R. L. S.
CHAPTER V - ALPINE WINTERS AND HIGHLAND SUMMERS, AUGUST 1880-
OCTOBER 1882
Letter: TO A. G. DEW-SMITH
[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, NOVEMBER 1880.]
Figure me to yourself, I pray -
A man of my peculiar cut -
Apart from dancing and deray,
Into an Alpine valley shut;
Shut in a kind of damned Hotel,
Discountenanced by God and man;
The food? - Sir, you would do as well
To cram your belly full of bran.
The company? Alas, the day
That I should dwell with such a crew,
With devil anything to say,
Nor any one to say it to!
The place? Although they call it Platz,
I will be bold and state my view;
It's not a place at all - and that's
The bottom verity, my Dew.
There are, as I will not deny,
Innumerable inns; a road;
Several Alps indifferent high;
The snow's inviolable abode;
Eleven English parsons, all
Entirely inoffensive; four
True human beings - what I call
Human - the deuce a cipher more;
A climate of surprising worth;
Innumerable dogs that bark;
Some air, some weather, and some earth;
A native race - God save the mark! -
A race that works, yet cannot work,
Yodels, but cannot yodel right,
Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk,
I vow that I could wholly smite.
A river that from morn to night
Down all the valley plays the fool;
Not once she pauses in her flight,
Nor knows the comfort of a pool;
But still keeps up, by straight or bend,
The selfsame pace she hath begun -
Still hurry, hurry, to the end -
Good God, is that the way to run?
If I a river were, I hope
That I should better realise
The opportunities and scope
Of that romantic enterprise.
I should not ape the merely strange,
But aim besides at the divine;
And continuity and change
I still should labour to combine.
Here should I gallop down the race,
Here charge the sterling like a bull;
There, as a man might wipe his face,
Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.
But what, my Dew, in idle mood,
What prate I, minding not my debt?
What do I talk of bad or good?
The best is still a cigarette.
Me whether evil fate assault,
Or smiling providences crown -
Whether on high the eternal vault
Be blue, or crash with thunder down -
I judge the best, whate'er befall,
Is still to sit on one's behind,
And, having duly moistened all,
Smoke with an unperturbed mind.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON
[HOTEL BELVEDERE], DAVOS, DECEMBER 12 [1880].
MY DEAR FATHER, - Here is the scheme as well as I can foresee. I
begin the book immediately after the '15, as then began the attempt
to suppress the Highlands.
I. THIRTY YEARS' INTERVAL
(1) Rob Roy.
(2) The Independent Companies: the Watches.
(3) Story of Lady Grange.
(4) The Military Roads, and Disarmament: Wade and
(5) Burt.
II. THE HEROIC AGE
(1) Duncan Forbes of Culloden.
(2) Flora Macdonald.
(3) The Forfeited Estates; including Hereditary Jurisdictions; and
the admirable conduct of the tenants.
III. LITERATURE HERE INTERVENES
(1) The Ossianic Controversy.
(2) Boswell and Johnson.
(3) Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
IV. ECONOMY
(1) Highland Economics.
(2) The Reinstatement of the Proprietors.
(3) The Evictions.
(4) Emigration.
(5) Present State.
V. RELIGION
(1) The Catholics, Episcopals, and Kirk, and Soc. Prop. Christ.
Knowledge.
(2) The Men.
(3) The Disruption.
All this, of course, will greatly change in form, scope, and order;
this is just a bird's-eye glance. Thank you for BURT, which came,
and for your Union notes. I have read one-half (about 900 pages)
of Wodrow's CORRESPONDENCE, with some improvement, but great
fatigue. The doctor thinks well of my recovery, which puts me in
good hope for the future. I should certainly be able to make a
fine history of this.
My Essays are going through the press, and should be out in January
or February. - Ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS PLATZ [DEC. 6, 1880].
MY DEAR WEG, - I have many letters that I ought to write in
preference to this; but a duty to letters and to you prevails over
any private consideration. You are going to collect odes; I could
not wish a better man to do so; but I tremble lest you should
commit two sins of omission. You will not, I am sure, be so far
left to yourself as to give us no more of Dryden than the hackneyed
St. Cecilia; I know you will give us some others of those
surprising masterpieces where there is more sustained eloquence and
harmony of English numbers than in all that has been written since;
there is a machine about a poetical young lady, and another about
either Charles or James, I know not which; and they are both
indescribably fine. (Is Marvell's Horatian Ode good enough? I
half think so.) But my great point is a fear that you are one of
those who are unjust to our old Tennyson's Duke of Wellington. I
have just been talking it over with Symonds; and we agreed that
whether for its metrical effects, for its brief, plain, stirring
words of portraiture, as - he 'that never lost an English gun,' or
- the soldier salute; or for the heroic apostrophe to Nelson; that
ode has never been surpassed in any tongue or time. Grant me the
Duke, O Weg! I suppose you must not put in yours about the
warship; you will have to admit worse ones, however. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
[HOTEL BELVEDERE], DAVOS, DEC. 19, 1880.
This letter is a report of a long sederunt, also steterunt in small
committee at Davos Platz, Dec. 15, 1880.
Its results are unhesitatingly shot at your head.
MY DEAR WEG, - We both insist on the Duke of Wellington. Really it
cannot be left out. Symonds said you would cover yourself with
shame, and I add, your friends with confusion, if you leave it out.
