Project Gutenberg Etext of The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
Volume 1
#29 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson
Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below. We need your donations.
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
Volume 1
August, 1996 [Etext #622]
Project Gutenberg Etext of The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
*****This file should be named rlsl110.txt or rlsl110.zip******
Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, rlsl111.txt.
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rlsl110a.txt.
We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an
up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has
a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
new copy has at least one byte more or less.
Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
files per month: or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800.
If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
total should reach 80 billion Etexts.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001
should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
We need your donations more than ever!
All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/BU": and are
tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (BU = Benedictine
University). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go to BU.)
For these and other matters, please mail to:
Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box 2782
Champaign, IL 61825
When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
Michael S. Hart <
[email protected]>
We would prefer to send you this information by email
(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
******
If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET INDEX?00.GUT
for a list of books
and
GET NEW GUT for general information
and
MGET GUT* for newsletters.
**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
(Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
Benedictine University (the "Project"). Among other
things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.
THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the etext (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
net profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
University" within the 60 days following each
date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
Association / Benedictine University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 1
Scanned and proofed by David Price
[email protected]
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1
CHAPTER I - STUDENT DAYS AT EDINBURGH, TRAVELS AND EXCURSIONS,
1868-1873
Letter: SPRING GROVE SCHOOL, 12TH NOVEMBER 1863.
MA CHERE MAMAN, - Jai recu votre lettre Aujourdhui et comme le jour
prochaine est mon jour de naisance je vous ecrit ce lettre. Ma
grande gatteaux est arrive il leve 12 livres et demi le prix etait
17 shillings. Sur la soiree de Monseigneur Faux il y etait
quelques belles feux d'artifice. Mais les polissons entrent dans
notre champ et nos feux d'artifice et handkerchiefs disappeared
quickly, but we charged them out of the field. Je suis presque
driven mad par une bruit terrible tous les garcons kik up comme
grand un bruit qu'll est possible. I hope you will find your house
at Mentone nice. I have been obliged to stop from writing by the
want of a pen, but now I have one, so I will continue.
My dear papa, you told me to tell you whenever I was miserable. I
do not feel well, and I wish to get home.
Do take me with you.
R. STEVENSON.
Letter: 2 SULYARDE TERRACE, TORQUAY, THURSDAY (APRIL 1866).
RESPECTED PATERNAL RELATIVE, - I write to make a request of the
most moderate nature. Every year I have cost you an enormous -
nay, elephantine - sum of money for drugs and physician's fees, and
the most expensive time of the twelve months was March.
But this year the biting Oriental blasts, the howling tempests, and
the general ailments of the human race have been successfully
braved by yours truly.
Does not this deserve remuneration?
I appeal to your charity, I appeal to your generosity, I appeal to
your justice, I appeal to your accounts, I appeal, in fine, to your
purse.
My sense of generosity forbids the receipt of more - my sense of
justice forbids the receipt of less - than half-a-crown. - Greeting
from, Sir, your most affectionate and needy son,
R. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
WICK, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1868.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - . . . Wick lies at the end or elbow of an open
triangular bay, hemmed on either side by shores, either cliff or
steep earth-bank, of no great height. The grey houses of Pulteney
extend along the southerly shore almost to the cape; and it is
about half-way down this shore - no, six-sevenths way down - that
the new breakwater extends athwart the bay.
Certainly Wick in itself possesses no beauty: bare, grey shores,
grim grey houses, grim grey sea; not even the gleam of red tiles;
not even the greenness of a tree. The southerly heights, when I
came here, were black with people, fishers waiting on wind and
night. Now all the S.Y.S. (Stornoway boats) have beaten out of the
bay, and the Wick men stay indoors or wrangle on the quays with
dissatisfied fish-curers, knee-high in brine, mud, and herring
refuse. The day when the boats put out to go home to the Hebrides,
the girl here told me there was 'a black wind'; and on going out, I
found the epithet as justifiable as it was picturesque. A cold,
BLACK southerly wind, with occasional rising showers of rain; it
was a fine sight to see the boats beat out a-teeth of it.
In Wick I have never heard any one greet his neighbour with the
usual 'Fine day' or 'Good morning.' Both come shaking their heads,
and both say, 'Breezy, breezy!' And such is the atrocious quality
of the climate, that the remark is almost invariably justified by
the fact.
The streets are full of the Highland fishers, lubberly, stupid,
inconceivably lazy and heavy to move. You bruise against them,
tumble over them, elbow them against the wall - all to no purpose;
they will not budge; and you are forced to leave the pavement every
step.
To the south, however, is as fine a piece of coast scenery as I
ever saw. Great black chasms, huge black cliffs, rugged and over-
hung gullies, natural arches, and deep green pools below them,
almost too deep to let you see the gleam of sand among the darker
weed: there are deep caves too. In one of these lives a tribe of
gipsies. The men are ALWAYS drunk, simply and truthfully always.
From morning to evening the great villainous-looking fellows are
either sleeping off the last debauch, or hulking about the cove 'in
the horrors.' The cave is deep, high, and airy, and might be made
comfortable enough. But they just live among heaped boulders, damp
with continual droppings from above, with no more furniture than
two or three tin pans, a truss of rotten straw, and a few ragged
cloaks. In winter the surf bursts into the mouth and often forces
them to abandon it.
An EMEUTE of disappointed fishers was feared, and two ships of war
are in the bay to render assistance to the municipal authorities.
This is the ides; and, to all intents and purposes, said ides are
passed. Still there is a good deal of disturbance, many drunk men,
and a double supply of police. I saw them sent for by some people
and enter an inn, in a pretty good hurry: what it was for I do not
know.
You would see by papa's letter about the carpenter who fell off the
staging: I don't think I was ever so much excited in my life. The
man was back at his work, and I asked him how he was; but he was a
Highlander, and - need I add it? - dickens a word could I
understand of his answer. What is still worse, I find the people
here-about - that is to say, the Highlanders, not the northmen -
don't understand ME.
I have lost a shilling's worth of postage stamps, which has damped
my ardour for buying big lots of 'em: I'll buy them one at a time
as I want 'em for the future.
The Free Church minister and I got quite thick. He left last night
about two in the morning, when I went to turn in. He gave me the
enclosed. - I remain your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
WICK, September 5, 1868. MONDAY.
MY DEAR MAMMA, - This morning I got a delightful haul: your letter
of the fourth (surely mis-dated); Papa's of same day; Virgil's
BUCOLICS, very thankfully received; and Aikman's ANNALS, a precious
and most acceptable donation, for which I tender my most ebullient
thanksgivings. I almost forgot to drink my tea and eat mine egg.
It contains more detailed accounts than anything I ever saw, except
Wodrow, without being so portentously tiresome and so desperately
overborne with footnotes, proclamations, acts of Parliament, and
citations as that last history.
I have been reading a good deal of Herbert. He's a clever and a
devout cove; but in places awfully twaddley (if I may use the
word). Oughtn't this to rejoice Papa's heart -
'Carve or discourse; do not a famine fear.
Who carves is kind to two, who talks to all.'
You understand? The 'fearing a famine' is applied to people
gulping down solid vivers without a word, as if the ten lean kine
began to-morrow.
Do you remember condemning something of mine for being too
obtrusively didactic. Listen to Herbert -
'Is it not verse except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
MUST ALL BE VEILED, WHILE HE THAT READS DIVINES
CATCHING THE SENSE AT TWO REMOVES?'
You see, 'except' was used for 'unless' before 1630.
TUESDAY. - The riots were a hum. No more has been heard; and one
of the war-steamers has deserted in disgust.
The MOONSTONE is frightfully interesting: isn't the detective
prime? Don't say anything about the plot; for I have only read on
to the end of Betteredge's narrative, so don't know anything about
it yet.
I thought to have gone on to Thurso to-night, but the coach was
full; so I go to-morrow instead.
To-day I had a grouse: great glorification.
There is a drunken brute in the house who disturbed my rest last
night. He's a very respectable man in general, but when on the
'spree' a most consummate fool. When he came in he stood on the
top of the stairs and preached in the dark with great solemnity and
no audience from 12 P.M. to half-past one. At last I opened my
door. 'Are we to have no sleep at all for that DRUNKEN BRUTE?' I
said. As I hoped, it had the desired effect. 'Drunken brute!' he
howled, in much indignation; then after a pause, in a voice of some
contrition, 'Well, if I am a drunken brute, it's only once in the
twelvemonth!' And that was the end of him; the insult rankled in
his mind; and he retired to rest. He is a fish-curer, a man over
fifty, and pretty rich too. He's as bad again to-day; but I'll be
shot if he keeps me awake, I'll douse him with water if he makes a
row. - Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
WICK, SEPTEMBER 1868. SATURDAY, 10 A.M.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - The last two days have been dreadfully hard, and
I was so tired in the evenings that I could not write. In fact,
last night I went to sleep immediately after dinner, or very nearly
so. My hours have been 10-2 and 3-7 out in the lighter or the
small boat, in a long, heavy roll from the nor'-east. When the dog
was taken out, he got awfully ill; one of the men, Geordie Grant by
name and surname, followed SHOOT with considerable ECLAT; but,
wonderful to relate! I kept well. My hands are all skinned,
blistered, discoloured, and engrained with tar, some of which
latter has established itself under my nails in a position of such
natural strength that it defies all my efforts to dislodge it. The
worst work I had was when David (MacDonald's eldest) and I took the
charge ourselves. He remained in the lighter to tighten or slacken
the guys as we raised the pole towards the perpendicular, with two
men. I was with four men in the boat. We dropped an anchor out a
good bit, then tied a cord to the pole, took a turn round the
sternmost thwart with it, and pulled on the anchor line. As the
great, big, wet hawser came in it soaked you to the skin: I was
the sternest (used, by way of variety, for sternmost) of the lot,
and had to coil it - a work which involved, from ITS being so stiff
and YOUR being busy pulling with all your might, no little trouble
and an extra ducking. We got it up; and, just as we were going to
sing 'Victory!' one of the guys slipped in, the pole tottered -
went over on its side again like a shot, and behold the end of our
labour.
You see, I have been roughing it; and though some parts of the
letter may be neither very comprehensible nor very interesting to
YOU, I think that perhaps it might amuse Willie Traquair, who
delights in all such dirty jobs.
The first day, I forgot to mention, was like mid-winter for cold,
and rained incessantly so hard that the livid white of our cold-
pinched faces wore a sort of inflamed rash on the windward side.
I am not a bit the worse of it, except fore-mentioned state of
hands, a slight crick in my neck from the rain running down, and
general stiffness from pulling, hauling, and tugging for dear life.
We have got double weights at the guys, and hope to get it up like
a shot.
What fun you three must be having! I hope the cold don't disagree
with you. - I remain, my dear mother, your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
PULTENEY, WICK, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 1868.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - Another storm: wind higher, rain thicker: the
wind still rising as the night closes in and the sea slowly rising
along with it; it looks like a three days' gale.
Last week has been a blank one: always too much sea.
I enjoyed myself very much last night at the R.'s. There was a
little dancing, much singing and supper.
Are you not well that you do not write? I haven't heard from you
for more than a fortnight.
The wind fell yesterday and rose again to-day; it is a dreadful
evening; but the wind is keeping the sea down as yet. Of course,
nothing more has been done to the poles; and I can't tell when I
shall be able to leave, not for a fortnight yet, I fear, at the
earliest, for the winds are persistent. Where's Murra? Is Cummie
struck dumb about the boots? I wish you would get somebody to
write an interesting letter and say how you are, for you're on the
broad of your back I see. There hath arrived an inroad of farmers
to-night; and I go to avoid them to M- if he's disengaged, to the
R.'s if not.
SUNDAY (LATER). - Storm without: wind and rain: a confused mass
of wind-driven rain-squalls, wind-ragged mist, foam, spray, and
great, grey waves. Of this hereafter; in the meantime let us
follow the due course of historic narrative.
Seven P.M. found me at Breadalbane Terrace, clad in spotless
blacks, white tie, shirt, et caetera, and finished off below with a
pair of navvies' boots. How true that the devil is betrayed by his
feet! A message to Cummy at last. Why, O treacherous woman! were
my dress boots withheld?
Dramatis personae: pere R., amusing, long-winded, in many points
like papa; mere R., nice, delicate, likes hymns, knew Aunt Margaret
('t'ould man knew Uncle Alan); fille R., nommee Sara (no h), rather
nice, lights up well, good voice, INTERESTED face; Miss L., nice
also, washed out a little, and, I think, a trifle sentimental; fils
R., in a Leith office, smart, full of happy epithet, amusing. They
are very nice and very kind, asked me to come back - 'any night you
feel dull; and any night doesn't mean no night: we'll be so glad
to see you.' CEST LA MERE QUI PARLE.
I was back there again to-night. There was hymn-singing, and
general religious controversy till eight, after which talk was
secular. Mrs. S. was deeply distressed about the boot business.
She consoled me by saying that many would be glad to have such feet
whatever shoes they had on. Unfortunately, fishers and seafaring
men are too facile to be compared with! This looks like enjoyment:
better speck than Anster.
I have done with frivolity. This morning I was awakened by Mrs. S.
at the door. 'There's a ship ashore at Shaltigoe!' As my senses
slowly flooded, I heard the whistling and the roaring of wind, and
the lashing of gust-blown and uncertain flaws of rain. I got up,
dressed, and went out. The mizzled sky and rain blinded you.
C D
+-------------------
|
|
+-------------------
\
A\
\
B\
C D is the new pier.
A the schooner ashore. B the salmon house.
She was a Norwegian: coming in she saw our first gauge-pole,
standing at point E. Norse skipper thought it was a sunk smack, and
dropped his anchor in full drift of sea: chain broke: schooner
came ashore. Insured laden with wood: skipper owner of vessel and
cargo bottom out.
I was in a great fright at first lest we should be liable; but it
seems that's all right.
Some of the waves were twenty feet high. The spray rose eighty
feet at the new pier. Some wood has come ashore, and the roadway
seems carried away. There is something fishy at the far end where
the cross wall is building; but till we are able to get along, all
speculation is vain.
I am so sleepy I am writing nonsense.
I stood a long while on the cope watching the sea below me; I hear
its dull, monotonous roar at this moment below the shrieking of the
wind; and there came ever recurring to my mind the verse I am so
fond of:-
'But yet the Lord that is on high
Is more of might by far
Than noise of many waters is
Or great sea-billows are.'
The thunder at the wall when it first struck - the rush along ever
growing higher - the great jet of snow-white spray some forty feet
above you - and the 'noise of many waters,' the roar, the hiss, the
'shrieking' among the shingle as it fell head over heels at your
feet. I watched if it threw the big stones at the wall; but it
never moved them.
MONDAY. - The end of the work displays gaps, cairns of ten ton
blocks, stones torn from their places and turned right round. The
damage above water is comparatively little: what there may be
below, ON NE SAIT PAS ENCORE. The roadway is torn away, cross
heads, broken planks tossed here and there, planks gnawn and
mumbled as if a starved bear had been trying to eat them, planks
with spales lifted from them as if they had been dressed with a
rugged plane, one pile swaying to and fro clear of the bottom, the
rails in one place sunk a foot at least. This was not a great
storm, the waves were light and short. Yet when we are standing at
the office, I felt the ground beneath me QUAIL as a huge roller
thundered on the work at the last year's cross wall.
How could NOSTER AMICUS Q. MAXIMUS appreciate a storm at Wick? It
requires a little of the artistic temperament, of which Mr. T. S.,
C.E., possesses some, whatever he may say. I can't look at it
practically however: that will come, I suppose, like grey hair or
coffin nails.
Our pole is snapped: a fortnight's work and the loss of the Norse
schooner all for nothing! - except experience and dirty clothes. -
Your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. CHURCHILL BABINGTON
[SWANSTON COTTAGE, LOTHIANBURN, SUMMER 1871.]
MY DEAR MAUD, - If you have forgotten the hand-writing - as is like
enough - you will find the name of a former correspondent (don't
know how to spell that word) at the end. I have begun to write to
you before now, but always stuck somehow, and left it to drown in a
drawerful of like fiascos. This time I am determined to carry
through, though I have nothing specially to say.
We look fairly like summer this morning; the trees are blackening
out of their spring greens; the warmer suns have melted the
hoarfrost of daisies of the paddock; and the blackbird, I fear,
already beginning to 'stint his pipe of mellower days' - which is
very apposite (I can't spell anything to-day - ONE p or TWO?) and
pretty. All the same, we have been having shocking weather - cold
winds and grey skies.
I have been reading heaps of nice books; but I can't go back so
far. I am reading Clarendon's HIST. REBELL. at present, with which
I am more pleased than I expected, which is saying a good deal. It
is a pet idea of mine that one gets more real truth out of one
avowed partisan than out of a dozen of your sham impartialists -
wolves in sheep's clothing - simpering honesty as they suppress
documents. After all, what one wants to know is not what people
did, but why they did it - or rather, why they THOUGHT they did it;
and to learn that, you should go to the men themselves. Their very
falsehood is often more than another man's truth.
I have possessed myself of Mrs. Hutchinson, which, of course, I
admire, etc. But is there not an irritating deliberation and
correctness about her and everybody connected with her? If she
would only write bad grammar, or forget to finish a sentence, or do
something or other that looks fallible, it would be a relief. I
sometimes wish the old Colonel had got drunk and beaten her, in the
bitterness of my spirit. I know I felt a weight taken off my heart
when I heard he was extravagant. It is quite possible to be too
good for this evil world; and unquestionably, Mrs. Hutchinson was.
The way in which she talks of herself makes one's blood run cold.
There - I am glad to have got that out - but don't say it to
anybody - seal of secrecy.
Please tell Mr. Babington that I have never forgotten one of his
drawings - a Rubens, I think - a woman holding up a model ship.
That woman had more life in her than ninety per cent. of the lame
humans that you see crippling about this earth.
By the way, that is a feature in art which seems to have come in
with the Italians. Your old Greek statues have scarce enough
vitality in them to keep their monstrous bodies fresh withal. A
shrewd country attorney, in a turned white neckcloth and rusty
blacks, would just take one of these Agamemnons and Ajaxes quietly
by his beautiful, strong arm, trot the unresisting statue down a
little gallery of legal shams, and turn the poor fellow out at the
other end, 'naked, as from the earth he came.' There is more
latent life, more of the coiled spring in the sleeping dog, about a
recumbent figure of Michael Angelo's than about the most excited of
Greek statues. The very marble seems to wrinkle with a wild energy
that we never feel except in dreams.
I think this letter has turned into a sermon, but I had nothing
interesting to talk about.
I do wish you and Mr. Babington would think better of it and come
north this summer. We should be so glad to see you both. DO
reconsider it. - Believe me, my dear Maud, ever your most
affectionate cousin,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
1871?
MY DEAR CUMMY, - I was greatly pleased by your letter in many ways.
Of course, I was glad to hear from you; you know, you and I have so
many old stories between us, that even if there was nothing else,
even if there was not a very sincere respect and affection, we
should always be glad to pass a nod. I say 'even if there was
not.' But you know right well there is. Do not suppose that I
shall ever forget those long, bitter nights, when I coughed and
coughed and was so unhappy, and you were so patient and loving with
a poor, sick child. Indeed, Cummy, I wish I might become a man
worth talking of, if it were only that you should not have thrown
away your pains.
Happily, it is not the result of our acts that makes them brave and
noble, but the acts themselves and the unselfish love that moved us
to do them. 'Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of
these.' My dear old nurse, and you know there is nothing a man can
say nearer his heart except his mother or his wife - my dear old
nurse, God will make good to you all the good that you have done,
and mercifully forgive you all the evil. And next time when the
spring comes round, and everything is beginning once again, if you
should happen to think that you might have had a child of your own,
and that it was hard you should have spent so many years taking
care of some one else's prodigal, just you think this - you have
been for a great deal in my life; you have made much that there is
in me, just as surely as if you had conceived me; and there are
sons who are more ungrateful to their own mothers than I am to you.
For I am not ungrateful, my dear Cummy, and it is with a very
sincere emotion that I write myself your little boy,
Louis.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
DUNBLANE, FRIDAY, 5TH MARCH 1872.
MY DEAR BAXTER, - By the date you may perhaps understand the
purport of my letter without any words wasted about the matter. I
cannot walk with you to-morrow, and you must not expect me. I came
yesterday afternoon to Bridge of Allan, and have been very happy
ever since, as every place is sanctified by the eighth sense,
Memory. I walked up here this morning (three miles, TU-DIEU! a
good stretch for me), and passed one of my favourite places in the
world, and one that I very much affect in spirit when the body is
tied down and brought immovably to anchor on a sickbed. It is a
meadow and bank on a corner on the river, and is connected in my
mind inseparably with Virgil's ECLOGUES. HIC CORULIS MISTOS INTER
CONSEDIMUS ULMOS, or something very like that, the passage begins
(only I know my short-winded Latinity must have come to grief over
even this much of quotation); and here, to a wish, is just such a
cavern as Menalcas might shelter himself withal from the bright
noon, and, with his lips curled backward, pipe himself blue in the
face, while MESSIEURS LES ARCADIENS would roll out those cloying
hexameters that sing themselves in one's mouth to such a curious
lifting chant.
In such weather one has the bird's need to whistle; and I, who am
specially incompetent in this art, must content myself by
chattering away to you on this bit of paper. All the way along I
was thanking God that he had made me and the birds and everything
just as they are and not otherwise; for although there was no sun,
the air was so thrilled with robins and blackbirds that it made the
heart tremble with joy, and the leaves are far enough forward on
the underwood to give a fine promise for the future. Even myself,
as I say, I would not have had changed in one IOTA this forenoon,
in spite of all my idleness and Guthrie's lost paper, which is ever
present with me - a horrible phantom.
No one can be alone at home or in a quite new place. Memory and
you must go hand in hand with (at least) decent weather if you wish
to cook up a proper dish of solitude. It is in these little
flights of mine that I get more pleasure than in anything else.
Now, at present, I am supremely uneasy and restless - almost to the
extent of pain; but O! how I enjoy it, and how I SHALL enjoy it
afterwards (please God), if I get years enough allotted to me for
the thing to ripen in. When I am a very old and very respectable
citizen with white hair and bland manners and a gold watch, I shall
hear three crows cawing in my heart, as I heard them this morning:
I vote for old age and eighty years of retrospect. Yet, after all,
I dare say, a short shrift and a nice green grave are about as
desirable.
Poor devil! how I am wearying you! Cheer up. Two pages more, and
my letter reaches its term, for I have no more paper. What
delightful things inns and waiters and bagmen are! If we didn't
travel now and then, we should forget what the feeling of life is.
The very cushion of a railway carriage - 'the things restorative to
the touch.' I can't write, confound it! That's because I am so
tired with my walk. Believe me, ever your affectionate friend,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
DUNBLANE, TUESDAY, 9TH APRIL 1872.
