CHAPTER I

The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great

house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties

finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from

one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way. Little did he

think what strange adventures were to befall him!----

That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead.

What should be: What is:

The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy.

Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece.

Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel.

R. L. S.

TO THE REV. PROFESSOR LEWIS CAMPBELL

In reply to a gift of books, including the correspondent's well-known

translation of Sophocles.

[_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._]

MY DEAR CAMPBELL,--The books came duly to hand. My wife has occupied the

translation ever since, nor have I yet been able to dislodge her. As for

the primer, I have read it with a very strange result: that I find no

fault. If you knew how, dogmatic and pugnacious, I stand warden on the

literary art, you would the more appreciate your success and my--well, I

will own it--disappointment. For I love to put people right (or wrong)

about the arts. But what you say of Tragedy and of Sophocles very amply

satisfies me; it is well felt and well said; a little less technically

than it is my weakness to desire to see it put, but clear and adequate.

You are very right to express your admiration for the resource displayed

in Oedipus King; it is a miracle. Would it not have been well to mention

Voltaire's interesting onslaught, a thing which gives the best lesson of

the difference of neighbour arts?--since all his criticisms, which had

been fatal to a narrative, do not amount among them to exhibit one flaw

in this masterpiece of drama. For the drama, it is perfect; though such

a fable in a romance might make the reader crack his sides, so

imperfect, so ethereally slight is the verisimilitude required of these

conventional, rigid, and egg-dancing arts.

I was sorry to see no more of you; but shall conclude by hoping for

better luck next time. My wife begs to be remembered to both of

you.--Yours sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

The "Arabs" mentioned below are the stories comprised in the volume

_More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter_, written by Stevenson and

his wife in collaboration.

_Wensleydale, Bournemouth, November 1884._

DEAR HENLEY,--We are all to pieces in health, and heavily handicapped

with Arabs. I have a dreadful cough, whose attacks leave me _aetat_. 90.

I never let up on the Arabs, all the same, and rarely get less than

eight pages out of hand, though hardly able to come downstairs for

twittering knees.

I shall put in ----'s letter. He says so little of his circumstances

that I am in an impossibility to give him advice more specific than a

copybook. Give him my love, however, and tell him it is the mark of the

parochial gentleman who has never travelled to find all wrong in a

foreign land. Let him hold on, and he will find one country as good as

another; and in the meanwhile let him resist the fatal British tendency

to communicate his dissatisfaction with a country to its inhabitants.

'Tis a good idea, but it somehow fails to please. In a fortnight, if I

can keep my spirit in the box at all, I should be nearly through this

Arabian desert; so can tackle something fresh.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO W. H. LOW

It was some twenty months since the plan of publishing the _Child's

Garden_ in the first instance as a picture-book had been mooted (see

above, pp. 18, foll.). But it had never taken effect, and in the

following March the volume appeared without illustrations in England,

and also, I believe, in America.

_Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, Hants, England,

First week in November, I guess, 1884._

MY DEAR LOW,--Now, look here, the above is my address for three months,

I hope; continue, on your part, if you please, to write to Edinburgh,

which is safe; but if Mrs. Low thinks of coming to England, she might

take a run down from London (four hours from Waterloo, main line) and

stay a day or two with us among the pines. If not, I hope it will be

only a pleasure deferred till you can join her.

My Children's Verses will be published here in a volume called _A

Child's Garden_. The sheets are in hand; I will see if I cannot send you

the lot, so that you might have a bit of a start. In that case I would

do nothing to publish in the States, and you might try an illustrated

edition there; which, if the book went fairly over here, might, when

ready, be imported. But of this more fully ere long. You will see some

verses of mine in the last Magazine of Art, with pictures by a young

lady; rather pretty, I think. If we find a market for _Phasellulus

loquitur_, we can try another. I hope it isn't necessary to put the

verse into that rustic printing. I am Philistine enough to prefer clean

printer's type; indeed, I can form no idea of the verses thus

transcribed by the incult and tottering hand of the draughtsman, nor

gather any impression beyond one of weariness to the eyes. Yet the other

day, in the Century, I saw it imputed as a crime to Vedder that he had

not thus travestied Omar Khayyam. We live in a rum age of music without

airs, stories without incident, pictures without beauty, American wood

engravings that should have been etchings, and dry-point etchings that

ought to have been mezzotints. I think of giving 'em literature without

words; and I believe if you were to try invisible illustration, it would

enjoy a considerable vogue. So long as an artist is on his head, is

painting with a flute, or writes with an etcher's needle, or conducts

the orchestra with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along

with roses. But any plain man who tries to follow the obtrusive canons

of his art, is but a commonplace figure. To hell with him is the motto,

or at least not that; for he will have his reward, but he will never be

thought a person of parts.

_January 3, 1885._--And here has this been lying near two months. I have

failed to get together a preliminary copy of the Child's Verses for you,

in spite of doughty efforts; but yesterday I sent you the first sheet of

the definitive edition, and shall continue to send the others as they

come. If you can, and care to, work them--why so, well. If not, I send

you fodder. But the time presses; for though I will delay a little over

the proofs, and though it is even possible they may delay the English

issue until Easter, it will certainly not be later. Therefore perpend,

and do not get caught out. Of course, if you can do pictures, it will be

a great pleasure to me to see our names joined; and more than that, a

great advantage, as I dare say you may be able to make a bargain for

some share a little less spectral than the common for the poor author.

But this is all as you shall choose; I give you _carte blanche_ to do or

not to do.--Yours most sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

O, Sargent has been and painted my portrait; a very nice fellow he is,

and is supposed to have done well; it is a poetical but very

chicken-boned figure-head, as thus represented.

R. L. S. Go on.

_P.P.S._--Your picture came; and let me thank you for it very much. I am

so hunted I had near forgotten. I find it very graceful; and I mean to

have it framed.

TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON

_Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth [first week of

November 1884]._

MY DEAR SIMPSON,--At last, after divers adventures here we are: not

Pommery and Greno as you see, "but jist plain auld Bonellie, no very

faur frae Jenniper Green," as I might say if I were writing to Charles.

I hope now to receive a good bundle from you ere long; and I will try to

be both prompt and practical in response. I hope to hear your boy is

better: ah, that's where it bites, I know, that is where the childless

man rejoices; although, to confess fully, my whole philosophy of life

renounces these renunciations; I am persuaded we gain nothing in the

least comparable to what we lose, by holding back the hand from any

province of life; the intrigue, the imbroglio, such as it is, was made

for the plunger and not for the teetotaller. And anyway I hope your news

is good.

I have nearly finished Lawson's most lively pamphlet. It is very clear

and interesting. For myself, I am in our house--a home of our own, in a

most lovely situation, among forest trees, where I hope you will come

and see us and find me in a repaired and more comfortable

condition--greatly pleased with it--rather hard-up, verging on the

dead-broke--and full tilt at hammering up some New Arabians for the pot.

I wonder what you do without regular habits of work. I am capable of

only two theories of existence: the industrious worker's, the

spreester's; all between seems blank to me. We grow too old, and I, at

least, am too much deteriorated, for the last; and the first becomes a

bedrock necessary. My father is in a gloomy state and has the yellow

flag at the peak, or the fore, or wherever it should be; and he has just

emptied some melancholy vials on me; I am also, by way of change,

spitting blood. This somewhat clouds the termination of my note.--Yours

ever affectionately,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

About this time Mr. Stevenson was in some hesitation as to letting

himself be proposed for the office of President of the Royal Society

of Edinburgh.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 1884._

MY DEAR FATHER,--I have no hesitation in recommending you to let your

name go up; please yourself about an address; though I think, if we

could meet, we could arrange something suitable. What you propose would

be well enough in a way, but so modest as to suggest a whine. From that

point of view it would be better to change a little; but this, whether

we meet or not, we must discuss. Tait, Chrystal, the Royal Society, and

I, all think you amply deserve this honour and far more; it is not the

True Blue to call this serious compliment a "trial"; you should be glad

of this recognition. As for resigning, that is easy enough if found

necessary; but to refuse would be husky and unsatisfactory. _Sic subs._

R. L. S.

My cold is still very heavy; but I carry it well. Fanny is very very

much out of sorts, principally through perpetual misery with me. I fear

I have been a little in the dumps, which, _as you know, sir_, is a very

great sin. I must try to be more cheerful; but my cough is so severe

that I have sometimes most exhausting nights and very peevish wakenings.

However, this shall be remedied, and last night I was distinctly better

than the night before. There is, my dear Mr. Stevenson (so I moralise

blandly as we sit together on the devil's garden-wall), no more

abominable sin than this gloom, this plaguy peevishness; why (say I)

what matters it if we be a little uncomfortable--that is no reason for

mangling our unhappy wives. And then I turn and _girn_ on the

unfortunate Cassandra.--Your fellow culprit,

R. L. S.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

Mr. Stevenson, the elder, had read the play of _Admiral Guinea_,

written in September by his son and Mr. Henley in collaboration, and

had protested, with his usual vehemence of feeling and expression,

against the stage confrontation of profane blackguardry in the person

of Pew with evangelical piety in that of the reformed slaving captain

who gives his name to the piece.

_Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth (The three B's)

[November 5, 1884]._

MY DEAR FATHER,--Allow me to say, in a strictly Pickwickian sense, that

you are a silly fellow. I am pained indeed, but how should I be

offended? I think you exaggerate; I cannot forget that you had the same

impression of the _Deacon_; and yet, when you saw it played, were less

revolted than you looked for; and I will still hope that the _Admiral_

also is not so bad as you suppose. There is one point, however, where I

differ from you very frankly. Religion is in the world; I do not think

you are the man to deny the importance of its role; and I have long

decided not to leave it on one side in art. The opposition of the

Admiral and Mr. Pew is not, to my eyes, either horrible or irreverent;

but it may be, and it probably is, very ill done: what then? This is a

failure; better luck next time; more power to the elbow, more

discretion, more wisdom in the design, and the old defeat becomes the

scene of the new victory. Concern yourself about no failure; they do not

cost lives as in engineering; they are the _pierres perdues_ of

successes. Fame is (truly) a vapour; do not think of it; if the writer

means well and tries hard, no failure will injure him, whether with God

or man.

I wish I could hear a brighter account of yourself; but I am inclined to

acquit the _Admiral_ of having a share in the responsibility. My very

heavy cold is, I hope, drawing off; and the change to this charming

house in the forest will, I hope, complete my re-establishment.--With

love to all, believe me, your ever affectionate

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, November 11, 1884._

DEAR BOY,--I have been nearly smashed altogether; fever and chills, with

really very considerable suffering; and to my deep gloom and some fear

about the future, work has had to stop. There was no way out of it;

yesterday and to-day nothing would come, it was a mere waste of tissue,

productive of spoiled paper.

I hope it will not last long; for the bum-baily is panting at my rump,

and when I turn a scared eye across my shoulder, I behold his talons

quivering above my frock-coat tails.

Gosse has writ to offer me L40 for a Christmas number ghost story for

the Pall Mall: eight thousand words. I have, with some conditions,

accepted; I pray Heaven I may be able to do it. But I am not sure that

my incapacity to work is wholly due to illness; I believe the morphine

I have been taking for my bray may have a hand in it. It moderates the

bray, but, I think, sews up the donkey.

