first reached its height in the United States, owing to the popularity
both of _Treasure Island_ and _Kidnapped_, but more especially to the
immense impression made by the _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde_. He experienced consequently for the first time the pleasures,
such as they were, of celebrity, and also its inconveniences; found the
most hospitable of refuges in the house of his kind friends, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Fairchild, at Newport; and quickly made many other friends,
including the late Augustus St. Gaudens, the famous sculptor, with Mr.
C. Scribner and Mr. E. L. Burlingame, the owner and the editor of
Scribner's Magazine, from whom he immediately received and accepted very
advantageous offers of work. Having been dissuaded from braving for the
present the fatigue of the long journey to Colorado and the extreme
rigour of its winter climate, he determined to try instead a season at
Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, New York State, which had
lately been coming into reputation as a place of cure. There, under the
care of the well-known resident physician, Dr. Trudeau, he spent nearly
seven months, from the end of September 1887 to the end of April 1888,
with results on the whole favourable to his own health, though not to
that of his wife, which could never support these winter mountain cures.
On the 16th of April, he and his party left Saranac. After spending a
fortnight in New York, where, as always in cities, his health quickly
flagged again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters at
Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, for the sake of fresh
air and boating. Here he enjoyed the occasional society of some of his
New York friends, including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was
initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the meantime,
Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco to see her relatives; and
holding that the climate of the Pacific was likely to be better for the
projected cruise than that of the Atlantic, had inquired there whether a
yacht was to be hired for such a purpose. The schooner _Casco_, Captain
Otis, was found. Stevenson signified by telegraph his assent to the
arrangement; determined to risk in the adventure the sum of L2000, of
which his father's death had put him in possession, hoping to recoup
himself by a series of Letters recounting his experiences, for which he
had received a commission from Mr. S. S. M'Clure; and on the 2nd of June
started with his mother and stepson for San Francisco, the first stage
on that island cruise from which he was destined never to return.
His work during the season September 1887-May 1888 had consisted of the
twelve papers published in the course of 1888 in Scribner's Magazine,
including perhaps the most striking of all his essays, _A Chapter on
Dreams_, _Pulvis et Umbra_, _Beggars_, _The Lantern Bearers_, _Random
Memories_, etc.; as well as the greater part of the _Master of
Ballantrae_ and _The Wrong Box_--the last originally conceived and
drafted by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
A succession of Stevenson's friends had visited and spent part of the
day or the evening with him at Armfield's hotel on Sunday, August
20th, each bringing some farewell gift or another (as related by Mr.
Gosse in his volume _Critical Kitcats_, p. 297). Among these, Mr.
Henry James's gift had been a case of champagne for consumption
during the journey. On the morning of the 21st I accompanied him to
the docks, saw him and his party embarked on board the steamer
_Ludgate Hill_, a vessel sailing from the port of London and carrying
animals and freight as well as passengers. They had chosen to go by
this route for the sake alike of economy and amusement, rather than
by one of the sumptuous liners sailing from Liverpool or Southampton.
Leaving the ship's side as she weighed anchor, and waving farewell to
the party from the boat which landed me, I little knew what was the
truth, that I was looking on the face of my friend for the last time.
The letters next following were written during or Immediately after
his passage across the Atlantic. "The Commodore" is of course R. L. S.
_H.M.S. Vulgarium, off Havre de Grace,
this 22nd day of August [1887]._
SIR,--The weather has been hitherto inimitable. Inimitable is the only
word that I can apply to our fellow-voyagers, whom a categorist,
possibly premature, has been already led to divide into two classes--the
better sort consisting of the baser kind of Bagman, and the worser of
undisguised Beasts of the Field. The berths are excellent, the pasture
swallowable, the champagne of H. James (to recur to my favourite
adjective) inimitable. As for the Commodore, he slept awhile in the
evening, tossed off a cup of Henry James with his plain meal, walked the
deck till eight, among sands and floating lights and buoys and wrecked
brigantines, came down (to his regret) a minute too soon to see Margate
lit up, turned in about nine, slept, with some interruptions, but on the
whole sweetly, until six, and has already walked a mile or so of deck,
among a fleet of other steamers waiting for the tide, within view of
Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats, hovering
sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck with endearments of primitive
simplicity. There, sir, can be viewed the sham quarrel, the sham desire
for information, and every device of these two poor ancient sexes (who
might, you might think, have learned in the course of the ages something
new) down to the exchange of head-gear.--I am, sir, yours,
BOLD BOB BOLTSPRIT.
B. B. B. (_alias_ the Commodore) will now turn to his proofs. Havre de
Grace is a city of some show. It is for-ti-fied; and, so far as I can
see, is a place of some trade. It is situ-ated in France, a country of
Europe. You always complain there are no facts in my letters.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Newport, R.I., U.S.A. [September 1887]_
MY DEAR COLVIN,--So long it went excellent well, and I had a time I am
glad to have had; really enjoying my life. There is nothing like being
at sea, after all. And O, why have I allowed myself to rot so long on
land? But on the Banks I caught a cold, and I have not yet got over it.
My reception here was idiotic to the last degree.... It is very silly,
and not pleasant, except where humour enters; and I confess the poor
interviewer lads pleased me. They are too good for their trade; avoided
anything I asked them to avoid, and were no more vulgar in their reports
than they could help. I liked the lads.
O, it was lovely on our stable-ship, chock full of stallions. She
rolled heartily, rolled some of the fittings out of our state-room, and
I think a more dangerous cruise (except that it was summer) it would be
hard to imagine. But we enjoyed it to the masthead, all but Fanny; and
even she perhaps a little. When we got in, we had run out of beer,
stout, cocoa, soda-water, water, fresh meat, and (almost) of biscuit.
But it was a thousandfold pleasanter than a great big Birmingham liner
like a new hotel; and we liked the officers, and made friends with the
quarter-masters, and I (at least) made a friend of a baboon (for we
carried a cargo of apes), whose embraces have pretty near cost me a
coat. The passengers improved, and were a very good specimen lot, with
no drunkard, no gambling that I saw, and less grumbling and backbiting
than one would have asked of poor human nature. Apes, stallions, cows,
matches, hay, and poor men-folk, all, or almost all, came successfully
to land.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Newport, U.S.A., September 1887._]
MY DEAR JAMES,--Here we are at Newport in the house of the good
Fairchilds; and a sad burthen we have laid upon their shoulders. I have
been in bed practically ever since I came. I caught a cold on the Banks
after having had the finest time conceivable, and enjoyed myself more
than I could have hoped on board our strange floating menagerie:
stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent
of these incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the
stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking through the ports at
our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; and the
little monkeys stared at each other in their cages, and were thrown
overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured
about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my
clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black
tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a
picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were
not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll
till the bell shall sound unexpected notes and the fittings shall break
loose in our state-room, and you have the voyage of the _Ludgate Hill_.
She arrived in the port of New York, without beer, porter, soda-water,
curacoa, fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet we lived, and we regret
her.
My wife is a good deal run down, and I am no great shakes.
America is, as I remarked, a fine place to eat in, and a great place for
kindness; but, Lord, what a silly thing is popularity! I envy the cool
obscurity of Skerryvore. If it even paid, said Meanness! and was abashed
at himself.--Yours most sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_New York, end of September 1887._]
MY DEAR S. C.,--Your delightful letter has just come, and finds me in a
New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St. Gaudens) who is
making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to boot) one of the
handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I caught a cold on the Banks;
fog is not for me; nearly died of interviewers and visitors, during
twenty-four hours in New York; cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine,
a journey like fairyland for the most engaging beauties, one little
rocky and pine-shaded cove after another, each with a house and a boat
at anchor, so that I left my heart in each and marvelled why American
authors had been so unjust to their country; caught another cold on the
train; arrived at Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in
bed until I left again; the Fairchilds proving during this time
kindness itself; Mr. Fairchild simply one of the most engaging men in
the world, and one of the children, Blair, _aet._ ten, a great joy and
amusement in his solemn adoring attitude to the author of _Treasure
Island_.
Here I was interrupted by the arrival of my sculptor.--I withdraw
calling him handsome; he is not quite that, his eyes are too near
together; he is only remarkable looking, and like an Italian
cinque-cento medallion; I have begged him to make a medallion of himself
and give me a copy. I will not take up the sentence in which I was
wandering so long, but begin fresh. I was ten or twelve days at Newport;
then came back convalescent to New York. Fanny and Lloyd are off to the
Adirondacks to see if that will suit; and the rest of us leave Monday
(this is Saturday) to follow them up. I hope we may manage to stay there
all winter. I have a splendid appetite and have on the whole recovered
well after a mighty sharp attack. I am now on a salary of L500 a year
for twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine on what I like; it is more
than L500, but I cannot calculate more precisely. You have no idea how
much is made of me here; I was offered L2000 for a weekly article--eh
heh! how is that? but I refused that lucrative job. The success of
_Underwoods_ is gratifying. You see, the verses are sane; that is their
strong point, and it seems it is strong enough to carry them.
A thousand thanks for your grand letter.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The verses herein alluded to were addressed to Rossetti's friend, Dr.
Gordon Hake, physician and poet (1809-1895), in return for some
received from him. They are those beginning "In the beloved hour that
ushers day" and printed as No. xix. in _Songs of Travel_.
_New York [September 1887]._
MY DEAR LAD,--Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which please communicate. I
did my best with the interviewers;
I don't know if Lloyd sent you the result; my heart was too sick: you
can do nothing with them; and yet ----literally sweated with anxiety to
please, and took me down in long hand!
I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not busted, but
medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, plain, high-minded
artist and honest fellow; you would like him down to the ground. I
believe sculptors are fine fellows when they are not demons. O, I am now
a salaried person, L600, a year,[21] to write twelve articles in
Scribner's Magazine; it remains to be seen if it really pays, huge as
the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh me. I hope you will like my
answer to Hake, and specially that he will.
Love to all.--Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
(_le salarie_).
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [October 1887]._
MY DEAR BOB,--The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous for me; I could
not risk the long railway voyage, and the season was too late to risk
the Eastern, Cape Hatteras side of the steamer one; so here we stuck and
stick. We have a wooden house on a hill-top, overlooking a river, and a
village about a quarter of a mile away, and very wooded hills; the whole
scene is very Highland, bar want of heather and the wooden houses.
I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is proved the sea agrees
heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no
worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in summer.
Good Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a
string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these I
hold that L700 a year is as much as any body can possibly want; and I
have had more, so I know, for the extry coins were for no use, excepting
for illness, which damns everything.
I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it
possible. We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the
mere fact of its being a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we could cut
about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all
manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And truly there is
nothing else. I had literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full
mind--full of external and physical things, not full of cares and
labours and rot about a fellow's behaviour. My heart literally sang; I
truly care for nothing so much as for that. We took so north a course,
that we saw Newfoundland; no one in the ship had ever seen it before.