MY DEAR BAXTER, - I don't know what you mean. I know nothing about
the Standing Committee of the Spec., did not know that such a body
existed, and even if it doth exist, must sadly repudiate all
association with such 'goodly fellowship.' I am a 'Rural
Voluptuary' at present. THAT is what is the matter with me. The
Spec. may go whistle. As for 'C. Baxter, Esq.,' who is he? 'One
Baxter, or Bagster, a secretary,' I say to mine acquaintance, 'is
at present disquieting my leisure with certain illegal,
uncharitable, unchristian, and unconstitutional documents called
BUSINESS LETTERS: THE AFFAIR IS IN THE HANDS OF THE POLICE.' Do
you hear THAT, you evildoer? Sending business letters is surely a
far more hateful and slimy degree of wickedness than sending
threatening letters; the man who throws grenades and torpedoes is
less malicious; the Devil in red-hot hell rubs his hands with glee
as he reckons up the number that go forth spreading pain and
anxiety with each delivery of the post.
I have been walking to-day by a colonnade of beeches along the
brawling Allan. My character for sanity is quite gone, seeing that
I cheered my lonely way with the following, in a triumphant chaunt:
'Thank God for the grass, and the fir-trees, and the crows, and the
sheep, and the sunshine, and the shadows of the fir-trees.' I hold
that he is a poor mean devil who can walk alone, in such a place
and in such weather, and doesn't set up his lungs and cry back to
the birds and the river. Follow, follow, follow me. Come hither,
come hither, come hither - here shall you see - no enemy - except a
very slight remnant of winter and its rough weather. My bedroom,
when I awoke this morning, was full of bird-songs, which is the
greatest pleasure in life. Come hither, come hither, come hither,
and when you come bring the third part of the EARTHLY PARADISE; you
can get it for me in Elliot's for two and tenpence (2s. 10d.)
(BUSINESS HABITS). Also bring an ounce of honeydew from Wilson's.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
BRUSSELS, THURSDAY, 25TH JULY 1872.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - I am here at last, sitting in my room, without
coat or waistcoat, and with both window and door open, and yet
perspiring like a terra-cotta jug or a Gruyere cheese.
We had a very good passage, which we certainly deserved, in
compensation for having to sleep on cabin floor, and finding
absolutely nothing fit for human food in the whole filthy
embarkation. We made up for lost time by sleeping on deck a good
part of the forenoon. When I woke, Simpson was still sleeping the
sleep of the just, on a coil of ropes and (as appeared afterwards)
his own hat; so I got a bottle of Bass and a pipe and laid hold of
an old Frenchman of somewhat filthy aspect (FIAT EXPERIMENTUM IN
CORPORE VILI) to try my French upon. I made very heavy weather of
it. The Frenchman had a very pretty young wife; but my French
always deserted me entirely when I had to answer her, and so she
soon drew away and left me to her lord, who talked of French
politics, Africa, and domestic economy with great vivacity. From
Ostend a smoking-hot journey to Brussels. At Brussels we went off
after dinner to the Parc. If any person wants to be happy, I
should advise the Parc. You sit drinking iced drinks and smoking
penny cigars under great old trees. The band place, covered walks,
etc., are all lit up. And you can't fancy how beautiful was the
contrast of the great masses of lamplit foliage and the dark
sapphire night sky with just one blue star set overhead in the
middle of the largest patch. In the dark walks, too, there are
crowds of people whose faces you cannot see, and here and there a
colossal white statue at the corner of an alley that gives the
place a nice, ARTIFICIAL, eighteenth century sentiment. There was
a good deal of summer lightning blinking overhead, and the black
avenues and white statues leapt out every minute into short-lived
distinctness.
I get up to add one thing more. There is in the hotel a boy in
whom I take the deepest interest. I cannot tell you his age, but
the very first time I saw him (when I was at dinner yesterday) I
was very much struck with his appearance. There is something very
leonine in his face, with a dash of the negro especially, if I
remember aright, in the mouth. He has a great quantity of dark
hair, curling in great rolls, not in little corkscrews, and a pair
of large, dark, and very steady, bold, bright eyes. His manners
are those of a prince. I felt like an overgrown ploughboy beside
him. He speaks English perfectly, but with, I think, sufficient
foreign accent to stamp him as a Russian, especially when his
manners are taken into account. I don't think I ever saw any one
who looked like a hero before. After breakfast this morning I was
talking to him in the court, when he mentioned casually that he had
caught a snake in the Riesengebirge. 'I have it here,' he said;
'would you like to see it?' I said yes; and putting his hand into
his breast-pocket, he drew forth not a dried serpent skin, but the
head and neck of the reptile writhing and shooting out its horrible
tongue in my face. You may conceive what a fright I got. I send
off this single sheet just now in order to let you know I am safe
across; but you must not expect letters often.
R. L. STEVENSON.
P.S. - The snake was about a yard long, but harmless, and now, he
says, quite tame.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
HOTEL LANDSBERG, FRANKFURT, MONDAY, 29TH JULY 1872.
.. LAST night I met with rather an amusing adventurette. Seeing a
church door open, I went in, and was led by most importunate
finger-bills up a long stair to the top of the tower. The father
smoking at the door, the mother and the three daughters received me
as if I was a friend of the family and had come in for an evening
visit. The youngest daughter (about thirteen, I suppose, and a
pretty little girl) had been learning English at the school, and
was anxious to play it off upon a real, veritable Englander; so we
had a long talk, and I was shown photographs, etc., Marie and I
talking, and the others looking on with evident delight at having
such a linguist in the family. As all my remarks were duly
translated and communicated to the rest, it was quite a good German
lesson. There was only one contretemps during the whole interview
- the arrival of another visitor, in the shape (surely) the last of
God's creatures, a wood-worm of the most unnatural and hideous
appearance, with one great striped horn sticking out of his nose
like a boltsprit. If there are many wood-worms in Germany, I shall
come home. The most courageous men in the world must be
entomologists. I had rather be a lion-tamer.
To-day I got rather a curiosity - LIEDER UND BALLADEN VON ROBERT
BURNS, translated by one Silbergleit, and not so ill done either.
Armed with which, I had a swim in the Main, and then bread and
cheese and Bavarian beer in a sort of cafe, or at least the German
substitute for a cafe; but what a falling off after the heavenly
forenoons in Brussels!
I have bought a meerschaum out of local sentiment, and am now very
low and nervous about the bargain, having paid dearer than I should
in England, and got a worse article, if I can form a judgment.
Do write some more, somebody. To-morrow I expect I shall go into
lodgings, as this hotel work makes the money disappear like butter
in a furnace. - Meanwhile believe me, ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
HOTEL LANDSBERG, THURSDAY, 1ST AUGUST 1872.
.. YESTERDAY I walked to Eckenheim, a village a little way out of
Frankfurt, and turned into the alehouse. In the room, which was
just such as it would have been in Scotland, were the landlady, two
neighbours, and an old peasant eating raw sausage at the far end.
I soon got into conversation; and was astonished when the landlady,
having asked whether I were an Englishman, and received an answer
in the affirmative, proceeded to inquire further whether I were not
also a Scotchman. It turned out that a Scotch doctor - a professor
- a poet - who wrote books - GROSS WIE DAS - had come nearly every
day out of Frankfurt to the ECKENHEIMER WIRTHSCHAFT, and had left
behind him a most savoury memory in the hearts of all its
customers. One man ran out to find his name for me, and returned
with the news that it was COBIE (Scobie, I suspect); and during his
absence the rest were pouring into my ears the fame and
acquirements of my countryman. He was, in some undecipherable
manner, connected with the Queen of England and one of the
Princesses. He had been in Turkey, and had there married a wife of
immense wealth. They could find apparently no measure adequate to
express the size of his books. In one way or another, he had
amassed a princely fortune, and had apparently only one sorrow, his
daughter to wit, who had absconded into a KLOSTER, with a
considerable slice of the mother's GELD. I told them we had no
klosters in Scotland, with a certain feeling of superiority. No
more had they, I was told - 'HIER IST UNSER KLOSTER!' and the
speaker motioned with both arms round the taproom. Although the
first torrent was exhausted, yet the Doctor came up again in all
sorts of ways, and with or without occasion, throughout the whole
interview; as, for example, when one man, taking his pipe out of
his mouth and shaking his head, remarked APROPOS of nothing and
with almost defiant conviction, 'ER WAR EIN FEINER MANN, DER HERR
DOCTOR,' and was answered by another with 'YAW, YAW, UND TRANK
IMMER ROTHEN WEIN.'
Setting aside the Doctor, who had evidently turned the brains of
the entire village, they were intelligent people. One thing in
particular struck me, their honesty in admitting that here they
spoke bad German, and advising me to go to Coburg or Leipsic for
German. - 'SIE SPRECHEN DA REIN' (clean), said one; and they all
nodded their heads together like as many mandarins, and repeated
REIN, SO REIN in chorus.
Of course we got upon Scotland. The hostess said, 'DIE
SCHOTTLANDER TRINKEN GERN SCHNAPPS,' which may be freely
translated, 'Scotchmen are horrid fond of whisky.' It was
impossible, of course, to combat such a truism; and so I proceeded
to explain the construction of toddy, interrupted by a cry of
horror when I mentioned the HOT water; and thence, as I find is
always the case, to the most ghastly romancing about Scottish
scenery and manners, the Highland dress, and everything national or
local that I could lay my hands upon. Now that I have got my
German Burns, I lean a good deal upon him for opening a
conversation, and read a few translations to every yawning audience
that I can gather. I am grown most insufferably national, you see.
I fancy it is a punishment for my want of it at ordinary times.
Now, what do you think, there was a waiter in this very hotel, but,
alas! he is now gone, who sang (from morning to night, as my
informant said with a shrug at the recollection) what but 'S IST
LANGE HER, the German version of Auld Lang Syne; so you see,
madame, the finest lyric ever written will make its way out of
whatsoever corner of patois it found its birth in.
'MEITZ HERZ IST IM HOCHLAND, MEAN HERZ IST NICHT HIER,
MEIN HERZ IST IM HOCHLAND IM GRUNEN REVIER.
IM GRUNEN REVIERE ZU JAGEN DAS REH;
MEIN HERZ IST IM HOCHLAND, WO IMMER ICH GEH.'
I don't think I need translate that for you.
There is one thing that burthens me a good deal in my patriotic
garrulage, and that is the black ignorance in which I grope about
everything, as, for example, when I gave yesterday a full and, I
fancy, a startlingly incorrect account of Scotch education to a
very stolid German on a garden bench: he sat and perspired under
it, however with much composure. I am generally glad enough to
fall back again, after these political interludes, upon Burns,
toddy, and the Highlands.
I go every night to the theatre, except when there is no opera. I
cannot stand a play yet; but I am already very much improved, and
can understand a good deal of what goes on.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 1872. - In the evening, at the theatre, I had a
great laugh. Lord Allcash in FRA DIAVOLO, with his white hat, red
guide-books, and bad German, was the PIECE-DE-RESISTANCE from a
humorous point of view; and I had the satisfaction of knowing that
in my own small way I could minister the same amusement whenever I
chose to open my mouth.
I am just going off to do some German with Simpson. - Your
affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON
FRANKFURT, ROSENGASSE 13, AUGUST 4, 1872.
MY DEAR FATHER, - You will perceive by the head of this page that
we have at last got into lodgings, and powerfully mean ones too.
If I were to call the street anything but SHADY, I should be
boasting. The people sit at their doors in shirt-sleeves, smoking
as they do in Seven Dials of a Sunday.
Last night we went to bed about ten, for the first time
HOUSEHOLDERS in Germany - real Teutons, with no deception, spring,
or false bottom. About half-past one there began such a
trumpeting, shouting, pealing of bells, and scurrying hither and
thither of feet as woke every person in Frankfurt out of their
first sleep with a vague sort of apprehension that the last day was
at hand. The whole street was alive, and we could hear people
talking in their rooms, or crying to passers-by from their windows,
all around us. At last I made out what a man was saying in the
next room. It was a fire in Sachsenhausen, he said (Sachsenhausen
is the suburb on the other side of the Main), and he wound up with
one of the most tremendous falsehoods on record, 'HIER ALLES RUHT -
here all is still.' If it can be said to be still in an engine
factory, or in the stomach of a volcano when it is meditating an
eruption, he might have been justified in what he said, but not
otherwise. The tumult continued unabated for near an hour; but as
one grew used to it, it gradually resolved itself into three bells,
answering each other at short intervals across the town, a man
shouting, at ever shorter intervals and with superhuman energy,
'FEUER, - IM SACHSENHAUSEN, and the almost continuous winding of
all manner of bugles and trumpets, sometimes in stirring
flourishes, and sometimes in mere tuneless wails. Occasionally
there was another rush of feet past the window, and once there was
a mighty drumming, down between us and the river, as though the
soldiery were turning out to keep the peace. This was all we had
of the fire, except a great cloud, all flushed red with the glare,
above the roofs on the other side of the Gasse; but it was quite
enough to put me entirely off my sleep and make me keenly alive to
three or four gentlemen who were strolling leisurely about my
person, and every here and there leaving me somewhat as a keepsake.
. . However, everything has its compensation, and when day came
at last, and the sparrows awoke with trills and CAROL-ETS, the dawn
seemed to fall on me like a sleeping draught. I went to the window
and saw the sparrows about the eaves, and a great troop of doves go
strolling up the paven Gasse, seeking what they may devour. And so
to sleep, despite fleas and fire-alarms and clocks chiming the
hours out of neighbouring houses at all sorts of odd times and with
the most charming want of unanimity.
We have got settled down in Frankfurt, and like the place very
much. Simpson and I seem to get on very well together. We suit
each other capitally; and it is an awful joke to be living (two
would-be advocates, and one a baronet) in this supremely mean
abode.
The abode is, however, a great improvement on the hotel, and I
think we shall grow quite fond of it. - Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
13 ROSENGASSE, FRANKFURT, TUESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 1872.
. . Last night I was at the theatre and heard DIE JUDIN (LA
JUIVE), and was thereby terribly excited. At last, in the middle
of the fifth act, which was perfectly beastly, I had to slope. I
could stand even seeing the cauldron with the sham fire beneath,
and the two hateful executioners in red; but when at last the
girl's courage breaks down, and, grasping her father's arm, she
cries out - O so shudderfully! - I thought it high time to be out
of that GALERE, and so I do not know yet whether it ends well or
ill; but if I ever afterwards find that they do carry things to the
extremity, I shall think more meanly of my species. It was raining
and cold outside, so I went into a BIERHALLE, and sat and brooded
over a SCHNITT (half-glass) for nearly an hour. An opera is far
more REAL than real life to me. It seems as if stage illusion, and
particularly this hardest to swallow and most conventional illusion
of them all - an opera - would never stale upon me. I wish that
life was an opera. I should like to LIVE in one; but I don't know
in what quarter of the globe I shall find a society so constituted.
Besides, it would soon pall: imagine asking for three-kreuzer
cigars in recitative, or giving the washerwoman the inventory of
your dirty clothes in a sustained and FLOURISHOUS aria.
I am in a right good mood this morning to sit here and write to
you; but not to give you news. There is a great stir of life, in a
quiet, almost country fashion, all about us here. Some one is
hammering a beef-steak in the REZ-DE-CHAUSSEE: there is a great
clink of pitchers and noise of the pump-handle at the public well
in the little square-kin round the corner. The children, all
seemingly within a month, and certainly none above five, that
always go halting and stumbling up and down the roadway, are
ordinarily very quiet, and sit sedately puddling in the gutter,
trying, I suppose, poor little devils! to understand their
MUTTERSPRACHE; but they, too, make themselves heard from time to
time in little incomprehensible antiphonies, about the drift that
comes down to them by their rivers from the strange lands higher up
the Gasse. Above all, there is here such a twittering of canaries
(I can see twelve out of our window), and such continual visitation
of grey doves and big-nosed sparrows, as make our little bye-street
into a perfect aviary.
I look across the Gasse at our opposite neighbour, as he dandles
his baby about, and occasionally takes a spoonful or two of some
pale slimy nastiness that looks like DEAD PORRIDGE, if you can take
the conception. These two are his only occupations. All day long
you can hear him singing over the brat when he is not eating; or
see him eating when he is not keeping baby. Besides which, there
comes into his house a continual round of visitors that puts me in
mind of the luncheon hour at home. As he has thus no ostensible
avocation, we have named him 'the W.S.' to give a flavour of
respectability to the street.
Enough of the Gasse. The weather is here much colder. It rained a
good deal yesterday; and though it is fair and sunshiny again to-
day, and we can still sit, of course, with our windows open, yet
there is no more excuse for the siesta; and the bathe in the river,
except for cleanliness, is no longer a necessity of life. The Main
is very swift. In one part of the baths it is next door to
impossible to swim against it, and I suspect that, out in the open,
it would be quite impossible. - Adieu, my dear mother, and believe
me, ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
(RENTIER).
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1873.
MY DEAR BAXTER, - The thunderbolt has fallen with a vengeance now.
On Friday night after leaving you, in the course of conversation,
my father put me one or two questions as to beliefs, which I
candidly answered. I really hate all lying so much now - a new
found honesty that has somehow come out of my late illness - that I
could not so much as hesitate at the time; but if I had foreseen
the real hell of everything since, I think I should have lied, as I
have done so often before. I so far thought of my father, but I
had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent,
both as down in the mouth as if - I can find no simile. You may
fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I
could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late;
and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course,
it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They
don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer;
that I am not (as they call me) a careless infidel. I believe as
much as they do, only generally in the inverse ratio: I am, I
think, as honest as they can be in what I hold. I have not come
hastily to my views. I reserve (as I told them) many points until
I acquire fuller information, and do not think I am thus justly to
be called 'horrible atheist.'
Now, what is to take place? What a curse I am to my parents! O
Lord, what a pleasant thing it is to have just DAMNED the happiness
of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the
world.
What is my life to be at this rate? What, you rascal? Answer - I
have a pistol at your throat. If all that I hold true and most
desire to spread is to be such death, and a worse than death, in
the eyes of my father and mother, what the DEVIL am I to do?
Here is a good heavy cross with a vengeance, and all rough with
rusty nails that tear your fingers, only it is not I that have to
carry it alone; I hold the light end, but the heavy burden falls on
these two.
Don't - I don't know what I was going to say. I am an abject
idiot, which, all things considered, is not remarkable. - Ever your
affectionate and horrible atheist,
R. L. STEVENSON.
CHAPTER II - STUDENT DAYS - ORDERED SOUTH, SEPTEMBER 1873-JULY 1875
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
COCKFIELD RECTORY, SUDBURY, SUFFOLK, TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1873.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - I am too happy to be much of a correspondent.
Yesterday we were away to Melford and Lavenham, both exceptionally
placid, beautiful old English towns. Melford scattered all round a
big green, with an Elizabethan Hall and Park, great screens of
trees that seem twice as high as trees should seem, and everything
else like what ought to be in a novel, and what one never expects
to see in reality, made me cry out how good we were to live in
Scotland, for the many hundredth time. I cannot get over my
astonishment - indeed, it increases every day - at the hopeless
gulf that there is between England and Scotland, and English and
Scotch. Nothing is the same; and I feel as strange and outlandish
here as I do in France or Germany. Everything by the wayside, in
the houses, or about the people, strikes me with an unexpected
unfamiliarity: I walk among surprises, for just where you think
you have them, something wrong turns up.
I got a little Law read yesterday, and some German this morning,
but on the whole there are too many amusements going for much work;
as for correspondence, I have neither heart nor time for it to-day.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1873.
I HAVE been to-day a very long walk with my father through some of
the most beautiful ways hereabouts; the day was cold with an iron,
windy sky, and only glorified now and then with autumn sunlight.
For it is fully autumn with us, with a blight already over the
greens, and a keen wind in the morning that makes one rather timid
of one's tub when it finds its way indoors.
I was out this evening to call on a friend, and, coming back
through the wet, crowded, lamp-lit streets, was singing after my
own fashion, DU HAST DIAMANTEN UND PERLEN, when I heard a poor
cripple man in the gutter wailing over a pitiful Scotch air, his
club-foot supported on the other knee, and his whole woebegone body
propped sideways against a crutch. The nearest lamp threw a strong
light on his worn, sordid face and the three boxes of lucifer
matches that he held for sale. My own false notes stuck in my
chest. How well off I am! is the burthen of my songs all day long
- DRUM IST SO WOHL MIR IN DER WELT! and the ugly reality of the
cripple man was an intrusion on the beautiful world in which I was
walking. He could no more sing than I could; and his voice was
cracked and rusty, and altogether perished. To think that that
wreck may have walked the streets some night years ago, as glad at
heart as I was, and promising himself a future as golden and
honourable!
SUNDAY, 11.20 A.M. - I wonder what you are doing now? - in church
likely, at the TE DEUM. Everything here is utterly silent. I can
hear men's footfalls streets away; the whole life of Edinburgh has
been sucked into sundry pious edifices; the gardens below my
windows are steeped in a diffused sunlight, and every tree seems
standing on tiptoes, strained and silent, as though to get its head
above its neighbour's and LISTEN. You know what I mean, don't you?
How trees do seem silently to assert themselves on an occasion! I
have been trying to write ROADS until I feel as if I were standing
on my head; but I mean ROADS, and shall do something to them.
I wish I could make you feel the hush that is over everything, only
made the more perfect by rare interruptions; and the rich, placid
light, and the still, autumnal foliage. Houses, you know, stand
all about our gardens: solid, steady blocks of houses; all look
empty and asleep.
MONDAY NIGHT. - The drums and fifes up in the Castle are sounding
the guard-call through the dark, and there is a great rattle of
carriages without. I have had (I must tell you) my bed taken out
of this room, so that I am alone in it with my books and two
tables, and two chairs, and a coal-skuttle (or SCUTTLE) (?) and a
DEBRIS of broken pipes in a corner, and my old school play-box, so
full of papers and books that the lid will not shut down, standing
reproachfully in the midst. There is something in it that is still
a little gaunt and vacant; it needs a little populous disorder over
it to give it the feel of homeliness, and perhaps a bit more
furniture, just to take the edge off the sense of illimitable
space, eternity, and a future state, and the like, that is brought
home to one, even in this small attic, by the wide, empty floor.
You would require to know, what only I can ever know, many grim and
many maudlin passages out of my past life to feel how great a
change has been made for me by this past summer. Let me be ever so
poor and thread-paper a soul, I am going to try for the best.
These good booksellers of mine have at last got a WERTHER without
illustrations. I want you to like Charlotte. Werther himself has
every feebleness and vice that could tend to make his suicide a
most virtuous and commendable action; and yet I like Werther too -
I don't know why, except that he has written the most delightful
letters in the world. Note, by the way, the passage under date
June 21st not far from the beginning; it finds a voice for a great
deal of dumb, uneasy, pleasurable longing that we have all had,
times without number. I looked that up the other day for ROADS, so
I know the reference; but you will find it a garden of flowers from
beginning to end. All through the passion keeps steadily rising,
from the thunderstorm at the country-house - there was thunder in
that story too - up to the last wild delirious interview; either
Lotte was no good at all, or else Werther should have remained
alive after that; either he knew his woman too well, or else he was
precipitate. But an idiot like that is hopeless; and yet, he
wasn't an idiot - I make reparation, and will offer eighteen pounds
of best wax at his tomb. Poor devil! he was only the weakest - or,
at least, a very weak strong man.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1873.
