That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and you take longer

over your work, and it will not be so successful as if you had aimed low

and rushed it. What the public likes is work (of any kind) a little

loosely executed; so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a

little dim and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if

possible) be a little dull into the bargain. I know that good work

sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my heart, I think it is by an

accident. And I know also that good work must succeed at last; but that

is not the doing of the public; they are only shamed into silence or

affectation. I do not write for the public; I do write for money, a

nobler deity; and most of all for myself, not perhaps any more noble,

but both more intelligent and nearer home.

Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast whom

we feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press is the

mouth of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an university chair,

and everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its

abode and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but men, and not all of

these--and fewer women. As for respecting the race, and, above all, that

fatuous rabble of burgesses called "the public," God save me from such

irreligion!--that way lies disgrace and dishonour. There must be

something wrong in me, or I would not be popular.

This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and permanent opinion.

Not much, I think. As for the art that we practise, I have never been

able to see why its professors should be respected. They chose the

primrose path; when they found it was not all primroses, but some of it

brambly, and much of it uphill, they began to think and to speak of

themselves as holy martyrs. But a man is never martyred in any honest

sense in the pursuit of his pleasure; and _delirium tremens_ has more of

the honour of the cross. We were full of the pride of life, and chose,

like prostitutes, to live by a pleasure. We should be paid if we give

the pleasure we pretend to give; but why should we be honoured?

I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a Sunday; but we must

wait till I am able to see people. I am very full of Jenkin's life; it

is painful, yet very pleasant, to dig into the past of a dead friend,

and find him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I own, as I read, I

wonder more and more why he should have taken me to be a friend. He had

many and obvious faults upon the face of him; the heart was pure gold. I

feel it little pain to have lost him, for it is a loss in which I cannot

believe; I take it, against reason, for an absence; if not to-day, then

to-morrow, I still fancy I shall see him in the door; and then, now when

I know him better, how glad a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in the

immortality business, the world would indeed be too good to be true; but

we were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire:

the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps

well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly

day by day; and they are enough for a man who knows his own frailty and

sees all things in the proportion of reality. The soul of piety was

killed long ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether

eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but

his wayside campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for the

struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the condition that

he is opposed. How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious,

so made up of discontent and aspiration, and such noble and uneasy

passions--how can he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud;

for man's cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he

continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior

happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop and taste it; he

can be about the rugged and bitter business where his heart lies; and

yet he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, and

enjoy the notion that he is both himself and something else; and that

his friends will yet meet him, all ironed out and emasculate, and still

be lovable,--as if love did not live in the faults of the beloved only,

and draw its breath in an unbroken round of forgiveness! But the truth

is, we must fight until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet

for mankind but complete resumption into--what?--God, let us say--when

all these desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last.

Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short--_excusez_.

R. L. S.

TO JAMES PAYN

The late Mrs. Buckle, a daughter of Mr. James Payn married to the

editor of the Times, had laughingly remonstrated, through her father,

on recognising some features of her own house in Queen Square,

Bloomsbury, in the description of that tenanted by the fair Cuban in

the section of Stevenson's _Dynamiter_ which tells the story of the

Brown Box.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 2nd, 1886._

DEAR JAMES PAYN,--Your very kind letter came very welcome; and still

more welcome the news that you see ----'s tale. I will now tell you (and

it was very good and very wise of me not to tell it before) that he is

one of the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money into a

pharmacy at Hyeres, when the cholera (certainly not his fault) swept

away his customers in a body. Thus you can imagine the pleasure I have

to announce to him a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy,

doing nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts inexorably

mount up.

To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not one

of those that can be read running; and the name of your daughter remains

for me undecipherable. I call her, then, your daughter--and a very good

name too--and I beg to explain how it came about that I took her house.

The hospital was a point in my tale; but there is a house on each side.

Now the true house is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If

not, what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true?

Everything in the _Dynamiter_ is not true; but the story of the Brown

Box is, in almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear

to it. It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in

that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very bad

society.

But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter's house has not a balcony at

the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that side of Queen

Square from the pavement and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence I

saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there is none to the

particular house in question, it must have been so arranged to spite me.

I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three questions

to your daughter:--

1st. Has her house the proper terrace?

2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital?

3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884?

You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on

some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If

this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper

certificate, and her house property will return to its original value.

Can man say more?--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir

Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of

Zero.

TO W. H. LOW

The late Sir Percy and Lady Shelley had in these days attached

themselves warmly to R. L. S., and saw in his ways and character a

living image of those of the poet, Sir Percy's father, as they

imagined him.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. Somethingorother-th, 1886._

MY DEAR LOW,--I send you two photographs: they are both done by Sir

Percy Shelley, the poet's son, which may interest. The sitting down one

is, I think, the best; but if they choose that, see that the little

reflected light on the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be

tragic. Don't forget "Baronet" to Sir Percy's name.

We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my

dedication.--Yours ever,

R. L. STEVENSON.

_P.S._--Apropos of the odd controversy about Shelley's nose: I have

before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley's son: my nose is

hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the accipitrine family in

man: well, out of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it

straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood of light on

calumnious man--and the scandal-mongering sun. For personally I cling to

my curve. To continue the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all

his sisters had noses like mine: Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the

family had high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this

turn-up (of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other

_fatras_) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened in

my photographs by his son?

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES J. GUTHRIE

"The lad" is Lloyd Osbourne, at this time a student at Edinburgh

University.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Jan. 18th, 1886._

MY DEAR GUTHRIE,--I hear the lad has got into the Spec. and I write to

thank you very warmly for the part you have played. I only wish we were

both going there together to-morrow night, and you would be in the

secretary's place (that so well became you, sir) and I were to open a

debate or harry you on "Private Business," and Omond perhaps to read us

a few glowing pages on--the siege of Saragossa, was it? or the Battle of

Saratoga? my memory fails me, but I have not forgotten a certain white

charger that careered over the fields of incoherent fight with a

prodigious consequence of laughter: have you? I wonder, has Omond?

Well, well, _perierunt_, but, I hope, _non imputantur_. We have had good

fun.

Again thanking you sincerely, I remain, my dear Guthrie, your old

comrade,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

_Kidnapped_ had at this time just been taken up again, and Stevenson

explains the course of the story to his father, who had taken the

deepest interest in it since they visited together the scene of the

Appin murder.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 25, 1886._]

MY DEAR FATHER,--Many thanks for a letter quite like yourself. I quite

agree with you, and had already planned a scene of religion in

_Balfour_; the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge

furnishes me with a catechist whom I shall try to make the man. I have

another catechist, the blind, pistol-carrying highway robber, whom I

have transferred from the Long Island to Mull. I find it a most

picturesque period, and wonder Scott let it escape. The _Covenant_ is

lost on one of the Tarrans, and David is cast on Earraid, where (being

from inland) he is nearly starved before he finds out the island is

tidal; then he crosses Mull to Toronsay, meeting the blind catechist by

the way; then crosses Morven from Kinlochaline to Kingairloch, where he

stays the night with the good catechist; that is where I am; next day he

is to be put ashore in Appin, and be present at Colin Campbell's death.

To-day I rest, being a little run down. Strange how liable we are to

brain fag in this scooty family! But as far as I have got, all but the

last chapter, I think David is on his feet, and (to my mind) a far

better story and far sounder at heart than _Treasure Island_.

I have no earthly news, living entirely in my story, and only coming out

of it to play patience. The Shelleys are gone; the Taylors kinder than

can be imagined. The other day, Lady Taylor drove over and called on

me; she is a delightful old lady, and great fun. I mentioned a story

about the Duchess of Wellington--which I had heard Sir Henry tell; and

though he was very tired, he looked it up and copied it out for me in

his own hand.--Your most affectionate son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO C. W. STODDARD

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 13th, 1886._

MY DEAR STODDARD,--I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have at

last taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This is

already my sixth letter to-day, and I have many more waiting; and my

wrist gives me a jog on the subject of scrivener's cramp, which is not

encouraging.

I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you wrote your last. I

am as usual pretty cheerful, but not very strong. I stay in the house

all winter, which is base; but, as you continue to see, the pen goes

from time to time, though neither fast enough nor constantly enough to

please me.

My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and the interval of

widowery explains my writing. Another person writing for you when you

have done work is a great enemy to correspondence. To-day I feel out of

health, and shan't work; and hence this so much over-due reply.

I was re-reading some of your _South Sea Idyls_ the other day: some of

the chapters are very good indeed; some pages as good as they can be.

How does your class get along? If you like to touch on _Otto_, any day

in a by-hour, you may tell them--as the author's last dying

confession--that it is a strange example of the difficulty of being

ideal in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy-mindedness, which

spoils the book and often gives it a wanton air of unreality and

juggling with air-bells, comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too

great realism of some chapters and passages--some of which I have now

spotted, others I dare say I shall never spot--which disprepares the

imagination for the cast of the remainder.

Any story can be made _true_ in its own key; any story can be made

_false_ by the choice of a wrong key of detail or style: _Otto_ is made

to reel like a drunken--I was going to say man, but let us substitute

cipher--by the variations of the key. Have you observed that the famous

problem of realism and idealism is one purely of detail? Have you seen

my _Note on Realism_ in Cassell's Magazine of Art; and _Elements of

Style_ in the Contemporary; and _Romance_ and _Humble Apology_ in

Longman's? They are all in your line of business; let me know what you

have not seen and I'll send 'em.

I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was a pleasant old spot,

and I remember you there, though still more dearly in your own strange

den upon a hill in San Francisco; and one of the most San Francisco-y

parts of San Francisco.

Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

Concerning the payment which Mr. Gosse had procured him from an

American magazine for the set of verses addressed to Mr. Low (see

above, p. 172).

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Feb. 17, 1886._]

DEAR GOSSE,--Non, c'est honteux! for a set of shambling lines that don't

know whether they're trochees or what they are, that you or any of the

crafty ones would blush all over if you had so much as thought upon, all

by yourselves, in the water-closet. But God knows, I am glad enough of

five pounds; and this is almost as honest a way to get it as plain

theft, so what should I care?--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO J. A. SYMONDS

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth [Spring 1886]._

MY DEAR SYMONDS,--If we have lost touch, it is (I think) only in a

material sense; a question of letters, not hearts. You will find a warm

welcome at Skerryvore from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed, we never

tell ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run to Davos is a

prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship; and I think I can

promise you you have a pair of trusty well-wishers and friends in

Bournemouth: whether they write or not is but a small thing; the flag

may not be waved, but it is there.

