volume:--"_Rowfant + Rhymes_, by Frederick Locker, with an introduction by Austin Dobson. + Cleveland, The Rowfant Club, 1895. 127 copies only printed." + + _Skerryvore, September 4, 1886._ + + Not roses to the rose, I trow, + The thistle sends, nor to the bee + Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now + Should Locker ask a verse from me? + + Martial, perchance,--but he is dead, + And Herrick now must rhyme no more; + Still burning with the muse, they tread + (And arm in arm) the shadowy shore. + + They, if they lived, with dainty hand, + To music as of mountain brooks, + Might bring you worthy words to stand + Unshamed, dear Locker, in your books. + + But tho' these fathers of your race + Be gone before, yourself a sire, + To-day you see before your face + Your stalwart youngsters touch the lyre. + + On these--on Lang or Dobson--call, + Long leaders of the songful feast. + They lend a verse your laughing fall-- + A verse they owe you at the least. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + To Mr. Locker's acknowledgment of these verses Stevenson replied as + follows, asking his correspondent's interest on behalf of a friend + who had been kind to him at Hyeres, in procuring a nomination for her + son to the Blue-Coat School. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._ + +DEAR LOCKER,--You take my verses too kindly, but you will admit, for +such a bluebottle of a versifier to enter the house of Gertrude, where +her necklace hangs, was not a little brave. Your kind invitation, I +fear, must remain unaccepted; and yet--if I am very well--perhaps next +spring--(for I mean to be very well)--my wife might.... But all that is +in the clouds with my better health. And now look here: you are a rich +man and know many people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of +Christ's Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in which I +would (if I could) do anything. To approach you, in this way, is not +decent; and you may therefore judge by my doing it, how near this matter +lies to my heart. I enclose you a list of the Governors, which I beg you +to return, whether or not you shall be able to do anything to help me. + +The boy's name is ----; he and his mother are very poor. It may interest +you in her cause if I tell you this: that when I was dangerously ill at +Hyeres, this brave lady, who had then a sick husband of her own (since +dead) and a house to keep and a family of four to cook for, all with her +own hands, for they could afford no servant, yet took watch-about with +my wife, and contributed not only to my comfort, but to my recovery in a +degree that I am not able to limit. You can conceive how much I suffer +from my impotence to help her, and indeed I have already shown myself a +thankless friend. Let not my cry go up before you in vain!--Yours in +hope, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + Mr. Locker, apparently misunderstanding the application, had replied + with a cheque. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOCKER,--That I should call myself a man of letters, and land +myself in such unfathomable ambiguities! No, my dear Locker, I did not +want a cheque; and in my ignorance of business, which is greater even +than my ignorance of literature, I have taken the liberty of drawing a +pen through the document and returning it; should this be against the +laws of God or man, forgive me. All that I meant by my excessively +disgusting reference to your material well-being was the vague notion +that a man who is well off was sure to know a Governor of Christ's +Hospital; though how I quite arrived at this conclusion I do not see. A +man with a cold in the head does not necessarily know a ratcatcher; and +the connection is equally close--as it now appears to my awakened and +somewhat humbled spirit. For all that, let me thank you in the warmest +manner for your friendly readiness to contribute. You say you have hopes +of becoming a miser: I wish I had; but indeed I believe you deceive +yourself, and are as far from it as ever. I wish I had any excuse to +keep your cheque, for it is much more elegant to receive than to return; +but I have my way of making it up to you, and I do sincerely beg you to +write to the two Governors. This extraordinary out-pouring of +correspondence would (if you knew my habits) convince you of my great +eagerness in this matter. I would promise gratitude; but I have made a +promise to myself to make no more promises to anybody else, having +broken such a host already, and come near breaking my heart in +consequence; and as for gratitude, I am by nature a thankless dog, and +was spoiled from a child up. But if you can help this lady in the matter +of the Hospital, you will have helped the worthy. Let me continue to +hope that I shall make out my visit in the spring, and believe me, yours +very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +It may amuse you to know that a very long while ago, I broke my heart to +try to imitate your verses, and failed hopelessly. I saw some of the +evidences the other day among my papers, and blushed to the heels. + + R. L. S. + + +I give up finding out your name in the meantime, and keep to that by +which you will be known--Frederick Locker. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] 24th September 1886._ + +MY DEAR LOCKER,--You are simply an angel of light, and your two letters +have gone to the post; I trust they will reach the hearts of the +recipients--at least, that could not be more handsomely expressed. About +the cheque: well now, I am going to keep it; but I assure you Mrs. ---- +has never asked me for money, and I would not dare to offer any till she +did. For all that I shall stick to the cheque now, and act to that +amount as your almoner. In this way I reward myself for the ambiguity of +my epistolary style. + +I suppose, if you please, you may say your verses are thin (would you so +describe an arrow, by the way, and one that struck the gold? It scarce +strikes me as exhaustively descriptive), and, thin or not, they are +(and I have found them) inimitably elegant. I thank you again very +sincerely for the generous trouble you have taken in this matter which +was so near my heart, and you may be very certain it will be the fault +of my health and not my inclination, if I do not see you before very +long; for all that has past has made me in more than the official sense +sincerely yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO AUGUSTE RODIN + + Written after another visit to me in London, in November, which had + been cut short by fogs. "Le Printemps" is Rodin's group so called. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December 1886._] + +MON CHER AMI,--Il y a bien longtemps deja que je vous dois des lettres +par dizaines; mais bien que je vais mieux, je ne vais toujours que +doucement. Il a fallu faire le voyage a Bournemouth comme une fuite en +Egypte, par crainte des brouillards qui me tuaient; et j'en ressentais +beaucoup de fatigue. Mais maintenant cela commence a aller, et je puis +vous donner de mes nouvelles. + +Le Printemps est arrive, mais il avait le bras casse, et nous l'avons +laisse, lors de notre fuite, aux soins d'un medecin-de-statues. Je +l'attends de jour en jour; et ma maisonette en resplendira bientot. Je +regrette beaucoup le dedicace; peutetre, quand vous viendrez nous voir, +ne serait-il pas trop tard de l'ajouter? Je n'en sais rien, je l'espere. +L'oeuvre, c'est pour tout le monde; le dedicace est pour moi. L'oeuvre +est un cadeau, trop beau meme; c'est le mot d'amitie qui me le donne +pour de bon. Je suis si bete que je m'embrouille, et me perds; mais vous +me comprendrez, je pense. + +Je ne puis meme pas m'exprimer en Anglais; comment voudriez vous que je +le pourrais en Francais? Plus heureux que vous, le Nemesis des arts ne +me visite pas sous le masque du desenchantement; elle me suce +l'intelligence et me laisse bayer aux corneilles, sans capacite mais +sans regret; sans esperance, c'est vrai, mais aussi, Dieu merci, sans +desespoir. Un doux etonnement me tient; je ne m'habitue pas a me trouver +si buche, mais je m'y resigne; meme si cela durait, ce ne serait pas +desagreable--mais comme je mourrais certainement de faim, ce serait tout +au moins regrettable pour moi et ma famille. + +Je voudrais pouvoir vous ecrire; mais ce n'est pas moi qui tiens la +plume--c'est l'autre, le bete, celui qui ne connait pas le Francais, +celui qui n'aime pas mes amis comme je les aime, qui ne goute pas aux +choses de l'art comme j'y goute; celui que je renie, mais auquel je +commande toujours assez pour le faire prendre la plume en main et ecrire +des tristes bavardages. Celui-la, mon cher Rodin, vous ne l'aimez pas; +vous ne devez jamais le connaitre. Votre ami, qui dort a present, comme +un ours, au plus profond de mon etre, se reveillera sous peu. Alors, il +vous ecrira de sa propre main. Attendez lui. L'autre ne compte pas; ce +n'est qu'un secretaire infidele et triste, a l'ame gelee, a la tete de +bois. + +Celui qui dort est toujours, mon cher ami, bien a vous; celui qui ecrit +est charge de vous en faire part et de signer de la raison sociale, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ET TRIPLE-BRUTE. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following refers first, if I remember right, to some steps that + were being taken to obtain recognition in the form of a knighthood + for the elder Stevenson's public services; next, to the writer's own + work at the time in hand; and lastly, to my volume on Keats then in + preparation for the _English Men of Letters_ series. + + _Skerryvore, Dec. 14, 1886._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is first-rate of you, the Lord love you for it! I +am truly much obliged. He--my father--is very changeable; at times, he +seems only a slow quiet edition of himself; again, he will be very +heavy and blank; but never so violent as last spring; and therefore, to +my mind, better on the whole. + +Fanny is pretty peepy; I am splendid. I have been writing much +verse--quite the bard, in fact; and also a dam tale to order, which will +be what it will be: I don't love it, but some of it is passable in its +mouldy way, _The Misadventures of John Nicholson_. All my bardly +exercises are in Scotch; I have struck my somewhat ponderous guitar in +that tongue to no small extent: with what success, I know not, but I +think it's better than my English verse; more marrow and fatness, and +more ruggedness. + +How goes _Keats_? Pray remark, if he (Keats) hung back from Shelley, it +was not to be wondered at, _when so many of his friends were Shelley's +pensioners_. I forget if you have made this point; it has been borne in +upon me reading Dowden and the _Shelley Papers_; and it will do no harm +if you have made it. I finished a poem to-day, and writ 3000 words of a +story, _tant bien que mal_; and have a right to be sleepy, and (what is +far nobler and rarer) am so.--My dear Colvin, ever yours, + + THE REAL MACKAY. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + Stevenson's volume of tales _The Merry Men_, so called from the story + which heads the collection, was about to appear with a dedication to + Lady Taylor. Professor Dowden's _Shelley_ had lately come out, and + had naturally been read with eager interest in a circle where Sir + Percy (the poet's son) and Lady Shelley were intimate friends and + neighbours. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth_ [_New Year, 1887_]. + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--This is to wish you all the salutations of the +year, with some regret that I cannot offer them in person; yet less than +I had supposed. For hitherto your flight to London seems to have worked +well; and time flies and will soon bring you back again. Though time is +ironical, too; and it would be like his irony if the same tide that +brought you back carried me away. That would not be, at least, without +some meeting. + +I feel very sorry to think the book to which I have put your name will +be no better, and I can make it no better. The tales are of all dates +and places; they are like the box, the goose, and the cottage of the +ferryman; and must go floating down time together as best they can. But +I am after all a (superior) penny-a-liner; I must do, in the Scotch +phrase, as it will do with me; and I cannot always choose what my books +are to be, only seize the chance they offer to link my name to a +friend's. I hope the lot of them (the tales) will look fairly +disciplined when they are clapped in binding; but I fear they will be +but an awkward squad. I have a mild wish that you at least would read +them no further than the dedication. + +I suppose we have all been reading Dowden. It seems to me a really +first-rate book, full of justice, and humour without which there can be +no justice; and of fine intelligence besides. Here and there, perhaps a +trifle precious, but this is to spy flaws in a fine work. I was weary at +my resemblances to Shelley; I seem but a Shelley with less oil, and no +genius; though I have had the fortune to live longer and (partly) to +grow up. He was growing up. There is a manlier note in the last days; in +spite of such really sickening aberrations as the Emillia Viviani +business. I try to take a humorously-genial view of life; but Emillia +Viviani, if I have her detested name aright,[19] is too much for my +philosophy. I cannot smile when I see all these grown folk waltzing and +piping the eye about an insubordinate and perfectly abominable +schoolgirl, as silly and patently as false as Blanche Amory.[20] I +really think it is one of those episodes that make the angels weep. + +With all kind regards and affectionate good wishes to and for you and +yours, believe me, your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + The reference in the last paragraph to a "vision" cannot be + explained, his correspondent's daughters retaining no memory on the + subject. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 1887._] + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I don't know but what I agree fairly well with all +you say, only I like _The Merry Men_, as a fantasia or vision of the +sea, better than you do. The trouble with _Olalla_ is that it somehow +sounds false; and I think it must be this that gives you the feeling of +irreverence. Of _Thrawn Janet_, which I like very much myself, you say +nothing, thus uttering volumes; but it is plain that people cannot +always agree. I do not think it is a wholesome part of me that broods on +the evil in the world and man; but I do not think that I get harm from +it; possibly my readers may, which is more serious; but at any account, +I do not purpose to write more in this vein. But the odd problem is: +what makes a story true? _Markheim_ is true; _Olalla_ false; and I don't +know why, nor did I feel it while I worked at them; indeed I had more +inspiration with _Olalla_, as the style shows. I am glad you thought +that young Spanish woman well dressed; I admire the style of it myself, +more than is perhaps good for me; it is so solidly written. And that +again brings back (almost with the voice of despair) my unanswerable: +why is it false? + +Here is a great deal about my works. I am in bed again; and my wife but +so-so; and we have no news recently from Lloyd; and the cat is well; and +we see, or I see, no one; so that other matters are all closed against +me. + +Your vision is strange indeed; but I see not how to use it; I fear I am +earthy enough myself to regard it as a case of disease, but certainly it +is a thrilling case to hear of.--Ever affectionately yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + This letter is written on the front page of a set of proofs of + _Memories and Portraits_. The "silly Xmas story" is _The + Misadventures of John Nicholson_; the "volume of verse" appeared + later in the year as _Underwoods_. The signature refers to the two + Scots poets of whom, "in his native speech," he considered himself + the follower. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 1887._ + + All the salutations! + +MY DEAR JAMES,--I send you the first sheets of the new volume, all that +has yet reached me, the rest shall follow in course. I am really a very +fair sort of a fellow all things considered, have done some work; a +silly Xmas story (with some larks in it) which won't be out till I don't +know when. I am also considering a volume of verse, much of which will +be cast in my native speech, that very dark oracular medium: I suppose +this is a folly, but what then? As the nurse says in Marryat, "It was +only a little one." + +My wife is peepy and dowie: two Scotch expressions with which I will +leave you to wrestle unaided, as a preparation for my poetical works. +She is a woman (as you know) not without art: the art of extracting the +gloom of the eclipse from sunshine; and she has recently laboured in +this field not without success or (as we used to say) not without a +blessing. It is strange: "we fell out my wife and I" the other night; +she tackled me savagely for being a canary-bird; I replied (bleatingly) +protesting that there was no use in turning life into King Lear; +presently it was discovered that there were two dead combatants upon the +field, each slain by an arrow of the truth, and we tenderly carried off +each other's corpses. Here is a little comedy for Henry James to write! +The beauty was each thought the other quite unscathed at first. But we +had dealt shrewd stabs. + +You say nothing of yourself, which I shall take to be good news. +Archer's note has gone. He is, in truth, a very clever fellow that +Archer, and I believe a good one. It is a pleasant thing to see a man +who can use a pen; he can: really says what he means, and says it with a +manner; comes into print like one at his ease, not shame-faced and +wrong-foot-foremost like the bulk of us. Well, here is luck, and here +are the kindest recollections from the canary-bird and from King Lear, +from the Tragic Woman and the Flimsy Man. + + ROBERT RAMSAY FERGUSSON STEVENSON. + + + + +TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON + + + Stevenson suffered more even than usual after the turn of the year + and during the spring of 1887, and for several months his + correspondence almost entirely fails. This is in reply to an + invitation to Rowfant for Easter. + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 5th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR LOCKER,--Here I am in my bed as usual, and it is indeed a long +while since I went out to dinner. You do not know what a crazy fellow +this is. My winter has not so far been luckily passed, and all hope of +paying visits at Easter has vanished for twelve calendar months. But +because I am a beastly and indurated invalid, I am not dead to human +feelings; and I neither have forgotten you nor will forget you. Some day +the wind may round to the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am +still truly yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The volume of tales here mentioned is _The Merry Men_; that of + essays, _Memories and Portraits_; that of verse, _Underwoods_. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 1887._] + +MY DEAR JAMES,--My health has played me it in once more in the absurdest +fashion, and the creature who now addresses you is but a stringy and +white-faced _bouilli_ out of the pot of fever, with the devil to pay in +every corner of his economy. I suppose (to judge by your letter) I need +not send you these sheets, which came during my collapse by the rush. I +am on the start with three volumes, that one of tales, a second one of +essays, and one of--ahem--verse. This is a great order, is it not? After +that I shall have empty lockers. All new work stands still; I was +getting on well with Jenkin when this blessed malady unhorsed me, and +sent me back to the dung-collecting trade of the republisher. I shall +re-issue _Virg. Puer._ as vol. I. of _Essays_, and the new vol. as vol. +II. of ditto; to be sold, however, separately. This is but a dry +maundering; however, I am quite unfit--"I am for action quite unfit +Either of exercise or wit." My father is in a variable state; many +sorrows and perplexities environ the house of Stevenson; my mother +shoots north at this hour on business of a distinctly rancid character; +my father (under my wife's tutorage) proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; I +remain here in my bed and whistle; in no quarter of heaven is anything +encouraging apparent, except that the good Colvin comes to the hotel +here on a visit. This dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the +fact that my head aches, which I always regard as a liberty on the part +of the powers that be. This is also my first letter since my recovery. +God speed your laudatory pen! + +My wife joins in all warm messages.--Yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO AUGUSTE RODIN + + + _Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 1887._ + +MON CHER AMI,--Je vous neglige, et cependant ce n'est veritablement pas +de ma faute. J'ai fait encore une maladie; et je puis dire que je l'ai +royalement bien faite. Que cela vous aide a me pardonner. Certes je ne +vous oublie pas; et je puis dire que je ne vous oublierai jamais. Si je +n'ecris pas, dites que je suis malade--c'est trop souvent vrai, dites +que je suis las d'ecrivailler--ce sera toujours vrai; mais ne dites pas, +et ne pensez pas, que je deviens indifferent. J'ai devant moi votre +portrait tire d'un journal anglais (et encadre a mes frais), et je le +regarde avec amitie, je le regarde meme avec une certaine +complaisance--dirai-je, de faux aloi? comme un certificat de jeunesse. +Je me croyais trop vieux--au moins trop quarante-ans--pour faire de +nouveaux amis; et quand je regarde votre portrait, et quand je pense au +plaisir de vous revoir, je sens que je m'etais trompe. Ecrivez-moi donc +un petit mot, pour me dire que vous ne gardez pas rancune de mon +silence, et que vous comptez bientot venir en Angleterre. Si vous tardez +beaucoup, ce sera moi qui irai vous relancer.--Bien a vous, mon cher +ami, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + Mr. Low and his wife, who were at this time leaving Paris for good, + had been meditating a visit to the Stevensons at Bournemouth on their + way home to the United States. + + [_April 1887._] + +MY DEAR LOW,--The fares to London may be found in any continental +Bradshaw or sich; from London to Bournemouth impoverished parties who +can stoop to the third class get their ticket for the matter of 10s., +or, as my wife loves to phrase it, "a half a pound." You will also be +involved in a 3s. fare to get to Skerryvore; but this, I dare say, +friends could help you in on your arrival; so that you may reserve your +energies for the two tickets--costing the matter of a pound--and the +usual gratuities to porters. This does not seem to me much: considering +the intellectual pleasures that await you here, I call it dirt cheap. I +_believe_ the third class from Paris to London (_via_ Dover) is _about_ +forty francs, but I cannot swear. Suppose it to be fifty. + + frcs. + 50 x 2 = 100 100 + + The expense of spirit or spontaneous lapse of coin on the journey, + at 5 frcs. a head, 5 x 2 = 10 10 + + Victuals on ditto, at 5 frcs. a head, 5 x 2 = 10 10 + + Gratuity to stewardess, in case of severe prostration, at 3 francs 3 + + One night in London, on a modest footing, say 20 20 + + Two tickets to Bournemouth at 12.50, 12.50 x 2 = 25 25 + + Porters and general devilment, say 5 5 + + Cabs in London, say 2 shillings, and in Bournemouth, + 3 shillings = 5 shillings, 6 frcs. 25 6.25 + ------ + frcs. 179.25 + + Or, the same in pounds, L7, 3s. 6-1/2d. + Or, the same in dollars, $35.45, + +if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out dinner in +London in case you want to blow out, which would come extry, and with +the aid of _vangs fangs_ might easily double the whole amount--above all +if you have a few friends to meet you. + +In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered for the first +time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the singular costliness of +travelling with your wife. Anybody would count the tickets double; but +how few would have remembered--or indeed has any one ever +remembered?--to count the spontaneous lapse of coin double also? Yet +there are two of you, each must do his daily leakage, and it must be +done out of your travelling fund. You will tell me, perhaps, that you +carry the coin yourself: my dear sir, do you think you can fool your +Maker? Your wife has to lose her quota; and by God she will--if you kept +the coin in a belt. One thing I have omitted: you will lose a certain +amount on the exchange, but this even I cannot foresee, as it is one of +the few things that vary with the way a man has.--I am, dear sir, yours +financially, + + SAMUEL BUDGETT. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + I had lately sent him two books, the fifth volume of Huxley's + _Collected Essays_ and Cotter Morison's _Service of Man_: the latter + a work of Positivist tendency, which its genial and accomplished + author had long meditated, but which unfortunately he only began to + write after a rapid decline of health and power had set in. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Spring 1887._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I read Huxley, and a lot of it with great interest. Eh, +what a gulf between a man with a mind like Huxley and a man like Cotter +Morison. Truly 'tis the book of a boy; before I was twenty I was done +with all these considerations. Nor is there one happy phrase, except +"the devastating flood of children." Why should he din our ears with +languid repetitions of the very first ideas and facts that a bright lad +gets hold of; and how can a man be so destitute of historical +perspective, so full of cheap outworn generalisations--feudal ages, time +of suffering--_pas tant qu'aujourdhui_, M. Cotter! Christianity--which? +what? how? You must not attack all forms, from Calvin to St. Thomas, +from St. Thomas to (One who should surely be considered) Jesus Christ, +with the same missiles: they do not all tell against all. But there it +is, as we said; a man joins a sect, and becomes one-eyed. He affects a +horror of vices which are just the thing to stop his "devastating flood +of babies," and just the thing above all to keep the vicious from +procreating. Where, then, is the ground of this horror in any +intelligent Servant of Humanity? O, beware of creeds and anti-creeds, +sects and anti-sects. There is but one truth, outside science, the truth +that comes of an earnest, smiling survey of mankind "from China to +Peru," or further, and from to-day to the days of Probably Arboreal; +and the truth (however true it is) that robs you of sympathy with any +form of thought or trait of man, is false for you, and heretical, and +heretico-plastic. Hear Morison struggling with his chains; hear me, hear +all of us, when we suffer our creeds or anti-creeds to degenerate +towards the whine, and begin to hate our neighbours, or our ancestors, +like ourselves. And yet in Morison, too, as in St. Thomas, as in +Rutherford, ay, or in Peden, truth struggles, or it would not so deform +them. The man has not a devil; it is an angel that tears and blinds him. +But Morison's is an old, almost a venerable seraph, with whom I dealt +before I was twenty, and had done before I was twenty-five. + +Behold how the voices of dead preachers speak hollowly (and lengthily) +within me!--Yours ever--and rather better---not much, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM + + + _Skerryvore, April 16th, 1887._ + +MY DEAREST CUMMY,--As usual, I have been a dreary bad fellow and not +written for ages; but you must just try to forgive me, to believe (what +is the truth) that the number of my letters is no measure of the number +of times I think of you, and to remember how much writing I have to do. +The weather is bright, but still cold; and my father, I'm afraid, feels +it sharply. He has had--still has, rather--a most obstinate jaundice, +which has reduced him cruelly in strength, and really upset him +altogether. I hope, or think, he is perhaps a little better; but he +suffers much, cannot sleep at night, and gives John and my mother a +severe life of it to wait upon him. My wife is, I think, a little +better, but no great shakes. I keep mightily respectable myself. + +Coolin's Tombstone is now built into the front wall of Skerryvore, and +poor Bogie's (with a Latin inscription also) is set just above it. +Poor, unhappy wee man, he died, as you must have heard, in fight, which +was what he would have chosen; for military glory was more in his line +than the domestic virtues. I believe this is about all my news, except +that, as I write, there is a blackbird singing in our garden trees, as +it were at Swanston. I would like fine to go up the burnside a bit, and +sit by the pool and be young again--or no, be what I am still, only +there instead of here, for just a little. Did you see that I had written +about John Todd? In this month's Longman it was; if you have not seen +it, I will try and send it you. Some day climb as high as Halkerside for +me (I am never likely to do it for myself), and sprinkle some of the +well water on the turf. I am afraid it is a pagan rite, but quite +harmless, and _ye can sain it wi' a bit prayer_. Tell the Peewies that I +mind their forbears well. My heart is sometimes heavy and sometimes glad +to mind it all. But for what we have received, the Lord make us truly +thankful. Don't forget to sprinkle the water, and do it in my name; I +feel a childish eagerness in this. + +Remember me most kindly to James, and with all sorts of love to +yourself, believe me, your laddie, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--I suppose Mrs. Todd ought to see the paper about her man; judge +of that, and if you think she would not dislike it, buy her one from me, +and let me know. The article is called _Pastoral_, in Longman's Magazine +for April. I will send you the money; I would to-day, but it's the +Sabbie day, and I cannae. + + R. L. S. + + +Remembrances from all here. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + The following sets forth the _pros_ and _cons_ which were balancing + each other in his mind in regard to his scheme of going to make a + stand in his own person against agrarian outrage in Ireland. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] April 15 or 16 + (the hour not being known), 1887._ + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--It is I know not what hour of the night; but I +cannot sleep, have lit the gas, and here goes. + +First, all your packet arrived: I have dipped into the Schumann already +with great pleasure. Surely, in what concerns us there is a sweet little +chirrup; the _Good Words_ arrived in the morning just when I needed it, +and the famous notes that I had lost were recovered also in the nick of +time. + +And now I am going to bother you with my affairs: premising, first, that +this is _private_; second, that whatever I do the _Life_ shall be done +first, and I am getting on with it well; and third, that I do not quite +know why I consult you, but something tells me you will hear with +fairness. + +Here is my problem. The Curtin women are still miserable prisoners; no +one dare buy their farm of them, all the manhood of England and the +world stands aghast before a threat of murder. (1) Now, my work can be +done anywhere; hence I can take up without loss a back-going Irish farm, +and live on, though not (as I had originally written) in it: First +Reason. (2) If I should be killed, there are a good many who would feel +it: writers are so much in the public eye, that a writer being murdered +would attract attention, throw a bull's-eye light upon this cowardly +business: Second Reason. (3) I am not unknown in the States, from which +the funds come that pay for these brutalities: to some faint extent, my +death (if I should be killed) would tell there: Third Reason. (4) +_Nobody else is taking up this obvious and crying duty:_ Fourth Reason. +(5) I have a crazy health and may die at any moment, my life is of no +purchase in an insurance office, it is the less account to husband it, +and the business of husbanding a life is dreary and demoralising: Fifth +Reason. + +I state these in no order, but as they occur to me. And I shall do the +like with the objections. + +First Objection: It will do no good; you have seen Gordon die, and +nobody minded; nobody will mind if you die. This is plainly of the +devil. Second Objection: You will not even be murdered, the climate will +miserably kill you, you will strangle out in a rotten damp heat, in +congestion, etc. Well, what then? It changes nothing: the purpose is to +brave crime; let me brave it, for such time and to such an extent as God +allows. Third Objection: The Curtin women are probably highly +uninteresting females. I haven't a doubt of it. But the Government +cannot, men will not, protect them. If I am the only one to see this +public duty, it is to the public and the Right I should perform it--not +to Mesdames Curtin. Fourth Objection: I am married. "I have married a +wife!" I seem to have heard it before. It smells ancient! what was the +context? Fifth Objection: My wife has had a mean life (1), loves me (2), +could not bear to lose me (3). (1) I admit: I am sorry. (2) But what +does she love me for? and (3) she must lose me soon or late. And after +all, because we run this risk, it does not follow we should fail. Sixth +Objection: My wife wouldn't like it. No, she wouldn't. Who would? But +the Curtins don't like it. And all those who are to suffer if this goes +on, won't like it. And if there is a great wrong, somebody must suffer. +Seventh Objection: I won't like it. No, I will not; I have thought it +through, and I will not. But what of that? And both she and I may like +it more than we suppose. We shall lose friends, all comforts, all +society: so has everybody who has ever done anything; but we shall have +some excitement, and that's a fine thing; and we shall be trying to do +the right, and that's not to be despised. Eighth Objection: I am an +author with my work before me. See Second Reason. Ninth Objection: But +am I not taken with the hope of excitement? I was at first. I am not +much now. I see what a dreary, friendless, miserable, God-forgotten +business it will be. And anyway, is not excitement the proper reward of +doing anything both right and a little dangerous? Tenth Objection: But +am I not taken with a notion of glory? I dare say I am. Yet I see quite +clearly how all points to nothing coming, to a quite inglorious death by +disease and from the lack of attendance; or even if I should be knocked +on the head, as these poor Irish promise, how little any one will care. +It will be a smile at a thousand breakfast-tables. I am nearly forty +now; I have not many illusions. And if I had? I do not love this +health-tending, housekeeping life of mine. I have a taste for danger, +which is human, like the fear of it. Here is a fair cause; a just cause; +no knight ever set lance in rest for a juster. Yet it needs not the +strength I have not, only the passive courage that I hope I could +muster, and the watchfulness that I am sure I could learn. + +Here is a long midnight dissertation; with myself; with you. Please let +me hear. But I charge you this: if you see in this idea of mine the +finger of duty, do not dissuade me. I am nearing forty, I begin to love +my ease and my home and my habits, I never knew how much till this +arose; do not falsely counsel me to put my head under the bed-clothes. +And I will say this to you: my wife, who hates the idea, does not +refuse. "It is nonsense," says she, "but if you go, I will go." Poor +girl, and her home and her garden that she was so proud of! I feel her +garden most of all, because it is a pleasure (I suppose) that I do not +feel myself to share. + + 1. Here is a great wrong. + 2. " a growing wrong. + 3. " a wrong founded on crime. + 4. " crime that the Government cannot prevent. + 5. " crime that it occurs to no man to defy. + 6. But it has occurred to me. + 7. Being a known person, some will notice my defiance. + 8. Being a writer, I can _make_ people notice it. + 9. And, I think, _make_ people imitate me. + 10. Which would destroy in time this whole scaffolding of oppression. + 11. And if I fail, however ignominiously, that is not my concern. + It is, with an odd mixture of reverence and humorous remembrances + of Dickens, be it said--it is A-nother's. + +And here, at I cannot think what hour of the morning, I shall dry up, +and remain--Yours, really in want of a little help, + + R. L. S. + + + Sleepless at midnight's dewy hour. + " " witching " + " " maudlin " + etc. + +_Next morning._--Eleventh Objection: I have a father and mother. And who +has not? Macduff's was a rare case; if we must wait for a Macduff. +Besides, my father will not perhaps be long here. Twelfth Objection: The +cause of England in Ireland is not worth supporting. _A qui le +dites-vous?_ And I am not supporting that. Home Rule, if you like. Cause +of decency, the idea that populations should not be taught to gain +public ends by private crime, the idea that for all men to bow before a +threat of crime is to loosen and degrade beyond redemption the whole +fabric of man's decency. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + The first paragraph of the following refers to the _Life of Fleeming + Jenkin_; the second, to a remark of his correspondent that a task + such as he had proposed to himself in Ireland should be undertaken + by a society rather than an individual. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1887._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--The Book. It is all drafted: I hope soon to send +you for comments Chapters III., IV., and V. Chapter VII. is roughly but +satisfactorily drafted: a very little work should put that to rights. +But Chapter VI. is no joke; it is a _mare magnum_: I swim and drown and +come up again; and it is all broken ends and mystification: moreover, I +perceive I am in want of more matter. I must have, first of all, a +little letter from Mr. Ewing about the phonograph work: _If_ you think +he would understand it is quite a matter of chance whether I use a word +or a fact out of it. If you think he would not: I will go without. Also, +could I have a look at Ewing's _precis_? And lastly, I perceive I must +interview you again about a few points; they are very few, and might +come to little; and I propose to go on getting things as well together +as I can in the meanwhile, and rather have a final time when all is +ready and only to be criticised. I do still think it will be good. I +wonder if Trelat would let me cut? But no, I think I wouldn't after all; +'tis so quaint and pretty and clever and simple and French, and gives +such a good sight of Fleeming: the plum of the book, I think. + +You misunderstood me in one point: I always hoped to found such a +society; that was the outside of my dream, and would mean entire +success. _But_--I cannot play Peter the Hermit. In these days of the +Fleet Street journalist, I cannot send out better men than myself, with +wives or mothers just as good as mine, and sisters (I may at least say) +better, to a danger and a long-drawn dreariness that I do not share. My +wife says it's cowardice; what brave men are the leader-writers! Call it +cowardice; it is mine. Mind you, I may end by trying to do it by the pen +only: I shall not love myself if I do; and is it ever a good thing to do +a thing for which you despise yourself?--even in the doing? And if the +thing you do is to call upon others to do the thing you neglect? I have +never dared to say what I feel about men's lives, because my own was in +the wrong: shall I dare to send them to death? The physician must heal +himself; he must honestly _try_ the path he recommends: if he does not +even try, should he not be silent? + +I thank you very heartily for your letter, and for the seriousness you +brought to it. You know, I think when a serious thing is your own, you +keep a saner man by laughing at it and yourself as you go. So I do not +write possibly with all the really somewhat sickened gravity I feel. And +indeed, what with the book, and this business to which I referred, and +Ireland, I am scarcely in an enviable state. Well, I ought to be glad, +after ten years of the worst training on earth--valetudinarianism--that +I can still be troubled by a duty. You shall hear more in time; so far, +I am at least decided: I will go and see Balfour when I get to London. + +We have all had a great pleasure: a Mrs. Rawlinson came and brought with +her a nineteen-year-old daughter, simple, human, as beautiful +as--herself; I never admired a girl before, you know it was my weakness: +we are all three dead in love with her. How nice to be able to do so +much good to harassed people by--yourself!--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS RAWLINSON + + + Here follows a compliment in verse to the young lady last mentioned, + whose Christian name was May. + + [_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1887._] + + Of the many flowers you brought me, + Only some were meant to stay, + And the flower I thought the sweetest + Was the flower that went away. + + Of the many flowers you brought me, + All were fair and fresh and gay, + But the flower I thought the sweetest + Was the blossom of the May. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Within a fortnight after the date of the above Stevenson went + himself, and for the last time, to Scotland, and was present, too + late for recognition, at the death of his father (May 8, 1887). + Business detained him for some weeks, and the following was written + just before his return to Bournemouth. + + [_Edinburgh, June 1887._] + +MY DEAR S. C.,--At last I can write a word to you. Your little note in +the P.M.G. was charming. I have written four pages in the Contemporary, +which Bunting found room for: they are not very good, but I shall do +more for his memory in time. + +About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long before I could tell +my mind; and now I know it, and can but say that I am glad. If we could +have had my father, that would have been a different thing. But to keep +that changeling--suffering changeling--any longer, could better none and +nothing. Now he rests; it is more significant, it is more like himself. +He will begin to return to us in the course of time, as he was and as we +loved him. + +My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene--"O let him pass," +Kent and Lear--was played for me here in the first moment of my return. +I believe Shakespeare saw it with his own father. I had no words; but it +was shocking to see. He died on his feet, you know; was on his feet the +last day, knowing nobody--still he would be up. This was his constant +wish; also that he might smoke a pipe on his last day. The funeral would +have pleased him; it was the largest private funeral in man's memory +here. + +We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home without going +through town. I do not know; I have no views yet whatever; nor can have +any at this stage of my cold and my business.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON + + + Written during a short visit to me between his return from Scotland + and his departure for New York. + + _British Museum [July 1887]._ + +MY DEAR SIMPSON,--This is a long time I have not acknowledged the Art of +Golf, though I read it through within thirty-six hours of its arrival. I +have been ill and out of heart, and ill again and again ill, till I am +weary of it, and glad indeed to try the pitch-farthing hazard of a trip +to Colorado or New Mexico. There we go, if I prove fit for the start, on +August 20th. + +Meanwhile, the Art of Golf. A lot of it is very funny, and I liked the +fun very well; but what interested me most was the more serious part, +because it turns all the while on a branch of psychology that no one has +treated and that interests me much: the psychology of athletics. I had +every reason to be interested in it, because I am abnormal: I have no +memory in athletics. I have forgotten how to ride and how to skate; and +I should not be the least surprised if I had forgotten how to swim. + +I find I can write no more: it is the first I have tried since I was +ill; and I am too weak.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + During the two months following his father's death Stevenson had + suffered much both from his old complaints and from depression of + mind. His only work had been in preparing for press the verse + collection _Underwoods_, the _Life of Fleeming Jenkin_, and the + volume of essays called _Memories and Portraits_. The opinions quoted + are those of physicians. + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August 1887._ + +DEAR LAD,--I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson's well-known work, +_Virginibus Puerisque_, is about to be reprinted. At the same time a +second volume called _Memories and Portraits_ will issue from the +roaring loom. Its interest will be largely autobiographical, Mr. S. +having sketched there the lineaments of many departed friends, and dwelt +fondly, and with a m'istened eye, upon by-gone pleasures. The two will +be issued under the common title of _Familiar Essays_; but the volumes +will be vended separately to those who are mean enough not to hawk at +both. + +The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began to think I should +not get away. However, I hope--I hope--remark the word--no boasting--I +hope I may luff up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw, gave as usual a good +account of my lungs, and expressed himself, like his neighbours, +hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle says, Scott says, Brown +says--they all say--You ought not to be in such a state of health; you +should recover. Well, then, I mean to. My spirits are rising again after +three months of black depression: I almost begin to feel as if I should +care to live: I would, by God! And so I believe I shall.--Yours, + + BULLETIN M'GURDER. + + +How has the _Deacon_ gone? + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + _[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August 6th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR LOW,--We--my mother, my wife, my stepson, my maidservant, and +myself, five souls--leave, if all is well, Aug. 20th, per Wilson line +s.s. Ludgate Hill. Shall probably evade N. Y. at first, cutting +straight to a watering-place: Newport, I believe, its name. Afterwards +we shall steal incognito into _la bonne ville_, and see no one but you +and the Scribners, if it may be so managed. You must understand I have +been very seedy indeed, quite a dead body; and unless the voyage does +miracles, I shall have to draw it dam fine. Alas, "The Canoe Speaks" is +now out of date; it will figure in my volume of verses now imminent. +However, I may find some inspiration some day.