It was beyond belief to me how she rolled; in seemingly smooth water,
the bell striking, the fittings bounding out of our state-room. It is
worth having lived these last years, partly because I have written some
better books, which is always pleasant, but chiefly to have had the joy
of this voyage. I have been made a lot of here, and it is sometimes
pleasant, sometimes the reverse; but I could give it all up, and agree
that ---- was the author of my works, for a good seventy ton schooner
and the coins to keep her on. And to think there are parties with yachts
who would make the exchange! I know a little about fame now; it is no
good compared to a yacht; and anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more
genuine fame; to cross the Atlantic and come to anchor in Newport (say)
with the Union Jack, and go ashore for your letters and hang about the
pier, among the holiday yachtsmen--that's fame, that's glory, and nobody
can take it away; they can't say your book is bad; you _have_ crossed
the Atlantic. I should do it south by the West Indies, to avoid the
damned Banks; and probably come home by steamer, and leave the skipper
to bring the yacht home.
Well, if all goes well, we shall maybe sail out of Southampton water
some of these days and take a run to Havre, and try the Baltic, or
somewhere.
Love to you all--Ever your afft.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIR WALTER SIMPSON
It was supposed that Stevenson's letters to this friend, like those
to Professor Fleeming Jenkin, had been destroyed or disappeared
altogether. But besides the two printed above (pp. 117 and 229) here
is a third, preserved by a friend to whom Sir Walter made a present
of it.
[_Saranac Lake, October 1887._]
MY DEAR SIMPSON,
the address is
c/o Charles Scribner's Sons,
243 Broadway, N.Y.,
where I wish you would write and tell us you are better. But the place
of our abode is Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks; it is a mighty good
place too, and I mean it shall do me good. Indeed the dreadful
depression and collapse of last summer has quite passed away; it was a
thorough change I wanted; I wonder perhaps if it wouldn't pick you
up--if you are not picked up already; you have been a long time in Great
Britain; and that is a slow poison, very slow for the strong, but
certain for all. Old Dr. Chepmell told Lloyd: any one can stay a year in
England and be the better for it, but no one can stay there steadily and
not be the worse.
I have had a very curious experience here; being very much made of, and
called upon, and all that; quite the famous party in fact: it is not so
nice as people try to make out, when you are young, and don't want to
bother working. Fame is nothing to a yacht; _experto crede_. There are
nice bits of course; for you meet very pleasant and interesting people;
but the thing at large is a bore and a fraud; and I am much happier up
here, where I see no one and live my own life. One thing is they do not
stick for money to the Famed One; I was offered L2000 a year for a
weekly article; and I accepted (and now enjoy) L720 a year for a monthly
one: 720/12 (whatever that may be) for each article, as long or as short
as I please, and on any mortal subject. I am sure it will do me harm to
do it; but the sum was irresistible. See calculations on verso of last
page, and observe, sir, the accuracy of my methods.
Hulloh, I must get up, as I can't lose any time. Good-bye, remember me
to her ladyship and salute the Kids.--Ever your friend,
R. L. S.
12 : 10 :: 72 : _x_, and this results in the same problem. Well--tackle
it.
12)720(60
72
Is it possible?
L60!!??
Let us cheque it by trying it in dollars, $3500 per an.
12)3500(291. 80
24
---
110
108
---
20
Well : $291.80
then divide by 5 for a rough test
5)291(58.4.4
25 add 80 cents = 40d. = 3. 4d.
--
3.4
-------
L58. 7.8
Well, call it
L58.10.
======
and be done with it!
TO EDMUND GOSSE
The following refers to a review by Mr. Gosse of Stevenson's volume
of verse called _Underwoods_. The book had been published a few weeks
previously, and is dedicated, as readers will remember, to a number
of physicians who had attended him at sundry times and places.
_Saranac Lake, Oct. 8th, 1887._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have just read your article twice, with cheers of
approving laughter. I do not believe you ever wrote anything so funny:
Tyndall's "shell," the passage on the Davos press and its invaluable
issues, and that on V. Hugo and Swinburne, are exquisite; so, I say it
more ruefully, is the touch about the doctors. For the rest, I am very
glad you like my verses so well; and the qualities you ascribe to them
seem to me well found and well named. I own to that kind of candour you
attribute to me: when I am frankly interested, I suppose I fancy the
public will be so too; and when I am moved, I am sure of it. It has been
my luck hitherto to meet with no staggering disillusion. "Before" and
"After" may be two; and yet I believe the habit is now too thoroughly
ingrained to be altered. About the doctors, you were right, that
dedication has been the subject of some pleasantries that made me grind,
and of your happily touched reproof which made me blush. And to miscarry
in a dedication is an abominable form of book-wreck; I am a good
captain, I would rather lose the tent and save my dedication.
I am at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, I suppose for the winter: it
seems a first-rate place; we have a house in the eye of many winds, with
a view of a piece of running water--Highland, all but the dear hue of
peat--and of many hills--Highland also, but for the lack of heather.
Soon the snow will close on us; we are here some twenty
miles--twenty-seven, they say, but this I profoundly disbelieve--in the
woods: communication by letter is slow and (let me be consistent)
aleatory; by telegram is as near as may be possible.
I had some experience of American appreciation; I liked a little of it,
but there is too much; a little of that would go a long way to spoil a
man; and I like myself better in the woods. I am so damned candid and
ingenuous (for a cynic), and so much of a "cweatu' of impulse--aw" (if
you remember that admirable Leech) that I begin to shirk any more taffy;
I think I begin to like it too well. But let us trust the Gods; they
have a rod in pickle; reverently I doff my trousers, and with screwed
eyes await the _amari aliquid_ of the great God Busby.
I thank you for the article in all ways, and remain yours
affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO W. H. LOW
[_Saranac Lake, October 1887._]
SIR,--I have to trouble you with the following _paroles bien senties_.
We are here at a first-rate place. "Baker's" is the name of our house,
but we don't address there; we prefer the tender care of the
Post-Office, as more aristocratic (it is no use to telegraph even to the
care of the Post-Office, who does not give a single damn[22]). Baker's
has a prophet's chamber, which the hypercritical might describe as a
garret with a hole in the floor: in that garret, sir, I have to trouble
you and your wife to come and slumber. Not now, however: with manly
hospitality, I choke off any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife and
my mother are gone (a note for the latter, strongly suspected to be in
the hand of your talented wife, now sits silent on the mantel shelf),
one to Niagara and t'other to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not
yet installed. And because, third, I won't have you till I have a
buffalo robe and leggings, lest you should want to paint me as a plain
man, which I am not, but a rank Saranacker and wild man of the
woods.--Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES FAIRCHILD
_Post Office, Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, N.Y. [October 1887]._
MY DEAR FAIRCHILD,--I do not live in the Post Office; that is only my
address; I live at "Baker's," a house upon a hill, and very jolly in
every way. I believe this is going to do: we have a kind of a garret of
a spare room, where hardy visitors can sleep, and our table (if homely)
is not bad.
And here, appropriately enough, comes in the begging part. We cannot get
any fruit here: can you manage to send me some grapes? I told you I
would trouble you, and I will say that I do so with pleasure, which
means a great deal from yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Remember us to all yours: my mother and my wife are away
skylarking; my mother to Niagara, my wife to Indianapolis; and I live
here to-day alone with Lloyd, Valentine, some cold meat, and four salmon
trout, one of which is being grilled at this moment of writing; so that,
after the immortal pattern of the Indian boys, my household will soon
only reckon three. As usual with me, the news comes in a P.S., and is
mostly folly.
R. L. S.
_P.P.S._--My cold is so much better that I took another yesterday. But
the new one is a puny child; I fear him not; and yet I fear to boast. If
the postscript business goes on, this establishment will run out of P's;
but I hope it wasn't you that made this paper--just for a last word--I
could not compliment you upon that. And Lord! if you could see the
ink--not what I am using--but the local vintage! They don't write much
here; I bet what you please.
R. L. S.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
The Wondrous Tale referred to in the following is Stevenson's _Black
Arrow_, which had been through Mr. Archer's hands in proof.
_Saranac Lake, October 1887._
DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a work
of genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your pencillings;
though I defend "shrew," or at least many of the shrews.
We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill and
forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled
and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more bitterly
deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not boast.
My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and I
remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the hill
air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and
make great fires, and get along like one o'clock.
I am now a salaried party; I am a _bourgeois_ now; I am to write a
weekly paper for Scribner's, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth
ache for shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to
you; for we were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he
said he had had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while,
perhaps, to get in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough
gentlefolk in all ways that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I
am like to be a millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at
the social revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed;
and it would be a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are
you about? I hope you are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am
now, after a most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but
indeed I was quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my
respects to Tom.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
"Gleeson White" in this letter means the collection of _Ballades,
Rondeaus, &c._, edited by that gentleman and dedicated to R. L. S.
(Walter Scott, 1887).
[_Saranac Lake, October 1887._]
MY DEAR LAD,--I hear some vague reports of a success[23] at Montreal.
My news is not much, my mother is away to Niagara and Fanny to Indiana;
the Port Admiral and I and Valentine keep house together in our
verandahed cottage near a wood. I am writing, and have got into the
vein. When I got to N. Y. a paper offered me L2000 a year to do critical
weekly articles for them; the sum was so enormous that I tottered;
however, Scribner at once offered me the same scale to give him a
monthly paper in his magazine; indeed it is rather higher, L720 for the
twelve papers. This I could not decently refuse; and I am now a yoked
man, and after a fit of my usual impotence under bondage, seem to have
got into the swing. I suppose I shall scarce manage to do much else; but
there is the fixed sum, which shines like a sun in the firmament. A
prophet has certainly a devil of a lot of honour (and much coins) in
another country, whatever he has in his own.
I got Gleeson White; your best work and either the best or second best
in the book is the Ballade in Hot Weather; that is really a masterpiece
of melody and fancy. Damn your Villanelles--and everybody's. G.
Macdonald comes out strong in his two pious rondels; _Fons Bandusiae_
seems as exquisite as ever. To my surprise, I liked two of the Pantoums,
the blue-bottle, and the still better after-death one from _Love in
Idleness_. Lang cuts a poor figure, except in the Cricket one; your
patter ballade is a great _tour de force_, but spoiled by similar
caesuras. On the whole 'tis a ridiculous volume, and I had more pleasure
out of it than I expected. I forgot to praise Grant Allen's excellent
ballade, which is the one that runs with yours,--and here, to the point,
a note from you at Margate--among East Winds and Plain Women, damn them!