_Jekyll_ is a dreadful thing, I own; but the only thing I feel dreadful

about is that damned old business of the war in the members. This time

it came out; I hope it will stay in, in future.

Raskolnikoff[17] is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years; I

am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: Henry James could not finish

it: all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was like having an

illness. James did not care for it because the character of Raskolnikoff

was not objective; and at that I divined a great gulf between us, and, on

further reflection, the existence of a certain impotence in many minds of

to-day, which prevents them from living in a book or a character, and

keeps them standing afar off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I

suppose the book may seem empty in the centre; to the others it is a

room, a house of life, into which they themselves enter, and are tortured

and purified. The Juge d'Instruction I thought a wonderful, weird,

touching, ingenious creation: the drunken father, and Sonia, and the

student friend, and the uncircumscribed, protoplasmic humanity of

Raskolnikoff, all upon a level that filled me with wonder: the execution

also, superb in places. Another has been translated--_Humilies et

Offenses_. It is even more incoherent than _Le Crime et le Chatiment_,

but breathes much of the same lovely goodness, and has passages of power.

Dostoieffsky is a devil of a swell, to be sure. Have you heard that he

became a stout, imperialist conservative? It is interesting to know. To

something of that side, the balance leans with me also in view of the

incoherency and incapacity of all. The old boyish idea of the march on

Paradise being now out of season, and all plans and ideas that I hear

debated being built on a superb indifference to the first principles of

human character, a helpless desire to acquiesce in anything of which I

know the worst assails me. Fundamental errors in human nature of two

sorts stand on the skyline of all this modern world of aspirations.

First, that it is happiness that men want; and second, that happiness

consists of anything but an internal harmony. Men do not want, and I do

not think they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry,

effort, success--the elements our friends wish to eliminate. And, on the

other hand, happiness is a question of morality--or of immorality, there

is no difference--and conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his

worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I suppose, in his

ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy in the detested camp; Pepys was

pretty happy, and I am pretty happy on the whole, because we both

somewhat crowingly accepted a _via media_, both liked to attend to our

affairs, and both had some success in managing the same. It is quite an

open question whether Pepys and I ought to be happy; on the other hand,

there is no doubt that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he

said it) that he was _la misere humaine_, cureless misery--unless perhaps

by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had

justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece

ornaments, the bourgeois (_quorum pars_), and their cowardly dislike of

dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly

they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment

and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two

flaunting emblems of their hollowness.

God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch.

Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I

have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle.

Pray don't fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment,

now it has been spoken of, if you do,--Yours ever,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO F. W. H. MYERS

In reply to a paper of criticisms on _Jekyll and Hyde_.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1st, 1886._

MY DEAR SIR,--I know not how to thank you: this is as handsome as it is

clever. With almost every word I agree--much of it I even knew

before--much of it, I must confess, would never have been, if I had been

able to do what I like, and lay the thing by for the matter of a year.

But the wheels of Byles the Butcher drive exceeding swiftly, and

_Jekyll_ was conceived, written, re-written, re-rewritten, and printed

inside ten weeks. Nothing but this white-hot haste would explain the

gross error of Hyde's speech at Lanyon's. Your point about the

specialised fiend is more subtle, but not less just: I had not seen

it.--About the picture, I rather meant that Hyde had brought it himself;

and Utterson's hypothesis of the gift (p. 42) an error.--The tidiness of

the room, I thought, but I dare say my psychology is here too ingenious

to be sound, was due to the dread weariness and horror of the

imprisonment. Something has to be done: he would tidy the room. But I

dare say it is false.

I shall keep your paper; and if ever my works come to be collected, I

will put my back into these suggestions. In the meanwhile, I do truly

lack words in which to express my sense of gratitude for the trouble you

have taken. The receipt of such a paper is more than a reward for my

labours. I have read it with pleasure, and as I say, I hope to use it

with profit.--Believe me, your most obliged,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO W. H. LOW

The following letter relates to a suggestion which Mr. Gilder, as

editor of the Century Magazine, had already made in the Hyeres time

nearly three years previously, and had now lately revived, that

Stevenson and his friend Mr. W. H. Low should make a joint excursion

down the Saone and Rhone, the result to be a book written by R. L. S.

and illustrated by Mr. Low. Considerations of health caused the plan

to be promptly abandoned for the second time.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._]

MY DEAR LOW,--This is the most enchanting picture. Now understand my

state: I am really an invalid, but of a mysterious order. I might be a

_malade imaginaire_, but for one too tangible symptom, my tendency to

bleed from the lungs. If we could go (_1st_) We must have money enough

to travel with _leisure and comfort_--especially the first. (_2nd_) You

must be prepared for a comrade who would go to bed some part of every

day and often stay silent. (_3rd_) You would have to play the part of a

thoughtful courier, sparing me fatigue, looking out that my bed was

warmed, etc. (_4th_) If you are very nervous, you must recollect a bad

hemorrhage is always on the cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and

horror for those who are beside me.

Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it.

If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, I believe the

trip might do me good, and I feel sure that, working together, we might

produce a fine book. The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have

adored it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train.

Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. I have stood the

winter hitherto with some credit, but the dreadful weather still

continues, and I cannot holloa till I am through the wood.

Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I embrace the prospect

with glorious feelings.

I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no circumstance of

pleasure except your letter. That, however, counts for much. I am glad

you liked the doggerel: I have already had a liberal cheque, over which

I licked my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to make

money by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is only too welcome

in my handsome but impecunious house.

Let me know soon what is to be expected--as far as it does not hang by

that inconstant quantity, my want of health. Remember me to Madam with

the best thanks and wishes; and believe me your friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Written just before a visit to London; not, this time, as my guest at

the British Museum, but to stay with his father at an hotel in

Fitzroy Square.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been reading the Vth and VIth Aeneid--the latter

for the first time--and am overpowered. That is one of the most

astonishing pieces of literature, or rather it contains the best, I ever

met with. We are all damned small fry, and Virgil is one of the tops of

human achievement; I never appreciated this; you should have a certain

age to feel this; it is no book for boys, who grind under the lack of

enterprise and dash, and pass ignorantly over miracles of performance

that leave an old hoary-headed practitioner like me stricken down with

admiration. Even as a boy, the Sibyl would have bust me; but I never

read the VIth till I began it two days ago; it is all fresh and

wonderful; do you envy me? If only I knew any Latin! if you had a decent

edition with notes--many notes--I should like well to have it; mine is a

damned Didot with not the ghost of a note, type that puts my eyes out,

and (I suspect) no very splendid text--but there, the carnal feelings of

the man who can't construe are probably parents to the suspicion.

My dear fellow, I would tenfold rather come to the Monument; but my

father is an old man, and if I go to town, it shall be (this time) for

his pleasure. He has many marks of age, some of childhood; I wish this

knighthood business could come off, though even the talk of it has been

already something, but the change (to my eyes) is thoroughly begun; and

a very beautiful, simple, honourable, high-spirited and child-like (and

childish) man is now in process of deserting us piecemeal. _Si quis

piorum_--God knows, not that he was pious, but he did his hand's darg or

tried to do it; and if not,--well, it is a melancholy business.--Yours

ever,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN

The first letter showing Stevenson's new interest in the

technicalities of music.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886._]

MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--I try to tell myself it is good nature, but I know

it is vanity that makes me write.

I have drafted the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming and his friends,

his influence on me, his views on religion and literature, his part at

the Savile; it should boil down to about ten pages, and I really do

think it admirably good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that

I found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after a serious talk

with him: surely that means it is good? I had to write and tell you,

being alone.

I have excellent news of Fanny, who is much better for the change. My

father is still very yellow, and very old, and very weak, but yesterday

he seemed happier, and smiled, and followed what was said; even laughed,

I think. When he came away, he said to me, "Take care of yourself, my

dearie," which had a strange sound of childish days, and will not leave

my mind.

You must get Litolf's _Gavottes Celebres_: I have made another trover

there: a musette of Lully's. The second part of it I have not yet got

the hang of; but the first--only a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful

and pretty hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the end of

it, this musette enters with the most really thrilling effect of simple

beauty. O--it's first-rate. I am quite mad over it. If you find other

books containing Lully, Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you

might tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be found. I

write all morning, come down, and never leave the piano till about five;

write letters, dine, get down again about eight, and never leave the

piano till I go to bed. This is a fine life.--Yours most sincerely,

R. L. S.

If you get the musette (Lully's), please tell me if I am right, and it

was probably written for strings. Anyway, it is as neat as--as neat as

Bach--on the piano; or seems so to my ignorance.

I play much of the Rigadoon; but it's strange, it don't come off _quite_

so well with me!

[Illustration]

There is the first part of the musette copied (from memory, so I hope

there's nothing wrong). Is it not angelic? But it ought, of course, to

have the gavotte before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote

thus (if I remember):--

[Illustration]

staccato, I think. Then you sail into the musette.

_N.B._--Where I have put an "A" is that a dominant eleventh, or what? or

just a seventh on the D? and if the latter, is that allowed? It sounds

very funny. Never mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which

is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble

questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The

whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could easily be played too

fast? The dignity must not be lost; the periwig feeling.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Written after his return from an excursion to Matlock with his

father, following on their visit to London. "The verses" means

_Underwoods_. The suppressed poem is that headed "To ----,"

afterwards printed in _Songs of Travel_.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is to announce to you, what I believe should have

been done sooner, that we are at Skerryvore. We were both tired, and I

was fighting my second cold, so we came straight through by the west.

We have a butler! He doesn't buttle, but the point of the thing is the

style. When Fanny gardens, he stands over her and looks genteel. He

opens the door, and I am told waits at table. Well, what's the odds; I

shall have it on my tomb--"He ran a butler."

He may have been this and that,

A drunkard or a guttler;

He may have been bald and fat--

At least he kept a butler.

He may have sprung from ill or well,

From Emperor or sutler;

He may be burning now in Hell--

On earth he kept a butler.

I want to tell you also that I have suppressed your poem. I shall send

it you for yourself, and I hope you will agree with me that it was not

good enough in point of view of merit, and a little too intimate as

between you and me. I would not say less of you, my friend, but I scarce

care to say so much in public while we live. A man may stand on his own

head; it is not fair to set his friend on a pedestal.

