Transcribed from the 1989 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf
UNDERWOODS
BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
NINTH EDITION
* * * * *
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1898
* * * * *
_Of all my verse_, _like not a single line_;
_But like my title_, _for it is not mine_.
_That title from a better man I stole_:
_Ah_, _how much better_, _had I stol’n the whole_!
DEDICATION
THERE are men and classes of men that stand above the common herd: the
soldier, the sailor and the shepherd not unfrequently; the artist rarely;
rarely still, the clergyman; the physician almost as a rule. He is the
flower (such as it is) of our civilisation; and when that stage of man is
done with, and only remembered to be marvelled at in history, he will be
thought to have shared as little as any in the defects of the period, and
most notably exhibited the virtues of the race. Generosity he has, such
as is possible to those who practise an art, never to those who drive a
trade; discretion, tested by a hundred secrets; tact, tried in a thousand
embarrassments; and what are more important, Heraclean cheerfulness and
courage. So it is that he brings air and cheer into the sickroom, and
often enough, though not so often as he wishes, brings healing.
Gratitude is but a lame sentiment; thanks, when they are expressed, are
often more embarrassing than welcome; and yet I must set forth mine to a
few out of many doctors who have brought me comfort and help: to Dr.
Willey of San Francisco, whose kindness to a stranger it must be as
grateful to him, as it is touching to me, to remember; to Dr. Karl Ruedi
of Davos, the good genius of the English in his frosty mountains; to Dr.
Herbert of Paris, whom I knew only for a week, and to Dr. Caissot of
Montpellier, whom I knew only for ten days, and who have yet written
their names deeply in my memory; to Dr. Brandt of Royat; to Dr. Wakefield
of Nice; to Dr. Chepmell, whose visits make it a pleasure to be ill; to
Dr. Horace Dobell, so wise in counsel; to Sir Andrew Clark, so unwearied
in kindness and to that wise youth, my uncle, Dr. Balfour.
I forget as many as I remember; and I ask both to pardon me, these for
silence, those for inadequate speech. But one name I have kept on
purpose to the last, because it is a household word with me, and because
if I had not received favours from so many hands and in so many quarters
of the world, it should have stood upon this page alone: that of my
friend Thomas Bodley Scott of Bournemouth. Will he accept this, although
shared among so many, for a dedication to himself? and when next my
ill-fortune (which has thus its pleasant side) brings him hurrying to me
when he would fain sit down to meat or lie down to rest, will he care to
remember that he takes this trouble for one who is not fool enough to be
ungrateful?
R. L. S.
SKERRYVORE,
BOURNEMOUTH.
NOTE
THE human conscience has fled of late the troublesome domain of conduct
for what I should have supposed to be the less congenial field of art:
there she may now be said to rage, and with special severity in all that
touches dialect; so that in every novel the letters of the alphabet are
tortured, and the reader wearied, to commemorate shades of
mis-pronunciation. Now spelling is an art of great difficulty in my
eyes, and I am inclined to lean upon the printer, even in common
practice, rather than to venture abroad upon new quests. And the Scots
tongue has an orthography of its own, lacking neither “authority nor
author.” Yet the temptation is great to lend a little guidance to the
bewildered Englishman. Some simple phonetic artifice might defend your
verses from barbarous mishandling, and yet not injure any vested
interest. So it seems at first; but there are rocks ahead. Thus, if I
wish the diphthong _ou_ to have its proper value, I may write _oor_
instead of _our_; many have done so and lived, and the pillars of the
universe remained unshaken. But if I did so, and came presently to
_doun_, which is the classical Scots spelling of the English _down_, I
should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came
to a classical Scots word, like _stour_ or _dour_ or _clour_, I should
know precisely where I was—that is to say, that I was out of sight of
land on those high seas of spelling reform in which so many strong
swimmers have toiled vainly. To some the situation is exhilarating; as
for me, I give one bubbling cry and sink. The compromise at which I have
arrived is indefensible, and I have no thought of trying to defend it.
As I have stuck for the most part to the proper spelling, I append a
table of some common vowel sounds which no one need consult; and just to
prove that I belong to my age and have in me the stuff of a reformer, I
have used modification marks throughout. Thus I can tell myself, not
without pride, that I have added a fresh stumbling-block for English
readers, and to a page of print in my native tongue, have lent a new
uncouthness. _Sed non nobis_.
I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of
every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not emulate this
nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as well as I was able,
not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or
Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word, I used it without shame; and
when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed, I was glad (like my betters)
to fall back on English. For all that, I own to a friendly feeling for
the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I
confess that Burns has always sounded in my ear like something partly
foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard
the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian
voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that
of the Lothians. And if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day
draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite
forgotten; and Burn’s Ayrshire, and Dr. Macdonald’s Aberdeen-awa’, and
Scott’s brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of
speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be
read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language: an ambition surely
rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect
of endurance, so parochial in bounds of space.
CONTENTS
BOOK I.—_In English_
PAGE
I. ENVOY—Go, little book 1
II. A SONG OF THE ROAD—The gauger walked 2
III. THE CANOE SPEAKS—On the great streams 4
IV. It is the season 7
V. THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL—A naked house, a naked 9
moor
VI. A VISIT FROM THE SEA—Far from the loud sea 12
beaches
VII. TO A GARDENER—Friend, in my mountain-side 14
demesne
VIII. TO MINNIE—A picture frame for you to fill 16
IX. TO K. DE M.—A lover of the moorland bare 17
X. TO N. V. DE G. S.—The unfathomable sea 19
XI. TO WILL. H. LOW—Youth now flees 21
XII. TO MRS. WILL. H. LOW—Even in the bluest 24
noonday of July
XIII. TO H. F. BROWN—I sit and wait 26
XIV. TO ANDREW LANG—Dear Andrew 29
XV. ET TU IN ARCADIA VIXISTI—In ancient tales, 31
O friend
XVI. TO W. E. HENLEY—The year runs through her 36
phases
XVII. HENRY JAMES—Who comes to-night 38
XVIII. THE MIRROR SPEAKS—Where the bells 39
XIX. KATHARINE—We see you as we see a face 41
XX. TO F. J. S.—I read, dear friend 42
XXI. REQUIEM—Under the wide and starry sky 43
XXII. THE CELESTIAL SURGEON—If I have faltered 44
XXIII. OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS—Out of the sun 45
XXIV. Not yet, my soul 50
XXV. It is not yours, O mother, to complain 53
XXVI. THE SICK CHILD—O mother, lay your hand on 56
my brow
XXVII. IN MEMORIAM F. A. S.—Yet, O stricken heart 58
XXVIII. TO MY FATHER—Peace and her huge invasion 60
XXIX. IN THE STATES—With half a heart 62
XXX. A PORTRAIT—I am a kind of farthing dip 63
XXXI. Sing clearlier, Muse 65
XXXII. A CAMP—The bed was made 66
XXXIII. THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS—We travelled 67
in the print of olden wars
XXXIV. SKERRYVORE—For love of lovely words 68
XXXV. SKERRYVORE: THE PARALLEL—Here all is sunny 69
XXXVI. My house, I say 70
XXXVII. My body which my dungeon is 71
XXXVIII. Say not of me that weakly I declined 73