--Till very soon, yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + The lady to whom the following (and much correspondence yet to come) + is addressed had been an attached friend of the Skerryvore household + and a pupil of Stevenson's in the art of writing. She had given R. L. + S. a paper-cutter by way of farewell token at his starting. + + _Bournemouth, August 19th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I promise you the paper-knife shall go to sea with +me; and if it were in my disposal, I should promise it should return with +me too. All that you say, I thank you for very much; I thank you for all +the pleasantness that you have brought about our house; and I hope the +day may come when I shall see you again in poor old Skerryvore, now left +to the natives of Canada, or to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am +afraid my attempt to jest is rather _a contre-coeur_.--Good-bye--_au +revoir_--and do not forget your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MESSRS. CHATTO AND WINDUS + + + The titles and proofs mentioned in the text are presumably those of + _Underwoods_ and _Memories and Portraits_. + + _Bournemouth_ [_August 1887_]. + +DEAR SIRS,--I here enclose the two titles. Had you not better send me +the bargains to sign? I shall be here till Saturday; and shall have an +address in London (which I shall send you) till Monday, when I shall +sail. Even if the proofs do not reach you till Monday morning, you could +send a clerk from Fenchurch Street Station at 10.23 A.M. for Galleons +Station, and he would find me embarking on board the _Ludgate Hill_, +Island Berth, Royal Albert Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be +necessary to catch this last chance. I am most anxious to have the +proofs with me on the voyage.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [10] Cough. + + [11] Loose talk. + + [12] Mr. Charles Morley, at this time manager or assistant-manager of + the Pall Mall Gazette. + + [13] _Princess Casamassima._ + + [14] Lothian vernacular pronunciation of Cunningham. + + [15] In _Underwoods_ the lines thus bracketed as doubtful stand with + the change: + + "Life is over; life was gay." + + [16] _Prince Otto._ + + [17] The name of the hero in Dostoieffsky's _Le Crime et le Chatiment_. + + [18] _Suite anglaise._ + + [19] As in fact he had, all except the double l. + + [20] In _Pendennis_. + + + + +IX + +THE UNITED STATES AGAIN + +WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS + +AUGUST 1887--JUNE 1888 + + +The letters printed in the following section are selected from those +which tell of Stevenson's voyage to New York and reception there at the +beginning of September 1887; of his winter's life and work at Saranac +Lake, and of his decision taken in May 1888 to venture on a yachting +cruise in the South Seas. + +The moment of his arrival at New York was that when his reputation had +first reached its height in the United States, owing to the popularity +both of _Treasure Island_ and _Kidnapped_, but more especially to the +immense impression made by the _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. +Hyde_. He experienced consequently for the first time the pleasures, +such as they were, of celebrity, and also its inconveniences; found the +most hospitable of refuges in the house of his kind friends, Mr. and +Mrs. Charles Fairchild, at Newport; and quickly made many other friends, +including the late Augustus St. Gaudens, the famous sculptor, with Mr. +C. Scribner and Mr. E. L. Burlingame, the owner and the editor of +Scribner's Magazine, from whom he immediately received and accepted very +advantageous offers of work. Having been dissuaded from braving for the +present the fatigue of the long journey to Colorado and the extreme +rigour of its winter climate, he determined to try instead a season at +Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, New York State, which had +lately been coming into reputation as a place of cure. There, under the +care of the well-known resident physician, Dr. Trudeau, he spent nearly +seven months, from the end of September 1887 to the end of April 1888, +with results on the whole favourable to his own health, though not to +that of his wife, which could never support these winter mountain cures. +On the 16th of April, he and his party left Saranac. After spending a +fortnight in New York, where, as always in cities, his health quickly +flagged again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters at +Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, for the sake of fresh +air and boating. Here he enjoyed the occasional society of some of his +New York friends, including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was +initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the meantime, +Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco to see her relatives; and +holding that the climate of the Pacific was likely to be better for the +projected cruise than that of the Atlantic, had inquired there whether a +yacht was to be hired for such a purpose. The schooner _Casco_, Captain +Otis, was found. Stevenson signified by telegraph his assent to the +arrangement; determined to risk in the adventure the sum of L2000, of +which his father's death had put him in possession, hoping to recoup +himself by a series of Letters recounting his experiences, for which he +had received a commission from Mr. S. S. M'Clure; and on the 2nd of June +started with his mother and stepson for San Francisco, the first stage +on that island cruise from which he was destined never to return. + +His work during the season September 1887-May 1888 had consisted of the +twelve papers published in the course of 1888 in Scribner's Magazine, +including perhaps the most striking of all his essays, _A Chapter on +Dreams_, _Pulvis et Umbra_, _Beggars_, _The Lantern Bearers_, _Random +Memories_, etc.; as well as the greater part of the _Master of +Ballantrae_ and _The Wrong Box_--the last originally conceived and +drafted by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + A succession of Stevenson's friends had visited and spent part of the + day or the evening with him at Armfield's hotel on Sunday, August + 20th, each bringing some farewell gift or another (as related by Mr. + Gosse in his volume _Critical Kitcats_, p. 297). Among these, Mr. + Henry James's gift had been a case of champagne for consumption + during the journey. On the morning of the 21st I accompanied him to + the docks, saw him and his party embarked on board the steamer + _Ludgate Hill_, a vessel sailing from the port of London and carrying + animals and freight as well as passengers. They had chosen to go by + this route for the sake alike of economy and amusement, rather than + by one of the sumptuous liners sailing from Liverpool or Southampton. + Leaving the ship's side as she weighed anchor, and waving farewell to + the party from the boat which landed me, I little knew what was the + truth, that I was looking on the face of my friend for the last time. + The letters next following were written during or Immediately after + his passage across the Atlantic. "The Commodore" is of course R. L. S. + + _H.M.S. Vulgarium, off Havre de Grace, + this 22nd day of August [1887]._ + +SIR,--The weather has been hitherto inimitable. Inimitable is the only +word that I can apply to our fellow-voyagers, whom a categorist, +possibly premature, has been already led to divide into two classes--the +better sort consisting of the baser kind of Bagman, and the worser of +undisguised Beasts of the Field. The berths are excellent, the pasture +swallowable, the champagne of H. James (to recur to my favourite +adjective) inimitable. As for the Commodore, he slept awhile in the +evening, tossed off a cup of Henry James with his plain meal, walked the +deck till eight, among sands and floating lights and buoys and wrecked +brigantines, came down (to his regret) a minute too soon to see Margate +lit up, turned in about nine, slept, with some interruptions, but on the +whole sweetly, until six, and has already walked a mile or so of deck, +among a fleet of other steamers waiting for the tide, within view of +Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats, hovering +sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck with endearments of primitive +simplicity. There, sir, can be viewed the sham quarrel, the sham desire +for information, and every device of these two poor ancient sexes (who +might, you might think, have learned in the course of the ages something +new) down to the exchange of head-gear.--I am, sir, yours, + + BOLD BOB BOLTSPRIT. + + +B. B. B. (_alias_ the Commodore) will now turn to his proofs. Havre de +Grace is a city of some show. It is for-ti-fied; and, so far as I can +see, is a place of some trade. It is situ-ated in France, a country of +Europe. You always complain there are no facts in my letters. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Newport, R.I., U.S.A. [September 1887]_ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--So long it went excellent well, and I had a time I am +glad to have had; really enjoying my life. There is nothing like being +at sea, after all. And O, why have I allowed myself to rot so long on +land? But on the Banks I caught a cold, and I have not yet got over it. +My reception here was idiotic to the last degree.... It is very silly, +and not pleasant, except where humour enters; and I confess the poor +interviewer lads pleased me. They are too good for their trade; avoided +anything I asked them to avoid, and were no more vulgar in their reports +than they could help. I liked the lads. + +O, it was lovely on our stable-ship, chock full of stallions. She +rolled heartily, rolled some of the fittings out of our state-room, and +I think a more dangerous cruise (except that it was summer) it would be +hard to imagine. But we enjoyed it to the masthead, all but Fanny; and +even she perhaps a little. When we got in, we had run out of beer, +stout, cocoa, soda-water, water, fresh meat, and (almost) of biscuit. +But it was a thousandfold pleasanter than a great big Birmingham liner +like a new hotel; and we liked the officers, and made friends with the +quarter-masters, and I (at least) made a friend of a baboon (for we +carried a cargo of apes), whose embraces have pretty near cost me a +coat. The passengers improved, and were a very good specimen lot, with +no drunkard, no gambling that I saw, and less grumbling and backbiting +than one would have asked of poor human nature. Apes, stallions, cows, +matches, hay, and poor men-folk, all, or almost all, came successfully +to land.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + [_Newport, U.S.A., September 1887._] + +MY DEAR JAMES,--Here we are at Newport in the house of the good +Fairchilds; and a sad burthen we have laid upon their shoulders. I have +been in bed practically ever since I came. I caught a cold on the Banks +after having had the finest time conceivable, and enjoyed myself more +than I could have hoped on board our strange floating menagerie: +stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent +of these incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the +stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking through the ports at +our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; and the +little monkeys stared at each other in their cages, and were thrown +overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured +about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my +clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black +tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a +picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were +not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll +till the bell shall sound unexpected notes and the fittings shall break +loose in our state-room, and you have the voyage of the _Ludgate Hill_. +She arrived in the port of New York, without beer, porter, soda-water, +curacoa, fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet we lived, and we regret +her. + +My wife is a good deal run down, and I am no great shakes. + +America is, as I remarked, a fine place to eat in, and a great place for +kindness; but, Lord, what a silly thing is popularity! I envy the cool +obscurity of Skerryvore. If it even paid, said Meanness! and was abashed +at himself.--Yours most sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + [_New York, end of September 1887._] + +MY DEAR S. C.,--Your delightful letter has just come, and finds me in a +New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St. Gaudens) who is +making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to boot) one of the +handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I caught a cold on the Banks; +fog is not for me; nearly died of interviewers and visitors, during +twenty-four hours in New York; cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine, +a journey like fairyland for the most engaging beauties, one little +rocky and pine-shaded cove after another, each with a house and a boat +at anchor, so that I left my heart in each and marvelled why American +authors had been so unjust to their country; caught another cold on the +train; arrived at Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in +bed until I left again; the Fairchilds proving during this time +kindness itself; Mr. Fairchild simply one of the most engaging men in +the world, and one of the children, Blair, _aet._ ten, a great joy and +amusement in his solemn adoring attitude to the author of _Treasure +Island_. + +Here I was interrupted by the arrival of my sculptor.--I withdraw +calling him handsome; he is not quite that, his eyes are too near +together; he is only remarkable looking, and like an Italian +cinque-cento medallion; I have begged him to make a medallion of himself +and give me a copy. I will not take up the sentence in which I was +wandering so long, but begin fresh. I was ten or twelve days at Newport; +then came back convalescent to New York. Fanny and Lloyd are off to the +Adirondacks to see if that will suit; and the rest of us leave Monday +(this is Saturday) to follow them up. I hope we may manage to stay there +all winter. I have a splendid appetite and have on the whole recovered +well after a mighty sharp attack. I am now on a salary of L500 a year +for twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine on what I like; it is more +than L500, but I cannot calculate more precisely. You have no idea how +much is made of me here; I was offered L2000 for a weekly article--eh +heh! how is that? but I refused that lucrative job. The success of +_Underwoods_ is gratifying. You see, the verses are sane; that is their +strong point, and it seems it is strong enough to carry them. + +A thousand thanks for your grand letter.--Ever yours, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The verses herein alluded to were addressed to Rossetti's friend, Dr. + Gordon Hake, physician and poet (1809-1895), in return for some + received from him. They are those beginning "In the beloved hour that + ushers day" and printed as No. xix. in _Songs of Travel_. + + _New York [September 1887]._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which please communicate. I +did my best with the interviewers; + +I don't know if Lloyd sent you the result; my heart was too sick: you +can do nothing with them; and yet ----literally sweated with anxiety to +please, and took me down in long hand! + +I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not busted, but +medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, plain, high-minded +artist and honest fellow; you would like him down to the ground. I +believe sculptors are fine fellows when they are not demons. O, I am now +a salaried person, L600, a year,[21] to write twelve articles in +Scribner's Magazine; it remains to be seen if it really pays, huge as +the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh me. I hope you will like my +answer to Hake, and specially that he will. + +Love to all.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + (_le salarie_). + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [October 1887]._ + +MY DEAR BOB,--The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous for me; I could +not risk the long railway voyage, and the season was too late to risk +the Eastern, Cape Hatteras side of the steamer one; so here we stuck and +stick. We have a wooden house on a hill-top, overlooking a river, and a +village about a quarter of a mile away, and very wooded hills; the whole +scene is very Highland, bar want of heather and the wooden houses. + +I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is proved the sea agrees +heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no +worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in summer. +Good Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a +string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these I +hold that L700 a year is as much as any body can possibly want; and I +have had more, so I know, for the extry coins were for no use, excepting +for illness, which damns everything. + +I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it +possible. We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the +mere fact of its being a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we could cut +about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all +manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And truly there is +nothing else. I had literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full +mind--full of external and physical things, not full of cares and +labours and rot about a fellow's behaviour. My heart literally sang; I +truly care for nothing so much as for that. We took so north a course, +that we saw Newfoundland; no one in the ship had ever seen it before. + +It was beyond belief to me how she rolled; in seemingly smooth water, +the bell striking, the fittings bounding out of our state-room. It is +worth having lived these last years, partly because I have written some +better books, which is always pleasant, but chiefly to have had the joy +of this voyage. I have been made a lot of here, and it is sometimes +pleasant, sometimes the reverse; but I could give it all up, and agree +that ---- was the author of my works, for a good seventy ton schooner +and the coins to keep her on. And to think there are parties with yachts +who would make the exchange! I know a little about fame now; it is no +good compared to a yacht; and anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more +genuine fame; to cross the Atlantic and come to anchor in Newport (say) +with the Union Jack, and go ashore for your letters and hang about the +pier, among the holiday yachtsmen--that's fame, that's glory, and nobody +can take it away; they can't say your book is bad; you _have_ crossed +the Atlantic. I should do it south by the West Indies, to avoid the +damned Banks; and probably come home by steamer, and leave the skipper +to bring the yacht home. + +Well, if all goes well, we shall maybe sail out of Southampton water +some of these days and take a run to Havre, and try the Baltic, or +somewhere. + +Love to you all--Ever your afft. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON + + It was supposed that Stevenson's letters to this friend, like those + to Professor Fleeming Jenkin, had been destroyed or disappeared + altogether. But besides the two printed above (pp. 117 and 229) here + is a third, preserved by a friend to whom Sir Walter made a present + of it. + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887._] + +MY DEAR SIMPSON, + + the address is + c/o Charles Scribner's Sons, + 243 Broadway, N.Y., + +where I wish you would write and tell us you are better. But the place +of our abode is Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks; it is a mighty good +place too, and I mean it shall do me good. Indeed the dreadful +depression and collapse of last summer has quite passed away; it was a +thorough change I wanted; I wonder perhaps if it wouldn't pick you +up--if you are not picked up already; you have been a long time in Great +Britain; and that is a slow poison, very slow for the strong, but +certain for all. Old Dr. Chepmell told Lloyd: any one can stay a year in +England and be the better for it, but no one can stay there steadily and +not be the worse. + +I have had a very curious experience here; being very much made of, and +called upon, and all that; quite the famous party in fact: it is not so +nice as people try to make out, when you are young, and don't want to +bother working. Fame is nothing to a yacht; _experto crede_. There are +nice bits of course; for you meet very pleasant and interesting people; +but the thing at large is a bore and a fraud; and I am much happier up +here, where I see no one and live my own life. One thing is they do not +stick for money to the Famed One; I was offered L2000 a year for a +weekly article; and I accepted (and now enjoy) L720 a year for a monthly +one: 720/12 (whatever that may be) for each article, as long or as short +as I please, and on any mortal subject. I am sure it will do me harm to +do it; but the sum was irresistible. See calculations on verso of last +page, and observe, sir, the accuracy of my methods. + +Hulloh, I must get up, as I can't lose any time. Good-bye, remember me +to her ladyship and salute the Kids.--Ever your friend, + + R. L. S. + + + 12 : 10 :: 72 : _x_, and this results in the same problem. Well--tackle + it. + + 12)720(60 + 72 + + Is it possible? + + L60!!?? + + Let us cheque it by trying it in dollars, $3500 per an. + + 12)3500(291. 80 + 24 + --- + 110 + 108 + --- + 20 + + Well : $291.80 + + then divide by 5 for a rough test + + 5)291(58.4.4 + 25 add 80 cents = 40d. = 3. 4d. + -- + 3.4 + ------- + L58. 7.8 + + Well, call it + L58.10. + ====== + and be done with it! + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + The following refers to a review by Mr. Gosse of Stevenson's volume + of verse called _Underwoods_. The book had been published a few weeks + previously, and is dedicated, as readers will remember, to a number + of physicians who had attended him at sundry times and places. + + _Saranac Lake, Oct. 8th, 1887._ + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have just read your article twice, with cheers of +approving laughter. I do not believe you ever wrote anything so funny: +Tyndall's "shell," the passage on the Davos press and its invaluable +issues, and that on V. Hugo and Swinburne, are exquisite; so, I say it +more ruefully, is the touch about the doctors. For the rest, I am very +glad you like my verses so well; and the qualities you ascribe to them +seem to me well found and well named. I own to that kind of candour you +attribute to me: when I am frankly interested, I suppose I fancy the +public will be so too; and when I am moved, I am sure of it. It has been +my luck hitherto to meet with no staggering disillusion. "Before" and +"After" may be two; and yet I believe the habit is now too thoroughly +ingrained to be altered. About the doctors, you were right, that +dedication has been the subject of some pleasantries that made me grind, +and of your happily touched reproof which made me blush. And to miscarry +in a dedication is an abominable form of book-wreck; I am a good +captain, I would rather lose the tent and save my dedication. + +I am at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, I suppose for the winter: it +seems a first-rate place; we have a house in the eye of many winds, with +a view of a piece of running water--Highland, all but the dear hue of +peat--and of many hills--Highland also, but for the lack of heather. +Soon the snow will close on us; we are here some twenty +miles--twenty-seven, they say, but this I profoundly disbelieve--in the +woods: communication by letter is slow and (let me be consistent) +aleatory; by telegram is as near as may be possible. + +I had some experience of American appreciation; I liked a little of it, +but there is too much; a little of that would go a long way to spoil a +man; and I like myself better in the woods. I am so damned candid and +ingenuous (for a cynic), and so much of a "cweatu' of impulse--aw" (if +you remember that admirable Leech) that I begin to shirk any more taffy; +I think I begin to like it too well. But let us trust the Gods; they +have a rod in pickle; reverently I doff my trousers, and with screwed +eyes await the _amari aliquid_ of the great God Busby. + +I thank you for the article in all ways, and remain yours +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887._] + +SIR,--I have to trouble you with the following _paroles bien senties_. +We are here at a first-rate place. "Baker's" is the name of our house, +but we don't address there; we prefer the tender care of the +Post-Office, as more aristocratic (it is no use to telegraph even to the +care of the Post-Office, who does not give a single damn[22]). Baker's +has a prophet's chamber, which the hypercritical might describe as a +garret with a hole in the floor: in that garret, sir, I have to trouble +you and your wife to come and slumber. Not now, however: with manly +hospitality, I choke off any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife and +my mother are gone (a note for the latter, strongly suspected to be in +the hand of your talented wife, now sits silent on the mantel shelf), +one to Niagara and t'other to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not +yet installed. And because, third, I won't have you till I have a +buffalo robe and leggings, lest you should want to paint me as a plain +man, which I am not, but a rank Saranacker and wild man of the +woods.--Yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES FAIRCHILD + + + _Post Office, Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, N.Y. [October 1887]._ + +MY DEAR FAIRCHILD,--I do not live in the Post Office; that is only my +address; I live at "Baker's," a house upon a hill, and very jolly in +every way. I believe this is going to do: we have a kind of a garret of +a spare room, where hardy visitors can sleep, and our table (if homely) +is not bad. + +And here, appropriately enough, comes in the begging part. We cannot get +any fruit here: can you manage to send me some grapes? I told you I +would trouble you, and I will say that I do so with pleasure, which +means a great deal from yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Remember us to all yours: my mother and my wife are away +skylarking; my mother to Niagara, my wife to Indianapolis; and I live +here to-day alone with Lloyd, Valentine, some cold meat, and four salmon +trout, one of which is being grilled at this moment of writing; so that, +after the immortal pattern of the Indian boys, my household will soon +only reckon three. As usual with me, the news comes in a P.S., and is +mostly folly. + + R. L. S. + + +_P.P.S._--My cold is so much better that I took another yesterday. But +the new one is a puny child; I fear him not; and yet I fear to boast. If +the postscript business goes on, this establishment will run out of P's; +but I hope it wasn't you that made this paper--just for a last word--I +could not compliment you upon that. And Lord! if you could see the +ink--not what I am using--but the local vintage! They don't write much +here; I bet what you please. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + The Wondrous Tale referred to in the following is Stevenson's _Black + Arrow_, which had been through Mr. Archer's hands in proof. + + _Saranac Lake, October 1887._ + +DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a work +of genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your pencillings; +though I defend "shrew," or at least many of the shrews. + +We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill and +forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled +and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more bitterly +deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not boast. + +My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and I +remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the hill +air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and +make great fires, and get along like one o'clock. + +I am now a salaried party; I am a _bourgeois_ now; I am to write a +weekly paper for Scribner's, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth +ache for shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to +you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he +said he had had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while, +perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough +gentlefolk in all ways that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I +am like to be a millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at +the social revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed; +and it would be a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are +you about? I hope you are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am +now, after a most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but +indeed I was quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my +respects to Tom.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + "Gleeson White" in this letter means the collection of _Ballades, + Rondeaus, &c._, edited by that gentleman and dedicated to R. L. S. + (Walter Scott, 1887). + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887._] + +MY DEAR LAD,--I hear some vague reports of a success[23] at Montreal. + +My news is not much, my mother is away to Niagara and Fanny to Indiana; +the Port Admiral and I and Valentine keep house together in our +verandahed cottage near a wood. I am writing, and have got into the +vein. When I got to N. Y. a paper offered me L2000 a year to do critical +weekly articles for them; the sum was so enormous that I tottered; +however, Scribner at once offered me the same scale to give him a +monthly paper in his magazine; indeed it is rather higher, L720 for the +twelve papers. This I could not decently refuse; and I am now a yoked +man, and after a fit of my usual impotence under bondage, seem to have +got into the swing. I suppose I shall scarce manage to do much else; but +there is the fixed sum, which shines like a sun in the firmament. A +prophet has certainly a devil of a lot of honour (and much coins) in +another country, whatever he has in his own. + +I got Gleeson White; your best work and either the best or second best +in the book is the Ballade in Hot Weather; that is really a masterpiece +of melody and fancy. Damn your Villanelles--and everybody's. G. +Macdonald comes out strong in his two pious rondels; _Fons Bandusiae_ +seems as exquisite as ever. To my surprise, I liked two of the Pantoums, +the blue-bottle, and the still better after-death one from _Love in +Idleness_. Lang cuts a poor figure, except in the Cricket one; your +patter ballade is a great _tour de force_, but spoiled by similar +caesuras. On the whole 'tis a ridiculous volume, and I had more pleasure +out of it than I expected. I forgot to praise Grant Allen's excellent +ballade, which is the one that runs with yours,--and here, to the point, +a note from you at Margate--among East Winds and Plain Women, damn them! +Well, what can we do or say? We are only at Saranac for the winter; and +if this _Deacon_ comes off, why you may join us there in glory; I would +I had some news of it. Saranac is not _quite_ so dear, in some ways, as +the rest of this land, where it costs you a pound to sneeze, and fifty +to blow your nose; but even here it costs $2.50 to get a box from the +station! Think of it! Lift it up tenderly! They had need to pay well! +but how poor devils live; and how it can pay to take a theatre company +over to such a land, is more than I can fancy. The devil of the States +for you is the conveyances, they are so dear--but O, what is not! + +I have thrown off my cold in excellent style, though still very groggy +about the knees, so that when I climb a paling, of which we have many, I +feel as precarious and nutatory as a man of ninety. Under this I grind; +but I believe the place will suit me. Must stop.--Ever affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The "dear Alexander" mentioned below is Mr. J. W. Alexander, the + well-known American artist, who had been a welcome visitor to + Stevenson at Bournemouth, and had drawn his portrait there. The + humorous romance proceeding from Mr. Osbourne's typewriter was the + first draft of _The Wrong Box_; or, as it was originally called, _The + Finsbury Tontine_, or _The Game of Bluff_. The article by Mr. Henry + James referred to in the last paragraph is one on R. L. S. which had + appeared in the Century Magazine for October, and was reprinted in + _Partial Portraits_. + + [_Saranac Lake, October 1887_.] I know not the day; but the month + it is the drear October by the + ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--This is to say _First_, the voyage was a huge +success. We all enjoyed it (bar my wife) to the ground: sixteen days at +sea with a cargo of hay, matches, stallions, and monkeys, and in a ship +with no style on, and plenty of sailors to talk to, and the endless +pleasures of the sea--the romance of it, the sport of the scratch dinner +and the smashing crockery, the pleasure--an endless pleasure--of +balancing to the swell: well, it's over. + +_Second_, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport and New +York; saw much of and liked hugely the Fairchilds, St. Gaudens the +sculptor, Gilder of the Century--just saw the dear Alexander--saw a lot +of my old and admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you knew and +appreciated--was medallioned by St. Gaudens, and at last escaped to + +_Third_, Saranac Lake, where we now are, and which I believe we mean to +like and pass the winter at. Our house--emphatically "Baker's"--is on a +hill, and has a sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley--bless +the face of running water!--and sees some hills too, and the paganly +prosaic roofs of Saranac itself; the Lake it does not see, nor do I +regret that; I like water (fresh water I mean) either running swiftly +among stones, or else largely qualified with whisky. As I write, the sun +(which has been long a stranger) shines in at my shoulder; from the next +room, the bell of Lloyd's typewriter makes an agreeable music as it +patters off (at a rate which astonishes this experienced novelist) the +early chapters of a humorous romance; from still further off--the walls +of Baker's are neither ancient nor massive--rumours of Valentine about +the kitchen stove come to my ears; of my mother and Fanny I hear +nothing, for the excellent reason that they have gone sparking off, one +to Niagara, one to Indianapolis. People complain that I never give news +in my letters. I have wiped out that reproach. + +But now, _Fourth_, I have seen the article; and it may be from natural +partiality, I think it the best you have written. O--I remember the +Gautier, which was an excellent performance; and the Balzac, which was +good; and the Daudet, over which I licked my chops; but the R. L. S. is +better yet. It is so humorous, and it hits my little frailties with so +neat (and so friendly) a touch; and Alan is the occasion for so much +happy talk, and the quarrel is so generously praised. I read it twice, +though it was only some hours in my possession; and Low, who got it for +me from the Century, sat up to finish it ere he returned it; and, sir, +we were all delighted. Here is the paper out, nor will anything, not +even friendship, not even gratitude for the article, induce me to begin +a second sheet; so here, with the kindest remembrances and the warmest +good wishes, I remain, yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _[Saranac Lake], 18th November 1887._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--No likely I'm going to waste a sheet of paper.... I am +offered L1600 ($8000) for the American serial rights on my next story! +As you say, times are changed since the Lothian Road. Well, the Lothian +Road was grand fun too; I could take an afternoon of it with great +delight. But I'm awfu' grand noo, and long may it last! + +Remember me to any of the faithful--if there are any left. I wish I +could have a crack with you.--Yours ever affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + +I find I have forgotten more than I remembered of business.... Please +let us know (if you know) for how much Skerryvore is let; you will here +detect the female mind; I let it for what I could get; nor shall the +possession of this knowledge (which I am happy to have forgot) increase +the amount by so much as the shadow of a sixpenny piece; but my females +are agog.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES SCRIBNER + + + Shortly after the date of the present correspondence Stevenson, to + his great advantage, put all his publishing arrangements (as he had + already put his private business) into the hands of his friend Mr. + Baxter. Meantime he was managing them himself; and an occasional + lapse of memory or attention betrayed him once or twice into + misunderstandings, and once at least conflicting agreements with two + different publishers, both his friends. He was the first to denounce + the error when he became aware of it, and suffered sharply from the + sense of his own unintentional fault. The next two letters, and some + allusions in those which follow, relate to this affair. + + [_Saranac Lake, November 20 or 21, 1887._] + +MY DEAR MR. SCRIBNER,--Heaven help me, I am under a curse just now. I +have played fast and loose with what I said to you; and that, I beg you +to believe, in the purest innocence of mind. I told you you should have +the power over all my work in this country; and about a fortnight ago, +when M'Clure was here, I calmly signed a bargain for the serial +publication of a story. You will scarce believe that I did this in mere +oblivion; but I did; and all that I can say is that I will do so no +more, and ask you to forgive me. Please write to me soon as to this. + +Will you oblige me by paying in for three articles, as already sent, to +my account with John Paton & Co., 52 William Street? This will be most +convenient for us. + +The fourth article is nearly done; and I am the more deceived, or it is +_A Buster_. + +Now as to the first thing in this letter, I do wish to hear from you +soon; and I am prepared to hear any reproach, or (what is harder to +hear) any forgiveness; for I have deserved the worst.--Yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + This is the first of many letters, increasing in friendliness as the + correspondence goes on, to the editor of Scribner's Magazine. + + [_Saranac Lake, November 1887._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--I enclose corrected proof of _Beggars_, which +seems good. I mean to make a second sermon, which, if it is about the +same length as _Pulvis et Umbra_, might go in along with it as two +sermons, in which case I should call the first "The Whole Creation," and +the second "Any Good." We shall see; but you might say how you like the +notion. + +One word: if you have heard from Mr. Scribner of my unhappy oversight in +the matter of a story, you will make me ashamed to write to you, and yet +I wish to beg you to help me into quieter waters. The oversight +committed--and I do think it was not so bad as Mr. Scribner seems to +think it--and discovered, I was in a miserable position. I need not tell +you that my first impulse was to offer to share or to surrender the +price agreed upon when it should fall due; and it is almost to my credit +that I arranged to refrain. It is one of these positions from which +there is no escape; I cannot undo what I have done. And I wish to beg +you--should Mr. Scribner speak to you in the matter--to try to get him +to see this neglect of mine for no worse than it is: unpardonable +enough, because a breach of an agreement; but still pardonable, because +a piece of sheer carelessness and want of memory, done, God knows, +without design and since most sincerely regretted. I have no memory. You +have seen how I omitted to reserve the American rights in _Jekyll_: last +winter I wrote and demanded, as an increase, a less sum than had already +been agreed upon for a story that I gave to Cassell's. For once that my +forgetfulness has, by a cursed fortune, seemed to gain, instead of lose, +me money, it is painful indeed that I should produce so poor an +impression on the mind of Mr. Scribner. But I beg you to believe, and if +possible to make him believe, that I am in no degree or sense a +_faiseur_, and that in matters of business my design, at least, is +honest. Nor (bating bad memory and self-deception) am I untruthful in +such affairs. + +If Mr. Scribner shall have said nothing to you in the matter, please +regard the above as unwritten, and believe me, yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Saranac Lake, November 1887._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--The revise seemed all right, so I did not trouble +you with it; indeed, my demand for one was theatrical, to impress that +obdurate dog, your reader. Herewith a third paper: it has been a cruel +long time upon the road, but here it is, and not bad at last, I fondly +hope. I was glad you liked the _Lantern Bearers_; I did, too. I thought +it was a good paper, really contained some excellent sense, and was +ingeniously put together. I have not often had more trouble than I have +with these papers; thirty or forty pages of foul copy, twenty is the +very least I have had. Well, you pay high; it is fit that I should have +to work hard, it somewhat quiets my conscience.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + _Saranac Lake, Adirondack Mountains, + New York, U.S.A., November 21, 1887._ + +MY DEAR SYMONDS,--I think we have both meant and wanted to write to you +any time these months; but we have been much tossed about, among new +faces and old, and new scenes and old, and scenes (like this of Saranac) +which are neither one nor other. To give you some clue to our affairs, I +had best begin pretty well back. We sailed from the Thames in a vast +bucket of iron that took seventeen days from shore to shore. I cannot +describe how I enjoyed the voyage, nor what good it did me; but on the +Banks I caught friend catarrh. In New York and then in Newport I was +pretty ill; but on my return to New York, lying in bed most of the time, +with St. Gaudens the sculptor sculping me, and my old friend Low around, +I began to pick up once more. Now here we are in a kind of wilderness of +hills and firwoods and boulders and snow and wooden houses. So far as we +have gone the climate is grey and harsh, but hungry and somnolent; and +although not charming like that of Davos, essentially bracing and +briskening. The country is a kind of insane mixture of Scotland and a +touch of Switzerland and a dash of America, and a thought of the British +Channel in the skies. We have a decent house-- + + +_December 6th._--A decent house, as I was saying, sir, on a hill-top, +with a look down a Scottish river in front, and on one hand a Perthshire +hill; on the other, the beginnings and skirts of the village play hide +and seek among other hills. We have been below zero, I know not how far +(-10 at 8 A.M. once), and when it is cold it is delightful; but hitherto +the cold has not held, and we have chopped in and out from frost to +thaw, from snow to rain, from quiet air to the most disastrous +north-westerly curdlers of the blood. After a week of practical thaw, +the ice still bears in favoured places. So there is hope. + +I wonder if you saw my book of verses? It went into a second edition, +because of my name, I suppose, and its _prose_ merits. I do not set up +to be a poet. Only an all-round literary man: a man who talks, not one +who sings. But I believe the very fact that it was only speech served +the book with the public. Horace is much a speaker, and see how popular! +Most of Martial is only speech, and I cannot conceive a person who does +not love his Martial; most of Burns, also, such as "The Louse," "The +Toothache," "The Haggis," and lots more of his best. Excuse this little +apology for my house; but I don't like to come before people who have a +note of song, and let it be supposed I do not know the difference. + +To return to the more important--news. My wife again suffers in high and +cold places; I again profit. She is off to-day to New York for a change, +as heretofore to Berne, but I am glad to say in better case than then. +Still it is undeniable she suffers, and you must excuse her (at least) +if we both prove bad correspondents. I am decidedly better, but I have +been terribly cut up with business complications: one disagreeable, as +threatening loss; one, of the most intolerable complexion, as involving +me in dishonour. The burthen of consistent carelessness: I have lost +much by it in the past; and for once (to my damnation) I have gained. I +am sure you will sympathise. It is hard work to sleep; it is hard to be +told you are a liar, and have to hold your peace, and think, "Yes, by +God, and a thief too!" You remember my lectures on Ajax, or the +Unintentional Sin? Well, I know all about that now. Nothing seems so +unjust to the sufferer: or is more just in essence. _Laissez passer la +justice de Dieu._ + +Lloyd has learned to use the typewriter, and has most gallantly +completed upon that the draft of a tale, which seems to me not without +merit and promise, it is so silly, so gay, so absurd, in spots (to my +partial eyes) so genuinely humorous. It is true, he would not have +written it but for the _New Arabian Nights_; but it is strange to find a +young writer funny. Heavens, but I was depressing when I took the pen in +hand! And now I doubt if I am sadder than my neighbours. Will this +beginner move in the inverse direction? + +Let me have your news, and believe me, my dear Symonds, with genuine +affection, yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO W. E. HENLEY + + + The following refers to a volume on the elder Dumas, which Mr. Henley + was at this time preparing to write, and which he proposed to + dedicate to his friend. + + _Saranac [December 1887]._ + +MY DEAR LAD,--I was indeed overjoyed to hear of the Dumas. In the matter +of the dedication, are not cross dedications a little awkward? Lang and +Rider Haggard did it, to be sure. Perpend. And if you should conclude +against a dedication, there is a passage in _Memories and Portraits_ +written _at_ you, when I was most desperate (to stir you up a bit), +which might be quoted: something about Dumas still waiting his +biographer. I have a decent time when the weather is fine; when it is +grey, or windy or wet (as it too often is), I am merely degraded to the +dirt. I get some work done every day with a devil of a heave; not extra +good ever; and I regret my engagement. Whiles I have had the most +deplorable business annoyances too; have been threatened with having to +refund money; got over that; and found myself in the worst scrape of +being a kind of unintentional swindler. These have worried me a great +deal; also old age with his stealing steps seems to have clawed me in +his clutch to some tune. + +Do you play All Fours? We are trying it; it is still all haze to me. Can +the elder hand _beg_ more than once? The Port Admiral is at Boston +mingling with millionaires. I am but a weed on Lethe wharf. The wife is +only so-so. The Lord lead us all: if I can only get off the stage with +clean hands, I shall sing Hosanna. "Put" is described quite differently +from your version in a book I have; what are your rules? The Port +Admiral is using a game of Put in a tale of his, the first copy of +which was gloriously finished about a fortnight ago, and the revise +gallantly begun: _The Finsbury Tontine_ it is named, and might fill two +volumes, and is quite incredibly silly, and in parts (it seems to me) +pretty humorous.