The verses are now at press; I have written a damn fine ballad.--And I

am, dear S. C., ever yours,

TOMNODDY.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

Want of health preventing the author at this time from carrying the

adventures of David Balfour, as narrated in _Kidnapped_, through to

their issue as originally designed, it was resolved to wind them up

for the present with the discomfiture of the wicked uncle, leaving

open the possibility of a sequel, which was supplied six years later

in _Catriona_.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886._]

MY DEAR FATHER,--The David problem has to-day been decided. I am to

leave the door open for a sequel if the public take to it, and this will

save me from butchering a lot of good material to no purpose. Your

letter from Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to

see; the hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am for action quite

unfit, and even a letter is beyond me; so pray take these scraps at a

vast deal more than their intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about

David, Colvin agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it far

the most human of my labours hitherto. As to whether the long-eared

British public may take to it, all think it more than doubtful; I wish

they would, for I could do a second volume with ease and pleasure, and

Colvin thinks it sin and folly to throw away David and Alan Breck upon

so small a field as this one.--Ever your affectionate son,

R. L. S.

TO MISS MONROE

The next is in answer to criticisms on _Prince Otto_ received from a

lady correspondent in Chicago.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, May 25th, 1886._

DEAR MISS MONROE,--(I hope I have this rightly) I must lose no time in

thanking you for a letter singularly pleasant to receive. It may

interest you to know that I read to the signature without suspecting my

correspondent was a woman; though in one point (a reference to the

Countess) I might have found a hint of the truth. You are not pleased

with Otto; since I judge you do not like weakness; and no more do I. And

yet I have more than tolerance for Otto, whose faults are the faults of

weakness, but never of ignoble weakness, and who seeks before all to be

both kind and just. Seeks, not succeeds. But what is man? So much of

cynicism to recognise that nobody does right is the best equipment for

those who do not wish to be cynics in good earnest. Think better of

Otto, if my plea can influence you; and this I mean for your own

sake--not his, poor fellow, as he will never learn your opinion; but for

yours, because, as men go in this world (and women too), you will not go

far wrong if you light upon so fine a fellow; and to light upon one and

not perceive his merits is a calamity. In the flesh, of course, I mean;

in the book the fault, of course, is with my stumbling pen. Seraphina

made a mistake about her Otto; it begins to swim before me dimly that

you may have some traits of Seraphina?

With true ingratitude you see me pitch upon your exception; but it is

easier to defend oneself gracefully than to acknowledge praise. I am

truly glad that you should like my books; for I think I see from what

you write that you are a reader worth convincing. Your name, if I have

properly deciphered it, suggests that you may be also something of my

countrywoman; for it is hard to see where Monroe came from, if not from

Scotland. I seem to have here a double claim on your good nature: being

myself pure Scotch and having appreciated your letter, make up two

undeniable merits which, perhaps, if it should be quite without trouble,

you might reward with your photograph.--Yours truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Evidently written about the 10th of June, very soon after the

decision of Mr. Gladstone to dissolve Parliament on the defeat of the

Home Rule Bill (June 8). As to the _Travelling Companion_, see above,

p. 68.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am in bed again--bloodie jackery and be damned to it.

Lloyd is better, I think; and money matters better; only my rascal

carcase, and the muddy and oily lees of what was once my immortal soul

are in a poor and pitiful condition.

LITANY

Damn the political situation

" you

" me

and

" Gladstone.

I am a kind of dam home ruler, worse luck to it. I would support almost

anything but that bill. How am I to vote? Great Caesar's Ghost!--Ever

yours,

R. L. S.

O! the _Travelling Companion_ won't do; I am back on it entirely: it is

a foul, gross, bitter, ugly daub, with lots of stuff in it, and no

urbanity and no glee and no true tragedy--to the crows with it, a

carrion tale! I will do no more carrion, I have done too much in this

carrion epoch; I will now be clean; and by clean, I don't mean any folly

about purity, but such things as a healthy man with his bowels open

shall find fit to see and speak about without a pang of nausea.--I am,

yours,

A REPENTANT DANKIST.

The lakeists, the drainists, the brookists, and the riverites; let me be

a brookist, _faute de mieux_.

I did enjoy myself in town, and was a thousandfold the better of it.

TO MISS MONROE

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886._]

MY DEAR MISS MONROE,--I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid;

yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible

you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure,

as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The

interest taken in an author is fragile: his next book, or your next year

of culture, might see the interest frosted or outgrown; and himself, in

spite of all, you might probably find the most distasteful person upon

earth. My case is different. I have bad health, am often condemned to

silence for days together--was so once for six weeks, so that my voice

was awful to hear when I first used it, like the whisper of a

shadow--have outlived all my chief pleasures, which were active and

adventurous, and ran in the open air: and being a person who prefers

life to art, and who knows it is a far finer thing to be in love, or to

risk a danger, than to paint the finest picture or write the noblest

book, I begin to regard what remains to me of my life as very shadowy.

From a variety of reasons, I am ashamed to confess I was much in this

humour when your letter came. I had a good many troubles; was regretting

a high average of sins; had been recently reminded that I had outlived

some friends, and wondering if I had not outlived some friendships; and

had just, while boasting of better health, been struck down again by my

haunting enemy, an enemy who was exciting at first, but has now, by the

iteration of his strokes, become merely annoying and inexpressibly

irksome. Can you fancy that to a person drawing towards the elderly this

sort of conjunction of circumstances brings a rather aching sense of the

past and the future? Well, it was just then that your letter and your

photograph were brought to me in bed; and there came to me at once the

most agreeable sense of triumph. My books were still young; my words had

their good health and could go about the world and make themselves

welcome; and even (in a shadowy and distant sense) make something in the

nature of friends for the sheer hulk that stays at home and bites his

pen over the manuscripts. It amused me very much to remember that I had

been in Chicago, not so many years ago, in my proper person; where I had

failed to awaken much remark, except from the ticket collector; and to

think how much more gallant and persuasive were the fellows that I now

send instead of me, and how these are welcome in that quarter to the

sitter of Herr Platz, while their author was not very welcome even in

the villainous restaurant where he tried to eat a meal and rather

failed.

And this leads me directly to a confession. The photograph which shall

accompany this is not chosen as the most like, but the best-looking.

Put yourself in my place, and you will call this pardonable. Even as it

is, even putting forth a flattered presentment, I am a little pained;

and very glad it is a photograph and not myself that has to go; for in

this case, if it please you, you can tell yourself it is my image--and

if it displease you, you can lay the blame on the photographer; but in

that, there were no help, and the poor author might belie his labours.

_Kidnapped_ should soon appear; I am afraid you may not like it, as it

is very unlike _Prince Otto_ in every way; but I am myself a great

admirer of the two chief characters, Alan and David. _Virginibus

Puerisque_ has never been issued in the States. I do not think it is a

book that has much charm for publishers in any land; but I am to bring

out a new edition in England shortly, a copy of which I must try to

remember to send you. I say try to remember, because I have some

superficial acquaintance with myself: and I have determined, after a

galling discipline, to promise nothing more until the day of my death:

at least, in this way, I shall no more break my word, and I must now try

being churlish instead of being false.

I do not believe you to be the least like Seraphina. Your photograph has

no trace of her, which somewhat relieves me, as I am a good deal afraid

of Seraphinas--they do not always go into the woods and see the sunrise,

and some are so well-mailed that even that experience would leave them

unaffected and unsoftened. The "hair and eyes of several complexions"

was a trait taken from myself; and I do not bind myself to the opinions

of Sir John. In this case, perhaps--but no, if the peculiarity is shared

by two such pleasant persons as you and I (as you and me--the

grammatical nut is hard), it must be a very good thing indeed, and Sir

John must be an ass.

The Book Reader notice was a strange jumble of fact and fancy. I wish

you could have seen my father's old assistant and present partner when

he heard my father described as an "inspector of lighthouses," for we

are all very proud of the family achievements, and the name of my house

here in Bournemouth is stolen from one of the sea-towers of the Hebrides

which are our pyramids and monuments. I was never at Cambridge, again;

but neglected a considerable succession of classes at Edinburgh. But to

correct that friendly blunderer were to write an autobiography.--And so

now, with many thanks, believe me yours sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

Accompanying a presentation copy of _Kidnapped_. Alison Cunningham's

maiden name had been Hastie.

[_Bournemouth, July 1886._]

MY DEAR CUMMY,--Herewith goes my new book, in which you will find some

places that you know: I hope you will like it: I do. The name of the

girl at Limekilns (as will appear if the sequel is ever written) was

Hastie, and I conceive she was an ancestor of yours: as David was no

doubt some kind of relative of mine.

I have no time for more, but send my love, and remembrances to your

brother.--Ever your affectionate

R. L. S.

TO R. A. M. STEVENSON

During these months, as already indicated, Stevenson was very much

taken up, in by-hours, with trying to learn something of the theory

and practice of music, and spent much of his time "pickling," as he

called it, in an elementary manner on the piano. He even tried his

hand in an experimental way at composition, and had sent one of his

attempts for criticism to his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, who was

better versed in the art.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._

SIR,--Your foolish letter was unduly received. There may be hidden

fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam spontaneous the thing was. I

could tinker and tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper, but scorned the act

with a Threnody, which was poured forth like blood and water on the

groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) remained

unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: crystallised emotion, the

statement and the reconciliation of the sorrows of the race and the

individual, is obviously no more to you than supping sawdust. Well,

well. If ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably be a

Passepied and fugue in G (or D).

The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged Spanish

filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some freedom (1) the

refrain of _Martini's Moutons_; (2) _Sul margine d'un rio_, arranged for

the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase of Bach's

musette (Sweet Englishwoman,[18] No. 3), the rest of the musette being

one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health.

All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R.

L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged

and melancholy croppers.... I find one can get a notion of music very

nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have

arranged _La dove prende_, almost to the end, for two melodious

forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler _Colomba o

tortorella_ for the same instruments.

This day is published

The works of Ludwig van Beethoven

arranged

and wiederdurchgearbeiteted

for two melodious forefingers

by,

Sir,--Your obedient servant,

PIMPERLY STIPPLE.

That's a good idea? There's a person called Lenz who actually does

it--beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies on him, and found the

bleeding corpses of pieces of music divorced from their keys, despoiled

of their graces, and even changed in time; I do not wish to regard music

(nor to be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You say you are "a

spoon-fed idiot"; but how about Lenz? And how about me, sir, me?