Well, what can we do or say? We are only at Saranac for the winter; and
if this _Deacon_ comes off, why you may join us there in glory; I would
I had some news of it. Saranac is not _quite_ so dear, in some ways, as
the rest of this land, where it costs you a pound to sneeze, and fifty
to blow your nose; but even here it costs $2.50 to get a box from the
station! Think of it! Lift it up tenderly! They had need to pay well!
but how poor devils live; and how it can pay to take a theatre company
over to such a land, is more than I can fancy. The devil of the States
for you is the conveyances, they are so dear--but O, what is not!
I have thrown off my cold in excellent style, though still very groggy
about the knees, so that when I climb a paling, of which we have many, I
feel as precarious and nutatory as a man of ninety. Under this I grind;
but I believe the place will suit me. Must stop.--Ever affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
The "dear Alexander" mentioned below is Mr. J. W. Alexander, the
well-known American artist, who had been a welcome visitor to
Stevenson at Bournemouth, and had drawn his portrait there. The
humorous romance proceeding from Mr. Osbourne's typewriter was the
first draft of _The Wrong Box_; or, as it was originally called, _The
Finsbury Tontine_, or _The Game of Bluff_. The article by Mr. Henry
James referred to in the last paragraph is one on R. L. S. which had
appeared in the Century Magazine for October, and was reprinted in
_Partial Portraits_.
[_Saranac Lake, October 1887_.] I know not the day; but the month
it is the drear October by the
ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--This is to say _First_, the voyage was a huge
success. We all enjoyed it (bar my wife) to the ground: sixteen days at
sea with a cargo of hay, matches, stallions, and monkeys, and in a ship
with no style on, and plenty of sailors to talk to, and the endless
pleasures of the sea--the romance of it, the sport of the scratch dinner
and the smashing crockery, the pleasure--an endless pleasure--of
balancing to the swell: well, it's over.
_Second_, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport and New
York; saw much of and liked hugely the Fairchilds, St. Gaudens the
sculptor, Gilder of the Century--just saw the dear Alexander--saw a lot
of my old and admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you knew and
appreciated--was medallioned by St. Gaudens, and at last escaped to
_Third_, Saranac Lake, where we now are, and which I believe we mean to
like and pass the winter at. Our house--emphatically "Baker's"--is on a
hill, and has a sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley--bless
the face of running water!--and sees some hills too, and the paganly
prosaic roofs of Saranac itself; the Lake it does not see, nor do I
regret that; I like water (fresh water I mean) either running swiftly
among stones, or else largely qualified with whisky. As I write, the sun
(which has been long a stranger) shines in at my shoulder; from the next
room, the bell of Lloyd's typewriter makes an agreeable music as it
patters off (at a rate which astonishes this experienced novelist) the
early chapters of a humorous romance; from still further off--the walls
of Baker's are neither ancient nor massive--rumours of Valentine about
the kitchen stove come to my ears; of my mother and Fanny I hear
nothing, for the excellent reason that they have gone sparking off, one
to Niagara, one to Indianapolis. People complain that I never give news
in my letters. I have wiped out that reproach.
But now, _Fourth_, I have seen the article; and it may be from natural
partiality, I think it the best you have written. O--I remember the
Gautier, which was an excellent performance; and the Balzac, which was
good; and the Daudet, over which I licked my chops; but the R. L. S. is
better yet. It is so humorous, and it hits my little frailties with so
neat (and so friendly) a touch; and Alan is the occasion for so much
happy talk, and the quarrel is so generously praised. I read it twice,
though it was only some hours in my possession; and Low, who got it for
me from the Century, sat up to finish it ere he returned it; and, sir,
we were all delighted. Here is the paper out, nor will anything, not
even friendship, not even gratitude for the article, induce me to begin
a second sheet; so here, with the kindest remembrances and the warmest
good wishes, I remain, yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_[Saranac Lake], 18th November 1887._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--No likely I'm going to waste a sheet of paper.... I am
offered L1600 ($8000) for the American serial rights on my next story!
As you say, times are changed since the Lothian Road. Well, the Lothian
Road was grand fun too; I could take an afternoon of it with great
delight. But I'm awfu' grand noo, and long may it last!
Remember me to any of the faithful--if there are any left. I wish I
could have a crack with you.--Yours ever affectionately,
R. L. S.
I find I have forgotten more than I remembered of business.... Please
let us know (if you know) for how much Skerryvore is let; you will here
detect the female mind; I let it for what I could get; nor shall the
possession of this knowledge (which I am happy to have forgot) increase
the amount by so much as the shadow of a sixpenny piece; but my females
are agog.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES SCRIBNER
Shortly after the date of the present correspondence Stevenson, to
his great advantage, put all his publishing arrangements (as he had
already put his private business) into the hands of his friend Mr.
Baxter. Meantime he was managing them himself; and an occasional
lapse of memory or attention betrayed him once or twice into
misunderstandings, and once at least conflicting agreements with two
different publishers, both his friends. He was the first to denounce
the error when he became aware of it, and suffered sharply from the
sense of his own unintentional fault. The next two letters, and some
allusions in those which follow, relate to this affair.
[_Saranac Lake, November 20 or 21, 1887._]
MY DEAR MR. SCRIBNER,--Heaven help me, I am under a curse just now. I
have played fast and loose with what I said to you; and that, I beg you
to believe, in the purest innocence of mind. I told you you should have
the power over all my work in this country; and about a fortnight ago,
when M'Clure was here, I calmly signed a bargain for the serial
publication of a story. You will scarce believe that I did this in mere
oblivion; but I did; and all that I can say is that I will do so no
more, and ask you to forgive me. Please write to me soon as to this.
Will you oblige me by paying in for three articles, as already sent, to
my account with John Paton & Co., 52 William Street? This will be most
convenient for us.
The fourth article is nearly done; and I am the more deceived, or it is
_A Buster_.
Now as to the first thing in this letter, I do wish to hear from you
soon; and I am prepared to hear any reproach, or (what is harder to
hear) any forgiveness; for I have deserved the worst.--Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
This is the first of many letters, increasing in friendliness as the
correspondence goes on, to the editor of Scribner's Magazine.
[_Saranac Lake, November 1887._]
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--I enclose corrected proof of _Beggars_, which
seems good. I mean to make a second sermon, which, if it is about the
same length as _Pulvis et Umbra_, might go in along with it as two
sermons, in which case I should call the first "The Whole Creation," and
the second "Any Good." We shall see; but you might say how you like the
notion.
One word: if you have heard from Mr. Scribner of my unhappy oversight in
the matter of a story, you will make me ashamed to write to you, and yet
I wish to beg you to help me into quieter waters. The oversight
committed--and I do think it was not so bad as Mr. Scribner seems to
think it--and discovered, I was in a miserable position. I need not tell
you that my first impulse was to offer to share or to surrender the
price agreed upon when it should fall due; and it is almost to my credit
that I arranged to refrain. It is one of these positions from which
there is no escape; I cannot undo what I have done. And I wish to beg
you--should Mr. Scribner speak to you in the matter--to try to get him
to see this neglect of mine for no worse than it is: unpardonable
enough, because a breach of an agreement; but still pardonable, because
a piece of sheer carelessness and want of memory, done, God knows,
without design and since most sincerely regretted. I have no memory. You
have seen how I omitted to reserve the American rights in _Jekyll_: last
winter I wrote and demanded, as an increase, a less sum than had already
been agreed upon for a story that I gave to Cassell's. For once that my
forgetfulness has, by a cursed fortune, seemed to gain, instead of lose,
me money, it is painful indeed that I should produce so poor an
impression on the mind of Mr. Scribner. But I beg you to believe, and if
possible to make him believe, that I am in no degree or sense a
_faiseur_, and that in matters of business my design, at least, is
honest. Nor (bating bad memory and self-deception) am I untruthful in
such affairs.
If Mr. Scribner shall have said nothing to you in the matter, please
regard the above as unwritten, and believe me, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Saranac Lake, November 1887._]
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--The revise seemed all right, so I did not trouble
you with it; indeed, my demand for one was theatrical, to impress that
obdurate dog, your reader. Herewith a third paper: it has been a cruel
long time upon the road, but here it is, and not bad at last, I fondly
hope. I was glad you liked the _Lantern Bearers_; I did, too. I thought
it was a good paper, really contained some excellent sense, and was
ingeniously put together. I have not often had more trouble than I have
with these papers; thirty or forty pages of foul copy, twenty is the
very least I have had. Well, you pay high; it is fit that I should have
to work hard, it somewhat quiets my conscience.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
_Saranac Lake, Adirondack Mountains,
New York, U.S.A., November 21, 1887._
MY DEAR SYMONDS,--I think we have both meant and wanted to write to you
any time these months; but we have been much tossed about, among new
faces and old, and new scenes and old, and scenes (like this of Saranac)
which are neither one nor other. To give you some clue to our affairs, I
had best begin pretty well back. We sailed from the Thames in a vast
bucket of iron that took seventeen days from shore to shore. I cannot
describe how I enjoyed the voyage, nor what good it did me; but on the
Banks I caught friend catarrh. In New York and then in Newport I was
pretty ill; but on my return to New York, lying in bed most of the time,
with St. Gaudens the sculptor sculping me, and my old friend Low around,
I began to pick up once more. Now here we are in a kind of wilderness of
hills and firwoods and boulders and snow and wooden houses. So far as we
have gone the climate is grey and harsh, but hungry and somnolent; and
although not charming like that of Davos, essentially bracing and
briskening. The country is a kind of insane mixture of Scotland and a
touch of Switzerland and a dash of America, and a thought of the British
Channel in the skies. We have a decent house--
_December 6th._--A decent house, as I was saying, sir, on a hill-top,
with a look down a Scottish river in front, and on one hand a Perthshire
hill; on the other, the beginnings and skirts of the village play hide
and seek among other hills. We have been below zero, I know not how far
(-10 at 8 A.M. once), and when it is cold it is delightful; but hitherto
the cold has not held, and we have chopped in and out from frost to
thaw, from snow to rain, from quiet air to the most disastrous
north-westerly curdlers of the blood. After a week of practical thaw,
the ice still bears in favoured places. So there is hope.
I wonder if you saw my book of verses? It went into a second edition,
because of my name, I suppose, and its _prose_ merits. I do not set up
to be a poet. Only an all-round literary man: a man who talks, not one
who sings. But I believe the very fact that it was only speech served
the book with the public. Horace is much a speaker, and see how popular!
Most of Martial is only speech, and I cannot conceive a person who does
not love his Martial; most of Burns, also, such as "The Louse," "The
Toothache," "The Haggis," and lots more of his best. Excuse this little
apology for my house; but I don't like to come before people who have a
note of song, and let it be supposed I do not know the difference.
To return to the more important--news. My wife again suffers in high and
cold places; I again profit. She is off to-day to New York for a change,
as heretofore to Berne, but I am glad to say in better case than then.