--Love to all from + + AN OLD, OLD MAN. + + +I say, _Taine's Origines de la France Contemporaine_ is no end; it would +turn the dead body of Charles Fox into a living Tory. + + + + +TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN + + + [_Saranac Lake, December 1887._] + +MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--The Opal is very well; it is fed with glycerine +when it seems hungry. I am very well, and get about much more than I +could have hoped. My wife is not very well; there is no doubt the high +level does not agree with her, and she is on the move for a holiday to +New York. Lloyd is at Boston on a visit, and I hope has a good time. My +mother is really first-rate; she and I, despairing of other games for +two, now play All Fours out of a gamebook, and have not yet discovered +its niceties, if any. + +You will have heard, I dare say, that they made a great row over me +here. They also offered me much money, a great deal more than my works +are worth: I took some of it, and was greedy and hasty, and am now very +sorry. I have done with big prices from now out. Wealth and self-respect +seem, in my case, to be strangers. + +We were talking the other day of how well Fleeming managed to grow rich. +Ah, that is a rare art; something more intellectual than a virtue. The +book has not yet made its appearance here; the Life alone, with a little +preface, is to appear in the States; and the Scribners are to send you +half the royalties. I should like it to do well, for Fleeming's sake. + +Will you please send me the Greek water-carrier's song? I have a +particular use for it. + +Have I any more news, I wonder?--and echo wonders along with me. I am +strangely disquieted on all political matters; and I do not know if it +is "the signs of the times" or the sign of my own time of life. But to +me the sky seems black both in France and England, and only partly clear +in America. I have not seen it so dark in my time; of that I am sure. + +Please let us have some news; and excuse me, for the sake of my +well-known idleness; and pardon Fanny, who is really not very well, for +this long silence.--Very sincerely your friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + The lady at Bournemouth (the giver of the paper-knife) to whom the + following letter is addressed had been trusted to keep an eye on + Stevenson's interests in connection with his house (which had been + let) and other matters, and to report thereon from time to time. In + their correspondence Stevenson is generally referred to as the Squire + and the lady as the Gamekeeper. + + [_Saranac Lake, December 1887._] + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I am so much afraid our gamekeeper may weary of +unacknowledged reports! Hence, in the midst of a perfect horror of +detestable weathers of a quite incongruous strain, and with less desire +for correspondence than--well, than--well, with no desire for +correspondence, behold me dash into the breach. Do keep up your letters. +They are most delightful to this exiled backwoods family; and in your +next, we shall hope somehow or other to hear better news of you and +yours--that in the first place--and to hear more news of our beasts and +birds and kindly fruits of earth and those human tenants who are (truly) +too much with us. + +I am very well; better than for years: that is for good. But then my +wife is no great shakes; the place does not suit her--it is my private +opinion that no place does--and she is now away down to New York for a +change, which (as Lloyd is in Boston) leaves my mother and me and +Valentine alone in our wind-beleaguered hill-top hat-box of a house. You +should hear the cows butt against the walls in the early morning while +they feed; you should also see our back log when the thermometer goes +(as it does go) away--away below zero, till it can be seen no more by +the eye of man--not the thermometer, which is still perfectly visible, +but the mercury, which curls up into the bulb like a hibernating bear; +you should also see the lad who "does chores" for us, with his red +stockings and his thirteen-year-old face, and his highly manly tramp +into the room; and his two alternative answers to all questions about +the weather: either "Cold," or with a really lyrical movement of the +voice, "_Lovely_--raining!" + +Will you take this miserable scrap for what it is worth? Will you also +understand that I am the man to blame, and my wife is really almost too +much out of health to write, or at least doesn't write?--And believe me, +with kind remembrances to Mrs. Boodle and your sisters, very sincerely +yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The supposed Lord Warmingpan of the following was really Lord + Pollexfen. + + _Saranac, 12th December '87._ + +Give us news of all your folk. A Merry Christmas from all of us. + + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Will you please send L20 to ---- for a Christmas gift +from ----? Moreover, I cannot remember what I told you to send to ----; +but as God has dealt so providentially with me this year, I now propose +to make it L20. + +I beg of you also to consider my strange position. I jined a club which +it was said was to defend the Union; and I had a letter from the +secretary, which his name I believe was Lord Warmingpan (or words to +that effect), to say I am elected, and had better pay up a certain sum +of money, I forget what. Now I cannae verra weel draw a blank cheque and +send to-- + + LORD WARMINGPAN (or words to that effect), + London, England. + +And, man, if it was possible, I would be dooms glad to be out o' this +bit scrapie. Mebbe the club was ca'd "The Union," but I wouldnae like to +sweir; and mebbe it wasnae, or mebbe only words to that effec'--but I +wouldnae care just exac'ly about sweirin'. Do ye no think Henley, or +Pollick, or some o' they London fellies, micht mebbe perhaps find out +for me? and just what the soom was? And that you would aiblins pay for +me? For I thocht I was sae dam patriotic jinin', and it would be a kind +o' a come-doun to be turned out again. Mebbe Lang would ken; or mebbe +Rider Haggyard: they're kind o' Union folks. But it's my belief his name +was Warmingpan whatever.--Yours, + + THOMSON, + _alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + +Could it be Warminster? + + + + +TO MISS MONROE + + + The play of DEACON BRODIE was at this time being performed at + Chicago, with Mr. E. J. Henley in the title-part. + + _Saranac Lake, New York [December 19, 1887]._ + +DEAR MISS MONROE,--Many thanks for your letter and your good wishes. It +was much my desire to get to Chicago: had I done--or if I yet do--so, I +shall hope to see the original of my photograph, which is one of my show +possessions; but the fates are rather contrary. My wife is far from +well; I myself dread, worse than almost any other imaginable peril, that +miraculous and really insane invention the American Railroad Car. +Heaven help the man--may I add the woman--that sets foot in one! Ah, if +it were only an ocean to cross, it would be a matter of small thought to +me--and great pleasure. But the railroad car--every man has his weak +point; and I fear the railroad car as abjectly as I do an earwig, and, +on the whole, on better grounds. You do not know how bitter it is to +have to make such a confession; for you have not the pretension nor the +weakness of a man. If I do get to Chicago, you will hear of me: so much +can be said. And do you never come east? + +I was pleased to recognise a word of my poor old _Deacon_ in your +letter. It would interest me very much to hear how it went and what you +thought of piece and actors; and my collaborator, who knows and respects +the photograph, would be pleased too.--Still in the hope of seeing you, +I am, yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--It may please you to know how our family has been +employed. In the silence of the snow the afternoon lamp has lighted an +eager fireside group: my mother reading, Fanny, Lloyd, and I devoted +listeners; and the work was really one of the best works I ever heard; +and its author is to be praised and honoured; and what do you suppose is +the name of it? and have you ever read it yourself? and (I am bound I +will get to the bottom of the page before I blow the gaff, if I have to +fight it out on this line all summer; for if you have not to turn a +leaf, there can be no suspense, the conspectory eye being swift to pick +out proper names; and without suspense, there can be little pleasure in +this world, to my mind at least)--and, in short, the name of it is +_Roderick Hudson_, if you please. My dear James, it is very spirited, +and very sound, and very noble too. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, Rowland, O, all +first-rate: Rowland a very fine fellow; Hudson as good as he can stick +(did you know Hudson? I suspect you did), Mrs. H. his real born mother, +a thing rarely managed in fiction. + +We are all keeping pretty fit and pretty hearty; but this letter is not +from me to you, it is from a reader of _R. H._ to the author of the +same, and it says nothing, and has nothing to say, but thank you. + +We are going to re-read _Casamassima_ as a proper pendant. Sir, I think +these two are your best, and care not who knows it. + +May I beg you, the next time _Roderick_ is printed off, to go over the +sheets of the last few chapters, and strike out "immense" and +"tremendous"? You have simply dropped them there like your +pocket-handkerchief; all you have to do is to pick them up and pouch +them, and your room--what do I say?--your cathedral!--will be swept and +garnished.--I am, dear sir, your delighted reader, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Perhaps it is a pang of causeless honesty, perhaps I hope it +will set a value on my praise of _Roderick_, perhaps it's a burst of the +diabolic, but I must break out with the news that I can't bear the +_Portrait of a Lady_. I read it all, and I wept too; but I can't stand +your having written it; and I beg you will write no more of the like. +_Infra_, sir; Below you: I can't help it--it may be your favourite work, +but in my eyes it's BELOW YOU to write and me to read. I thought +_Roderick_ was going to be another such at the beginning; and I cannot +describe my pleasure as I found it taking bones and blood, and looking +out at me with a moved and human countenance, whose lineaments are +written in my memory until my last of days. + + R. L. S. + + +My wife begs your forgiveness; I believe for her silence. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Saranac Lake [December 1887]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--This goes to say that we are all fit, and the place is +very bleak and wintry, and up to now has shown no such charms of climate +as Davos, but is a place where men eat and where the cattarh, catarrh +(cattarrh, or cattarrhh) appears to be unknown. I walk in my verandy in +the snaw, sir, looking down over one of those dabbled wintry landscapes +that are (to be frank) so chilly to the human bosom, and up at a grey, +English--nay, _mehercle_, Scottish--heaven; and I think it pretty bleak; +and the wind swoops at me round the corner, like a lion, and fluffs the +snow in my face; and I could aspire to be elsewhere; but yet I do not +catch cold, and yet, when I come in, I eat. So that hitherto Saranac, if +not deliriously delectable, has not been a failure; nay, from the mere +point of view of the wicked body, it has proved a success. But I wish I +could still get to the woods; alas, _nous n'irons plus au bois_ is my +poor song; the paths are buried, the dingles drifted full, a little walk +is grown a long one; till spring comes, I fear the burthen will hold +good. + +I get along with my papers for Scribner not fast, nor so far specially +well; only this last, the fourth one (which makes a third part of my +whole task), I do believe is pulled off after a fashion. It is a mere +sermon: "Smith opens out";[24] but it is true, and I find it touching +and beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine writing +in it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. _Pulvis et Umbra_, I call it; +I might have called it a Darwinian Sermon, if I had wanted. Its +sentiments, although parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe. The +other three papers, I fear, bear many traces of effort, and the +ungenuine inspiration of an income at so much per essay, and the honest +desire of the incomer to give good measure for his money. Well, I did my +damndest anyway. + +We have been reading H. James's _Roderick Hudson_, which I eagerly press +you to get at once: it is a book of a high order--the last volume in +particular. I wish Meredith would read it. It took my breath away. + +I am at the seventh book of the _AEneid_, and quite amazed at its merits +(also very often floored by its difficulties). The Circe passage at the +beginning, and the sublime business of Amata with the simile of the +boy's top--O Lord, what a happy thought!--have specially delighted +me.--I am, dear sir, your respected friend, + + JOHN GREGG GILLSON, J.P., M.R.I.A., etc. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following narrates the beginning of the author's labours on _The + Master of Ballantrae_. An unfinished paper written some years later + in Samoa, and intended for Scribner's Magazine, tells how the story + first took shape in his mind. See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, + vol. iv. p. 297: reprinted in _Essays on the Art of Writing_. + + [_Saranac Lake, December 24, 1887._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thank you for your explanations. I have done no more +Virgil since I finished the seventh book, for I have first been eaten up +with Taine, and next have fallen head over heels into a new tale, _The +Master of Ballantrae_. No thought have I now apart from it, and I have +got along up to page ninety-two of the draft with great interest. It is +to me a most seizing tale: there are some fantastic elements; the most +is a dead genuine human problem--human tragedy, I should say rather. It +will be about as long, I imagine, as _Kidnapped_. + +DRAMATIS PERSONAE: + + (1) My old Lord Durrisdeer. + + (2) The Master of Ballantrae, _and_ + + (3) Henry Durie, _his sons_. + + (4) Clementina,[25] _engaged to the first, married to the second_. + + (5) Ephraim Mackellar, _land steward at Durrisdeer and narrator of the + most of the book_. + + (6) Francis Burke, Chevalier de St. Louis, _one of Prince Charlie's + Irishmen and narrator of the rest_. + +Besides these, many instant figures, most of them dumb or nearly so: +Jessie Brown the whore, Captain Crail, Captain MacCombie, our old friend +Alan Breck, our old friend Riach (both only for an instant), Teach the +pirate (vulgarly Blackbeard), John Paul and Macconochie, servants at +Durrisdeer. The date is from 1745 to '65 (about). The scene, near +Kirkcudbright, in the States, and for a little moment in the French East +Indies. I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the +brothers, and announcement of the death to Clementina and my +Lord--Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really +very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil. I have known +hints of him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as a lion, +but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so +much surprise in my two cowards. 'Tis true, I saw a hint of the same +nature in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to +attend to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here come my +visitors--and have now gone, or the first relay of them; and I hope no +more may come. For mark you, sir, this is our "day"--Saturday, as ever +was; and here we sit, my mother and I, before a large wood fire and +await the enemy with the most steadfast courage; and without snow and +greyness: and the woman Fanny in New York for her health, which is far +from good; and the lad Lloyd at the inn in the village because he has a +cold; and the handmaid Valentine abroad in a sleigh upon her messages; +and to-morrow Christmas and no mistake. Such is human life: _la carriere +humaine_. I will enclose, if I remember, the required autograph. + +I will do better, put it on the back of this page. Love to all, and +mostly, my very dear Colvin, to yourself. For whatever I say or do, or +don't say or do, you may be very sure I am--Yours always affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + _Saranac Lake, Christmas 1887._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,---And a very good Christmas to you all; and better +fortune; and if worse, the more courage to support it--which I think is +the kinder wish in all human affairs. Somewhile--I fear a good +while--after this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have no +tact and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic brutality; and I +dare say the present, even after my friend Baxter has acted on and +reviewed my hints, may prove a White Elephant. That is why I dread +presents. And therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper +prove unwelcome, _it is to be exchanged_. I will not sit down under the +name of a giver of White Elephants. I never had any elephant but one, +and his initials were R. L. S.; and he trod on my foot at a very early +age. But this is a fable, and not in the least to the point: which is +that if, for once in my life, I have wished to make things nicer for +anybody but the Elephant (see fable), do not suffer me to have made them +ineffably more embarrassing, and exchange--ruthlessly exchange! + +For my part, I am the most cockered up of any mortal being; and one of +the healthiest, or thereabout, at some modest distance from the bull's +eye. I am condemned to write twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine for +the love of gain; I think I had better send you them; what is far more +to the purpose, I am on the jump with a new story which has bewitched +me--I doubt it may bewitch no one else. It is called _The Master of +Ballantrae_--pronounce B[=a]ll[)a]n-tray. If it is not good, well, mine +will be the fault; for I believe it is a good tale. + +The greetings of the season to you, and your mother, and your sisters. +My wife heartily joins.--And I am, yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--You will think me an illiterate dog: I am, for the first time, +reading Robertson's sermons. I do not know how to express how much I +think of them. If by any chance you should be as illiterate as I, and +not know them, it is worth while curing the defect. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The following letter invites Mr. Baxter to allow himself (under an + _alias_) and his office in Edinburgh to figure in a preface to the + new story. Such a preface was drafted accordingly, but on second + thoughts suppressed; to be, on renewed consideration, reinstated in + the final editions. + + _Saranac Lake, January '88._ + +DEAR CHARLES,--You are the flower of Doers.... Will my doer collaborate +thus much in my new novel? In the year 1794 or 5, Mr. Ephraim Mackellar, +A.M., late steward on the Durrisdeer estates, completed a set of +memoranda (as long as a novel) with regard to the death of the (then) +late Lord Durrisdeer, and as to that of his attainted elder brother, +called by the family courtesy title the Master of Ballantrae. These he +placed in the hand of John Macbrair, W.S., the family agent, on the +understanding they were to be sealed until 1862, when a century would +have elapsed since the affair in the wilderness (my lord's death). You +succeeded Mr. Macbrair's firm; the Durrisdeers are extinct; and last +year, in an old green box, you found these papers with Macbrair's +indorsation. It is that indorsation of which I want a copy; you may +remember, when you gave me the papers, I neglected to take that, and I +am sure you are a man too careful of antiquities to have let it fall +aside. I shall have a little introduction descriptive of my visit to +Edinburgh, arrival there, denner with yoursel', and first reading of the +papers in your smoking-room: all of which, of course, you well +remember.--Ever yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + +Your name is my friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S.!!! + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + _Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._ + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--I am keeping the sermon to see if I can't add +another. Meanwhile, I will send you very soon a different paper which +may take its place. Possibly some of these days soon I may get together +a talk on things current, which should go in (if possible) earlier than +either. I am now less nervous about these papers; I believe I can do the +trick without great strain, though the terror that breathed on my back +in the beginning is not yet forgotten. + +The _Master of Ballantrae_ I have had to leave aside, as I was quite +worked out. But in about a week I hope to try back and send you the +first four numbers: these are all drafted, it is only the revision that +has broken me down, as it is often the hardest work. These four I +propose you should set up for me at once, and we'll copyright 'em in a +pamphlet. I will tell you the names of the _bona fide_ purchasers in +England. + +The numbers will run from twenty to thirty pages of my manuscript. You +can give me that much, can you not? It is a howling good tale--at least +these first four numbers are; the end is a trifle more fantastic, but +'tis all picturesque. + +Don't trouble about any more French books; I am on another scent, you +see, just now. Only the _French in Hindustan_ I await with impatience, +as that is for _Ballantrae_. The scene of that romance is Scotland---the +States--Scotland--India---Scotland--and the States again; so it jumps +like a flea. I have enough about the States now, and very much obliged I +am; yet if Drake's _Tragedies of the Wilderness_ is (as I gather) a +collection of originals, I should like to purchase it. If it is a +picturesque vulgarisation, I do not wish to look it in the face. +Purchase, I say; for I think it would be well to have some such +collection by me with a view to fresh works.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--If you think of having the _Master_ illustrated, I suggest that +Hole would be very well up to the Scottish, which is the larger, part. +If you have it done here, tell your artist to look at the hall of +Craigievar in Billing's _Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities_, and +he will get a broad hint for the hall at Durrisdeer: it is, I think, the +chimney of Craigievar and the roof of Pinkie, and perhaps a little more +of Pinkie altogether; but I should have to see the book myself to be +sure. Hole would be invaluable for this. I dare say if you had it +illustrated, you could let me have one or two for the English edition. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + The following refers to Mr. Bernard Shaw's novel, _Cashel Byron's + Profession_, which had been sent Stevenson to read by their common + friend Mr. Archer. + + [_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._] + +MY DEAR ARCHER,--What am I to say? I have read your friend's book with +singular relish. If he has written any other, I beg you will let me see +it; and if he has not, I beg him to lose no time in supplying the +deficiency. It is full of promise; but I should like to know his age. +There are things in it that are very clever, to which I attach small +importance; it is the shape of the age. And there are passages, +particularly the rally in presence of the Zulu king, that show genuine +and remarkable narrative talent--a talent that few will have the wit to +understand, a talent of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision, +and sufficient self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a +narrator. + +As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most feverish. Over +Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I dote on +Bashville--I could read of him for ever; _de Bashville je suis le +fervent_--there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave; +_Bashville est magnifique, mais il n'est guere possible_. He is the note +of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the author +has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott's or Dumas', and then he daubs +in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the romantic +griffon--even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at +the nature of the quest--and I believe in his heart he thinks he is +labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism. + +It is this that makes me--the most hardened adviser now extant--stand +back and hold my peace. If Mr. Shaw is below five-and-twenty, let him go +his path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic, +and pursue romance with his eyes open;--or perhaps he knows it;--God +knows!--my brain is softened. + +It is HORRID FUN. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure +you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author. + +(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +1 part Charles Reade; 1 part Henry James or some kindred author badly +assimilated; 1/2 part Disraeli (perhaps unconscious); 1-1/2 parts +struggling, over-laid original talent; 1 part blooming, gaseous folly. +That is the equation as it stands. What it may be, I don't know, nor any +other man. _Vixere fortes_--O, let him remember that--let him beware of +his damned century; his gifts of insane chivalry and animated narration +are just those that might be slain and thrown out like an untimely birth +by the Daemon of the epoch. And if he only knew how I have adored the +chivalry! Bashville!--_O Bashville! j'en chortle_ (which is fairly +polyglot). + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888._] + +MY DEAR ARCHER,--Pretty sick in bed; but necessary to protest and +continue your education. + +Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think because not amusing (I +think he often was amusing). The reason is this: I never, or almost +never, saw two pages of his work that I could not have put in one +without the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I know of +writing. If there is anywhere a thing said in two sentences that could +have been as clearly and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then +it's amateur work. Then you will bring me up with old Dumas. Nay, the +object of a story is to be long, to fill up hours; the story-teller's +art of writing is to water out by continual invention, historical and +technical, and yet not seem to water; seem on the other hand to practise +that same wit of conspicuous and declaratory condensation which is the +proper art of writing. That is one thing in which my stories fail: I am +always cutting the flesh off their bones. + +I would rise from the dead to preach! + +Hope all well. I think my wife better, but she's not allowed to write; +and this (only wrung from me by desire to Boss and Parsonise and +Dominate, strong in sickness) is my first letter for days, and will +likely be my last for many more. Not blame my wife for her silence: +doctor's orders. All much interested by your last, and fragment from +brother, and anecdotes of Tomarcher.--The sick but still Moral + + R. L. S. + + +Tell Shaw to hurry up: I want another. + + + + +TO WILLIAM ARCHER + + + In early days in Paris, Stevenson's chivalrous feelings had once been + shocked by the scene in the _Demi-Monde_ of Dumas fils, where Suzanne + d'Ange is trapped by Olivier de Jalin. His correspondent had asked + what exactly took place. + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888 ?_] + +MY DEAR ARCHER,--It happened thus. I came forth from that performance in +a breathing heat of indignation. (Mind, at this distance of time and +with my increased knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the piece; +but I saw none then, except a problem in brutality; and I still consider +the problem in that case not established.) On my way down the _Francais_ +stairs, I trod on an old gentleman's toes, whereupon with that suavity +that so well becomes me, I turned about to apologise, and on the +instant, repenting me of that intention, stopped the apology midway, and +added something in French to this effect: No, you are one of the +_laches_ who have been applauding that piece. I retract my apology. Said +the old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and with a smile that was +truly heavenly in temperance, irony, good-nature, and knowledge of the +world, "Ah, monsieur, vous etes bien jeune!"--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--Will you send me (from the library) some of the +works of my dear old G. P. R. James? With the following especially I +desire to make or to renew acquaintance: _The Songster_, _The Gipsy_, +_The Convict_, _The Stepmother_, _The Gentleman of the Old School_, _The +Robber_. + +_Excusez du peu._ + +This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an accident. The +"Franklin County Library" contains two works of his, _The Cavalier_ and +_Morley Ernstein_. I read the first with indescribable amusement--it was +worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; the second (to my +surprise) was better than I had dared to hope: a good, honest, dull, +interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned talent in the invention +when not strained; and a genuine old-fashioned feeling for the English +language. This experience awoke appetite, and you see I have taken steps +to stay it. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Saranac Lake, February 1888._] + +DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--1. Of course then don't use it. Dear Man, I write +these to please you, not myself, and you know a main sight better than I +do what is good. In that case, however, I enclose another paper, and +return the corrected proof of _Pulvis et Umbra_, so that we may be +afloat. + +2. I want to say a word as to the _Master_. (The _Master of Ballantrae_ +shall be the name by all means.) If you like and want it, I leave it to +you to make an offer. You may remember I thought the offer you made when +I was still in England too small; by which I did not at all mean, I +thought it less than it was worth, but too little to tempt me to undergo +the disagreeables of serial publication. This tale (if you want it) you +are to have; for it is the least I can do for you; and you are to +observe that the sum you pay me for my articles going far to meet my +wants, I am quite open to be satisfied with less than formerly. I tell +you I do dislike this battle of the dollars. I feel sure you all pay too +much here in America; and I beg you not to spoil me any more. For I am +getting spoiled: I do not want wealth, and I feel these big sums +demoralise me. + +My wife came here pretty ill; she had a dreadful bad night; to-day she +is better. But now Valentine is ill; and Lloyd and I have got breakfast, +and my hand somewhat shakes after washing dishes.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Please order me the Evening Post for two months. My subscription +is run out. The _Mutiny_ and _Edwardes_ to hand. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + [_Saranac Lake, March 1888._] + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Fanny has been very unwell. She is not long home, has +been ill again since her return, but is now better again to a degree. +You must not blame her for not writing, as she is not allowed to write +at all, not even a letter. To add to our misfortunes, Valentine is quite +ill and in bed. Lloyd and I get breakfast; I have now, 10.15, just got +the dishes washed and the kitchen all clear, and sit down to give you as +much news as I have spirit for, after such an engagement. Glass is a +thing that really breaks my spirit: I do not like to fail, and with +glass I cannot reach the work of my high calling--the artist's. + +I am, as you may gather from this, wonderfully better: this harsh, grey, +glum, doleful climate has done me good. You cannot fancy how sad a +climate it is. When the thermometer stays all day below 10 deg., it is +really cold; and when the wind blows, O commend me to the result. +Pleasure in life is all delete; there is no red spot left, fires do not +radiate, you burn your hands all the time on what seem to be cold +stones. It is odd, zero is like summer heat to us now; and we like, when +the thermometer outside is really low, a room at about 48 deg.: 60 deg. we find +oppressive. Yet the natives keep their holes at 90 deg. or even 100 deg.. + +This was interrupted days ago by household labours. Since then I have +had and (I tremble to write it, but it does seem as if I had) beaten off +an influenza. The cold is exquisite. Valentine still in bed. The proofs +of the first part of _The Master of Ballantrae_ begin to come in; soon +you shall have it in the pamphlet form; and I hope you will like it. The +second part will not be near so good; but there--we can but do as it'll +do with us. I have every reason to believe this winter has done me real +good, so far as it has gone; and if I carry out my scheme for next +winter, and succeeding years, I should end by being a tower of strength. +I want you to save a good holiday for next winter; I hope we shall be +able to help you to some larks. Is there any Greek Isle you would like +to explore? or any creek in Asia Minor?--Yours ever affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS + + The Rev. Dr. Charteris, of Edinburgh, had been one of the most + intimate and trusted friends of Stevenson's father, and R. L. S. + turns to him accordingly for memories and impressions. + + [_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._] + +MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,--I have asked Douglas and Foulis to send you my +last volume, so that you may possess my little paper on my father in a +permanent shape; not for what that is worth, but as a tribute of respect +to one whom my father regarded with such love, esteem, and affection. +Besides, as you will see, I have brought you under contribution, and I +have still to thank you for your letter to my mother; so more than kind; +in much, so just. It is my hope, when time and health permit, to do +something more definite for my father's memory. You are one of the very +few who can (if you will) help me. Pray believe that I lay on you no +obligation; I know too well, you may believe me, how difficult it is to +put even two sincere lines upon paper, where all, too, is to order. But +if the spirit should ever move you, and you should recall something +memorable of your friend, his son will heartily thank you for a note of +it.--With much respect, believe me, yours sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO EDMUND GOSSE + + + [_Saranac Lake, March 31, 1888._] + +MY DEAR GOSSE,--Why so plaintive? Either the post-office has played us +false, or you were in my debt. In case it should be my letter that has +failed to come to post, I must tell again the fate of Mrs. Gosse's +thermometer. It hangs in our sitting-room, where it has often marked +freezing point and below; "See what Gosse says," is a common word of +command. But the point is this: in the verandah hangs another +thermometer, condemned to register minus 40 deg. and that class of +temperatures; and to him, we have given the name of the Quarterly +Reviewer. I hope the jape likes you. + +Please tell the Fortnightly man that I am sorry but I can do nothing of +that sort this year, as I am under a pledge to Scribner's; and indeed my +monthly articles take the best of my time. It was a project I went into +with horrid diffidence; and lucre was my only motive. I get on better +than I expected, but it is difficult to find an article of the sort +required for each date, and to vary the matter and keep up (if possible) +the merit. I do not know if you think I have at all succeeded; it seemed +to me this really worked paper was more money's worth (as well as +probably better within my means) than the Lang business at the Sign of +the Ship. Indeed I feel convinced I could never have managed that; it +takes a gift to do it. Here is lunch.--Yours afftly., + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + [_Saranac Lake, March 1888._] + +MY DEAR DELIGHTFUL JAMES,--To quote your heading to my wife, I think no +man writes so elegant a letter, I am sure none so kind, unless it be +Colvin, and there is more of the stern parent about him. I was vexed at +your account of my admired Meredith: I wish I could go and see him; as +it is I will try to write; and yet (do you understand me?) there is +something in that potent, _genialisch_ affectation that puts one on the +strain even to address him in a letter. He is not an easy man to be +yourself with: there is so much of him, and veracity and the high +athletic intellectual humbug are so intermixed.[26] I read with +indescribable admiration your _Emerson_. I begin to long for the day +when these portraits of yours shall be collected: do put me in. But +Emerson is a higher flight. Have you a _Tourgueneff_? You have told me +many interesting things of him, and I seem to see them written, and +forming a graceful and _bildend_ sketch. (I wonder whence comes this +flood of German--I haven't opened a German book since I teethed.) My +novel is a tragedy; four parts out of six or seven are written, and gone +to Burlingame. Five parts of it are sound, human tragedy; the last one +or two, I regret to say, not so soundly designed; I almost hesitate to +write them; they are very picturesque, but they are fantastic; they +shame, perhaps degrade, the beginning. I wish I knew; that was how the +tale came to me however. I got the situation; it was an old taste of +mine: The older brother goes out in the '45, the younger stays; the +younger, of course, gets title and estate and marries the bride +designate of the elder--a family match, but he (the younger) had always +loved her, and she had really loved the elder. Do you see the situation? +Then the devil and Saranac suggested this _denouement_, and I joined the +two ends in a day or two of constant feverish thought, and began to +write. And now--I wonder if I have not gone too far with the fantastic? +The elder brother is an INCUBUS: supposed to be killed at Culloden, he +turns up again and bleeds the family of money; on that stopping he comes +and lives with them, whence flows the real tragedy, the nocturnal duel +of the brothers (very naturally, and indeed, I think, inevitably +arising), and second supposed death of the elder. Husband and wife now +really make up, and then the cloven hoof appears. For the third supposed +death and the manner of the third reappearance is steep; steep, sir. It +is even very steep, and I fear it shames the honest stuff so far; but +then it is highly pictorial, and it leads up to the death of the elder +brother at the hands of the younger in a perfectly cold-blooded murder, +of which I wish (and mean) the reader to approve. You see how daring is +the design. There are really but six characters, and one of these +episodic, and yet it covers eighteen years, and will be, I imagine, the +longest of my works.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + +_Read Gosse's Raleigh._ First-rate.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS + + + _Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [Spring 1888]._ + +MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,--The funeral letter, your notes, and many other +things, are reserved for a book, _Memorials of a Scottish Family_, if +ever I can find time and opportunity. I wish I could throw off all else +and sit down to it to-day. Yes, my father was a "distinctly religious +man," but not a pious. The distinction painfully and pleasurably recalls +old conflicts; it used to be my great gun--and you, who suffered for the +whole Church, know how needful it was to have some reserve artillery! +His sentiments were tragic; he was a tragic thinker. Now, granted that +life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion +to make us accept and serve in that tragedy, as officers in that other +and comparable one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the +military sense; and the religious man--I beg pardon, the pious man--is +he who has a military joy in duty--not he who weeps over the wounded. We +can do no more than try to do our best. Really, I am the grandson of the +manse--I preach you a kind of sermon. Box the brat's ears! + +My mother--to pass to matters more within my competence--finely enjoys +herself. The new country, some new friends we have made, the interesting +experiment of this climate--which (at least) is tragic--all have done +her good. I have myself passed a better winter than for years, and now +that it is nearly over have some diffident hopes of doing well in the +summer and "eating a little more air" than usual. + +I thank you for the trouble you are taking, and my mother joins with me +in kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Charteris.--Yours very truly, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO S. R. CROCKETT + + + [_Saranac Lake, Spring 1888_]. + +DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK,--For O, man, I cannae read +your name!--That I have been so long in answering your delightful letter +sits on my conscience badly. The fact is I let my correspondence +accumulate until I am going to leave a place; and then I pitch in, +overhaul the pile, and my cries of penitence might be heard a mile +about. Yesterday I despatched thirty-five belated letters: conceive the +state of my conscience, above all as the Sins of Omission (see boyhood's +guide, the Shorter Catechism) are in my view the only serious ones; I +call it my view, but it cannot have escaped you that it was also +Christ's. However, all that is not to the purpose, which is to thank you +for the sincere pleasure afforded by your charming letter. I get a good +few such; how few that please me at all, you would be surprised to +learn--or have a singularly just idea of the dulness of our race; how +few that please me as yours did, I can tell you in one word--_None_. I +am no great kirkgoer, for many reasons--and the sermon's one of them, +and the first prayer another, but the chief and effectual reason is the +stuffiness. I am no great kirkgoer, says I, but when I read yon letter +of yours, I thought I would like to sit under ye. And then I saw ye were +to send me a bit buik, and says I, I'll wait for the bit buik, and then +I'll mebbe can read the man's name, and anyway I'll can kill twa birds +wi' ae stane. And, man! the buik was ne'er heard tell o'! + +That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay. + +And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks to you, and +greeting to your wife, and may you have good guidance in your difficult +labours, and a blessing on your life. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + (No just sae young's he was, though-- + I'm awfae near forty, man.) + Address c/o Charles Scribner's Sons, + 743 Broadway, New York. + +Don't put "N.B." in your paper: put SCOTLAND, and be done with it. Alas, +that I should be thus stabbed in the home of my friends! The name of my +native land is not NORTH BRITAIN, whatever may be the name of yours. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS FERRIER + + + [_Saranac Lake, April 1888._] + +MY DEAREST COGGIE,--I wish I could find the letter I began to you some +time ago when I was ill; but I can't and I don't believe there was much +in it anyway. We have all behaved like pigs and beasts and barn-door +poultry to you; but I have been sunk in work, and the lad is lazy and +blind and has been working too; and as for Fanny, she has been (and +still is) really unwell. I had a mean hope you might perhaps write again +before I got up steam: I could not have been more ashamed of myself than +I am, and I should have had another laugh. + +They always say I cannot give news in my letters: I shall shake off that +reproach. On Monday, if she is well enough, Fanny leaves for California +to see her friends; it is rather an anxiety to let her go alone; but the +doctor simply forbids it in my case, and she is better anywhere than +here--a bleak, blackguard, beggarly climate, of which I can say no good +except that it suits me and some others of the same or similar +persuasions whom (by all rights) it ought to kill. It is a form of +Arctic St. Andrews, I should imagine; and the miseries of forty degrees +below zero, with a high wind, have to be felt to be appreciated. The +greyness of the heavens here is a circumstance eminently revolting to +the soul; I have near forgot the aspect of the sun--I doubt if this be +news; it is certainly no news to us. My mother suffers a little from the +inclemency of the place, but less on the whole than would be imagined. +Among other wild schemes, we have been projecting yacht voyages; and I +beg to inform you that Cogia Hassan was cast for the part of passenger. +They may come off!--Again this is not news. The lad? Well, the lad wrote +a tale this winter, which appeared to me so funny that I have taken it +in hand, and some of these days you will receive a copy of a work +entitled "_A Game of Bluff_, by Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis +Stevenson." + +Otherwise he (the lad) is much as usual. There remains, I believe, to be +considered only R. L. S., the house-bond, prop, pillar, bread-winner, +and bully of the establishment. Well, I do not think him much better; he +is making piles of money; the hope of being able to hire a yacht ere +long dances before his eyes; otherwise he is not in very high spirits at +this particular moment, though compared with last year at Bournemouth an +angel of joy. + +And now is this news, Cogia, or is it not? It all depends upon the point +of view, and I call it news. The devil of it is that I can think of +nothing else, except to send you all our loves, and to wish exceedingly +you were here to cheer us all up. But we'll see about that on board the +yacht.