I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, an empty

matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a bell from a cat's collar, an

iron kitchen spoon, and a piece of coal more than half the superficies

of this sheet of paper. They are now (appropriately enough) speeding

towards the Silly Isles; I hope he will find them useful. By that, and

my telegram with prepaid answer to yourself, you may judge of my

spiritual state. The finances have much brightened; and if _Kidnapped_

keeps on as it has begun, I may be solvent.--Yours,

THRENODIAE AVCTOR

(The author of ane Threnodie).

Op. 2: Scherzo (in G Major) expressive of the Sense of favours to come.

TO R. A. M. STEVENSON

_Skerryvore [Bournemouth, July 1886]._

DEAR BOB,--Herewith another shy; more melancholy than before, but I

think not so abjectly idiotic. The musical terms seem to be as good as

in Beethoven, and that, after all, is the great affair. Bar the dam

bareness of the bass, it looks like a piece of real music from a

distance. I am proud to say it was not made one hand at a time; the bass

was of synchronous birth with the treble; they are of the same age, sir,

and may God have mercy on their souls!--Yours,

THE MAESTRO.

TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

Mr. and Mrs. T. Stevenson had been thinking of trying a winter at

Bournemouth for the sake of being near their son, a plan which was

eventually carried out. The health of the former was now fast and

painfully breaking. Mr. J. W. Alexander, the well-known American

artist, had been down at Skerryvore with an introduction from Mr.

Gosse, and had made a drawing of Stevenson's head.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 7th, 1886._

MY DEAR PEOPLE,--It is probably my fault, and not yours, that I did not

understand. I think it would be well worth trying the winter in

Bournemouth; but I would only take the house by the month--this after

mature discussion. My leakage still pursues its course; if I were only

well, I have a notion to go north and get in (if I could) at the inn at

Kirkmichael, which has always smiled upon me much. If I did well there,

we might then meet and do what should most smile at the time.

Meanwhile, of course, I must not move, and am in a rancid box here,

feeling the heat a great deal, and pretty tired of things. Alexander did

a good thing of me at last; it looks like a mixture of an aztec idol, a

lion, an Indian Rajah, and a woman; and certainly represents a mighty

comic figure. F. and Lloyd both think it is the best thing that has been

done of me up to now.

You should hear Lloyd on the penny whistle, and me on the piano! Dear

powers, what a concerto! I now live entirely for the piano, he for the

whistle; the neighbours, in a radius of a furlong and a half, are

packing up in quest of brighter climes.--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

_P.S._--Please say if you can afford to let us have money for this trip,

and if so, how much. I can see the year through without help, I believe,

and supposing my health to keep up; but can scarce make this change on

my own metal.

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._]

DEAR CHARLES,--Doubtless, if all goes well, towards the 1st of August we

shall be begging at your door. Thanks for a sight of the papers, which I

return (you see) at once, fearing further responsibility.

Glad you like Dauvit; but eh, man, yon's terrible strange conduc' o'

thon man Rankeillor. Ca' him a legal adviser! It would make a bonny

law-shuit, the Shaws case; and yon paper they signed, I'm thinking,

wouldnae be muckle thought o' by Puggy Deas.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

Hecky was a dog belonging to his correspondent's brother. Stevenson

was always interested by his own retentiveness of memory for childish

things, and here asks Cummy some questions to test the quality of

hers.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July 1886._]

MY DEAR CUMMY,--I was sorry to get so poor account of you and Hecky.

Fanny thinks perhaps it might be Hecky's teeth. Sir Walter Simpson has a

very clever vet. I have forgotten his name; but if you like, I send a

card and you or James might ask the address.

Now to what is more important. Do you remember any of the following

names: Lady Boothroyd, Barny Gee, Andrew Silex, the Steward, Carus

Rearn, Peter Mangles, Richard Markham, Fiddler Dick? Please let me know

and I will tell you how I come to ask. I warn you, you will have to cast

back your eyes a good long way, close upon thirty years, before you

strike the trail on which I wish to lead you.

When I have had an answer I will write you a decent letter. To-day,

though nothing much is wrong with me, I am out of sorts and most

disinclined for writing.--Yours most affectionately,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO THOMAS STEVENSON

"Coolin," mentioned below, had been a favourite Skye terrier of

Heriot Row days.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_] _July 28, 1886._

MY DEAR FATHER,--We have decided not to come to Scotland, but just to do

as Dobell wished, and take an outing. I believe this is wiser in all

ways; but I own it is a disappointment. I am weary of England; like

Alan, "I weary for the heather," if not for the deer. Lloyd has gone to

Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with whom he should have a good

time. _David_ seems really to be going to succeed, which is a pleasant

prospect on all sides. I am, I believe, floated financially; a book that

sells will be a pleasant novelty. I enclose another review; mighty

complimentary, and calculated to sell the book too.

Coolin's tombstone has been got out, honest man! and it is to be

polished, for it has got scratched, and have a touch of gilding in the

letters, and be sunk in the front of the house. Worthy man, he, too,

will maybe weary for the heather, and the bents of Gullane, where (as I

dare say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and jumped on to his crown

from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of many thousand rabbits. I can

still hear the little cries of the honest fellow as he disappeared; and

my mother will correct me, but I believe it was two days before he

turned up again at North Berwick: to judge by his belly, he had caught

not one out of these thousands, but he had had some exercise.

I keep well.--Ever your affectionate son,

R. L. S.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

Anticipating the gift of a cupboard and answering the questions set

in his last. The date of the readings had been his seventh year. Mr.

Galpin was a partner in Cassell, Petter, Galpin, & Co.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, July or August 1886._]

MY DEAR CUMMY,--The cupboard has not yet turned up, and I was hanging on

to be able to say it had. However, that is only a trick to escape

another letter, and I should despise myself if I kept it up. It was

truly kind of you, dear Cummy, to send it to us: and I will let you know

where we set it and how it looks.

Carus Rearn and Andrew Silex and the others were from a story you read

me in Cassell's Family Paper, and which I have been reading again and

found by no means a bad story. Mr. Galpin lent me all the old volumes,

and I mean to re-read Custaloga also, but have not yet. It was strangely

like old times to read the other; don't you remember the poisoning with

mushrooms? That was Andrew Silex.--Yours most affectionately,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

Having given up going to Scotland for a summer change, Stevenson had

started on the "outing" which he mentions in the last letter. It took

the shape of a ten days' visit to my house at the British Museum,

followed by another made in the company of Mr. Henley to Paris,

chiefly for the sake of seeing the W. H. Lows and the sculptor Rodin.

_British Museum [August 10th, 1886]._

MY DEAR MOTHER,--We are having a capital holiday, and I am much better,

and enjoying myself to the nines. Richmond is painting my portrait.

To-day I lunch with him, and meet Burne-Jones; to-night Browning dines

with us. That sounds rather lofty work, does it not? His path was paved

with celebrities. To-morrow we leave for Paris, and next week, I

suppose, or the week after, come home. Address here, as we may not

reach Paris. I am really very well.--Ever your affectionate son,

R. L. S.

TO T. WATTS-DUNTON

Written after his return from London and Paris.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth [September 1886]._

DEAR MR. WATTS,--The sight of the last Athenaeum reminds me of you, and

of my debt, now too long due. I wish to thank you for your notice of

_Kidnapped_; and that not because it was kind, though for that also I

valued it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you before now for a

hundred articles on a hundred different writers. A critic like you is

one who fights the good fight, contending with stupidity, and I would

fain hope not all in vain; in my own case, for instance, surely not in

vain.

What you say of the two parts in _Kidnapped_ was felt by no one more

painfully than by myself. I began it partly as a lark, partly as a

pot-boiler; and suddenly it moved, David and Alan stepped out from the

canvas, and I found I was in another world. But there was the cursed

beginning, and a cursed end must be appended; and our old friend Byles

the butcher was plainly audible tapping at the back door. So it had to

go into the world, one part (as it does seem to me) alive, one part

merely galvanised: no work, only an essay. For a man of tentative

method, and weak health, and a scarcity of private means, and not too

much of that frugality which is the artist's proper virtue, the days of

sinecures and patrons look very golden: the days of professional

literature very hard. Yet I do not so far deceive myself as to think I

should change my character by changing my epoch; the sum of virtue in

our books is in a relation of equality to the sum of virtues in

ourselves; and my _Kidnapped_ was doomed, while still in the womb and

while I was yet in the cradle, to be the thing it is.

And now to the more genial business of defence. You attack my fight on

board the _Covenant_: I think it literal. David and Alan had every

advantage on their side--position, arms, training, a good conscience; a

handful of merchant sailors, not well led in the first attack, not led

at all in the second, could only by an accident have taken the

round-house by attack; and since the defenders had firearms and food, it

is even doubtful if they could have been starved out. The only doubtful

point with me is whether the seamen would have ever ventured on the

second onslaught; I half believe they would not; still the illusion of

numbers and the authority of Hoseason would perhaps stretch far enough

to justify the extremity.--I am, dear Mr. Watts, your very sincere

admirer,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._

MY DEAR CUMMY,--I am home from a long holiday, vastly better in health.

My wife not home yet, as she is being cured in some rather boisterous

fashion by some Swedish doctors. I hope it may do her good, as the

process seems not to be agreeable in itself.

Your cupboard has come, and it is most beautiful: it is certainly worth

a lot of money, and is just what we have been looking for in all the

shops for quite a while: so your present falls very pat. It is to go in

our bedroom I think; but perhaps my wife will think it too much of a

good thing to be put so much out of the way, so I shall not put it in

its place till her return. I am so well that I am afraid to speak of it,

being a coward as to boasting. I take walks in the wood daily, and have

got back to my work after a long break. The story I wrote you about was

one you read to me in Cassell's Family Paper long ago when it came out.

It was astonishing how clearly I remembered it all, pictures,

characters, and incidents, though the last were a little mixed and I had

not the least the hang of the story. It was very pleasant to read it

again, and remember old days, and the weekly excursion to Mrs. Hoggs

after that precious journal. Dear me, lang syne now! God bless you, dear

Cummy.--Your afft. boy,

R. L. STEVENSON.

TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON

Mr. Locker-Lampson, better known as Frederick Locker, the friend of

Tennyson and most accomplished writer of _vers de societe_ in his

time, had through their common friend Mr. Andrew Lang asked Stevenson

for a set of verses, and he had sent the following--which were first

printed, I believe, at the head of a very scarce volume:--"_Rowfant

Rhymes_, by Frederick Locker, with an introduction by Austin Dobson.