Really, you know it is the only thing you have, since Dryden, where
that irregular odic, odal, odous (?) verse is used with mastery and
sense. And it's one of our few English blood-boilers.
(2) Byron: if anything: PROMETHEUS.
(3) Shelley (1) THE WORLD'S GREAT AGE from Hellas; we are both dead
on. After that you have, of course, THE WEST WIND thing. But we
think (1) would maybe be enough; no more than two any way.
(4) Herrick. MEDDOWES and COME, MY CORINNA. After that MR.
WICKES: two any way.
(5) Leave out stanza 3rd of Congreve's thing, like a dear; we can't
stand the 'sigh' nor the 'peruke.'
(6) Milton. TIME and the SOLEMN MUSIC. We both agree we would
rather go without L'Allegro and Il Penseroso than these; for the
reason that these are not so well known to the brutish herd.
(7) Is the ROYAL GEORGE an ode, or only an elegy? It's so good.
(8) We leave Campbell to you.
(9) If you take anything from Clough, but we don't either of us
fancy you will, let it be COME BACK.
(10) Quite right about Dryden. I had a hankering after THRENODIA
AUGUSTALIS; but I find it long and with very prosaic holes:
though, O! what fine stuff between whiles.
(11) Right with Collins.
(12) Right about Pope's Ode. But what can you give? THE DYING
CHRISTIAN? or one of his inimitable courtesies? These last are
fairly odes, by the Horatian model, just as my dear MEDDOWES is an
ode in the name and for the sake of Bandusia.
(13) Whatever you do, you'll give us the Greek Vase.
(14) Do you like Jonson's 'loathed stage'? Verses 2, 3, and 4 are
so bad, also the last line. But there is a fine movement and
feeling in the rest.
We will have the Duke of Wellington by God. Pro Symonds and
Stevenson.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND [DECEMBER 1880].
DEAR CHARLES WARREN STODDARD, - Many thanks to you for the letter
and the photograph. Will you think it mean if I ask you to wait
till there appears a promised cheap edition? Possibly the canny
Scot does feel pleasure in the superior cheapness; but the true
reason is this, that I think to put a few words, by way of notes,
to each book in its new form, because that will be the Standard
Edition, without which no g.'s l. will be complete. The edition,
briefly, SINE QUA NON. Before that, I shall hope to send you my
essays, which are in the printer's hands. I look to get yours
soon. I am sorry to hear that the Custom House has proved
fallible, like all other human houses and customs. Life consists
of that sort of business, and I fear that there is a class of man,
of which you offer no inapt type, doomed to a kind of mild, general
disappointment through life. I do not believe that a man is the
more unhappy for that. Disappointment, except with one's self, is
not a very capital affair; and the sham beatitude, 'Blessed is he
that expecteth little,' one of the truest, and in a sense, the most
Christlike things in literature.
Alongside of you, I have been all my days a red cannon ball of
dissipated effort; here I am by the heels in this Alpine valley,
with just so much of a prospect of future restoration as shall make
my present caged estate easily tolerable to me - shall or should, I
would not swear to the word before the trial's done. I miss all my
objects in the meantime; and, thank God, I have enough of my old,
and maybe somewhat base philosophy, to keep me on a good
understanding with myself and Providence.
The mere extent of a man's travels has in it something consolatory.
That he should have left friends and enemies in many different and
distant quarters gives a sort of earthly dignity to his existence.
And I think the better of myself for the belief that I have left
some in California interested in me and my successes. Let me
assure you, you who have made friends already among such various
and distant races, that there is a certain phthisical Scot who will
always be pleased to hear good news of you, and would be better
pleased by nothing than to learn that you had thrown off your
present incubus, largely consisting of letters I believe, and had
sailed into some square work by way of change.
And by way of change in itself, let me copy on the other pages some
broad Scotch I wrote for you when I was ill last spring in Oakland.
It is no muckle worth: but ye should na look a gien horse in the
moo'. - Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
DECEMBER 21, 1880. DAVOS.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - I do not understand these reproaches. The
letters come between seven and nine in the evening; and every one
about the books was answered that same night, and the answer left
Davos by seven o'clock next morning. Perhaps the snow delayed
then; if so, 'tis a good hint to you not to be uneasy at apparent
silences. There is no hurry about my father's notes; I shall not
be writing anything till I get home again, I believe. Only I want
to be able to keep reading AD HOC all winter, as it seems about all
I shall be fit for. About John Brown, I have been breaking my
heart to finish a Scotch poem to him. Some of it is not really
bad, but the rest will not come, and I mean to get it right before
I do anything else.
The bazaar is over, 160 pounds gained, and everybody's health lost:
altogether, I never had a more uncomfortable time; apply to Fanny
for further details of the discomfort.
We have our Wogg in somewhat better trim now, and vastly better
spirits. The weather has been bad - for Davos, but indeed it is a
wonderful climate. It never feels cold; yesterday, with a little,
chill, small, northerly draught, for the first time, it was
pinching. Usually, it may freeze, or snow, or do what it pleases,
you feel it not, or hardly any.
Thanks for your notes; that fishery question will come in, as you
notice, in the Highland Book, as well as under the Union; it is
very important. I hear no word of Hugh Miller's EVICTIONS; I count
on that. What you say about the old and new Statistical is odd.