--Your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The Mutiny novel here foreshadowed never got written. + + _[Saranac Lake] April 9th!! 1888._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been long without writing to you, but am not to +blame. I had some little annoyances quite for a private eye, but they +ran me so hard that I could not write without lugging them in, which +(for several reasons) I did not choose to do. Fanny is off to San +Francisco, and next week I myself flit to New York: address Scribner's. +Where we shall go I know not, nor (I was going to say) care; so bald and +bad is my frame of mind. Do you know our--ahem!--fellow clubman, Colonel +Majendie? I had such an interesting letter from him. Did you see my +sermon? It has evoked the worst feeling: I fear people don't care for +the truth, or else I don't tell it. Suffer me to wander without purpose. +I have sent off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck at a +twenty-first, and taken a copy of one which was on business, and +corrected several galleys of proof, and sorted about a bushel of old +letters; so if any one has a right to be romantically stupid it is +I--and I am. Really deeply stupid, and at that stage when in old days I +used to pour out words without any meaning whatever and with my mind +taking no part in the performance. I suspect that is now the case. I am +reading with extraordinary pleasure the life of Lord Lawrence: Lloyd and +I have a mutiny novel-- + +(_Next morning, after twelve other letters_)--mutiny novel on hand--a +tremendous work--so we are all at Indian books. The idea of the novel is +Lloyd's: I call it a novel. 'Tis a tragic romance, of the most tragic +sort: I believe the end will be almost too much for human +endurance--when the hero is thrown to the ground with one of his own +(Sepoy) soldier's knees upon his chest, and the cries begin in the +Beebeeghar. O truly, you know it is a howler! The whole last part +is--well the difficulty is that, short of resuscitating Shakespeare, I +don't know who is to write it. + +I still keep wonderful. I am a great performer before the Lord on the +penny whistle.--Dear sir, sincerely yours, + + ANDREW JACKSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + _[Saranac Lake, April 1888.] + Address, c/o Messrs. Scribner's Sons, + 743 Broadway, N.Y._ + +MY DEAR GAMEKEEPER,--Your p.c. (proving you a good student of Micawber) +has just arrived, and it paves the way to something I am anxious to say. +I wrote a paper the other day--_Pulvis et Umbra_;--I wrote it with great +feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and healthful, it is in +such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad to fight out my +battle, and see some fine sunsets, and hear some excellent jests between +whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision +of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or +pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it. And +I could wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it +troubles folk too much: all have not the same digestion, nor the same +sight of things. And it came over me with special pain that perhaps this +article (which I was at the pains to send to her) might give dismalness +to my _Gamekeeper at Home_. Well, I cannot take back what I have said; +but yet I may add this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that +it may be--to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth--surely of all +things it makes this world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral +side--but the great battle and the breathing times with their +refreshments. I see no more and no less. And if you look again, it is +not ugly, and it is filled with promise. + +Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology. My wife is away off to +the uttermost parts of the States, all by herself. I shall be off, I +hope, in a week; but where? Ah! that I know not. I keep wonderful, and +my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing. We now perform duets +on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to make the bass; I think I must +really send you one, which I wish you would correct.... I may be said to +live for these instrumental labours now, but I have always some +childishness on hand.--I am, dear Gamekeeper, your indulgent but +intemperate Squire, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Having spent the last fortnight of April at New York, Stevenson and + his stepson moved at the beginning of May to the small New Jersey + watering-place from whence the following few letters are dated: his + wife having meanwhile gone to San Francisco, where she presently made + arrangements for the Pacific yachting trip. + + _Union House, Manasquan, New Jersey [May 1888]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--We are here at a delightful country inn, like a country +French place, the only people in the house, a cat-boat at our disposal, +the sea always audible on the outer beach, the lagoon as smooth as +glass, all the little, queer, many coloured villas standing shuttered +and empty; in front of ours, across the lagoon, two long wooden bridges; +one for the rail, one for the road, sounding with intermittent traffic. +It is highly pleasant, and a delightful change from Saranac. My health +is much better for the change; I am sure I walked about four miles +yesterday, one time with another--well, say three and a half; and the +day before, I was out for four hours in the cat-boat, and was as stiff +as a board in consequence. More letters call.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Union House, Manasquan, N. J., but address to + Scribner's, 11th May 1888._ + +_MY DEAR CHARLES_,--I have found a yacht, and we are going the full +pitch for seven months. If I cannot get my health back (more or less), +'tis madness; but, of course, there is the hope, and I will play big.... +If this business fails to set me up, well, L2000 is gone, and I know I +can't get better. We sail from San Francisco, June 15th, for the South +Seas in the yacht _Casco_.--With a million thanks for all your dear +friendliness, ever yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + [_Manasquan, May 1888._] + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I have to announce our great news. On June 15th we +sail from San Francisco in the schooner yacht _Casco_, for a seven +months' cruise in the South Seas. You can conceive what a state of +excitement we are in; Lloyd perhaps first; but this is an old dream of +mine which actually seems to be coming true, and I am sun-struck. It +seems indeed too good to be true; and that we have not deserved so much +good fortune. From Skerryvore to the Galapagos is a far cry! And from +poking in a sick-room all winter to the deck of one's own ship, is +indeed a heavenly change. + +All these seven months I doubt if we can expect more than three mails at +the best of it: and I do hope we may hear something of your news by +each. I have no very clear views as to where the three addresses ought +to be, but if you hear no later news, Charles Scribner's Sons will +always have the run of our intended movements. And an early letter there +would probably catch us at the Sandwich Islands. Tahiti will probably be +the second point: and (as I roughly guess) Quito the third. But the +whole future is invested with heavenly clouds. + +I trust you are all well and content, and have good news of the +Shelleys, to whom I wish you would pass on ours. They should be able to +sympathise with our delight. + +Now I have all my miserable Scribner articles to rake together in the +inside of a fortnight: so you must not expect me to be more copious. I +have you all in the kindest memory, and am, your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +Remember me to Aubrey de Vere. + + + + +TO HOMER ST. GAUDENS + + + The following is addressed from Manasquan to a boy, the son of the + writer's friend, the sculptor St. Gaudens; for the rest, it explains + itself. + + _Manasquan, New Jersey, 27th May 1888._ + +DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS,--Your father has brought you this day to see me, +and he tells me it is his hope you may remember the occasion. I am +going to do what I can to carry out his wish; and it may amuse you, +years after, to see this little scrap of paper and to read what I write. +I must begin by testifying that you yourself took no interest whatever +in the introduction, and in the most proper spirit displayed a +single-minded ambition to get back to play, and this I thought an +excellent and admirable point in your character. You were also (I use +the past tense, with a view to the time when you shall read, rather than +to that when I am writing) a very pretty boy, and (to my European views) +startlingly self-possessed. My time of observation was so limited that +you must pardon me if I can say no more: what else I marked, what +restlessness of foot and hand, what graceful clumsiness, what +experimental designs upon the furniture, was but the common inheritance +of human youth. But you may perhaps like to know that the lean flushed +man in bed, who interested you so little, was in a state of mind +extremely mingled and unpleasant: harassed with work which he thought he +was not doing well, troubled with difficulties to which you will in time +succeed, and yet looking forward to no less a matter than a voyage to +the South Seas and the visitation of savage and desert islands.--Your +father's friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Manasquan (ahem!), New Jersey, May 28th, 1888._ + +MY DEAR JAMES,--With what a torrent it has come at last! Up to now, what +I like best is the first number of a _London Life_. You have never done +anything better, and I don't know if perhaps you have ever done anything +so good as the girl's outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching your +later works in your native land. I had to present the Beltraffio volume +to Low, and it has brought him to his knees; he was _amazed_ at the +first part of Georgina's Reasons, although (like me) not so well +satisfied with Part II. It is annoying to find the American public as +stupid as the English, but they will waken up in time: I wonder what +they will think of _Two Nations_?... + +This, dear James, is a valedictory. On June 15th the schooner yacht +_Casco_ will (weather and a jealous providence permitting) steam through +the Golden Gates for Honolulu, Tahiti, the Galapagos, Guayaquil, and--I +hope _not_ the bottom of the Pacific. It will contain your obedient +'umble servant and party. It seems too good to be true, and is a very +good way of getting through the green-sickness of maturity which, with +all its accompanying ills, is now declaring itself in my mind and life. +They tell me it is not so severe as that of youth; if I (and the +_Casco_) are spared, I shall tell you more exactly, as I am one of the +few people in the world who do not forget their own lives. + +Good-bye, then, my dear fellow, and please write us a word; we expect to +have three mails in the next two months: Honolulu, Tahiti, and +Guayaquil. But letters will be forwarded from Scribner's, if you hear +nothing more definite directly. In 3 (three) days I leave for San +Francisco.--Ever yours most cordially, + + R. L. S. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [21] For the actual sum, see below, p. 243. + + [22] "But she was more than usual calm, + She did not give a single dam." + + _Marjorie Fleming._ + + [23] Of the play _Deacon Brodie_. + + [24] "Smith opens out his cauld harangues + On practice and on morals." + + The Rev. George Smith of Galston, the minister thus referred to by + Burns (in the _Holy Fair_), was a great-grandfather of Stevenson on + the mother's side; and against Stevenson himself, in his didactic + moods, the passage was often quoted by his friends when they wished + to tease him. + + [25] Afterwards changed to Alison. + + [26] Alluding to a kind of lofty, posturing manner of G. M.'s in mind + and speech, quite different from any real insincerity. + + + + +X + +PACIFIC VOYAGES + +YACHT _CASCO_--SCHOONER _EQUATOR_--S.S. _JANET NICOLL_ + +JUNE 1888-OCTOBER 1890 + + +In the following section are printed nearly all the letters which +reached Stevenson's correspondents in England and the United States, at +intervals necessarily somewhat rare, during the eighteen months of his +Pacific voyages. It was on the 28th of June 1888 that he started from +the harbour of San Francisco on what was only intended to be a health +and pleasure excursion of a few months' duration, but turned into a +voluntary exile prolonged until the hour of his death. His company +consisted, besides himself, of his wife, his mother, his stepson Mr. +Lloyd Osbourne, and the servant Valentine Roch. They sailed on board the +schooner yacht _Casco_, Captain Otis, and made straight for the +Marquesas, dropping anchor on the 28th of July in Anaho Bay, the harbour +of the island of Nukahiva. The magic effect of this first island +landfall on his mind he has described in the opening chapter of his book +_In the South Seas_. After spending six weeks in this group they sailed +south-eastwards, visiting (a sufficiently perilous piece of navigation) +several of the coral atolls of the Paumotus or Low Archipelago. Thence +they arrived in the first week of October at the Tahitian group or +"Society" islands. In these their longest stay was not at the chief +town, Papeete, where Stevenson fell sharply ill, but in a more secluded +and very beautiful station, Tautira, whither he went to recruit, and +where they were detained by the necessity of remasting the schooner. +Here Stevenson and one of the local chiefs, Ori a Ori, made special +friends and parted with heartfelt mutual regret. Mrs. Stevenson is good +enough to allow me to supplement the somewhat fragmentary account of +these adventures given in his letters with one or two of her own, in +which they are told with full vividness and detail. + +Sailing from Tahiti due northwards through forty degrees of latitude, +the party arrived about Christmas at Honolulu, the more than +semi-civilised capital of the Hawaiian group (Sandwich Islands), where +they paid off the yacht _Casco_ and made a stay of nearly six months. +Here Stevenson finished _The Master of Ballantrae_ and _The Wrong Box_; +and hence his mother returned for a while to Scotland, to rejoin her +son's household when it was fairly installed two years later at Vailima. +From Honolulu Stevenson made several excursions, including one, which +profoundly impressed him, to the leper settlement at Molokai, the scene +of Father Damien's ministrations and death. + +This first year of cruising and residence among the Pacific Islands had +resulted in so encouraging a renewal of health, with so keen a zest +added to life by the restored capacity for outdoor activity and +adventure, that Stevenson determined to prolong his experiences in yet +more remote archipelagoes of the same ocean. He started accordingly from +Honolulu in June 1889 on a trading schooner, the _Equator_, bound to the +Gilberts, one of the least visited and most primitively mannered of all +the island groups of the Western Pacific; emerged towards Christmas of +the same year into semi-civilisation again at Apia, on the island of +Upolu in Samoa, where he wrote his first Polynesian story, _The Bottle +Imp_. Enchanted with the scenery and the people, he stayed for six +weeks, first in the house of Mr. H. J. Moors, a leading American trader, +then with his family in a separate cottage not far off; bought an estate +on the densely wooded mountain side above Apia, with the notion of +making there, if not a home, at least a place of rest and call on later +projected excursions among the islands; and began to make collections +for his studies in recent Samoan history. In February he went on to +Sydney to find his correspondence and consider future plans. It was +during this stay at Sydney that he was moved to give expression to his +righteous indignation at the terms of a letter concerning Father Damien +by the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Here also he fell once more seriously +ill, with a renewal of all his old symptoms; and the conclusion was +forced upon him that he must take up his residence for the rest of his +life in the tropics--though with occasional excursions, as he then +hoped, at least half-way homeward to places where it might be possible +for friends from England to meet him. In order to shake off the effects +of this attack, he started with his party on a fresh sea voyage from +Sydney, this time on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_, which took +him by a very devious course to the Gilberts again, the Marshalls, and +among many other remote islands during the months of April-August 1890. +During the voyage he began to put into shape the notes for a volume on +the South Seas which he had been compiling ever since he left San +Francisco. Unfortunately, he persisted in the endeavour to make his work +impersonal and full of information, or what he called "serious +interest," exactly in the manner which his wife had foreseen before they +left Honolulu, and from which she had wisely tried to dissuade him (see +her letter printed on pp. 347 foll.). On the return voyage Stevenson +left the _Janet Nicoll_ to land in New Caledonia, staying for some days +at Noumea before he went on to Sydney, where he spent four or five weeks +of later August and September. Thence he returned in October to take up +his abode for good on his Samoan property, where the work of clearing, +planting, and building a habitable cottage had been going on busily +during his absence. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + It should be remembered that the Marquesas, the Paumotus, and the + Tahitian group are all dependencies of France. + + _Yacht Casco, Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands [July 1888]._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write +to say how d'ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having +the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more +civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in +his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing 'em, +and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: +no fool, though. + +The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the +loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score +natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare now. +Very rare and equally absurd to view. + +This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: it takes me all +the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come home and +note, the strangeness around us. I shouldn't wonder if there came +trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a nation that is not +beloved in certain islands--and it does not know it! Strange: like +ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all and much to yourself. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Yacht Casco, at sea, near the Paumotus, + 7 A.M., September 6th, 1888, with a dreadful pen._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Last night as I lay under my blanket in the cockpit, +courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the +southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we +were all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow, +praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the +Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a +sudden I had a vision of--Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash of +lightning: I simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I +remember all I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the +rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and +yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far +less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did +not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book, etc. etc. +And then now--what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the +incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary +thoroughfare for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts +are down. And I felt I must write one word to you. Excuse me if I write +little: when I am at sea, it gives me a headache; when I am in port, I +have my diary crying "Give, give." I shall have a fine book of travels, +I feel sure; and will tell you more of the South Seas after very few +months than any other writer has done--except Herman Melville perhaps, +who is a howling cheese. Good luck to you, God bless you.--Your +affectionate friend, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The signature used at foot of this letter and occasionally elsewhere, + "The Old Man Virulent," alludes to the fits of uncontrollable anger + to which he was often in youth, but by this time very rarely, + subject: fits occasioned sometimes by instances of official stolidity + or impertinence or what he took for such, more often by acts + savouring of cruelty, meanness, or injustice. + + _Fakarava, Low Archipelago, September 21st, 1888._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Only a word. Get out your big atlas, and imagine a +straight line from San Francisco to Anaho, the N.E. corner of Nukahiva, +one of the Marquesas Islands; imagine three weeks there: imagine a day's +sail on August 12th round the eastern end of the island to Tai-o-hae, +the capital; imagine us there till August 22nd: imagine us skirt the +east side of Ua-pu--perhaps Rona-Poa on your atlas--and through the +Bordelais straits to Taa-hauku in Hiva-Oa, where we arrive on the 23rd; +imagine us there until September 4th, when we sailed for Fakarava, which +we reached on the 9th, after a very difficult and dangerous passage +among these isles. Tuesday, we shall leave for Taiti, where I shall +knock off and do some necessary work ashore. It looks pretty bald in the +atlas; not in fact; nor I trust in the 130 odd pages of diary which I +have just been looking up for these dates: the interest, indeed, has +been _incredible_: I did not dream there were such places or such races. +My health has stood me splendidly; I am in for hours wading over the +knees for shells; I have been five hours on horseback: I have been up +pretty near all night waiting to see where the _Casco_ would go ashore, +and with my diary all ready--simply the most entertaining night of my +life. Withal I still have colds; I have one now, and feel pretty sick +too; but not as at home: instead of being in bed, for instance, I am at +this moment sitting snuffling and writing in an undershirt and trousers; +and as for colour, hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner than +the berry: only my trunk and the aristocratic spot on which I sit retain +the vile whiteness of the north. + +Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry James, and any whom +you see of well-wishers. Accept from me the very best of my affection: +and believe me ever yours, + + THE OLD MAN VIRULENT. + + + _Papeete, Taiti, October 7th, 1888._ + +Never having found a chance to send this off, I may add more of my news. +My cold took a very bad turn, and I am pretty much out of sorts at this +particular, living in a little bare one-twentieth-furnished house, +surrounded by mangoes, etc. All the rest are well, and I mean to be +soon. But these Taiti colds are very severe and, to children, often +fatal; so they were not the thing for me. Yesterday the brigantine came +in from San Francisco, so we can get our letters off soon. There are in +Papeete at this moment, in a little wooden house with grated verandahs, +two people who love you very much, and one of them is + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Taiti, as ever was, 6th October 1888._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... You will receive a lot of mostly very bad proofs +of photographs: the paper was so bad. Please keep them very private, as +they are for the book. We send them, having learned so dread a fear of +the sea, that we wish to put our eggs in different baskets. We have been +thrice within an ace of being ashore: we were lost (!) for about twelve +hours in the Low Archipelago, but by God's blessing had quiet weather +all the time; and once in a squall, we cam so near gaun heels ower +hurdies, that I really dinnae ken why we didnae a'thegither. Hence, as +I say, a great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, particularly +on the Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean. + +You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, owing to incidental +beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, owing to the intrinsic interest of +these isles. I hope the book will be a good one; nor do I really very +much doubt that--the stuff is so curious; what I wonder is, if the +public will rise to it. A copy of my journal, or as much of it as is +made, shall go to you also; it is, of course, quite imperfect, much +being to be added and corrected; but O, for the eggs in the different +baskets. + +All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the cruise so far, in +spite of its drawbacks. We have had an awfae time in some ways, Mr. +Baxter; and if I wasnae sic a verra patient man (when I ken that I +_have_ to be) there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I hadnae +happened to be on deck about three in the marnin', I _think_ there would +have been _murder_ done. The American Mairchant Marine is a kent +service; ye'll have heard its praise, I'm thinkin'; an' if ye never did, +ye can get _Twa Years Before the Mast_, by Dana, whaur forbye a great +deal o' pleisure, ye'll get a' the needcessary information. Love to your +father and all the family.--Ever your affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + This lady, as we have seen, had made Stevenson a present of a + paper-cutter when he left Bournemouth; and it is in the character of + the paper-cutter that he now writes. + + _Taiti, October 10th, 1888._ + +DEAR GIVER,--I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a +person so locomotory as my proprietor. The number of thousand miles that +I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made +acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your +imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more +exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master's right-hand +trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of +Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have +been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea +shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular +company for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master--or as I +more justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, +does not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African +potentate on my subject's legs?--_he_ is delighted with these isles, and +this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. He now +blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes the poor thing +appears stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues +his career with truculent insensibility. Health appears to reign in the +party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left +England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there +is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate + + WOODEN PAPER-CUTTER. + + +A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the _Feast of + Famine_, published with others in the collection of 1890 _Ballads_ + (Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his South Sea ballads + for any quality except their narrative vigour, thinking them unequal + and uncertain both in metre and style. + + _Taiti, October 16th, 1888._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning +bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet will +travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a better +ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will wag your +pow over it; and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has it not +spirit all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy painted +it, has it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has +considerable merit! Read it, get a typewritten copy taken, and send me +that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting the +most excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending the +thing is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS. +go down with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it +has left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for +putting eggs in various baskets. + +We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and the +Sandwiches. + + O, how my spirit languishes + To step ashore on the Sanguishes; + For there my letters wait, + There shall I know my fate. + O, how my spirit languidges + To step ashore on the Sanguidges. + +_18th._--I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am +quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these +climates and this voyage have given me more strength than I could have +thought possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the +mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of +space, the cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors, +the captain, the passengers--but you are amply repaid when you sight an +island, and drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble has attended this +trip, but I must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, as +in the last few weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that +were the bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and +to some degree from my temper. Do you know what they called the _Casco_ +at Fakarava? The _Silver Ship_. Is that not pretty? Pray tell Mrs. +Jenkin, _die silberne Frau_, as I only learned it since I wrote her. I +think of calling the book by that name: _The Cruise of the Silver +Ship_--so there will be one poetic page at least--the title. At the +Sandwiches we shall say farewell to the _S. S._ with mingled feelings. +She is a lovely creature: the most beautiful thing at this moment in +Taiti. + +Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to say. +You would think I was bursting: but the voyage is all stored up for the +book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the +time are not worth telling; and our news is little. + +Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now stored, and the +Blue Peter metaphorically flies. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO WILLIAM AND THOMAS ARCHER + + + Stevenson addresses a part of this letter, as well as the whole of + another later on, to a young son of Mr. Archer's, but rather to amuse + himself than his nominal correspondent, who was then aged three + + _Taiti, October 17th, 1888._ + +DEAR ARCHER,--Though quite unable to write letters I nobly send you a +line signifying nothing. The voyage has agreed well with all; it has had +its pains, and its extraordinary pleasures; nothing in the world can +equal the excitement of the first time you cast anchor in some bay of a +tropical island, and the boats begin to surround you, and the tattooed +people swarm aboard. Tell Tomarcher, with my respex, that hide-and-seek +is not equal to it; no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of +that, is a game for the unskilful: the artist prefers daylight, a +good-sized garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, and--come on, +Macduff. + +TOMARCHER, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but that was not the +real bent of my genius. I was the best player of hide-and-seek going; +not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge, I could jink very +well, I could crawl without any noise through leaves, I could hide under +a carrot plant, it used to be my favourite boast that I always _walked_ +into the den. You may care to hear, Tomarcher, about the children in +these parts; their parents obey them, they do not obey their parents; +and I am sorry to tell you (for I dare say you are already thinking the +idea a good one) that it does not pay one halfpenny. There are three +sorts of civilisation, Tomarcher: the real old-fashioned one, in which +children either had to find out how to please their dear papas, or their +dear papas cut their heads off. This style did very well, but is now out +of fashion. Then the modern European style: in which children have to +behave reasonably well, and go to school and say their prayers, or their +dear papas _will know the reason why_. This does fairly well. Then there +is the South Sea Island plan, which does not do one bit. The children +beat their parents here; it does not make their parents any better; so +do not try it. + +Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your new house, but will +send this to one of your papa's publishers. Remember us all to all of +you, and believe me, yours respectably, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Tautira (The Garden of the World), otherwise called + Hans-Christian-Andersen-ville [November 1888]._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Whether I have a penny left in the wide world, I know +not, nor shall know, till I get to Honolulu, where I anticipate a devil +of an awakening. It will be from a mighty pleasant dream at least: +Tautira being mere Heaven. But suppose, for the sake of argument, any +money to be left in the hands of my painful doer, what is to be done +with it? Save us from exile would be the wise man's choice, I suppose; +for the exile threatens to be eternal. But yet I am of opinion--in case +there should be _some_ dibbs in the hand of the P.D., _i.e._ painful +doer; because if there be none, I shall take to my flageolet on the +high-road, and work home the best way I can, having previously made away +with my family--I am of opinion that if ---- and his are in the +customary state, and you are thinking of an offering, and there should +be still some funds over, you would be a real good P.D. to put some in +with yours and tak' the credit o't, like a wee man! I know it's a +beastly thing to ask, but it, after all, does no earthly harm, only that +much good. And besides, like enough there's nothing in the till, and +there is an end. Yet I live here in the full lustre of millions; it is +thought I am the richest son of man that has yet been to Tautira: +I!--and I am secretly eaten with the fear of lying in pawn, perhaps for +the remainder of my days, in San Francisco. As usual, my colds have much +hashed my finances. + +Do tell Henley I write this just after having dismissed Ori the +sub-chief, in whose house I live, Mrs. Ori, and Pairai, their adopted +child, from the evening hour of music: during which I Publickly (with a +k) Blow on the Flageolet. These are words of truth. Yesterday I told Ori +about W. E. H., counterfeited his playing on the piano and the pipe, and +succeeded in sending the six feet four there is of that sub-chief +somewhat sadly to his bed; feeling that his was not the genuine article +after all. Ori is exactly like a colonel in the Guards.--I am, dear +Charles, ever yours affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The stanzas which end this letter are well known, having been + printed, with one additional, in _Songs of Travel_; but they gain + effect, I think, from being given here in their place. + + _Tautira, 10th November '88._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Our mainmast is dry-rotten, and we are all to the +devil; I shall lie in a debtor's jail. Never mind, Tautira is first +chop. I am so besotted that I shall put on the back of this my attempt +at words to Wandering Willie; if you can conceive at all the difficulty, +you will also conceive the vanity with which I regard any kind of +result; and whatever mine is like, it has some sense, and Burns's has +none. + + Home no more home to me, whither must I wander? + Hunger my driver, I go where I must. + Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; + Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust. + Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree; + The true word of welcome was spoken in the door-- + Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight, + Kind folks of old, you come again no more. + + Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces, + Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child. + Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland; + Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild. + Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland, + Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold. + Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed, + The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + The following is the draft of a proposed dedication to the South Sea + travel-book which was to be the fruit of the present voyages, as is + explained in a note at the end. + + _November 11th, 1888._ + +_One November night, in the village of Tautira, we sat at the high table +in the hall of assembly, hearing the natives sing. It was dark in the +hall, and very warm; though at times the land wind blew a little +shrewdly through the chinks, and at times, through the larger openings, +we could see the moonlight on the lawn. As the songs arose in the +rattling Tahitian chorus, the chief translated here and there a verse. +Farther on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves; and I am +in hopes that not you only, but all who can find a savour in the ancient +poetry of places, will read them with some pleasure. You are to conceive +us, therefore, in strange circumstances and very pleasing; in a strange +land and climate, the most beautiful on earth; surrounded by a foreign +race that all travellers have agreed to be the most engaging; and taking +a double interest in two foreign arts._ + +_We came forth again at last, in a cloudy moonlight, on the forest lawn +which is the street of Tautira. The Pacific roared outside upon the +reef. Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone out +under the shadow of the wood, the lamplight bursting through the +crannies of the wall. We went homeward slowly, Ori a Ori carrying behind +us the lantern and the chairs, properties with which we had just been +enacting our part of the distinguished visitor. It was one of those +moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and +deplore the absence of congenial friends; and it was your name that +first rose upon our lips. "How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!" +said one, and then another. The word caught in my mind; I went to bed, +and it was still there. The glittering, frosty solitudes in which your +days are cast arose before me: I seemed to see you walking there in the +late night, under the pine-trees and the stars; and I received the image +with something like remorse._ + +_There is a modern attitude towards Fortune; in this place I will not +use a graver name. Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy with +equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old. Our fathers, +it should seem, wondered and doubted how they had merited their +misfortunes: we, rather how we have deserved our happiness. And we stand +often abashed, and sometimes revolted, at those partialities of fate by +which we profit most. It was so with me on that November night: I felt +that our positions should be changed. It was you, dear Symonds, who +should have gone upon that voyage and written this account. With your +rich stores of knowledge, you could have remarked and understood a +thousand things of interest and beauty that escaped my ignorance; and +the brilliant colours of your style would have carried into a thousand +sickrooms the sea air and the strong sun of tropic islands. It was +otherwise decreed. But suffer me at least to connect you, if only in +name and only in the fondness of imagination, with the voyage of the_ +Silver Ship. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +DEAR SYMONDS,--I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its +completion. If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place this +letter at the beginning? It represents--I need not tell you, for you too +are an artist--a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake last +night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think it a good piece of +writing. We are _in heaven here_. Do not forget. + + R. L. S. + + +Please keep this: I have no perfect copy. + +_Tautira, on the peninsula of Taiti._ + + + + +TO THOMAS ARCHER + + + _Tautira, Island of Taiti [November 1888]._ + +DEAR TOMARCHER,--This is a pretty state of things! seven o'clock and no +word of breakfast! And I was awake a good deal last night, for it was +full moon, and they had made a great fire of cocoa-nut husks down by the +sea, and as we have no blinds or shutters, this kept my room very +bright. And then the rats had a wedding or a school-feast under my bed. +And then I woke early, and I have nothing to read except Virgil's +_AEneid_, which is not good fun on an empty stomach, and a Latin +dictionary, which is good for naught, and by some humorous accident, +your dear papa's article on Skerryvore. And I read the whole of that, +and very impudent it is, but you must not tell your dear papa I said so, +or it might come to a battle in which you might lose either a dear papa +or a valued correspondent, or both, which would be prodigal. And still +no breakfast; so I said "Let's write to Tomarcher." + +This is a much better place for children than any I have hitherto seen +in these seas. The girls (and sometimes the boys) play a very elaborate +kind of hopscotch. The boys play horses exactly as we do in Europe; and +have very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each other down, in which +they do not often succeed. The children of all ages go to church and are +allowed to do what they please, running about the aisles, rolling balls, +stealing mamma's bonnet and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to +sleep in the middle of the floor. I forgot to say that the whips to play +horses, and the balls to roll about the church--at least I never saw +them used elsewhere--grow ready made on trees; which is rough on +toy-shops. The whips are so good that I wanted to play horses myself; +but no such luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, ugly man. The +balls are rather hard, but very light and quite round. When you grow up +and become offensively rich, you can charter a ship in the port of +London, and have it come back to you entirely loaded with these balls; +when you could satisfy your mind as to their character, and give them +away when done with to your uncles and aunts. But what I really wanted +to tell you was this: besides the tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on +the tree-top!), I have seen some real _made_ toys, the first hitherto +observed in the South Seas. + +This was how. You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; one horse; in the +front seat two Tahiti natives, in their Sunday clothes, blue coat, white +shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue stuff with big +white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the back seat me and my +wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, plenty of lunch and +things: among us a great deal of fun in broken Tahitian, one of the +natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a great ally of mine. +Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is now called Rui, the +nearest they can come to Louis, for they have no _l_ and no _s_ in their +language. Rui is six feet three in his stockings, and a magnificent man. +We all have straw hats, for the sun is strong. We drive between the sea, +which makes a great noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a +forest mostly of fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of +our ivy, heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than your head +and far nicer, called Barbedine. Presently we came to a house in a +pretty garden, quite by itself, very nicely kept, the doors and windows +open, no one about, and no noise but that of the sea. It looked like a +house in a fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a river, and there +we saw the inhabitants. Just in the mouth of the river, where it met the +sea waves, they were ducking and bathing and screaming together like a +covey of birds: seven or eight little naked brown boys and girls as +happy as the day was long; and on the banks of the stream beside them, +real toys--toy ships, full rigged, and with their sails set, though they +were lying in the dust on their beam ends. And then I knew for sure they +were all children in a fairy-story, living alone together in that lonely +house with the only toys in all the island; and that I had myself +driven, in my four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, and +the question was, should I get out again? But it was all right; I guess +only one of the wheels of the gig had got into the fairy-story; and the +next jolt the whole thing vanished, and we drove on in our sea-side +forest as before, and I have the honour to be Tomarcher's valued +correspondent, TERIITERA, which he was previously known as + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + This letter from Mrs. Stevenson serves to fill out and explain + allusions in the three or four preceding. The beautiful brown + princess is Princess Moe, ex-queen of Raiatea, well known to readers + of Pierre Loti and Miss Gordon Cumming. The move away from Papeete, + where Stevenson had fallen seriously ill, had been made in hopes of + finding on the island a climate that would suit him better. + + _Tautira, Tahiti, Dec. 4th [1888]._ + +DEAR, long neglected, though never forgotten Custodian, I write you from +fairyland, where we are living in a fairy story, the guests of a +beautiful brown princess. We came to stay a week, five weeks have +passed, and we are still indefinite as to our time of leaving. It was +chance brought us here, for no one in Papeete could tell us a word about +this part of the island except that it was very fine to look at, and +inhabited by wild people--"almost as wild as the people of Anaho!" That +touch about the people of Anaho inclined our hearts this way, so we +finally concluded to take a look at the other side of Tahiti. The place +of our landing was windy, uninhabited except by mosquitoes, and Louis +was ill. The first day Lloyd and the Captain made an exploration, but +came back disgusted. They had found a Chinaman, a long way off, who +seemed to have some horses, but no desire to hire them to strangers, and +they had found nothing else whatever. The next morning I took Valentine +and went on a prospecting tour of my own. I found the Chinaman, +persuaded him to let me have two horses and a wagon, and went back for +the rest of my family. When asked where I wished to go, I could only say +to the largest native village and the most wild. Ill as Louis was, I +brought him the next day, and shall never cease to be thankful for my +courage, for he has gained health and strength every day. He takes sea +baths and swims, and lives almost entirely in the open air as nearly +without clothes as possible, a simple pyjama suit of striped light +flannel his only dress. As to shoes and stockings we all