KIDNAPPED should soon appear; I am afraid you may not like it, as
it is very unlike PRINCE OTTO in every way; but I am myself a great
admirer of the two chief characters, Alan and David. VIRGINIBUS
PUERISQUE has never been issued in the States. I do not think it
is a book that has much charm for publishers in any land; but I am
to bring out a new edition in England shortly, a copy of which I
must try to remember to send you. I say try to remember, because I
have some superficial acquaintance with myself: and I have
determined, after a galling discipline, to promise nothing more
until the day of my death: at least, in this way, I shall no more
break my word, and I must now try being churlish instead of being
false.
I do not believe you to be the least like Seraphina. Your
photograph has no trace of her, which somewhat relieves me, as I am
a good deal afraid of Seraphinas - they do not always go into the
woods and see the sunrise, and some are so well-mailed that even
that experience would leave them unaffected and unsoftened. The
'hair and eyes of several complexions' was a trait taken from
myself; and I do not bind myself to the opinions of Sir John. In
this case, perhaps - but no, if the peculiarity is shared by two
such pleasant persons as you and I (as you and me - the grammatical
nut is hard), it must be a very good thing indeed, and Sir John
must be an ass.
The BOOK READER notice was a strange jumble of fact and fancy. I
wish you could have seen my father's old assistant and present
partner when he heard my father described as an 'inspector of
lighthouses,' for we are all very proud of the family achievements,
and the name of my house here in Bournemouth is stolen from one of
the sea-towers of the Hebrides which are our pyramids and
monuments. I was never at Cambridge, again; but neglected a
considerable succession of classes at Edinburgh. But to correct
that friendly blunderer were to write an autobiography. - And so
now, with many thanks, believe me yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JULY 1886.
SIR, - Your foolish letter was unduly received. There may be
hidden fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam spontaneous the
thing was. I could tinker and tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper, but
scorned the act with a Threnody, which was poured forth like blood
and water on the groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I
addressed) remained unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more:
crystallised emotion, the statement and the reconciliation of the
sorrows of the race and the individual, is obviously no more to you
than supping sawdust. Well, well. If ever I write another
Threnody! My next op. will probably be a Passepied and fugue in G
(or D).
The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged
Spanish filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some
freedom (1) the refrain of MARTINI'S MOUTONS; (2) SUL MARGINE D'UN
RIO, arranged for the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the
first phrase of Bach's musette (Sweet Englishwoman, No. 3), the
rest of the musette being one prolonged cropper, which I take daily
for the benefit of my health. All my other works (of which there
are many) are either arranged (by R. L. Stevenson) for the manly
and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged and melancholy
croppers. . . . I find one can get a notion of music very nicely.
I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have arranged
LA DOVE PRENDE, almost to the end, for two melodious forefingers.
I am next going to score the really nobler COLOMBA O TORTORELLA for
the same instruments.
This day is published
The works of Ludwig van Beethoven
arranged
and wiederdurchgearbeiteted
for two melodious forefingers
by,
Sir, - Your obedient servant,
PIMPERLY STIPPLE.
That's a good idea? There's a person called Lenz who actually does
it - beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies on him, and found the
bleeding corpses of pieces of music divorced from their keys,
despoiled of their graces, and even changed in time; I do not wish
to regard music (nor to be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You
say you are 'a spumfed idiot'; but how about Lenz? And how about
me, sir, me?
I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, an empty
matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a bell from a cat's
collar, an iron kitchen spoon, and a piece of coal more than half
the superficies of this sheet of paper. They are now
(appropriately enough) speeding towards the Silly Isles; I hope he
will find them useful. By that, and my telegram with prepaid
answer to yourself, you may judge of my spiritual state. The
finances have much brightened; and if KIDNAPPED keeps on as it has
begun, I may be solvent. - Yours,
THRENODIAE AVCTOR
(The authour of ane Threnodie).
Op. 2: Scherzo (in G Major) expressive of the Sense of favours to
come.
Letter: TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
SKERRYVORE [BOURNEMOUTH, JULY 1886].
DEAR BOB, - Herewith another shy; more melancholy than before, but
I think not so abjectly idiotic. The musical terms seem to be as
good as in Beethoven, and that, after all, is the great affair.
Bar the dam bareness of the base, it looks like a piece of real
music from a distance. I am proud to say it was not made one hand
at a time; the base was of synchronous birth with the treble; they
are of the same age, sir, and may God have mercy on their souls! -
Yours,
THE MAESTRO.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JULY 7TH, 1886.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - It is probably my fault, and not yours, that I
did not understand. I think it would be well worth trying the
winter in Bournemouth; but I would only take the house by the month
- this after mature discussion. My leakage still pursues its
course; if I were only well, I have a notion to go north and get in
(if I could) at the inn at Kirkmichael, which has always smiled
upon me much. If I did well there, we might then meet and do what
should most smile at the time.
Meanwhile, of course, I must not move, and am in a rancid box here,
feeling the heat a great deal, and pretty tired of things.