Still it is undeniable she suffers, and you must excuse her (at least)
if we both prove bad correspondents. I am decidedly better, but I have
been terribly cut up with business complications: one disagreeable, as
threatening loss; one, of the most intolerable complexion, as involving
me in dishonour. The burthen of consistent carelessness: I have lost
much by it in the past; and for once (to my damnation) I have gained. I
am sure you will sympathise. It is hard work to sleep; it is hard to be
told you are a liar, and have to hold your peace, and think, "Yes, by
God, and a thief too!" You remember my lectures on Ajax, or the
Unintentional Sin? Well, I know all about that now. Nothing seems so
unjust to the sufferer: or is more just in essence. _Laissez passer la
justice de Dieu._
Lloyd has learned to use the typewriter, and has most gallantly
completed upon that the draft of a tale, which seems to me not without
merit and promise, it is so silly, so gay, so absurd, in spots (to my
partial eyes) so genuinely humorous. It is true, he would not have
written it but for the _New Arabian Nights_; but it is strange to find a
young writer funny. Heavens, but I was depressing when I took the pen in
hand! And now I doubt if I am sadder than my neighbours. Will this
beginner move in the inverse direction?
Let me have your news, and believe me, my dear Symonds, with genuine
affection, yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
The following refers to a volume on the elder Dumas, which Mr. Henley
was at this time preparing to write, and which he proposed to
dedicate to his friend.
_Saranac [December 1887]._
MY DEAR LAD,--I was indeed overjoyed to hear of the Dumas. In the matter
of the dedication, are not cross dedications a little awkward? Lang and
Rider Haggard did it, to be sure. Perpend. And if you should conclude
against a dedication, there is a passage in _Memories and Portraits_
written _at_ you, when I was most desperate (to stir you up a bit),
which might be quoted: something about Dumas still waiting his
biographer. I have a decent time when the weather is fine; when it is
grey, or windy or wet (as it too often is), I am merely degraded to the
dirt. I get some work done every day with a devil of a heave; not extra
good ever; and I regret my engagement. Whiles I have had the most
deplorable business annoyances too; have been threatened with having to
refund money; got over that; and found myself in the worst scrape of
being a kind of unintentional swindler. These have worried me a great
deal; also old age with his stealing steps seems to have clawed me in
his clutch to some tune.
Do you play All Fours? We are trying it; it is still all haze to me. Can
the elder hand _beg_ more than once? The Port Admiral is at Boston
mingling with millionaires. I am but a weed on Lethe wharf. The wife is
only so-so. The Lord lead us all: if I can only get off the stage with
clean hands, I shall sing Hosanna. "Put" is described quite differently
from your version in a book I have; what are your rules? The Port
Admiral is using a game of Put in a tale of his, the first copy of
which was gloriously finished about a fortnight ago, and the revise
gallantly begun: _The Finsbury Tontine_ it is named, and might fill two
volumes, and is quite incredibly silly, and in parts (it seems to me)
pretty humorous.--Love to all from
AN OLD, OLD MAN.
I say, _Taine's Origines de la France Contemporaine_ is no end; it would
turn the dead body of Charles Fox into a living Tory.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
[_Saranac Lake, December 1887._]
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--The Opal is very well; it is fed with glycerine
when it seems hungry. I am very well, and get about much more than I
could have hoped. My wife is not very well; there is no doubt the high
level does not agree with her, and she is on the move for a holiday to
New York. Lloyd is at Boston on a visit, and I hope has a good time. My
mother is really first-rate; she and I, despairing of other games for
two, now play All Fours out of a gamebook, and have not yet discovered
its niceties, if any.
You will have heard, I dare say, that they made a great row over me
here. They also offered me much money, a great deal more than my works
are worth: I took some of it, and was greedy and hasty, and am now very
sorry. I have done with big prices from now out. Wealth and self-respect
seem, in my case, to be strangers.
We were talking the other day of how well Fleeming managed to grow rich.
Ah, that is a rare art; something more intellectual than a virtue. The
book has not yet made its appearance here; the Life alone, with a little
preface, is to appear in the States; and the Scribners are to send you
half the royalties. I should like it to do well, for Fleeming's sake.
Will you please send me the Greek water-carrier's song? I have a
particular use for it.
Have I any more news, I wonder?--and echo wonders along with me. I am
strangely disquieted on all political matters; and I do not know if it
is "the signs of the times" or the sign of my own time of life. But to
me the sky seems black both in France and England, and only partly clear
in America. I have not seen it so dark in my time; of that I am sure.
Please let us have some news; and excuse me, for the sake of my
well-known idleness; and pardon Fanny, who is really not very well, for
this long silence.--Very sincerely your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
The lady at Bournemouth (the giver of the paper-knife) to whom the
following letter is addressed had been trusted to keep an eye on
Stevenson's interests in connection with his house (which had been
let) and other matters, and to report thereon from time to time. In
their correspondence Stevenson is generally referred to as the Squire
and the lady as the Gamekeeper.
[_Saranac Lake, December 1887._]
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I am so much afraid our gamekeeper may weary of
unacknowledged reports! Hence, in the midst of a perfect horror of
detestable weathers of a quite incongruous strain, and with less desire
for correspondence than--well, than--well, with no desire for
correspondence, behold me dash into the breach. Do keep up your letters.
They are most delightful to this exiled backwoods family; and in your
next, we shall hope somehow or other to hear better news of you and
yours--that in the first place--and to hear more news of our beasts and
birds and kindly fruits of earth and those human tenants who are (truly)
too much with us.
I am very well; better than for years: that is for good. But then my
wife is no great shakes; the place does not suit her--it is my private
opinion that no place does--and she is now away down to New York for a
change, which (as Lloyd is in Boston) leaves my mother and me and
Valentine alone in our wind-beleaguered hill-top hat-box of a house. You
should hear the cows butt against the walls in the early morning while
they feed; you should also see our back log when the thermometer goes
(as it does go) away--away below zero, till it can be seen no more by
the eye of man--not the thermometer, which is still perfectly visible,
but the mercury, which curls up into the bulb like a hibernating bear;
you should also see the lad who "does chores" for us, with his red
stockings and his thirteen-year-old face, and his highly manly tramp
into the room; and his two alternative answers to all questions about
the weather: either "Cold," or with a really lyrical movement of the
voice, "_Lovely_--raining!"
Will you take this miserable scrap for what it is worth? Will you also
understand that I am the man to blame, and my wife is really almost too
much out of health to write, or at least doesn't write?--And believe me,
with kind remembrances to Mrs. Boodle and your sisters, very sincerely
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The supposed Lord Warmingpan of the following was really Lord
Pollexfen.
_Saranac, 12th December '87._
Give us news of all your folk. A Merry Christmas from all of us.
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Will you please send L20 to ---- for a Christmas gift
from ----? Moreover, I cannot remember what I told you to send to ----;
but as God has dealt so providentially with me this year, I now propose
to make it L20.
I beg of you also to consider my strange position. I jined a club which
it was said was to defend the Union; and I had a letter from the
secretary, which his name I believe was Lord Warmingpan (or words to
that effect), to say I am elected, and had better pay up a certain sum
of money, I forget what. Now I cannae verra weel draw a blank cheque and
send to--
LORD WARMINGPAN (or words to that effect),
London, England.
And, man, if it was possible, I would be dooms glad to be out o' this
bit scrapie. Mebbe the club was ca'd "The Union," but I wouldnae like to
sweir; and mebbe it wasnae, or mebbe only words to that effec'--but I
wouldnae care just exac'ly about sweirin'. Do ye no think Henley, or
Pollick, or some o' they London fellies, micht mebbe perhaps find out
for me? and just what the soom was? And that you would aiblins pay for
me? For I thocht I was sae dam patriotic jinin', and it would be a kind
o' a come-doun to be turned out again. Mebbe Lang would ken; or mebbe
Rider Haggyard: they're kind o' Union folks. But it's my belief his name
was Warmingpan whatever.--Yours,
THOMSON,
_alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Could it be Warminster?
TO MISS MONROE
The play of DEACON BRODIE was at this time being performed at
Chicago, with Mr. E. J. Henley in the title-part.
_Saranac Lake, New York [December 19, 1887]._
DEAR MISS MONROE,--Many thanks for your letter and your good wishes. It
was much my desire to get to Chicago: had I done--or if I yet do--so, I
shall hope to see the original of my photograph, which is one of my show
possessions; but the fates are rather contrary. My wife is far from
well; I myself dread, worse than almost any other imaginable peril, that
miraculous and really insane invention the American Railroad Car.
Heaven help the man--may I add the woman--that sets foot in one! Ah, if
it were only an ocean to cross, it would be a matter of small thought to
me--and great pleasure. But the railroad car--every man has his weak
point; and I fear the railroad car as abjectly as I do an earwig, and,
on the whole, on better grounds. You do not know how bitter it is to
have to make such a confession; for you have not the pretension nor the
weakness of a man. If I do get to Chicago, you will hear of me: so much
can be said. And do you never come east?
I was pleased to recognise a word of my poor old _Deacon_ in your
letter. It would interest me very much to hear how it went and what you
thought of piece and actors; and my collaborator, who knows and respects
the photograph, would be pleased too.--Still in the hope of seeing you,
I am, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--It may please you to know how our family has been
employed. In the silence of the snow the afternoon lamp has lighted an
eager fireside group: my mother reading, Fanny, Lloyd, and I devoted
listeners; and the work was really one of the best works I ever heard;
and its author is to be praised and honoured; and what do you suppose is
the name of it? and have you ever read it yourself? and (I am bound I
will get to the bottom of the page before I blow the gaff, if I have to
fight it out on this line all summer; for if you have not to turn a
leaf, there can be no suspense, the conspectory eye being swift to pick
out proper names; and without suspense, there can be little pleasure in
this world, to my mind at least)--and, in short, the name of it is
_Roderick Hudson_, if you please. My dear James, it is very spirited,
and very sound, and very noble too. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, Rowland, O, all
first-rate: Rowland a very fine fellow; Hudson as good as he can stick
(did you know Hudson? I suspect you did), Mrs. H. his real born mother,
a thing rarely managed in fiction.
We are all keeping pretty fit and pretty hearty; but this letter is not
from me to you, it is from a reader of _R. H._ to the author of the
same, and it says nothing, and has nothing to say, but thank you.
We are going to re-read _Casamassima_ as a proper pendant. Sir, I think
these two are your best, and care not who knows it.
May I beg you, the next time _Roderick_ is printed off, to go over the
sheets of the last few chapters, and strike out "immense" and
"tremendous"? You have simply dropped them there like your
pocket-handkerchief; all you have to do is to pick them up and pouch
them, and your room--what do I say?--your cathedral!--will be swept and
garnished.--I am, dear sir, your delighted reader,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Perhaps it is a pang of causeless honesty, perhaps I hope it
will set a value on my praise of _Roderick_, perhaps it's a burst of the
diabolic, but I must break out with the news that I can't bear the
_Portrait of a Lady_. I read it all, and I wept too; but I can't stand
your having written it; and I beg you will write no more of the like.