It seems to me very much as if I were gingerly embarking on a
HISTORY OF MODERN SCOTLAND. Probably Tulloch will never carry it
out. And, you see, once I have studied and written these two
vols., THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS and SCOTLAND
AND THE UNION, I shall have a good ground to go upon. The effect
on my mind of what I have read has been to awaken a livelier
sympathy for the Irish; although they never had the remarkable
virtues, I fear they have suffered many of the injustices, of the
Scottish Highlanders. Ruedi has seen me this morning; he says the
disease is at a standstill, and I am to profit by it to take more
exercise. Altogether, he seemed quite hopeful and pleased. - I am
your ever affectionate son,
R. L S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, Christmas 1880.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - Thanks for yours; I waited, as said I would. I
now expect no answer from you, regarding you as a mere dumb cock-
shy, or a target, at which we fire our arrows diligently all day
long, with no anticipation it will bring them back to us. We are
both sadly mortified you are not coming, but health comes first;
alas, that man should be so crazy. What fun we could have, if we
were all well, what work we could do, what a happy place we could
make it for each other! If I were able to do what I want; but then
I am not, and may leave that vein.
No. I do not think I shall require to know the Gaelic; few things
are written in that language, or ever were; if you come to that,
the number of those who could write, or even read it, through
almost all my period, must, by all accounts, have been incredibly
small. Of course, until the book is done, I must live as much as
possible in the Highlands, and that suits my book as to health. It
is a most interesting and sad story, and from the '45 it is all to
be written for the first time. This, of course, will cause me a
far greater difficulty about authorities; but I have already
learned much, and where to look for more. One pleasant feature is
the vast number of delightful writers I shall have to deal with:
Burt, Johnson, Boswell, Mrs. Grant of Laggan, Scott. There will be
interesting sections on the Ossianic controversy and the growth of
the taste for Highland scenery. I have to touch upon Rob Roy,
Flora Macdonald, the strange story of Lady Grange, the beautiful
story of the tenants on the Forfeited Estates, and the odd, inhuman
problem of the great evictions. The religious conditions are wild,
unknown, very surprising. And three out of my five parts remain
hitherto entirely unwritten. Smack! - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
CHRISTMAS SERMON.
[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, DECEMBER 26, 1880.]
MY DEAR MOTHER, - I was very tired yesterday and could not write;
tobogganed so furiously all morning; we had a delightful day,
crowned by an incredible dinner - more courses than I have fingers
on my hands. Your letter arrived duly at night, and I thank you
for it as I should. You need not suppose I am at all insensible to
my father's extraordinary kindness about this book; he is a brick;
I vote for him freely.
. . . The assurance you speak of is what we all ought to have, and
might have, and should not consent to live without. That people do
not have it more than they do is, I believe, because persons speak
so much in large-drawn, theological similitudes, and won't say out
what they mean about life, and man, and God, in fair and square
human language. I wonder if you or my father ever thought of the
obscurities that lie upon human duty from the negative form in
which the Ten Commandments are stated, or of how Christ was so
continually substituting affirmations. 'Thou shalt not' is but an
example; 'Thou shalt' is the law of God. It was this that seems
meant in the phrase that 'not one jot nor tittle of the law should
pass.' But what led me to the remark is this: A kind of black,
angry look goes with that statement of the law of negatives. 'To
love one's neighbour as oneself' is certainly much harder, but
states life so much more actively, gladly, and kindly, that you
begin to see some pleasure in it; and till you can see pleasure in
these hard choices and bitter necessities, where is there any Good
News to men? It is much more important to do right than not to do
wrong; further, the one is possible, the other has always been and
will ever be impossible; and the faithful DESIGN TO DO RIGHT is
accepted by God; that seems to me to be the Gospel, and that was
how Christ delivered us from the Law. After people are told that,
surely they might hear more encouraging sermons. To blow the
trumpet for good would seem the Parson's business; and since it is
not in our own strength, but by faith and perseverance (no account
made of slips), that we are to run the race, I do not see where
they get the material for their gloomy discourses. Faith is not to
believe the Bible, but to believe in God; if you believe in God
(or, for it's the same thing, have that assurance you speak about),
where is there any more room for terror? There are only three
possible attitudes - Optimism, which has gone to smash; Pessimism,
which is on the rising hand, and very popular with many clergymen
who seem to think they are Christians. And this Faith, which is
the Gospel. Once you hold the last, it is your business (1) to
find out what is right in any given case, and (2) to try to do it;
if you fail in the last, that is by commission, Christ tells you to
hope; if you fail in the first, that is by omission, his picture of
the last day gives you but a black lookout. The whole necessary
morality is kindness; and it should spring, of itself, from the one
fundamental doctrine, Faith. If you are sure that God, in the long
run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if happy,
surely you should be kind.
I beg your pardon for this long discourse; it is not all right, of
course, but I am sure there is something in it. One thing I have
not got clearly; that about the omission and the commission; but
there is truth somewhere about it, and I have no time to clear it
just now. Do you know, you have had about a Cornhill page of
sermon? It is, however, true.
Lloyd heard with dismay Fanny was not going to give me a present;
so F. and I had to go and buy things for ourselves, and go through
a representation of surprise when they were presented next morning.
It gave us both quite a Santa Claus feeling on Xmas Eve to see him
so excited and hopeful; I enjoyed it hugely. - Your affectionate
son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, SPRING 1881.]