Alexander did a good thing of me at last; it looks like a mixture
of an aztec idol, a lion, an Indian Rajah, and a woman; and
certainly represents a mighty comic figure. F. and Lloyd both
think it is the best thing that has been done of me up to now.
You should hear Lloyd on the penny whistle, and me on the piano!
Dear powers, what a concerto! I now live entirely for the piano,
he for the whistle; the neighbours, in a radius of a furlong and a
half, are packing up in quest of brighter climes. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
P.S. - Please say if you can afford to let us have money for this
trip, and if so, how much. I can see the year through without
help, I believe, and supposing my health to keep up; but can scarce
make this change on my own metal.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JULY 1886].
DEAR CHARLES, - Doubtless, if all goes well, towards the 1st of
August we shall be begging at your door. Thanks for a sight of the
papers, which I return (you see) at once, fearing further
responsibility.
Glad you like Dauvit; but eh, man, yon's terrible strange conduc'
o' thon man Rankeillor. Ca' him a legal adviser! It would make a
bonny law-shuit, the Shaws case; and yon paper they signed, I'm
thinking, wouldnae be muckle thought o' by Puggy Deas. - Yours
ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], JULY 28, 1886.
MY DEAR FATHER, - We have decided not to come to Scotland, but just
to do as Dobell wished, and take an outing. I believe this is
wiser in all ways; but I own it is a disappointment. I am weary of
England; like Alan, 'I weary for the heather,' if not for the deer.
Lloyd has gone to Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with whom
he should have a good time. David seems really to be going to
succeed, which is a pleasant prospect on all sides. I am, I
believe, floated financially; a book that sells will be a pleasant
novelty. I enclose another review; mighty complimentary, and
calculated to sell the book too.
Coolin's tombstone has been got out, honest man! and it is to be
polished, for it has got scratched, and have a touch of gilding in
the letters, and be sunk in the front of the house. Worthy man,
he, too, will maybe weary for the heather, and the bents of
Gullane, where (as I dare say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and
jumped on to his crown from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of
many thousand rabbits. I can still hear the little cries of the
honest fellow as he disappeared; and my mother will correct me, but
I believe it was two days before he turned up again at North
Berwick: to judge by his belly, he had caught not one out of these
thousands, but he had had some exercise.
I keep well. - Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
BRITISH MUSEUM [AUGUST 10TH, 1886].
MY DEAR MOTHER, - We are having a capital holiday, and I am much
better, and enjoying myself to the nines. Richmond is painting my
portrait. To-day I lunch with him, and meet Burne-Jones; to-night
Browning dines with us. That sounds rather lofty work, does it
not? His path was paved with celebrities. To-morrow we leave for
Paris, and next week, I suppose, or the week after, come home.
Address here, as we may not reach Paris. I am really very well. -
Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO T. WATTS-DUNTON
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH [SEPTEMBER 1886].
DEAR MR. WATTS, The sight of the last ATHENAEUM reminds me of you,
and of my debt, now too long due. I wish to thank you for your
notice of KIDNAPPED; and that not because it was kind, though for
that also I valued it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you
before now for a hundred articles on a hundred different writers.
A critic like you is one who fights the good fight, contending with
stupidity, and I would fain hope not all in vain; in my own case,
for instance, surely not in vain.
What you say of the two parts in KIDNAPPED was felt by no one more
painfully than by myself. I began it partly as a lark, partly as a
pot-boiler; and suddenly it moved, David and Alan stepped out from
the canvas, and I found I was in another world. But there was the
cursed beginning, and a cursed end must be appended; and our old
friend Byles the butcher was plainly audible tapping at the back
door. So it had to go into the world, one part (as it does seem to
me) alive, one part merely galvanised: no work, only an essay.
For a man of tentative method, and weak health, and a scarcity of
private means, and not too much of that frugality which is the
artist's proper virtue, the days of sinecures and patrons look very
golden: the days of professional literature very hard. Yet I do
not so far deceive myself as to think I should change my character
by changing my epoch; the sum of virtue in our books is in a
relation of equality to the sum of virtues in ourselves; and my
KIDNAPPED was doomed, while still in the womb and while I was yet
in the cradle, to be the thing it is.
And now to the more genial business of defence. You attack my
fight on board the COVENANT: I think it literal. David and Alan
had every advantage on their side - position, arms, training, a
good conscience; a handful of merchant sailors, not well led in the
first attack, not led at all in the second, could only by an
accident have taken the round-house by attack; and since the
defenders had firearms and food, it is even doubtful if they could
have been starved out. The only doubtful point with me is whether
the seamen would have ever ventured on the second onslaught; I half
believe they would not; still the illusion of numbers and the
authority of Hoseason would perhaps stretch far enough to justify
the extremity. - I am, dear Mr. Watts, your very sincere admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
SKERRYVORE, SEPTEMBER 4, 1886.
NOT roses to the rose, I trow,
The thistle sends, nor to the bee
Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now
Should Locker ask a verse from me?
Martial, perchance, - but he is dead,
And Herrick now must rhyme no more;
Still burning with the muse, they tread
(And arm in arm) the shadowy shore.