. . I WAS over last night, contrary to my own wish, in Leven,
Fife; and this morning I had a conversation of which, I think, some
account might interest you. I was up with a cousin who was fishing
in a mill-lade, and a shower of rain drove me for shelter into a
tumbledown steading attached to the mill. There I found a labourer
cleaning a byre, with whom I fell into talk. The man was to all
appearance as heavy, as HEBETE, as any English clodhopper; but I
knew I was in Scotland, and launched out forthright into Education
and Politics and the aims of one's life. I told him how I had
found the peasantry in Suffolk, and added that their state had made
me feel quite pained and down-hearted. 'It but to do that,' he
said, 'to onybody that thinks at a'!' Then, again, he said that he
could not conceive how anything could daunt or cast down a man who
had an aim in life. 'They that have had a guid schoolin' and do
nae mair, whatever they do, they have done; but him that has aye
something ayont need never be weary.' I have had to mutilate the
dialect much, so that it might be comprehensible to you; but I
think the sentiment will keep, even through a change of words,
something of the heartsome ring of encouragement that it had for
me: and that from a man cleaning a byre! You see what John Knox
and his schools have done.
SATURDAY. - This has been a charming day for me from morning to now
(5 P.M.). First, I found your letter, and went down and read it on
a seat in those Public Gardens of which you have heard already.
After lunch, my father and I went down to the coast and walked a
little way along the shore between Granton and Cramond. This has
always been with me a very favourite walk. The Firth closes
gradually together before you, the coast runs in a series of the
most beautifully moulded bays, hill after hill, wooded and softly
outlined, trends away in front till the two shores join together.
When the tide is out there are great, gleaming flats of wet sand,
over which the gulls go flying and crying; and every cape runs down
into them with its little spit of wall and trees. We lay together
a long time on the beach; the sea just babbled among the stones;
and at one time we heard the hollow, sturdy beat of the paddles of
an unseen steamer somewhere round the cape. I am glad to say that
the peace of the day and scenery was not marred by any
unpleasantness between us two.
I am, unhappily, off my style, and can do nothing well; indeed, I
fear I have marred ROADS finally by patching at it when I was out
of the humour. Only, I am beginning to see something great about
John Knox and Queen Mary: I like them both so much, that I feel as
if I could write the history fairly.
I have finished ROADS to-day, and send it off to you to see. The
Lord knows whether it is worth anything! - some of it pleases me a
good deal, but I fear it is quite unfit for any possible magazine.
However, I wish you to see it, as you know the humour in which it
was conceived, walking alone and very happily about the Suffolk
highways and byeways on several splendid sunny afternoons. -
Believe me, ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
MONDAY. - I have looked over ROADS again, and I am aghast at its
feebleness. It is the trial of a very ''prentice hand' indeed.
Shall I ever learn to do anything well? However, it shall go to
you, for the reasons given above.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
EDINBURGH, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1873.
. . I MUST be very strong to have all this vexation and still to
be well. I was weighed the other day, and the gross weight of my
large person was eight stone six! Does it not seem surprising that
I can keep the lamp alight, through all this gusty weather, in so
frail a lantern? And yet it burns cheerily.
My mother is leaving for the country this morning, and my father
and I will be alone for the best part of the week in this house.
Then on Friday I go south to Dumfries till Monday. I must write
small, or I shall have a tremendous budget by then.
7.20 P.M. - I must tell you a thing I saw to-day. I was going down
to Portobello in the train, when there came into the next
compartment (third class) an artisan, strongly marked with
smallpox, and with sunken, heavy eyes - a face hard and unkind, and
without anything lovely. There was a woman on the platform seeing
him off. At first sight, with her one eye blind and the whole cast
of her features strongly plebeian, and even vicious, she seemed as
unpleasant as the man; but there was something beautifully soft, a
sort of light of tenderness, as on some Dutch Madonna, that came
over her face when she looked at the man. They talked for a while
together through the window; the man seemed to have been asking
money. 'Ye ken the last time,' she said, 'I gave ye two shillin's
for your ludgin', and ye said - ' it died off into whisper.
Plainly Falstaff and Dame Quickly over again. The man laughed
unpleasantly, even cruelly, and said something; and the woman
turned her back on the carriage and stood a long while so, and, do
what I might, I could catch no glimpse of her expression, although
I thought I saw the heave of a sob in her shoulders. At last,
after the train was already in motion, she turned round and put two
shillings into his hand. I saw her stand and look after us with a
perfect heaven of love on her face - this poor one-eyed Madonna -
until the train was out of sight; but the man, sordidly happy with
his gains, did not put himself to the inconvenience of one glance
to thank her for her ill-deserved kindness.
I have been up at the Spec. and looked out a reference I wanted.
The whole town is drowned in white, wet vapour off the sea.
Everything drips and soaks. The very statues seem wet to the skin.
I cannot pretend to be very cheerful; I did not see one contented
face in the streets; and the poor did look so helplessly chill and
dripping, without a stitch to change, or so much as a fire to dry
themselves at, or perhaps money to buy a meal, or perhaps even a
bed. My heart shivers for them.
DUMFRIES, FRIDAY. - All my thirst for a little warmth, a little
sun, a little corner of blue sky avails nothing. Without, the rain
falls with a long drawn SWISH, and the night is as dark as a vault.
There is no wind indeed, and that is a blessed change after the
unruly, bedlamite gusts that have been charging against one round
street corners and utterly abolishing and destroying all that is
peaceful in life. Nothing sours my temper like these coarse
termagant winds. I hate practical joking; and your vulgarest
practical joker is your flaw of wind.
I have tried to write some verses; but I find I have nothing to say
that has not been already perfectly said and perfectly sung in
ADELAIDE. I have so perfect an idea out of that song! The great
Alps, a wonder in the starlight - the river, strong from the hills,
and turbulent, and loudly audible at night - the country, a scented
FRUHLINGSGARTEN of orchards and deep wood where the nightingales
harbour - a sort of German flavour over all - and this love-drunken
man, wandering on by sleeping village and silent town, pours out of
his full heart, EINST, O WUNDER, EINST, etc. I wonder if I am
wrong about this being the most beautiful and perfect thing in the
world - the only marriage of really accordant words and music -
both drunk with the same poignant, unutterable sentiment.
To-day in Glasgow my father went off on some business, and my
mother and I wandered about for two hours. We had lunch together,
and were very merry over what the people at the restaurant would
think of us - mother and son they could not suppose us to be.
SATURDAY. - And to-day it came - warmth, sunlight, and a strong,
hearty living wind among the trees. I found myself a new being.
My father and I went off a long walk, through a country most
beautifully wooded and various, under a range of hills. You should
have seen one place where the wood suddenly fell away in front of
us down a long, steep hill between a double row of trees, with one
small fair-haired child framed in shadow in the foreground; and
when we got to the foot there was the little kirk and kirkyard of
Irongray, among broken fields and woods by the side of the bright,
rapid river. In the kirkyard there was a wonderful congregation of
tombstones, upright and recumbent on four legs (after our Scotch
fashion), and of flat-armed fir-trees. One gravestone was erected
by Scott (at a cost, I learn, of 70 pounds) to the poor woman who
served him as heroine in the HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN, and the
inscription in its stiff, Jedediah Cleishbotham fashion is not
without something touching. We went up the stream a little further
to where two Covenanters lie buried in an oakwood; the tombstone
(as the custom is) containing the details of their grim little
tragedy in funnily bad rhyme, one verse of which sticks in my
memory:-
'We died, their furious rage to stay,
Near to the kirk of Iron-gray.'
We then fetched a long compass round about through Holywood Kirk
and Lincluden ruins to Dumfries. But the walk came sadly to grief
as a pleasure excursion before our return . . .
SUNDAY. - Another beautiful day. My father and I walked into
Dumfries to church. When the service was done I noted the two
halberts laid against the pillar of the churchyard gate; and as I
had not seen the little weekly pomp of civic dignitaries in our
Scotch country towns for some years, I made my father wait. You
should have seen the provost and three bailies going stately away
down the sunlit street, and the two town servants strutting in
front of them, in red coats and cocked hats, and with the halberts
most conspicuously shouldered. We saw Burns's house - a place that
made me deeply sad - and spent the afternoon down the banks of the
Nith. I had not spent a day by a river since we lunched in the
meadows near Sudbury. The air was as pure and clear and sparkling
as spring water; beautiful, graceful outlines of hill and wood shut
us in on every side; and the swift, brown river fled smoothly away
from before our eyes, rippled over with oily eddies and dimples.
White gulls had come up from the sea to fish, and hovered and flew
hither and thither among the loops of the stream. By good fortune,
too, it was a dead calm between my father and me.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH], SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1873.
IT is a little sharp to-day; but bright and sunny with a sparkle in
the air, which is delightful after four days of unintermitting
rain. In the streets I saw two men meet after a long separation,
it was plain. They came forward with a little run and LEAPED at
each other's hands. You never saw such bright eyes as they both
had. It put one in a good humour to see it.
8 P.M. - I made a little more out of my work than I have made for a
long while back; though even now I cannot make things fall into
sentences - they only sprawl over the paper in bald orphan clauses.
Then I was about in the afternoon with Baxter; and we had a good
deal of fun, first rhyming on the names of all the shops we passed,
and afterwards buying needles and quack drugs from open-air
vendors, and taking much pleasure in their inexhaustible eloquence.
Every now and then as we went, Arthur's Seat showed its head at the
end of a street. Now, to-day the blue sky and the sunshine were
both entirely wintry; and there was about the hill, in these
glimpses, a sort of thin, unreal, crystalline distinctness that I
have not often seen excelled. As the sun began to go down over the
valley between the new town and the old, the evening grew
resplendent; all the gardens and low-lying buildings sank back and
became almost invisible in a mist of wonderful sun, and the Castle
stood up against the sky, as thin and sharp in outline as a castle
cut out of paper. Baxter made a good remark about Princes Street,
that it was the most elastic street for length that he knew;
sometimes it looks, as it looked to-night, interminable, a way
leading right into the heart of the red sundown; sometimes, again,
it shrinks together, as if for warmth, on one of the withering,
clear east-windy days, until it seems to lie underneath your feet.
I want to let you see these verses from an ODE TO THE CUCKOO,
written by one of the ministers of Leith in the middle of last
century - the palmy days of Edinburgh - who was a friend of Hume
and Adam Smith and the whole constellation. The authorship of
these beautiful verses has been most truculently fought about; but
whoever wrote them (and it seems as if this Logan had) they are
lovely -
'What time the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fliest the vocal vale,
An annual guest, in other lands
Another spring to hail.
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.
O could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make on joyful wing
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.'
SUNDAY. - I have been at church with my mother, where we heard
'Arise, shine,' sung excellently well, and my mother was so much
upset with it that she nearly had to leave church. This was the
antidote, however, to fifty minutes of solid sermon, varra heavy.
I have been sticking in to Walt Whitman; nor do I think I have ever
laboured so hard to attain so small a success. Still, the thing is
taking shape, I think; I know a little better what I want to say
all through; and in process of time, possibly I shall manage to say
it. I must say I am a very bad workman, MAIS J'AI DU COURAGE; I am
indefatigable at rewriting and bettering, and surely that humble
quality should get me on a little.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6. - It is a magnificent glimmering moonlight
night, with a wild, great west wind abroad, flapping above one like
an immense banner, and every now and again swooping furiously
against my windows. The wind is too strong perhaps, and the trees
are certainly too leafless for much of that wide rustle that we
both remember; there is only a sharp, angry, sibilant hiss, like
breath drawn with the strength of the elements through shut teeth,
that one hears between the gusts only. I am in excellent humour
with myself, for I have worked hard and not altogether fruitlessly;
and I wished before I turned in just to tell you that things were
so. My dear friend, I feel so happy when I think that you remember
me kindly. I have been up to-night lecturing to a friend on life
and duties and what a man could do; a coal off the altar had been
laid on my lips, and I talked quite above my average, and hope I
spread, what you would wish to see spread, into one person's heart;
and with a new light upon it.
I shall tell you a story. Last Friday I went down to Portobello,
in the heavy rain, with an uneasy wind blowing PAR RAFALES off the
sea (or 'EN RAFALES' should it be? or what?). As I got down near
the beach a poor woman, oldish, and seemingly, lately at least,
respectable, followed me and made signs. She was drenched to the
skin, and looked wretched below wretchedness. You know, I did not
like to look back at her; it seemed as if she might misunderstand
and be terribly hurt and slighted; so I stood at the end of the
street - there was no one else within sight in the wet - and lifted
up my hand very high with some money in it. I heard her steps draw
heavily near behind me, and, when she was near enough to see, I let
the money fall in the mud and went off at my best walk without ever
turning round. There is nothing in the story; and yet you will
understand how much there is, if one chose to set it forth. You
see, she was so ugly; and you know there is something terribly,
miserably pathetic in a certain smile, a certain sodden aspect of
invitation on such faces. It is so terrible, that it is in a way
sacred; it means the outside of degradation and (what is worst of
all in life) false position. I hope you understand me rightly. -
Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH], TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1873.
MY father has returned in better health, and I am more delighted
than I can well tell you. The one trouble that I can see no way
through is that his health, or my mother's, should give way. To-
night, as I was walking along Princes Street, I heard the bugles
sound the recall. I do not think I had ever remarked it before;
there is something of unspeakable appeal in the cadence. I felt as
if something yearningly cried to me out of the darkness overhead to
come thither and find rest; one felt as if there must be warm
hearts and bright fires waiting for one up there, where the buglers
stood on the damp pavement and sounded their friendly invitation
forth into the night.
WEDNESDAY. - I may as well tell you exactly about my health. I am
not at all ill; have quite recovered; only I am what MM. LES
MEDECINS call below par; which, in plain English, is that I am
weak. With tonics, decent weather, and a little cheerfulness, that
will go away in its turn, and I shall be all right again.
I am glad to hear what you say about the Exam.; until quite lately
I have treated that pretty cavalierly, for I say honestly that I do
not mind being plucked; I shall just have to go up again. We
travelled with the Lord Advocate the other day, and he strongly
advised me in my father's hearing to go to the English Bar; and the
Lord Advocate's advice goes a long way in Scotland. It is a sort
of special legal revelation. Don't misunderstand me. I don't, of
course, want to be plucked; but so far as my style of knowledge
suits them, I cannot make much betterment on it in a month. If
they wish scholarship more exact, I must take a new lease
altogether.
THURSDAY. - My head and eyes both gave in this morning, and I had
to take a day of complete idleness. I was in the open air all day,
and did no thought that I could avoid, and I think I have got my
head between my shoulders again; however, I am not going to do
much. I don't want you to run away with any fancy about my being
ill. Given a person weak and in some trouble, and working longer
hours than he is used to, and you have the matter in a nutshell.
You should have seen the sunshine on the hill to-day; it has lost
now that crystalline clearness, as if the medium were spring-water
(you see, I am stupid!); but it retains that wonderful thinness of
outline that makes the delicate shape and hue savour better in
one's mouth, like fine wine out of a finely-blown glass. The birds
are all silent now but the crows. I sat a long time on the stairs
that lead down to Duddingston Loch - a place as busy as a great
town during frost, but now solitary and silent; and when I shut my
eyes I heard nothing but the wind in the trees; and you know all
that went through me, I dare say, without my saying it.
II. - I am now all right. I do not expect any tic to-night, and
shall be at work again to-morrow. I have had a day of open air,
only a little modified by LE CAPITAINE FRACASSE before the dining-
room fire. I must write no more, for I am sleepy after two nights,
and to quote my book, 'SINON BLANCHES, DU MOINS GRISES'; and so I
must go to bed and faithfully, hoggishly slumber. - Your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
MENTONE, NOVEMBER 13, 1873.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - The PLACE is not where I thought; it is about
where the old Post Office was. The Hotel de Londres is no more an
hotel. I have found a charming room in the Hotel du Pavillon, just
across the road from the Prince's Villa; it has one window to the
south and one to the east, with a superb view of Mentone and the
hills, to which I move this afternoon. In the old great PLACE
there is a kiosque for the sale of newspapers; a string of
omnibuses (perhaps thirty) go up and down under the plane-trees of
the Turin Road on the occasion of each train; the Promenade has
crossed both streams, and bids fair to reach the Cap St. Martin.
The old chapel near Freeman's house at the entrance to the Gorbio
valley is now entirely submerged under a shining new villa, with
Pavilion annexed; over which, in all the pride of oak and chestnut
and divers coloured marbles, I was shown this morning by the
obliging proprietor. The Prince's Palace itself is rehabilitated,
and shines afar with white window-curtains from the midst of a
garden, all trim borders and greenhouses and carefully kept walks.
On the other side, the villas are more thronged together, and they
have arranged themselves, shelf after shelf, behind each other. I
see the glimmer of new buildings, too, as far eastward as Grimaldi;
and a viaduct carries (I suppose) the railway past the mouth of the
bone caves. F. Bacon (Lord Chancellor) made the remark that 'Time
was the greatest innovator'; it is perhaps as meaningless a remark
as was ever made; but as Bacon made it, I suppose it is better than
any that I could make. Does it not seem as if things were fluid?
They are displaced and altered in ten years so that one has
difficulty, even with a memory so very vivid and retentive for that
sort of thing as mine, in identifying places where one lived a long
while in the past, and which one has kept piously in mind during
all the interval. Nevertheless, the hills, I am glad to say, are
unaltered; though I dare say the torrents have given them many a
shrewd scar, and the rains and thaws dislodged many a boulder from
their heights, if one were only keen enough to perceive it. The
sea makes the same noise in the shingle; and the lemon and orange
gardens still discharge in the still air their fresh perfume; and
the people have still brown comely faces; and the Pharmacie Gros
still dispenses English medicines; and the invalids (eheu!) still
sit on the promenade and trifle with their fingers in the fringes
of shawls and wrappers; and the shop of Pascal Amarante still, in
its present bright consummate flower of aggrandisement and new
paint, offers everything that it has entered into people's hearts
to wish for in the idleness of a sanatorium; and the 'Chateau des
Morts' is still at the top of the town; and the fort and the jetty
are still at the foot, only there are now two jetties; and - I am
out of breath. (To be continued in our next.)
For myself, I have come famously through the journey; and as I have
written this letter (for the first time for ever so long) with ease
and even pleasure, I think my head must be better. I am still no
good at coming down hills or stairs; and my feet are more
consistently cold than is quite comfortable. But, these apart, I
feel well; and in good spirits all round.
I have written to Nice for letters, and hope to get them to-night.
Continue to address Poste Restante. Take care of yourselves.
This is my birthday, by the way - O, I said that before. Adieu. -
Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
MENTONE, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1873.
MY DEAR FRIEND, - I sat a long while up among the olive yards to-
day at a favourite corner, where one has a fair view down the
valley and on to the blue floor of the sea. I had a Horace with
me, and read a little; but Horace, when you try to read him fairly
under the open heaven, sounds urban, and you find something of the
escaped townsman in his descriptions of the country, just as
somebody said that Morris's sea-pieces were all taken from the
coast. I tried for long to hit upon some language that might catch
ever so faintly the indefinable shifting colour of olive leaves;
and, above all, the changes and little silverings that pass over
them, like blushes over a face, when the wind tosses great branches
to and fro; but the Muse was not favourable. A few birds scattered
here and there at wide intervals on either side of the valley sang
the little broken songs of late autumn and there was a great stir
of insect life in the grass at my feet. The path up to this coign
of vantage, where I think I shall make it a habit to ensconce
myself a while of a morning, is for a little while common to the
peasant and a little clear brooklet. It is pleasant, in the
tempered grey daylight of the olive shadows, to see the people
picking their way among the stones and the water and the brambles;
the women especially, with the weights poised on their heads and
walking all from the hips with a certain graceful deliberation.
TUESDAY. - I have been to Nice to-day to see Dr. Bennet; he agrees
with Clark that there is no disease; but I finished up my day with
a lamentable exhibition of weakness. I could not remember French,
or at least I was afraid to go into any place lest I should not be
able to remember it, and so could not tell when the train went. At
last I crawled up to the station and sat down on the steps, and
just steeped myself there in the sunshine until the evening began
to fall and the air to grow chilly. This long rest put me all
right; and I came home here triumphantly and ate dinner well.
There is the full, true, and particular account of the worst day I
have had since I left London. I shall not go to Nice again for
some time to come.
THURSDAY. - I am to-day quite recovered, and got into Mentone to-
day for a book, which is quite a creditable walk. As an
intellectual being I have not yet begun to re-exist; my immortal
soul is still very nearly extinct; but we must hope the best. Now,
do take warning by me. I am set up by a beneficent providence at
the corner of the road, to warn you to flee from the hebetude that
is to follow. Being sent to the South is not much good unless you
take your soul with you, you see; and my soul is rarely with me
here. I don't see much beauty. I have lost the key; I can only be
placid and inert, and see the bright days go past uselessly one
after another; therefore don't talk foolishly with your mouth any
more about getting liberty by being ill and going south VIA the
sickbed. It is not the old free-born bird that gets thus to
freedom; but I know not what manacled and hide-bound spirit,
incapable of pleasure, the clay of a man. Go south! Why, I saw
more beauty with my eyes healthfully alert to see in two wet windy
February afternoons in Scotland than I can see in my beautiful
olive gardens and grey hills in a whole week in my low and lost
estate, as the Shorter Catechism puts it somewhere. It is a
pitiable blindness, this blindness of the soul; I hope it may not
be long with me. So remember to keep well; and remember rather
anything than not to keep well; and again I say, ANYTHING rather
than not to keep well.
Not that I am unhappy, mind you. I have found the words already -
placid and inert, that is what I am. I sit in the sun and enjoy
the tingle all over me, and I am cheerfully ready to concur with
any one who says that this is a beautiful place, and I have a
sneaking partiality for the newspapers, which would be all very
well, if one had not fallen from heaven and were not troubled with
some reminiscence of the INEFFABLE AURORE.
To sit by the sea and to be conscious of nothing but the sound of
the waves, and the sunshine over all your body, is not unpleasant;
but I was an Archangel once.
FRIDAY. - If you knew how old I felt! I am sure this is what age
brings with it - this carelessness, this disenchantment, this
continual bodily weariness. I am a man of seventy: O Medea, kill
me, or make me young again!
To-day has been cloudy and mild; and I have lain a great while on a
bench outside the garden wall (my usual place now) and looked at
the dove-coloured sea and the broken roof of cloud, but there was
no seeing in my eye. Let us hope to-morrow will be more
profitable.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
HOTEL MIRABEAU, MENTONE, SUNDAY, JANUARY 4, 1874.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - We have here fallen on the very pink of hotels.
I do not say that it is more pleasantly conducted than the
Pavillon, for that were impossible; but the rooms are so cheery and
bright and new, and then the food! I never, I think, so fully
appreciated the phrase 'the fat of the land' as I have done since I
have been here installed. There was a dish of eggs at DEJEUNER the
other day, over the memory of which I lick my lips in the silent
watches.
Now that the cold has gone again, I continue to keep well in body,
and already I begin to walk a little more. My head is still a very
feeble implement, and easily set a-spinning; and I can do nothing
in the way of work beyond reading books that may, I hope, be of
some use to me afterwards.