MY DEAR COLVIN. - My health is not just what it should be; I have
lost weight, pulse, respiration, etc., and gained nothing in the
way of my old bellows. But these last few days, with tonic, cod-
liver oil, better wine (there is some better now), and perpetual
beef-tea, I think I have progressed. To say truth, I have been
here a little over long. I was reckoning up, and since I have
known you, already quite a while, I have not, I believe, remained
so long in any one place as here in Davos. That tells on my old
gipsy nature; like a violin hung up, I begin to lose what music
there was in me; and with the music, I do not know what besides, or
do not know what to call it, but something radically part of life,
a rhythm, perhaps, in one's old and so brutally over-ridden nerves,
or perhaps a kind of variety of blood that the heart has come to
look for.
I purposely knocked myself off first. As to F. A. S., I believe I
am no sound authority; I alternate between a stiff disregard and a
kind of horror. In neither mood can a man judge at all. I know
the thing to be terribly perilous, I fear it to be now altogether
hopeless. Luck has failed; the weather has not been favourable;
and in her true heart, the mother hopes no more. But - well, I
feel a great deal, that I either cannot or will not say, as you
well know. It has helped to make me more conscious of the
wolverine on my own shoulders, and that also makes me a poor judge
and poor adviser. Perhaps, if we were all marched out in a row,
and a piece of platoon firing to the drums performed, it would be
well for us; although, I suppose - and yet I wonder! - so ill for
the poor mother and for the dear wife. But you can see this makes
me morbid. SUFFICIT; EXPLICIT.
You are right about the Carlyle book; F. and I are in a world not
ours; but pardon me, as far as sending on goes, we take another
view: the first volume, A LA BONNE HEURE! but not - never - the
second. Two hours of hysterics can be no good matter for a sick
nurse, and the strange, hard, old being in so lamentable and yet
human a desolation - crying out like a burnt child, and yet always
wisely and beautifully - how can that end, as a piece of reading,
even to the strong - but on the brink of the most cruel kind of
weeping? I observe the old man's style is stronger on me than ever
it was, and by rights, too, since I have just laid down his most
attaching book. God rest the baith o' them! But even if they do
not meet again, how we should all be strengthened to be kind, and
not only in act, in speech also, that so much more important part.
See what this apostle of silence most regrets, not speaking out his
heart.
I was struck as you were by the admirable, sudden, clear sunshine
upon Southey - even on his works. Symonds, to whom I repeated it,
remarked at once, a man who was thus respected by both Carlyle and
Landor must have had more in him than we can trace. So I feel with
true humility.
It was to save my brain that Symonds proposed reviewing. He and,
it appears, Leslie Stephen fear a little some eclipse; I am not
quite without sharing the fear. I know my own languor as no one
else does; it is a dead down-draught, a heavy fardel. Yet if I
could shake off the wolverine aforesaid, and his fangs are lighter,
though perhaps I feel them more, I believe I could be myself again
a while. I have not written any letter for a great time; none
saying what I feel, since you were here, I fancy. Be duly obliged
for it, and take my most earnest thanks not only for the books but
for your letter. Your affectionate,
R. L. S.
The effect of reading this on Fanny shows me I must tell you I am
very happy, peaceful, and jolly, except for questions of work and
the states of other people.
Woggin sends his love.
Letter: TO HORATIO F. BROWN
DAVOS, 1881.
MY DEAR BROWN. - Here it is, with the mark of a San Francisco
BOUQUINISTE. And if ever in all my 'human conduct' I have done a
better thing to any fellow-creature than handing on to you this
sweet, dignified, and wholesome book, I know I shall hear of it on
the last day. To write a book like this were impossible; at least
one can hand it on - with a wrench - one to another. My wife cries
out and my own heart misgives me, but still here it is. I could
scarcely better prove myself - Yours affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO HORATIO F. BROWN
DAVOS, 1881.
MY DEAR BROWN. - I hope, if you get thus far, you will know what an
invaluable present I have made you. Even the copy was dear to me,
printed in the colony that Penn established, and carried in my
pocket all about the San Francisco streets, read in street cars and
ferry-boats, when I was sick unto death, and found in all times and
places a peaceful and sweet companion. But I hope, when you shall
have reached this note, my gift will not have been in vain; for
while just now we are so busy and intelligent, there is not the man
living, no, nor recently dead, that could put, with so lovely a
spirit, so much honest, kind wisdom into words.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO HORATIO F. BROWN
HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, SPRING 1881.
MY DEAR BROWN, - Nine years I have conded them.
Brave lads in olden musical centuries
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
Sat late by alehouse doors in April
Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:
Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;
Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted;
Love and Apollo were there to chorus.
Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
Gone - those are gone, those unremembered
Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.
So man himself appears and evanishes,
So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at
Some green-embowered house, play their music,
Play and are gone on the windy highway;
Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory
Long after they departed eternally,
Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits,
Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.
Youth sang the song in years immemorial;
Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;
Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime
Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;
Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy -
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.