_Infra_, sir; Below you: I can't help it--it may be your favourite work,
but in my eyes it's BELOW YOU to write and me to read. I thought
_Roderick_ was going to be another such at the beginning; and I cannot
describe my pleasure as I found it taking bones and blood, and looking
out at me with a moved and human countenance, whose lineaments are
written in my memory until my last of days.
R. L. S.
My wife begs your forgiveness; I believe for her silence.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Saranac Lake [December 1887]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This goes to say that we are all fit, and the place is
very bleak and wintry, and up to now has shown no such charms of climate
as Davos, but is a place where men eat and where the cattarh, catarrh
(cattarrh, or cattarrhh) appears to be unknown. I walk in my verandy in
the snaw, sir, looking down over one of those dabbled wintry landscapes
that are (to be frank) so chilly to the human bosom, and up at a grey,
English--nay, _mehercle_, Scottish--heaven; and I think it pretty bleak;
and the wind swoops at me round the corner, like a lion, and fluffs the
snow in my face; and I could aspire to be elsewhere; but yet I do not
catch cold, and yet, when I come in, I eat. So that hitherto Saranac, if
not deliriously delectable, has not been a failure; nay, from the mere
point of view of the wicked body, it has proved a success. But I wish I
could still get to the woods; alas, _nous n'irons plus au bois_ is my
poor song; the paths are buried, the dingles drifted full, a little walk
is grown a long one; till spring comes, I fear the burthen will hold
good.
I get along with my papers for Scribner not fast, nor so far specially
well; only this last, the fourth one (which makes a third part of my
whole task), I do believe is pulled off after a fashion. It is a mere
sermon: "Smith opens out";[24] but it is true, and I find it touching
and beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine writing
in it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. _Pulvis et Umbra_, I call it;
I might have called it a Darwinian Sermon, if I had wanted. Its
sentiments, although parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe. The
other three papers, I fear, bear many traces of effort, and the
ungenuine inspiration of an income at so much per essay, and the honest
desire of the incomer to give good measure for his money. Well, I did my
damndest anyway.
We have been reading H. James's _Roderick Hudson_, which I eagerly press
you to get at once: it is a book of a high order--the last volume in
particular. I wish Meredith would read it. It took my breath away.
I am at the seventh book of the _AEneid_, and quite amazed at its merits
(also very often floored by its difficulties). The Circe passage at the
beginning, and the sublime business of Amata with the simile of the
boy's top--O Lord, what a happy thought!--have specially delighted
me.--I am, dear sir, your respected friend,
JOHN GREGG GILLSON, J.P., M.R.I.A., etc.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The following narrates the beginning of the author's labours on _The
Master of Ballantrae_. An unfinished paper written some years later
in Samoa, and intended for Scribner's Magazine, tells how the story
first took shape in his mind. See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_,
vol. iv. p. 297: reprinted in _Essays on the Art of Writing_.
[_Saranac Lake, December 24, 1887._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thank you for your explanations. I have done no more
Virgil since I finished the seventh book, for I have first been eaten up
with Taine, and next have fallen head over heels into a new tale, _The
Master of Ballantrae_. No thought have I now apart from it, and I have
got along up to page ninety-two of the draft with great interest. It is
to me a most seizing tale: there are some fantastic elements; the most
is a dead genuine human problem--human tragedy, I should say rather. It
will be about as long, I imagine, as _Kidnapped_.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
(1) My old Lord Durrisdeer.
(2) The Master of Ballantrae, _and_
(3) Henry Durie, _his sons_.
(4) Clementina,[25] _engaged to the first, married to the second_.
(5) Ephraim Mackellar, _land steward at Durrisdeer and narrator of the
most of the book_.
(6) Francis Burke, Chevalier de St. Louis, _one of Prince Charlie's
Irishmen and narrator of the rest_.
Besides these, many instant figures, most of them dumb or nearly so:
Jessie Brown the whore, Captain Crail, Captain MacCombie, our old friend
Alan Breck, our old friend Riach (both only for an instant), Teach the
pirate (vulgarly Blackbeard), John Paul and Macconochie, servants at
Durrisdeer. The date is from 1745 to '65 (about). The scene, near
Kirkcudbright, in the States, and for a little moment in the French East
Indies. I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the
brothers, and announcement of the death to Clementina and my
Lord--Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really
very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil. I have known
hints of him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as a lion,
but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so
much surprise in my two cowards. 'Tis true, I saw a hint of the same
nature in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to
attend to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here come my
visitors--and have now gone, or the first relay of them; and I hope no
more may come. For mark you, sir, this is our "day"--Saturday, as ever
was; and here we sit, my mother and I, before a large wood fire and
await the enemy with the most steadfast courage; and without snow and
greyness: and the woman Fanny in New York for her health, which is far
from good; and the lad Lloyd at the inn in the village because he has a
cold; and the handmaid Valentine abroad in a sleigh upon her messages;
and to-morrow Christmas and no mistake. Such is human life: _la carriere
humaine_. I will enclose, if I remember, the required autograph.
I will do better, put it on the back of this page. Love to all, and
mostly, my very dear Colvin, to yourself. For whatever I say or do, or
don't say or do, you may be very sure I am--Yours always affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Saranac Lake, Christmas 1887._
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,---And a very good Christmas to you all; and better
fortune; and if worse, the more courage to support it--which I think is
the kinder wish in all human affairs. Somewhile--I fear a good
while--after this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have no
tact and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic brutality; and I
dare say the present, even after my friend Baxter has acted on and
reviewed my hints, may prove a White Elephant. That is why I dread
presents. And therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper
prove unwelcome, _it is to be exchanged_. I will not sit down under the
name of a giver of White Elephants. I never had any elephant but one,
and his initials were R. L. S.; and he trod on my foot at a very early
age. But this is a fable, and not in the least to the point: which is
that if, for once in my life, I have wished to make things nicer for
anybody but the Elephant (see fable), do not suffer me to have made them
ineffably more embarrassing, and exchange--ruthlessly exchange!
For my part, I am the most cockered up of any mortal being; and one of
the healthiest, or thereabout, at some modest distance from the bull's
eye. I am condemned to write twelve articles in Scribner's Magazine for
the love of gain; I think I had better send you them; what is far more
to the purpose, I am on the jump with a new story which has bewitched
me--I doubt it may bewitch no one else. It is called _The Master of
Ballantrae_--pronounce B[=a]ll[)a]n-tray. If it is not good, well, mine
will be the fault; for I believe it is a good tale.
The greetings of the season to you, and your mother, and your sisters.
My wife heartily joins.--And I am, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--You will think me an illiterate dog: I am, for the first time,
reading Robertson's sermons. I do not know how to express how much I
think of them. If by any chance you should be as illiterate as I, and
not know them, it is worth while curing the defect.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following letter invites Mr. Baxter to allow himself (under an
_alias_) and his office in Edinburgh to figure in a preface to the
new story. Such a preface was drafted accordingly, but on second
thoughts suppressed; to be, on renewed consideration, reinstated in
the final editions.
_Saranac Lake, January '88._
DEAR CHARLES,--You are the flower of Doers.... Will my doer collaborate
thus much in my new novel? In the year 1794 or 5, Mr. Ephraim Mackellar,
A.M., late steward on the Durrisdeer estates, completed a set of
memoranda (as long as a novel) with regard to the death of the (then)
late Lord Durrisdeer, and as to that of his attainted elder brother,
called by the family courtesy title the Master of Ballantrae. These he
placed in the hand of John Macbrair, W.S., the family agent, on the
understanding they were to be sealed until 1862, when a century would
have elapsed since the affair in the wilderness (my lord's death). You
succeeded Mr. Macbrair's firm; the Durrisdeers are extinct; and last
year, in an old green box, you found these papers with Macbrair's
indorsation. It is that indorsation of which I want a copy; you may
remember, when you gave me the papers, I neglected to take that, and I
am sure you are a man too careful of antiquities to have let it fall
aside. I shall have a little introduction descriptive of my visit to
Edinburgh, arrival there, denner with yoursel', and first reading of the
papers in your smoking-room: all of which, of course, you well
remember.--Ever yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
Your name is my friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S.!!!
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--I am keeping the sermon to see if I can't add
another. Meanwhile, I will send you very soon a different paper which
may take its place. Possibly some of these days soon I may get together
a talk on things current, which should go in (if possible) earlier than
either. I am now less nervous about these papers; I believe I can do the
trick without great strain, though the terror that breathed on my back
in the beginning is not yet forgotten.
The _Master of Ballantrae_ I have had to leave aside, as I was quite
worked out. But in about a week I hope to try back and send you the
first four numbers: these are all drafted, it is only the revision that
has broken me down, as it is often the hardest work. These four I
propose you should set up for me at once, and we'll copyright 'em in a
pamphlet. I will tell you the names of the _bona fide_ purchasers in
England.
The numbers will run from twenty to thirty pages of my manuscript. You
can give me that much, can you not? It is a howling good tale--at least
these first four numbers are; the end is a trifle more fantastic, but
'tis all picturesque.
Don't trouble about any more French books; I am on another scent, you
see, just now. Only the _French in Hindustan_ I await with impatience,
as that is for _Ballantrae_. The scene of that romance is Scotland---the
States--Scotland--India---Scotland--and the States again; so it jumps
like a flea. I have enough about the States now, and very much obliged I
am; yet if Drake's _Tragedies of the Wilderness_ is (as I gather) a
collection of originals, I should like to purchase it. If it is a
picturesque vulgarisation, I do not wish to look it in the face.
Purchase, I say; for I think it would be well to have some such
collection by me with a view to fresh works.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--If you think of having the _Master_ illustrated, I suggest that
Hole would be very well up to the Scottish, which is the larger, part.
If you have it done here, tell your artist to look at the hall of
Craigievar in Billing's _Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities_, and
he will get a broad hint for the hall at Durrisdeer: it is, I think, the
chimney of Craigievar and the roof of Pinkie, and perhaps a little more
of Pinkie altogether; but I should have to see the book myself to be
sure. Hole would be invaluable for this. I dare say if you had it
illustrated, you could let me have one or two for the English edition.
R. L. S.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
The following refers to Mr. Bernard Shaw's novel, _Cashel Byron's
Profession_, which had been sent Stevenson to read by their common
friend Mr. Archer.
[_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._]
MY DEAR ARCHER,--What am I to say? I have read your friend's book with
singular relish. If he has written any other, I beg you will let me see
it; and if he has not, I beg him to lose no time in supplying the
deficiency. It is full of promise; but I should like to know his age.