I was very glad to see that M'Laren was sat upon, and principally
for the reason why. Deploring as I do much of the action of the
Trades Unions, these conspiracy clauses and the whole partiality of
the Master and Servant Act are a disgrace to our equal laws. Equal
laws become a byeword when what is legal for one class becomes a
criminal offence for another. It did my heart good to hear that
man tell M'Laren how, as he had talked much of getting the
franchise for working men, he must now be content to see them use
it now they had got it. This is a smooth stone well planted in the
foreheads of certain dilettanti radicals, after M'Laren's fashion,
who are willing to give the working men words and wind, and votes
and the like, and yet think to keep all the advantages, just or
unjust, of the wealthier classes without abatement. I do hope wise
men will not attempt to fight the working men on the head of this
notorious injustice. Any such step will only precipitate the
action of the newly enfranchised classes, and irritate them into
acting hastily; when what we ought to desire should be that they
should act warily and little for many years to come, until
education and habit may make them the more fit.
All this (intended for my father) is much after the fashion of his
own correspondence. I confess it has left my own head exhausted; I
hope it may not produce the same effect on yours. But I want him
to look really into this question (both sides of it, and not the
representations of rabid middle-class newspapers, sworn to support
all the little tyrannies of wealth), and I know he will be
convinced that this is a case of unjust law; and that, however
desirable the end may seem to him, he will not be Jesuit enough to
think that any end will justify an unjust law.
Here ends the political sermon of your affectionate (and somewhat
dogmatical) son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
MENTONE, JANUARY 7, 1874.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - I received yesterday two most charming letters -
the nicest I have had since I left - December 26th and January 1st:
this morning I got January 3rd.
Into the bargain with Marie, the American girl, who is grace
itself, and comes leaping and dancing simply like a wave - like
nothing else, and who yesterday was Queen out of the Epiphany cake
and chose Robinet (the French Painter) as her FAVORI with the most
pretty confusion possible - into the bargain with Marie, we have
two little Russian girls, with the youngest of whom, a little
polyglot button of a three-year old, I had the most laughable
little scene at lunch to-day. I was watching her being fed with
great amusement, her face being as broad as it is long, and her
mouth capable of unlimited extension; when suddenly, her eye
catching mine, the fashion of her countenance was changed, and
regarding me with a really admirable appearance of offended
dignity, she said something in Italian which made everybody laugh
much. It was explained to me that she had said I was very POLISSON
to stare at her. After this she was somewhat taken up with me, and
after some examination she announced emphatically to the whole
table, in German, that I was a MADCHEN; which word she repeated
with shrill emphasis, as though fearing that her proposition would
be called in question - MADCHEN, MADCHEN, MADCHEN, MADCHEN. This
hasty conclusion as to my sex she was led afterwards to revise, I
am informed; but her new opinion (which seems to have been
something nearer the truth) was announced in a third language quite
unknown to me, and probably Russian. To complete the scroll of her
accomplishments, she was brought round the table after the meal was
over, and said good-bye to me in very commendable English.
The weather I shall say nothing about, as I am incapable of
explaining my sentiments upon that subject before a lady. But my
health is really greatly improved: I begin to recognise myself
occasionally now and again, not without satisfaction.
Please remember me very kindly to Professor Swan; I wish I had a
story to send him; but story, Lord bless you, I have none to tell,
sir, unless it is the foregoing adventure with the little polyglot.
The best of that depends on the significance of POLISSON, which is
beautifully out of place.
SATURDAY, 10TH JANUARY. - The little Russian kid is only two and a
half: she speaks six languages. She and her sister (aet. 8) and
May Johnstone (aet. 8) are the delight of my life. Last night I
saw them all dancing - O it was jolly; kids are what is the matter
with me. After the dancing, we all - that is the two Russian
ladies, Robinet the French painter, Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, two
governesses, and fitful kids joining us at intervals - played a
game of the stool of repentance in the Gallic idiom.
O - I have not told you that Colvin is gone; however, he is coming
back again; he has left clothes in pawn to me. - Ever your
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
MENTONE, TUESDAY, 13TH JANUARY 1874.
. . I LOST a Philipine to little Mary Johnstone last night; so
to-day I sent her a rubbishing doll's toilet, and a little note
with it, with some verses telling how happy children made every one
near them happy also, and advising her to keep the lines, and some
day, when she was 'grown a stately demoiselle,' it would make her
'glad to know she gave pleasure long ago,' all in a very lame
fashion, with just a note of prose at the end, telling her to mind
her doll and the dog, and not trouble her little head just now to
understand the bad verses; for some time when she was ill, as I am
now, they would be plain to her and make her happy. She has just
been here to thank me, and has left me very happy. Children are
certainly too good to be true.
Yesterday I walked too far, and spent all the afternoon on the
outside of my bed; went finally to rest at nine, and slept nearly
twelve hours on the stretch. Bennet (the doctor), when told of it
this morning, augured well for my recovery; he said youth must be
putting in strong; of course I ought not to have slept at all. As
it was, I dreamed HORRIDLY; but not my usual dreams of social
miseries and misunderstandings and all sorts of crucifixions of the
spirit; but of good, cheery, physical things - of long successions
of vaulted, dimly lit cellars full of black water, in which I went
swimming among toads and unutterable, cold, blind fishes. Now and
then these cellars opened up into sort of domed music-hall places,
where one could land for a little on the slope of the orchestra,
but a sort of horror prevented one from staying long, and made one
plunge back again into the dead waters. Then my dream changed, and
I was a sort of Siamese pirate, on a very high deck with several
others. The ship was almost captured, and we were fighting
desperately. The hideous engines we used and the perfectly
incredible carnage that we effected by means of them kept me
cheery, as you may imagine; especially as I felt all the time my
sympathy with the boarders, and knew that I was only a prisoner
with these horrid Malays. Then I saw a signal being given, and
knew they were going to blow up the ship. I leaped right off, and
heard my captors splash in the water after me as thick as pebbles
when a bit of river bank has given way beneath the foot. I never
heard the ship blow up; but I spent the rest of the night swimming
about some piles with the whole sea full of Malays, searching for
me with knives in their mouths. They could swim any distance under
water, and every now and again, just as I was beginning to reckon
myself safe, a cold hand would be laid on my ankle - ugh!
However, my long sleep, troubled as it was, put me all right again,
and I was able to work acceptably this morning and be very jolly
all day. This evening I have had a great deal of talk with both
the Russian ladies; they talked very nicely, and are bright,
likable women both. They come from Georgia.
WEDNESDAY, 10.30. - We have all been to tea to-night at the
Russians' villa. Tea was made out of a samovar, which is something
like a small steam engine, and whose principal advantage is that it
burns the fingers of all who lay their profane touch upon it.
After tea Madame Z. played Russian airs, very plaintive and pretty;
so the evening was Muscovite from beginning to end. Madame G.'s
daughter danced a tarantella, which was very pretty.
Whenever Nelitchka cries - and she never cries except from pain -
all that one has to do is to start 'Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre.'
She cannot resist the attraction; she is drawn through her sobs
into the air; and in a moment there is Nelly singing, with the glad
look that comes into her face always when she sings, and all the
tears and pain forgotten.
It is wonderful, before I shut this up, how that child remains ever
interesting to me. Nothing can stale her infinite variety; and yet
it is not very various. You see her thinking what she is to do or
to say next, with a funny grave air of reserve, and then the face
breaks up into a smile, and it is probably 'Berecchino!' said with
that sudden little jump of the voice that one knows in children, as
the escape of a jack-in-the-box, and, somehow, I am quite happy
after that!
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[MENTONE, JANUARY 1874.]
. . LAST night I had a quarrel with the American on politics. It
is odd how it irritates you to hear certain political statements
made. He was excited, and he began suddenly to abuse our conduct
to America. I, of course, admitted right and left that we had
behaved disgracefully (as we had); until somehow I got tired of
turning alternate cheeks and getting duly buffeted; and when he
said that the Alabama money had not wiped out the injury, I
suggested, in language (I remember) of admirable directness and
force, that it was a pity they had taken the money in that case.
He lost his temper at once, and cried out that his dearest wish was
a war with England; whereupon I also lost my temper, and,
thundering at the pitch of my voice, I left him and went away by
myself to another part of the garden. A very tender reconciliation
took place, and I think there will come no more harm out of it. We
are both of us nervous people, and he had had a very long walk and
a good deal of beer at dinner: that explains the scene a little.
But I regret having employed so much of the voice with which I have
been endowed, as I fear every person in the hotel was taken into
confidence as to my sentiments, just at the very juncture when
neither the sentiments nor (perhaps) the language had been
sufficiently considered.
FRIDAY. - You have not yet heard of my book? - FOUR GREAT SCOTSMEN
- John Knox, David Hume, Robert Burns, Walter Scott. These, their
lives, their work, the social media in which they lived and worked,
with, if I can so make it, the strong current of the race making
itself felt underneath and throughout - this is my idea. You must
tell me what you think of it. The Knox will really be new matter,
as his life hitherto has been disgracefully written, and the events
are romantic and rapid; the character very strong, salient, and
worthy; much interest as to the future of Scotland, and as to that
part of him which was truly modern under his Hebrew disguise.
Hume, of course, the urbane, cheerful, gentlemanly, letter-writing
eighteenth century, full of attraction, and much that I don't yet
know as to his work. Burns, the sentimental side that there is in
most Scotsmen, his poor troubled existence, how far his poems were
his personally, and how far national, the question of the framework
of society in Scotland, and its fatal effect upon the finest
natures. Scott again, the ever delightful man, sane, courageous,
admirable; the birth of Romance, in a dawn that was a sunset;
snobbery, conservatism, the wrong thread in History, and notably in
that of his own land. VOILA, MADAME, LE MENU. COMMENT LE TROUVEZ-
VOUS? IL Y A DE LA BONNE VIANDO, SI ON PARVIENT A LA CUIRE
CONVENABLEMENT.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
[MENTONE, MARCH 28, 1874.]
MY DEAR MOTHER, - Beautiful weather, perfect weather; sun, pleasant
cooling winds; health very good; only incapacity to write.
The only new cloud on my horizon (I mean this in no menacing sense)
is the Prince. I have philosophical and artistic discussions with
the Prince. He is capable of talking for two hours upon end,
developing his theory of everything under Heaven from his first
position, which is that there is no straight line. Doesn't that
sound like a game of my father's - I beg your pardon, you haven't
read it - I don't mean MY father, I mean Tristram Shandy's. He is
very clever, and it is an immense joke to hear him unrolling all
the problems of life - philosophy, science, what you will - in this
charmingly cut-and-dry, here-we-are-again kind of manner. He is
better to listen to than to argue withal. When you differ from
him, he lifts up his voice and thunders; and you know that the
thunder of an excited foreigner often miscarries. One stands
aghast, marvelling how such a colossus of a man, in such a great
commotion of spirit, can open his mouth so much and emit such a
still small voice at the hinder end of it all. All this while he
walks about the room, smokes cigarettes, occupies divers chairs for
divers brief spaces, and casts his huge arms to the four winds like
the sails of a mill. He is a most sportive Prince.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[SWANSTON], MAY 1874, MONDAY.
WE are now at Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Edinburgh. The garden
is but little clothed yet, for, you know, here we are six hundred
feet above the sea. It is very cold, and has sleeted this morning.
Everything wintry. I am very jolly, however, having finished
Victor Hugo, and just looking round to see what I should next take
up. I have been reading Roman Law and Calvin this morning.
EVENING. - I went up the hill a little this afternoon. The air was
invigorating, but it was so cold that my scalp was sore. With this
high wintry wind, and the grey sky, and faint northern daylight, it
was quite wonderful to hear such a clamour of blackbirds coming up
to me out of the woods, and the bleating of sheep being shorn in a
field near the garden, and to see golden patches of blossom already
on the furze, and delicate green shoots upright and beginning to
frond out, among last year's russet bracken. Flights of crows were
passing continually between the wintry leaden sky and the wintry
cold-looking hills. It was the oddest conflict of seasons. A wee
rabbit - this year's making, beyond question - ran out from under
my feet, and was in a pretty perturbation, until he hit upon a
lucky juniper and blotted himself there promptly. Evidently this
gentleman had not had much experience of life.
I have made an arrangement with my people: I am to have 84 pounds
a year - I only asked for 80 pounds on mature reflection - and as I
should soon make a good bit by my pen, I shall be very comfortable.
We are all as jolly as can be together, so that is a great thing
gained.
WEDNESDAY. - Yesterday I received a letter that gave me much
pleasure from a poor fellow-student of mine, who has been all
winter very ill, and seems to be but little better even now. He
seems very much pleased with ORDERED SOUTH. 'A month ago,' he
says, 'I could scarcely have ventured to read it; to-day I felt on
reading it as I did on the first day that I was able to sun myself
a little in the open air.' And much more to the like effect. It
is very gratifying. - Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
SWANSTON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1874.
STRUGGLING away at FABLES IN SONG. I am much afraid I am going to
make a real failure; the time is so short, and I am so out of the
humour. Otherwise very calm and jolly: cold still IMPOSSIBLE.
THURSDAY. - I feel happier about the FABLES, and it is warmer a
bit; but my body is most decrepit, and I can just manage to be
cheery and tread down hypochondria under foot by work. I lead such
a funny life, utterly without interest or pleasure outside of my
work: nothing, indeed, but work all day long, except a short walk
alone on the cold hills, and meals, and a couple of pipes with my
father in the evening. It is surprising how it suits me, and how
happy I keep.
SATURDAY. - I have received such a nice long letter (four sides)
from Leslie Stephen to-day about my Victor Hugo. It is accepted.
This ought to have made me gay, but it hasn't. I am not likely to
be much of a tonic to-night. I have been very cynical over myself
to-day, partly, perhaps, because I have just finished some of the
deedest rubbish about Lord Lytton's fables that an intelligent
editor ever shot into his wastepaper basket. If Morley prints it I
shall be glad, but my respect for him will be shaken.
TUESDAY. - Another cold day; yet I have been along the hillside,
wondering much at idiotic sheep, and raising partridges at every
second step. One little plover is the object of my firm adherence.
I pass his nest every day, and if you saw how he files by me, and
almost into my face, crying and flapping his wings, to direct my
attention from his little treasure, you would have as kind a heart
to him as I. To-day I saw him not, although I took my usual way;
and I am afraid that some person has abused his simple wiliness and
harried (as we say in Scotland) the nest. I feel much righteous
indignation against such imaginary aggressor. However, one must
not be too chary of the lower forms. To-day I sat down on a tree-
stump at the skirt of a little strip of planting, and thoughtlessly
began to dig out the touchwood with an end of twig. I found I had
carried ruin, death, and universal consternation into a little
community of ants; and this set me a-thinking of how close we are
environed with frail lives, so that we can do nothing without
spreading havoc over all manner of perishable homes and interests
and affections; and so on to my favourite mood of an holy terror
for all action and all inaction equally - a sort of shuddering
revulsion from the necessary responsibilities of life. We must not
be too scrupulous of others, or we shall die. Conscientiousness is
a sort of moral opium; an excitant in small doses, perhaps, but at
bottom a strong narcotic.
SATURDAY. - I have been two days in Edinburgh, and so had not the
occasion to write to you. Morley has accepted the FABLES, and I
have seen it in proof, and think less of it than ever. However, of
course, I shall send you a copy of the MAGAZINE without fail, and
you can be as disappointed as you like, or the reverse if you can.
I would willingly recall it if I could.
Try, by way of change, Byron's MAZEPPA; you will be astonished. It
is grand and no mistake, and one sees through it a fire, and a
passion, and a rapid intuition of genius, that makes one rather
sorry for one's own generation of better writers, and - I don't
know what to say; I was going to say 'smaller men'; but that's not
right; read it, and you will feel what I cannot express. Don't be
put out by the beginning; persevere, and you will find yourself
thrilled before you are at an end with it. - Ever your faithful
friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
TRAIN BETWEEN EDINBURGH AND CHESTER, AUGUST 8, 1874.
MY father and mother reading. I think I shall talk to you for a
moment or two. This morning at Swanston, the birds, poor
creatures, had the most troubled hour or two; evidently there was a
hawk in the neighbourhood; not one sang; and the whole garden
thrilled with little notes of warning and terror. I did not know
before that the voice of birds could be so tragically expressive.
I had always heard them before express their trivial satisfaction
with the blue sky and the return of daylight. Really, they almost
frightened me; I could hear mothers and wives in terror for those
who were dear to them; it was easy to translate, I wish it were as
easy to write; but it is very hard in this flying train, or I would
write you more.
CHESTER. - I like this place much; but somehow I feel glad when I
get among the quiet eighteenth century buildings, in cosy places
with some elbow room about them, after the older architecture.
This other is bedevilled and furtive; it seems to stoop; I am
afraid of trap-doors, and could not go pleasantly into such houses.
I don't know how much of this is legitimately the effect of the
architecture; little enough possibly; possibly far the most part of
it comes from bad historical novels and the disquieting statuary
that garnishes some facades.
On the way, to-day, I passed through my dear Cumberland country.
Nowhere to as great a degree can one find the combination of
lowland and highland beauties; the outline of the blue hills is
broken by the outline of many tumultuous tree-clumps; and the broad
spaces of moorland are balanced by a network of deep hedgerows that
might rival Suffolk, in the foreground. - How a railway journey
shakes and discomposes one, mind and body! I grow blacker and
blacker in humour as the day goes on; and when at last I am let
out, and have the fresh air about me, it is as though I were born
again, and the sick fancies flee away from my mind like swans in
spring.
I want to come back on what I have said about eighteenth century
and middle-age houses: I do not know if I have yet explained to
you the sort of loyalty, of urbanity, that there is about the one
to my mind; the spirit of a country orderly and prosperous, a
flavour of the presence of magistrates and well-to-do merchants in
bag-wigs, the clink of glasses at night in fire-lit parlours,
something certain and civic and domestic, is all about these quiet,
staid, shapely houses, with no character but their exceeding
shapeliness, and the comely external utterance that they make of
their internal comfort. Now the others are, as I have said, both
furtive and bedevilled; they are sly and grotesque; they combine
their sort of feverish grandeur with their sort of secretive
baseness, after the manner of a Charles the Ninth. They are
peopled for me with persons of the same fashion. Dwarfs and
sinister people in cloaks are about them; and I seem to divine
crypts, and, as I said, trap-doors. O God be praised that we live
in this good daylight and this good peace.
BARMOUTH, AUGUST 9TH. - To-day we saw the cathedral at Chester;
and, far more delightful, saw and heard a certain inimitable verger
who took us round. He was full of a certain recondite, far-away
humour that did not quite make you laugh at the time, but was
somehow laughable to recollect. Moreover, he had so far a just
imagination, and could put one in the right humour for seeing an
old place, very much as, according to my favourite text, Scott's
novels and poems do for one. His account of the monks in the
Scriptorium, with their cowls over their heads, in a certain
sheltered angle of the cloister where the big Cathedral building
kept the sun off the parchments, was all that could be wished; and
so too was what he added of the others pacing solemnly behind them
and dropping, ever and again, on their knees before a little shrine
there is in the wall, 'to keep 'em in the frame of mind.' You will
begin to think me unduly biassed in this verger's favour if I go on
to tell you his opinion of me. We got into a little side chapel,
whence we could hear the choir children at practice, and I stopped
a moment listening to them, with, I dare say, a very bright face,
for the sound was delightful to me. 'Ah,' says he, 'you're VERY
fond of music.' I said I was. 'Yes, I could tell that by your
head,' he answered. 'There's a deal in that head.' And he shook
his own solemnly. I said it might be so, but I found it hard, at
least, to get it out. Then my father cut in brutally, said anyway
I had no ear, and left the verger so distressed and shaken in the
foundations of his creed that, I hear, he got my father aside
afterwards and said he was sure there was something in my face, and
wanted to know what it was, if not music. He was relieved when he
heard that I occupied myself with litterature (which word, note
here, I do not spell correctly). Good-night, and here's the
verger's health!
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
SWANSTON, WEDNESDAY, [AUTUMN] 1874.
I HAVE been hard at work all yesterday, and besides had to write a
long letter to Bob, so I found no time until quite late, and then
was sleepy. Last night it blew a fearful gale; I was kept awake
about a couple of hours, and could not get to sleep for the horror
of the wind's noise; the whole house shook; and, mind you, our
house IS a house, a great castle of jointed stone that would weigh
up a street of English houses; so that when it quakes, as it did
last night, it means something. But the quaking was not what put
me about; it was the horrible howl of the wind round the corner;
the audible haunting of an incarnate anger about the house; the
evil spirit that was abroad; and, above all, the shuddering silent
pauses when the storm's heart stands dreadfully still for a moment.
O how I hate a storm at night! They have been a great influence in
my life, I am sure; for I can remember them so far back - long
before I was six at least, for we left the house in which I
remember listening to them times without number when I was six.
And in those days the storm had for me a perfect impersonation, as
durable and unvarying as any heathen deity. I always heard it, as
a horseman riding past with his cloak about his head, and somehow
always carried away, and riding past again, and being baffled yet
once more, AD INFINITUM, all night long. I think I wanted him to
get past, but I am not sure; I know only that I had some interest
either for or against in the matter; and I used to lie and hold my
breath, not quite frightened, but in a state of miserable
exaltation.
My first John Knox is in proof, and my second is on the anvil. It
is very good of me so to do; for I want so much to get to my real
tour and my sham tour, the real tour first: it is always working
in my head, and if I can only turn on the right sort of style at
the right moment, I am not much afraid of it. One thing bothers
me; what with hammering at this J. K., and writing necessary
letters, and taking necessary exercise (that even not enough, the
weather is so repulsive to me, cold and windy), I find I have no
time for reading except times of fatigue, when I wish merely to
relax myself. O - and I read over again for this purpose
Flaubert's TENTATION DE ST. ANTOINE; it struck me a good deal at
first, but this second time it has fetched me immensely. I am but
just done with it, so you will know the large proportion of salt to
take with my present statement, that it's the finest thing I ever
read! Of course, it isn't that, it's full of LONGUEURS, and is not
quite 'redd up,' as we say in Scotland, not quite articulated; but
there are splendid things in it.
I say, DO take your maccaroni with oil: DO, PLEASE. It's BEASTLY
with butter. - Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH], DECEMBER 23, 1874.
MONDAY. - I have come from a concert, and the concert was rather a
disappointment. Not so my afternoon skating - Duddingston, our big
loch, is bearing; and I wish you could have seen it this afternoon,
covered with people, in thin driving snow flurries, the big hill
grim and white and alpine overhead in the thick air, and the road
up the gorge, as it were into the heart of it, dotted black with
traffic. Moreover, I CAN skate a little bit; and what one can do
is always pleasant to do.
TUESDAY. - I got your letter to-day, and was so glad thereof. It
was of good omen to me also. I worked from ten to one (my classes
are suspended now for Xmas holidays), and wrote four or five
Portfolio pages of my Buckinghamshire affair. Then I went to
Duddingston and skated all afternoon. If you had seen the moon
rising, a perfect sphere of smoky gold, in the dark air above the
trees, and the white loch thick with skaters, and the great hill,
snow-sprinkled, overhead! It was a sight for a king.
WEDNESDAY. - I stayed on Duddingston to-day till after nightfall.
