Through the jesting tenor of this letter is to be discerned a vein of
more than half serious thinking very characteristic of R. L. S. alike
as youth and man.
_17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, October 1872._
MY DEAR BAXTER,--I am gum-boiled and face swollen to an unprecedented
degree. It is very depressing to suffer from gibber that cannot be
brought to a head. I cannot speak it, because my face is so swollen and
stiff that enunciation must be deliberate--a thing your true gibberer
cannot hold up his head under; and writ gibber is somehow not gibber at
all, it does not come forth, does not _flow_, with that fine irrational
freedom that it loves in speech--it does not afford relief to the packed
bosom.
Hence I am suffering from _suppressed gibber_--an uneasy complaint; and
like all cases of suppressed humours, this hath a nasty tendency to the
brain. Therefore (the more confused I get, the more I lean on Thus's and
Hences and Therefores) you must not be down upon me, most noble Festus,
altho' this letter should smack of some infirmity of judgment. I speak
the words of soberness and truth; and would you were not almost but
altogether as I am, except this swelling. Lord, Lord, if we could change
personalities how we should hate it. How I should rebel at the office,
repugn under the Ulster coat, and repudiate your monkish humours thus
unjustly and suddenly thrust upon poor, infidel me! And as for you--why,
my dear Charles, "a mouse that hath its lodging in a cat's ear" would
not be so uneasy as you in your new conditions. I do not see how your
temperament would come thro' the feverish longings to do things that
cannot then (or perhaps ever) be accomplished, the feverish unrests and
damnable indecisions, that it takes all my easy-going spirits to come
through. A vane can live out anything in the shape of a wind; and that
is how I can be, and am, a more serious person than you. Just as the
light French seemed very serious to Sterne, light L. Stevenson can
afford to bob about over the top of any deep sea of prospect or
retrospect, where ironclad C. Baxter would incontinently go down with
all hands. A fool is generally the wisest person out. The wise man must
shut his eyes to all the perils and horrors that lie round him; but the
cap and bells can go bobbing along the most slippery ledges and the
bauble will not stir up sleeping lions. Hurray! for motley, for a good
sound _insouciance_, for a healthy philosophic carelessness!
My dear Baxter, a word in your ear--"<sc>DON'T YOU WISH YOU WERE A FOOL</sc>?"
How easy the world would go on with you--literally on castors. The only
reason a wise man can assign for getting drunk is that he wishes to
enjoy for a while the blessed immunities and sunshiny weather of the
land of fooldom. But a fool, who dwells ever there, has no excuse at
all. _That_ is a happy land, if you like--and not so far away either.
Take a fool's advice and let us strive without ceasing to get into it.
Hark in your ear again: "THEY ALLOW PEOPLE TO REASON IN THAT LAND." I
wish I could take you by the hand and lead you away into its pleasant
boundaries. There is no custom-house on the frontier, and you may take
in what books you will. There are no manners and customs; but men and
women grow up, like trees in a still, well-walled garden, "at their own
sweet will." There is no prescribed or customary folly--no motley, cap,
or bauble: out of the well of each one's own innate absurdity he is
allowed and encouraged freely to draw and to communicate; and it is a
strange thing how this natural fooling comes so nigh to one's better
thoughts of wisdom; and stranger still, that all this discord of people
speaking in their own natural moods and keys, masses itself into a far
more perfect harmony than all the dismal, official unison in which they
sing in other countries. Part-singing seems best all the world over.
I who live in England must wear the hackneyed symbols of the profession,
to show that I have (at least) consular immunities, coming as I do out
of another land, where they are not so wise as they are here, but fancy
that God likes what he makes and is not best pleased with us when we
deface and dissemble all that he has given us and put about us to one
common standard of----Highty-Tighty!--when was a jester obliged to
finish his sentence? I cut so strong a pirouette that all my bells
jingle, and come down in an attitude, with one hand upon my hip. The
evening's entertainment is over,--"and if our kyind friends----"
Hurrah! I feel relieved. I have put out my gibber, and if you have read
thus far, you will have taken it in. I wonder if you will ever come this
length. I shall try a trap for you, and insult you here, on this last
page. "O Baxter what a damned humbug you are!" There,--shall this insult
bloom and die unseen, or will you come toward me, when next we meet,
with a face deformed with anger and demand speedy and bloody
satisfaction. _Nous verrons_, which is French.