This correspondent is the late Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, author of
_Summer Cruising in the South Seas_, etc., with whom Stevenson had
made friends in the manner and amid the scenes faithfully described
in _The Wrecker_, in the chapter called "Faces on the City Front."
_East Oakland, Cal., May 1880._
MY DEAR STODDARD,--I am guilty in thy sight and the sight of God.
However, I swore a great oath that you should see some of my manuscript
at last; and though I have long delayed to keep it, yet it was to be.
You re-read your story and were disgusted; that is the cold fit
following the hot. I don't say you did wrong to be disgusted, yet I am
sure you did wrong to be disgusted altogether. There was, you may depend
upon it, some reason for your previous vanity, as well as your present
mortification. I shall hear you, years from now, timidly begin to retrim
your feathers for a little self-laudation, and trot out this misdespised
novelette as not the worst of your performances. I read the album
extracts with sincere interest; but I regret that you spared to give the
paper more development; and I conceive that you might do a great deal
worse than expand each of its paragraphs into an essay or sketch, the
excuse being in each case your personal intercourse; the bulk, when that
would not be sufficient, to be made up from their own works and stories.
Three at least--Menken, Yelverton, and Keeler--could not fail of a vivid
human interest. Let me press upon you this plan; should any document be
wanted from Europe, let me offer my services to procure it. I am
persuaded that there is stuff in the idea.
Are you coming over again to see me some day soon? I keep returning, and
now hand over fist, from the realms of Hades; I saw that gentleman
between the eyes, and fear him less after each visit. Only Charon, and
his rough boatmanship, I somewhat fear.
I have a desire to write some verses for your album; so, if you will
give me the entry among your gods, goddesses, and godlets, there will be
nothing wanting but the Muse. I think of the verses like Mark Twain;
sometimes I wish fulsomely to belaud you; sometimes to insult your city
and fellow-citizens; sometimes to sit down quietly, with the slender
reed, and troll a few staves of Panic ecstasy--but fy! fy! as my
ancestors observed, the last is too easy for a man of my feet and
inches.
At least, Stoddard, you now see that, although so costive, when I once
begin I am a copious letter-writer. I thank you, and _au revoir_.