_To Robert Louis Stevenson._
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Feb. 17th, 1893.
My dear distant Louis,
The charmingest thing that had happened to me for a year was the advent
of your reassuring note of Dec. 5th (not 189_1_--my dear time-deluded
islander: it is enviable to see you so luxuriously "out." When you
indulge in the eccentricity of a date you make it eccentric indeed.) I
call your good letter reassuring simply on the general ground of its
making you credible for an hour. You are otherwise wholly of the stuff
that dreams are made of. I think this is why I don't keep writing to
you, don't talk to you, as it were, in my sleep. Please don't think I
forget you or am indifferent to anything that concerns you. The mere
thought of you is better company than almost any that is tangible to me
here, and London is more peopled to me by your living in Samoa than by
the residence of almost anybody else in Kensington or Chelsea. I fix my
curiosity on you all the while and try to understand your politics and
your perils and your public life. If in these efforts I make a poor
figure it is only because you are so wantonly away. Then I think I envy
you too much--your climate, your thrill of life, your magnificent
facility. You judge well that I have far too little of this last--though
you _can't_ judge how much more and more difficult I find it every day
to write. None the less I am presently putting forth, almost with exact
simultaneity, three little (distinct) books--2 volumes of penny fiction
and one of little essays, all material gathered, no doubt, from sources
in which you may already have encountered some of it. However this may
be, the matter shall again be (D.V.) deposited on your coral strand.
Most refreshing, even while not wholly convincing, was the cool
trade-wind (is the trade-wind cool?) of your criticism of some of _ces
messieurs_. I grant you Hardy with all my heart.... I am meek and
ashamed where the public clatter is deafening--so I bowed my head and
let "Tess of the D.'s" pass. But oh yes, dear Louis, she is vile. The
pretence of "sexuality" is only equalled by the absence of it, and the
abomination of the language by the author's reputation for style. There
are indeed some pretty smells and sights and sounds. But you have better
ones in Polynesia. On the other hand I can't go with you three yards in
your toleration either of ---- or of ----. Let me add that I can't read
them, so I don't know anything about them. All the same I make no bones
to pronounce them shameless _industriels_ and their works only glories
of Birmingham. You will have gathered that I delight in your year of
literary prowess. None the less I haven't read a word of you since the
brave and beautiful _Wrecker_. I won't _touch_ you till I can feel that
I embrace you in the embracing cover. So it is that I languish till the
things now announced appear. Colvin makes me impatient for _David
Balfour_--but doesn't yet stay my stomach with the _Beach of Falesa_....
Mrs. Sitwell _me fait part_ of every savoury scrap she gets from you. I
know what you all magnificently eat, and what dear Mrs. Louis splendidly
(but not somewhat transparently--no?) wears. Please assure that
intensely-remembered lady of my dumb fidelity. I am told your mother
nears our shores and I promise myself joy on seeing her and pumping her.
I don't know, however, alas, how long this ceremony may be delayed, as
I go to Italy, for all the blessed spring, next week. I have been in
London without an hour's absence since the middle of Aug. last. I hear
you utter some island objurgation, and go splashing, to banish the
stuffy image, into the sapphire sea. Is it all a fable that you will
come some month to the Mediterranean? I would go to the Pillars of
Hercules to greet you. Give my love to the lusty and literary Lloyd. I
am very glad to observe him spreading his wings. There is absolutely
nothing to send you. The Muses are dumb, and in France as well. Of
Bourget's big 7 franc _Cosmopolis_ I have, alas, purchased three
copies--and given them away; but even if I were to send you one you
would find it too round and round the subject--which heaven knows it
is--for your taste. I will try and despatch you the charming little
"Etui de Nacre" of Anatole France--a real master. Vale--age. Yours, my
dear Louis, in a kind of hopeful despair and a clinging alienation,