The little booths that hucksters set up round the edge were marked
each one by its little lamp. There were some fires too; and the
light, and the shadows of the people who stood round them to warm
themselves, made a strange pattern all round on the snow-covered
ice. A few people with torches began to travel up and down the
ice, a lit circle travelling along with them over the snow. A
gigantic moon rose, meanwhile, over the trees and the kirk on the
promontory, among perturbed and vacillating clouds.
The walk home was very solemn and strange. Once, through a broken
gorge, we had a glimpse of a little space of mackerel sky, moon-
litten, on the other side of the hill; the broken ridges standing
grey and spectral between; and the hilltop over all, snow-white,
and strangely magnified in size.
This must go to you to-morrow, so that you may read it on Christmas
Day for company. I hope it may be good company to you.
THURSDAY. - Outside, it snows thick and steadily. The gardens
before our house are now a wonderful fairy forest. And O, this
whiteness of things, how I love it, how it sends the blood about my
body! Maurice de Guerin hated snow; what a fool he must have been!
Somebody tried to put me out of conceit with it by saying that
people were lost in it. As if people don't get lost in love, too,
and die of devotion to art; as if everything worth were not an
occasion to some people's end.
What a wintry letter this is! Only I think it is winter seen from
the inside of a warm greatcoat. And there is, at least, a warm
heart about it somewhere. Do you know, what they say in Xmas
stories is true? I think one loves their friends more dearly at
this season. - Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
17 HERIOT ROAD, EDINBURGH [JANUARY 1875].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I have worked too hard; I have given myself one
day of rest, and that was not enough; I am giving myself another.
I shall go to bed again likewise so soon as this is done, and
slumber most potently.
9 P.M., slept all afternoon like a lamb.
About my coming south, I think the still small unanswerable voice
of coins will make it impossible until the session is over (end of
March); but for all that, I think I shall hold out jolly. I do not
want you to come and bother yourself; indeed, it is still not quite
certain whether my father will be quite fit for you, although I
have now no fear of that really. Now don't take up this wrongly; I
wish you could come; and I do not know anything that would make me
happier, but I see that it is wrong to expect it, and so I resign
myself: some time after. I offered Appleton a series of papers on
the modern French school - the Parnassiens, I think they call them
- de Banville, Coppee, Soulary, and Sully Prudhomme. But he has
not deigned to answer my letter.
I shall have another Portfolio paper so soon as I am done with this
story, that has played me out; the story is to be called WHEN THE
DEVIL WAS WELL: scene, Italy, Renaissance; colour, purely
imaginary of course, my own unregenerate idea of what Italy then
was. O, when shall I find the story of my dreams, that shall never
halt nor wander nor step aside, but go ever before its face, and
ever swifter and louder, until the pit receives it, roaring? The
Portfolio paper will be about Scotland and England. - Ever yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
EDINBURGH, TUESDAY [FEBRUARY 1875].
I GOT your nice long gossiping letter to-day - I mean by that that
there was more news in it than usual - and so, of course, I am
pretty jolly. I am in the house, however, with such a beastly cold
in the head. Our east winds begin already to be very cold.
O, I have such a longing for children of my own; and yet I do not
think I could bear it if I had one. I fancy I must feel more like
a woman than like a man about that. I sometimes hate the children
I see on the street - you know what I mean by hate - wish they were
somewhere else, and not there to mock me; and sometimes, again, I
don't know how to go by them for the love of them, especially the
very wee ones.
THURSDAY. - I have been still in the house since I wrote, and I
HAVE worked. I finished the Italian story; not well, but as well
as I can just now; I must go all over it again, some time soon,
when I feel in the humour to better and perfect it. And now I have
taken up an old story, begun years ago; and I have now re-written
all I had written of it then, and mean to finish it. What I have
lost and gained is odd. As far as regards simple writing, of
course, I am in another world now; but in some things, though more
clumsy, I seem to have been freer and more plucky: this is a
lesson I have taken to heart. I have got a jolly new name for my
old story. I am going to call it A COUNTRY DANCE; the two heroes
keep changing places, you know; and the chapter where the most of
this changing goes on is to be called 'Up the middle, down the
middle.' It will be in six, or (perhaps) seven chapters. I have
never worked harder in my life than these last four days. If I can
only keep it up.
SATURDAY. - Yesterday, Leslie Stephen, who was down here to
lecture, called on me and took me up to see a poor fellow, a poet
who writes for him, and who has been eighteen months in our
infirmary, and may be, for all I know, eighteen months more. It
was very sad to see him there, in a little room with two beds, and
a couple of sick children in the other bed; a girl came in to visit
the children, and played dominoes on the counterpane with them; the
gas flared and crackled, the fire burned in a dull economical way;
Stephen and I sat on a couple of chairs, and the poor fellow sat up
in his bed with his hair and beard all tangled, and talked as
cheerfully as if he had been in a King's palace, or the great
King's palace of the blue air. He has taught himself two languages
since he has been lying there. I shall try to be of use to him.
We have had two beautiful spring days, mild as milk, windy withal,
and the sun hot. I dreamed last night I was walking by moonlight
round the place where the scene of my story is laid; it was all so
quiet and sweet, and the blackbirds were singing as if it was day;
it made my heart very cool and happy. - Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
FEBRUARY 8, 1875.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - Forgive my bothering you. Here is the proof of
my second KNOX. Glance it over, like a good fellow, and if there's
anything very flagrant send it to me marked. I have no confidence
in myself; I feel such an ass. What have I been doing? As near as
I can calculate, nothing. And yet I have worked all this month
from three to five hours a day, that is to say, from one to three
hours more than my doctor allows me; positively no result.
No, I can write no article just now; I am PIOCHING, like a madman,
at my stories, and can make nothing of them; my simplicity is tame
and dull - my passion tinsel, boyish, hysterical. Never mind - ten
years hence, if I live, I shall have learned, so help me God. I
know one must work, in the meantime (so says Balzac) COMME LE
MINEUR ENFOUI SOUS UN EBOULEMENT.
J'Y PARVIENDRAI, NOM DE NOM DE NOM! But it's a long look forward.
- Ever yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[BARBIZON, APRIL 1875.]
MY DEAR FRIEND, - This is just a line to say I am well and happy.
I am here in my dear forest all day in the open air. It is very be
- no, not beautiful exactly, just now, but very bright and living.
There are one or two song birds and a cuckoo; all the fruit-trees
are in flower, and the beeches make sunshine in a shady place, I
begin to go all right; you need not be vexed about my health; I
really was ill at first, as bad as I have been for nearly a year;
but the forest begins to work, and the air, and the sun, and the
smell of the pines. If I could stay a month here, I should be as
right as possible. Thanks for your letter. - Your faithful
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, SUNDAY [APRIL 1875].
HERE is my long story: yesterday night, after having supped, I
grew so restless that I was obliged to go out in search of some
excitement. There was a half-moon lying over on its back, and
incredibly bright in the midst of a faint grey sky set with faint
stars: a very inartistic moon, that would have damned a picture.
At the most populous place of the city I found a little boy, three
years old perhaps, half frantic with terror, and crying to every
one for his 'Mammy.' This was about eleven, mark you. People
stopped and spoke to him, and then went on, leaving him more
frightened than before. But I and a good-humoured mechanic came up
together; and I instantly developed a latent faculty for setting
the hearts of children at rest. Master Tommy Murphy (such was his
name) soon stopped crying, and allowed me to take him up and carry
him; and the mechanic and I trudged away along Princes Street to
find his parents. I was soon so tired that I had to ask the
mechanic to carry the bairn; and you should have seen the puzzled
contempt with which he looked at me, for knocking in so soon. He
was a good fellow, however, although very impracticable and
sentimental; and he soon bethought him that Master Murphy might
catch cold after his excitement, so we wrapped him up in my
greatcoat. 'Tobauga (Tobago) Street' was the address he gave us;
and we deposited him in a little grocer's shop and went through all
the houses in the street without being able to find any one of the
name of Murphy. Then I set off to the head police office, leaving
my greatcoat in pawn about Master Murphy's person. As I went down
one of the lowest streets in the town, I saw a little bit of life
that struck me. It was now half-past twelve, a little shop stood
still half-open, and a boy of four or five years old was walking up
and down before it imitating cockcrow. He was the only living
creature within sight.
At the police offices no word of Master Murphy's parents; so I went
back empty-handed. The good groceress, who had kept her shop open
all this time, could keep the child no longer; her father, bad with
bronchitis, said he must forth. So I got a large scone with
currants in it, wrapped my coat about Tommy, got him up on my arm,
and away to the police office with him: not very easy in my mind,
for the poor child, young as he was - he could scarce speak - was
full of terror for the 'office,' as he called it. He was now very
grave and quiet and communicative with me; told me how his father
thrashed him, and divers household matters. Whenever he saw a
woman on our way he looked after her over my shoulder and then gave
his judgment: 'That's no HER,' adding sometimes, 'She has a wean
wi' her.' Meantime I was telling him how I was going to take him
to a gentleman who would find out his mother for him quicker than
ever I could, and how he must not be afraid of him, but be brave,
as he had been with me. We had just arrived at our destination -
we were just under the lamp - when he looked me in the face and
said appealingly, 'He'll no put - me in the office?' And I had to
assure him that he would not, even as I pushed open the door and
took him in.
The serjeant was very nice, and I got Tommy comfortably seated on a
bench, and spirited him up with good words and the scone with the
currants in it; and then, telling him I was just going out to look
for Mammy, I got my greatcoat and slipped away.
Poor little boy! he was not called for, I learn, until ten this
morning. This is very ill written, and I've missed half that was
picturesque in it; but to say truth, I am very tired and sleepy:
it was two before I got to bed. However, you see, I had my
excitement.
MONDAY. - I have written nothing all morning; I cannot settle to
it. Yes - I WILL though.
10.45. - And I did. I want to say something more to you about the
three women. I wonder so much why they should have been WOMEN, and
halt between two opinions in the matter. Sometimes I think it is
because they were made by a man for men; sometimes, again, I think
there is an abstract reason for it, and there is something more
substantive about a woman than ever there can be about a man. I
can conceive a great mythical woman, living alone among
inaccessible mountain-tops or in some lost island in the pagan
seas, and ask no more. Whereas if I hear of a Hercules, I ask
after Iole or Dejanira. I cannot think him a man without women.
But I can think of these three deep-breasted women, living out all
their days on remote hilltops, seeing the white dawn and the purple
even, and the world outspread before them for ever, and no more to
them for ever than a sight of the eyes, a hearing of the ears, a
far-away interest of the inflexible heart, not pausing, not
pitying, but austere with a holy austerity, rigid with a calm and
passionless rigidity; and I find them none the less women to the
end.
And think, if one could love a woman like that once, see her once
grow pale with passion, and once wring your lips out upon hers,
would it not be a small thing to die? Not that there is not a
passion of a quite other sort, much less epic, far more dramatic
and intimate, that comes out of the very frailty of perishable
women; out of the lines of suffering that we see written about
their eyes, and that we may wipe out if it were but for a moment;
out of the thin hands, wrought and tempered in agony to a fineness
of perception, that the indifferent or the merely happy cannot
know; out of the tragedy that lies about such a love, and the
pathetic incompleteness. This is another thing, and perhaps it is
a higher. I look over my shoulder at the three great headless
Madonnas, and they look back at me and do not move; see me, and
through and over me, the foul life of the city dying to its embers
already as the night draws on; and over miles and miles of silent
country, set here and there with lit towns, thundered through here
and there with night expresses scattering fire and smoke; and away
to the ends of the earth, and the furthest star, and the blank
regions of nothing; and they are not moved. My quiet, great-kneed,
deep-breasted, well-draped ladies of Necessity, I give my heart to
you!
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[SWANSTON, TUESDAY, APRIL 1875.]
MY DEAR FRIEND, - I have been so busy, away to Bridge Of Allan with
my father first, and then with Simpson and Baxter out here from
Saturday till Monday. I had no time to write, and, as it is, am
strangely incapable. Thanks for your letter. I have been reading
such lots of law, and it seems to take away the power of writing
from me. From morning to night, so often as I have a spare moment,
I am in the embrace of a law book - barren embraces. I am in good
spirits; and my heart smites me as usual, when I am in good
spirits, about my parents. If I get a bit dull, I am away to
London without a scruple; but so long as my heart keeps up, I am
all for my parents.
What do you think of Henley's hospital verses? They were to have
been dedicated to me, but Stephen wouldn't allow it - said it would
be pretentious.
WEDNESDAY. - I meant to have made this quite a decent letter this
morning, but listen. I had pain all last night, and did not sleep
well, and now am cold and sickish, and strung up ever and again
with another flash of pain. Will you remember me to everybody? My
principal characteristics are cold, poverty, and Scots Law - three
very bad things. Oo, how the rain falls! The mist is quite low on
the hill. The birds are twittering to each other about the
indifferent season. O, here's a gem for you. An old godly woman
predicted the end of the world, because the seasons were becoming
indistinguishable; my cousin Dora objected that last winter had
been pretty well marked. 'Yes, my dear,' replied the
soothsayeress; 'but I think you'll find the summer will be rather
coamplicated.' - Ever your faithful
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH, SATURDAY, APRIL 1875.]
I AM getting on with my rehearsals, but I find the part very hard.
I rehearsed yesterday from a quarter to seven, and to-day from four
(with interval for dinner) to eleven. You see the sad strait I am
in for ink. - A DEMAIN.
SUNDAY. - This is the third ink-bottle I have tried, and still it's
nothing to boast of. My journey went off all right, and I have
kept ever in good spirits. Last night, indeed, I did think my
little bit of gaiety was going away down the wind like a whiff of
tobacco smoke, but to-day it has come back to me a little. The
influence of this place is assuredly all that can be worst against
one; MAIL IL FAUT LUTTER. I was haunted last night when I was in
bed by the most cold, desolate recollections of my past life here;
I was glad to try and think of the forest, and warm my hands at the
thought of it. O the quiet, grey thickets, and the yellow
butterflies, and the woodpeckers, and the outlook over the plain as
it were over a sea! O for the good, fleshly stupidity of the
woods, the body conscious of itself all over and the mind
forgotten, the clean air nestling next your skin as though your
clothes were gossamer, the eye filled and content, the whole MAN
HAPPY! Whereas here it takes a pull to hold yourself together; it
needs both hands, and a book of stoical maxims, and a sort of
bitterness at the heart by way of armour. - Ever your faithful
R. L. S.
WEDNESDAY. - I am so played out with a cold in my eye that I cannot
see to write or read without difficulty. It is swollen HORRIBLE;
so how I shall look as Orsino, God knows! I have my fine clothes
tho'. Henley's sonnets have been taken for the CORNHILL. He is
out of hospital now, and dressed, but still not too much to brag of
in health, poor fellow, I am afraid.
SUNDAY. - So. I have still rather bad eyes, and a nasty sore
throat. I play Orsino every day, in all the pomp of Solomon,
splendid Francis the First clothes, heavy with gold and stage
jewellery. I play it ill enough, I believe; but me and the
clothes, and the wedding wherewith the clothes and me are
reconciled, produce every night a thrill of admiration. Our cook
told my mother (there is a servants' night, you know) that she and
the housemaid were 'just prood to be able to say it was oor young
gentleman.' To sup afterwards with these clothes on, and a
wonderful lot of gaiety and Shakespearean jokes about the table, is
something to live for. It is so nice to feel you have been dead
three hundred years, and the sound of your laughter is faint and
far off in the centuries. - Ever your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
WEDNESDAY. - A moment at last. These last few days have been as
jolly as days could be, and by good fortune I leave to-morrow for
Swanston, so that I shall not feel the whole fall back to habitual
self. The pride of life could scarce go further. To live in
splendid clothes, velvet and gold and fur, upon principally
champagne and lobster salad, with a company of people nearly all of
whom are exceptionally good talkers; when your days began about
eleven and ended about four - I have lost that sentence; I give it
up; it is very admirable sport, any way. Then both my afternoons
have been so pleasantly occupied - taking Henley drives. I had a
business to carry him down the long stair, and more of a business
to get him up again, but while he was in the carriage it was
splendid. It is now just the top of spring with us. The whole
country is mad with green. To see the cherry-blossom bitten out
upon the black firs, and the black firs bitten out of the blue sky,
was a sight to set before a king. You may imagine what it was to a
man who has been eighteen months in an hospital ward. The look of
his face was a wine to me.
I shall send this off to-day to let you know of my new address -
Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Edinburgh. Salute the faithful in
my name. Salute Priscilla, salute Barnabas, salute Ebenezer - O
no, he's too much, I withdraw Ebenezer; enough of early Christians.
- Ever your faithful
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH, JUNE 1875.]
SIMPLY a scratch. All right, jolly, well, and through with the
difficulty. My father pleased about the Burns. Never travel in
the same carriage with three able-bodied seamen and a fruiterer
from Kent; the A.-B.'s speak all night as though they were hailing
vessels at sea; and the fruiterer as if he were crying fruit in a
noisy market-place - such, at least, is my FUNESTE experience. I
wonder if a fruiterer from some place else - say Worcestershire -
would offer the same phenomena? insoluble doubt.
R. L. S.
Later. - Forgive me, couldn't get it off. Awfully nice man here
to-night. Public servant - New Zealand. Telling us all about the
South Sea Islands till I was sick with desire to go there:
beautiful places, green for ever; perfect climate; perfect shapes
of men and women, with red flowers in their hair; and nothing to do
but to study oratory and etiquette, sit in the sun, and pick up the
fruits as they fall. Navigator's Island is the place; absolute
balm for the weary. - Ever your faithful friend,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
SWANSTON. END OF JUNE, 1875.
THURSDAY. - This day fortnight I shall fall or conquer. Outside
the rain still soaks; but now and again the hilltop looks through
the mist vaguely. I am very comfortable, very sleepy, and very
much satisfied with the arrangements of Providence.
SATURDAY - NO, SUNDAY, 12.45. - Just been - not grinding, alas! - I
couldn't - but doing a bit of Fontainebleau. I don't think I'll be
plucked. I am not sure though - I am so busy, what with this d-d
law, and this Fontainebleau always at my elbow, and three plays
(three, think of that!) and a story, all crying out to me, 'Finish,
finish, make an entire end, make us strong, shapely, viable
creatures!' It's enough to put a man crazy. Moreover, I have my
thesis given out now, which is a fifth (is it fifth? I can't count)
incumbrance.
SUNDAY. - I've been to church, and am not depressed - a great step.
I was at that beautiful church my PETIT POEME EN PROSE was about.
It is a little cruciform place, with heavy cornices and string
course to match, and a steep slate roof. The small kirkyard is
full of old grave-stones. One of a Frenchman from Dunkerque - I
suppose he died prisoner in the military prison hard by - and one,
the most pathetic memorial I ever saw, a poor school-slate, in a
wooden frame, with the inscription cut into it evidently by the
father's own hand. In church, old Mr. Torrence preached - over
eighty, and a relic of times forgotten, with his black thread
gloves and mild old foolish face. One of the nicest parts of it
was to see John Inglis, the greatest man in Scotland, our Justice-
General, and the only born lawyer I ever heard, listening to the
piping old body, as though it had all been a revelation, grave and
respectful. - Ever your faithful
R. L. S.
CHAPTER III - ADVOCATE AND AUTHOR, EDINBURGH - PARIS -
FONTAINEBLEAU, JULY 1875-JULY 1879
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
[CHEZ SIRON, BARBIZON, SEINE ET MARNE, AUGUST 1875.]
MY DEAR MOTHER, - I have been three days at a place called Grez, a
pretty and very melancholy village on the plain. A low bridge of
many arches choked with sedge; great fields of white and yellow
water-lilies; poplars and willows innumerable; and about it all
such an atmosphere of sadness and slackness, one could do nothing
but get into the boat and out of it again, and yawn for bedtime.
Yesterday Bob and I walked home; it came on a very creditable
thunderstorm; we were soon wet through; sometimes the rain was so
heavy that one could only see by holding the hand over the eyes;
and to crown all, we lost our way and wandered all over the place,
and into the artillery range, among broken trees, with big shot
lying about among the rocks. It was near dinner-time when we got
to Barbizon; and it is supposed that we walked from twenty-three to
twenty-five miles, which is not bad for the Advocate, who is not
tired this morning. I was very glad to be back again in this dear
place, and smell the wet forest in the morning.
Simpson and the rest drove back in a carriage, and got about as wet
as we did.
Why don't you write? I have no more to say. - Ever your
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
CHATEAU RENARD, LOIRET, AUGUST 1875.
. . I HAVE been walking these last days from place to place; and
it does make it hot for walking with a sack in this weather. I am
burned in horrid patches of red; my nose, I fear, is going to take
the lead in colour; Simpson is all flushed, as if he were seen by a
sunset. I send you here two rondeaux; I don't suppose they will
amuse anybody but me; but this measure, short and yet intricate, is
just what I desire; and I have had some good times walking along
the glaring roads, or down the poplar alley of the great canal,
pitting my own humour to this old verse.
Far have you come, my lady, from the town,
And far from all your sorrows, if you please,
To smell the good sea-winds and hear the seas,
And in green meadows lay your body down.
To find your pale face grow from pale to brown,
Your sad eyes growing brighter by degrees;
Far have you come, my lady, from the town,
And far from all your sorrows, if you please.
Here in this seaboard land of old renown,
In meadow grass go wading to the knees;
Bathe your whole soul a while in simple ease;
There is no sorrow but the sea can drown;
Far have you come, my lady, from the town.
NOUS N'IRONS PLUS AU BOIS.
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire,
To weep for old desire
And things that are no more.
The woods are spoiled and hoar,
The ways are full of mire;
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire.
We loved, in days of yore,
Love, laughter, and the lyre.
Ah God, but death is dire,
And death is at the door -
We'll walk the woods no more.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
EDINBURGH, [AUTUMN] 1875.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - Thanks for your letter and news. No - my BURNS
is not done yet, it has led me so far afield that I cannot finish
it; every time I think I see my way to an end, some new game (or
perhaps wild goose) starts up, and away I go. And then, again, to
be plain, I shirk the work of the critical part, shirk it as a man
shirks a long jump. It is awful to have to express and
differentiate BURNS in a column or two. O golly, I say, you know,
it CAN'T be done at the money. All the more as I'm going write a
book about it. RAMSAY, FERGUSSON, AND BURNS: AN ESSAY (or A
CRITICAL ESSAY? but then I'm going to give lives of the three
gentlemen, only the gist of the book is the criticism) BY ROBERT
LOUIS STEVENSON, ADVOCATE. How's that for cut and dry? And I
COULD write this book. Unless I deceive myself, I could even write
it pretty adequately. I feel as if I was really in it, and knew
the game thoroughly. You see what comes of trying to write an
essay on BURNS in ten columns.
Meantime, when I have done Burns, I shall finish Charles of Orleans
(who is in a good way, about the fifth month, I should think, and
promises to be a fine healthy child, better than any of his elder
brothers for a while); and then perhaps a Villon, for Villon is a
very essential part of my RAMSAY-FERGUSSON-BURNS; I mean, is a note
in it, and will recur again and again for comparison and
illustration; then, perhaps, I may try Fontainebleau, by the way.
But so soon as Charles of Orleans is polished off, and immortalised
for ever, he and his pipings, in a solid imperishable shrine of R.
L. S., my true aim and end will be this little book. Suppose I
could jerk you out 100 Cornhill pages; that would easy make 200
pages of decent form; and then thickish paper - eh? would that do?
