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Title: The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson — Volume 2
Author: Stevenson, Robert Louis
Language: English
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STEVENSON TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS - VOLUME 1 [OF 2]***
Transcribed from the 1906 Methuen and Co edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
[Picture: Robert Louis Stevenson]
THE LETTERS OF
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
TO HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS
SELECTED AND EDITED WITH
NOTES AND INTRODUCTION BY
SIDNEY COLVIN
VOLUME II
* * * * *
LONDON
METHUEN AND CO.
36 ESSEX STREET
_Seventh Edition_
_First Published_ _November 1899_
_Second Edition_ _November 1899_
_Third Edition_ _April 1900_
_Fourth Edition_ _November 1900_
_Fifth Edition_ _January 1901_
_Sixth Edition_ _October 1902_
_Seventh Edition_ _December 1906_
CONTENTS
VIII 6
LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH—_Continued_
IX 59
THE UNITED STATES AGAIN
WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS
X 114
PACIFIC VOYAGES
XI 209
LIFE IN SAMOA
XII 285
LIFE IN SAMOA—_continued_
VIII
LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH,
_Continued_,
JANUARY 1886-JULY 1887.
TO MRS. DE MATTOS
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _January_ 1_st_, 1886.
DEAREST KATHARINE,—Here, on a very little book and accompanied with lame
verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is now getting well on in
years; it must be nearly of age; and it gets more valuable to me with
every time I see you. It is not possible to express any sentiment, and
it is not necessary to try, at least between us. You know very well that
I love you dearly, and that I always will. I only wish the verses were
better, but at least you like the story; and it is sent to you by the one
that loves you—Jekyll, and not Hyde.
R. L. S.
_Ave_!
Bells upon the city are ringing in the night;
High above the gardens are the houses full of light;
On the heathy Pentlands is the curlew flying free;
And the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.
We cannae break the bonds that God decreed to bind,
Still we’ll be the children of the heather and the wind;
Far away from home, O, it’s still for you and me
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie!
R. L. S.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], 1_st_, 1886.
MY DEAR KINNICUM,—I am a very bad dog, but not for the first time. Your
book, which is very interesting, came duly; and I immediately got a very
bad cold indeed, and have been fit for nothing whatever. I am a bit
better now, and aye on the mend; so I write to tell you, I thought of you
on New Year’s Day; though, I own, it would have been more decent if I had
thought in time for you to get my letter then. Well, what can’t be cured
must be endured, Mr. Lawrie; and you must be content with what I give.
If I wrote all the letters I ought to write, and at the proper time, I
should be very good and very happy; but I doubt if I should do anything
else.
I suppose you will be in town for the New Year; and I hope your health is
pretty good. What you want is diet; but it is as much use to tell you
that as it is to tell my father. And I quite admit a diet is a beastly
thing. I doubt, however, if it be as bad as not being allowed to speak,
which I have tried fully, and do not like. When, at the same time, I was
not allowed to read, it passed a joke. But these are troubles of the
past, and on this day, at least, it is proper to suppose they won’t
return. But we are not put here to enjoy ourselves: it was not God’s
purpose; and I am prepared to argue, it is not our sincere wish. As for
our deserts, the less said of them the better, for somebody might hear,
and nobody cares to be laughed at. A good man is a very noble thing to
see, but not to himself; what he seems to God is, fortunately, not our
business; that is the domain of faith; and whether on the first of
January or the thirty-first of December, faith is a good word to end on.
My dear Cummy, many happy returns to you and my best love.—The worst
correspondent in the world,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _January_ 1_st_, 1886.
MY DEAR PEOPLE,—Many happy returns of the day to you all; I am fairly
well and in good spirits; and much and hopefully occupied with dear
Jenkin’s life. The inquiry in every detail, every letter that I read,
makes me think of him more nobly. I cannot imagine how I got his
friendship; I did not deserve it. I believe the notice will be
interesting and useful.