There are things in it that are very clever, to which I attach small
importance; it is the shape of the age. And there are passages,
particularly the rally in presence of the Zulu king, that show genuine
and remarkable narrative talent--a talent that few will have the wit to
understand, a talent of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision,
and sufficient self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a
narrator.
As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most feverish. Over
Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I dote on
Bashville--I could read of him for ever; _de Bashville je suis le
fervent_--there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave;
_Bashville est magnifique, mais il n'est guere possible_. He is the note
of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the author
has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott's or Dumas', and then he daubs
in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the romantic
griffon--even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at
the nature of the quest--and I believe in his heart he thinks he is
labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism.
It is this that makes me--the most hardened adviser now extant--stand
back and hold my peace. If Mr. Shaw is below five-and-twenty, let him go
his path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic,
and pursue romance with his eyes open;--or perhaps he knows it;--God
knows!--my brain is softened.
It is HORRID FUN. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure
you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author.
(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
1 part Charles Reade; 1 part Henry James or some kindred author badly
assimilated; 1/2 part Disraeli (perhaps unconscious); 1-1/2 parts
struggling, over-laid original talent; 1 part blooming, gaseous folly.
That is the equation as it stands. What it may be, I don't know, nor any
other man. _Vixere fortes_--O, let him remember that--let him beware of
his damned century; his gifts of insane chivalry and animated narration
are just those that might be slain and thrown out like an untimely birth
by the Daemon of the epoch. And if he only knew how I have adored the
chivalry! Bashville!--_O Bashville! j'en chortle_ (which is fairly
polyglot).
R. L. S.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
[_Saranac Lake, February 1888._]
MY DEAR ARCHER,--Pretty sick in bed; but necessary to protest and
continue your education.
Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think because not amusing (I
think he often was amusing). The reason is this: I never, or almost
never, saw two pages of his work that I could not have put in one
without the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I know of
writing. If there is anywhere a thing said in two sentences that could
have been as clearly and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then
it's amateur work. Then you will bring me up with old Dumas. Nay, the
object of a story is to be long, to fill up hours; the story-teller's
art of writing is to water out by continual invention, historical and
technical, and yet not seem to water; seem on the other hand to practise
that same wit of conspicuous and declaratory condensation which is the
proper art of writing. That is one thing in which my stories fail: I am
always cutting the flesh off their bones.
I would rise from the dead to preach!
Hope all well. I think my wife better, but she's not allowed to write;
and this (only wrung from me by desire to Boss and Parsonise and
Dominate, strong in sickness) is my first letter for days, and will
likely be my last for many more. Not blame my wife for her silence:
doctor's orders. All much interested by your last, and fragment from
brother, and anecdotes of Tomarcher.--The sick but still Moral
R. L. S.
Tell Shaw to hurry up: I want another.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
In early days in Paris, Stevenson's chivalrous feelings had once been
shocked by the scene in the _Demi-Monde_ of Dumas fils, where Suzanne
d'Ange is trapped by Olivier de Jalin. His correspondent had asked
what exactly took place.
[_Saranac Lake, February 1888 ?_]
MY DEAR ARCHER,--It happened thus. I came forth from that performance in
a breathing heat of indignation. (Mind, at this distance of time and
with my increased knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the piece;
but I saw none then, except a problem in brutality; and I still consider
the problem in that case not established.) On my way down the _Francais_
stairs, I trod on an old gentleman's toes, whereupon with that suavity
that so well becomes me, I turned about to apologise, and on the
instant, repenting me of that intention, stopped the apology midway, and
added something in French to this effect: No, you are one of the
_laches_ who have been applauding that piece. I retract my apology. Said
the old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and with a smile that was
truly heavenly in temperance, irony, good-nature, and knowledge of the
world, "Ah, monsieur, vous etes bien jeune!"--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Saranac Lake, February 1888._]
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--Will you send me (from the library) some of the
works of my dear old G. P. R. James? With the following especially I
desire to make or to renew acquaintance: _The Songster_, _The Gipsy_,
_The Convict_, _The Stepmother_, _The Gentleman of the Old School_, _The
Robber_.
_Excusez du peu._
This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an accident. The
"Franklin County Library" contains two works of his, _The Cavalier_ and
_Morley Ernstein_. I read the first with indescribable amusement--it was
worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; the second (to my
surprise) was better than I had dared to hope: a good, honest, dull,
interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned talent in the invention
when not strained; and a genuine old-fashioned feeling for the English
language. This experience awoke appetite, and you see I have taken steps
to stay it.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Saranac Lake, February 1888._]
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,--1. Of course then don't use it. Dear Man, I write
these to please you, not myself, and you know a main sight better than I
do what is good. In that case, however, I enclose another paper, and
return the corrected proof of _Pulvis et Umbra_, so that we may be
afloat.
2. I want to say a word as to the _Master_. (The _Master of Ballantrae_
shall be the name by all means.) If you like and want it, I leave it to
you to make an offer. You may remember I thought the offer you made when
I was still in England too small; by which I did not at all mean, I
thought it less than it was worth, but too little to tempt me to undergo
the disagreeables of serial publication. This tale (if you want it) you
are to have; for it is the least I can do for you; and you are to
observe that the sum you pay me for my articles going far to meet my
wants, I am quite open to be satisfied with less than formerly. I tell
you I do dislike this battle of the dollars. I feel sure you all pay too
much here in America; and I beg you not to spoil me any more. For I am
getting spoiled: I do not want wealth, and I feel these big sums
demoralise me.
My wife came here pretty ill; she had a dreadful bad night; to-day she
is better. But now Valentine is ill; and Lloyd and I have got breakfast,
and my hand somewhat shakes after washing dishes.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Please order me the Evening Post for two months. My subscription
is run out. The _Mutiny_ and _Edwardes_ to hand.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Saranac Lake, March 1888._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Fanny has been very unwell. She is not long home, has
been ill again since her return, but is now better again to a degree.
You must not blame her for not writing, as she is not allowed to write
at all, not even a letter. To add to our misfortunes, Valentine is quite
ill and in bed. Lloyd and I get breakfast; I have now, 10.15, just got
the dishes washed and the kitchen all clear, and sit down to give you as
much news as I have spirit for, after such an engagement. Glass is a
thing that really breaks my spirit: I do not like to fail, and with
glass I cannot reach the work of my high calling--the artist's.
I am, as you may gather from this, wonderfully better: this harsh, grey,
glum, doleful climate has done me good. You cannot fancy how sad a
climate it is. When the thermometer stays all day below 10 deg., it is
really cold; and when the wind blows, O commend me to the result.
Pleasure in life is all delete; there is no red spot left, fires do not
radiate, you burn your hands all the time on what seem to be cold
stones. It is odd, zero is like summer heat to us now; and we like, when
the thermometer outside is really low, a room at about 48 deg.: 60 deg. we find
oppressive. Yet the natives keep their holes at 90 deg. or even 100 deg..
This was interrupted days ago by household labours. Since then I have
had and (I tremble to write it, but it does seem as if I had) beaten off
an influenza. The cold is exquisite. Valentine still in bed. The proofs
of the first part of _The Master of Ballantrae_ begin to come in; soon
you shall have it in the pamphlet form; and I hope you will like it. The
second part will not be near so good; but there--we can but do as it'll
do with us. I have every reason to believe this winter has done me real
good, so far as it has gone; and if I carry out my scheme for next
winter, and succeeding years, I should end by being a tower of strength.
I want you to save a good holiday for next winter; I hope we shall be
able to help you to some larks. Is there any Greek Isle you would like
to explore? or any creek in Asia Minor?--Yours ever affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS
The Rev. Dr. Charteris, of Edinburgh, had been one of the most
intimate and trusted friends of Stevenson's father, and R. L. S.
turns to him accordingly for memories and impressions.
[_Saranac Lake, Winter 1887-88._]
MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,--I have asked Douglas and Foulis to send you my
last volume, so that you may possess my little paper on my father in a
permanent shape; not for what that is worth, but as a tribute of respect
to one whom my father regarded with such love, esteem, and affection.
Besides, as you will see, I have brought you under contribution, and I
have still to thank you for your letter to my mother; so more than kind;
in much, so just. It is my hope, when time and health permit, to do
something more definite for my father's memory. You are one of the very
few who can (if you will) help me. Pray believe that I lay on you no
obligation; I know too well, you may believe me, how difficult it is to
put even two sincere lines upon paper, where all, too, is to order. But
if the spirit should ever move you, and you should recall something
memorable of your friend, his son will heartily thank you for a note of
it.--With much respect, believe me, yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
[_Saranac Lake, March 31, 1888._]
MY DEAR GOSSE,--Why so plaintive? Either the post-office has played us
false, or you were in my debt. In case it should be my letter that has
failed to come to post, I must tell again the fate of Mrs. Gosse's
thermometer. It hangs in our sitting-room, where it has often marked
freezing point and below; "See what Gosse says," is a common word of
command. But the point is this: in the verandah hangs another
thermometer, condemned to register minus 40 deg. and that class of
temperatures; and to him, we have given the name of the Quarterly
Reviewer. I hope the jape likes you.
Please tell the Fortnightly man that I am sorry but I can do nothing of
that sort this year, as I am under a pledge to Scribner's; and indeed my
monthly articles take the best of my time. It was a project I went into
with horrid diffidence; and lucre was my only motive. I get on better
than I expected, but it is difficult to find an article of the sort
required for each date, and to vary the matter and keep up (if possible)
the merit. I do not know if you think I have at all succeeded; it seemed
to me this really worked paper was more money's worth (as well as
probably better within my means) than the Lang business at the Sign of
the Ship. Indeed I feel convinced I could never have managed that; it
takes a gift to do it. Here is lunch.--Yours afftly.,
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Saranac Lake, March 1888._]
MY DEAR DELIGHTFUL JAMES,--To quote your heading to my wife, I think no
man writes so elegant a letter, I am sure none so kind, unless it be
Colvin, and there is more of the stern parent about him. I was vexed at
your account of my admired Meredith: I wish I could go and see him; as
it is I will try to write; and yet (do you understand me?) there is
something in that potent, _genialisch_ affectation that puts one on the
strain even to address him in a letter. He is not an easy man to be
yourself with: there is so much of him, and veracity and the high
athletic intellectual humbug are so intermixed.[26] I read with
indescribable admiration your _Emerson_. I begin to long for the day
when these portraits of yours shall be collected: do put me in. But
Emerson is a higher flight. Have you a _Tourgueneff_? You have told me
many interesting things of him, and I seem to see them written, and
forming a graceful and _bildend_ sketch. (I wonder whence comes this
flood of German--I haven't opened a German book since I teethed.) My
novel is a tragedy; four parts out of six or seven are written, and gone
to Burlingame. Five parts of it are sound, human tragedy; the last one
or two, I regret to say, not so soundly designed; I almost hesitate to
write them; they are very picturesque, but they are fantastic; they
shame, perhaps degrade, the beginning. I wish I knew; that was how the
tale came to me however. I got the situation; it was an old taste of
mine: The older brother goes out in the '45, the younger stays; the
younger, of course, gets title and estate and marries the bride
designate of the elder--a family match, but he (the younger) had always
loved her, and she had really loved the elder. Do you see the situation?
