_To Edmund Gosse._
The reference in the following is to W. E. Henley's provocative
article in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ on Mr. Graham Balfour's
recently published Life of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Lamb House, Rye.
November 20th, 1901.
My dear Gosse,
I have been very sorry to hear from you of renewed upsets on quitting
these walls--the same fate having, I remember, overtaken you most of the
other times you've been here. I trust it isn't the infection of the
walls themselves, nor of the _re_fection (so scant last time) enjoyed
within them. Is it some baleful effluence of your host? He will try and
exercise next time some potent counter-charm--and meanwhile he rejoices
that your devil is cast out.
All thanks for your so vivid news of the overflow of Henley's gall. Ca
ne pouvait manquer--ca _devait_ venir. I have sent for the article and
will write you when I've read it. I gather from you that it's really
rather a striking and lurid--and so far interesting case--of long
discomfortable jealousy and ranklement turned at last to posthumous (as
it were!) malignity, and making the man do, coram publico, his ugly act,
risking the dishonour for the assuagement. That _is_, on the part of a
favourite of the press etc., a remarkable "psychologic" incident--or
perhaps I'm talking in the air, from not having read the thing. I dare
say, moreover, at all events, that H. _did_ very seriously--I mean
sincerely--deplore all the graces that had crept into Louis's
writing--all the more that they had helped it so to be loved: he
honestly thinks that L. should have written like--well, like who but
Henley's self? But the whole business illustrates how life takes upon
itself to give us more true and consistent examples of human
unpleasantness than expectation could suggest--makes a given man, I
mean, live up to his ugliness. This one's whole attitude in respect to
these recent amiable commemorations of Louis--the having (I,
"self-conscious and alone") nothing to do with them, contained
singularly the promise of some positive aggression. I have, however,
this a.m., a letter from Graham Balfour (in answer to one I had written
him on reading his book,) in which, speaking of Henley's paper, he says
it's less bad than he expected. He apparently feared more. It's since
you were here, by the way, that I've read his record, in which, as to
its second volume, I found a good deal of fresh interest and charm. It
seems to me, the whole thing, very neatly and tactfully done for an
amateur, a non-expert. _But_, I see now that a really curious thing has
happened, a "case" occurred much more interesting than the _cas_ Henley.
Insistent publicity, so to speak, has done its work (I only knew it was
_doing_ it, but G. B.'s book's a settler,) and Louis, _qua_ artist, is
now, definitely, the victim thereof. That is, he has _superseded_,
personally, his books, and this last re-placement of himself so _en
scene_ (so largely by his own aid, too) has _killed_ the literary
baggage. Out of no mystery now do they issue, the creations in
question--and they couldn't afford to lose it. Louis himself never
understood that; he too publicly caressed and accounted for them--but I
needn't insist on what I mean. As I _see_ it, at all events, it's a
strange little evolution and all taking place here, quite compactly,
under one's nose.
I don't come up to town, alas, for more than a few necessary hours, till
I've finished my book, and that will be when God pleases. I pray for
early in January. But then I shall stay as long as ever I can. All
thanks for your news of Norris, to whom I shall write. I envy your
Venetian newses--but I myself have written for some. I rain good wishes
on your house and am yours always,