I think my wife is a little better. If only I could get in trim, and get

this work done, I should be quite chipper.

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

The two next letters, on the same subject, are written in the styles

and characters of the two Edinburgh ex-elders, Johnstone (or Johnson)

and Thomson alternately.

_Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, November 11 [1884]._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am in my new house, thus proudly styled, as you

perceive; but the deevil a tower ava' can be perceived (except out of

window); this is not as it should be; one might have hoped, at least, a

turret. We are all vilely unwell. I put in the dark watches imitating a

donkey with some success, but little pleasure; and in the afternoon I

indulge in a smart fever, accompanied by aches and shivers. There is

thus little monotony to be deplored. I at least am a _regular_ invalid;

I would scorn to bray in the afternoon; I would indignantly refuse the

proposal to fever in the night. What is bred in the bone will come out,

sir, in the flesh; and the same spirit that prompted me to date my

letter regulates the hour and character of my attacks.--I am, sir,

yours,

THOMSON.

TO MISS FERRIER

The controversy here mentioned had been one in which Mr. Samuel

Smiles and others had taken part, concerning the rival claims of

Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of R. L. S., and John Rennie to

have been the chief engineers of the Bell Rock Lighthouse (see _A

Family of Engineers_, chap. iii.).

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 12, 1884._

MY DEAR COGGIE,--Many thanks for the two photos which now decorate my

room. I was particularly glad to have the Bell Rock. I wonder if you

saw me plunge, lance in rest, into a controversy thereanent? It was a

very one-sided affair. The man I attacked cried "Boo-hoo!" and referred

me to his big brother. And the big brother refused to move. So I slept

upon the field of battle, paraded, sang Te Deum, and came home after a

review rather than a campaign.

Please tell Campbell I got his letter. The Wild Woman of the West has

been much amiss and complaining sorely. I hope nothing more serious is

wrong with her than just my ill-health, and consequent anxiety and

labour; but the deuce of it is, that the cause continues. I am about

knocked out of time now: a miserable, snuffling, shivering,

fever-stricken, nightmare-ridden, knee-jottering, hoast-hoast-hoasting

shadow and remains of man. But we'll no gie ower jist yet a bittie.

We've seen waur; and dod, mem, it's my belief that we'll see better. I

dinna ken 'at I've muckle mair to say to ye, or, indeed, onything; but

jist here's guid-fallowship, guid health, and the wale o' guid fortune

to your bonny sel'; and my respecs to the Perfessor and his wife, and

the Prinshiple, an' the Bell Rock, an' ony ither public chara'ters that

I'm acquaunt wi'.

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

[_Bournemouth, November 13, 1884._]

MY DEAR THOMSON,--It's a maist remarkable fac', but nae shuener had I

written yon braggin', blawin' letter aboot ma business habits, when

bang! that very day, ma hoast[10] begude in the aifternune. It is really

remaurkable; it's providenshle, I believe. The ink wasnae fair dry, the

words werenae weel ooten ma mouth, when bang, I got the lee. The mair ye

think o't, Thomson, the less ye'll like the looks o't. Proavidence (I'm

no' sayin') is all verra weel _in its place_; but if Proavidence has

nae mainners, wha's to learn't? Proavidence is a fine thing, but hoo

would you like Proavidence to keep your till for ye? The richt place for

Proavidence is in the kirk; it has naething to do wi' private

correspondence between twa gentlemen, nor freendly cracks, nor a wee bit

word of sculduddery[11] ahint the door, nor, in shoart, wi' ony

_hole-and-corner wark_, what I would call. I'm pairfec'ly willin' to

meet in wi' Proavidence, I'll be prood to meet in wi' him, when my

time's come and I cannae dae nae better; but if he's to come skulking

aboot my stair-fit, damned, I micht as weel be deid for a' the comfort

I'll can get in life. Cannae he no be made to understand that it's

beneath him? Gosh, if I was in his business, I wouldnae steir my heid

for a plain, auld ex-elder that, tak him the way he taks himsel', 's

just aboot as honest as he can weel afford, an' but for a wheen auld

scandals, near forgotten noo, is a pairfec'ly respectable and thoroughly

decent man. Or if I fashed wi' him ava', it wad be kind o' handsome

like; a pun'-note under his stair door, or a bottle o' auld, blended

malt to his bit marnin', as a teshtymonial like yon ye ken sae weel

aboot, but mair successfu'.

Dear Thomson, have I ony money? If I have, _send it_, for the loard's

sake.

JOHNSTONE.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 13, 1884._

MY DEAR BOY,--A thousand thanks for the _Moliere_. I have already read,

in this noble presentment, _La Comtesse d'Escarbaguas_, _Le Malade

Imaginaire_, and a part of _Les Femmes Savantes_; I say, Poquelin took

damned good care of himself: Argan and Arysule, what parts! Many thanks

also for John Silver's pistol; I recognise it; that was the one he gave

Jim Hawkins at the mouth of the pit; I shall get a plate put upon it to

that effect.

My birthday was a great success; I was better in health; I got

delightful presents; I received the definite commission from the P.M.G.,

and began to write the tale; and in the evening Bob arrived, a simple

seraph. We have known each other ten years; and here we are, too, like

the pair that met in the infirmary: why can we not mellow into kindness

and sweetness like Bob? What is the reason? Does nature, even in my

octogenarian carcase, run too strong that I must be still a bawler and a

brawler and a treader upon corns? You, at least, have achieved the

miracle of embellishing your personal appearance to that point that,

unless your mother is a woman of even more perspicacity than I suppose,

it is morally impossible that she can recognise you. When I saw you ten

years ago, you looked rough and--kind of stigmatised, a look of an

embittered political shoemaker; where is it now? You now come waltzing

around like some light-hearted monarch; essentially jovial, essentially

royal; radiant of smiles. And in the meanwhile, by a complementary

process, I turn into a kind of hunchback with white hair! The devil.

Well, let us be thankful for our mercies; in these ten years what a

change from the cell in the hospital, and the two sick boys in the next

bed, to the influence, the recognition, the liberty, and the happiness

of to-day! Well, well; fortune is not so blind as people say; you dreed

a good long weird; but you have got into a fine green paddock now to

kick your heels in. And I, too, what a difference; what a difference in

my work, in my situation, and unfortunately, also in my health! But one

need not complain of a pebble in the shoe, when by mere justice one

should rot in a dungeon.

Many thanks to both of you; long life to our friendship, and that means,

I do most firmly believe, to these clay continents on which we fly our

colours; good luck to one and all, and may God continue to be

merciful.--Your old and warm friend,

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

Stevenson had been unable to finish for the Pall Mall Christmas

number the tale he had first intended; had tried the publishers with

_Markheim_ (afterwards printed in the collection called _Merry Men_),

which proved too short; had then furbished up as well as he could a

tale drafted in the Pitlochry days, _The Body Snatcher_, which was

advertised in the streets of London by sandwich-men carrying posters

so horrific that they were suppressed, if I remember right, by the

police. Stevenson rightly thought the tale not up to his best mark,

and would not take the full payment which had been bargained for. His

correspondent was just about to start on a tour to the United States.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Nov. 15, 1884._

MY DEAR GOSSE,--This Mr. Morley[12] of yours is a most desperate fellow.

He has sent me (for my opinion) the most truculent advertisement I ever

saw, in which the white hairs of Gladstone are dragged round Troy behind

my chariot wheels. What can I say? I say nothing to him; and to you, I

content myself with remarking that he seems a desperate fellow.

All luck to you on your American adventure; may you find health, wealth,

and entertainment! If you see, as you likely will, Frank R. Stockton,

pray greet him from me in words to this effect:--

My Stockton if I failed to like,

It were a sheer depravity,

For I went down with the _Thomas Hyke_

And up with the _Negative Gravity_!

I adore these tales.

I hear flourishing accounts of your success at Cambridge, so you leave

with a good omen. Remember me to _green corn_ if it is in season; if

not, you had better hang yourself on a sour apple tree, for your voyage

has been lost.--Yours affectionately,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO AUSTIN DOBSON

Written in acknowledgment of the gift of a desk.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [December 1884 ?]._

DEAR DOBSON,--Set down my delay to your own fault; I wished to

acknowledge such a gift from you in some of my inapt and slovenly

rhymes; but you should have sent me your pen and not your desk. The

verses stand up to the axles in a miry cross-road, whence the coursers

of the sun shall never draw them; hence I am constrained to this

uncourtliness, that I must appear before one of the kings of that

country of rhyme without my singing robes. For less than this, if we may

trust the book of Esther, favourites have tasted death; but I conceive

the kingdom of the Muses mildlier mannered; and in particular that

county which you administer and which I seem to see as a half-suburban

land; a land of hollyhocks and country houses; a land where at night, in

thorny and sequestered bypaths, you will meet masqueraders going to a

ball in their sedans, and the rector steering homeward by the light of

his lantern; a land of the windmill, and the west wind, and the

flowering hawthorn with a little scented letter in the hollow of its

trunk, and the kites flying over all in the season of kites, and the far

away blue spires of a cathedral city.

Will you forgive me, then, for my delay and accept my thanks not only

for your present, but for the letter which followed it, and which

perhaps I more particularly value, and believe me to be, with much

admiration, yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

Stevenson and his wife were still busy on _More New Arabian Nights_

(the romance of the _Great North Road_ having been begun and

postponed). The question here touched is, to what publishers should

they be offered.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 1884._

DEAR LAD,--For Cassell, I thought the G.N.R. (not railway this time) was

the motto. What are Cassells to do with this eccentric mass of blague

and seriousness? Their poor auld pows will a' turn white as snaw, man.

They would skriegh with horror. You see, the lot of tales is now coming

to a kind of bearing. They are being quite rehandled; all the three

intercalary narratives have been condemned and are being replaced--two

by picturesque and highly romantic adventures; one by a comic tale of

character; and the thing as it goes together so far, is, I do think,

singularly varied and vivid, coming near to laughter and touching tears.

Will Cassell stand it? No.

_Et de deux._

I vote for the syndicate, and to give Cassell the _North Road_ when

done. _Et sic subscr._

R. L. S.

My health is better. I never sleep, to be sure; Cawdor hath butchered

sleep; and I am twinged a bit by aches and rheumatism; but I get my five

to seven hours of work; and if that is not health, it is the nearest I

am like to have.

TO HENRY JAMES

The following to Mr. Henry James refers to the essay of R. L. S.

called _A Humble Remonstrance_, which had just appeared in Longman's

Magazine. Mr. James had written holding out the prospect of a

continuance of the friendly controversy which had thus been opened up

between them on the aims and qualities of fiction.

_Bonallie Towers, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, December 8, 1884._

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--This is a very brave hearing from more points

than one. The first point is that there is a hope of a sequel. For this

I laboured. Seriously, from the dearth of information and thoughtful

interest in the art of literature, those who try to practise it with any

deliberate purpose run the risk of finding no fit audience. People

suppose it is "the stuff" that interests them; they think, for instance,

that the prodigious fine thoughts and sentiments in Shakespeare impress

by their own weight, not understanding that the unpolished diamond is

but a stone. They think that striking situations, or good dialogue, are

got by studying life; they will not rise to understand that they are

prepared by deliberate artifice and set off by painful suppressions.