Cleveland, The Rowfant Club, 1895. 127 copies only printed."

_Skerryvore, September 4, 1886._

Not roses to the rose, I trow,

The thistle sends, nor to the bee

Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now

Should Locker ask a verse from me?

Martial, perchance,--but he is dead,

And Herrick now must rhyme no more;

Still burning with the muse, they tread

(And arm in arm) the shadowy shore.

They, if they lived, with dainty hand,

To music as of mountain brooks,

Might bring you worthy words to stand

Unshamed, dear Locker, in your books.

But tho' these fathers of your race

Be gone before, yourself a sire,

To-day you see before your face

Your stalwart youngsters touch the lyre.

On these--on Lang or Dobson--call,

Long leaders of the songful feast.

They lend a verse your laughing fall--

A verse they owe you at the least.

TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON

To Mr. Locker's acknowledgment of these verses Stevenson replied as

follows, asking his correspondent's interest on behalf of a friend

who had been kind to him at Hyeres, in procuring a nomination for her

son to the Blue-Coat School.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._

DEAR LOCKER,--You take my verses too kindly, but you will admit, for

such a bluebottle of a versifier to enter the house of Gertrude, where

her necklace hangs, was not a little brave. Your kind invitation, I

fear, must remain unaccepted; and yet--if I am very well--perhaps next

spring--(for I mean to be very well)--my wife might.... But all that is

in the clouds with my better health. And now look here: you are a rich

man and know many people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of

Christ's Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in which I

would (if I could) do anything. To approach you, in this way, is not

decent; and you may therefore judge by my doing it, how near this matter

lies to my heart. I enclose you a list of the Governors, which I beg you

to return, whether or not you shall be able to do anything to help me.

The boy's name is ----; he and his mother are very poor. It may interest

you in her cause if I tell you this: that when I was dangerously ill at

Hyeres, this brave lady, who had then a sick husband of her own (since

dead) and a house to keep and a family of four to cook for, all with her

own hands, for they could afford no servant, yet took watch-about with

my wife, and contributed not only to my comfort, but to my recovery in a

degree that I am not able to limit. You can conceive how much I suffer

from my impotence to help her, and indeed I have already shown myself a

thankless friend. Let not my cry go up before you in vain!--Yours in

hope,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON

Mr. Locker, apparently misunderstanding the application, had replied

with a cheque.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, September 1886._

MY DEAR LOCKER,--That I should call myself a man of letters, and land

myself in such unfathomable ambiguities! No, my dear Locker, I did not

want a cheque; and in my ignorance of business, which is greater even

than my ignorance of literature, I have taken the liberty of drawing a

pen through the document and returning it; should this be against the

laws of God or man, forgive me. All that I meant by my excessively

disgusting reference to your material well-being was the vague notion

that a man who is well off was sure to know a Governor of Christ's

Hospital; though how I quite arrived at this conclusion I do not see. A

man with a cold in the head does not necessarily know a ratcatcher; and

the connection is equally close--as it now appears to my awakened and

somewhat humbled spirit. For all that, let me thank you in the warmest

manner for your friendly readiness to contribute. You say you have hopes

of becoming a miser: I wish I had; but indeed I believe you deceive

yourself, and are as far from it as ever. I wish I had any excuse to

keep your cheque, for it is much more elegant to receive than to return;

but I have my way of making it up to you, and I do sincerely beg you to

write to the two Governors. This extraordinary out-pouring of

correspondence would (if you knew my habits) convince you of my great

eagerness in this matter. I would promise gratitude; but I have made a

promise to myself to make no more promises to anybody else, having

broken such a host already, and come near breaking my heart in

consequence; and as for gratitude, I am by nature a thankless dog, and

was spoiled from a child up. But if you can help this lady in the matter

of the Hospital, you will have helped the worthy. Let me continue to

hope that I shall make out my visit in the spring, and believe me, yours

very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

It may amuse you to know that a very long while ago, I broke my heart to

try to imitate your verses, and failed hopelessly. I saw some of the

evidences the other day among my papers, and blushed to the heels.

R. L. S.

I give up finding out your name in the meantime, and keep to that by

which you will be known--Frederick Locker.

TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] 24th September 1886._

MY DEAR LOCKER,--You are simply an angel of light, and your two letters

have gone to the post; I trust they will reach the hearts of the

recipients--at least, that could not be more handsomely expressed. About

the cheque: well now, I am going to keep it; but I assure you Mrs. ----

has never asked me for money, and I would not dare to offer any till she

did. For all that I shall stick to the cheque now, and act to that

amount as your almoner. In this way I reward myself for the ambiguity of

my epistolary style.

I suppose, if you please, you may say your verses are thin (would you so

describe an arrow, by the way, and one that struck the gold? It scarce

strikes me as exhaustively descriptive), and, thin or not, they are

(and I have found them) inimitably elegant. I thank you again very

sincerely for the generous trouble you have taken in this matter which

was so near my heart, and you may be very certain it will be the fault

of my health and not my inclination, if I do not see you before very

long; for all that has past has made me in more than the official sense

sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO AUGUSTE RODIN

Written after another visit to me in London, in November, which had

been cut short by fogs. "Le Printemps" is Rodin's group so called.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, December 1886._]

MON CHER AMI,--Il y a bien longtemps deja que je vous dois des lettres

par dizaines; mais bien que je vais mieux, je ne vais toujours que

doucement. Il a fallu faire le voyage a Bournemouth comme une fuite en

Egypte, par crainte des brouillards qui me tuaient; et j'en ressentais

beaucoup de fatigue. Mais maintenant cela commence a aller, et je puis

vous donner de mes nouvelles.

Le Printemps est arrive, mais il avait le bras casse, et nous l'avons

laisse, lors de notre fuite, aux soins d'un medecin-de-statues. Je

l'attends de jour en jour; et ma maisonette en resplendira bientot. Je

regrette beaucoup le dedicace; peutetre, quand vous viendrez nous voir,

ne serait-il pas trop tard de l'ajouter? Je n'en sais rien, je l'espere.

L'oeuvre, c'est pour tout le monde; le dedicace est pour moi. L'oeuvre

est un cadeau, trop beau meme; c'est le mot d'amitie qui me le donne

pour de bon. Je suis si bete que je m'embrouille, et me perds; mais vous

me comprendrez, je pense.

Je ne puis meme pas m'exprimer en Anglais; comment voudriez vous que je

le pourrais en Francais? Plus heureux que vous, le Nemesis des arts ne

me visite pas sous le masque du desenchantement; elle me suce

l'intelligence et me laisse bayer aux corneilles, sans capacite mais

sans regret; sans esperance, c'est vrai, mais aussi, Dieu merci, sans

desespoir. Un doux etonnement me tient; je ne m'habitue pas a me trouver

si buche, mais je m'y resigne; meme si cela durait, ce ne serait pas

desagreable--mais comme je mourrais certainement de faim, ce serait tout

au moins regrettable pour moi et ma famille.

Je voudrais pouvoir vous ecrire; mais ce n'est pas moi qui tiens la

plume--c'est l'autre, le bete, celui qui ne connait pas le Francais,

celui qui n'aime pas mes amis comme je les aime, qui ne goute pas aux

choses de l'art comme j'y goute; celui que je renie, mais auquel je

commande toujours assez pour le faire prendre la plume en main et ecrire

des tristes bavardages. Celui-la, mon cher Rodin, vous ne l'aimez pas;

vous ne devez jamais le connaitre. Votre ami, qui dort a present, comme

un ours, au plus profond de mon etre, se reveillera sous peu. Alors, il

vous ecrira de sa propre main. Attendez lui. L'autre ne compte pas; ce

n'est qu'un secretaire infidele et triste, a l'ame gelee, a la tete de

bois.

Celui qui dort est toujours, mon cher ami, bien a vous; celui qui ecrit

est charge de vous en faire part et de signer de la raison sociale,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ET TRIPLE-BRUTE.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The following refers first, if I remember right, to some steps that

were being taken to obtain recognition in the form of a knighthood

for the elder Stevenson's public services; next, to the writer's own

work at the time in hand; and lastly, to my volume on Keats then in

preparation for the _English Men of Letters_ series.

_Skerryvore, Dec. 14, 1886._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is first-rate of you, the Lord love you for it! I

am truly much obliged. He--my father--is very changeable; at times, he

seems only a slow quiet edition of himself; again, he will be very

heavy and blank; but never so violent as last spring; and therefore, to

my mind, better on the whole.

Fanny is pretty peepy; I am splendid. I have been writing much

verse--quite the bard, in fact; and also a dam tale to order, which will

be what it will be: I don't love it, but some of it is passable in its

mouldy way, _The Misadventures of John Nicholson_. All my bardly

exercises are in Scotch; I have struck my somewhat ponderous guitar in

that tongue to no small extent: with what success, I know not, but I

think it's better than my English verse; more marrow and fatness, and

more ruggedness.

How goes _Keats_? Pray remark, if he (Keats) hung back from Shelley, it

was not to be wondered at, _when so many of his friends were Shelley's

pensioners_. I forget if you have made this point; it has been borne in

upon me reading Dowden and the _Shelley Papers_; and it will do no harm

if you have made it. I finished a poem to-day, and writ 3000 words of a

story, _tant bien que mal_; and have a right to be sleepy, and (what is

far nobler and rarer) am so.--My dear Colvin, ever yours,

THE REAL MACKAY.

TO LADY TAYLOR

Stevenson's volume of tales _The Merry Men_, so called from the story

which heads the collection, was about to appear with a dedication to

Lady Taylor. Professor Dowden's _Shelley_ had lately come out, and

had naturally been read with eager interest in a circle where Sir

Percy (the poet's son) and Lady Shelley were intimate friends and

neighbours.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth_ [_New Year, 1887_].

MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--This is to wish you all the salutations of the

year, with some regret that I cannot offer them in person; yet less than

I had supposed. For hitherto your flight to London seems to have worked

well; and time flies and will soon bring you back again. Though time is

ironical, too; and it would be like his irony if the same tide that

brought you back carried me away. That would not be, at least, without

some meeting.