Please, my dear Brown, forgive my horrid delay. Symonds overworked
and knocked up. I off my sleep; my wife gone to Paris. Weather
lovely. - Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Monte Generoso in May; here, I think, till the end of April; write
again, to prove you are forgiving.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
HOTEL DU PAVILLON HENRY IV., ST. GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, SUNDAY, MAY 1ST,
1881.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - A week in Paris reduced me to the limpness and
lack of appetite peculiar to a kid glove, and gave Fanny a jumping
sore throat. It's my belief there is death in the kettle there; a
pestilence or the like. We came out here, pitched on the STAR and
GARTER (they call it Somebody's pavilion), found the place a bed of
lilacs and nightingales (first time I ever heard one), and also of
a bird called the PIASSEUR, cheerfulest of sylvan creatures, an
ideal comic opera in itself. 'Come along, what fun, here's Pan in
the next glade at picnic, and this-yer's Arcadia, and it's awful
fun, and I've had a glass, I will not deny, but not to see it on
me,' that is his meaning as near as I can gather. Well, the place
(forest of beeches all new-fledged, grass like velvet, fleets of
hyacinth) pleased us and did us good. We tried all ways to find a
cheaper place, but could find nothing safe; cold, damp, brick-
floored rooms and sich; we could not leave Paris till your seven
days' sight on draft expired; we dared not go back to be
miasmatised in these homes of putridity; so here we are till
Tuesday in the STAR AND GARTER. My throat is quite cured, appetite
and strength on the mend. Fanny seems also picking up.
If we are to come to Scotland, I WILL have fir-trees, and I want a
burn, the firs for my physical, the water for my moral health. -
Ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
PITLOCHRY, PERTHSHIRE, JUNE 6, 1881.
MY DEAR WEG, - Here I am in my native land, being gently blown and
hailed upon, and sitting nearer and nearer to the fire. A cottage
near a moor is soon to receive our human forms; it is also near a
burn to which Professor Blackie (no less!) has written some verses
in his hot old age, and near a farm from whence we shall draw cream
and fatness. Should I be moved to join Blackie, I shall go upon my
knees and pray hard against temptation; although, since the new
Version, I do not know the proper form of words. The swollen,
childish, and pedantic vanity that moved the said revisers to put
'bring' for 'lead,' is a sort of literary fault that calls for an
eternal hell; it may be quite a small place, a star of the least
magnitude, and shabbily furnished; there shall -, -, the revisers
of the Bible and other absolutely loathsome literary lepers, dwell
among broken pens, bad, GROUNDY ink and ruled blotting-paper made
in France - all eagerly burning to write, and all inflicted with
incurable aphasia. I should not have thought upon that torture had
I not suffered it in moderation myself, but it is too horrid even
for a hell; let's let 'em off with an eternal toothache.
All this talk is partly to persuade you that I write to you out of
good feeling only, which is not the case. I am a beggar: ask
Dobson, Saintsbury, yourself, and any other of these cheeses who
know something of the eighteenth century, what became of Jean
Cavalier between his coming to England and his death in 1740. Is
anything interesting known about him? Whom did he marry? The
happy French, smilingly following one another in a long procession
headed by the loud and empty Napoleon Peyrat, say, Olympe Dunoyer,
Voltaire's old flame. Vacquerie even thinks that they were rivals,
and is very French and very literary and very silly in his
comments. Now I may almost say it consists with my knowledge that
all this has not a shadow to rest upon. It is very odd and very
annoying; I have splendid materials for Cavalier till he comes to
my own country; and there, though he continues to advance in the
service, he becomes entirely invisible to me. Any information
about him will be greatly welcome: I may mention that I know as
much as I desire about the other prophets, Marion, Fage, Cavalier
(de Sonne), my Cavalier's cousin, the unhappy Lions, and the
idiotic Mr. Lacy; so if any erudite starts upon that track, you may
choke him off. If you can find aught for me, or if you will but
try, count on my undying gratitude. Lang's 'Library' is very
pleasant reading.
My book will reach you soon, for I write about it to-day - Yours
ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, PERTHSHIRE, JUNE 1881.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - THE BLACK MAN AND OTHER TALES.
The Black Man:
I. Thrawn Janet.
II. The Devil on Cramond Sands.
The Shadow on the Bed.
The Body Snatchers.
The Case Bottle.
The King's Horn.
The Actor's Wife.
The Wreck of the SUSANNA.
This is the new work on which I am engaged with Fanny; they are all
supernatural. 'Thrawn Janet' is off to Stephen, but as it is all
in Scotch he cannot take it, I know. It was SO GOOD, I could not
help sending it. My health improves. We have a lovely spot here:
a little green glen with a burn, a wonderful burn, gold and green
and snow-white, singing loud and low in different steps of its
career, now pouring over miniature crags, now fretting itself to
death in a maze of rocky stairs and pots; never was so sweet a
little river. Behind, great purple moorlands reaching to Ben
Vrackie. Hunger lives here, alone with larks and sheep. Sweet
spot, sweet spot.
Write me a word about Bob's professoriate and Landor, and what you
think of THE BLACK MAN. The tales are all ghastly. 'Thrawn Janet'
frightened me to death. There will maybe be another - 'The Dead
Man's A Letter.' I believe I shall recover; and I am, in this
blessed hope, yours exuberantly,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO PROFESSOR AENEAS MACKAY
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1881.
MY DEAR MACKAY, - What is this I hear? - that you are retiring from
your chair. It is not, I hope, from ill-health?
But if you are retiring, may I ask if you have promised your
support to any successor? I have a great mind to try. The summer
session would suit me; the chair would suit me - if only I would
suit it; I certainly should work it hard: that I can promise. I
only wish it were a few years from now, when I hope to have
something more substantial to show for myself. Up to the present
time, all that I have published, even bordering on history, has
been in an occasional form, and I fear this is much against me.