They, if they lived, with dainty hand,
To music as of mountain brooks,
Might bring you worthy words to stand
Unshamed, dear Locker, in your books.
But tho' these fathers of your race
Be gone before, yourself a sire,
To-day you see before your face
Your stalwart youngsters touch the lyre -
On these - on Lang, or Dobson - call,
Long leaders of the songful feast.
They lend a verse your laughing fall -
A verse they owe you at the least.
Letter: TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
[SKERRYVORE], BOURNEMOUTH, SEPTEMBER 1886.
DEAR LOCKER, - You take my verses too kindly, but you will admit,
for such a bluebottle of a versifier to enter the house of
Gertrude, where her necklace hangs, was not a little brave. Your
kind invitation, I fear, must remain unaccented; and yet - if I am
very well - perhaps next spring - (for I mean to be very well) - my
wife might.... But all that is in the clouds with my better
health. And now look here: you are a rich man and know many
people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of Christ's
Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in which I
would (if I could) do anything. To approach you, in this way, is
not decent; and you may therefore judge by my doing it, how near
this matter lies to my heart. I enclose you a list of the
Governors, which I beg you to return, whether or not you shall be
able to do anything to help me.
The boy's name is -; he and his mother are very poor. It may
interest you in her cause if I tell you this: that when I was
dangerously ill at Hyeres, this brave lady, who had then a sick
husband of her own (since dead) and a house to keep and a family of
four to cook for, all with her own hands, for they could afford no
servant, yet took watch-about with my wife, and contributed not
only to my comfort, but to my recovery in a degree that I am not
able to limit. You can conceive how much I suffer from my
impotence to help her, and indeed I have already shown myself a
thankless friend. Let not my cry go up before you in vain! - Yours
in hope,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, SEPTEMBER 1886.
MY DEAR LOCKER, - That I should call myself a man of letters, and
land myself in such unfathomable ambiguities! No, my dear Locker,
I did not want a cheque; and in my ignorance of business, which is
greater even than my ignorance of literature, I have taken the
liberty of drawing a pen through the document and returning it;
should this be against the laws of God or man, forgive me. All
that I meant by my excessively disgusting reference to your
material well-being was the vague notion that a man who is well off
was sure to know a Governor of Christ's Hospital; though how I
quite arrived at this conclusion I do not see. A man with a cold
in the head does not necessarily know a ratcatcher; and the
connection is equally close - as it now appears to my awakened and
somewhat humbled spirit. For all that, let me thank you in the
warmest manner for your friendly readiness to contribute. You say
you have hopes of becoming a miser: I wish I had; but indeed I
believe you deceive yourself, and are as far from it as ever. I
wish I had any excuse to keep your cheque, for it is much more
elegant to receive than to return; but I have my way of making it
up to you, and I do sincerely beg you to write to the two
Governors. This extraordinary outpouring of correspondence would
(if you knew my habits) convince you of my great eagerness in this
matter. I would promise gratitude; but I have made a promise to
myself to make no more promises to anybody else, having broken such
a host already, and come near breaking my heart in consequence; and
as for gratitude, I am by nature a thankless dog, and was spoiled
from a child up. But if you can help this lady in the matter of
the Hospital, you will have helped the worthy. Let me continue to
hope that I shall make out my visit in the spring, and believe me,
yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
It may amuse you to know that a very long while ago, I broke my
heart to try to imitate your verses, and failed hopelessly. I saw
some of the evidences the other day among my papers, and blushed to
the heels.
R. L. S.
I give up finding out your name in the meantime, and keep to that
by which you will be known - Frederick Locker.
Letter: TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], 24TH SEPTEMBER 1886.
MY DEAR LOCKER, - You are simply an angel of light, and your two
letters have gone to the post; I trust they will reach the hearts
of the recipients - at least, that could not be more handsomely
expressed. About the cheque: well now, I am going to keep it; but
I assure you Mrs. - has never asked me for money, and I would not
dare to offer any till she did. For all that I shall stick to the
cheque now, and act to that amount as your almoner. In this way I
reward myself for the ambiguity of my epistolary style.
I suppose, if you please, you may say your verses are thin (would
you so describe an arrow, by the way, and one that struck the gold?
It scarce strikes me as exhaustively descriptive), and, thin or
not, they are (and I have found them) inimitably elegant. I thank
you again very sincerely for the generous trouble you have taken in
this matter which was so near my heart, and you may be very certain
it will be the fault of my health and not my inclination, if I do
not see you before very long; for all that has past has made me in
more than the official sense sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
SKERRYVORE, DEC. 14, 1886.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is first-rate of you, the Lord love you for
it! I am truly much obliged. He - my father - is very changeable;
at times, he seems only a slow quiet edition of himself; again, he
will be very heavy and blank; but never so violent as last spring;
and therefore, to my mind, better on the whole.
Fanny is pretty peepy; I am splendid. I have been writing much
verse - quite the bard, in fact; and also a dam tale to order,
which will be what it will be: I don't love it, but some of it is
passable in its mouldy way, THE MISADVENTURES OF JOHN NICHOLSON.