I feel very sorry to think the book to which I have put your name will

be no better, and I can make it no better. The tales are of all dates

and places; they are like the box, the goose, and the cottage of the

ferryman; and must go floating down time together as best they can. But

I am after all a (superior) penny-a-liner; I must do, in the Scotch

phrase, as it will do with me; and I cannot always choose what my books

are to be, only seize the chance they offer to link my name to a

friend's. I hope the lot of them (the tales) will look fairly

disciplined when they are clapped in binding; but I fear they will be

but an awkward squad. I have a mild wish that you at least would read

them no further than the dedication.

I suppose we have all been reading Dowden. It seems to me a really

first-rate book, full of justice, and humour without which there can be

no justice; and of fine intelligence besides. Here and there, perhaps a

trifle precious, but this is to spy flaws in a fine work. I was weary at

my resemblances to Shelley; I seem but a Shelley with less oil, and no

genius; though I have had the fortune to live longer and (partly) to

grow up. He was growing up. There is a manlier note in the last days; in

spite of such really sickening aberrations as the Emillia Viviani

business. I try to take a humorously-genial view of life; but Emillia

Viviani, if I have her detested name aright,[19] is too much for my

philosophy. I cannot smile when I see all these grown folk waltzing and

piping the eye about an insubordinate and perfectly abominable

schoolgirl, as silly and patently as false as Blanche Amory.[20] I

really think it is one of those episodes that make the angels weep.

With all kind regards and affectionate good wishes to and for you and

yours, believe me, your affectionate friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO LADY TAYLOR

The reference in the last paragraph to a "vision" cannot be

explained, his correspondent's daughters retaining no memory on the

subject.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 1887._]

MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I don't know but what I agree fairly well with all

you say, only I like _The Merry Men_, as a fantasia or vision of the

sea, better than you do. The trouble with _Olalla_ is that it somehow

sounds false; and I think it must be this that gives you the feeling of

irreverence. Of _Thrawn Janet_, which I like very much myself, you say

nothing, thus uttering volumes; but it is plain that people cannot

always agree. I do not think it is a wholesome part of me that broods on

the evil in the world and man; but I do not think that I get harm from

it; possibly my readers may, which is more serious; but at any account,

I do not purpose to write more in this vein. But the odd problem is:

what makes a story true? _Markheim_ is true; _Olalla_ false; and I don't

know why, nor did I feel it while I worked at them; indeed I had more

inspiration with _Olalla_, as the style shows. I am glad you thought

that young Spanish woman well dressed; I admire the style of it myself,

more than is perhaps good for me; it is so solidly written. And that

again brings back (almost with the voice of despair) my unanswerable:

why is it false?

Here is a great deal about my works. I am in bed again; and my wife but

so-so; and we have no news recently from Lloyd; and the cat is well; and

we see, or I see, no one; so that other matters are all closed against

me.

Your vision is strange indeed; but I see not how to use it; I fear I am

earthy enough myself to regard it as a case of disease, but certainly it

is a thrilling case to hear of.--Ever affectionately yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO HENRY JAMES

This letter is written on the front page of a set of proofs of

_Memories and Portraits_. The "silly Xmas story" is _The

Misadventures of John Nicholson_; the "volume of verse" appeared

later in the year as _Underwoods_. The signature refers to the two

Scots poets of whom, "in his native speech," he considered himself

the follower.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January 1887._

All the salutations!

MY DEAR JAMES,--I send you the first sheets of the new volume, all that

has yet reached me, the rest shall follow in course. I am really a very

fair sort of a fellow all things considered, have done some work; a

silly Xmas story (with some larks in it) which won't be out till I don't

know when. I am also considering a volume of verse, much of which will

be cast in my native speech, that very dark oracular medium: I suppose

this is a folly, but what then? As the nurse says in Marryat, "It was

only a little one."

My wife is peepy and dowie: two Scotch expressions with which I will

leave you to wrestle unaided, as a preparation for my poetical works.

She is a woman (as you know) not without art: the art of extracting the

gloom of the eclipse from sunshine; and she has recently laboured in

this field not without success or (as we used to say) not without a

blessing. It is strange: "we fell out my wife and I" the other night;

she tackled me savagely for being a canary-bird; I replied (bleatingly)

protesting that there was no use in turning life into King Lear;

presently it was discovered that there were two dead combatants upon the

field, each slain by an arrow of the truth, and we tenderly carried off

each other's corpses. Here is a little comedy for Henry James to write!

The beauty was each thought the other quite unscathed at first. But we

had dealt shrewd stabs.

You say nothing of yourself, which I shall take to be good news.

Archer's note has gone. He is, in truth, a very clever fellow that

Archer, and I believe a good one. It is a pleasant thing to see a man

who can use a pen; he can: really says what he means, and says it with a

manner; comes into print like one at his ease, not shame-faced and

wrong-foot-foremost like the bulk of us. Well, here is luck, and here

are the kindest recollections from the canary-bird and from King Lear,

from the Tragic Woman and the Flimsy Man.

ROBERT RAMSAY FERGUSSON STEVENSON.

TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON

Stevenson suffered more even than usual after the turn of the year

and during the spring of 1887, and for several months his

correspondence almost entirely fails. This is in reply to an

invitation to Rowfant for Easter.

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 5th, 1887._

MY DEAR LOCKER,--Here I am in my bed as usual, and it is indeed a long

while since I went out to dinner. You do not know what a crazy fellow

this is. My winter has not so far been luckily passed, and all hope of

paying visits at Easter has vanished for twelve calendar months. But

because I am a beastly and indurated invalid, I am not dead to human

feelings; and I neither have forgotten you nor will forget you. Some day

the wind may round to the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am

still truly yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO HENRY JAMES

The volume of tales here mentioned is _The Merry Men_; that of

essays, _Memories and Portraits_; that of verse, _Underwoods_.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 1887._]

MY DEAR JAMES,--My health has played me it in once more in the absurdest

fashion, and the creature who now addresses you is but a stringy and

white-faced _bouilli_ out of the pot of fever, with the devil to pay in

every corner of his economy. I suppose (to judge by your letter) I need

not send you these sheets, which came during my collapse by the rush. I

am on the start with three volumes, that one of tales, a second one of

essays, and one of--ahem--verse. This is a great order, is it not? After

that I shall have empty lockers. All new work stands still; I was

getting on well with Jenkin when this blessed malady unhorsed me, and

sent me back to the dung-collecting trade of the republisher. I shall

re-issue _Virg. Puer._ as vol. I. of _Essays_, and the new vol. as vol.

II. of ditto; to be sold, however, separately. This is but a dry

maundering; however, I am quite unfit--"I am for action quite unfit

Either of exercise or wit." My father is in a variable state; many

sorrows and perplexities environ the house of Stevenson; my mother

shoots north at this hour on business of a distinctly rancid character;

my father (under my wife's tutorage) proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; I

remain here in my bed and whistle; in no quarter of heaven is anything

encouraging apparent, except that the good Colvin comes to the hotel

here on a visit. This dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the

fact that my head aches, which I always regard as a liberty on the part

of the powers that be. This is also my first letter since my recovery.

God speed your laudatory pen!

My wife joins in all warm messages.--Yours,

R. L. S.

TO AUGUSTE RODIN

_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 1887._

MON CHER AMI,--Je vous neglige, et cependant ce n'est veritablement pas

de ma faute. J'ai fait encore une maladie; et je puis dire que je l'ai

royalement bien faite. Que cela vous aide a me pardonner. Certes je ne

vous oublie pas; et je puis dire que je ne vous oublierai jamais. Si je

n'ecris pas, dites que je suis malade--c'est trop souvent vrai, dites

que je suis las d'ecrivailler--ce sera toujours vrai; mais ne dites pas,

et ne pensez pas, que je deviens indifferent. J'ai devant moi votre

portrait tire d'un journal anglais (et encadre a mes frais), et je le

regarde avec amitie, je le regarde meme avec une certaine

complaisance--dirai-je, de faux aloi? comme un certificat de jeunesse.

Je me croyais trop vieux--au moins trop quarante-ans--pour faire de

nouveaux amis; et quand je regarde votre portrait, et quand je pense au

plaisir de vous revoir, je sens que je m'etais trompe. Ecrivez-moi donc

un petit mot, pour me dire que vous ne gardez pas rancune de mon

silence, et que vous comptez bientot venir en Angleterre. Si vous tardez

beaucoup, ce sera moi qui irai vous relancer.--Bien a vous, mon cher

ami,

R. L. STEVENSON.

TO W. H. LOW

Mr. Low and his wife, who were at this time leaving Paris for good,

had been meditating a visit to the Stevensons at Bournemouth on their

way home to the United States.

[_April 1887._]

MY DEAR LOW,--The fares to London may be found in any continental

Bradshaw or sich; from London to Bournemouth impoverished parties who

can stoop to the third class get their ticket for the matter of 10s.,

or, as my wife loves to phrase it, "a half a pound." You will also be

involved in a 3s. fare to get to Skerryvore; but this, I dare say,

friends could help you in on your arrival; so that you may reserve your

energies for the two tickets--costing the matter of a pound--and the

usual gratuities to porters. This does not seem to me much: considering

the intellectual pleasures that await you here, I call it dirt cheap. I

_believe_ the third class from Paris to London (_via_ Dover) is _about_

forty francs, but I cannot swear. Suppose it to be fifty.

frcs.

50 x 2 = 100 100

The expense of spirit or spontaneous lapse of coin on the journey,

at 5 frcs. a head, 5 x 2 = 10 10

Victuals on ditto, at 5 frcs. a head, 5 x 2 = 10 10

Gratuity to stewardess, in case of severe prostration, at 3 francs 3

One night in London, on a modest footing, say 20 20

Two tickets to Bournemouth at 12.50, 12.50 x 2 = 25 25

Porters and general devilment, say 5 5

Cabs in London, say 2 shillings, and in Bournemouth,

3 shillings = 5 shillings, 6 frcs. 25 6.25

------

frcs. 179.25

Or, the same in pounds, L7, 3s. 6-1/2d.

Or, the same in dollars, $35.45,

if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out dinner in

London in case you want to blow out, which would come extry, and with

the aid of _vangs fangs_ might easily double the whole amount--above all

if you have a few friends to meet you.