Please let me hear a word in answer, and believe me, yours very
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO PROFESSOR AENEAS MACKAY
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, PERTHSHIRE [JUNE 1881].
MY DEAR MACKAY, - Thank you very much for your kind letter, and
still more for your good opinion. You are not the only one who has
regretted my absence from your lectures; but you were to me, then,
only a part of a mangle through which I was being slowly and
unwillingly dragged - part of a course which I had not chosen -
part, in a word, of an organised boredom.
I am glad to have your reasons for giving up the chair; they are
partly pleasant, and partly honourable to you. And I think one may
say that every man who publicly declines a plurality of offices,
makes it perceptibly more difficult for the next man to accept
them.
Every one tells me that I come too late upon the field, every one
being pledged, which, seeing it is yet too early for any one to
come upon the field, I must regard as a polite evasion. Yet all
advise me to stand, as it might serve me against the next vacancy.
So stand I shall, unless things are changed. As it is, with my
health this summer class is a great attraction; it is perhaps the
only hope I may have of a permanent income. I had supposed the
needs of the chair might be met by choosing every year some period
of history in which questions of Constitutional Law were involved;
but this is to look too far forward.
I understand (1ST) that no overt steps can be taken till your
resignation is accepted; and (2ND) that in the meantime I may,
without offence, mention my design to stand.
If I am mistaken about these, please correct me, as I do not wish
to appear where I should not.
Again thanking you very heartily for your coals of fire I remain
yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, JUNE 24, 1881.
MY DEAR GOSSE, - I wonder if I misdirected my last to you. I begin
to fear it. I hope, however, this will go right. I am in act to
do a mad thing - to stand for the Edinburgh Chair of History; it is
elected for by the advocates, QUORUM PARS; I am told that I am too
late this year; but advised on all hands to go on, as it is likely
soon to be once more vacant; and I shall have done myself good for
the next time. Now, if I got the thing (which I cannot, it
appears), I believe, in spite of all my imperfections, I could be
decently effectual. If you can think so also, do put it in a
testimonial.
Heavens! JE ME SAUVE, I have something else to say to you, but
after that (which is not a joke) I shall keep it for another shoot.
- Yours testimonially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I surely need not add, dear lad, that if you don't feel like it,
you will only have to pacify me by a long letter on general
subjects, when I shall hasten to respond in recompense for my
assault upon the postal highway.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY [JULY 1881].
MY DEAR WEG, - Many thanks for the testimonial; many thanks for
your blind, wondering letter; many wishes, lastly, for your swift
recovery. Insomnia is the opposite pole from my complaint; which
brings with it a nervous lethargy, an unkind, unwholesome, and
ungentle somnolence, fruitful in heavy heads and heavy eyes at
morning. You cannot sleep; well, I can best explain my state thus:
I cannot wake. Sleep, like the lees of a posset, lingers all day,
lead-heavy, in my knees and ankles. Weight on the shoulders,
torpor on the brain. And there is more than too much of that from
an ungrateful hound who is now enjoying his first decently
competent and peaceful weeks for close upon two years; happy in a
big brown moor behind him, and an incomparable burn by his side;
happy, above all, in some work - for at last I am at work with that
appetite and confidence that alone makes work supportable.
I told you I had something else to say. I am very tedious - it is
another request. In August and a good part of September we shall
be in Braemar, in a house with some accommodation. Now Braemar is
a place patronised by the royalty of the Sister Kingdoms - Victoria
and the Cairngorms, sir, honouring that countryside by their
conjunct presence. This seems to me the spot for A Bard. Now can
you come to see us for a little while? I can promise you, you must
like my father, because you are a human being; you ought to like
Braemar, because of your avocation; and you ought to like me,
because I like you; and again, you must like my wife, because she
likes cats; and as for my mother - well, come and see, what do you
think? that is best. Mrs. Gosse, my wife tells me, will have other
fish to fry; and to be plain, I should not like to ask her till I
had seen the house. But a lone man I know we shall be equal to.
QU'EN DIS TU? VIENS. - Yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO P. G. HAMERTON
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY [JULY 1881].
MY DEAR MR. HAMMERTON, - (There goes the second M.; it is a
certainty.) Thank you for your prompt and kind answer, little as I
deserved it, though I hope to show you I was less undeserving than
I seemed. But just might I delete two words in your testimonial?
The two words 'and legal' were unfortunately winged by chance
against my weakest spot, and would go far to damn me.
It was not my bliss that I was interested in when I was married; it
was a sort of marriage IN EXTREMIS; and if I am where I am, it is
thanks to the care of that lady who married me when I was a mere
complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of
mortality than a bridegroom.
I had a fair experience of that kind of illness when all the women
(God bless them!) turn round upon the streets and look after you
with a look that is only too kind not to be cruel. I have had
nearly two years of more or less prostration. I have done no work
whatever since the February before last until quite of late. To be
precise, until the beginning of last month, exactly two essays.
All last winter I was at Davos; and indeed I am home here just now
against the doctor's orders, and must soon be back again to that
unkindly haunt 'upon the mountains visitant' - there goes no angel
there but the angel of death. The deaths of last winter are still
sore spots to me. . . . So, you see, I am not very likely to go on
a 'wild expedition,' cis-Stygian at least. The truth is, I am
scarce justified in standing for the chair, though I hope you will
not mention this; and yet my health is one of my reasons, for the
class is in summer.
