[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