In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered for the first

time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the singular costliness of

travelling with your wife. Anybody would count the tickets double; but

how few would have remembered--or indeed has any one ever

remembered?--to count the spontaneous lapse of coin double also? Yet

there are two of you, each must do his daily leakage, and it must be

done out of your travelling fund. You will tell me, perhaps, that you

carry the coin yourself: my dear sir, do you think you can fool your

Maker? Your wife has to lose her quota; and by God she will--if you kept

the coin in a belt. One thing I have omitted: you will lose a certain

amount on the exchange, but this even I cannot foresee, as it is one of

the few things that vary with the way a man has.--I am, dear sir, yours

financially,

SAMUEL BUDGETT.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

I had lately sent him two books, the fifth volume of Huxley's

_Collected Essays_ and Cotter Morison's _Service of Man_: the latter

a work of Positivist tendency, which its genial and accomplished

author had long meditated, but which unfortunately he only began to

write after a rapid decline of health and power had set in.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, Spring 1887._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I read Huxley, and a lot of it with great interest. Eh,

what a gulf between a man with a mind like Huxley and a man like Cotter

Morison. Truly 'tis the book of a boy; before I was twenty I was done

with all these considerations. Nor is there one happy phrase, except

"the devastating flood of children." Why should he din our ears with

languid repetitions of the very first ideas and facts that a bright lad

gets hold of; and how can a man be so destitute of historical

perspective, so full of cheap outworn generalisations--feudal ages, time

of suffering--_pas tant qu'aujourdhui_, M. Cotter! Christianity--which?

what? how? You must not attack all forms, from Calvin to St. Thomas,

from St. Thomas to (One who should surely be considered) Jesus Christ,

with the same missiles: they do not all tell against all. But there it

is, as we said; a man joins a sect, and becomes one-eyed. He affects a

horror of vices which are just the thing to stop his "devastating flood

of babies," and just the thing above all to keep the vicious from

procreating. Where, then, is the ground of this horror in any

intelligent Servant of Humanity? O, beware of creeds and anti-creeds,

sects and anti-sects. There is but one truth, outside science, the truth

that comes of an earnest, smiling survey of mankind "from China to

Peru," or further, and from to-day to the days of Probably Arboreal;

and the truth (however true it is) that robs you of sympathy with any

form of thought or trait of man, is false for you, and heretical, and

heretico-plastic. Hear Morison struggling with his chains; hear me, hear

all of us, when we suffer our creeds or anti-creeds to degenerate

towards the whine, and begin to hate our neighbours, or our ancestors,

like ourselves. And yet in Morison, too, as in St. Thomas, as in

Rutherford, ay, or in Peden, truth struggles, or it would not so deform

them. The man has not a devil; it is an angel that tears and blinds him.

But Morison's is an old, almost a venerable seraph, with whom I dealt

before I was twenty, and had done before I was twenty-five.

Behold how the voices of dead preachers speak hollowly (and lengthily)

within me!--Yours ever--and rather better---not much,

R. L. S.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

_Skerryvore, April 16th, 1887._

MY DEAREST CUMMY,--As usual, I have been a dreary bad fellow and not

written for ages; but you must just try to forgive me, to believe (what

is the truth) that the number of my letters is no measure of the number

of times I think of you, and to remember how much writing I have to do.

The weather is bright, but still cold; and my father, I'm afraid, feels

it sharply. He has had--still has, rather--a most obstinate jaundice,

which has reduced him cruelly in strength, and really upset him

altogether. I hope, or think, he is perhaps a little better; but he

suffers much, cannot sleep at night, and gives John and my mother a

severe life of it to wait upon him. My wife is, I think, a little

better, but no great shakes. I keep mightily respectable myself.

Coolin's Tombstone is now built into the front wall of Skerryvore, and

poor Bogie's (with a Latin inscription also) is set just above it.

Poor, unhappy wee man, he died, as you must have heard, in fight, which

was what he would have chosen; for military glory was more in his line

than the domestic virtues. I believe this is about all my news, except

that, as I write, there is a blackbird singing in our garden trees, as

it were at Swanston. I would like fine to go up the burnside a bit, and

sit by the pool and be young again--or no, be what I am still, only

there instead of here, for just a little. Did you see that I had written

about John Todd? In this month's Longman it was; if you have not seen

it, I will try and send it you. Some day climb as high as Halkerside for

me (I am never likely to do it for myself), and sprinkle some of the

well water on the turf. I am afraid it is a pagan rite, but quite

harmless, and _ye can sain it wi' a bit prayer_. Tell the Peewies that I

mind their forbears well. My heart is sometimes heavy and sometimes glad

to mind it all. But for what we have received, the Lord make us truly

thankful. Don't forget to sprinkle the water, and do it in my name; I

feel a childish eagerness in this.

Remember me most kindly to James, and with all sorts of love to

yourself, believe me, your laddie,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--I suppose Mrs. Todd ought to see the paper about her man; judge

of that, and if you think she would not dislike it, buy her one from me,

and let me know. The article is called _Pastoral_, in Longman's Magazine

for April. I will send you the money; I would to-day, but it's the

Sabbie day, and I cannae.

R. L. S.

Remembrances from all here.

TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN

The following sets forth the _pros_ and _cons_ which were balancing

each other in his mind in regard to his scheme of going to make a

stand in his own person against agrarian outrage in Ireland.

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] April 15 or 16

(the hour not being known), 1887._

MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--It is I know not what hour of the night; but I

cannot sleep, have lit the gas, and here goes.

First, all your packet arrived: I have dipped into the Schumann already

with great pleasure. Surely, in what concerns us there is a sweet little

chirrup; the _Good Words_ arrived in the morning just when I needed it,

and the famous notes that I had lost were recovered also in the nick of

time.

And now I am going to bother you with my affairs: premising, first, that

this is _private_; second, that whatever I do the _Life_ shall be done

first, and I am getting on with it well; and third, that I do not quite

know why I consult you, but something tells me you will hear with

fairness.

Here is my problem. The Curtin women are still miserable prisoners; no

one dare buy their farm of them, all the manhood of England and the

world stands aghast before a threat of murder. (1) Now, my work can be

done anywhere; hence I can take up without loss a back-going Irish farm,

and live on, though not (as I had originally written) in it: First

Reason. (2) If I should be killed, there are a good many who would feel

it: writers are so much in the public eye, that a writer being murdered

would attract attention, throw a bull's-eye light upon this cowardly

business: Second Reason. (3) I am not unknown in the States, from which

the funds come that pay for these brutalities: to some faint extent, my

death (if I should be killed) would tell there: Third Reason. (4)

_Nobody else is taking up this obvious and crying duty:_ Fourth Reason.

(5) I have a crazy health and may die at any moment, my life is of no

purchase in an insurance office, it is the less account to husband it,

and the business of husbanding a life is dreary and demoralising: Fifth

Reason.

I state these in no order, but as they occur to me. And I shall do the

like with the objections.

First Objection: It will do no good; you have seen Gordon die, and

nobody minded; nobody will mind if you die. This is plainly of the

devil. Second Objection: You will not even be murdered, the climate will

miserably kill you, you will strangle out in a rotten damp heat, in

congestion, etc. Well, what then? It changes nothing: the purpose is to

brave crime; let me brave it, for such time and to such an extent as God

allows. Third Objection: The Curtin women are probably highly

uninteresting females. I haven't a doubt of it. But the Government

cannot, men will not, protect them. If I am the only one to see this

public duty, it is to the public and the Right I should perform it--not

to Mesdames Curtin. Fourth Objection: I am married. "I have married a

wife!" I seem to have heard it before. It smells ancient! what was the

context? Fifth Objection: My wife has had a mean life (1), loves me (2),

could not bear to lose me (3). (1) I admit: I am sorry. (2) But what

does she love me for? and (3) she must lose me soon or late. And after

all, because we run this risk, it does not follow we should fail. Sixth

Objection: My wife wouldn't like it. No, she wouldn't. Who would? But

the Curtins don't like it. And all those who are to suffer if this goes

on, won't like it. And if there is a great wrong, somebody must suffer.

Seventh Objection: I won't like it. No, I will not; I have thought it

through, and I will not. But what of that? And both she and I may like

it more than we suppose. We shall lose friends, all comforts, all

society: so has everybody who has ever done anything; but we shall have

some excitement, and that's a fine thing; and we shall be trying to do

the right, and that's not to be despised. Eighth Objection: I am an

author with my work before me. See Second Reason. Ninth Objection: But

am I not taken with the hope of excitement? I was at first. I am not

much now. I see what a dreary, friendless, miserable, God-forgotten

business it will be. And anyway, is not excitement the proper reward of

doing anything both right and a little dangerous? Tenth Objection: But

am I not taken with a notion of glory? I dare say I am. Yet I see quite

clearly how all points to nothing coming, to a quite inglorious death by

disease and from the lack of attendance; or even if I should be knocked

on the head, as these poor Irish promise, how little any one will care.

It will be a smile at a thousand breakfast-tables. I am nearly forty

now; I have not many illusions. And if I had? I do not love this

health-tending, housekeeping life of mine. I have a taste for danger,

which is human, like the fear of it. Here is a fair cause; a just cause;

no knight ever set lance in rest for a juster. Yet it needs not the

strength I have not, only the passive courage that I hope I could

muster, and the watchfulness that I am sure I could learn.

Here is a long midnight dissertation; with myself; with you. Please let

me hear. But I charge you this: if you see in this idea of mine the

finger of duty, do not dissuade me. I am nearing forty, I begin to love

my ease and my home and my habits, I never knew how much till this

arose; do not falsely counsel me to put my head under the bed-clothes.

And I will say this to you: my wife, who hates the idea, does not

refuse. "It is nonsense," says she, "but if you go, I will go." Poor

girl, and her home and her garden that she was so proud of! I feel her

garden most of all, because it is a pleasure (I suppose) that I do not

feel myself to share.

1. Here is a great wrong.

2. " a growing wrong.

3. " a wrong founded on crime.

4. " crime that the Government cannot prevent.

5. " crime that it occurs to no man to defy.

6. But it has occurred to me.

7. Being a known person, some will notice my defiance.

8. Being a writer, I can _make_ people notice it.

9. And, I think, _make_ people imitate me.

10. Which would destroy in time this whole scaffolding of oppression.

11. And if I fail, however ignominiously, that is not my concern.

It is, with an odd mixture of reverence and humorous remembrances

of Dickens, be it said--it is A-nother's.

And here, at I cannot think what hour of the morning, I shall dry up,

and remain--Yours, really in want of a little help,

R. L. S.

Sleepless at midnight's dewy hour.

" " witching "

" " maudlin "

etc.