My father’s last letter, owing to the use of a quill pen and the neglect
of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. Every one tried, and every
one failed to decipher an important word on which the interest of one
whole clause (and the letter consisted of two) depended.
I find I can make little more of this; but I’ll spare the blots.—Dear
people, ever your loving son,
R. L. S.
I will try again, being a giant refreshed by the house being empty. The
presence of people is the great obstacle to letter-writing. I deny that
letters should contain news (I mean mine; those of other people should).
But mine should contain appropriate sentiments and humorous nonsense, or
nonsense without the humour. When the house is empty, the mind is seized
with a desire—no, that is too strong—a willingness to pour forth
unmitigated rot, which constitutes (in me) the true spirit of
correspondence. When I have no remarks to offer (and nobody to offer
them to), my pen flies, and you see the remarkable consequence of a page
literally covered with words and genuinely devoid of sense. I can always
do that, if quite alone, and I like doing it; but I have yet to learn
that it is beloved by correspondents. The deuce of it is, that there is
no end possible but the end of the paper; and as there is very little
left of that—if I cannot stop writing—suppose you give up reading. It
would all come to the same thing; and I think we should all be happier . . .
TO W. H. LOW
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _Jan._ 2_nd_, 1886.
MY DEAR LOW,—_Lamia_ has come, and I do not know how to thank you, not
only for the beautiful art of the designs, but for the handsome and apt
words of the dedication. My favourite is ‘Bathes unseen,’ which is a
masterpiece; and the next, ‘Into the green recessed woods,’ is perhaps
more remarkable, though it does not take my fancy so imperiously. The
night scene at Corinth pleases me also. The second part offers fewer
opportunities. I own I should like to see both _Isabella_ and the _Eve_
thus illustrated; and then there’s _Hyperion_—O, yes, and _Endymion_! I
should like to see the lot: beautiful pictures dance before me by
hundreds: I believe _Endymion_ would suit you best. It also is in
faery-land; and I see a hundred opportunities, cloudy and flowery
glories, things as delicate as the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in
themselves of any mighty purport, but made for the pencil: the feast of
Pan, Peona’s isle, the ‘slabbed margin of a well,’ the chase of the
butterfly, the nymph, Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of
unconnected beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the bosom of
the publisher.
What is more important, I accept the terms of the dedication with a frank
heart, and the terms of your Latin legend fairly. The sight of your
pictures has once more awakened me to my right mind; something may come
of it; yet one more bold push to get free of this prisonyard of the
abominably ugly, where I take my daily exercise with my contemporaries.
I do not know, I have a feeling in my bones, a sentiment which may take
on the forms of imagination, or may not. If it does, I shall owe it to
you; and the thing will thus descend from Keats even if on the wrong side
of the blanket. If it can be done in prose—that is the puzzle—I divagate
again. Thank you again: you can draw and yet you do not love the ugly:
what are you doing in this age? Flee, while it is yet time; they will
have your four limbs pinned upon a stable door to scare witches. The
ugly, my unhappy friend, is _de rigueur_: it is the only wear! What a
chance you threw away with the serpent! Why had Apollonius no pimples?
Heavens, my dear Low, you do not know your business. . . .
I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph; but the gnome is
interesting, I think, and he came out of a deep mine, where he guards the
fountain of tears. It is not always the time to rejoice.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
The gnome’s name is _Jekyll & Hyde_; I believe you will find he is
likewise quite willing to answer to the name of Low or Stevenson.
_Same day_.—I have copied out on the other sheet some bad verses, which
somehow your picture suggested; as a kind of image of things that I
pursue and cannot reach, and that you seem—no, not to have reached—but to
have come a thought nearer to than I. This is the life we have chosen:
well, the choice was mad, but I should make it again.