have scorned +them for months except Mrs. Stevenson, who often goes barefoot and +never, I believe, wears stockings. Lloyd's costume, in which he looks +remarkably well, consists of a striped flannel shirt and a pareu. The +pareu is no more or less than a large figured blue and white cotton +window curtain twisted about the waist, and hanging a little below the +bare knees. Both Louis and Lloyd wear wreaths of artificial flowers, +made of the dried pandanus leaf, on their hats. + +Moe has gone to Papeete by the command of the king, whose letter was +addressed "To the great Princess at Tautira. P.V." P.V. stands for +Pomare 5th. Every evening, before she went, we played Van John lying in +a circle on pillows in the middle of the floor with our heads together: +and hardly an evening passed but it struck us afresh how very much you +would like Moe, and we told her of you again. The house (really here a +palace) in which we live, belongs to the sub-chief, Ori, a subject and +relation of the Princess. He, and his whole family, consisting of his +wife, his two little adopted sons, his daughter and her two young +babies, turned out to live in a little bird-cage hut of one room. Ori is +the very finest specimen of a native we have seen yet; he is several +inches over six feet, of perfect though almost gigantic proportions, and +looks more like a Roman Emperor in bronze than words can express. One +day, when Moe gave a feast, it being the correct thing to do, we all +wore wreaths of golden yellow leaves on our heads; when Ori walked in +and sat down at the table, as with one voice we all cried out in +admiration. His manners and I might say his habit of thought are +English. In some ways, he is so like a Colonel of the Guards that we +often call him Colonel. It was either the day before, or the morning of +our public feast, that Louis asked the Princess if she thought Ori would +accept his name. She was sure of it, and much pleased at the idea. I +wish you could have seen Louis, blushing like a schoolgirl, when Ori +came in, and the brotherhood was offered. So now if you please, Louis is +no more Louis, having given that name away in the Tahitian form of +_Rui_, but is known as _Terii-Tera_ (pronounced Ter_ee_terah) that being +Ori's Christian name. "Ori a Ori" is his clan name. + +Let me tell you of our village feast. The chief, who was our guide in +the matter, found four large fat hogs, which Louis bought, and four +cases of ship's biscuit were sent over from the _Casco_, which is lying +at Papeete for repairs. Our feast cost in all about eighty dollars. +Every Sunday all things of public interest are announced in the Farehau +(an enormous public bird cage) and the news of the week read aloud from +the Papeete journal, if it happens to turn up. Our feast was given on a +Wednesday, and was announced by the chief the Sunday before, who +referred to Louis as "the rich one." Our hogs were killed in the +morning, washed in the sea, and roasted whole in a pit with hot stones. +When done they were laid on their stomachs in neat open coffins of green +basket work, each hog with his case of biscuits beside him. Early in the +morning the entire population began bathing, a bath being the +preliminary to everything. At about three o'clock--four was the hour +set--there was a general movement towards our premises, so that I had to +hurry Louis into his clothes, all white, even to his shoes. Lloyd was +also in white, but barefoot. I was not prepared, so had to appear in a +red and white muslin gown, also barefoot. As Mrs. Stevenson had had a +feast of her own, conducted on religious principles, she kept a little +in the background, so that her dress did not matter so much. The chief, +who speaks French very well, stood beside Louis to interpret for him. +By the time we had taken our respective places on the veranda in front +of our door, an immense crowd had assembled. They came in five, instead +of four detachments which was what the chief expected, and he was a +little confused at first, as he and Louis had been arranging a speech to +four sets of people, which ran in this order. The clergyman at the head +of the Protestants: the chief, council, and irreligious:--one of the +council at their head. The schoolmaster with the schoolchildren: the +catechist and the Catholics: but there was another very small sect, by +some strange mischance called Mormons, which it was supposed would be +broken up and swallowed by the others. But no, the Mormons came in a +body alone, marshalled by the best and wittiest speaker--_bar Rui_--in +Tautira. Each set of people came bending under the weight of bamboo +poles laden with fruits, pigs, fowls, etc. All were dressed in their +gayest pareus, and many had wreaths of leaves or flowers on their heads. +The prettiest sight of all was the children, who came marching two and +two abreast, the bamboo poles lying lengthwise across their shoulders. + +When all the offerings had been piled in five great heaps upon the +ground, Louis made his oration to the accompaniment of the squealing of +pigs, the cackling of hens, and the roar of the surf which beats +man-high upon the roof. A speech was made in return on behalf of the +village, and then each section sent forth its orator, the speeches +following in the order I have given above. Each speaker finished by +coming forward with one of the smaller things in his hand, which he +offered personally to Louis, and then shook hands with us all and +retired. Among these smaller presents were many fish-hooks for large +fishing, laboriously carved from mother-of-pearl shell. One man came +with one egg in each hand saying, "carry these to Scotland with you, let +them hatch into cocks, and their song shall remind you of Tautira." The +schoolmaster, with a leaf-basket of rose apples, made his speech in +French. Somehow the whole effect of the scene was like a story out of +the Bible, and I am not ashamed that Louis and I both shed tears when we +saw the enchanting procession of schoolchildren. The Catholic priest, +Father Bruno, a great friend of ours, said that for the next fifty years +the time of the feast of the rich one will be talked of: which reminds +me of our friend Donat, of Fakarava, who was temporary resident at the +time we were there. "I am so glad," he said, "that the _Casco_ came in +just now, otherwise I should be forgotten: but now the people will +always say this or that happened so long before--or so long after--the +coming of the _Silver Ship_, when Donat represented the government." + +In front of our house is a broad stretch of grass, dotted with +cocoanuts, breadfruits, mangoes, and the strange pandanus tree. I wish +you could have seen them, their lower branches glowing with the rich +colours of the fruits hung upon them by Ori and his men, and great heaps +lying piled against their roots, on the evening of our feast. From the +bamboo poles that they were carried upon, a pen was made for the ten +pigs, and a fowl house for the twenty-three fowls that were among the +presents. But there was a day of reckoning at hand. Time after time we +ran down to the beach to look for the _Casco_, until we were in despair. +For over a month we had lived in Ori's house, causing him infinite +trouble and annoyance, and not even his, at that. Areia (the +chief--Areia means the Prince) went to Papeete and came back with a +letter to say that more work had to be done upon the _Casco_, and it +might be any time before she could get to Tautira. We had used up all +our stores, and had only a few dollars of money left in Tautira, and not +very much in Papeete. Could we stand the journey to Papeete, we could +not live upon the yacht in the midst of the workmen, and we had not +money enough left to live at an hotel. We were playing cards on the +floor, as usual, when this message came, and you can imagine its effect. +I knew perfectly well that Rui would force us to stay on with him, but +what depressed me the most of all, was the fact of Louis having made +brothers with him just before this took place. Had there been a shadow +of doubt on our dear Rui's face, I should have fled from before him. +Sitting there on the floor waiting for him was too much for my nerves +and I burst into tears, upon which the princess wept bitterly. In the +meantime the priest had dropped in, so that we had him and Moe, and +Areia, as witnesses to our humiliating position. First came Madame Rui, +who heard the story, and sat down on the floor in silence, which was +very damping for a beginning, and then Ori of Ori, the magnificent, who +listened to the tale of the shipwrecked mariners with serious dignity, +asking one or two questions, and then spoke to this effect. "You are my +brother: all that I have is yours. I know that your food is done, but I +can give you plenty of fish and taro. We like you, and wish to have you +here. Stay where you are till the _Casco_ comes. Be happy--_et ne +pleurez pas_." Louis dropped his head into his hands and wept, and then +we all went up to Rui and shook hands with him and accepted his offer. +Madame Rui, who had been silent only as a dutiful wife, that her husband +might speak first, poured forth manifold reasons for our staying on as +long as we could possibly manage. During all this scene, an attendant of +the princess had been sitting on the floor behind us, a baby in his +arms, where he had ensconced himself for the purpose of watching the +game. He understood nothing of what was going on; we wondered afterwards +what he thought of it. Reduced as we were, we still had a few bottles of +champagne left. Champagne being an especial weakness of our gigantic +friend, it occurred to some one that this was a proper occasion to open +a couple of bottles. Louis, the Princess, and I were quite, as the +Scotch so well say, "begrutten," Areia's immense eyes were fairly +melting out of his head with emotion, the priest was wiping his eyes and +blowing his nose: and then for no apparent cause we suddenly fell to +drinking and clinking glasses quite merrily: the bewildered attendant +clinked and drank too, and then sat down and waited in case there should +be any repetition of the drinking part of the performance. And sure +enough there was, for in the midst of an animated discussion as to ways +and means, Mrs. Stevenson announced that it was St. Andrew's day, so +again the attendant clinked and drank with Ori's mad foreigners. + +It is quite true that we live almost entirely upon native food; our +luncheon to-day consisted of raw fish with sauce made of cocoanut milk +mixed with sea water and lime juice, taro poi-poi, and bananas roasted +in hot stones in a little pit in the ground, with cocoanut cream to eat +with them. Still we like coffee in the evening, a little wine at dinner, +and a few other products of civilisation. It would be possible, the +chief said, to send a boat, but that would cost sixty dollars. A final +arrangement, which we were forced to accept, was that Rui should go in +his own boat, and the chief would appoint a substitute for some public +work that he was then engaged upon. Early the next morning, amidst a +raging sea and a storming wind, Rui departed with three men to help him. +It is forty miles to Papeete, and Rui, starting in the early morning, +arrived there at nine o'clock; but alas, the wind was against him, and +it was altogether six days before he got back. + +Louis has done a great deal of work on his new story, _The Master of +Ballantrae_, almost finished it in fact, while Mrs. Stevenson and I are +deep in the mysteries of hatmaking, which is a ladies' accomplishment +taking the place of water-colour drawing in England. It is a small +compliment to present a hat to an acquaintance. Altogether we have about +thirteen. Next door to us is Areia's out-of-door house, where he and the +ladies of his family sleep and eat: it has a thatched roof of palm +branches, and a floor of boards, the sides and ends being open to the +world. On the floor are spread mats plaited of pandanus leaves, and +pillows stuffed with silk cotton from the cotton tree. We make little +calls upon the ladies, lie upon the mats, and smoke cigarettes made of +tobacco leaves rolled in a bit of dried pandanus, and admire their work, +or get a lesson; or they call upon us, and lie upon our mats. One day +there was an election in the Farehau. It takes place all over the island +once a year, and among others, the sub-chief and head-councillor is +chosen. For the latter, our Rui was a candidate. In the beginning, the +French deposed the born chiefs and told the people to elect men for +themselves. The choice of Tautira fell upon Rui, who declined the +honour, saying that Areia was his natural chief, and he could not take a +position that should belong to his superior; upon which the people +elected Areia chief, and Rui sub-chief and head-councillor. We all went +over to the Farehau, where Areia sat in the middle of his councillors on +a dais behind a long table. The Farehau is an immense bird-cage of +bamboos tied together with pandanus fibre, and thatched with palms. In +front of the dais the ground is deeply covered with dried leaves. The +costume of the dignitaries was rather odd. Areia wore a white shirt and +blue flannel coat, which was well enough; but on his plump legs were a +pair of the most incredible trousers: light blue calico with a small red +pattern, such as servant girls wear for gowns in England: on his feet +were neat little shoes and stockings. Rui was a fine sight, and we were +very proud of him; he sat, exactly like an English gentleman, holding +himself well in hand, alert as a fox and keen as a greyhound: several +men spoke from the farther end of the hall, making objections of some +sort, we could see. Rui listened with a half satirical, half kindly +smile in his eyes, and then dropped a quiet answer without rising from +his seat, which had the effect of raising a shout of laughter, and quite +demolishing his opponent. Voters came up to the table and dropped their +bits of paper into a slit in a box: some led children by the hand, and +some carried babies in their arms; across the centre of the great room +children and dogs ran chasing each other and playing. I noticed two +little maids who walked up and down for a long time with their arms +intertwined about each other's waists. Near where we sat (we were on the +dais, above the common herd), a pretty young lady having tied up her +dog's mouth with a tuft of grass, industriously caught and cracked fleas +from its back. Both Lloyd and I grew very sleepy, and as we did not like +to leave till the election was decided, we just threw ourselves down and +took a nap at the feet of the councillors: nor did we wake till the +chief called out to us in English "it is finished." I never thought I +should be able to calmly sleep at a public meeting on a platform in the +face of several hundred people: but it is wonderful how quickly one +takes up the ways of a people when you live with them as intimately as +we do. + +I hear dinner coming on the table, so with much love from us all to you +and other dear ones, including our dear friend Henry James, believe me, +affectionately yours, + + FANNY V. de G. STEVENSON.] + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Yacht Casco, at Sea, 14th January 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Twenty days out from Papeete. Yes, sir, all that, and +only (for a guess) in 4 deg. north or at the best 4 deg.30', though already the +wind seems to smell a little of the North Pole. My handwriting you must +take as you get, for we are speeding along through a nasty swell, and I +can only keep my place at the table by means of a foot against the +divan, the unoccupied hand meanwhile gripping the ink-bottle. As we +begin (so very slowly) to draw near to seven months of correspondence, +we are all in some fear; and I want to have letters written before I +shall be plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables which I +constantly expect at Honolulu. What is needful can be added there. + +We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of my dear old friend, +Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this invaluable yacht had been +repaired. It was all for the best: Tautira being the most beautiful +spot, and its people the most amiable, I have ever found. Besides which, +the climate suited me to the ground; I actually went sea-bathing almost +every day, and in our feasts (we are all huge eaters in Taiarapu) have +been known to apply four times for pig. And then again I got wonderful +materials for my book, collected songs and legends on the spot; songs +still sung in chorus by perhaps a hundred persons, not two of whom can +agree on their translation; legends, on which I have seen half a dozen +seniors sitting in conclave and debating what came next. Once I went a +day's journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high chief of +the Tevas--_my_ chief that is, for I am now a Teva and Teriitera, at +your service--to collect more and correct what I had already. In the +meanwhile I got on with my work, almost finished _The Master of +Ballantrae_, which contains more human work than anything of mine but +_Kidnapped_, and wrote the half of another ballad, the _Song of Rahero_, +on a Taiarapu legend of my own clan, sir--not so much fire as the _Feast +of Famine_, but promising to be more even and correct. But the best +fortune of our stay at Tautira was my knowledge of Ori himself, one of +the finest creatures extant. The day of our parting was a sad one. We +deduced from it a rule for travellers: not to stay two months in one +place--which is to cultivate regrets. + +At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for +Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now have +experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary +winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came +almost to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken. Three days +ago our luck seemed to improve, we struck a leading breeze, got +creditably through the doldrums, and just as we looked to have the N.E. +trades and a straight run, the rains and squalls and calms began again +about midnight, and this morning, though there is breeze enough to send +us along, we are beaten back by an obnoxious swell out of the north. +Here is a page of complaint, when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps +been more in place. For all this time we must have been skirting past +dangerous weather, in the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and +getting only annoyance where we should have had peril, and ill-humour +instead of fear. + +I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this time, or whether +the usual damn hangs over my letter? "The midwife whispered, Be thou +dull!" or at least inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted +with the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. I cannot +tell you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: two +nights ago, the 12th January, we had it all planned out, arrived in the +lights and whirl of Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, +over the bridge, etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in triumph and +with indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, I always think we are too +sparing of assurances: Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and +Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer I live, +the more dear do you become to me; nor does my heart own any stronger +sentiment. If the bloody schooner didn't send me flying in every sort of +direction at the same time, I would say better what I feel so much; but +really, if you were here, you would not be writing letters, I believe; +and even I, though of a more marine constitution, am much perturbed by +this bobbery and wish--O ye Gods, how I wish!--that it was done, and we +had arrived, and I had Pandora's Box (my mail-bag) in hand, and was in +the lively hope of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse, +tinned mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, which now make up +our whole repertory. O Pandora's Box! I wonder what you will contain. As +like as not you will contain but little money: if that be so, we shall +have to retire to 'Frisco in the _Casco_, and thence by sea _via_ Panama +to Southampton, where we should arrive in April. I would like fine to +see you on the tug: ten years older both of us than the last time you +came to welcome Fanny and me to England. If we have money, however, we +shall do a little differently: send the _Casco_ away from Honolulu empty +of its high-born lessees, for that voyage to 'Frisco is one long dead +beat in foul and at last in cold weather; stay awhile behind, follow by +steamer, cross the States by train, stay awhile in New York on business, +and arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton. But all this is a +question of money. We shall have to lie very dark awhile to recruit our +finances: what comes from the book of the cruise, I do not want to touch +until the capital is repaid. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + _Honolulu, January 1889._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Here at last I have arrived. We could not get away +from Tahiti till Christmas Day, and then had thirty days of calms and +squalls, a deplorable passage. This has thrown me all out of gear in +every way. I plunge into business. + +1. _The Master._ Herewith go three more parts. You see he grows in bulk; +this making ten already, and I am not yet sure if I can finish it in an +eleventh; which shall go to you _quam primum_--I hope by next mail. + +2. _Illustrations to M._ I totally forgot to try to write to Hole. It +was just as well, for I find it impossible to forecast with sufficient +precision. You had better throw off all this and let him have it at +once. _Please do: all, and at once: see further_; and I should hope he +would still be in time for the later numbers. The three pictures I have +received are so truly good that I should bitterly regret having the +volume imperfectly equipped. They are the best illustrations I have seen +since I don't know when. + +3. _Money._ To-morrow the mail comes in, and I hope it will bring me +money either from you or home, but I will add a word on that point. + +4. My address will be Honolulu--no longer Yacht _Casco_, which I am +packing off--till probably April. + +5. As soon as I am through with _The Master_, I shall finish _The Game +of Bluff_--now rechristened _The Wrong Box_. This I wish to sell, cash +down. It is of course copyright in the States; and I offer it to you for +five thousand dollars. Please reply on this by return. Also please tell +the typewriter who was so good as to be amused by our follies that I am +filled with admiration for his piece of work. + +6. _Master_ again. Please see that I haven't the name of the Governor of +New York wrong (1764 is the date) in part ten. I have no book of +reference to put me right. Observe you now have up to August inclusive +in hand, so you should begin to feel happy. + +Is this all? I wonder, and fear not. Henry the Trader has not yet turned +up: I hope he may to-morrow, when we expect a mail. Not one word of +business have I received either from the States or England, nor anything +in the shape of coin; which leaves me in a fine uncertainty and quite +penniless on these islands. H.M.[27] (who is a gentleman of a courtly +order and much tinctured with letters) is very polite; I may possibly +ask for the position of palace doorkeeper. My voyage has been a singular +mixture of good and ill fortune. As far as regards interest and +material, the fortune has been admirable; as far as regards time, money, +and impediments of all kinds, from squalls and calms to rotten masts and +sprung spars, simply detestable. I hope you will be interested to hear +of two volumes on the wing. The cruise itself, you are to know, will +make a big volume with appendices; some of it will first appear as +(what they call) letters in some of M'Clure's papers. I believe the book +when ready will have a fair measure of serious interest: I have had +great fortune in finding old songs and ballads and stories, for +instance, and have many singular instances of life in the last few years +among these islands. + +The second volume is of ballads. You know _Ticonderoga_. I have written +another: _The Feast of Famine_, a Marquesan story. A third is half done: +_The Song of Rahero_, a genuine Tahitian legend. A fourth dances before, +me. A Hawaiian fellow this, _The Priest's Drought_, or some such name. +If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects out of the islands, +_Ticonderoga_ shall be suppressed, and we'll call the volume _South Sea +Ballads_. In health, spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do +believe, refreshed capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise +folly. Still we're not home, and (although the friend of a crowned head) +are penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents used to call them) +"lovely but _fatil_ islands." By the way, who wrote the _Lion of the +Nile_? My dear sir, that is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it has a +true thought and a true ring of language. Beg the anonymous from me, to +delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, and end on "the +lion of the Nile." One Lampman has a good sonnet on a "Winter Evening" +in, I think, the same number: he seems ill named, but I am tempted to +hope a man is not always answerable for his name.[28] For instance, you +would think you knew mine. No such matter. It is--at your service and +Mr. Scribner's and that of all of the faithful--Teriitera (pray +pronounce Tayree-Tayra) or (_gallice_) Teri-tera. + + R. L. S. + +More when the mail shall come. + + +I am an idiot. I want to be clear on one point. Some of Hole's drawings +must of course be too late; and yet they seem to me so excellent I would +fain have the lot complete. It is one thing for you to pay for drawings +which are to appear in that soul-swallowing machine, your magazine: +quite another if they are only to illustrate a volume. I wish you to +take a brisk (even a fiery) decision on the point; and let Hole know. To +resume my desultory song, I desire you would carry the same fire +(hereinbefore suggested) into your decision on _The Wrong Box_; for in +my present state of benighted ignorance as to my affairs for the last +seven months--I know not even whether my house or my mother's house have +been let--I desire to see something definite in front of me--outside the +lot of palace doorkeeper. I believe the said _Wrong Box_ is a real lark; +in which, of course, I may be grievously deceived; but the typewriter is +with me. I may also be deceived as to the numbers of _The Master_ now +going and already gone; but to me they seem First Chop, sir, First Chop. +I hope I shall pull off that damned ending; but it still depresses me: +this is your doing, Mr. Burlingame: you would have it there and then, +and I fear it--I fear that ending. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Honolulu, February 8th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here we are at Honolulu, and have dismissed the yacht, +and lie here till April anyway, in a fine state of haze, which I am yet +in hopes some letter of yours (still on the way) may dissipate. No +money, and not one word as to money! However, I have got the yacht paid +off in triumph, I think; and though we stay here impignorate, it should +not be for long, even if you bring us no extra help from home. The +cruise has been a great success, both as to matter, fun, and health; and +yet, Lord, man! we're pleased to be ashore! Yon was a very fine voyage +from Tahiti up here, but--the dry land's a fine place too, and we don't +mind squalls any longer, and eh, man, that's a great thing. Blow, blow, +thou wintry wind, thou hast done me no appreciable harm beyond a few +grey hairs! Altogether, this foolhardy venture is achieved; and if I +have but nine months of life and any kind of health, I shall have both +eaten my cake and got it back again with usury. But, man, there have +been days when I felt guilty, and thought I was in no position for the +head of a house. + +Your letter and accounts are doubtless at S. F., and will reach me in +course. My wife is no great shakes; she is the one who has suffered +most. My mother has had a Huge Old Time; Lloyd is first chop; I so well +that I do not know myself--sea-bathing, if you please, and what is far +more dangerous, entertaining and being entertained by His Majesty here, +who is a very fine intelligent fellow, but O, Charles! what a crop for +the drink! He carries it, too, like a mountain with a sparrow on its +shoulders. We calculated five bottles of champagne in three hours and a +half (afternoon), and the sovereign quite presentable, although +perceptibly more dignified at the end.... + +The extraordinary health I enjoy and variety of interests I find among +these islands would tempt me to remain here; only for Lloyd, who is not +well placed in such countries for a permanency; and a little for Colvin, +to whom I feel I owe a sort of filial duty. And these two considerations +will no doubt bring me back--to go to bed again--in England.--Yours ever +affectionately, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO R. A. M. STEVENSON + + + _Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, February 1889._ + +MY DEAR BOB,--My extremely foolhardy venture is practically over. How +foolhardy it was I don't think I realised. We had a very small schooner, +and, like most yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and like many +American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The waters we sailed in +are, of course, entirely unlighted, and very badly charted; in the +Dangerous Archipelago, through which we were fools enough to go, we were +perfectly in ignorance of where we were for a whole night and half the +next day, and this in the midst of invisible islands and rapid and +variable currents; and we were lucky when we found our whereabouts at +last. We have twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as I +came on deck, I found the green sea over the cockpit coamings and +running down the companion like a brook to meet me; at that same moment +the foresail sheet jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the +only occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, but I +worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility of hemorrhage better than +the certainty of drowning. Another time I saw a rather singular thing: +our whole ship's company as pale as paper from the captain to the cook; +we had a black squall astern on the port side and a white squall ahead +to starboard; the complication passed off innocuous, the black squall +only fetching us with its tail, and the white one slewing off somewhere +else. Twice we were a long while (days) in the close vicinity of +hurricane weather, but again luck prevailed, and we saw none of it. +These are dangers incident to these seas and small craft. What was an +amazement, and at the same time a powerful stroke of luck, both our +masts were rotten, and we found it out--I was going to say in time, but +it was stranger and luckier than that. The head of the mainmast hung +over so that hands were afraid to go to the helm; and less than three +weeks before--I am not sure it was more than a fortnight--we had been +nearly twelve hours beating off the lee shore of Eimeo (or Moorea, next +island to Tahiti) in half a gale of wind with a violent head sea: she +would neither tack nor wear once, and had to be boxed off with the +mainsail--you can imagine what an ungodly show of kites we carried--and +yet the mast stood. The very day after that, in the southern bight of +Tahiti, we had a near squeak, the wind suddenly coming calm; the reefs +were close in with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought we were gone, +and the captain had a boat cleared, when a lucky squall came to our +rescue. My wife, hearing the order given about the boats, remarked to my +mother, "Isn't that nice? We shall soon be ashore!" Thus does the female +mind unconsciously skirt along the verge of eternity. Our voyage up here +was most disastrous--calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain, +hurricane weather all about, and we in the midst of the hurricane +season, when even the hopeful builder and owner of the yacht had +pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran out of food, and were quite +given up for lost in Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to Belle[29] +about the _Casco_, as a deadly subject. + +But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; and though I am +very glad to be done with them for a while and comfortably ashore, where +a squall does not matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall +want to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took was +financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink a lot of money in the +cruise, and if I didn't get health, how was I to get it back? I have got +health to a wonderful extent; and as I have the most interesting matter +for my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a +profit. But, second (what I own I never considered till too late), there +was the danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of +disablement, towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned +round and cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear +the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her +deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine till she +gets there. + +From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful +success. I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last voyage we +had grown so used to sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a +full month, except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our visits to +the islands have been more like dreams than realities: the people, the +life, the beachcombers, the old stories and songs I have picked up, so +interesting; the climate, the scenery, and (in some places) the women, +so beautiful. The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the +Marquesas; both as fine types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me, I +have not told you one characteristic incident of the cruise from a +semi-naval point of view. One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay; +the most awful noise on deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the +cabin; and there I had to sit below, entertaining in my best style a +negroid native chieftain, much the worse for rum! You can imagine the +evening's pleasure. + +This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would be incomplete +without one other trait. On our voyage up here I came one day into the +dining-room, the hatch in the floor was open, the ship's boy was below +with a baler, and two of the hands were carrying buckets as for a fire; +this meant that the pumps had ceased working. + +One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. It blew fair, but +very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all single-reefed, +and she carried her lee rail under water and flew. The swell, the +heaviest I have ever been out in--I tried in vain to estimate the +height, _at least_ fifteen feet--came tearing after us about a point and +a half off the wind. We had the best hand--old Louis--at the wheel; and, +really, he did nobly, and had noble luck, for it never caught us once. +At times it seemed we must have it; old Louis would look over his +shoulder with the queerest look and dive down his neck into his +shoulders; and then it missed us somehow, and only sprays came over our +quarter, turning the little outside lane of deck into a mill race as +deep as to the cockpit coamings. I never remember anything more +delightful and exciting. Pretty soon after we were lying absolutely +becalmed under the lee of Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the +captain never confessed he had done it on purpose, but when accused, he +smiled. Really, I suppose he did quite right, for we stood committed to +a dangerous race, and to bring her to the wind would have been rather a +heart-sickening manoeuvre. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MARCEL SCHWOB + + + At Honolulu, Stevenson found awaiting him, among the accumulations of + the mail-bag, two letters of friendly homage--the first, I think, he + had received from any foreign _confrere_--addressed to him by the + distinguished young French scholar and man of letters, M. Marcel + Schwob, since deceased. + + _Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, February 8th, 1889._ + +DEAR SIR,--I thank you--from the midst of such a flurry as you can +imagine, with seven months' accumulated correspondence on my table--for +your two friendly and clever letters. Pray write me again. I shall be +home in May or June, and not improbably shall come to Paris in the +summer. Then we can talk; or in the interval I may be able to write, +which is to-day out of the question. Pray take a word from a man of +crushing occupations, and count it as a volume. Your little _conte_ is +delightful. Ah yes, you are right, I love the eighteenth century; and so +do you, and have not listened to its voice in vain.--The Hunted One, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Honolulu, 8th March 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--At last I have the accounts: the Doer has done +excellently, and in the words of ----, "I reciprocate every step of your +behaviour."... I send a letter for Bob in your care, as I don't know +his Liverpool address,[30] by which (for he is to show you part of it) +you will see we have got out of this adventure--or hope to have--with +wonderful fortune. I have the retrospective horrors on me when I think +of the liabilities I incurred; but, thank God, I think I'm in port +again, and I have found one climate in which I can enjoy life. Even +Honolulu is too cold for me; but the south isles were a heaven upon +earth to a puir, catarrhal party like Johns'one. We think, as Tahiti is +too complete a banishment, to try Madeira. It's only a week from +England, good communications, and I suspect in climate and scenery not +unlike our dear islands; in people, alas! there can be no comparison. +But friends could go, and I could come in summer, so I should not be +quite cut off. + +Lloyd and I have finished a story, _The Wrong Box_. If it is not funny, +I am sure I do not know what is. I have split over writing it. Since I +have been here, I have been toiling like a galley slave: three numbers +of _The Master_ to rewrite, five chapters of _The Wrong Box_ to write +and rewrite, and about five hundred lines of a narrative poem to write, +rewrite, and re-rewrite. Now I have _The Master_ waiting me for its +continuation, two numbers more; when that's done, I shall breathe. This +spasm of activity has been chequered with champagne parties: Happy and +Glorious, Hawaii Ponoi paua: kou moi--(Native Hawaiians, dote upon your +monarch!) Hawaiian God save the King. (In addition to my other labours, +I am learning the language with a native moonshee.) Kalakaua is a +terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry to him; +he thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon as a whet for dinner. +You should see a photograph of our party after an afternoon with H. H. +M.: my! what a crew!--Yours ever affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Ill-health and pressing preoccupations, together with uncertainty as + to when and where letters would reach him, had kept me from writing + during the previous autumn and winter. + + _Honolulu, March 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still not a word from you! I am utterly cast down; but +I will try to return good for evil and for once give you news. We are +here in the suburb of Honolulu in a rambling house or set of houses in a +great garden. + +[Illustration: _a a a_, stairs up to balcony.] + +1. Lloyd's room. 2. My mother's room. 3. A room kept dark for +photographs. 4. The kitchen. 5. Balcony. 6. The Lanai, an open room or +summer parlour, partly surrounded with Venetian shutters, in part quite +open, which is the living-room. 7. A crazy dirty cottage used for the +arts. 8. Another crazy dirty cottage, where Fanny and I live. The town +is some three miles away, but the house is connected by telephone with +the chief shops, and the tramway runs to within a quarter of a mile of +us. I find Honolulu a beastly climate after Tahiti and have been in bed +a little; but my colds _took on no catarrhal symptom_, which is +staggeringly delightful. I am studying Hawaiian with a native, a Mr. +Joseph Poepoe, a clever fellow too: the tongue is a little bewildering; +I am reading a pretty story in native--no, really it is pretty, although +wandering and wordy; highly pretty with its continual traffic from one +isle to another of the soothsayer, pursuing rainbows. Fanny is, I think, +a good deal better on the whole, having profited like me by the tropics; +my mother and Lloyd are first-rate. I do not think I have heard from you +since last May; certainly not since June; and this really frightens me. +Do write, even now. Scribner's Sons it should be; we shall probably be +out of this some time in April, home some time in June. But the world +whirls to me perceptibly, a mass of times and seasons and places and +engagements, and seas to cross, and continents to traverse, so that I +scarce know where I am. Well, I have had a brave time. _Et ego in +Arcadia_--though I don't believe Arcadia was a spot upon Tahiti. I have +written another long narrative poem: the _Song of Rahero_. Privately, I +think it good: but your ominous silence over the _Feast of Famine_ leads +me to fear we shall not be agreed. Is it possible I have wounded you in +some way? I scarce like to dream that it is possible; and yet I know too +well it may be so. If so, don't write, and you can pitch into me when we +meet. I am, admittedly, as mild as London Stout now; and the Old Man +Virulent much a creature of the past. My dear Colvin, I owe you and +Fleeming Jenkin, the two older men who took the trouble and knew how to +make a friend of me, everything that I have or am: if I have behaved +ill, just hold on and give me a chance, you shall have the slanging of +me and I bet I shall prefer it to this silence.--Ever, my dear Colvin, +your most affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON to MRS. SITWELL + + + This letter brought to friends in England the first news of the + intended prolongation of the cruise among the remoter islands of the + Pacific. + + _Honolulu, towards the end of March 1889._ + +MY DEAR FRIEND,--Louis has improved so wonderfully in the delicious +islands of the South Seas, that we think of trying yet one more voyage. +We are a little uncertain as to how we shall go, whether in a missionary +ship, or by hiring schooners from point to point, but the "unregenerate" +islands we must see. I suppose we shall be off some time in June, which +will fetch us back to England in another year's time. You could hardly +believe it if you could see Louis now. He looks as well as he ever did +in his life, and has had no sign of cough or hemorrhage (begging pardon +of Nemesis) for many months. It seems a pity to return to England until +his health is firmly reestablished, and also a pity not to see all that +we can see quite easily starting from this place: and which will be our +only opportunity in life. Of course there is the usual risk from hostile +natives, and the horrible sea, but a positive risk is so much more +wholesome than a negative one, and it is all such joy to Louis and +Lloyd. As for me, I hate the sea, and am afraid of it (though no one +will believe that because in time of danger I do not make an +outcry--nevertheless I _am_ afraid of it, and it is not kind to me), but +I love the tropic weather, and the wild people, and to see my two boys +so happy. Mrs. Stevenson is going back to Scotland in May, as she does +not like to be longer away from her old sister, who has been very ill. +And besides, we do not feel justified in taking her to the sort of +places we intend to visit. As for me, I can get comfort out of very +rough surroundings for my people, I can work hard and enjoy it; I can +even shoot pretty well, and though I "don't want to fight, by jingo if I +must," why I can. I don't suppose there will be any occasion for that +sort of thing--only in case. + +I am not quite sure of the names, but I _think_ our new cruise includes +the Gilberts, the Fijis, and the Solomons. A letter might go from the +Fijis; Louis will write the particulars, of which I am not sure. As for +myself, I have had more cares than I was really fit for. To keep house +on a yacht is no easy thing. When Louis and I broke loose from the ship +and lived alone amongst the natives I got on very well. It was when I +was deathly sea-sick, and the question was put to me by the cook, "What +shall we have for the cabin dinner, what for to-morrow's breakfast, what +for lunch? and what about the sailors' food? Please come and look at the +biscuits, for the weevils have got into them, and show me how to make +yeast that will rise of itself, and smell the pork which seems pretty +high, and give me directions about making a pudding with molasses--and +what is to be done about the bugs?"