In France, as has been already indicated, Stevenson had met the American
lady, Mrs. Osbourne, who was afterwards to become his wife. Her domestic
relations had not been fortunate; to his chivalrous nature her
circumstances appealed no less than her person; and almost from their
first meeting, which befell at Grez, immediately after the canoe voyage
of 1876, he conceived for her an attachment which was to transform and
determine his life. On her return to America with her children in the
autumn of 1878, she determined to seek a divorce from her husband.
Hearing of her intention, together with very disquieting news of her
health, and hoping that after she had obtained the divorce he might make
her his wife, Stevenson suddenly started for California at the beginning
of August 1879.
For what he knew must seem to his friends, and especially to his father,
so wild an errand, he would ask for no supplies from home; but resolved,
risking his whole future on the issue, to test during this adventure his
power of supporting himself, and eventually others, by his own labours
in literature. In order from the outset to save as much as possible, he
made the journey in the steerage and the emigrant train. With this
prime motive of economy was combined a second--that of learning for
himself the pinch of life as it is felt by the unprivileged and the poor
(he had long ago disclaimed for himself the character of a "consistent
first-class passenger in life")--and also, it should be added, a third,
that of turning his experiences to literary account. On board ship he
took daily notes with this intent, and wrote moreover _The Story of a
Lie_ for an English magazine. Arrived at his destination, he found his
health, as was natural, badly shaken by the hardships of the journey;
tried his favourite open-air cure for three weeks at an Angora
goat-ranche some twenty miles from Monterey; and then lived from
September to December in that old Californian coast-town itself, under
the conditions set forth in the earlier of the following letters, and
under a heavy combined strain of personal anxiety and literary effort.
From the notes taken on board ship and in the emigrant train he drafted
an account of his journey, intending to make a volume matching in form,
though in contents much unlike, the earlier _Inland Voyage_ and _Travels
with a Donkey_. He wrote also the essays on Thoreau and the Japanese
reformer, Yoshida Torajiro, afterwards published in _Familiar Studies of
Men and Books_; one of the most vivid of his shorter tales, _The
Pavilion on the Links_, hereinafter referred to as a "blood and
thunder," as well as a great part of another and longer story drawn from
his new experiences and called _A Vendetta in the West_; but this did
not satisfy him, and was never finished. He planned at the same time, in
the spirit of romantic comedy, that tale which took final shape four
years later as _Prince Otto_. Towards the end of December 1879 Stevenson
moved to San Francisco, where he lived for three months in a workman's
lodging, leading a life of frugality amounting, it will be seen, to
self-imposed penury, and working always with the same intensity of
application, until his health utterly broke down. One of the causes
which contributed to his illness was the fatigue he underwent in helping
to watch beside the sickbed of a child, the son of his landlady. During
a part of March and April he lay at death's door--his first really
dangerous sickness since childhood--and was slowly tended back to life
by the joint ministrations of his future wife and the physician to whom
his letter of thanks will be found below. His marriage ensued in May
1880; immediately afterwards, to try and consolidate his recovery, he
moved to a deserted mining-camp in the Californian coast range; and has
recorded the aspects and humours of his life there with a master's touch
in the _Silverado Squatters_.
The news of his dangerous illness and approaching marriage had in the
meantime unlocked the parental heart and purse; supplies were sent
ensuring his present comfort, with the promise of their continuance for
the future, and of a cordial welcome for the new daughter-in-law in his
father's house. The following letters, chosen from among those written
during the period in question, depict his way of life, and reflect at
once the anxiety of his friends and the strain of the time upon himself.