_To William James._
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Feb. 6th, 1891.
My dear William,
Bear with me that I haven't written to you, since my last, in which I
promised you a better immediate sequel, till the receipt of your note of
the 21st, this a.m., recalls me to decency. Bear with me indeed, in this
and other ways, so long as I am in the fever of dramatic production with
which I am, very sanely and practically, trying to make up for my late
start and all the years during which I have _not_ dramatically produced,
and, further, to get well ahead with the "demand" which I--and others
for me--judge (still very sanely and sensibly) to be _certain_ to be
made upon me from the moment I have a _London_, as distinguished from a
provincial success. (You can form no idea--outside--of how a provincial
success is confined to the provinces.) Now that I have tasted blood,
c'est une rage (of determination to _do_, and triumph, on my part,) for
I feel at last as if I had found my _real_ form, which I am capable of
carrying far, and for which the pale little art of fiction, as I have
practised it, has been, for me, but a limited and restricted substitute.
The strange thing is that I always, universally, knew _this_ was my more
characteristic form--but was kept away from it by a half-modest,
half-exaggerated sense of the difficulty (that is, I mean the practical
odiousness) of the conditions. But now that I have accepted them and met
them, I see that one isn't at all, needfully, their victim, but is, from
the moment one is anything, one's self, worth speaking of, their
_master_; and may use them, command them, squeeze them, lift them up and
better them. As for the form _itself_, its honour and inspiration are (a
defaut d'autres) in its difficulty. If it were easy to write a good play
I couldn't and wouldn't think of it; but it is in fact damnably hard (to
this truth the paucity of the article--in the English-speaking
world--testifies,) and that constitutes a solid
respectability--guarantees one's _intellectual_ self-respect. At any
rate I am working hard and constantly--and am just attacking my 4th!...
No. 4 has a destination which it would be premature to disclose; and, in
general, please breathe no word of these confidences, as publicity blows
on such matters in an injurious and deflowering way, and interests too
great to be hurt are at stake. I make them, the confidences, because it
isn't fair to myself not to let you know that I may be absorbed for some
months to come--as long as my present fit of the "rage" lasts--to a
degree which may be apparent in my correspondence--I mean in its
intermittence and in my apparent lapse of attention to, or appreciation
of, other things. For instance, I blush to say that I haven't had
freedom of mind or cerebral freshness (I find the drama much more
_obsedant_ than the novel) to tackle--more than dipping in just here
and there--your mighty and magnificent book, which requires a stretch of
leisure and an absence of "crisis" in one's own egotistical little
existence. As this is essentially a year of crisis, or of epoch-making,
for me, I shall probably save up the great volumes till I can recline
upon roses, the fruits of my production fever, and imbibe them like sips
of sherbet, giving meanwhile all my cerebration to the condensation of
masterpieces....
Farewell, dear William, and bear with my saw-dust and orange-peel phase
till the returns begin to flow in. The only hitch in the prospect is
that it takes so long to "realise." _The American_, in the country,
played only on Friday nights, with the very low country prices, gives me
nothing as yet to speak of--my royalty making only about L5-0-0 for each
performance. Later all this may be thoroughly counted upon to be
different.
Ever your
HENRY.
_To Robert Louis Stevenson._
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Feb. 18th, 1891.
My dear Louis,
Your letter of December 29th is a most touching appeal; I am glad my own
last had been posted to you 2 or 3 weeks before it reached me. Whether
mine has--or will have been--guided to your coral strand is a matter as
to which your disclosures touching the state of the Samoan post inspire
me with the worst apprehensions. At any rate I did despatch
you--supposedly via San Francisco--a really pretty long screed about a
month ago. I ought to write to you all the while; but though I seem to
myself to live with my pen in my hand I achieve nothing capable of
connecting me so with glory. I am going to Paris to-morrow morning for a
month, but I have vowed that I will miss my train sooner than depart
without scrawling you and your wife a few words to-night. I shall
probably see little or nothing there that will interest you much (or
even interest myself hugely--) but having neither a yacht, an island, an
heroic nature, a gallant wife, mother and son, nor a sea-stomach, I have
to seek adventure in the humblest forms. In writing the other day I told
you more or less what I was doing--_am_ doing--in these elderly days;
and the same general description will serve. I am doing what I can to
launch myself in the dramatic direction--and the strange part of the
matter is that I am doing it more or less seriously, as if we _had_ the
Scene Anglaise which we haven't. And I secretly dream of supplying the
vile want? Pas meme--and my zeal in the affair is only matched by my
indifference. What is serious in it is that having begun to work in this
sense some months ago, to give my little ones bread--I find the _form_
opens out before me as if there were a kingdom to conquer--a kingdom
forsooth of ignorant brutes of managers and dense cabotins of actors.
All the same, I feel as if I had at last _found_ my form--my real
one--that for which pale fiction is an ineffectual substitute. God grant
this unholy truth may not abide with me more than two or three
years--time to dig out eight or ten rounded masterpieces and make withal
enough money to enable me to retire in peace and plenty for the
unmolested business of a _little_ supreme writing, as distinguished from
gouging--which is the Form above-mentioned. Your loneliness and your
foodlessness, my dear Louis, bring tears to my eyes. If there were only
a parcels' post to Samoa I would set Fortnum and Mason to work at you at
this end of the line. But if they intercept the hieroglyphics at
Sydney, what would they do to the sausage? Surely there is some cure for
your emptiness; if nothing else, why not coming away? Don't eat up Mrs.
Louis, whatever you do. You are precious to literature--but she is
precious to the affections, which are larger, yet in a still worse
way.... I shall certainly do my utmost to get to Egypt to see you, if,
as is hinted to me by dear Colvin, you turn up there after the fitful
fever of Samoa. Your being there would give me wings--especially if
plays should give me gold. This is an exquisitely blissful dream. Don't
fail to do your part of it. I almost joy in your lack of the _Tragic
Muse_; as proving to me, I mean, that you are curious enough to have
missed it. Nevertheless I have just posted to you, registered, the first
copy I have received of the 1 vol. edition; but this moment out. I
wanted to send you the three volumes by Lloyd, but he seemed clear you
would have received it, and I didn't insist, as I knew he was charged
with innumerable parcels and bales. I will presently send another
_Muse_, and one, at least, must reach you.... Colvin is really better, I
think--if any one can be better who is so absolutely good. I hope to God
my last long letter will have reached you. I promise to write soon
again. I enfold you all in my sympathy and am ever your faithfullest