I hope this statement of my case will make my long neglect appear
less unkind. It was certainly not because I ever forgot you, or
your unwonted kindness; and it was not because I was in any sense
rioting in pleasures.
I am glad to hear the catamaran is on her legs again; you have my
warmest wishes for a good cruise down the Saone; and yet there
comes some envy to that wish, for when shall I go cruising? Here a
sheer hulk, alas! lies R. L. S. But I will continue to hope for a
better time, canoes that will sail better to the wind, and a river
grander than the Saone.
I heard, by the way, in a letter of counsel from a well-wisher, one
reason of my town's absurdity about the chair of Art: I fear it is
characteristic of her manners. It was because you did not call
upon the electors!
Will you remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your son? - And believe
me, etc., etc.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, [JULY 1881].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I do believe I am better, mind and body; I am
tired just now, for I have just been up the burn with Wogg, daily
growing better and boo'f'ler; so do not judge my state by my style
in this. I am working steady, four Cornhill pages scrolled every
day, besides the correspondence about this chair, which is heavy in
itself. My first story, 'Thrawn Janet,' all in Scotch, is accepted
by Stephen; my second, 'The Body Snatchers,' is laid aside in a
justifiable disgust, the tale being horrid; my third, 'The Merry
Men,' I am more than half through, and think real well of. It is a
fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks; and I like it much above
all my other attempts at story-telling; I think it is strange; if
ever I shall make a hit, I have the line now, as I believe.
Fanny has finished one of hers, 'The Shadow on the Bed,' and is now
hammering at a second, for which we have 'no name' as yet - not by
Wilkie Collins.
TALES FOR WINTER NIGHTS. Yes, that, I think, we will call the lot
of them when republished.
Why have you not sent me a testimonial? Everybody else but you has
responded, and Symonds, but I'm afraid he's ill. Do think, too, if
anybody else would write me a testimonial. I am told quantity goes
far. I have good ones from Rev. Professor Campbell, Professor
Meiklejohn, Leslie Stephen, Lang, Gosse, and a very shaky one from
Hamerton.
Grant is an elector, so can't, but has written me kindly. From
Tulloch I have not yet heard. Do help me with suggestions. This
old chair, with its 250 pounds and its light work, would make me.
It looks as if we should take Cater's chalet after all; but O! to
go back to that place, it seems cruel. I have not yet received the
Landor; but it may be at home, detained by my mother, who returns
to-morrow.
Believe me, dear Colvin, ever yours,
R. L. S.
Yours came; the class is in summer; many thanks for the
testimonial, it is bully; arrived along with it another from
Symonds, also bully; he is ill, but not lungs, thank God - fever
got in Italy. We HAVE taken Cater's chalet; so we are now the
aristo.'s of the valley. There is no hope for me, but if there
were, you would hear sweetness and light streaming from my lips.
'The Merry Men'
Chap. I. Eilean Aros. }
II. What the Wreck had brought to Aros. } Tip
III. Past and Present in Sandag Bay. } Top
IV. The Gale. } Tale.
V. A Man out of the Sea. }
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, JULY 1881.
MY DEAR HENLEY, - I hope, then, to have a visit from you. If
before August, here; if later, at Braemar. Tupe!
And now, MON BON, I must babble about 'The Merry Men,' my favourite
work. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks. Chapter
I. 'Eilean Aros' - the island, the roost, the 'merry men,' the
three people there living - sea superstitions. Chapter II. 'What
the Wreck had brought to Aros.' Eh, boy? what had it? Silver and
clocks and brocades, and what a conscience, what a mad brain!
Chapter III. 'Past and Present in Sandag Bay' - the new wreck and
the old - so old - the Armada treasure-ship, Santma Trinid - the
grave in the heather - strangers there. Chapter IV. 'The Gale' -
the doomed ship - the storm - the drunken madman on the head -
cries in the night. Chapter V. 'A Man out of the Sea.' But I must
not breathe to you my plot. It is, I fancy, my first real shoot at
a story; an odd thing, sir, but, I believe, my own, though there is
a little of Scott's PIRATE in it, as how should there not? He had
the root of romance in such places. Aros is Earraid, where I lived
lang syne; the Ross of Grisapol is the Ross of Mull; Ben Ryan, Ben
More. I have written to the middle of Chapter IV. Like enough,
when it is finished I shall discard all chapterings; for the thing
is written straight through. It must, unhappily, be re-written -
too well written not to be.
The chair is only three months in summer; that is why I try for it.
If I get it, which I shall not, I should be independent at once.
Sweet thought. I liked your Byron well; your Berlioz better. No
one would remark these cuts; even I, who was looking for it, knew
it not at all to be a TORSO. The paper strengthens me in my
recommendation to you to follow Colvin's hint. Give us an 1830;
you will do it well, and the subject smiles widely on the world:-
1830: A CHAPTER OF ARTISTIC HISTORY, by William Ernest Henley (or
OF SOCIAL AND ARTISTIC HISTORY, as the thing might grow to you).
Sir, you might be in the Athenaeum yet with that; and, believe me,
you might and would be far better, the author of a readable book. -
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
The following names have been invented for Wogg by his dear papa:-
Grunty-pig (when he is scratched),
Rose-mouth (when he comes flying up with his rose-leaf tongue
depending), and
Hoofen-boots (when he has had his foots wet).