I dare say it could be made bigger; but I know what 100 pages of
copy, bright consummate copy, imply behind the scenes of weary
manuscribing; I think if I put another nothing to it, I should not
be outside the mark; and 100 Cornhill pages of 500 words means, I
fancy (but I never was good at figures), means 500,00 words.
There's a prospect for an idle young gentleman who lives at home at
ease! The future is thick with inky fingers. And then perhaps
nobody would publish. AH NOM DE DIEU! What do you think of all
this? will it paddle, think you?
I hope this pen will write; it is the third I have tried.
About coming up, no, that's impossible; for I am worse than a
bankrupt. I have at the present six shillings and a penny; I have
a sounding lot of bills for Christmas; new dress suit, for
instance, the old one having gone for Parliament House; and new
white shirts to live up to my new profession; I'm as gay and swell
and gummy as can be; only all my boots leak; one pair water, and
the other two simple black mud; so that my rig is more for the eye,
than a very solid comfort to myself. That is my budget. Dismal
enough, and no prospect of any coin coming in; at least for months.
So that here I am, I almost fear, for the winter; certainly till
after Christmas, and then it depends on how my bills 'turn out'
whether it shall not be till spring. So, meantime, I must whistle
in my cage. My cage is better by one thing; I am an Advocate now.
If you ask me why that makes it better, I would remind you that in
the most distressing circumstances a little consequence goes a long
way, and even bereaved relatives stand on precedence round the
coffin. I idle finely. I read Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON, Martin's
HISTORY OF FRANCE, ALLAN RAMSAY, OLIVIER BOSSELIN, all sorts of
rubbish, APROPOS of BURNS, COMMINES, JUVENAL DES URSINS, etc. I
walk about the Parliament House five forenoons a week, in wig and
gown; I have either a five or six mile walk, or an hour or two hard
skating on the rink, every afternoon, without fail.
I have not written much; but, like the seaman's parrot in the tale,
I have thought a deal. You have never, by the way, returned me
either SPRING or BERANGER, which is certainly a d-d shame. I
always comforted myself with that when my conscience pricked me
about a letter to you. 'Thus conscience' - O no, that's not
appropriate in this connection. - Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I say, is there any chance of your coming north this year? Mind
you that promise is now more respectable for age than is becoming.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
[EDINBURGH, OCTOBER 1875.]
NOO lyart leaves blaw ower the green,
Red are the bonny woods o' Dean,
An' here we're back in Embro, freen',
To pass the winter.
Whilk noo, wi' frosts afore, draws in,
An' snaws ahint her.
I've seen's hae days to fricht us a',
The Pentlands poothered weel wi' snaw,
The ways half-smoored wi' liquid thaw,
An' half-congealin',
The snell an' scowtherin' norther blaw
Frae blae Brunteelan'.
I've seen's been unco sweir to sally,
And at the door-cheeks daff an' dally,
Seen's daidle thus an' shilly-shally
For near a minute -
Sae cauld the wind blew up the valley,
The deil was in it! -
Syne spread the silk an' tak the gate,
In blast an' blaudin' rain, deil hae't!
The hale toon glintin', stane an' slate,
Wi' cauld an' weet,
An' to the Court, gin we'se be late,
Bicker oor feet.
And at the Court, tae, aft I saw
Whaur Advocates by twa an' twa
Gang gesterin' end to end the ha'
In weeg an' goon,
To crack o' what ye wull but Law
The hale forenoon.
That muckle ha,' maist like a kirk,
I've kent at braid mid-day sae mirk
Ye'd seen white weegs an' faces lurk
Like ghaists frae Hell,
But whether Christian ghaist or Turk
Deil ane could tell.
The three fires lunted in the gloom,
The wind blew like the blast o' doom,
The rain upo' the roof abune
Played Peter Dick -
Ye wad nae'd licht enough i' the room
Your teeth to pick!
But, freend, ye ken how me an' you,
The ling-lang lanely winter through,
Keep'd a guid speerit up, an' true
To lore Horatian,
We aye the ither bottle drew
To inclination.
Sae let us in the comin' days
Stand sicker on our auncient ways -
The strauchtest road in a' the maze
Since Eve ate apples;
An' let the winter weet our cla'es -
We'll weet oor thrapples.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[EDINBURGH, AUTUMN 1875.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - FOUS NE ME GOMBRENNEZ PAS. Angry with you? No.
Is the thing lost? Well, so be it. There is one masterpiece fewer
in the world. The world can ill spare it, but I, sir, I (and here
I strike my hollow boson, so that it resounds) I am full of this
sort of bauble; I am made of it; it comes to me, sir, as the desire
to sneeze comes upon poor ordinary devils on cold days, when they
should be getting out of bed and into their horrid cold tubs by the
light of a seven o'clock candle, with the dismal seven o'clock
frost-flowers all over the window.
Show Stephen what you please; if you could show him how to give me
money, you would oblige, sincerely yours,
R. L. S.
I have a scroll of SPRINGTIME somewhere, but I know that it is not
in very good order, and do not feel myself up to very much grind
over it. I am damped about SPRINGTIME, that's the truth of it. It
might have been four or five quid!
Sir, I shall shave my head, if this goes on. All men take a
pleasure to gird at me. The laws of nature are in open war with
me. The wheel of a dog-cart took the toes off my new boots. Gout
has set in with extreme rigour, and cut me out of the cheap
refreshment of beer. I leant my back against an oak, I thought it
was a trusty tree, but first it bent, and syne - it lost the Spirit
of Springtime, and so did Professor Sidney Colvin, Trinity College,
to me. - Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Along with this, I send you some P.P.P's; if you lose them, you
need not seek to look upon my face again. Do, for God's sake,
answer me about them also; it is a horrid thing for a fond
architect to find his monuments received in silence. - Yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[EDINBURGH, NOVEMBER 12, 1875.]
MY DEAR FRIEND, - Since I got your letter I have been able to do a
little more work, and I have been much better contented with
myself; but I can't get away, that is absolutely prevented by the
state of my purse and my debts, which, I may say, are red like
crimson. I don't know how I am to clear my hands of them, nor
when, not before Christmas anyway. Yesterday I was twenty-five; so
please wish me many happy returns - directly. This one was not
UNhappy anyway. I have got back a good deal into my old random,
little-thought way of life, and do not care whether I read, write,
speak, or walk, so long as I do something. I have a great delight
in this wheel-skating; I have made great advance in it of late, can
do a good many amusing things (I mean amusing in MY sense - amusing
to do). You know, I lose all my forenoons at Court! So it is, but
the time passes; it is a great pleasure to sit and hear cases
argued or advised. This is quite autobiographical, but I feel as
if it was some time since we met, and I can tell you, I am glad to
meet you again. In every way, you see, but that of work the world
goes well with me. My health is better than ever it was before; I
get on without any jar, nay, as if there never had been a jar, with
my parents. If it weren't about that work, I'd be happy. But the
fact is, I don't think - the fact is, I'm going to trust in
Providence about work. If I could get one or two pieces I hate out
of my way all would be well, I think; but these obstacles disgust
me, and as I know I ought to do them first, I don't do anything. I
must finish this off, or I'll just lose another day. I'll try to
write again soon. - Ever your faithful friend,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. DE MATTOS
EDINBURGH, JANUARY 1876.
MY DEAR KATHARINE, - The prisoner reserved his defence. He has
been seedy, however; principally sick of the family evil,
despondency; the sun is gone out utterly; and the breath of the
people of this city lies about as a sort of damp, unwholesome fog,
in which we go walking with bowed hearts. If I understand what is
a contrite spirit, I have one; it is to feel that you are a small
jar, or rather, as I feel myself, a very large jar, of pottery work
rather MAL REUSSI, and to make every allowance for the potter (I
beg pardon; Potter with a capital P.) on his ill-success, and
rather wish he would reduce you as soon as possible to potsherds.
However, there are many things to do yet before we go
GROSSIR LA PATE UNIVERSELLE
FAITE DES FORMES QUE DIEU FOND.
For instance, I have never been in a revolution yet. I pray God I
may be in one at the end, if I am to make a mucker. The best way
to make a mucker is to have your back set against a wall and a few
lead pellets whiffed into you in a moment, while yet you are all in
a heat and a fury of combat, with drums sounding on all sides, and
people crying, and a general smash like the infernal orchestration
at the end of the HUGUENOTS. . . .
Please pardon me for having been so long of writing, and show your
pardon by writing soon to me; it will be a kindness, for I am
sometimes very dull. Edinburgh is much changed for the worse by
the absence of Bob; and this damned weather weighs on me like a
curse. Yesterday, or the day before, there came so black a rain
squall that I was frightened - what a child would call frightened,
you know, for want of a better word - although in reality it has
nothing to do with fright. I lit the gas and sat cowering in my
chair until it went away again. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
O I am trying my hand at a novel just now; it may interest you to
know, I am bound to say I do not think it will be a success.
However, it's an amusement for the moment, and work, work is your
only ally against the 'bearded people' that squat upon their hams
in the dark places of life and embrace people horribly as they go
by. God save us from the bearded people! to think that the sun is
still shining in some happy places!
R. L S.
Letter: TO MRS SITWELL
[EDINBURGH, JANUARY 1876.]
. . OUR weather continues as it was, bitterly cold, and raining
often. There is not much pleasure in life certainly as it stands
at present. NOUS N'IRONS PLUS AU BOSS, HELAS!
I meant to write some more last night, but my father was ill and it
put it out of my way. He is better this morning.
If I had written last night, I should have written a lot. But this
morning I am so dreadfully tired and stupid that I can say nothing.
I was down at Leith in the afternoon. God bless me, what horrid
women I saw; I never knew what a plain-looking race it was before.
I was sick at heart with the looks of them. And the children,
filthy and ragged! And the smells! And the fat black mud!
My soul was full of disgust ere I got back. And yet the ships were
beautiful to see, as they are always; and on the pier there was a
clean cold wind that smelt a little of the sea, though it came down
the Firth, and the sunset had a certain ECLAT and warmth. Perhaps
if I could get more work done, I should be in a better trim to
enjoy filthy streets and people and cold grim weather; but I don't
much feel as if it was what I would have chosen. I am tempted
every day of my life to go off on another walking tour. I like
that better than anything else that I know. - Ever your faithful
friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[EDINBURGH, FEBRUARY 1876.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - 1ST. I have sent 'Fontainebleau' long ago, long
ago. And Leslie Stephen is worse than tepid about it - liked 'some
parts' of it 'very well,' the son of Belial. Moreover, he proposes
to shorten it; and I, who want MONEY, and money soon, and not glory
and the illustration of the English language, I feel as if my
poverty were going to consent.
2ND. I'm as fit as a fiddle after my walk. I am four inches
bigger about the waist than last July! There, that's your prophecy
did that. I am on 'Charles of Orleans' now, but I don't know where
to send him. Stephen obviously spews me out of his mouth, and I
spew him out of mine, so help me! A man who doesn't like my
'Fontainebleau'! His head must be turned.
3RD. If ever you do come across my 'Spring' (I beg your pardon for
referring to it again, but I don't want you to forget) send it off
at once.
4TH. I went to Ayr, Maybole, Girvan, Ballantrae, Stranraer,
Glenluce, and Wigton. I shall make an article of it some day soon,
'A Winter's Walk in Carrick and Galloway.' I had a good time. -
Yours,
R. L S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[SWANSTON COTTAGE, LOTHIANBURN, JULY 1876.]
HERE I am, here, and very well too. I am glad you liked 'Walking
Tours'; I like it, too; I think it's prose; and I own with
contrition that I have not always written prose. However, I am
'endeavouring after new obedience' (Scot. Shorter Catechism). You
don't say aught of 'Forest Notes,' which is kind. There is one, if
you will, that was too sweet to be wholesome.
I am at 'Charles d'Orleans.' About fifteen CORNHILL pages have
already coule'd from under my facile plume - no, I mean eleven,
fifteen of MS. - and we are not much more than half-way through,
'Charles' and I; but he's a pleasant companion. My health is very
well; I am in a fine exercisy state. Baynes is gone to London; if
you see him, inquire about my 'Burns.' They have sent me 5 pounds,
5s, for it, which has mollified me horrid. 5 pounds, 5s. is a good
deal to pay for a read of it in MS.; I can't complain. - Yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[SWANSTON COTTAGE, LOTHIANBURN, JULY 1876.]
. . I HAVE the strangest repugnance for writing; indeed, I have
nearly got myself persuaded into the notion that letters don't
arrive, in order to salve my conscience for never sending them off.
I'm reading a great deal of fifteenth century: TRIAL OF JOAN OF
ARC, PASTON LETTERS, BASIN, etc., also BOSWELL daily by way of a
Bible; I mean to read BOSWELL now until the day I die. And now and
again a bit of PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. Is that all? Yes, I think
that's all. I have a thing in proof for the CORNHILL called
VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE. 'Charles of Orleans' is again laid aside,
but in a good state of furtherance this time. A paper called 'A
Defence of Idlers' (which is really a defence of R. L. S.) is in a
good way. So, you see, I am busy in a tumultuous, knotless sort of
fashion; and as I say, I take lots of exercise, and I'm as brown a
berry.
This is the first letter I've written for - O I don't know how
long.
JULY 30TH. - This is, I suppose, three weeks after I began. Do,
please, forgive me.
To the Highlands, first, to the Jenkins', then to Antwerp; thence,
by canoe with Simpson, to Paris and Grez (on the Loing, and an old
acquaintance of mine on the skirts of Fontainebleau) to complete
our cruise next spring (if we're all alive and jolly) by Loing and
Loire, Saone and Rhone to the Mediterranean. It should make a
jolly book of gossip, I imagine.
God bless you.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
P.S. - VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE is in August CORNHILL. 'Charles of
Orleans' is finished, and sent to Stephen; 'Idlers' ditto, and sent
to Grove; but I've no word of either. So I've not been idle.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
CHAUNY, AISNE [SEPTEMBER 1876].
MY DEAR HENLEY, - Here I am, you see; and if you will take to a
map, you will observe I am already more than two doors from
Antwerp, whence I started. I have fought it through under the
worst weather I ever saw in France; I have been wet through nearly
every day of travel since the second (inclusive); besides this, I
have had to fight against pretty mouldy health; so that, on the
whole, the essayist and reviewer has shown, I think, some pluck.
Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from being miserably
drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of friends and the
permanent impoverishment of British Essayism and Reviewery. My
boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in a very rapid current; and
I was a good while before I got on to the outside of that fallen
tree; rather a better while than I cared about. When I got up, I
lay some time on my belly, panting, and exuded fluid. All my
symptoms JUSQU' ICI are trifling. But I've a damned sore throat. -
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, MAY 1877.
. . A PERFECT chorus of repudiation is sounding in my ears; and
although you say nothing, I know you must be repudiating me, all
the same. Write I cannot - there's no good mincing matters, a
letter frightens me worse than the devil; and I am just as unfit
for correspondence as if I had never learned the three R.'s.
Let me give my news quickly before I relapse into my usual
idleness. I have a terror lest I should relapse before I get this
finished. Courage, R. L. S.! On Leslie Stephen's advice, I gave
up the idea of a book of essays. He said he didn't imagine I was
rich enough for such an amusement; and moreover, whatever was worth
publication was worth republication. So the best of those I had
ready: 'An Apology for Idlers' is in proof for the CORNHILL. I
have 'Villon' to do for the same magazine, but God knows when I'll
get it done, for drums, trumpets - I'm engaged upon - trumpets,
drums - a novel! 'THE HAIR TRUNK; OR, THE IDEAL COMMONWEALTH.' It
is a most absurd story of a lot of young Cambridge fellows who are
going to found a new society, with no ideas on the subject, and
nothing but Bohemian tastes in the place of ideas; and who are -
well, I can't explain about the trunk - it would take too long -
but the trunk is the fun of it - everybody steals it; burglary,
marine fight, life on desert island on west coast of Scotland,
sloops, etc. The first scene where they make their grand schemes
and get drunk is supposed to be very funny, by Henley. I really
saw him laugh over it until he cried.
Please write to me, although I deserve it so little, and show a
Christian spirit. - Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[EDINBURGH, AUGUST 1877.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I'm to be whipped away to-morrow to Penzance,
where at the post-office a letter will find me glad and grateful.
I am well, but somewhat tired out with overwork. I have only been
home a fortnight this morning, and I have already written to the
tune of forty-five CORNHILL pages and upwards. The most of it was
only very laborious re-casting and re-modelling, it is true; but it
took it out of me famously, all the same.
TEMPLE BAR appears to like my 'Villon,' so I may count on another
market there in the future, I hope. At least, I am going to put it
to the proof at once, and send another story, 'The Sire de
Maletroit's Mousetrap': a true novel, in the old sense; all
unities preserved moreover, if that's anything, and I believe with
some little merits; not so CLEVER perhaps as the last, but sounder
and more natural.
My 'Villon' is out this month; I should so much like to know what
you think of it. Stephen has written to me apropos of 'Idlers,'
that something more in that vein would be agreeable to his views.
From Stephen I count that a devil of a lot.
I am honestly so tired this morning that I hope you will take this
for what it's worth and give me an answer in peace. - Ever yours,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[PENZANCE, AUGUST 1877.]
. . YOU will do well to stick to your burn, that is a delightful
life you sketch, and a very fountain of health. I wish I could
live like that but, alas! it is just as well I got my 'Idlers'
written and done with, for I have quite lost all power of resting.
I have a goad in my flesh continually, pushing me to work, work,
work. I have an essay pretty well through for Stephen; a story,
'The Sire de Maletroit's Mousetrap,' with which I shall try TEMPLE
BAR; another story, in the clouds, 'The Stepfather's Story,' most
pathetic work of a high morality or immorality, according to point
of view; and lastly, also in the clouds, or perhaps a little
farther away, an essay on the 'Two St. Michael's Mounts,'
historical and picturesque; perhaps if it didn't come too long, I
might throw in the 'Bass Rock,' and call it 'Three Sea Fortalices,'
or something of that kind. You see how work keeps bubbling in my
mind. Then I shall do another fifteenth century paper this autumn
- La Sale and PETIT JEHAN DE SAINTRE, which is a kind of fifteenth
century SANDFORD AND MERTON, ending in horrid immoral cynicism, as
if the author had got tired of being didactic, and just had a good
wallow in the mire to wind up with and indemnify himself for so
much restraint.
Cornwall is not much to my taste, being as bleak as the bleakest
parts of Scotland, and nothing like so pointed and characteristic.
It has a flavour of its own, though, which I may try and catch, if
I find the space, in the proposed article. 'Will o' the Mill' I
sent, red hot, to Stephen in a fit of haste, and have not yet had
an answer. I am quite prepared for a refusal. But I begin to have
more hope in the story line, and that should improve my income
anyway. I am glad you liked 'Villon'; some of it was not as good
as it ought to be, but on the whole it seems pretty vivid, and the
features strongly marked. Vividness and not style is now my line;
style is all very well, but vividness is the real line of country;
if a thing is meant to be read, it seems just as well to try and
make it readable. I am such a dull person I cannot keep off my own
immortal works. Indeed, they are scarcely ever out of my head.
And yet I value them less and less every day. But occupation is
the great thing; so that a man should have his life in his own
pocket, and never be thrown out of work by anything. I am glad to
hear you are better. I must stop - going to Land's End. - Always
your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO A. PATCHETT MARTIN
[1877.]
DEAR SIR, - It would not be very easy for me to give you any idea
of the pleasure I found in your present. People who write for the
magazines (probably from a guilty conscience) are apt to suppose
their works practically unpublished. It seems unlikely that any
one would take the trouble to read a little paper buried among so
many others; and reading it, read it with any attention or
pleasure. And so, I can assure you, your little book, coming from
so far, gave me all the pleasure and encouragement in the world.
I suppose you know and remember Charles Lamb's essay on distant
correspondents? Well, I was somewhat of his way of thinking about
my mild productions. I did not indeed imagine they were read, and
(I suppose I may say) enjoyed right round upon the other side of
the big Football we have the honour to inhabit. And as your
present was the first sign to the contrary, I feel I have been very
ungrateful in not writing earlier to acknowledge the receipt. I
dare say, however, you hate writing letters as much as I can do
myself (for if you like my article, I may presume other points of
sympathy between us); and on this hypothesis you will be ready to
forgive me the delay.
I may mention with regard to the piece of verses called 'Such is
Life,' that I am not the only one on this side of the Football
aforesaid to think it a good and bright piece of work, and
recognised a link of sympathy with the poets who 'play in
hostelries at euchre.' - Believe me, dear sir, yours truly,
R. L S.
Letter: TO A. PATCHETT MARTIN
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH [DECEMBER 1877].
MY DEAR SIR, - I am afraid you must already have condemned me for a
very idle fellow truly. Here it is more than two months since I
received your letter; I had no fewer than three journals to
acknowledge; and never a sign upon my part. If you have seen a
CORNHILL paper of mine upon idling, you will be inclined to set it
all down to that. But you will not be doing me justice. Indeed, I
have had a summer so troubled that I have had little leisure and
still less inclination to write letters. I was keeping the devil
at bay with all my disposable activities; and more than once I
thought he had me by the throat. The odd conditions of our
acquaintance enable me to say more to you than I would to a person
who lived at my elbow. And besides, I am too much pleased and
flattered at our correspondence not to go as far as I can to set
myself right in your eyes.
In this damnable confusion (I beg pardon) I have lost all my
possessions, or near about, and quite lost all my wits. I wish I
could lay my hands on the numbers of the REVIEW, for I know I
wished to say something on that head more particularly than I can
from memory; but where they have escaped to, only time or chance
can show. However, I can tell you so far, that I was very much
pleased with the article on Bret Harte; it seemed to me just,
clear, and to the point. I agreed pretty well with all you said
about George Eliot: a high, but, may we not add? - a rather dry
lady. Did you - I forget - did you have a kick at the stern works
of that melancholy puppy and humbug Daniel Deronda himself? - the
Prince of prigs; the literary abomination of desolation in the way
of manhood; a type which is enough to make a man forswear the love
of women, if that is how it must be gained. . . . Hats off all the
same, you understand: a woman of genius.
Of your poems I have myself a kindness for 'Noll and Nell,'
although I don't think you have made it as good as you ought:
verse five is surely not QUITE MELODIOUS. I confess I like the
Sonnet in the last number of the REVIEW - the Sonnet to England.
Please, if you have not, and I don't suppose you have, already read
it, institute a search in all Melbourne for one of the rarest and
certainly one of the best of books - CLARISSA HARLOWE. For any man
who takes an interest in the problems of the two sexes, that book
is a perfect mine of documents. And it is written, sir, with the
pen of an angel. Miss Howe and Lovelace, words cannot tell how
good they are! And the scene where Clarissa beards her family,
with her fan going all the while; and some of the quarrel scenes
between her and Lovelace; and the scene where Colonel Marden goes
to Mr. Hall, with Lord M. trying to compose matters, and the
Colonel with his eternal 'finest woman in the world,' and the
inimitable affirmation of Mowbray - nothing, nothing could be
better! You will bless me when you read it for this
recommendation; but, indeed, I can do nothing but recommend
Clarissa. I am like that Frenchman of the eighteenth century who
discovered Habakkuk, and would give no one peace about that
respectable Hebrew. For my part, I never was able to get over his
eminently respectable name; Isaiah is the boy, if you must have a
prophet, no less. About Clarissa, I meditate a choice work: A
DIALOGUE ON MAN, WOMAN, AND 'CLARISSA HARLOWE.' It is to be so
clever that no array of terms can give you any idea; and very
likely that particular array in which I shall finally embody it,
less than any other.