--etc. etc. In the midst of heavy +dangerous weather, when I was lying on the floor clutching a basin, down +comes the mate with a cracked head, and I must needs cut off the hair +matted with blood, wash and dress the wound, and administer +restoratives. I do not like being "the lady of the yacht," but ashore! +O, then I felt I was repaid for all. I wonder did any of my letters from +beautiful Tautira ever come to hand, with the descriptions of our life +with Louis's adopted brother Ori a Ori? Ori wrote to us, if no one else +did, and I mean to give you a translation of his letter. It begins with +our native names. + + + _Tautira, 26 Dec. 1888._ + +To Teriitera (Louis) and Tapina Tutu (myself) and Aromaiterai (Lloyd) +and Teiriha (Mrs. Stevenson) Salutation in the true Jesus. + +I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, I +was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Tehini, also, and all of my +household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that +I went upon the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you +on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor and hoisted +the sails. When the ship started, I ran along the beach to see you +still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, "farewell +Louis": and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your +voice crying "Rui farewell." Afterwards I watched the ship as long as I +could until the night fell; and when it was dark I said to myself, "if I +had wings I should fly to the ship to meet you, and to sleep amongst +you, so that I might be able to come back to shore and to tell Rui +Tehini, 'I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera.'" After that we passed +that night in the impatience of grief. Towards eight o'clock I seemed to +hear your voice, "Teriitera--Rui--here is the hour for putter and tiro" +(cheese and syrup). I did not sleep that night, thinking continually of +you, my very dear friend, until the morning: being then awake I went to +see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not there. Afterwards I +looked into your rooms; they did not please me as they used to do. I did +not hear your voice crying, "hail Rui." I thought then that you had +gone, and that you had left me. Rising up I went to the beach to see +your ship, and I could not see it. I wept, then, till the night, telling +myself continually, "Teriitera returns into his own country and leaves +his dear Rui in grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep for him." I +will not forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet +you again. It is my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in +this world. It is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be that +your body and my body shall eat together at our table: there is what +would make my heart content. But now we are separated. May God be with +you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well +and we also, according to the words of Paul. + + ORI A ORI; that is to say, RUI. + + +After reading this to me Louis has left in tears saying that he is not +worthy that such a letter should be written to him. We hope to so manage +that we shall stop at Tahiti and see Rui once more. I tell myself that +pleasant story when I wake in the night. + +I find my head swimming so that I cannot write any more. I wish some +rich Catholic would send a parlour organ to Pere Bruno of Tautira. I am +going to try and save money to do it myself, but he may die before I +have enough. I feel ashamed to be sitting here when I think of that old +man who cannot draw because of scrivener's paralysis, who has no one +year in and year out to speak to but natives (our Rui is a Protestant +not bigoted like the rest of them--but still a Protestant) and the only +pastime he has is playing on an old broken parlour organ whose keys are +mostly dumb. I know no more pathetic figure. Have you no rich Catholic +friends who would send him an organ that he could play upon? Of course I +am talking nonsense, and yet I know somewhere that person exists if only +I knew the place. + +Our dearest love to you all. + + FANNY.] + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Honolulu [March 1889]._ + +MY DEAR JAMES,--Yes--I own up--I am untrue to friendship and (what is +less, but still considerable) to civilisation. I am not coming home for +another year. There it is, cold and bald, and now you won't believe in +me at all, and serve me right (says you) and the devil take me. But look +here, and judge me tenderly. I have had more fun and pleasure of my life +these past months than ever before, and more health than any time in ten +long years. And even here in Honolulu I have withered in the cold; and +this precious deep is filled with islands, which we may still visit; and +though the sea is a deathful place, I like to be there, and like +squalls (when they are over); and to draw near to a new island, I cannot +say how much I like. In short, I take another year of this sort of life, +and mean to try to work down among the poisoned arrows, and mean (if it +may be) to come back again when the thing is through, and converse with +Henry James as heretofore; and in the meanwhile issue directions to H. +J. to write to me once more. Let him address here at Honolulu, for my +views are vague; and if it is sent here it will follow and find me, if I +am to be found; and if I am not to be found, the man James will have +done his duty, and we shall be at the bottom of the sea, where no +post-office clerk can be expected to discover us, or languishing on a +coral island, the philosophic drudges of some barbarian potentate: +perchance, of an American Missionary. My wife has just sent to Mrs. +Sitwell a translation (_tant bien que mal_) of a letter I have had from +my chief friend in this part of the world: go and see her, and get a +hearing of it; it will do you good; it is a better method of +correspondence than even Henry James's. I jest, but seriously it is a +strange thing for a tough, sick, middle-aged scrivener like R. L. S. to +receive a letter so conceived from a man fifty years old, a leading +politician, a crack orator, and the great wit of his village: boldly +say, "the highly popular M.P. of Tautira." My nineteenth century strikes +here, and lies alongside of something beautiful and ancient. I think the +receipt of such a letter might humble, shall I say even ----? and for +me, I would rather have received it than written _Redgauntlet_ or the +sixth _AEneid_. All told, if my books have enabled or helped me to make +this voyage, to know Rui, and to have received such a letter, they have +(in the old prefatorial expression) not been writ in vain. It would seem +from this that I have been not so much humbled as puffed up; but, I +assure you, I have in fact been both. A little of what that letter says +is my own earning; not all, but yet a little; and the little makes me +proud, and all the rest ashamed; and in the contrast, how much more +beautiful altogether is the ancient man than him of to-day! + +Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he _is_ of the nineteenth +century, and that glaringly. And to curry favour with him, I wish I +could be more explicit; but, indeed, I am still of necessity extremely +vague, and cannot tell what I am to do, nor where I am to go for some +while yet. As soon as I am sure, you shall hear. All are fairly +well--the wife, your countrywoman, least of all; troubles are not +entirely wanting; but on the whole we prosper, and we are all +affectionately yours, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Honolulu, April 2nd, 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am beginning to be ashamed of writing on to you +without the least acknowledgment, like a tramp; but I do not care--I am +hardened; and whatever be the cause of your silence, I mean to write +till all is blue. I am outright ashamed of my news, which is that we are +not coming home for another year. I cannot but hope it may continue the +vast improvement of my health: I think it good for Fanny and Lloyd; and +we have all a taste for this wandering and dangerous life. My mother I +send home, to my relief, as this part of our cruise will be (if we can +carry it out) rather difficult in places. Here is the idea: about the +middle of June (unless the Boston Board objects) we sail from Honolulu +in the missionary ship (barquentine auxiliary steamer) _Morning Star_: +she takes us through the Gilberts and Marshalls, and drops us (this is +my great idea) on Ponape, one of the volcanic islands of the Carolines. +Here we stay marooned among a doubtful population, with a Spanish +vice-governor and five native kings, and a sprinkling of missionaries +all at loggerheads, on the chance of fetching a passage to Sydney in a +trader, a labour ship or (maybe, but this appears too bright) a ship of +war. If we can't get the _Morning Star_ (and the Board has many reasons +that I can see for refusing its permission) I mean to try to fetch Fiji, +hire a schooner there, do the Fijis and Friendlies, hit the course of +the _Richmond_ at Tonga Tabu, make back by Tahiti, and so to S. F., and +home: perhaps in June 1890. For the latter part of the cruise will +likely be the same in either case. You can see for yourself how much +variety and adventure this promises, and that it is not devoid of danger +at the best; but if we can pull it off in safety, gives me a fine book +of travel, and Lloyd a fine lecture and diorama, which should vastly +better our finances. + +I feel as if I were untrue to friendship; believe me, Colvin, when I +look forward to this absence of another year, my conscience sinks at +thought of the Monument; but I think you will pardon me if you consider +how much this tropical weather mends my health. Remember me as I was at +home, and think of me sea-bathing and walking about, as jolly as a +sandboy: you will own the temptation is strong; and as the scheme, bar +fatal accidents, is bound to pay into the bargain, sooner or later, it +seems it would be madness to come home now, with an imperfect book, no +illustrations to speak of, no diorama, and perhaps fall sick again by +autumn. I do not think I delude myself when I say the tendency to +catarrh has visibly diminished. + +It is a singular thing that as I was packing up old papers ere I left +Skerryvore, I came on the prophecies of a drunken Highland sibyl, when I +was seventeen. She said I was to be very happy, to visit America, and +_to be much upon the sea_. It seems as if it were coming true with a +vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong, old, rooted belief that I +shall die by drowning? I don't want that to come true, though it is an +easy death; but it occurs to me oddly, with these long chances in front. +I cannot say why I like the sea; no man is more cynically and +constantly alive to its perils; I regard it as the highest form of +gambling; and yet I love the sea as much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean +emotions; a world all and always beautiful; air better than wine; +interest unflagging; there is upon the whole no better life.--Yours +ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + [_Honolulu, April 1889._] + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--This is to announce the most prodigious change of +programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I desire to see +more, and I get so much health here that I dread a return to our vile +climates. I have applied accordingly to the missionary folk to let me go +round in the _Morning Star_; and if the Boston Board should refuse, I +shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a trading schooner, and see the Fijis +and Friendlies and Samoa. He would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. Of +course, if I go in the _Morning Star_, I see all the eastern (or +western?) islands. + +Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last of _The +Master_: though I tell you it sticks!--and I hope to have had some +proofs forbye, of the verses anyway. And now to business. + +I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if not, +in some equally compact and portable shape--Seaside Library, for +instance--the Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can get 'em, +and the following of Marryat: _Phantom Ship_, _Peter Simple_, _Percival +Keene_, _Privateersman_, _Children of the New Forest_, _Frank Mildmay_, +_Newton Forster_, _Dog Fiend (Snarleyyow)_. Also _Midshipman Easy_, +_Kingsburn_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Motley's _Dutch Republic_, +Lang's _Letters on Literature_, a complete set of my works, _Jenkin_, in +duplicate; also _Familiar Studies_, ditto. + +I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory indeed, and +for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have come and gone before +I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite +worked out, and this cursed end of _The Master_ hangs over me like the +arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before dawn, and no doubt +the clouds will soon rise; but it is a difficult thing to write, above +all in Mackellarese; and I cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this +off, _The Master_ will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived; +and even if I don't pull if off, it'll still have some stuff in it. + +We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother +leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to come +here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address, which will +probably be Sydney. If we get on the _Morning Star_, I propose at +present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of getting a +passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons mighty vague, and +the cruise is risky; but I shall know something of the South Seas when +it is done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. It +should give me a fine book of travels, anyway. + +Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him have +them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my books should go +to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht _Casco_, Oakland, +Cal.--In haste, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + _Honolulu, April 6th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--Nobody writes a better letter than my Gamekeeper: +so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular, answering (by some +delicate instinct) all the questions she suggests. It is a shame you +should get such a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially and +originally incapable of the art epistolary. I would let the +paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden +seaman did after the manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies. +The place he seems to have stayed at--seems, for his absence was not +observed till we were near the Equator--was Tautira, and, I assure you, +he displayed good taste, Tautira being as "nigh hand heaven" as a +paper-cutter or anybody has a right to expect. + +I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and I give the +grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly--we are not coming home +for another year. My mother returns next month. Fanny, Lloyd, and I push +on again among the islands on a trading schooner, the _Equator_--first +for the Gilbert group, which we shall have an opportunity to explore +thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to the Marshalls and Carolines; and +if occasion (or money) fail, to Samoa, and back to Tahiti. I own we are +deserters, but we have excuses. You cannot conceive how these climates +agree with the wretched house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find +himself sea-bathing, and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up +person. They agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her +rheumatism, and with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is +endless; and the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very +delightful. We had applied for places in the American missionary ship, +the _Morning Star_, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea, +giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we determined to +cut off the missionaries with a shilling. + +The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; we live here, +oppressed with civilisation, and look for good things in the future. But +it would surprise you if you came out to-night from Honolulu (all +shining with electric lights, and all in a bustle from the arrival of +the mail, which is to carry you these lines) and crossed the long wooden +causeway along the beach, and came out on the road through Kapiolani +park, and seeing a gate in the palings, with a tub of gold-fish by the +wayside, entered casually in. The buildings stand in three groups by +the edge of the beach, where an angry little spitfire sea continually +spirts and thrashes with impotent irascibility, the big seas breaking +further out upon the reef. The first is a small house, with a very large +summer parlour, or _lanai_, as they call it here, roofed, but +practically open. There you will find the lamps burning and the family +sitting about the table, dinner just done: my mother, my wife, Lloyd, +Belle, my wife's daughter, Austin her child, and to-night (by way of +rarity) a guest. All about the walls our South Sea curiosities, war +clubs, idols, pearl shells, stone axes, etc.; and the walls are only a +small part of a lanai, the rest being glazed or latticed windows, or +mere open space. You will see there no sign of the Squire, however; and +being a person of a humane disposition, you will only glance in over the +balcony railing at the merrymakers in the summer parlour, and proceed +further afield after the Exile. You look round, there is beautiful green +turf, many trees of an outlandish sort that drop thorns--look out if +your feet are bare; but I beg your pardon, you have not been long enough +in the South Seas--and many oleanders in full flower. The next group of +buildings is ramshackle, and quite dark; you make out a coach-house +door, and look in--only some cocoanuts; you try round to the left and +come to the sea front, where Venus and the moon are making luminous +tracks on the water, and a great swell rolls and shines on the outer +reef; and here is another door--all these places open from the +outside--and you go in, and find photography, tubs of water, negatives +steeping, a tap, and a chair and an ink-bottle, where my wife is +supposed to write; round a little further, a third door, entering which +you find a picture upon the easel and a table sticky with paints; a +fourth door admits you to a sort of court, where there is a hen +sitting--I believe on a fallacious egg. No sign of the Squire in all +this. But right opposite the studio door you have observed a third +little house, from whose open door lamp-light streams and makes hay of +the strong moonlight shadows. You had supposed it made no part of the +grounds, for a fence runs round it lined with oleander; but as the +Squire is nowhere else, is it not just possible he may be here? It is a +grim little wooden shanty; cobwebs bedeck it; friendly mice inhabit its +recesses; the mailed cockroach walks upon the wall; so also, I regret to +say, the scorpion. Herein are two pallet beds, two mosquito curtains, +strung to the pitch-boards of the roof, two tables laden with books and +manuscripts, three chairs, and, in one of the beds, the Squire busy +writing to yourself, as it chances, and just at this moment somewhat +bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect powder, and +will be all right in no time; but just now he contemplates large white +blisters, and would like to scratch them, but knows better. The house is +not bare; it has been inhabited by Kanakas, and--you know what children +are!--the bare wood walls are pasted over with pages from the _Graphic_, +_Harper's Weekly_, etc. The floor is matted, and I am bound to say the +matting is filthy. There are two windows and two doors, one of which is +condemned; on the panels of that last a sheet of paper is pinned up, and +covered with writing. I cull a few plums:-- + + "A duck-hammock for each person. + A patent organ like the commandant's at Taiohae. + Cheap and bad cigars for presents. + Revolvers. + Permanganate of potass. + Liniment for the head and sulphur. + Fine tooth-comb." + +What do you think this is? Simply life in the South Seas foreshortened. +These are a few of our desiderata for the next trip, which we jot down +as they occur. + +There, I have really done my best and tried to send something like a +letter--one letter in return for all your dozens. Pray remember us all +to yourself, Mrs. Boodle, and the rest of your house. I do hope your +mother will be better when this comes. I shall write and give you a new +address when I have made up my mind as to the most probable, and I do +beg you will continue to write from time to time and give us airs from +home. To-morrow--think of it--I must be off by a quarter to eight to +drive in to the palace and breakfast with his Hawaiian Majesty at 8.30: +I shall be dead indeed. Please give my news to Scott, I trust he is +better; give him my warm regards. To you we all send all kinds of +things, and I am the absentee Squire, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + _Honolulu, April 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--As usual, your letter is as good as a cordial, and I +thank you for it, and all your care, kindness, and generous and +thoughtful friendship, from my heart. I was truly glad to hear a word of +Colvin, whose long silence has terrified me; and glad to hear that you +condoned the notion of my staying longer in the South Seas, for I have +decided in that sense. The first idea was to go in the _Morning Star_, +missionary ship; but now I have found a trading schooner, the _Equator_, +which is to call for me here early in June and carry us through the +Gilberts. What will happen then, the Lord knows. My mother does not +accompany us: she leaves here for home early in May, and you will hear +of us from her; but not, I imagine, anything more definite. We shall get +dumped on Butaritari, and whether we manage to go on to the Marshalls +and Carolines, or whether we fall back on Samoa, Heaven must decide; but +I mean to fetch back into the course of the _Richmond_--(to think you +don't know what the _Richmond_ is!--_the_ steamer of the Eastern South +Seas, joining New Zealand, Tongatabu, the Samoas, Taheite, and +Rarotonga, and carrying by last advices sheep in the saloon!)--into the +course of the _Richmond_ and make Tahiti again on the home track. Would +I like to see the Scots Observer? Wouldn't I not? But whaur? I'm +direckit at space. They have nae post offishes at the Gilberts, and as +for the Car'lines! Ye see, Mr. Baxter, we're no just in the punkshewal +_centre_ o' civ'lisation. But pile them up for me, and when I've decided +on an address, I'll let you ken, and ye'll can send them stavin' after +me.--Ever your affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + The reference in the first paragraph is to the publication in the + press, which Mr. Baxter had permitted, of one of Stevenson's letters + written during the earlier part of his voyage. R. L. S. had + remonstrated, always greatly disliking the publication of private + letters during the writer's lifetime; and now writes to soften the + effect of his remonstrance. + + _Honolulu, 10th May 1889._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am appalled to gather from your last just to hand +that you have felt so much concern about the letter. Pray dismiss it +from your mind. But I think you scarce appreciate how disagreeable it is +to have your private affairs and private unguarded expressions getting +into print. It would soon sicken any one of writing letters. I have no +doubt that letter was very wisely selected, but it just shows how things +crop up. There was a raging jealousy between the two yachts; our captain +was nearly in a fight over it. However, no more; and whatever you think, +my dear fellow, do not suppose me angry with you or ----; although I was +_annoyed at the circumstance_--a very different thing. But it is +difficult to conduct life by letter, and I continually feel I may be +drifting into some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no part. + +I must now turn to a point of business. This new cruise of ours is +somewhat venturesome; and I think it needful to warn you not to be in a +hurry to suppose us dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is quite on the +cards we might be cast on some unvisited, or very rarely visited, +island; that there we might lie for a long time, even years, unheard of; +and yet turn up smiling at the hinder end. So do not let me be "rowpit" +till you get some certainty we have gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or +graced the feast of some barbarian in the character of Long Pig. + +I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only +white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day, +living with a native, seeing four lepers shipped off to Molokai, hearing +native causes, and giving my opinion as _amicus curiae_ as to the +interpretation of a statute in English; a lovely week among God's +best--at least God's sweetest works--Polynesians. It has bettered me +greatly. If I could only stay there the time that remains, I could get +my work done and be happy; but the care of my family keeps me in vile +Honolulu, where I am always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and +cesspools and beastly _haoles_.[31] What is a haole? You are one; and +so, I am sorry to say, am I. After so long a dose of whites, it was a +blessing to get among Polynesians again even for a week. + +Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel', I'll say that for +ye; and trust before I sail I shall get another letter with more about +yourself.--Ever your affectionate friend, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO W. H. LOW + + + The allusions in the latter half of this letter are to the departure + for Europe of the young Hawaiian princess Kaiulani (see the poem + beginning "When from her land to mine she goes," in _Songs of + Travel_), and to the circumstances of the great hurricane at Apia on + March 15th, 1889. + + _Honolulu, (about) 20th May '89._ + +MY DEAR LOW,-- ... The goods have come; many daughters have done +virtuously, but thou excellest them all.--I have at length finished +_The Master_; it has been a sore cross to me; but now he is buried, his +body's under hatches,--his soul, if there is any hell to go to, gone to +hell; and I forgive him: it is harder to forgive Burlingame for having +induced me to begin the publication, or myself for suffering the +induction.--Yes, I think Hole has done finely; it will be one of the +most adequately illustrated books of our generation; he gets the note, +he tells the story--_my_ story: I know only one failure--the Master +standing on the beach.--You must have a letter for me at Sydney--till +further notice. Remember me to Mrs. Will. H., the godlike sculptor, and +any of the faithful. If you want to cease to be a republican, see my +little Kaiulani, as she goes through--but she is gone already. You will +die a red: I wear the colours of that little royal maiden, _Nous allons +chanter a la ronde, si vous voulez!_ only she is not blonde by several +chalks, though she is but a half-blood, and the wrong half Edinburgh +Scots like mysel'. But, O Low, I love the Polynesian: this civilisation +of ours is a dingy, ungentlemanly business; it drops out too much of +man, and too much of that the very beauty of the poor beast: who has his +beauties in spite of Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with +no news: I am a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt Zola is a better +correspondent.--Long live your fine old English admiral--yours, I +mean--the U.S.A. one at Samoa; I wept tears and loved myself and mankind +when I read of him: he is not too much civilised. And there was Gordon, +too; and there are others, beyond question. But if you could live, the +only white folk, in a Polynesian village; and drink that warm, light +_vin du pays_ of human affection and enjoy that simple dignity of all +about you--I will not gush, for I am now in my fortieth year, which +seems highly unjust, but there it is, Mr. Low, and the Lord enlighten +your affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + This letter shows the writer in her character of wise and anxious + critic of her husband's work. The result, in the judgment of most of + his friends, went far to justify her misgivings. + + _Honolulu, May 21st, 1889._ + +BEST OF FRIENDS,--It was a joy inexpressible to get a word from you at +last. Fortunately for our peace of mind, we were almost positive that +your letters had been sent to the places we had already left. Still it +was a bitter disappointment to get nothing from you when we arrived +here. I wish you could have seen us both throwing over the immense +package of letters searching for your handwriting. Now that we know you +have been ill, please do let some one send us a line to our next address +telling us how you are. What that next address may be we do not yet +know, as our final movements are a little uncertain. To begin with, a +trading schooner, the _Equator_, will come along some time in the first +part of June, lie outside the harbour here and signal to us. Within +forty-eight hours we shall pack up our possessions, our barrel of sauer +kraut, our barrel of salt onions, our bag of cocoanuts, our native +garments, our tobacco, fish hooks, red combs, and Turkey red calicoes +(all the latter for trading purposes), our hand organ, photograph and +painting materials, and finally our magic lantern--all these upon a +large whaleboat, and go out to the _Equator_. Lloyd, also, takes a +fiddle, a guitar, a native instrument something like a banjo, called a +taropatch fiddle, and a lot of song books. We shall be carried first to +one of the Gilberts, landing at Butaritari. The _Equator_ is going about +amongst the Gilbert group, and we have the right to keep her over when +we like within reasonable limits. Finally she will leave us, and we +shall have to take the chances of what happens next. We hope to see the +Marshalls, the Carolines, the Fijis, Tonga and Samoa (also other islands +that I do not remember), perhaps staying a little while in Sydney, and +stopping on our way home to see our friends in Tahiti and the Marquesas. +I am very much exercised by one thing. Louis has the most enchanting +material that any one ever had in the whole world for his book, and I am +afraid he is going to spoil it all. He has taken into his Scotch +Stevenson head that a stern duty lies before him, and that his book must +be a sort of scientific and historical impersonal thing, comparing the +different languages (of which he knows nothing, really) and the +different peoples, the object being to settle the question as to whether +they are of common Malay origin or not. Also to compare the Protestant +and Catholic missions, etc., and the whole thing to be impersonal, +leaving out all he knows of the people themselves. And I believe there +is no one living who has got so near to them, or who understands them as +he does. Think of a small treatise on the Polynesian races being offered +to people who are dying to hear about Ori a Ori, the making of brothers +with cannibals, the strange stories they told, and the extraordinary +adventures that befell us:--suppose Herman Melville had given us his +theories as to the Polynesian language and the probable good or evil +results of the missionary influence instead of _Omoo_ and _Typee_, or +Kinglake[32] instead of _Eothen_. Louis says it is a stern sense of duty +that is at the bottom of it, which is more alarming than anything else. +I am so sure that you will agree with me that I am going to ask you to +throw the weight of your influence as heavily as possible in the scales +with me. Please refer to the matter in the letters we shall receive at +our first stopping place, otherwise Louis will spend a great deal of +time in Sydney actually reading up other people's books on the Islands. +What a thing it is to have a "man of genius" to deal with. It is like +managing an overbred horse. Why with my own feeble hand I could write a +book that the whole world would jump at. Please keep any letters of mine +that contain any incidents of our wanderings. They are very exact as to +facts, and Louis may, in this conscientious state of mind (indeed I am +afraid he has), put nothing in his diary but statistics. Even if I +thought it a desirable thing to write what he proposes, I should still +think it impossible unless after we had lived and studied here some +twenty years or more. + +Now I am done with my complaining, and shall turn to the pleasanter +paths. Louis went to one of the other islands a couple of weeks ago, +quite alone, got drenched with rain and surf, rode over mountain +paths--five and a half hours one day--and came back none the worse for +it. To-day he goes to Molokai, the leper island. He never has a sign of +hemorrhage, the air cushion is a thing of the past, and altogether he is +a new man. How he will do in the English climate again I do not know, +but in these latitudes he is very nearly a well man, nothing seems to do +him harm but overwork. That, of course, is sometimes difficult to +prevent. Now, however, the _Master_ is done, we have enough money to go +upon and there is no need to work at all. I must stop. My dear love to +you all. + + FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON.] + + + + +TO MRS. R. L. STEVENSON + + + The following two letters were written during and immediately after + Stevenson's trip to the noted leper settlement, the scene of Father + Damien's labours, at Molokai. + + _Kalawao, Molokai [May 1889]._ + +DEAR FANNY,--I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron and Mr. Gilfillan, +both born in the States, yet the first still with a strong Highland, and +the second still with a strong Lowland accent, were good company; the +night was warm, the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gilfillan gave me his +berth, and I slept well, though I heard the sisters sick in the next +stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling woke me in the morning; I turned +in all standing, so went right on the upper deck. The day was on the +peep out of a low morning bank, and we were wallowing along under +stupendous cliffs. As the lights brightened, we could see certain +abutments and buttresses on their front where wood clustered and grass +grew brightly. But the whole brow seemed quite impassable, and my heart +sank at the sight. Two thousand feet of rock making 19 deg. (the Captain +guesses) seemed quite beyond my powers. However, I had come so far; and, +to tell you the truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that I dared +not go back on the adventure in the interests of my own self-respect. +Presently we came up with the leper promontory: lowland, quite bare and +bleak and harsh, a little town of wooden houses, two churches, a +landing-stair, all unsightly, sour, northerly, lying athwart the +sunrise, with the great wall of the pali cutting the world out on the +south. Our lepers were sent on the first boat, about a dozen, one poor +child very horrid, one white man, leaving a large grown family behind +him in Honolulu, and then into the second stepped the sisters and +myself. I do not know how it would have been with me had the sisters not +been there. My horror of the horrible is about my weakest point; but the +moral loveliness at my elbow blotted all else out; and when I found that +one of them was crying, poor soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a +little myself; then I felt as right as a trivet, only a little crushed +to be there so uselessly. I thought it was a sin and a shame she should +feel unhappy; I turned round to her, and said something like this: +"Ladies, God Himself is here to give you welcome. I'm sure it is good +for me to be beside you; I hope it will be blessed to me; I thank you +for myself and the good you do me." It seemed to cheer her up; but +indeed I had scarce said it when we were at the landing-stairs, and +there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God save us!) pantomime masks in +poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters and the new patients. + +Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made up my mind on the +boat's voyage _not_ to give my hand; that seemed less offensive than the +gloves. So the sisters and I went up among that crew, and presently I +got aside (for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot +across the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. All horror was +quite gone from me: to see these dread creatures smile and look happy +was beautiful. On my way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful +_alohas_ with the patients coming galloping over on their horses; I was +stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was happy, only ashamed of myself +that I was here for no good. One woman was pretty, and spoke good +English, and was infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly; +she thought I was the new white patient; and when she found I was only a +visitor, a curious change came in her face and voice--the only sad +thing, morally sad, I mean--that I met that morning. But for all that, +they tell me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses became +rare; dry stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick pandanus; a dreary +country; from overhead in the little clinging wood shogs of the pali +chirruping of birds fell; the low sun was right in my face; the trade +blew pure and cool and delicious; I felt as right as ninepence, and +stopped and chatted with the patients whom I still met on their horses, +with not the least disgust. About half-way over, I met the +superintendent (a leper) with a horse for me, and O, wasn't I glad! But +the horse was one of those curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always +dully want to go somewhere else, and my traffic with him completed my +crushing fatigue. I got to the guest-house, an empty house with several +rooms, kitchen, bath, etc. There was no one there, and I let the horse +go loose in the garden, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep. + +Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came back and slept +again while he was at the dispensary, and he woke me for dinner; and I +came back and slept again, and he woke me about six for supper; and +then in about an hour I felt tired again, and came up to my solitary +guest-house, played the flageolet, and am now writing to you. As yet, +you see, I have seen nothing of the settlement, and my crushing fatigue +(though I believe that was moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the +doctor's opinion make me think the pali hopeless. "You don't look a +strong man," said the doctor; "but are you sound?" I told him the truth; +then he said it was out of the question, and if I were to get up at all, +I must be carried up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses +continually fall on this ascent: the doctor goes up with a change of +clothes--it is plain that to be carried would in itself be very +fatiguing to both mind and body; and I should then be at the beginning +of thirteen miles of mountain road to be ridden against time. How should +I come through? I hope you will think me right in my decision: I mean to +stay, and shall not be back in Honolulu till Saturday, June first. You +must all do the best you can to make ready. + +Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to toddle and run, and +they live here as composed as brick and mortar--at least the wife does, +a Kentucky German, a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite +amazed at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! Gilfillan +too, a good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, kept up his hard +Lowland Scottish talk in the boat while the sister was covering her +face; but I believe he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and +part perhaps in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, why I +made my speech to them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed to +do so, and remembered one of my golden rules, "When you are ashamed to +speak, speak up at once." But, mind you, that rule is only golden with +strangers; with your own folks, there are other considerations. This is +a strange place to be in. A bell has been sounded at intervals while I +wrote, now all is still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike +the sound of telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch dark, +with a small fine rain; one light over in the leper settlement, one +cricket whistling in the garden, my lamp here by my bedside, and my pen +cheeping between my inky fingers. + +Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80 deg. in the shade, strong, +sweet Anaho trade-wind. + + LOUIS. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + _Honolulu, June 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am just home after twelve days' journey to Molokai, +seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only say that the +sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high +to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. I used to ride over +from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three miles across the promontory, the +cliff-wall, ivied with forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my +left), go to the Sisters' home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a +game of croquet with seven leper girls (90 deg. in the shade), got a little +old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired +enough, but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing +them. You who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who know so +many dressmakers, please make it known it would be an acceptable gift to +send scraps for doll dressmaking to the Reverend Sister Maryanne, Bishop +Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaiian Islands. + +I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard stories that cannot be +repeated: yet I never admired my poor race so much, nor (strange as it +may seem) loved life more than in the settlement. A horror of moral +beauty broods over the place: that's like bad Victor Hugo, but it is the +only way I can express the sense that lived with me all these days. And +this even though it was in great part Catholic, and my sympathies flow +never with so much difficulty as towards Catholic virtues. The passbook +kept with heaven stirs me to anger and laughter. One of the sisters +calls the place "the ticket office to heaven." Well, what is the odds? +They do their darg, and do it with kindness and efficiency incredible; +and we must take folks' virtues as we find them, and love the better +part. Of old Damien, whose weaknesses and worse perhaps I heard fully, I +think only the more. It was a European peasant: dirty, bigoted, +untruthful, unwise, tricky, but superb with generosity, residual candour +and fundamental good-humour: convince him he had done wrong (it might +take hours of insult) and he would undo what he had done and like his +corrector better. A man, with all the grime and paltriness of mankind, +but a saint and hero all the more for that. The place as regards scenery +is grand, gloomy, and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer +along the whole face of the island into a sea unusually deep; the front +of the mountain ivied and furred with clinging forest, one viridescent +cliff: about half-way from east to west, the low, bare, stony promontory +edged in between the cliff and the ocean; the two little towns (Kalawao +and Kalaupapa) seated on either side of it, as bare almost as bathing +machines upon a beach; and the population--gorgons and chimaeras dire. +All this tear of the nerves I bore admirably; and the day after I got +away, rode twenty miles along the opposite coast and up into the +mountains: they call it twenty, I am doubtful of the figures: I should +guess it nearer twelve; but let me take credit for what residents +allege; and I was riding again the day after, so I need say no more +about health. Honolulu does not agree with me at all: I am always out of +sorts there, with slight headache, blood to the head, etc. I had a good +deal of work to do and did it with miserable difficulty; and yet all the +time I have been gaining strength, as you see, which is highly +encouraging. By the time I am done with this cruise I shall have the +material for a very singular book of travels: names of strange stories +and characters, cannibals, pirates, ancient legends, old Polynesian +poetry,--never was so generous a farrago. I am going down now to get the +story of a shipwrecked family, who were fifteen months on an island with +a murderer: there is a specimen. The Pacific is a strange place; the +nineteenth century only exists there in spots: all round, it is a no +man's land of the ages, a stir-about of epochs and races, barbarisms and +civilisations, virtues and crimes. + +It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had known how ill you +were, I should be now on my way home. I had chartered my schooner and +made all arrangements before (at last) we got definite news. I feel +highly guilty; I should be back to insult and worry you a little. Our +address till further notice is to be c/o R. Towns & Co., Sydney. That is +final: I only got the arrangement made yesterday; but you may now +publish it abroad.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JAMES PAYN + + + The following was written to his old friend of Cornhill Magazine + days, Mr. James Payn, on receiving in Hawaii news of that gentleman's + ill health and gathering deafness. + + _Honolulu, H.I., June 13th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I get sad news of you here at my offsetting for +further voyages: I wish I could say what I feel. Sure there was never +any man less deserved this calamity; for I have heard you speak time and +again, and I remember nothing that was unkind, nothing that was untrue, +nothing that was not helpful, from your lips. It is the ill-talkers that +should hear no more. God knows, I know no word of consolation; but I do +feel your trouble. You are the more open to letters now; let me talk to +you for two pages. I have nothing but happiness to tell; and you may +bless God you are a man so sound-hearted that (even in the freshness of +your calamity) I can come to you with my own good fortune unashamed and +secure of sympathy. It is a good thing to be a good man, whether deaf or +whether dumb; and of all our fellow-craftsmen (whom yet they count a +jealous race), I never knew one but gave you the name of honesty and +kindness: come to think of it gravely, this is better than the finest +hearing. We are all on the march to deafness, blindness, and all +conceivable and fatal disabilities; we shall not all get there with a +report so good. My good news is a health astonishingly reinstated. This +climate; these voyagings; these landfalls at dawn; new islands peaking +from the morning bank; new forested harbours; new passing alarms of +squalls and surf; new interests of gentle natives,--the whole tale of my +life is better to me than any poem. + +I am fresh just now from the leper settlement of Molokai, playing +croquet with seven leper girls, sitting and yarning with old, blind, +leper beachcombers in the hospital, sickened with the spectacle of +abhorrent suffering and deformation amongst the patients, touched to the +heart by the sight of lovely and effective virtues in their helpers: no +stranger time have I ever had, nor any so moving. I do not think it a +little thing to be deaf, God knows, and God defend me from the +same!--but to be a leper, or one of the self-condemned, how much more +awful! and yet there's a way there also. "There are Molokais +everywhere," said Mr. Dutton, Father Damien's dresser; you are but new +landed in yours; and my dear and kind adviser, I wish you, with all my +soul, that patience and courage which you will require. Think of me +meanwhile on a trading schooner bound for the Gilbert Islands, +thereafter for the Marshalls, with a diet of fish and cocoanut before +me; bound on a cruise of--well, of investigation to what islands we can +reach, and to get (some day or other) to Sydney, where a letter +addressed to the care of R. Towns & Co. will find me sooner or later; +and if it contain any good news, whether of your welfare or the courage +with which you bear the contrary, will do me good.