Then the devil and Saranac suggested this _denouement_, and I joined the
two ends in a day or two of constant feverish thought, and began to
write. And now--I wonder if I have not gone too far with the fantastic?
The elder brother is an INCUBUS: supposed to be killed at Culloden, he
turns up again and bleeds the family of money; on that stopping he comes
and lives with them, whence flows the real tragedy, the nocturnal duel
of the brothers (very naturally, and indeed, I think, inevitably
arising), and second supposed death of the elder. Husband and wife now
really make up, and then the cloven hoof appears. For the third supposed
death and the manner of the third reappearance is steep; steep, sir. It
is even very steep, and I fear it shames the honest stuff so far; but
then it is highly pictorial, and it leads up to the death of the elder
brother at the hands of the younger in a perfectly cold-blooded murder,
of which I wish (and mean) the reader to approve. You see how daring is
the design. There are really but six characters, and one of these
episodic, and yet it covers eighteen years, and will be, I imagine, the
longest of my works.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
_Read Gosse's Raleigh._ First-rate.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS
_Saranac Lake, Adirondacks, New York, U.S.A. [Spring 1888]._
MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,--The funeral letter, your notes, and many other
things, are reserved for a book, _Memorials of a Scottish Family_, if
ever I can find time and opportunity. I wish I could throw off all else
and sit down to it to-day. Yes, my father was a "distinctly religious
man," but not a pious. The distinction painfully and pleasurably recalls
old conflicts; it used to be my great gun--and you, who suffered for the
whole Church, know how needful it was to have some reserve artillery!
His sentiments were tragic; he was a tragic thinker. Now, granted that
life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion
to make us accept and serve in that tragedy, as officers in that other
and comparable one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the
military sense; and the religious man--I beg pardon, the pious man--is
he who has a military joy in duty--not he who weeps over the wounded. We
can do no more than try to do our best. Really, I am the grandson of the
manse--I preach you a kind of sermon. Box the brat's ears!
My mother--to pass to matters more within my competence--finely enjoys
herself. The new country, some new friends we have made, the interesting
experiment of this climate--which (at least) is tragic--all have done
her good. I have myself passed a better winter than for years, and now
that it is nearly over have some diffident hopes of doing well in the
summer and "eating a little more air" than usual.
I thank you for the trouble you are taking, and my mother joins with me
in kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Charteris.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO S. R. CROCKETT
[_Saranac Lake, Spring 1888_].
DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK,--For O, man, I cannae read
your name!--That I have been so long in answering your delightful letter
sits on my conscience badly. The fact is I let my correspondence
accumulate until I am going to leave a place; and then I pitch in,
overhaul the pile, and my cries of penitence might be heard a mile
about. Yesterday I despatched thirty-five belated letters: conceive the
state of my conscience, above all as the Sins of Omission (see boyhood's
guide, the Shorter Catechism) are in my view the only serious ones; I
call it my view, but it cannot have escaped you that it was also
Christ's. However, all that is not to the purpose, which is to thank you
for the sincere pleasure afforded by your charming letter. I get a good
few such; how few that please me at all, you would be surprised to
learn--or have a singularly just idea of the dulness of our race; how
few that please me as yours did, I can tell you in one word--_None_. I
am no great kirkgoer, for many reasons--and the sermon's one of them,
and the first prayer another, but the chief and effectual reason is the
stuffiness. I am no great kirkgoer, says I, but when I read yon letter
of yours, I thought I would like to sit under ye. And then I saw ye were
to send me a bit buik, and says I, I'll wait for the bit buik, and then
I'll mebbe can read the man's name, and anyway I'll can kill twa birds
wi' ae stane. And, man! the buik was ne'er heard tell o'!
That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay.
And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks to you, and
greeting to your wife, and may you have good guidance in your difficult
labours, and a blessing on your life.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
(No just sae young's he was, though--
I'm awfae near forty, man.)
Address c/o Charles Scribner's Sons,
743 Broadway, New York.
Don't put "N.B." in your paper: put SCOTLAND, and be done with it. Alas,
that I should be thus stabbed in the home of my friends! The name of my
native land is not NORTH BRITAIN, whatever may be the name of yours.
R. L. S.
TO MISS FERRIER
[_Saranac Lake, April 1888._]
MY DEAREST COGGIE,--I wish I could find the letter I began to you some
time ago when I was ill; but I can't and I don't believe there was much
in it anyway. We have all behaved like pigs and beasts and barn-door
poultry to you; but I have been sunk in work, and the lad is lazy and
blind and has been working too; and as for Fanny, she has been (and
still is) really unwell. I had a mean hope you might perhaps write again
before I got up steam: I could not have been more ashamed of myself than
I am, and I should have had another laugh.
They always say I cannot give news in my letters: I shall shake off that
reproach. On Monday, if she is well enough, Fanny leaves for California
to see her friends; it is rather an anxiety to let her go alone; but the
doctor simply forbids it in my case, and she is better anywhere than
here--a bleak, blackguard, beggarly climate, of which I can say no good
except that it suits me and some others of the same or similar
persuasions whom (by all rights) it ought to kill. It is a form of
Arctic St. Andrews, I should imagine; and the miseries of forty degrees
below zero, with a high wind, have to be felt to be appreciated. The
greyness of the heavens here is a circumstance eminently revolting to
the soul; I have near forgot the aspect of the sun--I doubt if this be
news; it is certainly no news to us. My mother suffers a little from the
inclemency of the place, but less on the whole than would be imagined.
Among other wild schemes, we have been projecting yacht voyages; and I
beg to inform you that Cogia Hassan was cast for the part of passenger.
They may come off!--Again this is not news. The lad? Well, the lad wrote
a tale this winter, which appeared to me so funny that I have taken it
in hand, and some of these days you will receive a copy of a work
entitled "_A Game of Bluff_, by Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis
Stevenson."
Otherwise he (the lad) is much as usual. There remains, I believe, to be
considered only R. L. S., the house-bond, prop, pillar, bread-winner,
and bully of the establishment. Well, I do not think him much better; he
is making piles of money; the hope of being able to hire a yacht ere
long dances before his eyes; otherwise he is not in very high spirits at
this particular moment, though compared with last year at Bournemouth an
angel of joy.
And now is this news, Cogia, or is it not? It all depends upon the point
of view, and I call it news. The devil of it is that I can think of
nothing else, except to send you all our loves, and to wish exceedingly
you were here to cheer us all up. But we'll see about that on board the
yacht.--Your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The Mutiny novel here foreshadowed never got written.
_[Saranac Lake] April 9th!! 1888._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have been long without writing to you, but am not to
blame. I had some little annoyances quite for a private eye, but they
ran me so hard that I could not write without lugging them in, which
(for several reasons) I did not choose to do. Fanny is off to San
Francisco, and next week I myself flit to New York: address Scribner's.
Where we shall go I know not, nor (I was going to say) care; so bald and
bad is my frame of mind. Do you know our--ahem!--fellow clubman, Colonel
Majendie? I had such an interesting letter from him. Did you see my
sermon? It has evoked the worst feeling: I fear people don't care for
the truth, or else I don't tell it. Suffer me to wander without purpose.
I have sent off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck at a
twenty-first, and taken a copy of one which was on business, and
corrected several galleys of proof, and sorted about a bushel of old
letters; so if any one has a right to be romantically stupid it is
I--and I am. Really deeply stupid, and at that stage when in old days I
used to pour out words without any meaning whatever and with my mind
taking no part in the performance. I suspect that is now the case. I am
reading with extraordinary pleasure the life of Lord Lawrence: Lloyd and
I have a mutiny novel--
(_Next morning, after twelve other letters_)--mutiny novel on hand--a
tremendous work--so we are all at Indian books. The idea of the novel is
Lloyd's: I call it a novel. 'Tis a tragic romance, of the most tragic
sort: I believe the end will be almost too much for human
endurance--when the hero is thrown to the ground with one of his own
(Sepoy) soldier's knees upon his chest, and the cries begin in the
Beebeeghar. O truly, you know it is a howler! The whole last part
is--well the difficulty is that, short of resuscitating Shakespeare, I
don't know who is to write it.
I still keep wonderful. I am a great performer before the Lord on the
penny whistle.--Dear sir, sincerely yours,
ANDREW JACKSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_[Saranac Lake, April 1888.]
Address, c/o Messrs. Scribner's Sons,
743 Broadway, N.Y._
MY DEAR GAMEKEEPER,--Your p.c. (proving you a good student of Micawber)
has just arrived, and it paves the way to something I am anxious to say.
I wrote a paper the other day--_Pulvis et Umbra_;--I wrote it with great
feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and healthful, it is in
such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad to fight out my
battle, and see some fine sunsets, and hear some excellent jests between
whiles round the camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision
of mine is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or
pleasure in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it. And
I could wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it
troubles folk too much: all have not the same digestion, nor the same
sight of things. And it came over me with special pain that perhaps this
article (which I was at the pains to send to her) might give dismalness
to my _Gamekeeper at Home_. Well, I cannot take back what I have said;
but yet I may add this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that
it may be--to me it seems self-evident and blinding truth--surely of all
things it makes this world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral
side--but the great battle and the breathing times with their
refreshments. I see no more and no less. And if you look again, it is
not ugly, and it is filled with promise.
Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology. My wife is away off to
the uttermost parts of the States, all by herself. I shall be off, I
hope, in a week; but where? Ah! that I know not. I keep wonderful, and
my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing. We now perform duets
on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to make the bass; I think I must
really send you one, which I wish you would correct.... I may be said to
live for these instrumental labours now, but I have always some
childishness on hand.--I am, dear Gamekeeper, your indulgent but
intemperate Squire,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Having spent the last fortnight of April at New York, Stevenson and
his stepson moved at the beginning of May to the small New Jersey
watering-place from whence the following few letters are dated: his
wife having meanwhile gone to San Francisco, where she presently made
arrangements for the Pacific yachting trip.
_Union House, Manasquan, New Jersey [May 1888]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--We are here at a delightful country inn, like a country
French place, the only people in the house, a cat-boat at our disposal,
the sea always audible on the outer beach, the lagoon as smooth as
glass, all the little, queer, many coloured villas standing shuttered
and empty; in front of ours, across the lagoon, two long wooden bridges;
one for the rail, one for the road, sounding with intermittent traffic.