Now, I want the whole thing well ventilated, for my own education and

the public's; and I beg you to look as quick as you can, to follow me up

with every circumstance of defeat where we differ, and (to prevent the

flouting of the laity) to emphasise the points where we agree. I trust

your paper will show me the way to a rejoinder; and that rejoinder I

shall hope to make with so much art as to woo or drive you from your

threatened silence. I would not ask better than to pass my life in

beating out this quarter of corn with such a seconder as yourself.

Point the second--I am rejoiced indeed to hear you speak so kindly of my

work; rejoiced and surprised. I seem to myself a very rude, left-handed

countryman; not fit to be read, far less complimented, by a man so

accomplished, so adroit, so craftsmanlike as you. You will happily never

have cause to understand the despair with which a writer like myself

considers (say) the park scene in _Lady Barberina_. Every touch

surprises me by its intangible precision; and the effect when done, as

light as syllabub, as distinct as a picture, fills me with envy. Each

man among us prefers his own aim, and I prefer mine; but when we come to

speak of performance, I recognise myself, compared with you, to be a

lout and slouch of the first water.

Where we differ, both as to the design of stories and the delineation of

character, I begin to lament. Of course, I am not so dull as to ask you

to desert your walk; but could you not, in one novel, to oblige a

sincere admirer, and to enrich his shelves with a beloved volume, could

you not, and might you not, cast your characters in a mould a little

more abstract and academic (dear Mrs. Pennyman had already, among your

other work, a taste of what I mean), and pitch the incidents, I do not

say in any stronger, but in a slightly more emphatic key--as it were an

episode from one of the old (so-called) novels of adventure? I fear you

will not; and I suppose I must sighingly admit you to be right. And yet,

when I see, as it were, a book of Tom Jones handled with your exquisite

precision and shot through with those side-lights of reflection in which

you excel, I relinquish the dear vision with regret. Think upon it.

As you know, I belong to that besotted class of man, the invalid: this

puts me to a stand in the way of visits. But it is possible that some

day you may feel that a day near the sea and among pinewoods would be a

pleasant change from town. If so, please let us know; and my wife and I

will be delighted to put you up, and give you what we can to eat and

drink (I have a fair bottle of claret).--On the back of which, believe

me, yours sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--I reopen this to say that I have re-read my paper, and cannot

think I have at all succeeded in being either veracious or polite. I

knew, of course, that I took your paper merely as a pin to hang my own

remarks upon; but, alas! what a thing is any paper! What fine remarks

can you not hang on mine! How I have sinned against proportion, and with

every effort to the contrary, against the merest rudiments of courtesy

to you! You are indeed a very acute reader to have divined the real

attitude of my mind; and I can only conclude, not without closed eyes

and shrinking shoulders, in the well-worn words,

Lay on, Macduff!

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, December 9, 1884._

MY DEAR PEOPLE,--The dreadful tragedy of the Pall Mall has come to a

happy but ludicrous ending: I am to keep the money, the tale writ for

them is to be buried certain fathoms deep, and they are to flash out

before the world with our old friend of Kinnaird, _The Body Snatcher_.

When you come, please to bring--

(1) My Montaigne, or, at least, the two last volumes.

(2) My Milton in the three vols. in green.

(3) The Shakespeare that Babington sent me for a wedding-gift.

(4) Hazlitt's _Table Talk and Plain Speaker_.

If you care to get a box of books from Douglas and Foulis, let them be

_solid_. _Croker Papers_, _Correspondence of Napoleon_, _History of

Henry IV._, Lang's _Folk Lore_, would be my desires.

I had a charming letter from Henry James about my Longman paper. I did

not understand queries about the verses; the pictures to the Seagull I

thought charming; those to the second have left me with a pain in my

poor belly and a swimming in the head.

About money, I am afloat and no more, and I warn you, unless I have

great luck, I shall have to fall upon you at the New Year like a

hundredweight of bricks. Doctor, rent, chemist, are all threatening;

sickness has bitterly delayed my work; and unless, as I say, I have the

mischief's luck, I shall completely break down. _Verbum sapientibus._ I

do not live cheaply, and I question if I ever shall; but if only I had a

halfpenny worth of health, I could now easily suffice. The last

breakdown of my head is what makes this bankruptcy probable.

Fanny is still out of sorts; Bogue better; self fair, but a stranger to

the blessings of sleep.--Ever affectionate son,

R. L. S.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [December 1884]._

DEAR LAD,--I have made up my mind about the P. M. G., and send you a

copy, which please keep or return. As for not giving a reduction, what

are we? Are we artists or city men? Why do we sneer at stockbrokers? O

nary; I will not take the L40. I took that as a fair price for my best

work; I was not able to produce my best; and I will be damned if I steal

with my eyes open. _Sufficit._ This is my lookout. As for the paper

being rich, certainly it is; but I am honourable. It is no more above me

in money than the poor slaveys and cads from whom I look for honesty are

below me. Am I Pepys, that because I can find the countenance of "some

of our ablest merchants," that because--and--pour forth languid twaddle

and get paid for it, I, too, should "cheerfully continue to steal"? I am

not Pepys. I do not live much to God and honour; but I will not wilfully

turn my back on both. I am, like all the rest of us, falling ever lower

from the bright ideas I began with, falling into greed, into idleness,

into middle-aged and slippered fireside cowardice; but is it you, my

bold blade, that I hear crying this sordid and rank twaddle in my ear?

Preaching the dankest Grundyism and upholding the rank customs of our

trade--you who are so cruel hard upon the customs of the publishers? O

man, look at the Beam in our own Eyes; and whatever else you do, do not

plead Satan's cause, or plead it for all; either embrace the bad, or

respect the good when you see a poor devil trying for it. If this is the

honesty of authors--to take what you can get and console yourself

because publishers are rich--take my name from the rolls of that

association. 'Tis a caucus of weaker thieves, jealous of the

stronger.--Ever yours,

THE ROARING R. L. S.

You will see from the enclosed that I have stuck to what I think my dues

pretty tightly in spite of this flourish: these are my words for a poor

ten-pound note!

TO MISS FERRIER

This refers to the death of Sir Alexander Grant, the distinguished

Aristotelian scholar and Principal of Edinburgh University.

[_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 1884._]

MY DEAR COGGIE,--We are very much distressed to hear of this which has

befallen your family. As for Sir Alexander, I can but speak from my own

feelings: he survived to finish his book and to conduct, with such a

great success, the tercentenary. Ah, how many die just upon the

threshold! Had he died a year ago, how great a disappointment! But all

this is nothing to the survivors. Do please, as soon as you are able,

let us know how it goes and _how it is likely to go_ with the family;

and believe that both my wife and I are most anxious to have good news,

or the best possible. My poor Coggie, I know very well how you must

feel; you are passing a bad time.

Our news must seem very impertinent. We have both been ill; I, pretty

bad, my wife, pretty well down; but I, at least, am better. The Bogue,

who is let out every night for half an hour's yapping, is anchored in

the moonlight just before the door, and, under the belief that he is

watchdog at a lone farm beleaguered by moss-troopers, is simply raising

Cain.

I can add nothing more, but just that we wish to hear as soon as you

have nothing else to do--not to hurry, of course,--if it takes three

months, no matter--but bear us in mind.

R. L. S.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth [Winter 1884]._

MY DEAR LAD,--Here was I in bed; not writing, not hearing, and finding

myself gently and agreeably ill used; and behold I learn you are bad

yourself. Get your wife to send us a word how you are. I am better

decidedly. Bogue got his Christmas card, and behaved well for three days

after. It may interest the cynical to learn that I started my last

hemorrhage by too sedulous attentions to my dear Bogue. The stick was

broken; and that night Bogue, who was attracted by the extraordinary

aching of his bones, and is always inclined to a serious view of his own

ailments, announced with his customary pomp that he was dying. In this

case, however, it was not the dog that died. (He had tried to bite his

mother's ankles.) I have written a long and peculiarly solemn paper on

the technical elements of style. It is path-breaking and epoch-making;

but I do not think the public will be readily convoked to its perusal.

Did I tell you that S. C. had risen to the paper on James? At last! O

but I was pleased; he's (like Johnnie) been lang, lang o' comin', but

here he is. He will not object to my future manoeuvres in the same

field, as he has to my former. All the family are here; my father better

than I have seen him these two years; my mother the same as ever. I do

trust you are better, and I am yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO H. A. JONES

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Dec. 30, 1884._

DEAR SIR,--I am so accustomed to hear nonsense spoken about all the

arts, and the drama in particular, that I cannot refrain from saying

"Thank you" for your paper. In my answer to Mr. James, in the December

Longman, you may see that I have merely touched, I think in a

parenthesis, on the drama; but I believe enough was said to indicate our

agreement in essentials.

Wishing you power and health to further enunciate and to act upon these

principles, believe me, dear sir, yours truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Stevenson had begun with great eagerness to prepare material for a

volume on the Duke of Wellington for the series of _English Worthies_

published by Messrs. Longman and edited by Mr. Andrew Lang, but

beyond preparation the scheme never went.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, Jan. 4, 1885._

DEAR S. C.,--I am on my feet again, and getting on my boots to do the

Iron Duke. Conceive my glee: I have refused the L100, and am to get some

sort of royalty, not yet decided, instead. 'Tis for Longman's _English

Worthies_, edited by A. Lang. Aw haw, haw!

Now, look here, could you get me a loan of the Despatches, or is that a

dream? I should have to mark passages I fear, and certainly note pages

on the fly. If you think it a dream, will Bain get me a second-hand

copy, or who would? The sooner, and cheaper, I can get it the better. If

there is anything in your weird library that bears on either the man or

the period, put it in a mortar and fire it here instanter; I shall

catch. I shall want, of course, an infinity of books: among which, any

lives there may be; a life of the Marquis Marmont (the Marechal),

_Marmont's Memoirs_, _Greville's Memoirs_, _Peel's Memoirs_, _Napier_,

that blind man's history of England you once lent me, Hamley's

_Waterloo_; can you get me any of these? Thiers, idle Thiers also. Can

you help a man getting into his boots for such a huge campaign? How are

you? A Good New Year to you. I mean to have a good one, but on whose

funds I cannot fancy: not mine leastways, as I am a mere derelict and

drift beam-on to bankruptcy.

For God's sake, remember the man who set out for to conquer Arthur

Wellesley, with a broken bellows and an empty pocket.--Yours ever,

R. L. STEVENSON.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

Stevenson had been asked by his father to look over the proofs of a

paper which the latter was about to read, as President of the Royal

Society of Edinburgh, "On the Principal Causes of Silting in

Estuaries," in connection with the Manchester Ship Canal Scheme.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, 14th January 1885._

MY DEAR FATHER,--I am glad you like the changes. I own I was pleased

with my hand's darg; you may observe, I have corrected several errors

which (you may tell Mr. Dick) he had allowed to pass his eagle eye; I

wish there may be none in mine; at least, the order is better. The

second title, "Some New Engineering Questions involved in the M. S. C.