All my bardly exercises are in Scotch; I have struck my somewhat
ponderous guitar in that tongue to no small extent: with what
success, I know not, but I think it's better than my English verse;
more marrow and fatness, and more ruggedness.
How goes KEATS? Pray remark, if he (Keats) hung back from Shelley,
it was not to be wondered at, WHEN SO MANY OF HIS FRIENDS WERE
SHELLEY'S PENSIONERS. I forget if you have made this point; it has
been borne in upon me reading Dowden and the SHELLEY PAPERS; and it
will do no harm if you have made it. I finished a poem to-day, and
writ 3000 words of a story, TANT BIEN QUE MAL; and have a right to
be sleepy, and (what is far nobler and rarer) am so. - My dear
Colvin, ever yours,
THE REAL MACKAY.
Letter: TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, FEBRUARY 5TH, 1887.
MY DEAR LOCKER, - Here I am in my bed as usual, and it is indeed a
long while since I went out to dinner. You do not know what a
crazy fellow this is. My winter has not so far been luckily
passed, and all hope of paying visits at Easter has vanished for
twelve calendar months. But because I am a beastly and indurated
invalid, I am not dead to human feelings; and I neither have
forgotten you nor will forget you. Some day the wind may round to
the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am still truly
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO HENRY JAMES
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, FEBRUARY 1887.]
MY DEAR JAMES, - My health has played me it in once more in the
absurdest fashion, and the creature who now addresses you is but a
stringy and white-faced BOUILLI out of the pot of fever, with the
devil to pay in every corner of his economy. I suppose (to judge
by your letter) I need not send you these sheets, which came during
my collapse by the rush. I am on the start with three volumes,
that one of tales, a second one of essays, and one of - ahem -
verse. This is a great order, is it not? After that I shall have
empty lockers. All new work stands still; I was getting on well
with Jenkin when this blessed malady unhorsed me, and sent me back
to the dung-collecting trade of the republisher. I shall re-issue
VIRG. PUER. as Vol. I. of ESSAYS, and the new vol. as Vol. II. of
ditto; to be sold, however, separately. This is but a dry
maundering; however, I am quite unfit - 'I am for action quite
unfit Either of exercise or wit.' My father is in a variable
state; many sorrows and perplexities environ the house of
Stevenson; my mother shoots north at this hour on business of a
distinctly rancid character; my father (under my wife's tutorage)
proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; I remain here in my bed and
whistle; in no quarter of heaven is anything encouraging apparent,
except that the good Colvin comes to the hotel here on a visit.
This dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the fact that my
head aches, which I always regard as a liberty on the part of the
powers that be. This is also my first letter since my recovery.
God speed your laudatory pen!
My wife joins in all warm messages. - Yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
(APRIL 1887.)
MY DEAR LOW, - The fares to London may be found in any continental
Bradshaw or sich; from London to Bournemouth impoverished parties
who can stoop to the third class get their ticket for the matter of
10s., or, as my wife loves to phrase it, 'a half a pound.' You
will also be involved in a 3s. fare to get to Skerryvore; but this,
I dare say, friends could help you in on your arrival; so that you
may reserve your energies for the two tickets - costing the matter
of a pound - and the usual gratuities to porters. This does not
seem to me much: considering the intellectual pleasures that await
you here, I call it dirt cheap. I BELIEVE the third class from
Paris to London (VIA Dover) is ABOUT forty francs, but I cannot
swear. Suppose it to be fifty.
50x2=100
The expense of spirit or spontaneous lapse of coin on the journey,
at 5 frcs. a head, 5x2=10
Victuals on ditto, at 5 frcs. a head, 5x2 = 10
Gratuity to stewardess, in case of severe prostration, at 3 francs
One night in London, on a modest footing, say 20
Two tickets to Bournemouth at 12.50, 12.50x2=25
Porters and general devilment, say 5
Cabs in London, say 2 shillings, and in Bournemouth, 3 shillings=5
shillings, 6 frcs. 25
Total frcs. 179.25
Or, the same in pounds, 7 pounds, 3s. 6 and a half d.
Or, the same in dollars, $35.45,
if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out dinner
in London in case you want to blow out, which would come extry, and
with the aid of VANGS FANGS might easily double the whole amount -
above all if you have a few friends to meet you.
In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered for the
first time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the singular
costliness of travelling with your wife. Anybody would count the
tickets double; but how few would have remembered - or indeed has
any one ever remembered? - to count the spontaneous lapse of coin
double also? Yet there are two of you, each must do his daily
leakage, and it must be done out of your travelling fund. You will
tell me, perhaps, that you carry the coin yourself: my dear sir,
do you think you can fool your Maker? Your wife has to lose her
quota; and by God she will - if you kept the coin in a belt. One
thing I have omitted: you will lose a certain amount on the
exchange, but this even I cannot foresee, as it is one of the few
things that vary with the way a man has. - I am, dear sir, yours
financially,
SAMUEL BUDGETT.
Letter: TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
SKERRYVORE, APRIL 16TH, 1887.