How would TALES FOR WINTER NIGHTS do?
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
PITLOCHRY, IF YOU PLEASE, [AUGUST] 1881.
DEAR HENLEY, - To answer a point or two. First, the Spanish ship
was sloop-rigged and clumsy, because she was fitted out by some
private adventurers, not over wealthy, and glad to take what they
could get. Is that not right? Tell me if you think not. That, at
least, was how I meant it. As for the boat-cloaks, I am afraid
they are, as you say, false imagination; but I love the name,
nature, and being of them so dearly, that I feel as if I would
almost rather ruin a story than omit the reference. The proudest
moments of my life have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat
with that romantic garment over my shoulders. This, without
prejudice to one glorious day when standing upon some water stairs
at Lerwick I signalled with my pocket-handkerchief for a boat to
come ashore for me. I was then aged fifteen or sixteen; conceive
my glory.
Several of the phrases you object to are proper nautical, or long-
shore phrases, and therefore, I think, not out of place in this
long-shore story. As for the two members which you thought at
first so ill-united; I confess they seem perfectly so to me. I
have chosen to sacrifice a long-projected story of adventure
because the sentiment of that is identical with the sentiment of
'My uncle.' My uncle himself is not the story as I see it, only
the leading episode of that story. It's really a story of wrecks,
as they appear to the dweller on the coast. It's a view of the
sea. Goodness knows when I shall be able to re-write; I must first
get over this copper-headed cold.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
PITLOCHRY, AUGUST 1881.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is the first letter I have written this good
while. I have had a brutal cold, not perhaps very wisely treated;
lots of blood - for me, I mean. I was so well, however, before,
that I seem to be sailing through with it splendidly. My appetite
never failed; indeed, as I got worse, it sharpened - a sort of
reparatory instinct. Now I feel in a fair way to get round soon.
MONDAY, AUGUST (2ND, is it?). - We set out for the Spital of
Glenshee, and reach Braemar on Tuesday. The Braemar address we
cannot learn; it looks as if 'Braemar' were all that was necessary;
if particular, you can address 17 Heriot Row. We shall be
delighted to see you whenever, and as soon as ever, you can make it
possible.
. . . I hope heartily you will survive me, and do not doubt it.
There are seven or eight people it is no part of my scheme in life
to survive - yet if I could but heal me of my bellowses, I could
have a jolly life - have it, even now, when I can work and stroll a
little, as I have been doing till this cold. I have so many things
to make life sweet to me, it seems a pity I cannot have that other
one thing - health. But though you will be angry to hear it, I
believe, for myself at least, what is is best. I believed it all
through my worst days, and I am not ashamed to profess it now.
Landor has just turned up; but I had read him already. I like him
extremely; I wonder if the 'cuts' were perhaps not advantageous.
It seems quite full enough; but then you know I am a
compressionist.
If I am to criticise, it is a little staid; but the classical is
apt to look so. It is in curious contrast to that inexpressive,
unplanned wilderness of Forster's; clear, readable, precise, and
sufficiently human. I see nothing lost in it, though I could have
wished, in my Scotch capacity, a trifle clearer and fuller
exposition of his moral attitude, which is not quite clear 'from
here.'
He and his tyrannicide! I am in a mad fury about these explosions.
If that is the new world! Damn O'Donovan Rossa; damn him behind
and before, above, below, and roundabout; damn, deracinate, and
destroy him, root and branch, self and company, world without end.
Amen. I write that for sport if you like, but I will pray in
earnest, O Lord, if you cannot convert, kindly delete him!
Stories naturally at - halt. Henley has seen one and approves. I
believe it to be good myself, even real good. He has also seen and
approved one of Fanny's. It will snake a good volume. We have now
Thrawn Janet (with Stephen), proof to-day.
The Shadow on the Bed (Fanny's copying).
The Merry Men (scrolled).
The Body Snatchers (scrolled).
IN GERMIS
The Travelling Companion.
The Torn Surplice (NOT FINAL TITLE).
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
THE COTTAGE, CASTLETON OF BRAEMAR, SUNDAY, AUGUST 1881.
MY DEAR SIR, - I should long ago have written to thank you for your
kind and frank letter; but in my state of health papers are apt to
get mislaid, and your letter has been vainly hunted for until this
(Sunday) morning.
I regret I shall not be able to see you in Edinburgh; one visit to
Edinburgh has already cost me too dear in that invaluable
particular health; but if it should be at all possible for you to
push on as far as Braemar, I believe you would find an attentive
listener, and I can offer you a bed, a drive, and necessary food,
etc.
If, however, you should not be able to come thus far, I can promise
you two things: First, I shall religiously revise what I have
written, and bring out more clearly the point of view from which I
regarded Thoreau; second, I shall in the Preface record your
objection.
The point of view (and I must ask you not to forget that any such
short paper is essentially only a SECTION THROUGH a man) was this:
I desired to look at the man through his books. Thus, for
instance, when I mentioned his return to the pencil-making, I did
it only in passing (perhaps I was wrong), because it seemed to me
not an illustration of his principles, but a brave departure from
them. Thousands of such there were I do not doubt; still, they
might be hardly to my purpose, though, as you say so, some of them
would be.