Do you know, my dear sir, what I like best in your letter? The
egotism for which you thought necessary to apologise. I am a rogue
at egotism myself; and to be plain, I have rarely or never liked
any man who was not. The first step to discovering the beauties of
God's universe is usually a (perhaps partial) apprehension of such
of them as adorn our own characters. When I see a man who does not
think pretty well of himself, I always suspect him of being in the
right. And besides, if he does not like himself, whom he has seen,
how is he ever to like one whom he never can see but in dim and
artificial presentments?
I cordially reciprocate your offer of a welcome; it shall be at
least a warm one. Are you not my first, my only, admirer - a dear
tie? Besides, you are a man of sense, and you treat me as one by
writing to me as you do, and that gives me pleasure also. Please
continue to let me see your work. I have one or two things coming
out in the CORNHILL: a story called 'The Sire de Maletroit's Door'
in TEMPLE BAR; and a series of articles on Edinburgh in the
PORTFOLIO; but I don't know if these last fly all the way to
Melbourne. - Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
HOTEL DES ETRANGERS, DIEPPE, JANUARY 1, 1878.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I am at the INLAND VOYAGE again: have finished
another section, and have only two more to execute. But one at
least of these will be very long - the longest in the book - being
a great digression on French artistic tramps. I only hope Paul may
take the thing; I want coin so badly, and besides it would be
something done - something put outside of me and off my conscience;
and I should not feel such a muff as I do, if once I saw the thing
in boards with a ticket on its back. I think I shall frequent
circulating libraries a good deal. The Preface shall stand over,
as you suggest, until the last, and then, sir, we shall see. This
to be read with a big voice.
This is New Year's Day: let me, my dear Colvin, wish you a very
good year, free of all misunderstanding and bereavement, and full
of good weather and good work. You know best what you have done
for me, and so you will know best how heartily I mean this. - Ever
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[PARIS, JANUARY OR FEBRUARY 1878.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - Many thanks for your letter. I was much
interested by all the Edinburgh gossip. Most likely I shall arrive
in London next week. I think you know all about the Crane sketch;
but it should be a river, not a canal, you know, and the look
should be 'cruel, lewd, and kindly,' all at once. There is more
sense in that Greek myth of Pan than in any other that I recollect
except the luminous Hebrew one of the Fall: one of the biggest
things done. If people would remember that all religions are no
more than representations of life, they would find them, as they
are, the best representations, licking Shakespeare.
What an inconceivable cheese is Alfred de Musset! His comedies
are, to my view, the best work of France this century: a large
order. Did you ever read them? They are real, clear, living work.
- Ever yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
PARIS, 44 BD. HAUSSMANN, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1878.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - Do you know who is my favourite author just now?
How are the mighty fallen! Anthony Trollope. I batten on him; he
is so nearly wearying you, and yet he never does; or rather, he
never does, until he gets near the end, when he begins to wean you
from him, so that you're as pleased to be done with him as you
thought you would be sorry. I wonder if it's old age? It is a
little, I am sure. A young person would get sickened by the dead
level of meanness and cowardliness; you require to be a little
spoiled and cynical before you can enjoy it. I have just finished
the WAY OF THE WORLD; there is only one person in it - no, there
are three - who are nice: the wild American woman, and two of the
dissipated young men, Dolly and Lord Nidderdale. All the heroes
and heroines are just ghastly. But what a triumph is Lady Carbury!
That is real, sound, strong, genuine work: the man who could do
that, if he had had courage, might have written a fine book; he has
preferred to write many readable ones. I meant to write such a
long, nice letter, but I cannot hold the pen.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
HOTEL DU VAL DE GRACE, RUE ST. JACQUES, PARIS, SUNDAY [JUNE 1878].
MY DEAR MOTHER, - About criticisms, I was more surprised at the
tone of the critics than I suppose any one else. And the effect it
has produced in me is one of shame. If they liked that so much, I
ought to have given them something better, that's all. And I shall
try to do so. Still, it strikes me as odd; and I don't understand
the vogue. It should sell the thing. - Ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
MONASTIER, SEPTEMBER 1878.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - You must not expect to hear much from me for the
next two weeks; for I am near starting. Donkey purchased - a love
- price, 65 francs and a glass of brandy. My route is all pretty
well laid out; I shall go near no town till I get to Alais.
Remember, Poste Restante, Alais, Gard. Greyfriars will be in
October. You did not say whether you liked September; you might
tell me that at Alais. The other No.'s of Edinburgh are:
Parliament Close, Villa Quarters (which perhaps may not appear),
Calton Hill, Winter and New Year, and to the Pentland Hills. 'Tis
a kind of book nobody would ever care to read; but none of the
young men could have done it better than I have, which is always a
consolation. I read INLAND VOYAGE the other day: what rubbish
these reviewers did talk! It is not badly written, thin, mildly
cheery, and strained. SELON MOI. I mean to visit Hamerton on my
return journey; otherwise, I should come by sea from Marseilles. I
am very well known here now; indeed, quite a feature of the place.
- Your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
The Engineer is the Conductor of Roads and Bridges; then I have the
Receiver of Registrations, the First Clerk of Excise, and the
Perceiver of the Impost. That is our dinner party. I am a sort of
hovering government official, as you see. But away - away from
these great companions!
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
[MONASTIER, SEPTEMBER 1878.]
DEAR HENLEY, - I hope to leave Monastier this day (Saturday) week;
thenceforward Poste Restante, Alais, Gard, is my address. 'Travels
with a Donkey in the French Highlands.' I am no good to-day. I
cannot work, nor even write letters. A colossal breakfast
yesterday at Puy has, I think, done for me for ever; I certainly
ate more than ever I ate before in my life - a big slice of melon,
some ham and jelly, A FILET, a helping of gudgeons, the breast and
leg of a partridge, some green peas, eight crayfish, some Mont d'Or
cheese, a peach, and a handful of biscuits, macaroons, and things.
It sounds Gargantuan; it cost three francs a head. So that it was
inexpensive to the pocket, although I fear it may prove extravagant
to the fleshly tabernacle. I can't think how I did it or why. It
is a new form of excess for me; but I think it pays less than any
of them.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
MONASTIER, AT MOREL'S [SEPTEMBER 1878].
Lud knows about date, VIDE postmark.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - Yours (with enclosures) of the 16th to hand.
All work done. I go to Le Puy to-morrow to dispatch baggage, get
cash, stand lunch to engineer, who has been very jolly and useful
to me, and hope by five o'clock on Saturday morning to be driving
Modestine towards the Gevaudan. Modestine is my anesse; a darling,
mouse-colour, about the size of a Newfoundland dog (bigger, between
you and me), the colour of a mouse, costing 65 francs and a glass
of brandy. Glad you sent on all the coin; was half afraid I might
come to a stick in the mountains, donkey and all, which would have
been the devil. Have finished ARABIAN NIGHTS and Edinburgh book,
and am a free man. Next address, Poste Restante, Alais, Gard.
Give my servilities to the family. Health bad; spirits, I think,
looking up. - Ever yours,
R. L S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
OCTOBER 1878.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - I have seen Hamerton; he was very kind, all his
family seemed pleased to see an INLAND VOYAGE, and the book seemed
to be quite a household word with them. P. G. himself promised to
help me in my bargains with publishers, which, said he, and I doubt
not very truthfully, he could manage to much greater advantage than
I. He is also to read an INLAND VOYAGE over again, and send me his
cuts and cuffs in private, after having liberally administered his
kisses CORAM PUBLICO. I liked him very much. Of all the pleasant
parts of my profession, I think the spirit of other men of letters
makes the pleasantest.
Do you know, your sunset was very good? The 'attack' (to speak
learnedly) was so plucky and odd. I have thought of it repeatedly
since. I have just made a delightful dinner by myself in the Cafe
Felix, where I am an old established beggar, and am just smoking a
cigar over my coffee. I came last night from Autun, and I am
muddled about my plans. The world is such a dance! - Ever your
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
[TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AUTUMN 1878.]
MY DEAR HENLEY, - Here I am living like a fighting-cock, and have
not spoken to a real person for about sixty hours. Those who wait
on me are not real. The man I know to be a myth, because I have
seen him acting so often in the Palais Royal. He plays the Duke in
TRICOCHE ET CACOLET; I knew his nose at once. The part he plays
here is very dull for him, but conscientious. As for the bedmaker,
she's a dream, a kind of cheerful, innocent nightmare; I never saw
so poor an imitation of humanity. I cannot work - CANNOT. Even
the GUITAR is still undone; I can only write ditch-water. 'Tis
ghastly; but I am quite cheerful, and that is more important. Do
you think you could prepare the printers for a possible breakdown
this week? I shall try all I know on Monday; but if I can get
nothing better than I got this morning, I prefer to drop a week.
Telegraph to me if you think it necessary. I shall not leave till
Wednesday at soonest. Shall write again.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
[17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, APRIL 16, 1879]. POOL OF SILOAM, By EL
DORADO, DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS, ARCADIA
MY DEAR GOSSE, - Herewith of the dibbs - a homely fiver. How, and
why, do you continue to exist? I do so ill, but for a variety of
reasons. First, I wait an angel to come down and trouble the
waters; second, more angels; third - well, more angels. The waters
are sluggish; the angels - well, the angels won't come, that's
about all. But I sit waiting and waiting, and people bring me
meals, which help to pass time (I'm sure it's very kind of them),
and sometimes I whistle to myself; and as there's a very pretty
echo at my pool of Siloam, the thing's agreeable to hear. The sun
continues to rise every day, to my growing wonder. 'The moon by
night thee shall not smite.' And the stars are all doing as well
as can be expected. The air of Arcady is very brisk and pure, and
we command many enchanting prospects in space and time. I do not
yet know much about my situation; for, to tell the truth, I only
came here by the run since I began to write this letter; I had to
go back to date it; and I am grateful to you for having been the
occasion of this little outing. What good travellers we are, if we
had only faith; no man need stay in Edinburgh but by unbelief; my
religious organ has been ailing for a while past, and I have lain a
great deal in Edinburgh, a sheer hulk in consequence. But I got
out my wings, and have taken a change of air.
I read your book with great interest, and ought long ago to have
told you so. An ordinary man would say that he had been waiting
till he could pay his debts. . . . The book is good reading. Your
personal notes of those you saw struck me as perhaps most sharp and
'best held.' See as many people as you can, and make a book of
them before you die. That will be a living book, upon my word.
You have the touch required. I ask you to put hands to it in
private already. Think of what Carlyle's caricature of old
Coleridge is to us who never saw S. T. C. With that and Kubla
Khan, we have the man in the fact. Carlyle's picture, of course,
is not of the author of KUBLA, but of the author of that surprising
FRIEND which has knocked the breath out of two generations of
hopeful youth. Your portraits would be milder, sweeter, more true
perhaps, and perhaps not so truth-TELLING - if you will take my
meaning.
I have to thank you for an introduction to that beautiful - no,
that's not the word - that jolly, with an Arcadian jollity - thing
of Vogelweide's. Also for your preface. Some day I want to read a
whole book in the same picked dialect as that preface. I think it
must be one E. W. Gosse who must write it. He has got himself into
a fix with me by writing the preface; I look for a great deal, and
will not be easily pleased.
I never thought of it, but my new book, which should soon be out,
contains a visit to a murder scene, but not done as we should like
to see them, for, of course, I was running another hare.
If you do not answer this in four pages, I shall stop the enclosed
fiver at the bank, a step which will lead to your incarceration for
life. As my visits to Arcady are somewhat uncertain, you had
better address 17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, as usual. I shall walk
over for the note if I am not yet home. - Believe me, very really
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I charge extra for a flourish when it is successful; this isn't, so
you have it gratis. Is there any news in Babylon the Great? My
fellow-creatures are electing school boards here in the midst of
the ages. It is very composed of them. I can't think why they do
it. Nor why I have written a real letter. If you write a real
letter back, damme, I'll try to CORRESPOND with you. A thing
unknown in this age. It is a consequence of the decay of faith; we
cannot believe that the fellow will be at the pains to read us.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH [APRIL 1879].
MY DEAR HENLEY, - Heavens! have I done the like? 'Clarify and
strain,' indeed? 'Make it like Marvell,' no less. I'll tell you
what - you may go to the devil; that's what I think. 'Be eloquent'
is another of your pregnant suggestions. I cannot sufficiently
thank you for that one. Portrait of a person about to be eloquent
at the request of a literary friend. You seem to forget sir, that
rhyme is rhyme, sir, and - go to the devil.
I'll try to improve it, but I shan't be able to - O go to the
devil.
Seriously, you're a cool hand. And then you have the brass to ask
me WHY 'my steps went one by one'? Why? Powers of man! to rhyme
with sun, to be sure. Why else could it be? And you yourself have
been a poet! G-r-r-r-r-r! I'll never be a poet any more. Men are
so d-d ungrateful and captious, I declare I could weep.
O Henley, in my hours of ease
You may say anything you please,
But when I join the Muse's revel,
Begad, I wish you at the devil!
In vain my verse I plane and bevel,
Like Banville's rhyming devotees;
In vain by many an artful swivel
Lug in my meaning by degrees;
I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil;
And grovelling prostrate on my knees,
Devote his body to the seas,
His correspondence to the devil!
Impromptu poem.
I'm going to Shandon Hydropathic CUM PARENTIBUS. Write here. I
heard from Lang. Ferrier prayeth to be remembered; he means to
write, likes his Tourgenieff greatly. Also likes my 'What was on
the Slate,' which, under a new title, yet unfound, and with a new
and, on the whole, kindly DENOUEMENT, is going to shoot up and
become a star. . . .
I see I must write some more to you about my Monastery. I am a
weak brother in verse. You ask me to re-write things that I have
already managed just to write with the skin of my teeth. If I
don't re-write them, it's because I don't see how to write them
better, not because I don't think they should be. But, curiously
enough, you condemn two of my favourite passages, one of which is
J. W. Ferrier's favourite of the whole. Here I shall think it's
you who are wrong. You see, I did not try to make good verse, but
to say what I wanted as well as verse would let me. I don't like
the rhyme 'ear' and 'hear.' But the couplet, 'My undissuaded heart
I hear Whisper courage in my ear,' is exactly what I want for the
thought, and to me seems very energetic as speech, if not as verse.
Would 'daring' be better than 'courage'? JE ME LE DEMANDE. No, it
would be ambiguous, as though I had used it licentiously for
'daringly,' and that would cloak the sense.
In short, your suggestions have broken the heart of the scald. He
doesn't agree with them all; and those he does agree with, the
spirit indeed is willing, but the d-d flesh cannot, cannot, cannot,
see its way to profit by. I think I'll lay it by for nine years,
like Horace. I think the well of Castaly's run out. No more the
Muses round my pillow haunt. I am fallen once more to the mere
proser. God bless you.
R. L S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
SWANSTON, LOTHIANBURN, EDINBURGH, JULY 24, 1879.
MY DEAR GOSSE, - I have greatly enjoyed your articles which seems
to me handsome in tone, and written like a fine old English
gentleman. But is there not a hitch in the sentence at foot of
page 153? I get lost in it.
Chapters VIII. and IX. of Meredith's story are very good, I think.
But who wrote the review of my book? whoever he was, he cannot
write; he is humane, but a duffer; I could weep when I think of
him; for surely to be virtuous and incompetent is a hard lot. I
should prefer to be a bold pirate, the gay sailor-boy of
immorality, and a publisher at once. My mind is extinct; my
appetite is expiring; I have fallen altogether into a hollow-eyed,
yawning way of life, like the parties in Burne Jones's pictures. .
. Talking of Burns. (Is this not sad, Weg? I use the term of
reproach not because I am angry with you this time, but because I
am angry with myself and desire to give pain.) Talking, I say, of
Robert Burns, the inspired poet is a very gay subject for study. I
made a kind of chronological table of his various loves and lusts,
and have been comparatively speechless ever since. I am sorry to
say it, but there was something in him of the vulgar, bagmanlike,
professional seducer. - Oblige me by taking down and reading, for
the hundredth time I hope, his 'Twa Dogs' and his 'Address to the
Unco Guid.' I am only a Scotchman, after all, you see; and when I
have beaten Burns, I am driven at once, by my parental feelings, to
console him with a sugar-plum. But hang me if I know anything I
like so well as the 'Twa Dogs.' Even a common Englishman may have
a glimpse, as it were from Pisgah, of its extraordinary merits.
'ENGLISH, THE: - a dull people, incapable of comprehending the
Scottish tongue. Their history is so intimately connected with
that of Scotland, that we must refer our readers to that heading.
Their literature is principally the work of venal Scots.' -
Stevenson's HANDY CYCLOPAEDIA. Glescow: Blaikie & Bannock.
Remember me in suitable fashion to Mrs. Gosse, the offspring, and
the cat. - And believe me ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH [JULY 28, 1879].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I am just in the middle of your Rembrandt. The
taste for Bummkopf and his works is agreeably dissembled so far as
I have gone; and the reins have never for an instant been thrown
upon the neck of that wooden Pegasus; he only perks up a learned
snout from a footnote in the cellarage of a paragraph; just, in
short, where he ought to be, to inspire confidence in a wicked and
adulterous generation. But, mind you, Bummkopf is not human; he is
Dagon the fish god, and down he will come, sprawling on his belly
or his behind, with his hands broken from his helpless carcase, and
his head rolling off into a corner. Up will rise on the other
side, sane, pleasurable, human knowledge: a thing of beauty and a
joy, etc.
I'm three parts through Burns; long, dry, unsympathetic, but sound
and, I think, in its dry way, interesting. Next I shall finish the
story, and then perhaps Thoreau. Meredith has been staying with
Morley, who is about, it is believed, to write to me on a literary
scheme. Is it Keats, hope you? My heart leaps at the thought. -
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH [JULY 29, 1879].
MY DEAR GOSSE, - Yours was delicious; you are a young person of
wit; one of the last of them; wit being quite out of date, and
humour confined to the Scotch Church and the SPECTATOR in
unconscious survival. You will probably be glad to hear that I am
up again in the world; I have breathed again, and had a frolic on
the strength of it. The frolic was yesterday, Sawbath; the scene,
the Royal Hotel, Bathgate; I went there with a humorous friend to
lunch. The maid soon showed herself a lass of character. She was
looking out of window. On being asked what she was after, 'I'm
lookin' for my lad,' says she. 'Is that him?' 'Weel, I've been
lookin' for him a' my life, and I've never seen him yet,' was the
response. I wrote her some verses in the vernacular; she read
them. 'They're no bad for a beginner,' said she. The landlord's
daughter, Miss Stewart, was present in oil colour; so I wrote her a
declaration in verse, and sent it by the handmaid. She (Miss S.)
was present on the stair to witness our departure, in a warm,
suffused condition. Damn it, Gosse, you needn't suppose that
you're the only poet in the world.
Your statement about your initials, it will be seen, I pass over in
contempt and silence. When once I have made up my mind, let me
tell you, sir, there lives no pock-pudding who can change it. Your
anger I defy. Your unmanly reference to a well-known statesman I
puff from me, sir, like so much vapour. Weg is your name; Weg. W
E G.
My enthusiasm has kind of dropped from me. I envy you your wife,
your home, your child - I was going to say your cat. There would
be cats in my home too if I could but get it. I may seem to you
'the impersonation of life,' but my life is the impersonation of
waiting, and that's a poor creature. God help us all, and the deil
be kind to the hindmost! Upon my word, we are a brave, cheery
crew, we human beings, and my admiration increases daily -
primarily for myself, but by a roundabout process for the whole
crowd; for I dare say they have all their poor little secrets and
anxieties. And here am I, for instance, writing to you as if you
were in the seventh heaven, and yet I know you are in a sad anxiety
yourself. I hope earnestly it will soon be over, and a fine pink
Gosse sprawling in a tub, and a mother in the best of health and
spirits, glad and tired, and with another interest in life. Man,
you are out of the trouble when this is through. A first child is
a rival, but a second is only a rival to the first; and the husband
stands his ground and may keep married all his life - a
consummation heartily to be desired. Good-bye, Gosse. Write me a
witty letter with good news of the mistress.
R. L. S.
CHAPTER IV - THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT, MONTEREY AND SAN FRANCISCO, JULY
1879-JULY 1880
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
ON BOARD SS. 'DEVONIA,' AN HOUR OR TWO OUT OF NEW YORK [AUGUST
1879].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I have finished my story. The handwriting is not
good because of the ship's misconduct: thirty-one pages in ten
days at sea is not bad.
I shall write a general procuration about this story on another bit
of paper. I am not very well; bad food, bad air, and hard work
have brought me down. But the spirits keep good. The voyage has
been most interesting, and will make, if not a series of PALL MALL
articles, at least the first part of a new book. The last weight
on me has been trying to keep notes for this purpose. Indeed, I
have worked like a horse, and am now as tired as a donkey. If I
should have to push on far by rail, I shall bring nothing but my
fine bones to port.
Good-bye to you all. I suppose it is now late afternoon with you
and all across the seas. What shall I find over there? I dare not
wonder. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
P.S. - I go on my way to-night, if I can; if not, tomorrow:
emigrant train ten to fourteen days' journey; warranted extreme
discomfort. The only American institution which has yet won my
respect is the rain. One sees it is a new country, they are so
free with their water. I have been steadily drenched for twenty-
four hours; water-proof wet through; immortal spirit fitfully
blinking up in spite. Bought a copy of my own work, and the man
said 'by Stevenson.' - 'Indeed,' says I. - 'Yes, sir,' says he. -
Scene closes.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[IN THE EMIGRANT TRAIN FROM NEW YORK TO SAN FRANCISCO, AUGUST
1879.]
DEAR COLVIN, - I am in the cars between Pittsburgh and Chicago,
just now bowling through Ohio. I am taking charge of a kid, whose
mother is asleep, with one eye, while I write you this with the
other. I reached N.Y. Sunday night; and by five o'clock Monday was
under way for the West. It is now about ten on Wednesday morning,
so I have already been about forty hours in the cars. It is
impossible to lie down in them, which must end by being very
wearying.
I had no idea how easy it was to commit suicide. There seems
nothing left of me; I died a while ago; I do not know who it is
that is travelling.
Of where or how, I nothing know;
And why, I do not care;
Enough if, even so,
My travelling eyes, my travelling mind can go
By flood and field and hill, by wood and meadow fair,
Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.
I think, I hope, I dream no more
The dreams of otherwhere,
The cherished thoughts of yore;
I have been changed from what I was before;
And drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air
Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.
Unweary God me yet shall bring
To lands of brighter air,
Where I, now half a king,
Shall with enfranchised spirit loudlier sing,
And wear a bolder front than that which now I wear
Beside the Susquehannah and along the Delaware.
Exit Muse, hurried by child's games. . . .
Have at you again, being now well through Indiana. In America you
eat better than anywhere else: fact. The food is heavenly.