MY DEAREST CUMMY, - As usual, I have been a dreary bad fellow and
not written for ages; but you must just try to forgive me, to
believe (what is the truth) that the number of my letters is no
measure of the number of times I think of you, and to remember how
much writing I have to do. The weather is bright, but still cold;
and my father, I'm afraid, feels it sharply. He has had - still
has, rather - a most obstinate jaundice, which has reduced him
cruelly in strength, and really upset him altogether. I hope, or
think, he is perhaps a little better; but he suffers much, cannot
sleep at night, and gives John and my mother a severe life of it to
wait upon him. My wife is, I think, a little better, but no great
shakes. I keep mightily respectable myself.
Coolin's Tombstone is now built into the front wall of Skerryvore,
and poor Bogie's (with a Latin inscription also) is set just above
it. Poor, unhappy wee man, he died, as you must have heard, in
fight, which was what he would have chosen; for military glory was
more in his line than the domestic virtues. I believe this is
about all my news, except that, as I write, there is a blackbird
singing in our garden trees, as it were at Swanston. I would like
fine to go up the burnside a bit, and sit by the pool and be young
again - or no, be what I am still, only there instead of here, for
just a little. Did you see that I had written about John Todd? In
this month's LONGMAN it was; if you have not seen it, I will try
and send it you. Some day climb as high as Halkerside for me (I am
never likely to do it for myself), and sprinkle some of the well
water on the turf. I am afraid it is a pagan rite, but quite
harmless, and YE CAN SAIN IT WI' A BIT PRAYER. Tell the Peewies
that I mind their forbears well. My heart is sometimes heavy, and
sometimes glad to mind it all. But for what we have received, the
Lord make us truly thankful. Don't forget to sprinkle the water,
and do it in my name; I feel a childish eagerness in this.
Remember me most kindly to James, and with all sorts of love to
yourself, believe me, your laddie,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
P.S. - I suppose Mrs. Todd ought to see the paper about her man;
judge of that, and if you think she would not dislike it, buy her
one from me, and let me know. The article is called 'Pastoral,' in
LONGMAN'S MAGAZINE for April. I will send you the money; I would
to-day, but it's the Sabbie day, and I cannae.
R. L. S.
Remembrances from all here.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[EDINBURGH, JUNE 1887.]
MY DEAR S. C., - At last I can write a word to you. Your little
note in the P. M. G. was charming. I have written four pages in
the CONTEMPORARY, which Bunting found room for: they are not very
good, but I shall do more for his memory in time.
About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long before I could
tell my mind; and now I know it, and can but say that I am glad.
If we could have had my father, that would have been a different
thing. But to keep that changeling - suffering changeling - any
longer, could better none and nothing. Now he rests; it is more
significant, it is more like himself. He will begin to return to
us in the course of time, as he was and as we loved him.
My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene - 'O let him
pass,' Kent and Lear - was played for me here in the first moment
of my return. I believe Shakespeare saw it with his own father. I
had no words; but it was shocking to see. He died on his feet, you
know; was on his feet the last day, knowing nobody - still he would
be up. This was his constant wish; also that he might smoke a pipe
on his last day. The funeral would have pleased him; it was the
largest private funeral in man's memory here.
We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home without going
through town. I do not know; I have no views yet whatever; nor can
have any at this stage of my cold and my business. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
CHAPTER IX - THE UNITED STATES AGAIN: WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS,
AUGUST 1887-OCTOBER 1888
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], AUGUST 1887.
DEAR LAD, - I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson's well-known
work, VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE, is about to be reprinted. At the same
time a second volume called MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS will issue from
the roaring loom. Its interest will be largely autobiographical,
Mr. S. having sketched there the lineaments of many departed
friends, and dwelt fondly, and with a m'istened eye, upon byegone
pleasures. The two will be issued under the common title of
FAMILIAR ESSAYS; but the volumes will be vended separately to those
who are mean enough not to hawk at both.
The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began to think I
should not get away. However, I hope - I hope - remark the word -
no boasting - I hope I may luff up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw,
gave as usual a good account of my lungs, and expressed himself,
like his neighbours, hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle
says, Scott says, Brown says - they all say - You ought not to be
in such a state of health; you should recover. Well, then, I mean
to. My spirits are rising again after three months of black
depression: I almost begin to feel as if I should care to live: I
would, by God! And so I believe I shall. - Yours, BULLETIN
M'GURDER.
How has the Deacon gone?
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], August 6TH, 1887.
MY DEAR LOW, - We - my mother, my wife, my stepson, my maidservant,
and myself, five souls - leave, if all is well, Aug. 20th, per
Wilson line SS. LUDGATE HILL. Shall probably evade N. Y. at first,
cutting straight to a watering-place: Newport, I believe, its
name. Afterwards we shall steal incognito into LA BONNE VILLA, and
see no one but you and the Scribners, if it may be so managed. You
must understand I have been very seedy indeed, quite a dead body;
and unless the voyage does miracles, I shall have to draw it dam
fine. Alas, 'The Canoe Speaks' is now out of date; it will figure
in my volume of verses now imminent. However, I may find some
inspiration some day. - Till very soon, yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
BOURNEMOUTH, AUGUST 19TH, 1887.