--Yours affectionately +(although so near a stranger), + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + _Honolulu, June 19th, 1889._ + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--Our new home, the _Equator_, trading schooner, +rides at the buoy to-night, and we are for sea shortly. All your folk of +the Roost held us for phantoms and things of the night from our first +appearance; but I do wish you would try to believe in our continued +existence, as flesh and blood obscurely tossed in the Pacific, or +walking coral shores, and in our affection, which is more constant than +becomes the breasts of such absconders. My good health does not cease to +be wonderful to myself: Fanny is better in these warm places; it is the +very thing for Lloyd; and in the matter of interest, the spice of life, +etc., words cannot depict what fun we have. Try to have a little more +patience with the fugitives, and think of us now and again among the +Gilberts, where we ought to be about the time when you receive this +scrap. They make no great figure on the atlas, I confess; but you will +see the name there, if you look--which I wish you would, and try to +conceive us as still extant. We all send the kindest remembrances to all +of you; please make one of the girls write us the news to the care of R. +Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, where we hope to bring up about +the end of the year--or later. Do not forget yours affectionately, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + Stevenson and his party sailed accordingly on the trading schooner + _Equator_, "on a certain bright June day in 1889," for the Gilbert + Islands, a scattered group of atolls in the Western Pacific. Their + expectation was to come back into civilisation again by way of the + Carolines, Manila, and the China ports; but instead of this, + circumstances which occurred to change the trader's course took them + southwards to Samoa, where they arrived in December of the same year. + Their second voyage was thus of six months' duration; in the course + of it they spent two periods of about six weeks each on land, first + at one and then at another of the two island capitals, Butaritari and + Apemama. The following letter is the first which reached Stevenson's + friends from this part of his voyage, and was written in two + instalments, the first from on board the _Equator_ in the lagoon of + the island of Apaiang; the second, six weeks later, from the + settlement on shore at Apemama, which the king, his friend Temhinoka, + allowed him and his party to occupy during their stay. The account of + this stay at Apemama and of the character of the king is far the most + interesting and attractive part of the volume called _In the South + Seas_, which was the literary result of these voyages. + + _Schooner Equator, Apaiang Lagoon, August 22nd, 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--The missionary ship is outside the reef trying (vainly) +to get in; so I may have a chance to get a line off. I am glad to say I +shall be home by June next for the summer, or we shall know the reason +why. For God's sake be well and jolly for the meeting. I shall be, I +believe, a different character from what you have seen this long while. +This cruise is up to now a huge success, being interesting, pleasant, +and profitable. The beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting +character here; the natives are very different, on the whole, from +Polynesians: they are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), and +protected by a dark tongue. It is delightful to meet the few Hawaiians +(mostly missionaries) that are dotted about, with their Italian _brio_ +and their ready friendliness. The whites are a strange lot, many of them +good, kind, pleasant fellows; others quite the lowest I have ever seen +even in the slums of cities. I wish I had time to narrate to you the +doings and character of three white murderers (more or less proven) I +have met. One, the only undoubted assassin of the lot, quite gained my +affection in his big home out of a wreck, with his New Hebrides wife in +her savage turban of hair and yet a perfect lady, and his three +adorable little girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand +organ, performing circus on the floor with startling effects of nudity, +and curling up together on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, +three Rob Roy dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer +meanwhile brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart +went out to him; and yet his crime on the face of it was dark: +disembowelling, in his own house, an old man of seventy, and him drunk. + +It is lunch-time, I see, and I must close up with my warmest love to +you. I wish you were here to sit upon me when required. Ah! if you were +but a good sailor! I will never leave the sea, I think; it is only there +that a Briton lives: my poor grandfather, it is from him I inherit the +taste, I fancy, and he was round many islands in his day; but I, please +God, shall beat him at that before the recall is sounded. Would you be +surprised to learn that I contemplate becoming a shipowner? I do, but it +is a secret. Life is far better fun than people dream who fall asleep +among the chimney stacks and telegraph wires. + +Love to Henry James and others near.--Ever yours, my dear fellow, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + _Equator Town, Apemama, October 1889._ + +No _Morning Star_ came, however; and so now I try to send this to you by +the schooner _J. L. Tiernan_. We have been about a month ashore, camping +out in a kind of town the king set up for us: on the idea that I was +really a "big chief" in England. He dines with us sometimes, and sends +up a cook for a share of our meals when he does not come himself. This +sounds like high living! alas, undeceive yourself. Salt junk is the +mainstay; a low island, except for cocoanuts, is just the same as a ship +at sea: brackish water, no supplies, and very little shelter. The king +is a great character--a thorough tyrant, very much of a gentleman, a +poet, a musician, a historian, or perhaps rather more a genealogist--it +is strange to see him lying in his house among a lot of wives (nominal +wives) writing the History of Apemama in an account-book; his +description of one of his own songs, which he sang to me himself, as +"about sweethearts, and trees, and the sea--and no true, all-the-same +lie," seems about as compendious a definition of lyric poetry as a man +could ask. Tembinoka is here the great attraction: all the rest is heat +and tedium and villainous dazzle, and yet more villainous mosquitoes. We +are like to be here, however, many a long week before we get away, and +then whither? A strange trade this voyaging: so vague, so bound-down, so +helpless. Fanny has been planting some vegetables, and we have actually +onions and radishes coming up: ah, onion-despiser, were you but a while +in a low island, how your heart would leap at sight of a coster's +barrow! I think I could shed tears over a dish of turnips. No doubt we +shall all be glad to say farewell to low islands--I had near said for +ever. They are very tame; and I begin to read up the directory, and pine +for an island with a profile, a running brook, or were it only a well +among the rocks. The thought of a mango came to me early this morning +and set my greed on edge; but you do not know what a mango is, so----. + +I have been thinking a great deal of you and the Monument of late, and +even tried to get my thoughts into a poem, hitherto without success. God +knows how you are: I begin to weary dreadfully to see you--well, in nine +months, I hope; but that seems a long time. I wonder what has befallen +me too, that flimsy part of me that lives (or dwindles) in the public +mind; and what has befallen _The Master_, and what kind of a Box the +Merry Box has been found. It is odd to know nothing of all this. We had +an old woman to do devil-work for you about a month ago, in a Chinaman's +house on Apaiang (August 23rd or 24th), You should have seen the crone +with a noble masculine face, like that of an old crone [_sic_], a body +like a man's (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting +cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain +of the _Equator_, and the Chinaman and his native wife and +sister-in-law, all squatting on the floor about the sibyl; and a crowd +of dark faces watching from behind her shoulder (she sat right in the +doorway) and tittering aloud with strange, appalled, embarrassed +laughter at each fresh adjuration. She informed us you were in England, +not travelling and now no longer sick; she promised us a fair wind the +next day, and we had it, so I cherish the hope she was as right about +Sidney Colvin. The shipownering has rather petered out since I last +wrote, and a good many other plans beside. + +Health? Fanny very so-so; I pretty right upon the whole, and getting +through plenty work: I know not quite how, but it seems to me not bad +and in places funny. + +South Sea Yarns: + + 1. _The Wrecker_ } R. L. S. + 2. _The Pearl Fisher_ } by and + 3. _The Beachcombers_ } Lloyd O. + +_The Pearl Fisher_, part done, lies in Sydney. It is _The Wrecker_ we +are now engaged upon: strange ways of life, I think, they set forth: +things that I can scarce touch upon, or even not at all, in my travel +book; and the yarns are good, I do believe. _The Pearl Fisher_ is for +the New York Ledger: the yarn is a kind of Monte Cristo one. _The +Wrecker_ is the least good as a story, I think; but the characters seem +to me good. _The Beachcombers_ is more sentimental. These three scarce +touch the out-skirts of the life we have been viewing; a hot-bed of +strange characters and incidents: Lord, how different from Europe or the +Pallid States! Farewell. Heaven knows when this will get to you. I burn +to be in Sydney and have news. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + The following, written in the last days of the sail southwards from + the Gilberts to Samoa, contains the full plan of the South Sea book + as it had now been conceived. In the issue, Part I. (so far as I + know) was never written; Parts II. and III. appeared serially in the + New York Sun, and were reprinted with corrections in the volume + called _In the South Seas_; Part IV. was never written; Part V. was + written but has not been printed, at least in this country; Part VI. + (and far the most successful) closes the volume _In the South Seas_; + Part VII. developed itself into _A Footnote to History_. The verses + at the end of this letter have already been printed (_Songs of + Travel_, vol. xiv., p. 244); but I give them here with the context, + as in similar instances above. The allusion is to the two colossal + images from Easter Island which used to stand under the portico to + the right hand of the visitor entering the Museum, were for some + years removed, and are now restored to their old place. + + _Schooner Equator, at sea. 190 miles off Samoa. + Monday, December 2nd, 1889._ + +MY DEAR COLVIN,--We are just nearing the end of our long cruise. Rain, +calms, squalls, bang--there's the foretopmast gone; rain, calm, squalls, +away with the stay-sail; more rain, more calm, more squalls; a +prodigious heavy sea all the time, and the _Equator_ staggering and +hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great square, +crowded with wet human beings, and the rain avalanching on the deck, and +the leaks dripping everywhere: Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, +bearing up wonderfully. But such voyages are at the best a trial. We had +one particularity: coming down on Winslow Reef, p. d. (position +doubtful): two positions in the directory, a third (if you cared to +count that) on the chart; heavy sea running, and the night due. The +boats were cleared, bread put on board, and we made up our packets for a +boat voyage of four or five hundred miles, and turned in, expectant of a +crash. Needless to say it did not come, and no doubt we were far to +leeward. If we only had twopenceworth of wind, we might be at dinner in +Apia to-morrow evening; but no such luck: here we roll, dead before a +light air--and that is no point of sailing at all for a fore and aft +schooner--the sun blazing overhead, thermometer 88 deg., four degrees above +what I have learned to call South Sea temperature; but for all that, +land so near, and so much grief being happily astern, we are all pretty +gay on board, and have been photographing and draught-playing and +sky-larking like anything. I am minded to stay not very long in Samoa +and confine my studies there (as far as any one can forecast) to the +history of the late war. My book is now practically modelled: if I can +execute what is designed, there are few better books now extant on this +globe, bar the epics, and the big tragedies, and histories, and the +choice lyric poetics, and a novel or so--none. But it is not executed +yet; and let not him that putteth on his armour, vaunt himself. At +least, nobody has had such stuff; such wild stories, such beautiful +scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners and traditions, so +incredible a mixture of the beautiful and horrible, the savage and +civilised. I will give you here some idea of the table of contents, +which ought to make your mouth water. I propose to call the book _The +South Seas_: it is rather a large title, but not many people have seen +more of them than I, perhaps no one--certainly no one capable of using +the material. + + _Part I. General. "Of schooners, islands, and maroons"_ + + CHAPTER I. Marine. + + " II. Contraband (smuggling, barratry, labour traffic). + + " III. The Beachcomber. + + " IV. Beachcomber stories, i. The Murder of the Chinaman, ii. + Death of a Beachcomber. iii. A Character, iv. The Apia + Blacksmith. + + + _Part II. The Marquesas_ + + " V. Anaho. i. Arrival, ii. Death, iii. The Tapu. iv. Morals, v. + Hoka. + + " VI. Tai-o-hae. i. Arrival. ii. The French. iii. The Royal Family. + iv. Chiefless Folk. v. The Catholics. vi. Hawaiian + Missionaries + + " VII. Observations of a Long Pig. i. Cannibalism, ii. Hatiheu. iii. + Frere Michel, iv. Taa-hauku and Atuona. v. The Vale of + Atuona. vi. Moipu. vii. Captain Hati. + + _Part III. The Dangerous Archipelago_ + + " VIII. The Group. + + " IX. A House to let in a Low Island. + + " X. A Paumotuan Funeral, i. The Funeral, ii. Tales of the Dead. + + + _Part IV. Tahiti_ + + " XI. Tautira. + + " XII. Village Government in Tahiti. + + " XIII. A Journey in Quest of Legends. + + " XIV. Legends and Songs. + + " XV. Life in Eden. + + " XVI. Note on the French Regimen. + + + _Part V. The Eight Islands_ + + " XVII. A Note on Missions. + + " XVIII. The Kona Coast of Hawaii. i. Hookena. ii. A Ride in the + Forest. iii. A Law Case. iv. The City of Refuge. v. The + Lepers. + + " XIX. Molokai. i. A Week in the Precinct. ii. History of the Leper + Settlement, iii. The Mokolii. iv. The Free Island. + + + _Part VI. The Gilberts_ + + " XX. The Group, ii. Position of Woman, iii. The Missions. iv. + Devilwork. v. Republics. + + " XXI. Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari, its King and Court. + ii. History of Three Kings. iii. The Drink Question. + + " XXII. A Butaritarian Festival. + + " XXIII. The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions. ii. Equator Town + and the Palace. iii. The Three Corselets. + + + _Part VII. Samoa_ + + which I have not yet reached. + + +Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than 300 Cornhill +pages; and I suspect not much under 500. Samoa has yet to be accounted +for: I think it will be all history, and I shall work in observations on +Samoan manners, under the similar heads in other Polynesian islands. It +is still possible, though unlikely, that I may add a passing visit to +Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I am growing impatient to see yourself, +and I do not want to be later than June of coming to England. Anyway, +you see it will be a large work, and as it will be copiously +illustrated, the Lord knows what it will cost. We shall return, God +willing, by Sydney, Ceylon, Suez and, I guess, Marseilles the +many-masted (copyright epithet). I shall likely pause a day or two in +Paris, but all that is too far ahead--although now it begins to look +near--so near, and I can hear the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street, +and see the gates swing back, and feel myself jump out upon the Monument +steps--Hosanna!--home again. My dear fellow, now that my father is done +with his troubles, and 17 Heriot Row no more than a mere shell, you and +that gaunt old Monument in Bloomsbury are all that I have in view when I +use the word home; some passing thoughts there may be of the rooms at +Skerryvore, and the blackbirds in the chine on a May morning; but the +essence is S.C. and the Museum. Suppose, by some damned accident, you +were no more; well, I should return just the same, because of my mother +and Lloyd, whom I now think to send to Cambridge; but all the spring +would have gone out of me, and ninety per cent. of the attraction lost. +I will copy for you here a copy of verses made in Apemama. + + I heard the pulse of the besieging sea + Throb far away all night. I heard the wind + Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms. + I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, + And flailing fans and shadows of the palm: + The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault-- + The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept. + The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives, + Slept in the precinct of the palisade: + Where single, in the wind, under the moon, + Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire, + Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel. + To other lands and nights my fancy turned. + To London first, and chiefly to your house, + The many-pillared and the well-beloved. + There yearning fancy lighted; there again + In the upper room I lay and heard far off + The unsleeping city murmur like a shell; + The muffled tramp of the Museum guard + Once more went by me; I beheld again + Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street; + Again I longed for the returning morn, + The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds, + The consentancous trill of tiny song + That weaves round monumental cornices + A passing charm of beauty: most of all, + For your light foot I wearied, and your knock + That was the glad reveille of my day. + Lo, now, when to your task in the great house + At morning through the portico you pass, + One moment glance where, by the pillared wall, + Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke, + Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument + Of faiths forgot and races undivined; + Sit now disconsolate, remembering well + The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd, + The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice + Incessant, of the breakers on the shore. + As far as these from their ancestral shrine, + So far, so foreign, your divided friends + Wander, estranged in body, not in mind. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + _Schooner Equator, at sea, Wednesday, 4th December 1889._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--We are now about to rise, like whales, from this +long dive, and I make ready a communication which is to go to you by the +first mail from Samoa. How long we shall stay in that group I cannot +forecast; but it will be best still to address at Sydney, where I trust, +when I shall arrive, perhaps in one month from now, more probably in two +or three, to find all news. + +_Business._--Will you be likely to have a space in the Magazine for a +serial story, which should be ready, I believe, by April, at latest by +autumn? It is called _The Wrecker_; and in book form will appear as +number 1 of _South Sea Yarns_ by R. L. S. and Lloyd Osbourne. Here is +the table as far as fully conceived, and indeed executed.[33]... + +The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really believe to be +insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has never been handled before, no +more has San Francisco. These seem all elements of success. There is, +besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, on +whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of the American merchant +marine, opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three +hundred pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles upon +you, if you will have a vacancy, and what you will be willing to pay. It +will of course be copyright in both the States and England. I am a +little anxious to have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of +the mystery. + +_Pleasure._--We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though four +months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largeish order; and +my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health, +though our long and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain, +sails carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets made on +the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me of salt brine, and +filled me with a longing for beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted. +The interest has been immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the +Napoleon of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me +the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and, +what pleased me more, told me their singular story, then all manner of +strange tales, facts, and experiences for my South Sea book, which +should be a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff. + +We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the heat is cruel--it is +the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but a pair of +serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze--O, yes, +and a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, sweat +streams from me. The rest are on deck under a bit of awning; we are not +much above a hundred miles from port, and we might as well be in +Kamschatka. However, I should be honest: this is the first calm I have +endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated +blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the helpless ship. + +I wonder how you liked the end of _The Master_; that was the hardest job +I ever had to do; did I do it? + +My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame. Remember +all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I don't get a word +through for him.--I am, yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + The following was written soon after the termination of the voyage of + the _Equator_ and Stevenson's first landing in Samoa, where he was + engaged in collecting materials for the account (then intended to be + the concluding part of his great projected South Sea book) of the war + and hurricane of the previous year. + + _Samoa [December 1889]._ + +MY DEAR BAXTER,-- ... I cannot return until I have seen either Tonga or +Fiji or both: and I must not leave here till I have finished my +collections on the war--a very interesting bit of history, the truth +often very hard to come at, and the search (for me) much complicated by +the German tongue, from the use of which I have desisted (I suppose) +these fifteen years. The last two days I have been mugging with a +dictionary from five to six hours a day; besides this, I have to call +upon, keep sweet, and judiciously interview all sorts of +persons--English, American, German, and Samoan. It makes a hard life; +above all, as after every interview I have to come and get my notes +straight on the nail. I believe I should have got my facts before the +end of January, when I shall make for Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in +the hurricane season; but they had so bad a one last year, I don't +imagine there will be much of an edition this. Say that I get to Sydney +some time in April, and I shall have done well, and be in a position to +write a very singular and interesting book, or rather two; for I shall +begin, I think, with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about +as long as _Kidnapped_, not very interesting, but valuable--and a thing +proper to be done. And then, hey! for the big South Sea Book: a devil of +a big one, and full of the finest sport. + +This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before seven, +reading a number of Blackwood's Magazine, I was startled by a soft +_talofa, alii_ (note for my mother: they are quite courteous here in the +European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa +coming from early mass in his white coat and white linen kilt, with +three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest thing to a hero in my +history, and really a fine fellow; plenty sense, and the most dignified, +quiet, gentle manners. Talking of Blackwood--a file of which I was lucky +enough to find here in the lawyer's--Mrs. Oliphant seems in a staggering +state: from the _Wrong Box_ to _The Master_ I scarce recognise either my +critic or myself. I gather that _The Master_ should do well, and at +least that notice is agreeable reading. I expect to be home in June: you +will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to my labours, I +suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and almost every day I ride up +and see Fanny and Lloyd, who are in a house in the bush with Ah Fu. I +live in Apia for history's sake with Moors, an American trader. Day +before yesterday I was arrested and fined for riding fast in the street, +which made my blood bitter, as the wife of the manager of the German +Firm has twice almost ridden me down, and there seems none to say her +nay. The Germans have behaved pretty badly here, but not in all ways so +ill as you may have gathered: they were doubtless much provoked; and if +the insane Knappe had not appeared upon the scene, might have got out of +the muddle with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as +things occur to me. + +I hope from my outcries about printing you do not think I want you to +keep my news or letters in a Blue Beard closet. I like all friends to +hear of me; they all should if I had ninety hours in the day, and +strength for all of them; but you must have gathered how hard worked I +am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty tired man. + + + _29th December [1889]._ + +To-morrow (Monday, I won't swear to my day of the month; this is the +Sunday between Christmas and New Year) I go up the coast with Mr. +Clarke, one of the London Society missionaries, in a boat to examine +schools, see Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph. Pray Heaven we +have good weather; this is the rainy season; we shall be gone four or +five days; and if the rain keep off, I shall be glad of the change; if +it rain, it will be beastly. This explains still further how hard +pressed I am, as the mail will be gone ere I return, and I have thus +lost the days I meant to write in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets +and copies for me, and is a great nuisance. He said he wished to come to +me in order to learn "long explessions." Henry goes up along with us; +and as I am not fond of him, he may before the trip is over hear some +"stlong explessions." I am writing this on the back balcony at Moors', +palms and a hill like the hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; myself +lying on the floor, and (like the parties in Handel's song) "clad in +robes of virgin white"; the ink is dreadful, the heat delicious, a fine +going breeze in the palms, and from the other side of the house the +sudden angry splash and roar of the Pacific on the reef, where the +warships are still piled from last year's hurricane, some under water, +one high and dry upon her side, the strangest figure of a ship was ever +witnessed; the narrow bay there is full of ships; the men-of-war covered +with sail after the rains, and (especially the German ship, which is +fearfully and awfully top heavy) rolling almost yards in, in what +appears to be calm water. + +Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the Marquesas or +Tahiti: a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of +nature; and this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great German +plantations with their countless regular avenues of palms. The island +has beautiful rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in the +Lothians, with pleasant pools and waterfalls and overhanging verdure, +and often a great volume of sound, so that once I thought I was passing +near a mill, and it was only the voice of the river. I am not specially +attracted by the people; but they are courteous; the women very +attractive, and dress lovely; the men purposelike, well set up, tall, +lean, and dignified. As I write, the breeze is brisking up, doors are +beginning to slam, and shutters; a strong draught sweeps round the +balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow. Here I shut up.--Ever your +affectionate + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO LADY TAYLOR + + + This letter contains the first announcement of the purchase of the + Vailima estate (not yet so named). Sir Percy Shelley had died in the + previous December. + + _Apia, Samoa, Jan. 20th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I shall hope to see you in some months from now, +when I come home--to break up my establishment--I know no diminutive of +the word. Your daughters cast a spell upon me; they were always +declaring I was a winged creature and would vanish into the uttermost +isle; and they were right, and I have made my preparations. I am now the +owner of an estate upon Upolu, some two or three miles behind and above +Apia; three streams, two waterfalls, a great cliff, an ancient native +fort, a view of the sea and lowlands, or (to be more precise) several +views of them in various directions, are now mine. It would be +affectation to omit a good many head of cattle; above all as it required +much diplomacy to have them thrown in, for the gentleman who sold to me +was staunch. Besides all this, there is a great deal more forest than I +have any need for; or to be plain the whole estate is one impassable +jungle, which must be cut down and through at considerable expense. Then +the house has to be built; and then (as a climax) we may have to stand a +siege in it in the next native war. + +I do feel as if I was a coward and a traitor to desert my friends; only, +my dear lady, you know what a miserable corrhyzal (is that how it is +spelt?) creature I was at home: and here I have some real health, I can +walk, I can ride, I can stand some exposure, I am up with the sun, I +have a real enjoyment of the world and of myself; it would be hard to go +back again to England and to bed; and I think it would be very silly. I +am sure it would; and yet I feel shame, and I know I am not writing like +myself. I wish you knew how much I admired you, and when I think of +those I must leave, how early a place your name occupies. I have not had +the pleasure to know you very long; and yet I feel as if my leaving +England were a special treachery to you, and my leaving you a treachery +to myself. I will only ask you to try to forgive me: for I am sure I +will never quite forgive myself. Somebody might write to me in the care +of R. Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, to tell me if you can +forgive. But you will do quite right if you cannot. Only let me come and +see you when we do return, or it will be a lame home-coming. + +My wife suffered a good deal in our last, somewhat arduous voyage; all +our party indeed suffered except myself. Fanny is now better but she is +still no very famous success in the way of health. + +All the while I have been writing, I have had another matter in my eye; +of which I scarce like to speak: You know of course that I am thinking +of Sir Percy and his widow. The news has reached me in the shape of a +newspaper cutting, I have no particulars. He had a sweet, original +nature; I think I liked him better than ever I should have liked his +father; I am sorry he was always a little afraid of me; if I had had +more chance, he would have liked me too, we had so much in common, and +I valued so much his fine soul, as honest as a dog's, and the romance of +him, which was like a dog's too, and like a poet's at the same time. If +he had not been Shelley's son, people would have thought more of him; +and yet he was the better of the two, bar verses. + +Please tell my dear Ida and Una that we think much of them, as well as +of your dear self, and believe me, in words which you once allowed me to +use (and I was very much affected when you did so), your affectionate +friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO DR. SCOTT + + + This gentleman is the physician to whose assiduous care and kindness, + as recorded in the dedication to _Underwoods_, Stevenson owed so much + during his invalid years at Bournemouth. + + _Apia, Samoa, January 20th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR SCOTT,--Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of me +before! I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up +to date) a person whom you would scarce know. I think nothing of long +walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone the other day, partly +riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine. I have stood a six months' +voyage on a copra schooner with about three months ashore on coral +atolls, which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever +from ship's food. My wife suffered badly--it was too rough a business +altogether--Lloyd suffered--and, in short, I was the only one of the +party who "kept my end up." + +I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle; have +even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred acres, I know +not which till the survey is completed, and shall only return next +summer to wind up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a +subject of the High Commissioner. + +Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant patient, +but that I have a medical discovery to communicate. I find I can (almost +immediately) fight off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if +obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from +one to five days sees the cold generally to the door. I find it at once +produces a glow, stops rigour, and though it makes one very +uncomfortable, prevents the advance of the disease. Hearing of this +influenza, it occurred to me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps +a stronger exhibition--injections of cocaine, for instance--still +better. + +If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems +highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much inclined +to make the experiment. See what a gulf you may save me from if you +shall have previously made it on _anima vili_, on some less important +sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless. + +How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your brother and all +friends in Bournemouth.--Yours very sincerely, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + After a stay of four or five weeks at Apia, during which he had + fallen more and more in love with Samoa and the Samoans, Stevenson + took steamer again, this time for Sydney, where he had ordered his + letters to await him. This and the two following letters were written + during the passage. I again print in their original place a set of + verses separately published in _Songs of Travel_. + + _Februar den 3en 1890 + Dampfer Luebeck, zwischen Apia und Sydney._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have got one delightful letter from you, and heard +from my mother of your kindness in going to see her. Thank you for that: +you can in no way more touch and serve me.... Ay, ay, it is sad to sell +17; sad and fine were the old days: when I was away in Apemama, I wrote +two copies of verse about Edinburgh and the past, so ink black, so +golden bright. I will send them, if I can find them, for they will say +something to you, and indeed one is more than half addressed to you. +This is it-- + + TO MY OLD COMRADES + + Do you remember--can we e'er forget?-- + How, in the coiled perplexities of youth, + In our wild climate, in our scowling town, + We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared? + The belching winter wind, the missile rain, + The rare and welcome silence of the snows, + The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night, + The grimy spell of the nocturnal town, + Do you remember?--Ah, could one forget! + As when the fevered sick that all night long + Listed the wind intone, and hear at last + The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer + Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn,-- + With sudden ardour, these desire the day: + +(Here a squall sends all flying.) + + So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope; + So we, exulting, hearkened and desired. + For lo! as in the palace porch of life + We huddled with chimeras, from within-- + How sweet to hear!--the music swelled and fell, + And through the breach of the revolving doors + What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled! + I have since then contended and rejoiced; + Amid the glories of the house of life + Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld: + Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes + Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love + Fall insignificant on my closing ears, + What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind + In our inclement city? what return + But the image of the emptiness of youth, + Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice + Of discontent and rapture and despair? + So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp, + The momentary pictures gleam and fade + And perish, and the night resurges--these + Shall I remember, and then all forget. + +They're pretty second-rate, but felt. I can't be bothered to copy the +other. + +I have bought 314-1/2 acres of beautiful land in the bush behind Apia; +when we get the house built, the garden laid, and cattle in the place, +it will be something to fall back on for shelter and food; and if the +island could stumble into political quiet, it is conceivable it might +even bring a little income.... We range from 600 to 1500 feet, have five +streams, waterfalls, precipices, profound ravines, rich tablelands, +fifty head of cattle on the ground (if any one could catch them), a +great view of forest, sea, mountains, the warships in the haven: really +a noble place. Some day you are to take a long holiday and come and see +us: it has been all planned. + +With all these irons in the fire, and cloudy prospects, you may be sure +I was pleased to hear a good account of business. I believed _The +Master_ was a sure card: I wonder why Henley thinks it grimy; grim it +is, God knows, but sure not grimy, else I am the more deceived. I am +sorry he did not care for it; I place it on the line with _Kidnapped_ +myself. We'll see as time goes on whether it goes above or falls below. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + The Editor of Scribner's Magazine had written asking him for fresh + contributions, and he sends the set of verses addressed to + Tembinoka, the king at Butaritari, and afterwards reprinted in + _Songs of Travel_, beginning "Let us who part like brothers part like + bards." + + _S.S. _Luebeck_ [between Apia and Sydney, February] 1890_ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I desire nothing better than to continue my +relation with the Magazine, to which it pleases me to hear I have been +useful. The only thing I have ready is the enclosed barbaric piece. As +soon as I have arrived in Sydney I shall send you some photographs, a +portrait of Tembinoka, perhaps a view of the palace or of the "matted +men" at their singing; also T.'s flag, which my wife designed for him: +in a word, what I can do best for you. It will be thus a foretaste of my +book of travels. I shall ask you to let me have, if I wish it, the use +of the plates made, and to make up a little tract of the verses and +illustrations, of which you might send six copies to H.M. Tembinoka, +King of Apemama, via Butaritari, Gilbert Islands. It might be best to +send it by Crawford & Co., S.F. There is no postal service; and +schooners must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps some such note as +this might be prefixed: + +_At my departure from the island of Apemama, for which you will look in +vain in most atlases, the king and I agreed, since we both set up to be +in the poetical way, that we should celebrate our separation in verse. +Whether or not his majesty has been true to his bargain, the laggard +posts of the Pacific may perhaps inform me in six months, perhaps not +before a year. The following lines represent my part of the contract, +and it is hoped, by their pictures of strange manners, they may +entertain a civilised audience. Nothing throughout has been invented or +exaggerated; the lady herein referred to as the author's Muse, has +confined herself to stringing into rhyme facts and legends that I saw or +heard during two months' residence upon the island._ + + R. L. S. + + +You will have received from me a letter about _The Wrecker_. No doubt +it is a new experiment for me, being disguised so much as a study of +manners, and the interest turning on a mystery of the detective sort. I +think there need be no hesitation about beginning it in the fall of the +year. Lloyd has nearly finished his part, and I shall hope to send you +very soon the MS. of about the first four-sevenths. At the same time, I +have been employing myself in Samoa, collecting facts about the recent +war; and I propose to write almost at once and to publish shortly a +small volume, called I know not what--the War in Samoa, the Samoa +Trouble, an Island War, the War of the Three Consuls, I know +not--perhaps you can suggest. It was meant to be a part of my travel +book; but material has accumulated on my hands until I see myself forced +into volume form, and I hope it may be of use, if it come soon. I have a +few photographs of the war, which will do for illustrations. It is +conceivable you might wish to handle this in the Magazine, although I am +inclined to think you won't, and to agree with you. But if you think +otherwise, there it is. The travel letters (fifty of them) are already +contracted for in papers; these I was quite bound to let M'Clure handle, +as the idea was of his suggestion, and I always felt a little sore as to +one trick I played him in the matter of the end-papers. The war-volume +will contain some very interesting and picturesque details: more I can't +promise for it. Of course the fifty newspaper letters will be simply +patches chosen from the travel volume (or volumes) as it gets written, +But you see I have in hand:-- + + Say half done. 1. _The Wrecker_. + + Lloyd's copy half done, mine 2. _The Pearl Fisher_ (a novel promised + not touched. to the Ledger, and which will form, + when it comes in book form, No. 2 + of our _South Sea Yarns_). + + Not begun, but all material 3. The War volume. + ready. + + Ditto. 4. The Big Travel Book, which includes + the letters. + + You know how they stand. 5. The _Ballads_. + +_Excusez du peu!_ And you see what madness it would be to make any fresh +engagements. At the same time, you have _The Wrecker_ and the War +volume, if you like either--or both--to keep my name in the Magazine. + +It begins to look as if I should not be able to get any more ballads +done this somewhile. I know the book would sell better if it were all +ballads; and yet I am growing half tempted to fill up with some other +verses. A good few are connected with my voyage, such as the "Home of +Tembinoka" sent herewith, and would have a sort of slight affinity to +the _South Sea Ballads_. You might tell me how that strikes a stranger. + +In all this, my real interest is with the travel volume, which ought to +be of a really extraordinary interest. + +I am sending you "Tembinoka" as he stands; but there are parts of him +that I hope to better, particularly in stanzas III. and II. I scarce +feel intelligent enough to try just now; and I thought at any rate you +had better see it, set it up if you think well, and let me have a proof; +so, at least, we shall get the bulk of it straight. I have spared you +Tenkoruti, Tembaitake, Tembinatake, and other barbarous names, because I +thought the dentists in the States had work enough without my +assistance; but my chief's name is TEMBINOKA, pronounced, according to +the present quite modern habit in the Gilberts, Tembinok'. Compare in +the margin Tengkorootch; a singular new trick, setting at defiance all +South Sea analogy, for nowhere else do they show even the ability, far +less the will, to end a word upon a consonant. Loia is Lloyd's name, +ship becomes shipe, teapot tipote, etc. Our admirable friend Herman +Melville, of whom, since I could judge, I have thought more than ever, +had no ear for languages whatever: his Hapar tribe should be Hapaa, etc. + +But this is of no interest to you: suffice it, you see how I am as usual +up to the neck in projects, and really all likely bairns this time. When +will this activity cease? Too soon for me, I dare to say. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO JAMES PAYN + + + _February 4th, 1890_, S.S. Luebeck. + +MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--In virtue of confessions in your last, you would at +the present moment, if you were along of me, be sick; and I will ask you +to receive that as an excuse for my hand of write. Excuse a plain seaman +if he regards with scorn the likes of you pore land-lubbers ashore now. +(Reference to nautical ditty.) Which I may however be allowed to add +that when eight months' mail was laid by my side one evening in Apia, +and my wife and I sat up the most of the night to peruse the +same--(precious indisposed we were next day in consequence)--no letter, +out of so many, more appealed to our hearts than one from the pore, +stick-in-the-mud, land-lubbering, common (or garden) Londoner, James +Payn. Thank you for it; my wife says, "Can't I see him when we get back +to London?" I have told her the thing appeared to me within the spear of +practical politix. (Why can't I spell and write like an honest, sober, +god-fearing litry gent? I think it's the motion of the ship.) Here I was +interrupted to play chess with the chief engineer; as I grow old, I +prefer the "athletic sport of cribbage," of which (I am sure I misquote) +I have just been reading in your delightful _Literary Recollections_. +How you skim along, you and Andrew Lang (different as you are), and yet +the only two who can keep a fellow smiling every page, and ever and +again laughing out loud. I joke wi' deeficulty, I believe; I am not +funny; and when I am, Mrs. Oliphant says I'm vulgar, and somebody else +says (in Latin) that I'm a whore, which seems harsh and even uncalled +for: I shall stick to weepers; a 5s. weeper, 2s. 6d. laugher, 1s. +shocker. + +My dear sir, I grow more and more idiotic; I cannot even feign sanity. +Some time in the month of June a stalwart weather-beaten man, evidently +of seafaring antecedents, shall be observed wending his way between the +Athenaeum Club and Waterloo Place. Arrived off No. 17, he shall be +observed to bring his head sharply to the wind, and tack into the outer +haven. "Captain Payn in the harbour?"