Scheme of last Session of P.," likes me the best. I think it a very good

paper; and I am vain enough to think I have materially helped to polish

the diamond. I ended by feeling quite proud of the paper, as if it had

been mine; the next time you have as good a one, I will overhaul it for

the wages of feeling as clever as I did when I had managed to understand

and helped to set it clear. I wonder if I anywhere misapprehended you? I

rather think not at the last; at the first shot I know I missed a point

or two. Some of what may appear to you to be wanton changes, a little

study will show to be necessary.

Yes, Carlyle was ashamed of himself as few men have been; and let all

carpers look at what he did. He prepared all these papers for

publication with his own hand; all his wife's complaints, all the

evidence of his own misconduct: who else would have done so much? Is

repentance, which God accepts, to have no avail with men? nor even with

the dead? I have heard too much against the thrawn, discomfortable dog:

dead he is, and we may be glad of it; but he was a better man than most

of us, no less patently than he was a worse. To fill the world with

whining is against all my views: I do not like impiety. But--but--there

are two sides to all things, and the old scalded baby had his noble

side.--Ever affectionate son,

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, January 1885._

DEAR S. C.,--I have addressed a letter to the G. O. M. _a propos_ of

Wellington; and I became aware, you will be interested to hear, of an

overwhelming respect for the old gentleman. I can _blaguer_ his

failures; but when you actually address him, and bring the two statures

and records to confrontation, dismay is the result. By mere continuance

of years, he must impose; the man who helped to rule England before I

was conceived, strikes me with a new sense of greatness and antiquity,

when I must actually beard him with the cold forms of correspondence. I

shied at the necessity of calling him plain "Sir"! Had he been "My

lord," I had been happier; no, I am no equalitarian. Honour to whom

honour is due; and if to none, why, then, honour to the old!

These, O Slade Professor, are my unvarnished sentiments: I was a little

surprised to find them so extreme, and therefore I communicate the fact.

Belabour thy brains, as to whom it would be well to question. I have a

small space; I wish to make a popular book, nowhere obscure, nowhere, if

it can be helped, unhuman. It seems to me the most hopeful plan to tell

the tale, so far as may be, by anecdote. He did not die till so

recently, there must be hundreds who remember him, and thousands who

have still ungarnered stories. Dear man, to the breach! Up, soldier of

the iron dook, up, Slades, and at 'em! (which, conclusively, he did not

say: the at 'em-ic theory is to be dismissed). You know piles of fellows

who must reek with matter; help! help! I am going to try

Happy-and-Glorious-long-to-reign-over-us. H.M. must remember things: and

it is my belief, if my letter could be discreetly introduced, she would

like to tell them. So I jest, when I don't address my mind to it: when I

do, shall I be smit louting to my knee, as before the G. O. M.?

Probleme!--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

In the two following letters are expressed some of the distress and

bitterness with which, in common with most Englishmen, Stevenson felt

the circumstances of Gordon's abandonment in the Soudan and the

failure of the belated attempt to rescue him. The advice to go on

with "my book" refers, if I remember right, to some scheme for the

republication in book form of stray magazine papers of mine of a more

or less personal or biographical nature.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are indeed a backward correspondent, and much may

be said against you. But in this weather, and O dear! in this political

scene of degradation, much must be forgiven. I fear England is dead of

Burgessry, and only walks about galvanised. I do not love to think of my

countrymen these days; nor to remember myself. Why was I silent? I feel

I have no right to blame any one; but I won't write to the G. O. M. I do

really not see my way to any form of signature, unless "your fellow

criminal in the eyes of God," which might disquiet the proprieties.

About your book, I have always said: go on. The drawing of character is

a different thing from publishing the details of a private career. No

one objects to the first, or should object, if his name be not put upon

it; at the other, I draw the line. In a preface, if you chose, you might

distinguish; it is, besides, a thing for which you are eminently well

equipped, and which you would do with taste and incision. I long to see

the book. People like themselves (to explain a little more); no one

likes his life, which is a misbegotten issue, and a tale of failure. To

see these failures either touched upon, or _coasted_, to get the idea of

a spying eye and blabbing tongue about the house, is to lose all privacy

in life. To see that thing, which we do love, our character, set forth,

is ever gratifying. See how my _Talk and Talkers_ went; every one liked

his own portrait, and shrieked about other people's; so it will be with

yours. If you are the least true to the essential, the sitter will be

pleased; very likely not his friends, and that from _various motives_.

R. L. S.

When will your holiday be? I sent your letter to my wife, and forget.

Keep us in mind, and I hope we shall be able to receive you.

TO J. A. SYMONDS

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, February 1885._

MY DEAR SYMONDS,--Yes we have both been very neglectful. I had horrid

luck, catching two thundering influenzas in August and November. I

recovered from the last with difficulty, but have come through this

blustering winter with some general success; in the house, up and down.

My wife, however, has been painfully upset by my health. Last year, of

course, was cruelly trying to her nerves; Nice and Hyeres are bad

experiences; and though she is not ill, the doctor tells me that

prolonged anxiety may do her a real mischief.

I feel a little old and fagged, and chary of speech, and not very sure

of spirit in my work; but considering what a year I have passed, and how

I have twice sat on Charon's pierhead, I am surprising.

My father has presented us with a very pretty home in this place, into

which we hope to move by May. My _Child's Verses_ come out next week.

_Otto_ begins to appear in April; _More New Arabian Nights_ as soon as

possible. Moreover, I am neck deep in Wellington; also a story on the

stocks, _The Great North Road_. O, I am busy! Lloyd is at college in

Edinburgh. That is, I think, all that can be said by way of news.

Have you read _Huckleberry Finn_? It contains many excellent things;

above all, the whole story of a healthy boy's dealings with his

conscience, incredibly well done.

My own conscience is badly seared; a want of piety; yet I pray for it,

tacitly, every day; believing it, after courage, the only gift worth

having; and its want, in a man of any claims to honour, quite

unpardonable. The tone of your letter seemed to me very sound. In these

dark days of public dishonour, I do not know that one can do better than

carry our private trials piously. What a picture is this of a nation! No

man that I can see, on any side or party, seems to have the least sense

of our ineffable shame: the desertion of the garrisons. I tell my little

parable that Germany took England, and then there was an Indian Mutiny,

and Bismarck said: "Quite right: let Delhi and Calcutta and Bombay fall;

and let the women and children be treated Sepoy fashion," and people

say, "O, but that is very different!" And then I wish I were dead.

Millais (I hear) was painting Gladstone when the news came of Gordon's

death; Millais was much affected, and Gladstone said, "Why? _It is the

man's own temerity!_" Voila le Bourgeois! le voila nu! But why should I

blame Gladstone, when I too am a Bourgeois? when I have held my peace?

Why did I hold my peace? Because I am a sceptic: _i.e._ a Bourgeois. We

believe in nothing, Symonds; you don't, and I don't; and these are two

reasons, out of a handful of millions, why England stands before the

world dripping with blood and daubed with dishonour. I will first try to

take the beam out of my own eye, trusting that even private effort

somehow betters and braces the general atmosphere. See, for example, if

England has shown (I put it hypothetically) one spark of manly

sensibility, they have been shamed into it by the spectacle of Gordon.

Police-Officer Cole is the only man that I see to admire. I dedicate my

_New Arabs_ to him and Cox, in default of other great public

characters.--Yours ever most affectionately,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

The following refers to an edition of Gray, with notes and a short

prefatory Life by Mr. Gosse; and to the publication of the _Child's

Garden of Verses_.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March 12, 1885._

MY DEAR GOSSE,--I was indeed much exercised how I could be worked into

Gray; and lo! when I saw it, the passage seemed to have been written

with a single eye to elucidate the--worst?--well, not a very good poem

of Gray's. Your little life is excellent, clean, neat, efficient. I have

read many of your notes, too, with pleasure. Your connection with Gray

was a happy circumstance; it was a suitable conjunction.

I did not answer your letter from the States, for what was I to say? I

liked getting it and reading it; I was rather flattered that you wrote

it to me; and then I'll tell you what I did--I put it in the fire. Why?

Well, just because it was very natural and expansive; and thinks I to

myself, if I die one of these fine nights, this is just the letter that

Gosse would not wish to go into the hands of third parties. Was I well

inspired? And I did not answer it because you were in your high places,

sailing with supreme dominion, and seeing life in a particular glory;

and I was peddling in a corner, confined to the house, overwhelmed with

necessary work, which I was not always doing well, and, in the very mild

form in which the disease approaches me, touched with a sort of bustling

cynicism. Why throw cold water? How ape your agreeable frame of mind?

In short, I held my tongue.

I have now published on 101 small pages _The Complete Proof of Mr. R. L.

Stevenson's Incapacity to Write Verse_, in a series of graduated

examples with table of contents. I think I shall issue a companion

volume of exercises: "Analyse this poem. Collect and comminate the ugly

words. Distinguish and condemn the _chevilles_. State Mr. Stevenson's

faults of taste in regard to the measure. What reasons can you gather

from this example for your belief that Mr. S. is unable to write any

other measure?"

They look ghastly in the cold light of print; but there is something

nice in the little ragged regiment for all; the blackguards seem to me

to smile, to have a kind of childish treble note that sounds in my ears

freshly; not song, if you will, but a child's voice.

I was glad you enjoyed your visit to the States. Most Englishmen go

there with a confirmed design of patronage, as they go to France for

that matter; and patronage will not pay. Besides, in this year

of--grace, said I?--of disgrace, who should creep so low as an

Englishman? "It is not to be thought of that the flood"--ah, Wordsworth,

you would change your note were you alive to-day!

I am now a beastly householder, but have not yet entered on my domain.

When I do, the social revolution will probably cast me back upon my dung

heap. There is a person called Hyndman whose eye is on me; his step is

beHynd me as I go. I shall call my house Skerryvore when I get it:

SKERRYVORE: _c'est bon pour la poeshie_. I will conclude with my

favourite sentiment: "The world is too much with me."

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,

_The Hermit of Skerryvore_,

Author of "John Vane Tempest: a Romance," "Herbert and Henrietta: or the

Nemesis of Sentiment," "The Life and Adventures of Colonel Bludyer

Fortescue," "Happy Homes and Hairy Faces," "A Pound of Feathers and a

Pound of Lead," part author of "Minn's Complete Capricious

Correspondent: a Manual of Natty, Natural, and Knowing Letters," and

editor of the "Poetical Remains of Samuel Burt Crabbe, known as the

melodious Bottle-Holder."

Uniform with the above:

"The Life and Remains of the Reverend Jacob Degray Squah," author of

"Heave-yo for the New Jerusalem," "A Box of Candles; or the Patent

Spiritual Safety Match," and "A Day with the Heavenly Harriers."

TO W. H. LOW

The "dedication" referred to was that of a forthcoming illustrated

edition of Keats's _Lamia_.

_Bonallie Towers, Bournemouth, March 13, 1885._

MY DEAR LOW,--Your success has been immense. I wish your letter had come

two days ago: _Otto_, alas! has been disposed of a good while ago; but

it was only day before yesterday that I settled the new volume of Arabs.

However, for the future, you and the sons of the deified Scribner are

the men for me. Really they have behaved most handsomely. I cannot lay

my hand on the papers, or I would tell you exactly how it compares with

my English bargain; but it compares well. Ah, if we had that copyright,

I do believe it would go far to make me solvent, ill-health and all.