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE, - I promise you the paper-knife shall go to
sea with me; and if it were in my disposal, I should promise it
should return with me too. All that you say, I thank you for very
much; I thank you for all the pleasantness that you have brought
about our house; and I hope the day may come when I shall see you
again in poor old Skerryvore, now left to the natives of Canada, or
to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am afraid my attempt to jest
is rather A CONTRE-COEUR. Good-bye - AU REVOIR - and do not forget
your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MESSRS. CHATTO AND WINDUS
BOURNEMOUTH [AUGUST 1887].
DEAR SIRS, - I here enclose the two titles. Had you not better
send me the bargains to sign? I shall be here till Saturday; and
shall have an address in London (which I shall send you) till
Monday, when I shall sail. Even if the proofs do not reach you
till Monday morning, you could send a clerk from Fenchurch Street
Station at 10.23 A.M. for Galleons Station, and he would find me
embarking on board the LUDGATE HILL, Island Berth, Royal Albert
Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be necessary to catch this
last chance. I am most anxious to have the proofs with me on the
voyage. - Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
H.M.S. 'VULGARIUM,'
OFF HAVRE DE GRACE, THIS 22ND DAY OF AUGUST [1887].
SIR, - The weather has been hitherto inimitable. Inimitable is the
only word that I can apply to our fellow-voyagers, whom a
categorist, possibly premature, has been already led to divide into
two classes - the better sort consisting of the baser kind of
Bagman, and the worser of undisguised Beasts of the Field. The
berths are excellent, the pasture swallowable, the champagne of H.
James (to recur to my favourite adjective) inimitable. As for the
Commodore, he slept awhile in the evening, tossed off a cup of
Henry James with his plain meal, walked the deck till eight, among
sands and floating lights and buoys and wrecked brigantines, came
down (to his regret) a minute too soon to see Margate lit up,
turned in about nine, slept, with some interruptions, but on the
whole sweetly, until six, and has already walked a mile or so of
deck, among a fleet of other steamers waiting for the tide, within
view of Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats,
hovering sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck with endearments
of primitive simplicity. There, sir, can be viewed the sham
quarrel, the sham desire for information, and every device of these
two poor ancient sexes (who might, you might think, have learned in
the course of the ages something new) down to the exchange of head-
gear. - I am, sir, yours,
BOLD BOB BOLTSPRIT.
B. B. B. (ALIAS the Commodore) will now turn to his proofs. Havre
de Grace is a city of some show. It is for-ti-fied; and, so far as
I can see, is a place of some trade. It is situ-ated in France, a
country of Europe. You always complain there are no facts in my
letters.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
NEWPORT, R. I. U.S.A. [SEPTEMBER 1887].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - So long it went excellent well, and I had a time
I am glad to have had; really enjoying my life. There is nothing
like being at sea, after all. And O, why have I allowed myself to
rot so long on land? But on the Banks I caught a cold, and I have
not yet got over it. My reception here was idiotic to the last
degree.... It is very silly, and not pleasant, except where humour
enters; and I confess the poor interviewer lads pleased me. They
are too good for their trade; avoided anything I asked them to
avoid, and were no more vulgar in their reports than they could
help. I liked the lads.
O, it was lovely on our stable-ship, chock full of stallions. She
rolled heartily, rolled some of the fittings out of our state-room,
and I think a more dangerous cruise (except that it was summer) it
would be hard to imagine. But we enjoyed it to the masthead, all
but Fanny; and even she perhaps a little. When we got in, we had
run out of beer, stout, cocoa, soda-water, water, fresh meat, and
(almost) of biscuit. But it was a thousandfold pleasanter than a
great big Birmingham liner like a new hotel; and we liked the
officers, and made friends with the quartermasters, and I (at
least) made a friend of a baboon (for we carried a cargo of apes),
whose embraces have pretty near cost me a coat. The passengers
improved, and were a very good specimen lot, with no drunkard, no
gambling that I saw, and less grumbling and backbiting than one
would have asked of poor human nature. Apes, stallions, cows,
matches, hay, and poor men-folk, all, or almost all, came
successfully to land. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO HENRY JAMES
[NEWPORT, U.S.A., SEPTEMBER 1887.]
MY DEAR JAMES, - Here we are at Newport in the house of the good
Fairchilds; and a sad burthen we have laid upon their shoulders. I
have been in bed practically ever since I came. I caught a cold on
the Banks after having had the finest time conceivable, and enjoyed
myself more than I could have hoped on board our strange floating
menagerie: stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and
the vast continent of these incongruities rolled the while like a
haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking
through the ports at our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery
was broken; and the little monkeys stared at each other in their
cages, and were thrown overboard like little bluish babies; and the
big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested willingly in
my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the man of the stallions
made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of
a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates; and the
other passengers, when they were not sick, looked on and laughed.
