The history of the scruples and ideas of duty in regard to money
expressed in the following letter is set forth and further explained
in retrospect in the fragment called _Lay Morals_, written in 1879.
The Walt Whitman essay here mentioned is not that afterwards printed
in _Men and Books_, but an earlier and more enthusiastic version. Mr.
Dowson (of whom Stevenson lost sight after these Riviera days) was
the father of the unfortunate poet Ernest Dowson. His acquaintance
was the first result of Stevenson's search for "anyone conversable"
in the hotel.
_Menton, Sunday [November 30, 1873]._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--To-day is as hot as it has been in the sun; and as I
was a little tired and seedy, I went down and just drank in sunshine. A
strong wind has risen out of the west; the great big dead leaves from
the roadside planes scuttled about and chased one another over the
gravel round me with a noise like little waves under the keel of a boat,
and jumped up sometimes on to my lap and into my face. I lay down on my
back at last, and looked up into the sky. The white corner of the hotel,
with a wide projection at the top, stood out in dazzling relief; and
there was nothing else, save a few of the plane leaves that had got up
wonderfully high and turned and eddied and flew here and there like
little pieces of gold leaf, to break the extraordinary sea of blue. It
was bluer than anything in the world here; wonderfully blue, and
looking deeply peaceful, although in truth there was a high wind
blowing.
I am concerned about the plane leaves. Hitherto it has always been a
great feature to see these trees standing up head and shoulders and
chest--head and body, in fact--above the wonderful blue-grey-greens of
the olives, in one glory of red gold. Much more of this wind, and the
gold, I fear, will be all spent.
9.20.--I must write you another little word. I have found here a new
friend, to whom I grow daily more devoted--George Sand. I go on from one
novel to another and think the last I have read the most sympathetic and
friendly in tone, until I have read another. It is a life in dreamland.
Have you read _Mademoiselle Merquem_?
_Monday._--I did not quite know last night what to say to you about
_Mlle. Merquem_. If you want to be unpleasantly moved, read it.
I am gloomy and out of spirits to-night in consequence of a ridiculous
scene at the _table d'hote_, where a parson whom I rather liked took
offence at something I said and we had almost a quarrel. It was mopped
up and stifled, like spilt wine with a napkin; but it leaves an
unpleasant impression.
I have again ceased all work, because I felt that it strained my head a
little, and so I have resumed the tedious task of waiting with folded
hands for better days. But thanks to George Sand and the sunshine, I am
very jolly.
That last word was so much out of key that I could sit no longer, and
went away to seek out my clergyman and apologise to him. He was gone to
bed. I don't know what makes me take this so much to heart. I suppose
it's nerves or pride or something; but I am unhappy about it. I am going
to drown my sorrows in _Consuelo_ and burn some incense in my pipe to
the god of Contentment and Forgetfulness.
I do not know, but I hope, if I can only get better, I shall be a help
to you soon in every way and no more a trouble and burthen. All my
difficulties about life have so cleared away; the scales have fallen
from my eyes, and the broad road of my duty lies out straight before me
without cross or hindrance. I have given up all hope, all fancy rather,
of making literature my hold: I see that I have not capacity enough. My
life shall be, if I can make it, my only business. I am desirous to
practise now, rather than to preach, for I know that I should ever
preach badly, and men can more easily forgive faulty practice than dull
sermons. If Colvin does not think that I shall be able to support myself
soon by literature, I shall give it up and go (horrible as the thought
is to me) into an office of some sort: the first and main question is,
that I must live by my own hands; after that come the others.
You will not regard me as a madman, I am sure. It is a very rational
aberration at least to try to put your beliefs into practice. Strangely
enough, it has taken me a long time to see this distinctly with regard
to my whole creed; but I have seen it at last, praised be my sickness
and my leisure! I have seen it at last; the sun of my duty has risen; I
have enlisted for the first time, and after long coquetting with the
shilling, under the banner of the Holy Ghost![10]
8.15.--If you had seen the moon last night! It was like transfigured
sunshine; as clear and mellow, only showing everything in a new
wonderful significance. The shadows of the leaves on the road were so
strangely black that Dowson and I had difficulty in believing that they
were not solid, or at least pools of dark mire. And the hills and the
trees, and the white Italian houses with lit windows! O! nothing could
bring home to you the keenness and the reality and the wonderful
_Unheimlichkeit_ of all these. When the moon rises every night over the
Italian coast, it makes a long path over the sea as yellow as gold.
How I happened to be out in the moonlight yesterday, was that Dowson and
I spent the evening with an odd man called Bates, who played Italian
music to us with great feeling; all which was quite a dissipation in my
still existence.
_Friday._--I cannot endure to be dependent much longer, it stops my
mouth. Something I must find shortly. I mean when I am able for
anything. However I am much better already; and have been writing not
altogether my worst although not very well. Walt Whitman is stopped. I
have bemired it so atrociously by working at it when I was out of humour
that I must let the colour dry; and alas! what I have been doing in its
place doesn't seem to promise any money. However it is all practice and
it interests myself extremely. I have now received L80, some L55 of
which still remain; all this is more debt to civilisation and my
fellowmen. When shall I be able to pay it back? You do not know how much
this money question begins to take more and more importance in my eyes
every day. It is an old phrase of mine that money is the _atmosphere_ of
civilised life, and I do hate to take the breath out of other people's
nostrils. I live here at the rate of more than L3 a week and I do
nothing for it. If I didn't hope to get well and do good work yet and
more than repay my debts to the world, I should consider it right to
invest an extra franc or two in laudanum. But I _will_ repay it.--Always
your faithful friend,