_Next morning._--Eleventh Objection: I have a father and mother. And who

has not? Macduff's was a rare case; if we must wait for a Macduff.

Besides, my father will not perhaps be long here. Twelfth Objection: The

cause of England in Ireland is not worth supporting. _A qui le

dites-vous?_ And I am not supporting that. Home Rule, if you like. Cause

of decency, the idea that populations should not be taught to gain

public ends by private crime, the idea that for all men to bow before a

threat of crime is to loosen and degrade beyond redemption the whole

fabric of man's decency.

TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN

The first paragraph of the following refers to the _Life of Fleeming

Jenkin_; the second, to a remark of his correspondent that a task

such as he had proposed to himself in Ireland should be undertaken

by a society rather than an individual.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1887._]

MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--The Book. It is all drafted: I hope soon to send

you for comments Chapters III., IV., and V. Chapter VII. is roughly but

satisfactorily drafted: a very little work should put that to rights.

But Chapter VI. is no joke; it is a _mare magnum_: I swim and drown and

come up again; and it is all broken ends and mystification: moreover, I

perceive I am in want of more matter. I must have, first of all, a

little letter from Mr. Ewing about the phonograph work: _If_ you think

he would understand it is quite a matter of chance whether I use a word

or a fact out of it. If you think he would not: I will go without. Also,

could I have a look at Ewing's _precis_? And lastly, I perceive I must

interview you again about a few points; they are very few, and might

come to little; and I propose to go on getting things as well together

as I can in the meanwhile, and rather have a final time when all is

ready and only to be criticised. I do still think it will be good. I

wonder if Trelat would let me cut? But no, I think I wouldn't after all;

'tis so quaint and pretty and clever and simple and French, and gives

such a good sight of Fleeming: the plum of the book, I think.

You misunderstood me in one point: I always hoped to found such a

society; that was the outside of my dream, and would mean entire

success. _But_--I cannot play Peter the Hermit. In these days of the

Fleet Street journalist, I cannot send out better men than myself, with

wives or mothers just as good as mine, and sisters (I may at least say)

better, to a danger and a long-drawn dreariness that I do not share. My

wife says it's cowardice; what brave men are the leader-writers! Call it

cowardice; it is mine. Mind you, I may end by trying to do it by the pen

only: I shall not love myself if I do; and is it ever a good thing to do

a thing for which you despise yourself?--even in the doing? And if the

thing you do is to call upon others to do the thing you neglect? I have

never dared to say what I feel about men's lives, because my own was in

the wrong: shall I dare to send them to death? The physician must heal

himself; he must honestly _try_ the path he recommends: if he does not

even try, should he not be silent?

I thank you very heartily for your letter, and for the seriousness you

brought to it. You know, I think when a serious thing is your own, you

keep a saner man by laughing at it and yourself as you go. So I do not

write possibly with all the really somewhat sickened gravity I feel. And

indeed, what with the book, and this business to which I referred, and

Ireland, I am scarcely in an enviable state. Well, I ought to be glad,

after ten years of the worst training on earth--valetudinarianism--that

I can still be troubled by a duty. You shall hear more in time; so far,

I am at least decided: I will go and see Balfour when I get to London.

We have all had a great pleasure: a Mrs. Rawlinson came and brought with

her a nineteen-year-old daughter, simple, human, as beautiful

as--herself; I never admired a girl before, you know it was my weakness:

we are all three dead in love with her. How nice to be able to do so

much good to harassed people by--yourself!--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO MISS RAWLINSON

Here follows a compliment in verse to the young lady last mentioned,

whose Christian name was May.

[_Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1887._]

Of the many flowers you brought me,

Only some were meant to stay,

And the flower I thought the sweetest

Was the flower that went away.

Of the many flowers you brought me,

All were fair and fresh and gay,

But the flower I thought the sweetest

Was the blossom of the May.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Within a fortnight after the date of the above Stevenson went

himself, and for the last time, to Scotland, and was present, too

late for recognition, at the death of his father (May 8, 1887).

Business detained him for some weeks, and the following was written

just before his return to Bournemouth.

[_Edinburgh, June 1887._]

MY DEAR S. C.,--At last I can write a word to you. Your little note in

the P.M.G. was charming. I have written four pages in the Contemporary,

which Bunting found room for: they are not very good, but I shall do

more for his memory in time.

About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long before I could tell

my mind; and now I know it, and can but say that I am glad. If we could

have had my father, that would have been a different thing. But to keep

that changeling--suffering changeling--any longer, could better none and

nothing. Now he rests; it is more significant, it is more like himself.

He will begin to return to us in the course of time, as he was and as we

loved him.

My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene--"O let him pass,"

Kent and Lear--was played for me here in the first moment of my return.

I believe Shakespeare saw it with his own father. I had no words; but it

was shocking to see. He died on his feet, you know; was on his feet the

last day, knowing nobody--still he would be up. This was his constant

wish; also that he might smoke a pipe on his last day. The funeral would

have pleased him; it was the largest private funeral in man's memory

here.

We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home without going

through town. I do not know; I have no views yet whatever; nor can have

any at this stage of my cold and my business.--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON

Written during a short visit to me between his return from Scotland

and his departure for New York.

_British Museum [July 1887]._

MY DEAR SIMPSON,--This is a long time I have not acknowledged the Art of

Golf, though I read it through within thirty-six hours of its arrival. I

have been ill and out of heart, and ill again and again ill, till I am

weary of it, and glad indeed to try the pitch-farthing hazard of a trip

to Colorado or New Mexico. There we go, if I prove fit for the start, on

August 20th.

Meanwhile, the Art of Golf. A lot of it is very funny, and I liked the

fun very well; but what interested me most was the more serious part,

because it turns all the while on a branch of psychology that no one has

treated and that interests me much: the psychology of athletics. I had

every reason to be interested in it, because I am abnormal: I have no

memory in athletics. I have forgotten how to ride and how to skate; and

I should not be the least surprised if I had forgotten how to swim.

I find I can write no more: it is the first I have tried since I was

ill; and I am too weak.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO W. E. HENLEY

During the two months following his father's death Stevenson had

suffered much both from his old complaints and from depression of

mind. His only work had been in preparing for press the verse

collection _Underwoods_, the _Life of Fleeming Jenkin_, and the

volume of essays called _Memories and Portraits_. The opinions quoted

are those of physicians.

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August 1887._

DEAR LAD,--I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson's well-known work,

_Virginibus Puerisque_, is about to be reprinted. At the same time a

second volume called _Memories and Portraits_ will issue from the

roaring loom. Its interest will be largely autobiographical, Mr. S.

having sketched there the lineaments of many departed friends, and dwelt

fondly, and with a m'istened eye, upon by-gone pleasures. The two will

be issued under the common title of _Familiar Essays_; but the volumes

will be vended separately to those who are mean enough not to hawk at

both.

The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began to think I should

not get away. However, I hope--I hope--remark the word--no boasting--I

hope I may luff up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw, gave as usual a good

account of my lungs, and expressed himself, like his neighbours,

hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle says, Scott says, Brown

says--they all say--You ought not to be in such a state of health; you

should recover. Well, then, I mean to. My spirits are rising again after

three months of black depression: I almost begin to feel as if I should

care to live: I would, by God! And so I believe I shall.--Yours,

BULLETIN M'GURDER.

How has the _Deacon_ gone?

TO W. H. LOW

_[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August 6th, 1887._

MY DEAR LOW,--We--my mother, my wife, my stepson, my maidservant, and

myself, five souls--leave, if all is well, Aug. 20th, per Wilson line

s.s. Ludgate Hill. Shall probably evade N. Y. at first, cutting

straight to a watering-place: Newport, I believe, its name. Afterwards

we shall steal incognito into _la bonne ville_, and see no one but you

and the Scribners, if it may be so managed. You must understand I have

been very seedy indeed, quite a dead body; and unless the voyage does

miracles, I shall have to draw it dam fine. Alas, "The Canoe Speaks" is

now out of date; it will figure in my volume of verses now imminent.

However, I may find some inspiration some day.--Till very soon, yours

ever,

R. L. S.

TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE

The lady to whom the following (and much correspondence yet to come)

is addressed had been an attached friend of the Skerryvore household

and a pupil of Stevenson's in the art of writing. She had given R. L.

S. a paper-cutter by way of farewell token at his starting.

_Bournemouth, August 19th, 1887._

MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I promise you the paper-knife shall go to sea with

me; and if it were in my disposal, I should promise it should return with

me too. All that you say, I thank you for very much; I thank you for all

the pleasantness that you have brought about our house; and I hope the

day may come when I shall see you again in poor old Skerryvore, now left

to the natives of Canada, or to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am

afraid my attempt to jest is rather _a contre-coeur_.--Good-bye--_au

revoir_--and do not forget your friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MESSRS. CHATTO AND WINDUS

The titles and proofs mentioned in the text are presumably those of

_Underwoods_ and _Memories and Portraits_.

_Bournemouth_ [_August 1887_].

DEAR SIRS,--I here enclose the two titles. Had you not better send me

the bargains to sign? I shall be here till Saturday; and shall have an

address in London (which I shall send you) till Monday, when I shall

sail. Even if the proofs do not reach you till Monday morning, you could

send a clerk from Fenchurch Street Station at 10.23 A.M. for Galleons

Station, and he would find me embarking on board the _Ludgate Hill_,

Island Berth, Royal Albert Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be

necessary to catch this last chance. I am most anxious to have the

proofs with me on the voyage.--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Cough.

[11] Loose talk.

[12] Mr. Charles Morley, at this time manager or assistant-manager of

the Pall Mall Gazette.

[13] _Princess Casamassima._

[14] Lothian vernacular pronunciation of Cunningham.

[15] In _Underwoods_ the lines thus bracketed as doubtful stand with

the change:

"Life is over; life was gay."

[16] _Prince Otto._

[17] The name of the hero in Dostoieffsky's _Le Crime et le Chatiment_.

[18] _Suite anglaise._

[19] As in fact he had, all except the double l.

[20] In _Pendennis_.

IX

THE UNITED STATES AGAIN

WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS

AUGUST 1887--JUNE 1888

The letters printed in the following section are selected from those

which tell of Stevenson's voyage to New York and reception there at the

beginning of September 1887; of his winter's life and work at Saranac

Lake, and of his decision taken in May 1888 to venture on a yachting

cruise in the South Seas.