After a winter of troubled health, Stevenson had gone to Dunblane for
a change in early spring; and thence writes to his college companion
and lifelong friend, Mr. Charles Baxter:--
_Dunblane, Friday, 5th March 1872._
MY DEAR BAXTER,--By the date you may perhaps understand the purport of
my letter without any words wasted about the matter. I cannot walk with
you to-morrow, and you must not expect me. I came yesterday afternoon to
Bridge of Allan, and have been very happy ever since, as every place is
sanctified by the eighth sense, Memory. I walked up here this morning
(three miles, _tu-dieu!_ a good stretch for me), and passed one of my
favourite places in the world, and one that I very much affect in spirit
when the body is tied down and brought immovably to anchor on a sickbed.
It is a meadow and bank on a corner on the river, and is connected in my
mind inseparably with Virgil's _Eclogues. Hic corulis mistos inter
consedimus ulmos_, or something very like that, the passage begins (only
I know my short-winded Latinity must have come to grief over even this
much of quotation); and here, to a wish, is just such a cavern as
Menalcas might shelter himself withal from the bright noon, and, with
his lips curled backward, pipe himself blue in the face, while
_Messieurs les Arcadiens_ would roll out those cloying hexameters that
sing themselves in one's mouth to such a curious lilting chant.
In such weather one has the bird's need to whistle; and I, who am
specially incompetent in this art, must content myself by chattering
away to you on this bit of paper. All the way along I was thanking God
that he had made me and the birds and everything just as they are and
not otherwise; for although there was no sun, the air was so thrilled
with robins and blackbirds that it made the heart tremble with joy, and
the leaves are far enough forward on the underwood to give a fine
promise for the future. Even myself, as I say, I would not have had
changed in one _iota_ this forenoon, in spite of all my idleness and
Guthrie's lost paper, which is ever present with me--a horrible phantom.
No one can be alone at home or in a quite new place. Memory and you must
go hand in hand with (at least) decent weather if you wish to cook up a
proper dish of solitude. It is in these little flights of mine that I
get more pleasure than in anything else. Now, at present, I am supremely
uneasy and restless--almost to the extent of pain; but O! how I enjoy
it, and how I _shall_ enjoy it afterwards (please God), if I get years
enough allotted to me for the thing to ripen in. When I am a very old
and very respectable citizen with white hair and bland manners and a
gold watch, I shall hear three crows cawing in my heart, as I heard them
this morning: I vote for old age and eighty years of retrospect. Yet,
after all, I dare say, a short shrift and a nice green grave are about
as desirable.
Poor devil! how I am wearying you! Cheer up. Two pages more, and my
letter reaches its term, for I have no more paper. What delightful
things inns and waiters and bagmen are! If we didn't travel now and
then, we should forget what the feeling of life is. The very cushion of
a railway carriage--"the things restorative to the touch." I can't
write, confound it! That's because I am so tired with my walk....
Believe me, ever your affectionate friend,