What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be printed in (say) the
_Century_ for the sake of my name; and if that were possible, they might
advertise your book. It might be headed as sent in acknowledgment of
your _Lamia_. Or perhaps it might be introduced by the phrases I have
marked above. I dare say they would stick it in: I want no payment,
being well paid by _Lamia_. If they are not, keep them to yourself.
TO WILL H. LOW
_Damned bad lines in return for a beautiful book_
Youth now flees on feathered foot.
Faint and fainter sounds the flute;
Rarer songs of Gods.
And still,
Somewhere on the sunny hill,
Or along the winding stream,
Through the willows, flits a dream;
Flits, but shows a smiling face,
Flees, but with so quaint a grace,
None can choose to stay at home,
All must follow—all must roam.
This is unborn beauty: she
Now in air floats high and free,
Takes the sun, and breaks the blue;—
Late, with stooping pinion flew
Raking hedgerow trees, and wet
Her wing in silver streams, and set
Shining foot on temple roof.
Now again she flies aloof,
Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed
By the evening’s amethyst.
In wet wood and miry lane
Still we pound and pant in vain;
Still with earthy foot we chase
Waning pinion, fainting face;
Still, with grey hair, we stumble on
Till—behold!—the vision gone!
Where has fleeting beauty led?
To the doorway of the dead!
qy. omit? [Life is gone, but life was gay:
We have come the primrose way!] {11}
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Jan._ 2_nd_, 1886.
MY DEAR GOSSE,—Thank you for your letter, so interesting to my vanity.
There is a review in the St. James’s, which, as it seems to hold somewhat
of your opinions, and is besides written with a pen and not a poker, we
think may possibly be yours. The _Prince_ {12} has done fairly well in
spite of the reviews, which have been bad: he was, as you doubtless saw,
well slated in the _Saturday_; one paper received it as a child’s story;
another (picture my agony) described it as a ‘Gilbert comedy.’ It was
amusing to see the race between me and Justin M’Carthy: the Milesian has
won by a length.
That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and you take longer
over your work, and it will not be so successful as if you had aimed low
and rushed it. What the public likes is work (of any kind) a little
loosely executed; so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a
little dim and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if
possible) be a little dull into the bargain. I know that good work
sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my heart, I think it is by an
accident. And I know also that good work must succeed at last; but that
is not the doing of the public; they are only shamed into silence or
affectation. I do not write for the public; I do write for money, a
nobler deity; and most of all for myself, not perhaps any more noble, but
both more intelligent and nearer home.
Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast whom we
feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press is the mouth
of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an university chair, and
everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its abode
and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but men, and not all of these—and
fewer women. As for respecting the race, and, above all, that fatuous
rabble of burgesses called ‘the public,’ God save me from such
irreligion!—that way lies disgrace and dishonour. There must be
something wrong in me, or I would not be popular.
This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and permanent opinion.
Not much, I think. As for the art that we practise, I have never been
able to see why its professors should be respected. They chose the
primrose path; when they found it was not all primroses, but some of it
brambly, and much of it uphill, they began to think and to speak of
themselves as holy martyrs. But a man is never martyred in any honest
sense in the pursuit of his pleasure; and _delirium tremens_ has more of
the honour of the cross. We were full of the pride of life, and chose,
like prostitutes, to live by a pleasure. We should be paid if we give
the pleasure we pretend to give; but why should we be honoured?