It is highly pleasant, and a delightful change from Saranac. My health
is much better for the change; I am sure I walked about four miles
yesterday, one time with another--well, say three and a half; and the
day before, I was out for four hours in the cat-boat, and was as stiff
as a board in consequence. More letters call.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Union House, Manasquan, N. J., but address to
Scribner's, 11th May 1888._
_MY DEAR CHARLES_,--I have found a yacht, and we are going the full
pitch for seven months. If I cannot get my health back (more or less),
'tis madness; but, of course, there is the hope, and I will play big....
If this business fails to set me up, well, L2000 is gone, and I know I
can't get better. We sail from San Francisco, June 15th, for the South
Seas in the yacht _Casco_.--With a million thanks for all your dear
friendliness, ever yours affectionately,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO LADY TAYLOR
[_Manasquan, May 1888._]
MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I have to announce our great news. On June 15th we
sail from San Francisco in the schooner yacht _Casco_, for a seven
months' cruise in the South Seas. You can conceive what a state of
excitement we are in; Lloyd perhaps first; but this is an old dream of
mine which actually seems to be coming true, and I am sun-struck. It
seems indeed too good to be true; and that we have not deserved so much
good fortune. From Skerryvore to the Galapagos is a far cry! And from
poking in a sick-room all winter to the deck of one's own ship, is
indeed a heavenly change.
All these seven months I doubt if we can expect more than three mails at
the best of it: and I do hope we may hear something of your news by
each. I have no very clear views as to where the three addresses ought
to be, but if you hear no later news, Charles Scribner's Sons will
always have the run of our intended movements. And an early letter there
would probably catch us at the Sandwich Islands. Tahiti will probably be
the second point: and (as I roughly guess) Quito the third. But the
whole future is invested with heavenly clouds.
I trust you are all well and content, and have good news of the
Shelleys, to whom I wish you would pass on ours. They should be able to
sympathise with our delight.
Now I have all my miserable Scribner articles to rake together in the
inside of a fortnight: so you must not expect me to be more copious. I
have you all in the kindest memory, and am, your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Remember me to Aubrey de Vere.
TO HOMER ST. GAUDENS
The following is addressed from Manasquan to a boy, the son of the
writer's friend, the sculptor St. Gaudens; for the rest, it explains
itself.
_Manasquan, New Jersey, 27th May 1888._
DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS,--Your father has brought you this day to see me,
and he tells me it is his hope you may remember the occasion. I am
going to do what I can to carry out his wish; and it may amuse you,
years after, to see this little scrap of paper and to read what I write.
I must begin by testifying that you yourself took no interest whatever
in the introduction, and in the most proper spirit displayed a
single-minded ambition to get back to play, and this I thought an
excellent and admirable point in your character. You were also (I use
the past tense, with a view to the time when you shall read, rather than
to that when I am writing) a very pretty boy, and (to my European views)
startlingly self-possessed. My time of observation was so limited that
you must pardon me if I can say no more: what else I marked, what
restlessness of foot and hand, what graceful clumsiness, what
experimental designs upon the furniture, was but the common inheritance
of human youth. But you may perhaps like to know that the lean flushed
man in bed, who interested you so little, was in a state of mind
extremely mingled and unpleasant: harassed with work which he thought he
was not doing well, troubled with difficulties to which you will in time
succeed, and yet looking forward to no less a matter than a voyage to
the South Seas and the visitation of savage and desert islands.--Your
father's friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Manasquan (ahem!), New Jersey, May 28th, 1888._
MY DEAR JAMES,--With what a torrent it has come at last! Up to now, what
I like best is the first number of a _London Life_. You have never done
anything better, and I don't know if perhaps you have ever done anything
so good as the girl's outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching your
later works in your native land. I had to present the Beltraffio volume
to Low, and it has brought him to his knees; he was _amazed_ at the
first part of Georgina's Reasons, although (like me) not so well
satisfied with Part II. It is annoying to find the American public as
stupid as the English, but they will waken up in time: I wonder what
they will think of _Two Nations_?...
This, dear James, is a valedictory. On June 15th the schooner yacht
_Casco_ will (weather and a jealous providence permitting) steam through
the Golden Gates for Honolulu, Tahiti, the Galapagos, Guayaquil, and--I
hope _not_ the bottom of the Pacific. It will contain your obedient
'umble servant and party. It seems too good to be true, and is a very
good way of getting through the green-sickness of maturity which, with
all its accompanying ills, is now declaring itself in my mind and life.
They tell me it is not so severe as that of youth; if I (and the
_Casco_) are spared, I shall tell you more exactly, as I am one of the
few people in the world who do not forget their own lives.
Good-bye, then, my dear fellow, and please write us a word; we expect to
have three mails in the next two months: Honolulu, Tahiti, and
Guayaquil. But letters will be forwarded from Scribner's, if you hear
nothing more definite directly. In 3 (three) days I leave for San
Francisco.--Ever yours most cordially,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] For the actual sum, see below, p. 243.
[22] "But she was more than usual calm,
She did not give a single dam."
_Marjorie Fleming._
[23] Of the play _Deacon Brodie_.
[24] "Smith opens out his cauld harangues
On practice and on morals."
The Rev. George Smith of Galston, the minister thus referred to by
Burns (in the _Holy Fair_), was a great-grandfather of Stevenson on
the mother's side; and against Stevenson himself, in his didactic
moods, the passage was often quoted by his friends when they wished
to tease him.
[25] Afterwards changed to Alison.
[26] Alluding to a kind of lofty, posturing manner of G. M.'s in mind
and speech, quite different from any real insincerity.
X
PACIFIC VOYAGES
YACHT _CASCO_--SCHOONER _EQUATOR_--S.S. _JANET NICOLL_
JUNE 1888-OCTOBER 1890
In the following section are printed nearly all the letters which
reached Stevenson's correspondents in England and the United States, at
intervals necessarily somewhat rare, during the eighteen months of his
Pacific voyages. It was on the 28th of June 1888 that he started from
the harbour of San Francisco on what was only intended to be a health
and pleasure excursion of a few months' duration, but turned into a
voluntary exile prolonged until the hour of his death. His company
consisted, besides himself, of his wife, his mother, his stepson Mr.
Lloyd Osbourne, and the servant Valentine Roch. They sailed on board the
schooner yacht _Casco_, Captain Otis, and made straight for the
Marquesas, dropping anchor on the 28th of July in Anaho Bay, the harbour
of the island of Nukahiva. The magic effect of this first island
landfall on his mind he has described in the opening chapter of his book
_In the South Seas_. After spending six weeks in this group they sailed
south-eastwards, visiting (a sufficiently perilous piece of navigation)
several of the coral atolls of the Paumotus or Low Archipelago. Thence
they arrived in the first week of October at the Tahitian group or
"Society" islands. In these their longest stay was not at the chief
town, Papeete, where Stevenson fell sharply ill, but in a more secluded
and very beautiful station, Tautira, whither he went to recruit, and
where they were detained by the necessity of remasting the schooner.
Here Stevenson and one of the local chiefs, Ori a Ori, made special
friends and parted with heartfelt mutual regret. Mrs. Stevenson is good
enough to allow me to supplement the somewhat fragmentary account of
these adventures given in his letters with one or two of her own, in
which they are told with full vividness and detail.
Sailing from Tahiti due northwards through forty degrees of latitude,
the party arrived about Christmas at Honolulu, the more than
semi-civilised capital of the Hawaiian group (Sandwich Islands), where
they paid off the yacht _Casco_ and made a stay of nearly six months.
Here Stevenson finished _The Master of Ballantrae_ and _The Wrong Box_;
and hence his mother returned for a while to Scotland, to rejoin her
son's household when it was fairly installed two years later at Vailima.
From Honolulu Stevenson made several excursions, including one, which
profoundly impressed him, to the leper settlement at Molokai, the scene
of Father Damien's ministrations and death.
This first year of cruising and residence among the Pacific Islands had
resulted in so encouraging a renewal of health, with so keen a zest
added to life by the restored capacity for outdoor activity and
adventure, that Stevenson determined to prolong his experiences in yet
more remote archipelagoes of the same ocean. He started accordingly from
Honolulu in June 1889 on a trading schooner, the _Equator_, bound to the
Gilberts, one of the least visited and most primitively mannered of all
the island groups of the Western Pacific; emerged towards Christmas of
the same year into semi-civilisation again at Apia, on the island of
Upolu in Samoa, where he wrote his first Polynesian story, _The Bottle
Imp_. Enchanted with the scenery and the people, he stayed for six
weeks, first in the house of Mr. H. J. Moors, a leading American trader,
then with his family in a separate cottage not far off; bought an estate
on the densely wooded mountain side above Apia, with the notion of
making there, if not a home, at least a place of rest and call on later
projected excursions among the islands; and began to make collections
for his studies in recent Samoan history. In February he went on to
Sydney to find his correspondence and consider future plans. It was
during this stay at Sydney that he was moved to give expression to his
righteous indignation at the terms of a letter concerning Father Damien
by the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu. Here also he fell once more seriously
ill, with a renewal of all his old symptoms; and the conclusion was
forced upon him that he must take up his residence for the rest of his
life in the tropics--though with occasional excursions, as he then
hoped, at least half-way homeward to places where it might be possible
for friends from England to meet him. In order to shake off the effects
of this attack, he started with his party on a fresh sea voyage from
Sydney, this time on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_, which took
him by a very devious course to the Gilberts again, the Marshalls, and
among many other remote islands during the months of April-August 1890.
During the voyage he began to put into shape the notes for a volume on
the South Seas which he had been compiling ever since he left San
Francisco. Unfortunately, he persisted in the endeavour to make his work
impersonal and full of information, or what he called "serious
interest," exactly in the manner which his wife had foreseen before they
left Honolulu, and from which she had wisely tried to dissuade him (see
her letter printed on pp. 347 foll.). On the return voyage Stevenson
left the _Janet Nicoll_ to land in New Caledonia, staying for some days
at Noumea before he went on to Sydney, where he spent four or five weeks
of later August and September. Thence he returned in October to take up
his abode for good on his Samoan property, where the work of clearing,
planting, and building a habitable cottage had been going on busily
during his absence.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
It should be remembered that the Marquesas, the Paumotus, and the
Tahitian group are all dependencies of France.
_Yacht Casco, Anaho Bay, Nukahiva, Marquesas Islands [July 1888]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write
to say how d'ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having
the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more
civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in
his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing 'em,
and he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded:
no fool, though.
The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the
loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score
natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare now.
Very rare and equally absurd to view.
This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: it takes me all
the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come home and
note, the strangeness around us. I shouldn't wonder if there came
trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a nation that is not
beloved in certain islands--and it does not know it! Strange: like
ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all and much to yourself.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Yacht Casco, at sea, near the Paumotus,
7 A.M., September 6th, 1888, with a dreadful pen._