I wrote you a letter to the Rembrandt, in which I stated my views about

the dedication in a very brief form. It will give me sincere pleasure,

and will make the second dedication I have received, the other being

from John Addington Symonds. It is a compliment I value much; I don't

know any that I should prefer.

I am glad to hear you have windows to do; that is a fine business, I

think; but, alas! the glass is so bad nowadays; realism invading even

that, as well as the huge inferiority of our technical resource

corrupting every tint. Still, anything that keeps a man to decoration

is, in this age, good for the artist's spirit.

By the way, have you seen James and me on the novel? James, I think in

the August or September--R. L. S. in the December Longman. I own I think

the _ecole bete_, of which I am the champion, has the whip hand of the

argument; but as James is to make a rejoinder, I must not boast. Anyway

the controversy is amusing to see. I was terribly tied down to space,

which has made the end congested and dull. I shall see if I can afford

to send you the April Contemporary--but I dare say you see it anyway--as

it will contain a paper of mine on style, a sort of continuation of old

arguments on art in which you have wagged a most effective tongue. It is

a sort of start upon my Treatise on the Art of Literature: a small, arid

book that shall some day appear.

With every good wish from me and mine (should I not say "she and hers"?)

to you and yours, believe me yours ever,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO P.G. HAMERTON

The work of his correspondent's which R. L. S. notices in the

following is the sumptuous volume _Landscape_: Seeley & Co., 1885.

The passages specially referred to will be found pp. 46-62 of that

work.

_Bournemouth, March 16, 1885._

MY DEAR HAMERTON,--Various things have been reminding me of my

misconduct: First, Swan's application for your address; second, a sight

of the sheets of your _Landscape_ book; and last, your note to Swan,

which he was so kind as to forward. I trust you will never suppose me

to be guilty of anything more serious than an idleness, partially

excusable. My ill-health makes my rate of life heavier than I can well

meet, and yet stops me from earning more. My conscience, sometimes

perhaps too easily stifled, but still (for my time of life and the

public manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual and

almost endless transcriptions. On the back of all this, my

correspondence hangs like a thundercloud; and just when I think I am

getting through my troubles, crack, down goes my health, I have a long,

costly sickness, and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me I

have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the opportunity of

the aid makes the necessity none the more welcome. My father has

presented me with a beautiful house here--or so I believe, for I have

not yet seen it, being a cage bird but for nocturnal sorties in the

garden. I hope we shall soon move into it, and I tell myself that some

day perhaps we may have the pleasure of seeing you as our guest. I trust

at least that you will take me as I am, a thoroughly bad correspondent,

and a man, a hater, indeed, of rudeness in others, but too often rude in

all unconsciousness himself; and that you will never cease to believe

the sincere sympathy and admiration that I feel for you and for your

work.

About the _Landscape_, which I had a glimpse of while a friend of mine

was preparing a review, I was greatly interested, and could write and

wrangle for a year on every page; one passage particularly delighted me,

the part about Ulysses--jolly. Then, you know, that is just what I fear

I have come to think landscape ought to be in literature; so there we

should be at odds. Or perhaps not so much as I suppose, as Montaigne

says it is a pot with two handles, and I own I am wedded to the

technical handle, which (I likewise own and freely) you do well to keep

for a mistress. I should much like to talk with you about some other

points; it is only in talk that one gets to understand. Your delightful

Wordsworth trap I have tried on two hardened Wordsworthians, not that I

am not one myself. By covering up the context, and asking them to guess

what the passage was, both (and both are very clever people, one a

writer, one a painter) pronounced it a guide-book. "Do you think it an

unusually good guide-book?" I asked, and both said, "No, not at all!"

Their grimace was a picture when I showed the original.

I trust your health and that of Mrs. Hamerton keep better; your last

account was a poor one. I was unable to make out the visit I had hoped,

as (I do not know if you heard of it) I had a very violent and dangerous

hemorrhage last spring. I am almost glad to have seen death so close

with all my wits about me, and not in the customary lassitude and

disenchantment of disease. Even thus clearly beheld I find him not so

terrible as we suppose. But, indeed, with the passing of years, the

decay of strength, the loss of all my old active and pleasant habits,

there grows more and more upon me that belief in the kindness of this

scheme of things, and the goodness of our veiled God, which is an

excellent and pacifying compensation. I trust, if your health continues

to trouble you, you may find some of the same belief. But perhaps my

fine discovery is a piece of art, and belongs to a character cowardly,

intolerant of certain feelings, and apt to self-deception. I don't think

so, however; and when I feel what a weak and fallible vessel I was

thrust into this hurly-burly, and with what marvellous kindness the wind

has been tempered to my frailties, I think I should be a strange kind of

ass to feel anything but gratitude.

I do not know why I should inflict this talk upon you; but when I summon

the rebellious pen, he must go his own way; I am no Michael Scott, to

rule the fiend of correspondence. Most days he will none of me; and when

he comes, it is to rape me where he will.--Yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

Stevenson was by this time beginning to realise that work at

play-writing in collaboration with Mr. Henley was doing much more to

exhaust his strength than to replenish either of their purses, and

Mr. Henley, who had built hopes of fame and fortune on their

collaboration, was very unwilling to face the fact.

[_Bournemouth, March 1885._]

MY DEAR LAD,--That is all right, and a good job. About coming down, you

cannot get into us for a while, as you may imagine; we are in desperate

vortex, and everybody 'most dead. I have been two days in bed with liver

and slight bleeding.

Do you think you are right to send _Macaire_ and the _Admiral_ about?

Not a copy have I sent, nor (speaking for myself personally) do I want

sent. The reperusal of the _Admiral_, by the way, was a sore blow; eh,

God, man, it is a low, black, dirty, blackguard, ragged piece: vomitable

in many parts--simply vomitable. Pew is in places a reproach to both art

and man. But of all that afterwards. What I mean is that I believe in

playing dark with second and third-rate work. Macaire is a piece of

job-work, hurriedly bockled; might have been worse, might have been

better; happy-go-lucky; act it or-let-it-rot piece of business. Not a

thing, I think, to send in presentations. Do not let us _gober_

ourselves--and, above all, not _gober_ dam pot-boilers--and p.b.'s with

an obvious flaw and hole in them, such as is our unrealised Bertrand in

this one. But of this also, on a meeting.

I am not yet done with my proofs, I am sorry to say; so soon as I am, I

must tackle _Kidnapped_ seriously, or be content to have no bread, which

you would scarcely recommend. It is all I shall be able to do to wait

for the Young Folk money, on which I'll have to live as best I can till

the book comes in.

Plays at that rate I do not think I can possibly look at before July; so

let that be a guide to you in your views. July, or August, or

September, or thereabouts: these must be our times, whichever we attack.

I think you had better suspend a visit till we can take you in and till

I can speak. It seems a considerable waste of money; above all, as just

now I could not even offer you meals with my woman in such a state of

overwork. My father and mother have had to go to lodgings.--Post.

R. L. S.

TO W. E. HENLEY

[_Bournemouth, March 1885._]

DEAR LAD,--Much better, but rather unequal to do what I ought, a common

complaint. The change of weather much helped me, not too soon.

I have thought as well as I could of what you said; and I come

unhesitatingly to the opinion that the stage is only a lottery, must not

be regarded as a trade, and must never be preferred to drudgery. If

money comes from any play, let us regard it as a legacy, but never count

upon it in our income for the year. In other words, I must go on and

drudge at _Kidnapped_, which I hate, and am unfit to do; and you will

have to get some journalism somehow. These are my cold and blighting

sentiments. It is bad enough to have to live by an art--but to think to

live by an art combined with commercial speculation--that way madness

lies.

Time is our only friend. The _Admiral_, pulled simply in pieces and

about half deleted, will act some day: such is my opinion. I can no

more.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

An anonymous review of the _Child's Garden_, appearing in March, gave

R. L. S. so much pleasure that he wrote (in the four words, "Now who

are you?") to inquire the name of its writer, and learned that it

was Mr. Archer; with whom he had hitherto had no acquaintance. He

thereupon entered into friendly correspondence with his critic.

_Bournemouth, March 29, 1885._

DEAR MR. ARCHER,--Yes, I have heard of you and read some of your work;

but I am bound in particular to thank you for the notice of my verses.

"There," I said, throwing it over to the friend who was staying with me,

"it's worth writing a book to draw an article like that." Had you been

as hard upon me as you were amiable, I try to tell myself I should have

been no blinder to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire

and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an enviable touch;

the marks of a reader, such as one imagines for one's self in dreams,

thoughtful, critical, and kind; and to put the top on this memorial

column, a greater readiness to describe the author criticised than to

display the talents of his censor.

I am a man _blase_ to injudicious praise (though I hope some of it may

be judicious too), but I have to thank you for THE BEST CRITICISM I EVER

HAD; and am therefore, dear Mr. Archer, the most grateful critickee now

extant.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--I congratulate you on living in the corner of all London that I

like best. _A propos_, you are very right about my voluntary aversion

from the painful sides of life. My childhood was in reality a very mixed

experience, full of fever, nightmare, insomnia, painful days and

interminable nights; and I can speak with less authority of gardens than

of that other "land of counterpane." But to what end should we renew

these sorrows? The sufferings of life may be handled by the very

greatest in their hours of insight; it is of its pleasures that our

common poems should be formed; these are the experiences that we should

seek to recall or to provoke; and I say with Thoreau, "What right have I

to complain, who have not ceased to wonder?" and, to add a rider of my

own, who have no remedy to offer.

R. L. S.

TO MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH PENNELL

Acknowledging the dedication of an illustrated _Canterbury

Pilgrimage_.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer 1885._]

DEAR SIR AND MADAM,--This horrible delay must be forgiven me. It was not

caused by any want of gratitude; but by the desire to acknowledge the

dedication more suitably (and to display my wit) in a copy of verses.

Well, now I give that up, and tell you in plain prose, that you have

given me much pleasure by the dedication of your graceful book.

As I was writing the above, I received a visit from Lady Shelley, who

mentioned to me that she was reading Mrs. Pennell's _Mary

Wollstonecraft_ with pleasure. It is odd how streams cross. Mr.

Pennell's work I have, of course, long known and admired: and I believe

there was once some talk, on the part of Mr. Gilder, that we should work

together; but the scheme fell through from my rapacity; and since then

has been finally rendered impossible (or so I fear) by my health.

I should say that when I received the _Pilgrimage_, I was in a state

(not at all common with me) of depression; and the pleasant testimony

that my work had not all been in vain did much to set me up again. You

will therefore understand, late as is the hour, with what sincerity I am

able to sign myself--Gratefully yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

MR. AND MRS. PENNELL,--I see I should explain that this is all in my own

hand, I have not fobbed you off with an amanuensis; but as I have two

handwritings (both equally bad in these days) I might lead you to think

so.

R. L. S.

TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN

On the death of Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who in Stevenson's early

student days at Edinburgh had been both the warmest and the wisest of

his elder friends (died June 12, 1885).

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1885._]

MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--You know how much and for how long I have loved,

respected, and admired him; I am only able to feel a little with you.