--"Ay, ay, sir. What +ship?"--"Barquentin R. L. S., nine hundred and odd days out from the port +of Bournemouth, homeward bound, with yarns and curiosities." + +Who was it said, "For God's sake, don't speak of it!" about Scott and +his tears? He knew what he was saying. The fear of that hour is the +skeleton in all our cupboards; that hour when the pastime and the +livelihood go together; and--I am getting hard of hearing myself; a pore +young child of forty, but new come frae my Mammy, O! + +Excuse these follies, and accept the expression of all my +regards.--Yours affectionately, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + The _Solution_ is a short story of Mr. Henry James, first published + in a periodical and reprinted in the collection called _The Lesson of + the Master_ (Macmillans). + + _Union Club, Sydney, February 19, 1890._ + +HERE--in this excellent civilised, antipodal club smoking-room, I have +just read the first part of your _Solution_. Dear Henry James, it is an +exquisite art; do not be troubled by the shadows of your French +competitors: not one, not de Maupassant, could have done a thing more +clean and fine; dry in touch, but the atmosphere (as in a fine summer +sunset) rich with colour and with perfume. I shall say no more; this +note is De Solutione; except that I--that we--are all your sincere +friends and hope to shake you by the hand in June. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + signed, sealed and + delivered as his act + and deed + and very thought of very thought, + this nineteenth of February in the year of our + Lord one thousand eight hundred ninety and + nothing. + + + + +TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON + + + Written while he was still in a white heat of indignation on behalf + of Father Damien. He was not aware that Dr. Hyde's letter had been a + private one not meant for publicity, and later came to think he might + have struck as effectively on behalf of Damien without striking so + fiercely against Dr. Hyde (see below, p. 404). "Damon" is the Rev. F. + Damon, a missionary in Hawaii. + + _Union Club, Sydney, March 5, 1890._ + +MY DEAR MOTHER,--I understand the family keeps you somewhat informed. +For myself I am in such a whirl of work and society, I can ill spare a +moment. My health is excellent and has been here tried by abominable wet +weather, and (what's waur) dinners and lunches. As this is like to be +our metropolis, I have tried to lay myself out to be sociable with an +eye to yoursel'. Several niceish people have turned up: Fanny has an +evening, but she is about at the end of the virtuous effort, and shrinks +from the approach of any fellow creature. + +Have you seen Hyde's (Dr. not Mr.) letter about Damien? That has been +one of my concerns; I have an answer in the press; and have just written +a difficult letter to Damon trying to prepare him for what (I fear) +must be to him extremely painful. The answer is to come out as a +pamphlet; of which I make of course a present to the publisher. I am not +a cannibal, I would not eat the flesh of Dr. Hyde,--and it is +conceivable it will make a noise in Honolulu. I have struck as hard as I +knew how; nor do I think my answer can fail to do away (in the minds of +all who see it) with the effect of Hyde's incredible and really +villainous production. What a mercy I wasn't this man's _guest_ in the +_Morning Star_! I think it would have broke my heart. + +Time for me to go!--I remain, with love, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + Stevenson had not been long at Sydney--just long enough to write and + print the famous _Letter to Dr. Hyde_ in defence of Father + Damien--when, to his heavy disappointment, he fell ill again with one + of his old bad attacks of fever and hemorrhage from the lungs. It was + this experience which finally determined him to settle for good on + his new island property in Samoa, which at first he had thought of + rather as an occasional refuge and resting-place in the intervals + between future projected yachting voyages. + + _Union Club, Sydney, March 7th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I did not send off the enclosed before from laziness; +having gone quite sick, and being a blooming prisoner here in the club, +and indeed in my bedroom. I was in receipt of your letters and your +ornamental photo, and was delighted to see how well you looked, and how +reasonably well I stood.... I am sure I shall never come back home +except to die; I may do it, but shall always think of the move as +suicidal, unless a great change comes over me, of which as yet I see no +symptom. This visit to Sydney has smashed me handsomely; and yet I made +myself a prisoner here in the club upon my first arrival. This is not +encouraging for further ventures; Sydney winter--or, I might almost say, +Sydney spring, for I came when the worst was over--is so small an +affair, comparable to our June depression at home in Scotland.... The +pipe is right again; it was the springs that had rusted, and ought to +have been oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but, Lord! here in +the club I dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience to be in my own +backwoods and raise the sound of minstrelsy. What pleasures are to be +compared with those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso.--Yours ever +affectionately, the Unvirtuous Virtuoso, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO SIDNEY COLVIN + + + To try and recover from the effects of his illness at Sydney, + Stevenson determined to take another voyage; and started accordingly + in April with his party on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_, + which took him by a long and devious course among many groups of + islands that he had not yet visited, returning to Sydney in August by + way of New Caledonia. On the first night out of Auckland harbour the + voyage nearly came to a premature end through the blowing up of some + trade fireworks, or materials for fireworks, which had been packed in + the stateroom. + + _S.S. Janet Nicoll, off Upolu [Spring 1890]._ + +MY DEAREST COLVIN,--I was sharply ill at Sydney, cut off, right out of +bed, in this steamer on a fresh island cruise, and have already reaped +the benefit. We are excellently found this time, on a spacious vessel, +with an excellent table; the captain, supercargo, our one +fellow-passenger, etc., very nice; and the charterer, Mr. Henderson, the +very man I could have chosen. The truth is, I fear, this life is the +only one that suits me; so long as I cruise in the South Seas, I shall +be well and happy--alas, no, I do not mean that, and _absit omen_!--I +mean that, so soon as I cease from cruising, the nerves are strained, +the decline commences, and I steer slowly but surely back to bedward. We +left Sydney, had a cruel rough passage to Auckland, for the _Janet_ is +the worst roller I was ever aboard of. I was confined to my cabin, +ports closed, self shied out of the berth, stomach (pampered till the +day I left on a diet of perpetual egg-nogg) revolted at ship's food and +ship eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging with one hand to the plate, with +the other to the glass, and using the knife and fork (except at +intervals) with the eyelid. No matter: I picked up hand over hand. After +a day in Auckland, we set sail again; were blown up in the main cabin +with calcium fires, as we left the bay. Let no man say I am +unscientific: when I ran, on the alert, out of my stateroom, and found +the main cabin incarnadined with the glow of the last scene of a +pantomime, I stopped dead: "What is this?" said I. "This ship is on +fire, I see that; but why a pantomime?" And I stood and reasoned the +point, until my head was so muddled with the fumes that I could not find +the companion. A few seconds later, the captain had to enter crawling on +his belly, and took days to recover (if he has recovered) from the +fumes. By singular good fortune, we got the hose down in time and saved +the ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes and a great part of our +photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw the native sailors tossing +overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it +contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine +weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a vexatious sea. As +we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage Island, a man ashore +told me afterwards the sight of the _Janet Nicoll_ made him sick; and +indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night before. All +through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem spearing the +ink-bottle like a flying fish, and holding my papers together as I +might. For, of all things, what I was at was history--the Samoan +business--and I had to turn from one to another of these piles of +manuscript notes, and from one page to another in each, until I should +have found employment for the hands of Briareus. All the same, this +history is a godsend for a voyage; I can put in time, getting events +co-ordinated and the narrative distributed, when my much-heaving +numskull would be incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met +the missionary barque _John Williams_. I tell you it was a great day for +Savage Island: the path up the cliffs was crowded with gay islandresses +(I like that feminine plural) who wrapped me in their embraces, and +picked my pockets of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch would +have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, like the Golden +Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, with a red flower behind her +ear, had searched me with extraordinary zeal; and when, soon after, I +missed my matches, I accused her (she still following us) of being the +thief. After some delay, and with a subtle smile, she produced the box, +gave me _one match_, and put the rest away again. Too tired to add +more.--Your most affectionate + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + The idea here discussed of a further series of essays to be + contributed to Scribner's Magazine was never carried out. + + _S.S. Janet Nicoll, off Peru Island, Kingsmills + Group, July 13th, '90._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I am moved to write to you in the matter of the end +papers. I am somewhat tempted to begin them again. Follow the reasons +_pro_ and _con_:-- + +1st. I must say I feel as if something in the nature of the end paper +were a desirable finish to the number, and that the substitutes of +occasional essays by occasional contributors somehow fail to fill the +bill. Should you differ with me on this point, no more is to be said. +And what follows must be regarded as lost words. + +2nd. I am rather taken with the idea of continuing the work. For +instance, should you have no distaste for papers of the class called +_Random Memories_, I should enjoy continuing them (of course at +intervals), and when they were done I have an idea they might make a +readable book. On the other hand, I believe a greater freedom of choice +might be taken, the subjects more varied and more briefly treated, in +somewhat approaching the manner of Andrew Lang in the _Sign of the +Ship_; it being well understood that the broken sticks[34] method is one +not very suitable (as Colonel Burke would say) to my genius, and not +very likely to be pushed far in my practice. Upon this point I wish you +to condense your massive brain. In the last lot I was promised, and I +fondly expected to receive, a vast amount of assistance from intelligent +and genial correspondents. I assure you, I never had a scratch of a pen +from any one above the level of a village idiot, except once, when a +lady sowed my head full of grey hairs by announcing that she was going +to direct her life in future by my counsels. Will the correspondents be +more copious and less irrelevant in the future? Suppose that to be the +case, will they be of any use to me in my place of exile? Is it possible +for a man in Samoa to be in touch with the great heart of the People? +And is it not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so hopeless a +distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers? Upon these points, +perpend, and give me the results of your perpensions. + +3rd. The emolument would be agreeable to your humble servant. + +I have now stated all the _pros_, and the most of the _cons_ are come in +by the way. There follows, however, one immense Con (with a capital +"C"), which I beg you to consider particularly. I fear that, to be of +any use for your magazine, these papers should begin with the beginning +of a volume. Even supposing my hands were free, this would be now +impossible for next year. You have to consider whether, supposing you +have no other objection, it would be worth while to begin the series in +the middle of a volume, or desirable to delay the whole matter until +the beginning of another year. + +Now supposing that the _cons_ have it, and you refuse my offer, let me +make another proposal, which you will be very inclined to refuse at the +first off-go, but which I really believe might in time come to +something. You know how the penny papers have their answers to +correspondents. Why not do something of the same kind for the +"culchawed"? Why not get men like Stimson, Brownell, Professor James, +Goldwin Smith, and others who will occur to you more readily than to me, +to put and to answer a series of questions of intellectual and general +interest, until at last you should have established a certain standard +of matter to be discussed in this part of the Magazine? + +I want you to get me bound volumes of the Magazine from its start. The +Lord knows I have had enough copies; where they are I know not. A +wandering author gathers no magazines. + +_The Wrecker_ is in no forrader state than in last reports. I have +indeed got to a period when I cannot well go on until I can refresh +myself on the proofs of the beginning. My respected collaborator, who +handles the machine which is now addressing you, has indeed carried his +labours farther, but not, I am led to understand, with what we used to +call a blessing; at least, I have been refused a sight of his latest +labours. However, there is plenty of time ahead, and I feel no anxiety +about the tale, except that it may meet with your approval. + +All this voyage I have been busy over my _Travels_, which, given a very +high temperature and the saloon of a steamer usually going before the +wind, and with the cabins in front of the engines, has come very near to +prostrating me altogether. You will therefore understand that there are +no more poems. I wonder whether there are already enough, and whether +you think that such a volume would be worth the publishing? I shall hope +to find in Sydney some expression of your opinion on this point. Living +as I do among--not the most cultured of mankind ("splendidly educated +and perfect gentlemen when sober")--I attach a growing importance to +friendly criticisms from yourself. + +I believe that this is the most of our business. As for my health, I got +over my cold in a fine style, but have not been very well of late. To my +unaffected annoyance, the blood-spitting has started again. I find the +heat of a steamer decidedly wearing and trying in these latitudes, and I +am inclined to think the superior expedition rather dearly paid for. +Still, the fact that one does not even remark the coming of a squall, +nor feel relief on its departure, is a mercy not to be acknowledged +without gratitude. The rest of the family seem to be doing fairly well; +both seem less run down than they were on the _Equator_, and Mrs. +Stevenson very much less so. We have now been three months away, have +visited about thirty-five islands, many of which were novel to us, and +some extremely entertaining; some also were old acquaintances, and +pleasant to revisit. In the meantime, we have really a capital time +aboard ship, in the most pleasant and interesting society, and with +(considering the length and nature of the voyage) an excellent table. +Please remember us all to Mr. Scribner, the young chieftain of the +house, and the lady, whose health I trust is better. To Mrs. Burlingame +we all desire to be remembered, and I hope you will give our news to +Low, St. Gaudens, Faxon, and others of the faithful in the city. I shall +probably return to Samoa direct, having given up all idea of returning +to civilisation in the meanwhile. There, on my ancestral acres, which I +purchased six months ago from a blind Scots blacksmith, you will please +address me until further notice. The name of the ancestral acres is +going to be Vailima; but as at the present moment nobody else knows the +name, except myself and the co-patentees, it will be safer, if less +ambitious, to address R. L. S., Apia, Samoa. The ancestral acres run to +upwards of three hundred; they enjoy the ministrations of five streams, +whence the name. They are all at the present moment under a trackless +covering of magnificent forest, which would be worth a great deal if it +grew beside a railway terminus. To me, as it stands, it represents a +handsome deficit. Obliging natives from the Cannibal Islands are now +cutting it down at my expense. You would be able to run your magazine to +much greater advantage if the terms of authors were on the same scale +with those of my cannibals. We have also a house about the size of a +manufacturer's lodge. 'Tis but the egg of the future palace, over the +details of which on paper Mrs. Stevenson and I have already shed real +tears; what it will be when it comes to paying for it, I leave you to +imagine. But if it can only be built as now intended, it will be with +genuine satisfaction and a growunded pride that I shall welcome you at +the steps of my Old Colonial Home, when you land from the steamer on a +long-merited holiday. I speak much at my ease; yet I do not know, I may +be now an outlaw, a bankrupt, the abhorred of all good men. I do not +know, you probably do. Has Hyde[35] turned upon me? Have I fallen, like +Danvers Carew? + +It is suggested to me that you might like to know what will be my future +society. Three consuls, all at loggerheads with one another, or at the +best in a clique of two against one; three different sects of +missionaries, not upon the best of terms; and the Catholics and +Protestants in a condition of unhealable ill-feeling as to whether a +wooden drum ought or ought not to be beaten to announce the time of +school. The native population, very genteel, very songful, very +agreeable, very good-looking, chronically spoiling for a fight (a +circumstance not to be entirely neglected in the design of the palace). +As for the white population of (technically, "The Beach"), I don't +suppose it is possible for any person not thoroughly conversant with the +South Seas to form the smallest conception of such a society, with its +grog-shops, its apparently unemployed hangers-on, its merchants of all +degrees of respectability and the reverse. The paper, of which I must +really send you a copy--if yours were really a live magazine, you would +have an exchange with the editor: I assure you, it has of late contained +a great deal of matter about one of your contributors--rejoices in the +name of Samoa Times and South Sea Advertiser. The advertisements in the +Advertiser are permanent, being simply subsidies for its existence. A +dashing warfare of newspaper correspondence goes on between the various +residents, who are rather fond of recurring to one another's +antecedents. But when all is said, there are a lot of very nice, +pleasant people, and I don't know that Apia is very much worse than half +a hundred towns that I could name. + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + + + +TO CHARLES BAXTER + + + As above indicated, on the way between Samoa and Sydney Stevenson + left the _Janet Nicoll_ for a week's stay in New Caledonia, during + which he was hospitably received by the French officials. + + _Hotel Sebastopol, Noumea, August 1890._ + +MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have stayed here a week while Lloyd and my wife +continue to voyage in the _Janet Nicoll_; this I did, partly to see the +convict system, partly to shorten my stay in the extreme cold--hear me +with my extreme! _moi qui suis originaire d'Edimbourg_--of Sydney at +this season. I am feeling very seedy, utterly fatigued and overborne +with sleep. I have a fine old gentleman of a doctor, who attends and +cheers and entertains, if he does not cure me; but even with his +ministrations I am almost incapable of the exertion sufficient for this +letter; and I am really, as I write, falling down with sleep. What is +necessary to say, I must try to say shortly. Lloyd goes to clear out our +establishments: pray keep him in funds, if I have any; if I have not, +pray try to raise them. Here is the idea: to install ourselves, at the +risk of bankruptcy, in Samoa. It is not the least likely it will pay +(although it may); but it is almost certain it will support life, with +very few external expenses. If I die, it will be an endowment for the +survivors, at least for my wife and Lloyd; and my mother, who might +prefer to go home, has her own. Hence I believe I shall do well to hurry +my installation. The letters are already in part done; in part done is a +novel for Scribner; in the course of the next twelve months I should +receive a considerable amount of money. I am aware I had intended to pay +back to my capital some of this. I am now of opinion I should act +foolishly. Better to build the house and have a roof and farm of my own; +and thereafter, with a livelihood assured, save and repay.... There is +my livelihood, all but books and wine, ready in a nutshell; and it ought +to be more easy to save and to repay afterwards. Excellent, say you, but +will you save and will you repay? I do not know, said the Bell of Old +Bow.... It seems clear to me.... The deuce of the affair is that I do +not know when I shall see you and Colvin. I guess you will have to come +and see me: many a time already we have arranged the details of your +visit in the yet unbuilt house on the mountain. I shall be able to get +decent wine from Noumea. We shall be able to give you a decent welcome, +and talk of old days. _Apropos_ of old days, do you remember still the +phrase we heard in Waterloo Place? I believe you made a piece for the +piano on that phrase. Pray, if you remember it, send it me in your next. +If you find it impossible to write correctly, send it me _a la +recitative_, and indicate the accents. Do you feel (you must) how +strangely heavy and stupid I am? I must at last give up and go sleep; I +am simply a rag. + +_The morrow._--I feel better, but still dim and groggy. To-night I go to +the governor's; such a lark--no dress clothes--twenty-four hours' +notice--able-bodied Polish tailor--suit made for a man with the figure +of a puncheon--same hastily altered for self with the figure of a +bodkin--sight inconceivable. Never mind; dress clothes, "which nobody +can deny"; and the officials have been all so civil that I liked neither +to refuse nor to appear in mufti. Bad dress clothes only prove you are a +grisly ass; no dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of +respect. I wish you were here with me to help me dress in this wild +raiment, and to accompany me to M. Noel-Pardon's. I cannot say what I +would give if there came a knock now at the door and you came in. I +guess Noel-Pardon would go begging, and we might burn the fr. 200 dress +clothes in the back garden for a bonfire; or what would be yet more +expensive and more humorous, get them once more expanded to fit you, and +when that was done, a second time cut down for my gossamer dimensions. + +I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, who has always a +place in my heart, as I hope I have a little in his. His kindness helped +me infinitely when you and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and +affection in this town of convicts at the world's end. There are very +few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a retrospect of life, the +day's flash and colour, one day with another, flames, dazzles, and puts +to sleep; and when the days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope, +they make but a single pattern. Only a few things stand out; and among +these--most plainly to me--Rutland Square.--Ever, my dear Charles, your +affectionate friend, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--Just returned from trying on the dress clo'. Lord, you should +see the coat! It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross +in front, the sleeves are like bags. + + + + +TO E. L. BURLINGAME + + + Proceeding from New Caledonia to Sydney, Stevenson again made a stay + there of about a month, before going to settle in his new island home + and superintend the operations of planting and building. The next + letter is in acknowledgment of proofs received from Messrs. Scribner + of a proposed volume of verse to contain, besides _Ticonderoga_ and + the two ballads on Marquesan and Tahitian legends, a number of the + other miscellaneous verses which he had written in the course of his + travels. In the end, the ballads only stood for publication at this + time; the other verses were reserved, and have been posthumously + published under the title _Songs of Travel_. + + _Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._ + +MY DEAR BURLINGAME,-- + + _Ballads._ + +The deuce is in this volume. It has cost me more botheration and dubiety +than any other I ever took in hand. On one thing my mind is made up: the +verses at the end have no business there, and throw them down. Many of +them are bad, many of the rest want nine years' keeping, and the +remainder are not relevant--throw them down; some I never want to hear +of more, others will grow in time towards decent items in a second +_Underwoods_--and in the meanwhile, down with them! At the same time, I +have a sneaking idea the ballads are not altogether without merit--I +don't know if they're poetry, but they're good narrative, or I'm +deceived. (You've never said one word about them, from which I astutely +gather you are dead set against: "he was a diplomatic man"--extract from +epitaph of E. L. B.--"and remained on good terms with Minor Poets.") You +will have to judge: one of the Gladstonian trinity of paths must be +chosen. (1st) Either publish the five ballads, such as they are, in a +volume called _Ballads_; in which case pray send sheets at once to +Chatto and Windus. Or (2nd) write and tell me you think the book too +small, and I'll try and get into the mood to do some more. Or (3rd) +write and tell me the whole thing is a blooming illusion; in which case +draw off some twenty copies for my private entertainment, and charge me +with the expense of the whole dream. + +In the matter of rhyme no man can judge himself; I am at the world's +end, have no one to consult, and my publisher holds his tongue. I call +it unfair and almost unmanly. I do indeed begin to be filled with +animosity; Lord, wait till you see the continuation of _The Wrecker_, +when I introduce some New York publishers.... It's a good scene; the +quantities you drink and the really hideous language you are represented +as employing may perhaps cause you one tithe of the pain you have +inflicted by your silence on, sir, The Poetaster, + + R. L. S. + + +Lloyd is off home; my wife and I dwell sundered: she in lodgings, +preparing for the move; I here in the club, and at my old +trade--bedridden. Naturally, the visit home is given up; we only wait +our opportunity to get to Samoa, where, please, address me. + +Have I yet asked you to despatch the books and papers left in your care +to me at Apia, Samoa? I wish you would, _quam primum_. + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO HENRY JAMES + + + _Union Club, Sydney, August 1890._ + +MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Kipling is too clever to live. The _Bete +Humaine_[36] I had already perused in Noumea, listening the while to the +strains of the convict band. He is a Beast; but not human, and, to be +frank, not very interesting. "Nervous maladies: the homicidal ward," +would be the better name: O, this game gets very tedious. + +Your two long and kind letters have helped to entertain the old familiar +sickbed. So has a book called _The Bondman_, by Hall Caine; I wish you +would look at it. I am not half-way through yet. Read the book, and +communicate your views. Hall Caine, by the way, appears to take Hugo's +view of History and Chronology (_Later_; the book doesn't keep up; it +gets very wild.) + +I must tell you plainly--I can't tell Colvin--I do not think I shall +come to England more than once, and then it'll be to die. Health I enjoy +in the tropics; even here, which they call sub- or semi-tropical, I come +only to catch cold. I have not been out since my arrival; live here in +a nice bedroom by the fireside, and read books and letters from Henry +James, and send out to get his _Tragic Muse_, only to be told they can't +be had as yet in Sydney, and have altogether a placid time. But I can't +go out! The thermometer was nearly down to 50 deg. the other day--no +temperature for me, Mr. James: how should I do in England? I fear not at +all. Am I very sorry? I am sorry about seven or eight people in England, +and one or two in the States. And outside of that, I simply prefer +Samoa. These are the words of honesty and soberness. (I am fasting from +all but sin, coughing, _The Bondman_, a couple of eggs and a cup of +tea.) I was never fond of towns, houses, society, or (it seems) +civilisation. Nor yet it seems was I ever very fond of (what is +technically called) God's green earth. The sea, islands, the islanders, +the island life and climate, make and keep me truly happier. These last +two years I have been much at sea, and I have _never wearied_; sometimes +I have indeed grown impatient for some destination; more often I was +sorry that the voyage drew so early to an end; and never once did I lose +my fidelity to blue water and a ship. It is plain, then, that for me my +exile to the place of schooners and islands can be in no sense regarded +as a calamity. + +Good-bye just now: I must take a turn at my proofs. + + +_N.B._--Even my wife has weakened about the sea. She wearied, the last +time we were ashore, to get afloat again.--Yours ever, + + R. L. S. + + + + +TO MARCEL SCHWOB + + + _Union Club, Sydney, August 19th, 1890._ + +MY DEAR MR. SCHWOB,--_Mais, alors, vous avez tous les bonheurs, vous!_ +More about Villon; it seems incredible: when it is put in order, pray +send it me. + +You wish to translate the _Black Arrow_: dear sir, you are hereby +authorised; but I warn you, I do not like the work. Ah, if you, who know +so well both tongues, and have taste and instruction--if you would but +take a fancy to translate a book of mine that I myself admired--for we +sometimes admire our own--or I do--with what satisfaction would the +authority be granted! But these things are too much to expect. _Vous ne +detestez pas alors mes bonnes femmes? moi, je les deteste._ I have never +pleased myself with any women of mine save two character parts, one of +only a few lines--the Countess of Rosen, and Madame Desprez in the +_Treasure of Franchard_. + +I had indeed one moment of pride about my poor _Black Arrow_: Dickon +Crookback I did, and I do, think is a spirited and possible figure. +Shakespeare's--O, if we can call that cocoon Shakespeare!--Shakespeare's +is spirited--one likes to see the untaught athlete butting against the +adamantine ramparts of human nature, head down, breech up; it reminds us +how trivial we are to-day, and what safety resides in our triviality. +For spirited it may be, but O, sure not possible! I love Dumas and I +love Shakespeare: you will not mistake me when I say that the Richard of +the one reminds me of the Porthos of the other; and if by any sacrifice +of my own literary baggage I could clear the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ of +Porthos, _Jekyll_ might go, and the _Master_, and the _Black Arrow_, you +may be sure, and I should think my life not lost for mankind if half a +dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in. + +The tone of your pleasant letters makes me egotistical; you make me take +myself too gravely. Comprehend how I have lived much of my time in +France, and loved your country, and many of its people, and all the time +was learning that which your country has to teach--breathing in rather +that atmosphere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the +time knew--and raged to know--that I might write with the pen of angels +or of heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps in +M. Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, and reads and +understands, and is kind enough to like my work. + +I am just now overloaded with work. I have two huge novels on hand--_The +Wrecker_ and the _Pearl Fisher_,[37] in collaboration with my stepson: +the latter, the _Pearl Fisher_, I think highly of, for a black, ugly, +trampling, violent story, full of strange scenes and striking +characters. And then I am about waist-deep in my big book on the South +Seas: _the_ big book on the South Seas it ought to be, and shall. And +besides, I have some verses in the press, which, however, I hesitate to +publish. For I am no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so +facile. All this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa keep +me very busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed. + +Alas, I shall not have the pleasure to see you yet awhile, if ever. You +must be content to take me as a wandering voice, and in the form of +occasional letters from recondite islands; and address me, if you will +be good enough to write, to Apia, Samoa. My stepson, Mr. Osbourne, goes +home meanwhile to arrange some affairs; it is not unlikely he may go to +Paris to arrange about the illustrations to my South Seas; in which case +I shall ask him to call upon you, and give you some word of our +outlandish destinies. You will find him intelligent, I think; and I am +sure, if (_par hasard_) you should take any interest in the islands, he +will have much to tell you.--Herewith I conclude, and am your obliged +and interested correspondent, + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +_P.S._--The story you refer to has got lost in the post. + + + + +TO ANDREW LANG + + + _Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._ + +MY DEAR LANG,--I observed with a great deal of surprise and interest +that a controversy in which you have been taking sides at home, in +yellow London, hinges in part at least on the Gilbert Islanders and +their customs in burial. Nearly six months of my life has been passed in +the group: I have revisited it but the other day; and I make haste to +tell you what I know. The upright stones--I enclose you a photograph of +one on Apemama--are certainly connected with religion; I do not think +they are adored. They stand usually on the windward shore of the +islands, that is to say, apart from habitation (on _enclosed islands_, +where the people live on the sea side, I do not know how it is, never +having lived on one). I gathered from Tembinoka, Rex Apemamae, that the +pillars were supposed to fortify the island from invasion: spiritual +martellos. I think he indicated they were connected with the cult of +Tenti--pronounce almost as chintz in English, the _t_ being explosive; +but you must take this with a grain of salt, for I knew no word of +Gilbert Island; and the King's English, although creditable, is rather +vigorous than exact. Now, here follows the point of interest to you: +such pillars, or standing stones, have no connection with graves. The +most elaborate grave that I have ever seen in the group--to be +certain--is in the form of a _raised border_ of gravel, usually strewn +with broken glass. One, of which I cannot be sure that it was a grave, +for I was told by one that it was, and by another that it was +not--consisted of a mound about breast high in an excavated taro swamp, +on the top of which was a child's house, or rather _maniapa_--that is to +say, shed, or open house, such as is used in the group for social or +political gatherings--so small that only a child could creep under its +eaves. I have heard of another great tomb on Apemama, which I did not +see; but here again, by all accounts, no sign of a standing stone. My +report would be--no connection between standing stones and sepulture. I +shall, however, send on the terms of the problem to a highly intelligent +resident trader, who knows more than perhaps any one living, white or +native, of the Gilbert group; and you shall have the result. In Samoa, +whither I return for good, I shall myself make inquiries; up to now, I +have neither seen nor heard of any standing stones in that +group.--Yours, + + R. L. STEVENSON. + + + + +TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE + + + Exactly what tale of doings in the garret at Skerryvore had been + related to Stevenson (in the character of Robin Lewison) by his + correspondent (in the character of Miss Green) cannot well be + gathered from this reply. But the letter is interesting as containing + the only mention of certain schemes of romance afterwards abandoned. + + _Union Club, Sydney, 1st September 1890._ + +MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I find you have been behaving very ill: _been_ +very ill, in fact. I find this hard to forgive; probably should not +forgive it at all if Robin Lewison had not been sick himself and a +wretched sick-room prisoner in this club for near a month. Well, the +best and bravest sometimes fail. But who is Miss Green? Don't know her! +I knew a lady of an exceedingly generous and perfervid nature--worthy to +be suspected of Scotch blood for the pertervidness--equipped with a +couple--perhaps a brace sounds better English--of perfervid eyes--with a +certain graceful gaucherie of manner, almost like a child's, and that is +at once the highest point of gaucherie and grace--a friend everybody I +ever saw was delighted to see come and sorry to see go. Yes, I knew that +lady, and can see her now. But who was Miss Green? There is something +amiss here. Either the Robin Lewisons have been very shabbily treated, +or--and this is the serious part of the affair--somebody unknown to me +has been entrusted with the key of the Skerryvore garret. This may go as +far as the Old Bailey, ma'am. + +But why should I gird at you or anybody, when the truth is we are the +most miserable sinners in the world? For we are not coming home, I dare +not. Even coming to Sydney has made me quite ill, and back I go to +Samoa, whither please address--Apia, Samoa--(and remember it is Samo-a, +a spondee to begin with, or Sahmoa, if you prefer that writing)--back I +and my wife go to Samoa to live on our landed estate with four black +labour boys in a kind of a sort of house, which Lloyd will describe to +you. For he has gone to England: receive him like a favour and a piece +of cake; he is our greeting to friends. + +I paused here to put in the date on the first page. I am precious nearly +through my fortieth year, thinks I to myself. Must be nearly as old as +Miss Green, thinks I. O, come! I exclaimed, not as bad as that! Some +lees of youth about the old remnant yet. + +My amiable Miss Green, I beg you to give me news of your health, and if +it may be good news. And when you shall have seen Lloyd, to tell me how +his reports of the South Seas and our new circumstances strike such an +awfully old person as yourself, and to tell me if you ever received a +letter I sent you from Hawaii. I remember thinking--or remember +remembering rather--it was (for me) quite a long respectable +communication. Also, you might tell me if you got my war-whoop and +scalping-knife assault on _le nomme_ Hyde. + +I ought not to forget to say your tale fetched me (Miss Green) by its +really vile probability. If we had met that man in Honolulu he would +have done it, and Miss Green would have done it. Only, alas! there is no +completed novel lying in the garret: would there were! It should be out +to-morrow with the name to it, and relieve a kind of tightness in the +money market much deplored in our immediate circle. To be sure (now I +come to think of it) there are some seven chapters of _The Great North +Road_; three, I think, of _Robin Run the Hedge_, given up when some +nefarious person pre-empted the name; and either there--or somewhere +else--likely New York--one chapter of _David Balfour_, and five or six +of the _Memoirs of Henry Shovel_. That's all. But Lloyd and I have +one-half of The Wrecker in type, and a good part of _The Pearl Fisher_ +(O, a great and grisly tale that!) in MS. And I have a projected, +entirely planned love-story--everybody will think it dreadfully +improper, I'm afraid--called _Cannonmills_. And I've a vague, rosy haze +before me--a love-story too, but not improper--called _The Rising Sun_. +(It's the name of the wayside inn where the story, or much of the story, +runs; but it's a kind of a pun: it means the stirring up of a boy by +falling in love, and how he rises in the estimation of a girl who +despised him, though she liked him, and had befriended him; I really +scarce see beyond their childhood yet, but I want to go beyond, and make +each out-top the other by successions: it should be pretty and true if I +could do it.) Also I have my big book, _The South Seas_, always with me, +and a sair handfu'--if I may be allowed to speak Scotch to Miss Green--a +sair handfu' it is likely to be. All this literary gossip I bestow upon +you _entre confreres_, Miss Green, which is little more than fair, Miss +Green. + +Allow me to remark that it is now half-past twelve o'clock of the living +night; I should certainly be ashamed of myself, and you also; for this +is no time of the night for Miss Green to be colloguing with a +comparatively young gentleman of forty. So with all the kindest wishes +to yourself, and all at Lostock, and all friends in Hants, or over the +borders in Dorset, I bring my folly to an end. Please believe, even when +I am silent, in my real affection; I need not say the same for Fanny, +more obdurately silent, not less affectionate than I.--Your friend, + + ROBERT--ROBIN LEWISON. + + +(Nearly had it wrong--force of habit.) + + + + +TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD + + + _Union Club, Sydney [September 1890]._ + +MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--I began a letter to you on board the _Janet +Nicoll_ on my last cruise, wrote, I believe, two sheets, and ruthlessly +destroyed the flippant trash. Your last has given me great pleasure and +some pain, for it increased the consciousness of my neglect. Now, this +must go to you, whatever it is like. + +... It is always harshness that one regrets.... I regret also my letter +to Dr. Hyde. Yes, I do; I think it was barbarously harsh; if I did it +now, I would defend Damien no less well, and give less pain to those who +are alive. These promptings of good-humour are not all sound; the three +times three, cheer boys cheer, and general amiability business rests on +a sneaking love of popularity, the most insidious enemy of virtue. On +the whole, it was virtuous to defend Damien; but it was harsh to strike +so hard at Dr. Hyde. When I wrote the letter, I believed he would bring +an action, in which case I knew I could be beggared. And as yet there +has come no action; the injured Doctor has contented himself up to now +with the (truly innocuous) vengeance of calling me a "Bohemian Crank," +and I have deeply wounded one of his colleagues whom I esteemed and +liked. + +Well, such is life. You are quite right; our civilisation is a hollow +fraud, all the fun of life is lost by it; all it gains is that a larger +number of persons can continue to be contemporaneously unhappy on the +surface of the globe. O, unhappy!--there is a big word and a +false--continue to be not nearly--by about twenty per cent.--so happy as +they might be: that would be nearer the mark. + +When--observe that word, which I will write again and larger--WHEN you +come to see us in Samoa, you will see for yourself a healthy and happy +people. + +You see, you are one of the very few of our friends rich enough to come +and see us; and when my house is built, and the road is made, and we +have enough fruit planted and poultry and pigs raised, it is undeniable +that you must come--must is the word; that is the way in which I speak +to ladies. You and Fairchild, anyway--perhaps my friend Blair--we'll +arrange details in good time. It will be the salvation of your souls, +and make you willing to die. + +Let me tell you this: In '74 or 5 there came to stay with my father and +mother a certain Mr. Seed, a prime minister or something of New Zealand. +He spotted what my complaint was; told me that I had no business to stay +in Europe; that I should find all I cared for, and all that was good for +me, in the Navigator Islands; sat up till four in the morning persuading +me, demolishing my scruples. And I resisted: I refused to go so far from +my father and mother. O, it was virtuous, and O, wasn't it silly! But my +father, who was always my dearest, got to his grave without that pang; +and now in 1890, I (or what is left of me) go at last to the Navigator +Islands. God go with us! It is but a Pisgah sight when all is said; I go +there only to grow old and die; but when you come, you will see it is a +fair place for the purpose. + +Flaubert[38] has not turned up; I hope he will soon; I knew of him only +through Maxime Descamps.--With kindest messages to yourself and all of +yours, I remain + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [27] King Kalakaua. + + [28] This is the Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (d. 1899). + + [29] Stevenson's stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time + living at Honolulu, and joined his party and family for good after + they arrived at Sydney in the following autumn. + + [30] R. A. M. Stevenson was at this time professor of Fine Art in the + University of Liverpool. + + [31] The Hawaiian name for white men. + + [32] The writer has omitted something here. + + [33] Table of chapter headings follows. + + [34] French _batons rompus_: disconnected thoughts or studies. + + [35] The Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu: in reference to Stevenson's + letter on Father Damien. + + [36] By Emile Zola. + + [37] Afterwards re-named _The Ebb-Tide_. + + [38] His _Letters_. + + + + +END OF VOL. 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