Take all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound
unexpected notes and the fittings shall break lose in our state-
room, and you have the voyage of the LUDGATE HILL. She arrived in
the port of New York, without beer, porter, soda-water, curacoa,
fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet we lived, and we regret her.
My wife is a good deal run down, and I am no great shakes.
America is, as I remarked, a fine place to eat in, and a great
place for kindness; but, Lord, what a silly thing is popularity! I
envy the cool obscurity of Skerryvore. If it even paid, said
Meanness! and was abashed at himself. - Yours most sincerely,
R. L S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[NEW YORK: END OF SEPTEMBER 1887.]
MY DEAR S. C., - Your delightful letter has just come, and finds me
in a New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St.
Gaudens) who is making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to
boot) one of the handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I
caught a cold on the Banks; fog is not for me; nearly died of
interviewers and visitors, during twenty-four hours in New York;
cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine, a journey like fairy-land
for the most engaging beauties, one little rocky and pine-shaded
cove after another, each with a house and a boat at anchor, so that
I left my heart in each and marvelled why American authors had been
so unjust to their country; caught another cold on the train;
arrived at Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in
bed until I left again; the Fairchilds proving during this time
kindness itself; Mr. Fairchild simply one of the most engaging men
in the world, and one of the children, Blair, AET. ten, a great joy
and amusement in his solemn adoring attitude to the author of
TREASURE ISLAND.
Here I was interrupted by the arrival of my sculptor. I have
begged him to make a medallion of himself and give me a copy. I
will not take up the sentence in which I was wandering so long, but
begin fresh. I was ten or twelve days at Newport; then came back
convalescent to New York. Fanny and Lloyd are off to the
Adirondacks to see if that will suit; and the rest of us leave
Monday (this is Saturday) to follow them up. I hope we may manage
to stay there all winter. I have a splendid appetite and have on
the whole recovered well after a mighty sharp attack. I am now on
a salary of 500 pounds a year for twelve articles in SCRIBNER'S
MAGAZINE on what I like; it is more than 500 pounds, but I cannot
calculate more precisely. You have no idea how much is made of me
here; I was offered 2000 pounds for a weekly article - eh heh! how
is that? but I refused that lucrative job. The success of
UNDERWOODS is gratifying. You see, the verses are sane; that is
their strong point, and it seems it is strong enough to carry them.
A thousand thanks for your grand letter, ever yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
NEW YORK [SEPTEMBER 1887]
MY DEAR LAD, - Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which please
communicate. I did my best with the interviewers; I don't know if
Lloyd sent you the result; my heart was too sick: you can do
nothing with them; and yet - literally sweated with anxiety to
please, and took me down in long hand!
I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not busted, but
medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, plain, high-
minded artist and honest fellow; you would like him down to the
ground. I believe sculptors are fine fellows when they are not
demons. O, I am now a salaried person, 600 pounds a year, to write
twelve articles in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE; it remains to be seen if it
really pays, huge as the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh me.
I hope you will like my answer to Hake, and specially that he will.
Love to all. - Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
(LE SALARIE).
Letter: To R. A. M. STEVENSON
SARANAC LAKE, ADIRONDACKS, NEW YORK, U.S.A. [OCTOBER 1887].
MY DEAR BOB, - The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous for me; I
could not risk the long railway voyage, and the season was too late
to risk the Eastern, Cape Hatteras side of the steamer one; so here
we stuck and stick. We have a wooden house on a hill-top,
overlooking a river, and a village about a quarter of a mile away,
and very wooded hills; the whole scene is very Highland, bar want
of heather and the wooden houses.
I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is proved the sea
agrees heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any
better, or no worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month
or so in summer. Good Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for
two things: a yacht and a string quartette. For these two I will
sell my soul. Except for these I hold that 700 pounds a year is as
much as anybody can possibly want; and I have had more, so I know,
for the extry coins were for no use, excepting for illness, which
damns everything.
I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it
possible. We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but
the mere fact of its being a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we
could cut about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house,
discuss all manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And
truly there is nothing else. I had literally forgotten what
happiness was, and the full mind - full of external and physical
things, not full of cares and labours and rot about a fellow's
behaviour. My heart literally sang; I truly care for nothing so
much as for that. We took so north a course, that we saw
Newfoundland; no one in the ship had ever seen it before.
It was beyond belief to me how she rolled; in seemingly smooth
water, the bell striking, the fittings bounding out of our state-
room. It is worth having lived these last years, partly because I
have written some better books, which is always pleasant, but
chiefly to have had the joy of this voyage. I have been made a lot
of here, and it is sometimes pleasant, sometimes the reverse; but I
could give it all up, and agree that - was the author of my works,
for a good seventy ton schooner and the coins to keep her on. And
to think there are parties with yachts who would make the exchange!
I know a little about fame now; it is no good compared to a yacht;
and anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more genuine fame; to
cross the Atlantic and come to anchor in Newport (say) with the
Union Jack, and go ashore for your letters and hang about the pier,
among the holiday yachtsmen - that's fame, that's glory, and nobody
can take it away; they can't say your book is bad; you HAVE crossed
the Atlantic. I should do it south by the West Indies, to avoid
the damned Banks; and probably come home by steamer, and leave the
skipper to bring the yacht home.