But I know how he would have wished us to feel. I never knew a better

man, nor one to me more lovable; we shall all feel the loss more greatly

as time goes on. It scarce seems life to me; what must it be to you? Yet

one of the last things that he said to me was, that from all these sad

bereavements of yours he had learned only more than ever to feel the

goodness and what we, in our feebleness, call the support of God; he had

been ripening so much--to other eyes than ours, we must suppose he was

ripe, and try to feel it. I feel it is better not to say much more. It

will be to me a great pride to write a notice of him: the last I can now

do. What more in any way I can do for you, please to think and let me

know. For his sake and for your own, I would not be a useless friend: I

know, you know me a most warm one; please command me or my wife, in any

way. Do not trouble to write to me; Austin, I have no doubt, will do so,

if you are, as I fear you will be, unfit.

My heart is sore for you. At least you know what you have been to him;

how he cherished and admired you; how he was never so pleased as when he

spoke of you; with what a boy's love, up to the last, he loved you. This

surely is a consolation. Yours is the cruel part--to survive; you must

try and not grudge to him his better fortune, to go first. It is the sad

part of such relations that one must remain and suffer; I cannot see my

poor Jenkin without you. Nor you indeed without him; but you may try to

rejoice that he is spared that extremity. Perhaps I (as I was so much

his confidant) know even better than you can do what your loss would

have been to him; he never spoke of you but his face changed; it

was--you were--his religion.

I write by this post to Austin and to the Academy.--Yours most

sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1885_.]

MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--I should have written sooner, but we are in a

bustle, and I have been very tired, though still well. Your very kind

note was most welcome to me. I shall be very much pleased to have you

call me Louis, as he has now done for so many years. Sixteen, you say?

is it so long? It seems too short now; but of that we cannot judge, and

must not complain.

I wish that either I or my wife could do anything for you; when we can,

you will, I am sure, command us.

I trust that my notice gave you as little pain as was possible. I found

I had so much to say, that I preferred to keep it for another place and

make but a note in the Academy. To try to draw my friend at greater

length, and say what he was to me and his intimates, what a good

influence in life and what an example, is a desire that grows upon me.

It was strange, as I wrote the note, how his old tests and criticisms

haunted me; and it reminded me afresh with every few words how much I

owe to him.

I had a note from Henley, very brief and very sad. We none of us yet

feel the loss; but we know what he would have said and wished.

Do you know that Dew Smith has two photographs of him, neither very bad?

and one giving a lively, though not flattering air of him in

conversation? If you have not got them, would you like me to write to

Dew and ask him to give you proofs?

I was so pleased that he and my wife made friends; that is a great

pleasure. We found and have preserved one fragment (the head) of the

drawing he made and tore up when he was last here. He had promised to

come and stay with us this summer. May we not hope, at least, some time

soon to have one from you?--Believe me, my dear Mrs. Jenkin, with the

most real sympathy, your sincere friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Dear me, what happiness I owe to both of you!

TO C. HOWARD CARRINGTON

In answer to an inquiry from a correspondent not personally known to

him, who had by some means heard of the _Great North Road_ project.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 9th [1885]._

DEAR SIR,--_The Great North Road_ is still unfinished; it is scarce I

should say beyond Highgate: but it will be finished some day, bar the

big accident. It will not however gratify your taste; the highwayman is

not grasped: what you would have liked (and I, believe me) would have

been _Jerry Abershaw_: but Jerry was not written at the fit moment; I

have outgrown the taste--and his romantic horse-shoes clatter faintlier

down the incline towards Lethe.--Truly yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO KATHARINE DE MATTOS

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Summer 1885._

MY DEAR CATHERINE,--'Tis the most complete blague and folly to write to

you; you never answer and, even when you do, your letters crackle under

the teeth like ashes; containing nothing as they do but unseasonable

japes and a great cloudy vagueness as of the realm of chaos. In this I

know well they are like mine; and it becomes me well to write such--but

not you--for reasons too obvious to mention. We have both been sick; but

to-day I am up, though with an aching back. But I hope all will be

better. Of your views, state, finances, etc. etc., I know nothing. We

were mighty near the end of all things financially, when a strange shape

of a hand giving appeared in Heaven or from Hell, and set us up again

for the moment; yet still we totter on a whoreson brink. I beg pardon. I

forgot I was writing to a lady; but the word shall stay: it is the only

word; I would say it to the Q----n of E----d.

How do you like letters of this kind? It is your kind. They mean

nothing; they are blankly insignificant; and impudently put one in the

wrong. One has learnt nothing; and forsooth one must reply.--Yours, the

Inexpressive Correspondent,

R. L. S.

Hey-ey-ey! Sold again. Hey-ey-ey!

Postscript: sold again.

TO W. H. LOW

In August of this year Stevenson made with his wife an excursion to

the west country (stopping at Dorchester on the way, for the pleasure

of seeing Mr. Thomas Hardy at home), and was detained for several

weeks at The New London inn, Exeter, by a bad fit of hemorrhage. His

correspondence is not resumed until the autumn.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 22, 1885._

MY DEAR LOW,--I trust you are not annoyed with me beyond forgiveness;

for indeed my silence has been devilish prolonged. I can only tell you

that I have been nearly six months (more than six) in a strange

condition of collapse, when it was impossible to do any work, and

difficult (more difficult than you would suppose) to write the merest

note. I am now better, but not yet my own man in the way of brains, and

in health only so-so. I suppose I shall learn (I begin to think I am

learning) to fight this vast, vague feather-bed of an obsession that now

overlies and smothers me; but in the beginnings of these conflicts, the

inexperienced wrestler is always worsted, and I own I have been quite

extinct. I wish you to know, though it can be no excuse, that you are

not the only one of my friends by many whom I have thus neglected; and

even now, having come so very late into the possession of myself, with a

substantial capital of debts, and my work still moving with a desperate

slowness--as a child might fill a sandbag with its little handfuls--and

my future deeply pledged, there is almost a touch of virtue in my

borrowing these hours to write to you. Why I said "hours" I know not; it

would look blue for both of us if I made good the word.

I was writing your address the other day, ordering a copy of my next,

_Prince Otto_, to go your way. I hope you have not seen it in parts; it

was not meant to be so read; and only my poverty (dishonourably)

consented to the serial evolution.

I will send you with this a copy of the English edition of the _Child's

Garden_. I have heard there is some vile rule of the post-office in the

States against inscriptions; so I send herewith a piece of doggerel

which Mr. Bunner may, if he thinks fit, copy off the fly-leaf.

Sargent was down again and painted a portrait of me walking about in my

own dining-room, in my own velveteen jacket, and twisting as I go my own

moustache; at one corner a glimpse of my wife, in an Indian dress, and

seated in a chair that was once my grandfather's, but since some months

goes by the name of Henry James's--for it was there the novelist loved

to sit--adds a touch of poesy and comicality. It is, I think, excellent,

but is too eccentric to be exhibited. I am at one extreme corner; my

wife, in this wild dress, and looking like a ghost, is at the extreme

other end; between us an open door exhibits my palatial entrance hall

and a part of my respected staircase. All this is touched in lovely,

with that witty touch of Sargent's; but, of course, it looks dam queer

as a whole.

Pray let me hear from you, and give me good news of yourself and your

wife, to whom please remember me.--Yours most sincerely, my dear Low,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. E. HENLEY

_Prince Otto_ was published in October of this year; and the

following refers to two reviews of it--one of them by Mr. Henley,

which to the writer's displeasure had been pruned by the editor

before printing; the other by a writer in the Saturday Review who

declared that Otto was "a fool and a wittol," and could see nothing

but false style in the story of Seraphina's flight through the

forest.

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Autumn 1885.]_

DEAR LAD,--If there was any more praise in what you wrote, I think [the

editor] has done us both a service; some of it stops my throat. What, it

would not have been the same if Dumas or Musset had done it, would it

not? Well, no, I do not think it would, do you know, now; I am really of

opinion it would not; and a dam good job too. Why, think what Musset

would have made of Otto! Think how gallantly Dumas would have carried

his crowd through! And whatever you do, don't quarrel with ----. It

gives me much pleasure to see your work there; I think you do yourself

great justice in that field; and I would let no annoyance, petty or

justifiable, debar me from such a market. I think you do good there.

Whether (considering our intimate relations) you would not do better to

refrain from reviewing me, I will leave to yourself: were it all on my

side, you could foresee my answer; but there is your side also, where

you must be the judge.

As for the Saturday. Otto is no "fool," the reader is left in no doubt

as to whether or not Seraphina was a Messalina (though much it would

matter, if you come to that); and therefore on both these points the

reviewer has been unjust. Secondly, the romance lies precisely in the

freeing of two spirits from these court intrigues; and here I think the

reviewer showed himself dull. Lastly, if Otto's speech is offensive to

him, he is one of the large class of unmanly and ungenerous dogs who

arrogate and defile the name of manly. As for the passages quoted, I do

confess that some of them reek Gongorically; they are excessive, but

they are not inelegant after all. However, had he attacked me only

there, he would have scored.

Your criticism on Gondremark is, I fancy, right. I thought all your

criticisms were indeed; only your praise--chokes me.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

The paper referred to in this and the following letters is one which

Mr. Archer wrote over his own signature in the November number of

Time, a magazine now extinct.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 28, 1885._

DEAR MR. ARCHER,--I have read your paper with my customary admiration;

it is very witty, very adroit; it contains a great deal that is

excellently true (particularly the parts about my stories and the

description of me as an artist in life); but you will not be surprised

if I do not think it altogether just. It seems to me, in particular,

that you have wilfully read all my works in terms of my earliest; my

aim, even in style, has quite changed in the last six or seven years;

and this I should have thought you would have noticed. Again, your first

remark upon the affectation of the italic names; a practice only

followed in my two affected little books of travel, where a

typographical _minauderie_ of the sort appeared to me in character; and

what you say of it, then, is quite just. But why should you forget

yourself and use these same italics as an index to my theology some

pages further on? This is lightness of touch indeed; may I say, it is

almost sharpness of practice?

Excuse these remarks. I have been on the whole much interested, and

sometimes amused. Are you aware that the praiser of this "brave

gymnasium" has not seen a canoe nor taken a long walk since '79? that he

is rarely out of the house nowadays, and carries his arm in a sling? Can

you imagine that he is a back-slidden communist, and is sure he will go

to hell (if there be such an excellent institution) for the luxury in

which he lives? And can you believe that, though it is gaily expressed,

the thought is hag and skeleton in every moment of vacuity or

depression? Can you conceive how profoundly I am irritated by the

opposite affectation to my own, when I see strong men and rich men

bleating about their sorrows and the burthen of life, in a world full of

"cancerous paupers," and poor sick children, and the fatally bereaved,

ay, and down even to such happy creatures as myself, who has yet been

obliged to strip himself, one after another, of all the pleasures that

he had chosen except smoking (and the days of that I know in my heart

ought to be over), I forgot eating, which I still enjoy, and who sees

the circle of impotence closing very slowly but quite steadily around

him? In my view, one dank, dispirited word is harmful, a crime of

_lese-humanite_, a piece of acquired evil; every gay, every bright word

or picture, like every pleasant air of music, is a piece of pleasure set

afloat; the reader catches it, and, if he be healthy, goes on his way

rejoicing; and it is the business of art so to send him, as often as

possible.