No man is any use until he has dared everything; I feel just now as
if I had, and so might become a man. 'If ye have faith like a
grain of mustard seed.' That is so true! just now I have faith as
big as a cigar-case; I will not say die, and do not fear man nor
fortune.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
CROSSING NEBRASKA [SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1879].
MY DEAR HENLEY, - I am sitting on the top of the cars with a mill
party from Missouri going west for his health. Desolate flat
prairie upon all hands. Here and there a herd of cattle, a yellow
butterfly or two; a patch of wild sunflowers; a wooden house or
two; then a wooden church alone in miles of waste; then a windmill
to pump water. When we stop, which we do often, for emigrants and
freight travel together, the kine first, the men after, the whole
plain is heard singing with cicadae. This is a pause, as you may
see from the writing. What happened to the old pedestrian
emigrants, what was the tedium suffered by the Indians and trappers
of our youth, the imagination trembles to conceive. This is now
Saturday, 23rd, and I have been steadily travelling since I parted
from you at St. Pancras. It is a strange vicissitude from the
Savile Club to this; I sleep with a man from Pennsylvania who has
been in the States Navy, and mess with him and the Missouri bird
already alluded to. We have a tin wash-bowl among four. I wear
nothing but a shirt and a pair of trousers, and never button my
shirt. When I land for a meal, I pass my coat and feel dressed.
This life is to last till Friday, Saturday, or Sunday next. It is
a strange affair to be an emigrant, as I hope you shall see in a
future work. I wonder if this will be legible; my present station
on the waggon roof, though airy compared to the cars, is both dirty
and insecure. I can see the track straight before and straight
behind me to either horizon. Peace of mind I enjoy with extreme
serenity; I am doing right; I know no one will think so; and don't
care. My body, however, is all to whistles; I don't eat; but, man,
I can sleep. The car in front of mine is chock full of Chinese.
MONDAY. - What it is to be ill in an emigrant train let those
declare who know. I slept none till late in the morning, overcome
with laudanum, of which I had luckily a little bottle. All to-day
I have eaten nothing, and only drunk two cups of tea, for each of
which, on the pretext that the one was breakfast, and the other
dinner, I was charged fifty cents. Our journey is through ghostly
deserts, sage brush and alkali, and rocks, without form or colour,
a sad corner of the world. I confess I am not jolly, but mighty
calm, in my distresses. My illness is a subject of great mirth to
some of my fellow-travellers, and I smile rather sickly at their
jests.
We are going along Bitter Creek just now, a place infamous in the
history of emigration, a place I shall remember myself among the
blackest. I hope I may get this posted at Ogden, Utah.
R. L S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[COAST LINE MOUNTAINS, CALIFORNIA, SEPTEMBER 1879.]
HERE is another curious start in my life. I am living at an Angora
goat-ranche, in the Coast Line Mountains, eighteen miles from
Monterey. I was camping out, but got so sick that the two
rancheros took me in and tended me. One is an old bear-hunter,
seventy-two years old, and a captain from the Mexican war; the
other a pilgrim, and one who was out with the bear flag and under
Fremont when California was taken by the States. They are both
true frontiersmen, and most kind and pleasant. Captain Smith, the
bear-hunter, is my physician, and I obey him like an oracle.
The business of my life stands pretty nigh still. I work at my
notes of the voyage. It will not be very like a book of mine; but
perhaps none the less successful for that. I will not deny that I
feel lonely to-day; but I do not fear to go on, for I am doing
right. I have not yet had a word from England, partly, I suppose,
because I have not yet written for my letters to New York; do not
blame me for this neglect; if you knew all I have been through, you
would wonder I had done so much as I have. I teach the ranche
children reading in the morning, for the mother is from home sick.
- Ever your affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
MONTEREY, DITTO CO., CALIFORNIA, 21ST OCTOBER [1879].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - Although you have absolutely disregarded my
plaintive appeals for correspondence, and written only once as
against God knows how many notes and notikins of mine - here goes
again. I am now all alone in Monterey, a real inhabitant, with a
box of my own at the P.O. I have splendid rooms at the doctor's,
where I get coffee in the morning (the doctor is French), and I
mess with another jolly old Frenchman, the stranded fifty-eight-
year-old wreck of a good-hearted, dissipated, and once wealthy
Nantais tradesman. My health goes on better; as for work, the
draft of my book was laid aside at p. 68 or so; and I have now, by
way of change, more than seventy pages of a novel, a one-volume
novel, alas! to be called either A CHAPTER IN EXPERIENCE OF ARIZONA
BRECKONRIDGE or A VENDETTA IN THE WEST, or a combination of the
two. The scene from Chapter IV. to the end lies in Monterey and
the adjacent country; of course, with my usual luck, the plot of
the story is somewhat scandalous, containing an illegitimate father
for piece of resistance. . . . Ever yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, SEPTEMBER 1879.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I received your letter with delight; it was the
first word that reached me from the old country. I am in good
health now; I have been pretty seedy, for I was exhausted by the
journey and anxiety below even my point of keeping up; I am still a
little weak, but that is all; I begin to ingrease, it seems
already. My book is about half drafted: the AMATEUR EMIGRANT,
that is. Can you find a better name? I believe it will be more
popular than any of my others; the canvas is so much more popular
and larger too. Fancy, it is my fourth. That voluminous writer.
I was vexed to hear about the last chapter of 'The Lie,' and
pleased to hear about the rest; it would have been odd if it had no
birthmark, born where and how it was. It should by rights have
been called the DEVONIA, for that is the habit with all children
born in a steerage.
I write to you, hoping for more. Give me news of all who concern
me, near or far, or big or little. Here, sir, in California you
have a willing hearer.
Monterey is a place where there is no summer or winter, and pines
and sand and distant hills and a bay all filled with real water
from the Pacific. You will perceive that no expense has been
spared. I now live with a little French doctor; I take one of my
meals in a little French restaurant; for the other two, I sponge.
The population of Monterey is about that of a dissenting chapel on
a wet Sunday in a strong church neighbourhood. They are mostly
Mexican and Indian-mixed. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
MONTEREY, MONTEREY CO., CALIFORNIA, 8TH OCTOBER 1879.
MY DEAR WEG, - I know I am a rogue and the son of a dog. Yet let
me tell you, when I came here I had a week's misery and a
fortnight's illness, and since then I have been more or less busy
in being content. This is a kind of excuse for my laziness. I
hope you will not excuse yourself. My plans are still very
uncertain, and it is not likely that anything will happen before
Christmas. In the meanwhile, I believe I shall live on here
'between the sandhills and the sea,' as I think Mr. Swinburne hath
it. I was pretty nearly slain; my spirit lay down and kicked for
three days; I was up at an Angora goat-ranche in the Santa Lucia
Mountains, nursed by an old frontiers-man, a mighty hunter of
bears, and I scarcely slept, or ate, or thought for four days. Two
nights I lay out under a tree in a sort of stupor, doing nothing
but fetch water for myself and horse, light a fire and make coffee,
and all night awake hearing the goat-bells ringing and the tree-
frogs singing when each new noise was enough to set me mad. Then
the bear-hunter came round, pronounced me 'real sick,' and ordered
me up to the ranche.
It was an odd, miserable piece of my life; and according to all
rule, it should have been my death; but after a while my spirit got
up again in a divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my
vile body forward with great emphasis and success.
My new book, THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT, is about half drafted. I don't
know if it will be good, but I think it ought to sell in spite of
the deil and the publishers; for it tells an odd enough experience,
and one, I think, never yet told before. Look for my 'Burns' in
the CORNHILL, and for my 'Story of a Lie' in Paul's withered babe,
the NEW QUARTERLY. You may have seen the latter ere this reaches
you: tell me if it has any interest, like a good boy, and remember
that it was written at sea in great anxiety of mind. What is your
news? Send me your works, like an angel, AU FUR ET A MESURE of
their apparition, for I am naturally short of literature, and I do
not wish to rust.
I fear this can hardly be called a letter. To say truth, I feel
already a difficulty of approach; I do not know if I am the same
man I was in Europe, perhaps I can hardly claim acquaintance with
you. My head went round and looks another way now; for when I
found myself over here in a new land, and all the past uprooted in
the one tug, and I neither feeling glad nor sorry, I got my last
lesson about mankind; I mean my latest lesson, for of course I do
not know what surprises there are yet in store for me. But that I
could have so felt astonished me beyond description. There is a
wonderful callousness in human nature which enables us to live. I
had no feeling one way or another, from New York to California,
until, at Dutch Flat, a mining camp in the Sierra, I heard a cock
crowing with a home voice; and then I fell to hope and regret both
in the same moment.
Is there a boy or a girl? and how is your wife? I thought of you
more than once, to put it mildly.
I live here comfortably enough; but I shall soon be left all alone,
perhaps till Christmas. Then you may hope for correspondence - and
may not I? - Your friend,
R L S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
[MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER 1879.]
MY DEAR HENLEY, - Herewith the PAVILION ON THE LINKS, grand
carpentry story in nine chapters, and I should hesitate to say how
many tableaux. Where is it to go? God knows. It is the dibbs
that are wanted. It is not bad, though I say it; carpentry, of
course, but not bad at that; and who else can carpenter in England,
now that Wilkie Collins is played out? It might be broken for
magazine purposes at the end of Chapter IV. I send it to you, as I
dare say Payn may help, if all else fails. Dibbs and speed are my
mottoes.
Do acknowledge the PAVILION by return. I shall be so nervous till
I hear, as of course I have no copy except of one or two places
where the vein would not run. God prosper it, poor PAVILION! May
it bring me money for myself and my sick one, who may read it, I do
not know how soon.
Love to your wife, Anthony and all. I shall write to Colvin to-day
or to-morrow. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
[MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER 1879.]
MY DEAR HENLEY, - Many thanks for your good letter, which is the
best way to forgive you for your previous silence. I hope Colvin
or somebody has sent me the CORNHILL and the NEW QUARTERLY, though
I am trying to get them in San Francisco. I think you might have
sent me (1) some of your articles in the P. M. G.; (2) a paper with
the announcement of second edition; and (3) the announcement of the
essays in ATHENAEUM. This to prick you in the future. Again,
choose, in your head, the best volume of Labiche there is, and post
it to Jules Simoneau, Monterey, Monterey Co., California: do this
at once, as he is my restaurant man, a most pleasant old boy with
whom I discuss the universe and play chess daily. He has been out
of France for thirty-five years, and never heard of Labiche. I
have eighty-three pages written of a story called a VENDETTA IN THE
WEST, and about sixty pages of the first draft of the AMATEUR
EMIGRANT. They should each cover from 130 to 150 pages when done.
That is all my literary news. Do keep me posted, won't you? Your
letter and Bob's made the fifth and sixth I have had from Europe in
three months.
At times I get terribly frightened about my work, which seems to
advance too slowly. I hope soon to have a greater burthen to
support, and must make money a great deal quicker than I used. I
may get nothing for the VENDETTA; I may only get some forty quid
for the EMIGRANT; I cannot hope to have them both done much before
the end of November.
O, and look here, why did you not send me the SPECTATOR which
slanged me? Rogues and rascals, is that all you are worth?
Yesterday I set fire to the forest, for which, had I been caught, I
should have been hung out of hand to the nearest tree, Judge Lynch
being an active person hereaway. You should have seen my retreat
(which was entirely for strategical purposes). I ran like hell.
It was a fine sight. At night I went out again to see it; it was a
good fire, though I say it that should not. I had a near escape
for my life with a revolver: I fired six charges, and the six
bullets all remained in the barrel, which was choked from end to
end, from muzzle to breach, with solid lead; it took a man three
hours to drill them out. Another shot, and I'd have gone to
kingdom come.
This is a lovely place, which I am growing to love. The Pacific
licks all other oceans out of hand; there is no place but the
Pacific Coast to hear eternal roaring surf. When I get to the top
of the woods behind Monterey, I can hear the seas breaking all
round over ten or twelve miles of coast from near Carmel on my
left, out to Point Pinas in front, and away to the right along the
sands of Monterey to Castroville and the mouth of the Salinas. I
was wishing yesterday that the world could get - no, what I mean
was that you should be kept in suspense like Mahomet's coffin until
the world had made half a revolution, then dropped here at the
station as though you had stepped from the cars; you would then
comfortably enter Walter's waggon (the sun has just gone down, the
moon beginning to throw shadows, you hear the surf rolling, and
smell the sea and the pines). That shall deposit you at Sanchez's
saloon, where we take a drink; you are introduced to Bronson, the
local editor ('I have no brain music,' he says; 'I'm a mechanic,
you see,' but he's a nice fellow); to Adolpho Sanchez, who is
delightful. Meantime I go to the P. O. for my mail; thence we walk
up Alvarado Street together, you now floundering in the sand, now
merrily stumping on the wooden side-walks; I call at Hadsell's for
my paper; at length behold us installed in Simoneau's little white-
washed back-room, round a dirty tablecloth, with Francois the
baker, perhaps an Italian fisherman, perhaps Augustin Dutra, and
Simoneau himself. Simoneau, Francois, and I are the three sure
cards; the others mere waifs. Then home to my great airy rooms
with five windows opening on a balcony; I sleep on the floor in my
camp blankets; you instal yourself abed; in the morning coffee with
the little doctor and his little wife; we hire a waggon and make a
day of it; and by night, I should let you up again into the air, to
be returned to Mrs. Henley in the forenoon following. By God, you
would enjoy yourself. So should I. I have tales enough to keep
you going till five in the morning, and then they would not be at
an end. I forget if you asked me any questions, and I sent your
letter up to the city to one who will like to read it. I expect
other letters now steadily. If I have to wait another two months,
I shall begin to be happy. Will you remember me most
affectionately to your wife? Shake hands with Anthony from me; and
God bless your mother.
God bless Stephen! Does he not know that I am a man, and cannot
live by bread alone, but must have guineas into the bargain.
Burns, I believe, in my own mind, is one of my high-water marks;
Meiklejohn flames me a letter about it, which is so complimentary
that I must keep it or get it published in the MONTEREY
CALIFORNIAN. Some of these days I shall send an exemplaire of that
paper; it is huge. - Ever your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO P. G. HAMERTON
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA [NOVEMBER 1879].
MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON, - Your letter to my father was forwarded to
me by mistake, and by mistake I opened it. The letter to myself
has not yet reached me. This must explain my own and my father's
silence. I shall write by this or next post to the only friends I
have who, I think, would have an influence, as they are both
professors. I regret exceedingly that I am not in Edinburgh, as I
could perhaps have done more, and I need not tell you that what I
might do for you in the matter of the election is neither from
friendship nor gratitude, but because you are the only man (I beg
your pardon) worth a damn. I shall write to a third friend, now I
think of it, whose father will have great influence.
I find here (of all places in the world) your ESSAYS ON ART, which
I have read with signal interest. I believe I shall dig an essay
of my own out of one of them, for it set me thinking; if mine could
only produce yet another in reply, we could have the marrow out
between us.
I hope, my dear sir, you will not think badly of me for my long
silence. My head has scarce been on my shoulders. I had scarce
recovered from a long fit of useless ill-health than I was whirled
over here double-quick time and by cheapest conveyance.
I have been since pretty ill, but pick up, though still somewhat of
a mossy ruin. If you would view my countenance aright, come - view
it by the pale moonlight. But that is on the mend. I believe I
have now a distant claim to tan.
A letter will be more than welcome in this distant clime where I
have a box at the post-office - generally, I regret to say, empty.
Could your recommendation introduce me to an American publisher?
My next book I should really try to get hold of here, as its
interest is international, and the more I am in this country the
more I understand the weight of your influence. It is pleasant to
be thus most at home abroad, above all, when the prophet is still
not without honour in his own land. . . .
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, 15TH NOVEMBER 1879.
MY DEAR GOSSE, - Your letter was to me such a bright spot that I
answer it right away to the prejudice of other correspondents or -
dants (don't know how to spell it) who have prior claims. . . . It
is the history of our kindnesses that alone makes this world
tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words,
kind looks, kind letters, multiplying, spreading, making one happy
through another and bringing forth benefits, some thirty, some
fifty, some a thousandfold, I should be tempted to think our life a
practical jest in the worst possible spirit. So your four pages
have confirmed my philosophy as well as consoled my heart in these
ill hours.
Yes, you are right; Monterey is a pleasant place; but I see I can
write no more to-night. I am tired and sad, and being already in
bed, have no more to do but turn out the light. - Your affectionate
friend,
R. L S.
I try it again by daylight. Once more in bed however; for to-day
it is MUCHO FRIO, as we Spaniards say; and I had no other means of
keeping warm for my work. I have done a good spell, 9 and a half
foolscap pages; at least 8 of CORNHILL; ah, if I thought that I
could get eight guineas for it. My trouble is that I am all too
ambitious just now. A book whereof 70 out of 120 are scrolled. A
novel whereof 85 out of, say, 140 are pretty well nigh done. A
short story of 50 pp., which shall be finished to-morrow, or I'll
know the reason why. This may bring in a lot of money: but I
dread to think that it is all on three chances. If the three were
to fail, I am in a bog. The novel is called A VENDETTA IN THE
WEST. I see I am in a grasping, dismal humour, and should, as we
Americans put it, quit writing. In truth, I am so haunted by
anxieties that one or other is sure to come up in all that I write.
I will send you herewith a Monterey paper where the works of R. L.
S. appear, nor only that, but all my life on studying the
advertisements will become clear. I lodge with Dr. Heintz; take my
meals with Simoneau; have been only two days ago shaved by the
tonsorial artist Michaels; drink daily at the Bohemia saloon; get
my daily paper from Hadsel's; was stood a drink to-day by Albano
Rodriguez; in short, there is scarce a person advertised in that
paper but I know him, and I may add scarce a person in Monterey but
is there advertised. The paper is the marrow of the place. Its
bones - pooh, I am tired of writing so sillily.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[MONTEREY, DECEMBER 1879.]
TO-DAY, my dear Colvin, I send you the first part of the AMATEUR
EMIGRANT, 71 pp., by far the longest and the best of the whole. It
is not a monument of eloquence; indeed, I have sought to be prosaic
in view of the nature of the subject; but I almost think it is
interesting.
Whatever is done about any book publication, two things remember:
I must keep a royalty; and, second, I must have all my books
advertised, in the French manner, on the leaf opposite the title.
I know from my own experience how much good this does an author
with book BUYERS.
The entire A. E. will be a little longer than the two others, but
not very much. Here and there, I fancy, you will laugh as you read
it; but it seems to me rather a CLEVER book than anything else:
the book of a man, that is, who has paid a great deal of attention
to contemporary life, and not through the newspapers.
I have never seen my Burns! the darling of my heart! I await your
promised letter. Papers, magazines, articles by friends; reviews
of myself, all would be very welcome, I am reporter for the
MONTEREY CALIFORNIAN, at a salary of two dollars a week! COMMENT
TROUVEZ-VOUS CA? I am also in a conspiracy with the American
editor, a French restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against
the Padre. The enclosed poster is my last literary appearance. It
was put up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour;
and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I
think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits;
twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth
from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses of beer would cost
two bits. The Italian fisherman, an old Garibaldian, is a splendid
fellow.
R. L. S.
Letter: To EDMUND GOSSE
MONTEREY, MONTEREY CO., CALIFORNIA, DEC. 8, 1879.
MY DEAR WEG, - I received your book last night as I lay abed with a
pleurisy, the result, I fear, of overwork, gradual decline of
appetite, etc. You know what a wooden-hearted curmudgeon I am
about contemporary verse. I like none of it, except some of my
own. (I look back on that sentence with pleasure; it comes from an
honest heart.) Hence you will be kind enough to take this from me
in a kindly spirit; the piece 'To my daughter' is delicious. And
yet even here I am going to pick holes. I am a BEASTLY curmudgeon.
It is the last verse. 'Newly budded' is off the venue; and haven't
you gone ahead to make a poetry daybreak instead of sticking to
your muttons, and comparing with the mysterious light of stars the
plain, friendly, perspicuous, human day? But this is to be a
beast. The little poem is eminently pleasant, human, and original.
I have read nearly the whole volume, and shall read it nearly all
over again; you have no rivals!
Bancroft's HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, even in a centenary
edition, is essentially heavy fare; a little goes a long way; I
respect Bancroft, but I do not love him; he has moments when he
feels himself inspired to open up his improvisations upon universal
history and the designs of God; but I flatter myself I am more
nearly acquainted with the latter than Mr. Bancroft. A man, in the
words of my Plymouth Brother, 'who knows the Lord,' must needs,
from time to time, write less emphatically. It is a fetter dance
to the music of minute guns - not at sea, but in a region not a
thousand miles from the Sahara. Still, I am half-way through
volume three, and shall count myself unworthy of the name of an
Englishman if I do not see the back of volume six. The countryman
of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Drake, Cook, etc.!
I have been sweated not only out of my pleuritic fever, but out of
all my eating cares, and the better part of my brains (strange
coincidence!), by aconite. I have that peculiar and delicious
sense of being born again in an expurgated edition which belongs to
convalescence. It will not be for long; I hear the breakers roar;
I shall be steering head first for another rapid before many days;
NITOR AQUIS, said a certain Eton boy, translating for his sins a
part of the INLAND VOYAGE into Latin elegiacs; and from the hour I
saw it, or rather a friend of mine, the admirable Jenkin, saw and
recognised its absurd appropriateness, I took it for my device in
life. I am going for thirty now; and unless I can snatch a little
rest before long, I have, I may tell you in confidence, no hope of
seeing thirty-one. My health began to break last winter, and has
given me but fitful times since then. This pleurisy, though but a
slight affair in itself was a huge disappointment to me, and marked
an epoch. To start a pleurisy about nothing, while leading a dull,
regular life in a mild climate, was not my habit in past days; and
it is six years, all but a few months, since I was obliged to spend
twenty-four hours in bed. I may be wrong, but if the niting is to
continue, I believe I must go. It is a pity in one sense, for I
believe the class of work I MIGHT yet give out is better and more
real and solid than people fancy. But death is no bad friend; a
few aches and gasps, and we are done; like the truant child, I am
beginning to grow weary and timid in this big jostling city, and
could run to my nurse, even although she should have to whip me
before putting me to bed.
Will you kiss your little daughter from me, and tell her that her
father has written a delightful poem about her? Remember me,
please, to Mrs. Gosse, to Middlemore, to whom some of these days I
will write, to -, to -, yes, to -, and to -. I know you will gnash
your teeth at some of these; wicked, grim, catlike old poet. If I
were God, I would sort you - as we say in Scotland. - Your sincere
friend,
R. L. S.
'Too young to be our child': blooming good.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
608 BUSH STREET, SAN FRANCISCO [DECEMBER 26, 1879].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I am now writing to you in a cafe waiting for
some music to begin. For four days I have spoken to no one but to
my landlady or landlord or to restaurant waiters. This is not a
gay way to pass Christmas, is it? and I must own the guts are a
little knocked out of me. If I could work, I could worry through
better. But I have no style at command for the moment, with the
second part of the EMIGRANT, the last of the novel, the essay on
Thoreau, and God knows all, waiting for me. But I trust something
can be done with the first part, or, by God, I'll starve here . . .