Well, if all goes well, we shall maybe sail out of Southampton
water some of these days and take a run to Havre, and try the
Baltic, or somewhere.
Love to you all. - Ever your afft.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
SARANAC LAKE, OCT. 8TH, 1887.
MY DEAR GOSSE, - I have just read your article twice, with cheers
of approving laughter. I do not believe you ever wrote anything so
funny: Tyndall's 'shell,' the passage on the Davos press and its
invaluable issues, and that on V. Hugo and Swinburne, are
exquisite; so, I say it more ruefully, is the touch about the
doctors. For the rest, I am very glad you like my verses so well;
and the qualities you ascribe to them seem to me well found and
well named. I own to that kind of candour you attribute to me:
when I am frankly interested, I suppose I fancy the public will be
so too; and when I am moved, I am sure of it. It has been my luck
hitherto to meet with no staggering disillusion. 'Before' and
'After' may be two; and yet I believe the habit is now too
thoroughly ingrained to be altered. About the doctors, you were
right, that dedication has been the subject of some pleasantries
that made me grind, and of your happily touched reproof which made
me blush. And to miscarry in a dedication is an abominable form of
book-wreck; I am a good captain, I would rather lose the tent and
save my dedication.
I am at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, I suppose for the winter:
it seems a first-rate place; we have a house in the eye of many
winds, with a view of a piece of running water - Highland, all but
the dear hue of peat - and of many hills - Highland also, but for
the lack of heather. Soon the snow will close on us; we are here
some twenty miles - twenty-seven, they say, but this I profoundly
disbelieve - in the woods; communication by letter is slow and (let
me be consistent) aleatory; by telegram is as near as may be
impossible.
I had some experience of American appreciation; I liked a little of
it, but there is too much; a little of that would go a long way to
spoil a man; and I like myself better in the woods. I am so damned
candid and ingenuous (for a cynic), and so much of a 'cweatu' of
impulse - aw' (if you remember that admirable Leech), that I begin
to shirk any more taffy; I think I begin to like it too well. But
let us trust the Gods; they have a rod in pickle; reverently I doff
my trousers, and with screwed eyes await the AMARI ALIQUID of the
great God Busby.
I thank you for the article in all ways, and remain yours
affectionately,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
[SARANAC, OCTOBER 1887.]
SIR, - I have to trouble you with the following PAROLES BIEN
SENTIES. We are here at a first-rate place. 'Baker's' is the name
of our house, but we don't address there; we prefer the tender care
of the Post-Office, as more aristocratic (it is no use to telegraph
even to the care of the Post-Office who does not give a single
damn). Baker's has a prophet's chamber, which the hypercritical
might describe as a garret with a hole in the floor: in that
garret, sir, I have to trouble you and your wife to come and
slumber. Not now, however: with manly hospitality, I choke off
any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife and my mother are gone
(a note for the latter, strongly suspected to be in the hand of
your talented wife, now sits silent on the mantel shelf), one to
Niagara and t'other to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not
yet installed. And because third, I won't have you till I have a
buffalo robe and leggings, lest you should want to paint me as a
plain man, which I am not, but a rank Saranacker and wild man of
the woods. - Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO WILLIAM ARCHER.
SARANAC LAKE, OCTOBER 1887.
DEAR ARCHER, - Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a
work of genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your
pencillings; though I defend 'shrew,' or at least many of the
shrews.
We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill
and forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very
unsettled and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more
bitterly deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not
boast.
My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and
I remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the
hill air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep
well, and make great fires, and get along like one o'clock,
I am now a salaried party; I am a BOURGEOIS now; I am to write a
weekly paper for Scribner's, at a scale of payment which makes my
teeth ache for shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to
apply to you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I
instanced you, he said he had had his eye upon you from the first.
It is worth while, perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; they
are such thorough gentlefolk in all ways that it is always a
pleasure to deal with them. I am like to be a millionaire if this
goes on, and be publicly hanged at the social revolution: well, I
would prefer that to dying in my bed; and it would be a godsend to
my biographer, if ever I have one. What are you about? I hope you
are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am now, after a
most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but indeed I
was quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my
respects to Tom. - Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO HENRY JAMES
[SARANAC LAKE, OCTOBER 1887.] I know not the day; but the month it
is the drear October by the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES, - This is to say FIRST, the voyage was a huge
success. We all enjoyed it (bar my wife) to the ground: sixteen
days at sea with a cargo of hay, matches, stallions, and monkeys,
and in a ship with no style on, and plenty of sailors to talk to,
and the endless pleasures of the sea - the romance of it, the sport
of the scratch dinner and the smashing crockery, the pleasure - an
endless pleasure - of balancing to the swell: well, it's over.
SECOND, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport and
New York; saw much of and liked hugely the Fairchilds, St. Gaudens
the sculptor, Gilder of the CENTURY - just saw the dear Alexander -
saw a lot of my old and admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you
knew and appreciated - was medallioned by St. Gaudens, and at last
escaped to