For what you say, so kindly, so prettily, so precisely, of my style, I

must in particular thank you; though even here, I am vexed you should

not have remarked on my attempted change of manner: seemingly this

attempt is still quite unsuccessful! Well, we shall fight it out on

this line if it takes all summer.

And now for my last word: Mrs. Stevenson is very anxious that you should

see me, and that she should see you, in the flesh. If you at all share

in these views, I am a fixture. Write or telegraph (giving us time,

however, to telegraph in reply, lest the day be impossible), and come

down here to a bed and a dinner. What do you say, my dear critic? I

shall be truly pleased to see you; and to explain at greater length what

I meant by saying narrative was the most characteristic mood of

literature, on which point I have great hopes I shall persuade

you.--Yours truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--My opinion about Thoreau, and the passage in The Week, is

perhaps a fad, but it is sincere and stable. I am still of the same mind

five years later; did you observe that I had said "modern" authors? and

will you observe again that this passage touches the very joint of our

division? It is one that appeals to me, deals with that part of life

that I think the most important, and you, if I gather rightly, so much

less so? You believe in the extreme moment of the facts that humanity

has acquired and is acquiring; I think them of moment, but still of much

less than those inherent or inherited brute principles and laws that sit

upon us (in the character of conscience) as heavy as a shirt of mail,

and that (in the character of the affections and the airy spirit of

pleasure) make all the light of our lives. The house is, indeed, a great

thing, and should be rearranged on sanitary principles; but my heart and

all my interest are with the dweller, that ancient of days and day-old

infant man.

R. L. S.

An excellent touch is p. 584. "By instinct or design he eschews what

demands constructive patience." I believe it is both; my theory is that

literature must always be most at home in treating movement and change;

hence I look for them.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 28, 1885._

MY DEAREST FATHER,--Get the November number of Time, and you will see a

review of me by a very clever fellow, who is quite furious at bottom

because I am too orthodox, just as Purcell was savage because I am not

orthodox enough. I fall between two stools. It is odd, too, to see how

this man thinks me a full-blooded fox-hunter, and tells me my philosophy

would fail if I lost my health or had to give up exercise!

An illustrated _Treasure Island_ will be out next month. I have had an

early copy, and the French pictures are admirable. The artist has got

his types up in Hogarth; he is full of fire and spirit, can draw and can

compose, and has understood the book as I meant it, all but one or two

little accidents, such as making the _Hispaniola_ a brig. I would send

you my copy, _but I cannot_; it is my new toy, and I cannot divorce

myself from this enjoyment.

I am keeping really better, and have been out about every second day,

though the weather is cold and very wild.

I was delighted to hear you were keeping better; you and Archer would

agree, more shame to you! (Archer is my pessimist critic.) Good-bye to

all of you, with my best love. We had a dreadful overhauling of my

conduct as a son the other night; and my wife stripped me of my

illusions and made me admit I had been a detestable bad one. Of one

thing in particular she convicted me in my own eyes: I mean, a most

unkind reticence, which hung on me then, and I confess still hangs on me

now, when I try to assure you that I do love you.--Ever your bad son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO HENRY JAMES

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, October 28, 1885._

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--At last, my wife being at a concert, and a story

being done, I am at some liberty to write and give you of my views. And

first, many thanks for the works that came to my sickbed. And second,

and more important, as to the _Princess_.[13] Well, I think you are

going to do it this time; I cannot, of course, foresee, but these two

first numbers seem to me picturesque and sound and full of lineament,

and very much a new departure. As for your young lady, she is all there;

yes, sir, you can do low life, I believe. The prison was excellent; it

was of that nature of touch that I sometimes achingly miss from your

former work; with some of the grime, that is, and some of the emphasis

of skeleton there is in nature. I pray you to take grime in a good

sense; it need not be ignoble: dirt may have dignity; in nature it

usually has; and your prison was imposing.

And now to the main point: why do we not see you? Do not fail us. Make

an alarming sacrifice, and let us see "Henry James's chair" properly

occupied. I never sit in it myself (though it was my grandfather's); it

has been consecrated to guests by your approval, and now stands at my

elbow gaping. We have a new room, too, to introduce to you--our last

baby, the drawing-room; it never cries, and has cut its teeth. Likewise,

there is a cat now. It promises to be a monster of laziness and

self-sufficiency.

Pray see, in the November Time (a dread name for a magazine of light

reading), a very clever fellow, W. Archer, stating his views of me; the

rosy-gilled "athletico-aesthete"; and warning me, in a fatherly manner,

that a rheumatic fever would try my philosophy (as indeed it would), and

that my gospel would not do for "those who are shut out from the

exercise of any manly virtue save renunciation." To those who know that

rickety and cloistered spectre, the real R. L. S., the paper, besides

being clever in itself, presents rare elements of sport. The critical

parts are in particular very bright and neat, and often excellently

true. Get it by all manner of means.

I hear on all sides I am to be attacked as an immoral writer; this is

painful. Have I at last got, like you, to the pitch of being attacked?

'Tis the consecration I lack--and could do without. Not that Archer's

paper is an attack, or what either he or I, I believe, would call one;

'tis the attacks on my morality (which I had thought a gem of the first

water) I referred to.

Now, my dear James, come--come--come. The spirit (that is me) says,

Come; and the bride (and that is my wife) says, Come; and the best thing

you can do for us and yourself and your work is to get up and do so

right away.--Yours affectionately,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] October 30, 1885._

DEAR MR. ARCHER,--It is possible my father may be soon down with me; he

is an old man and in bad health and spirits; and I could neither leave

him alone, nor could we talk freely before him. If he should be here

when you offer your visit, you will understand if I have to say no, and

put you off.

I quite understand your not caring to refer to things of private

knowledge. What still puzzles me is how you ("in the witness box"--ha! I

like the phrase) should have made your argument actually hinge on a

contention which the facts answered.

I am pleased to hear of the correctness of my guess. It is then as I

supposed; you are of the school of the generous and not the sullen

pessimists; and I can feel with you. I used myself to rage when I saw

sick folk going by in their Bath-chairs; since I have been sick myself

(and always when I was sick myself), I found life, even in its rough

places, to have a property of easiness. That which we suffer ourselves

has no longer the same air of monstrous injustice and wanton cruelty

that suffering wears when we see it in the case of others. So we begin

gradually to see that things are not black, but have their strange

compensations; and when they draw towards their worst, the idea of death

is like a bed to lie on. I should bear false witness if I did not

declare life happy. And your wonderful statement that happiness tends to

die out and misery to continue, which was what put me on the track of

your frame of mind, is diagnostic of the happy man raging over the

misery of others; it could never be written by the man who had tried

what unhappiness was like. And at any rate, it was a slip of the pen:

the ugliest word that science has to declare is a reserved indifference

to happiness and misery in the individual; it declares no leaning toward

the black, no iniquity on the large scale in fate's doings, rather a

marble equality, dread not cruel, giving and taking away and

reconciling.

Why have I not written my _Timon_? Well, here is my worst quarrel with

you. You take my young books as my last word. The tendency to try to say

more has passed unperceived (my fault, that). And you make no allowance

for the slowness with which a man finds and tries to learn his tools. I

began with a neat brisk little style, and a sharp little knack of

partial observation; I have tried to expand my means, but still I can

only utter a part of what I wish to say, and am bound to feel; and much

of it will die unspoken. But if I had the pen of Shakespeare, I have no

_Timon_ to give forth. I feel kindly to the powers that be; I marvel

they should use me so well; and when I think of the case of others, I

wonder too, but in another vein, whether they may not, whether they

must not, be like me, still with some compensation, some delight. To

have suffered, nay, to suffer, sets a keen edge on what remains of the

agreeable. This is a great truth, and has to be learned in the

fire.--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

We expect you, remember that.

TO WILLIAM ARCHER

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, November 1, 1885._

DEAR MR. ARCHER,--You will see that I had already had a sight of your

article and what were my thoughts.

One thing in your letter puzzles me. Are you, too, not in the

witness-box? And if you are, why take a wilfully false hypothesis? If

you knew I was a chronic invalid, why say that my philosophy was

unsuitable to such a case? My call for facts is not so general as yours,

but an essential fact should not be put the other way about.

The fact is, consciously or not, you doubt my honesty; you think I am

making faces, and at heart disbelieve my utterances. And this I am

disposed to think must spring from your not having had enough of pain,

sorrow, and trouble in your existence. It is easy to have too much; easy

also or possible to have too little; enough is required that a man may

appreciate what elements of consolation and joy there are in everything

but absolutely overpowering physical pain or disgrace, and how in almost

all circumstances the human soul can play a fair part. You fear life, I

fancy, on the principle of the hand of little employment. But perhaps my

hypothesis is as unlike the truth as the one you chose. Well, if it be

so, if you have had trials, sickness, the approach of death, the

alienation of friends, poverty at the heels, and have not felt your

soul turn round upon these things and spurn them under--you must be very

differently made from me, and I earnestly believe from the majority of

men. But at least you are in the right to wonder and complain.

To "say all"? Stay here. All at once? That would require a word from the

pen of Gargantua. We say each particular thing as it comes up, and "with

that sort of emphasis that for the time there seems to be no other."

Words will not otherwise serve us; no, nor even Shakespeare, who could

not have put _As You Like It_ and _Timon_ into one without ruinous loss

both of emphasis and substance. Is it quite fair then to keep your face

so steadily On my most light-hearted works, and then say I recognise no

evil? Yet in the paper on Burns, for instance, I show myself alive to

some sorts of evil. But then, perhaps, they are not your sorts.

And again: "to say all"? All: yes. Everything: no. The task were

endless, the effect nil. But my all, in such a vast field as this of

life, is what interests me, what stands out, what takes on itself a

presence for my imagination or makes a figure in that little tricky

abbreviation which is the best that my reason can conceive. That I must

treat, or I shall be fooling with my readers. That, and not the all of

some one else.

And here we come to the division: not only do I believe that literature

should give joy, but I see a universe, I suppose, eternally different

from yours; a solemn, a terrible, but a very joyous and noble universe,

where suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls with

dispassionate partiality, but where it may be and generally is nobly

borne; where, above all (this I believe; probably you don't: I think he

may, with cancer), _any brave man may make_ out a life which shall be

happy for himself, and, by so being, beneficent to those about him. And

if he fails, why should I hear him weeping? I mean if I fail, why should

I weep? Why should _you_ hear _me_? Then to me morals, the conscience,

the affections, and the passions are, I will own frankly and sweepingly,

so infinitely more important than the other parts of life, that I

conceive men rather triflers who become immersed in the latter; and I

will always think the man who keeps his lip stiff, and makes "a happy

fireside clime," and carries a pleasant face about to friends and

neighbours, infinitely greater (in the abstract) than an atrabilious

Shakespeare or a backbiting Kant or Darwin. No offence to any of these

gentlemen, two of whom probably (one for certain) came up to my

standard.

And now enough said; it were hard if a poor man could not criticise

another without having so much ink shed against him. But I shall still

regret you should have written on an hypothesis you knew to be

untenable, and that you should thus have made your paper, for those who

do not know me, essentially unfair. The rich, fox-hunting squire speaks

with one voice; the sick man of letters with another.--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

(_Prometheus-Heine in minimis_).

_P.S._--Here I go again. To me, the medicine bottles on my chimney and

the blood on my handkerchief are accidents; they do not colour my view

of life, as you would know, I think, if you had experience of sickness;

they do not exist in my prospect; I would as soon drag them under the

eyes of my readers as I would mention a pimple I might chance to have

(saving your presence) on my posteriors. What does it prove? what does

it change? it has not hurt, it has not changed me in any essential part;

and I should think myself a trifler and in bad taste if I introduced the

world to these unimportant privacies.

But, again, there is this mountain-range between us--_that you do not

believe me_. It is not flattering, but the fault is probably in my

literary art.

TO W. H. LOW

The "other thing coming out" mentioned below in the last paragraph

but one was _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December 26, 1885._

MY DEAR LOW,--_Lamia_ has not yet turned up, but your letter came to me

this evening with a scent of the Boulevard Montparnasse that was

irresistible. The sand of Lavenue's crumbled under my heel; and the

bouquet of the old Fleury came back to me, and I remembered the day when

I found a twenty franc piece under my fetish. Have you that fetish

still? and has it brought you luck? I remembered, too, my first sight of

you in a frock-coat and a smoking-cap, when we passed the evening at the

Cafe de Medicis; and my last when we sat and talked in the Parc Monceau;

and all these things made me feel a little young again, which, to one

who has been mostly in bed for a month, was a vivifying change.

Yes, you are lucky to have a bag that holds you comfortably. Mine is a

strange contrivance; I don't die, damme, and I can't get along on both

feet to save my soul; I am a chronic sickist; and my work cripples along

between bed and the parlour, between the medicine bottle and the cupping

glass. Well, I like my life all the same; and should like it none the

worse if I could have another talk with you, though even my talks now

are measured out to me by the minute hand like poisons in a minim glass.

A photograph will be taken of my ugly mug and sent to you for ulterior

purposes: I have another thing coming out, which I did not put in the

way of the Scribners, I can scarce tell how; but I was sick and

penniless and rather back on the world, and mismanaged it. I trust they

will forgive me.

I am sorry to hear of Mrs. Low's illness, and glad to hear of her

recovery. I will announce the coming _Lamia_ to Bob: he steams away at

literature like smoke. I have a beautiful Bob on my walls, and a good

Sargent, and a delightful Lemon; and your etching now hangs framed in

the dining-room. So the arts surround me.--Yours,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. DE MATTOS

With this cousin the writer had always been on terms of close

affection, and he now dedicated to her _The Strange Case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. In the dedication as published only the second

verse stands.

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] January 1st, 1886._

DEAREST KATHARINE,--Here, on a very little book and accompanied with

lame verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is now getting well on

in years; it must be nearly of age; and it gets more valuable to me with

every time I see you. It is not possible to express any sentiment, and

it is not necessary to try, at least between us. You know very well that

I love you dearly, and that I always will. I only wish the verses were

better, but at least you like the story; and it is sent to you by the

one that loves you--Jekyll, and not Hyde.

_R. L. S._

_Ave!_

Bells upon the city are ringing in the night;

High above the gardens are the houses full of light;

On the heathy Pentlands is the curlew flying free;

And the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.

We cannae break the bonds that God decreed to bind,

Still we'll be the children of the heather and the wind;

Far away from home, O, it's still for you and me

That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.

R. L. S.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] Jan. 1st, 1886._

MY DEAR KINNICUM,[14]--I am a very bad dog, but not for the first time.

Your book, which is very interesting, came duly; and I immediately got

a very bad cold indeed, and have been fit for nothing whatever. I am a

bit better now, and aye on the mend; so I write to tell you, I thought

of you on New Year's Day; though, I own, it would have been more decent

if I had thought in time for you to get my letter then. Well, what can't

be cured must be endured, Mr. Lawrie; and you must be content with what

I give. If I wrote all the letters I ought to write, and at the proper

time, I should be very good and very happy; but I doubt if I should do

anything else.

I suppose you will be in town for the New Year; and I hope your health

is pretty good. What you want is diet; but it is as much use to tell you

that as it is to tell my father. And I quite admit a diet is a beastly

thing. I doubt, however, if it be as bad as not being allowed to speak,

which I have tried fully, and do not like. When, at the same time, I was

not allowed to read, it passed a joke. But these are troubles of the

past, and on this day, at least, it is proper to suppose they won't

return. But we are not put here to enjoy ourselves: it was not God's

purpose; and I am prepared to argue, it is not our sincere wish. As for

our deserts, the less said of them the better, for somebody might hear,

and nobody cares to be laughed at. A good man is a very noble thing to

see, but not to himself; what he seems to God is, fortunately, not our

business; that is the domain of faith; and whether on the first of

January or the thirty-first of December, faith is a good word to end on.

My dear Cummy, many happy returns to you and my best love.--The worst

correspondent in the world,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _January 1st, 1886_.

MY DEAR PEOPLE,--Many happy returns of the day to you all; I am fairly

well and in good spirits; and much and hopefully occupied with dear

Jenkin's life. The inquiry in every detail, every letter that I read,

makes me think of him more nobly. I cannot imagine how I got his

friendship; I did not deserve it. I believe the notice will be

interesting and useful.

My father's last letter, owing to the use of a quill pen and the neglect

of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. Every one tried, and every

one failed to decipher an important word on which the interest of one

whole clause (and the letter consisted of two) depended.

I find I can make little more of this; but I'll spare the blots.--Dear

people, ever your loving son,

R. L. S.

I will try again, being a giant refreshed by the house being empty. The

presence of people is the great obstacle to letter-writing. I deny that

letters should contain news (I mean mine; those of other people should).

But mine should contain appropriate sentiments and humorous nonsense, or

nonsense without the humour. When the house is empty, the mind is seized

with a desire--no, that is too strong--a willingness to pour forth

unmitigated rot, which constitutes (in me) the true spirit of

correspondence. When I have no remarks to offer (and nobody to offer

them to), my pen flies, and you see the remarkable consequence of a page

literally covered with words and genuinely devoid of sense. I can always

do that, if quite alone, and I like doing it; but I have yet to learn

that it is beloved by correspondents. The deuce of it is, that there is

no end possible but the end of the paper; and as there is very little

left of that--if I cannot stop writing--suppose you give up reading. It

would all come to the same thing; and I think we should all be

happier....

TO W. H. LOW

In the following letter R. L. S. accepts the dedication of Mr. Low's

illustrated edition of Keats's _Lamia_, and sends him in return the

newly published _Jekyll and Hyde_, and a set of verses afterwards

printed in the Century Magazine and _Underwoods_, and inscribed by

Mr. St. Gaudens on his medallion portrait of the author. The terms of

the _Lamia_ dedication are as follows: "In testimony of loyal

friendship and of a common faith in doubtful tales from Faery-Land, I

dedicate to Robert Louis Stevenson my work in this book." The Latin

legend inscribed above the design runs: "Neque est ullum certius

amicitiae vinculum quam consensus et societas consiliorum et

voluntatum."

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _Jan. 2nd, 1886._

MY DEAR LOW,--_Lamia_ has come, and I do not know how to thank you, not

only for the beautiful art of the designs, but for the handsome and apt

words of the dedication. My favourite is "Bathes unseen," which is a

masterpiece; and the next, "Into the green recessed woods," is perhaps

more remarkable, though it does not take my fancy so imperiously. The

night scene at Corinth pleases me also. The second part offers fewer

opportunities. I own I should like to see both _Isabella_ and the _Eve_

thus illustrated; and then there's _Hyperion_--O, yes, and _Endymion_! I

should like to see the lot: beautiful pictures dance before me by

hundreds: I believe _Endymion_ would suit you best. It also is in

faery-land; and I see a hundred opportunities, cloudy and flowery

glories, things as delicate as the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in

themselves of any mighty purport, but made for the pencil: the feast of

Pan, Peona's isle, the "slabbed margin of a well," the chase of the

butterfly, the nymph, Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of

unconnected beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the bosom of

the publisher.

What is more important, I accept the terms of the dedication with a

frank heart, and the terms of your Latin legend fairly. The sight of

your pictures has once more awakened me to my right mind; something may

come of it; yet one more bold push to get free of this prison-yard of

the abominably ugly, where I take my daily exercise with my

contemporaries. I do not know, I have a feeling in my bones, a sentiment

which may take on the forms of imagination, or may not. If it does, I

shall owe it to you; and the thing will thus descend from Keats even if

on the wrong side of the blanket. If it can be done in prose--that is

the puzzle--I divagate again. Thank you again: you can draw and yet you

do not love the ugly: what are you doing in this age? Flee, while it is

yet time; they will have your four limbs pinned upon a stable door to

scare witches. The ugly, my unhappy friend, is _de rigueur_: it is the

only wear! What a chance you threw away with the serpent! Why had

Apollonius no pimples? Heavens, my dear Low, you do not know your

business....

I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph; but the gnome

is interesting, I think, and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards

the fountain of tears. It is not always the time to rejoice.--Yours

ever,

R. L. S.

The gnome's name is _Jekyll & Hyde_; I believe you will find he is

likewise quite willing to answer to the name of Low or Stevenson.

_Same day._--I have copied out on the other sheet some bad verses, which

somehow your picture suggested; as a kind of image of things that I

pursue and cannot reach, and that you seem--no, not to have reached--but

to have come a thought nearer to than I. This is the life we have

chosen: well, the choice was mad, but I should make it again.

What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be printed in (say) the

Century for the sake of my name; and if that were possible, they might

advertise your book. It might be headed as sent in acknowledgment of

your _Lamia_. Or perhaps it might be introduced by the phrases I have

marked above. I dare say they would stick it in: I want no payment,

being well paid by _Lamia_. If they are not, keep them to yourself.

TO WILL H. LOW

_Damned bad lines in return for a beautiful book_

YOUTH now flees on feathered foot.

Faint and fainter sounds the flute;

Rarer songs of Gods.

And still,

Somewhere on the sunny hill,

Or along the winding stream.

Through the willows, flits a dream;

Flits, but shows a smiling face,

Flees, but with so quaint a grace,

None can choose to stay at home,

All must follow--all must roam.

This is unborn beauty: she

Now in air floats high and free,

Takes the sun, and breaks the blue;--

Late, with stooping pinion flew

Raking hedgerow trees, and wet

Her wing in silver streams, and set

Shining foot on temple roof.

Now again she flies aloof,

Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed

By the evening's amethyst.

In wet wood and miry lane

Still we pound and pant in vain;

Still with earthy foot we chase

Waning pinion, fainting face;

Still, with grey hair, we stumble on

Till--behold!--the vision gone!

Where has fleeting beauty led?

To the doorway of the dead!

[Life is gone, but life was gay:

We have come the primrose way!][15]

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886._

MY DEAR GOSSE,--Thank you for your letter, so interesting to my vanity.

There is a review in the St. James's, which, as it seems to hold

somewhat of your opinions, and is besides written with a pen and not a

poker, we think may possibly be yours. The _Prince_[16] has done fairly

well in spite of the reviews, which have been bad: he was, as you

doubtless saw, well slated in the Saturday; one paper received it as a

child's story; another (picture my agony) described it as a "Gilbert

comedy." It was amusing to see the race between me and Justin M'Carthy:

the Milesian has won by a length.