I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a Sunday; but we must
wait till I am able to see people. I am very full of Jenkin’s life; it
is painful, yet very pleasant, to dig into the past of a dead friend, and
find him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I own, as I read, I wonder
more and more why he should have taken me to be a friend. He had many
and obvious faults upon the face of him; the heart was pure gold. I feel
it little pain to have lost him, for it is a loss in which I cannot
believe; I take it, against reason, for an absence; if not to-day, then
to-morrow, I still fancy I shall see him in the door; and then, now when
I know him better, how glad a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in the
immortality business, the world would indeed be too good to be true; but
we were put here to do what service we can, for honour and not for hire:
the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies, the conscience, sleeps
well at last; these are the wages, besides what we receive so lavishly
day by day; and they are enough for a man who knows his own frailty and
sees all things in the proportion of reality. The soul of piety was
killed long ago by that idea of reward. Nor is happiness, whether
eternal or temporal, the reward that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but
his wayside campings; his soul is in the journey; he was born for the
struggle, and only tastes his life in effort and on the condition that he
is opposed. How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, so
made up of discontent and aspiration, and such noble and uneasy
passions—how can he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud;
for man’s cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he
continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior
happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop and taste it; he
can be about the rugged and bitter business where his heart lies; and yet
he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal tea-party, and enjoy
the notion that he is both himself and something else; and that his
friends will yet meet him, all ironed out and emasculate, and still be
lovable,—as if love did not live in the faults of the beloved only, and
draw its breath in an unbroken round of forgiveness! But the truth is,
we must fight until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet for
mankind but complete resumption into—what?—God, let us say—when all these
desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last.
Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short—_excusez_.
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Jan._ 2_nd_, 1886.
DEAR JAMES PAYN,—Your very kind letter came very welcome; and still more
welcome the news that you see —’s tale. I will now tell you (and it was
very good and very wise of me not to tell it before) that he is one of
the most unlucky men I know, having put all his money into a pharmacy at
Hyères, when the cholera (certainly not his fault) swept away his
customers in a body. Thus you can imagine the pleasure I have to
announce to him a spark of hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy,
doing nothing and taking nothing, and watching his debts inexorably mount
up.
To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not one of
those that can be read running; and the name of your daughter remains for
me undecipherable. I call her, then, your daughter—and a very good name
too—and I beg to explain how it came about that I took her house. The
hospital was a point in my tale; but there is a house on each side. Now
the true house is the one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If not,
what do you complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true?
Everything in the _Dynamiter_ is not true; but the story of the Brown Box
is, in almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear to
it. It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in
that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very bad
society.
But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter’s house has not a balcony at
the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that side of Queen
Square from the pavement and the back windows of Brunswick Row. Thence I
saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather); and if there is none to the
particular house in question, it must have been so arranged to spite me.
I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three questions
to your daughter:—
1st. Has her house the proper terrace?
2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital?
3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884?
You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me on
some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling exactitude. If
this should prove to be so, I will give your daughter a proper
certificate, and her house property will return to its original value.
Can man say more?—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from _Lost Sir
Massingberd_: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the death of
Zero.
TO W. H. LOW
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Jan. Somethingorother-th_, 1886.
MY DEAR LOW,—I send you two photographs: they are both done by Sir Percy
Shelley, the poet’s son, which may interest. The sitting down one is, I
think, the best; but if they choose that, see that the little reflected
light on the nose does not give me a turn-up; that would be tragic.
Don’t forget ‘Baronet’ to Sir Percy’s name.
We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my
dedication.—Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
_P.S._—_Apropos_ of the odd controversy about Shelley’s nose: I have
before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley’s son: my nose is
hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the accipitrine family in
man: well, out of these four, only one marks the bend, one makes it
straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This throws a flood of light on
calumnious man—and the scandal-mongering sun. For personally I cling to
my curve. To continue the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all
his sisters had noses like mine; Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the
family had high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this
turn-up (of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other
_fatras_) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened in
my photographs by his son?
R. L. S.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _January_ 25, 1886.]
MY DEAR FATHER,—Many thanks for a letter quite like yourself. I quite
agree with you, and had already planned a scene of religion in _Balfour_;
the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge furnishes me with
a catechist whom I shall try to make the man. I have another catechist,
the blind, pistol-carrying highway robber, whom I have transferred from
the Long Island to Mull. I find it a most picturesque period, and wonder
Scott let it escape. The _Covenant_ is lost on one of the Tarrans, and
David is cast on Earraid, where (being from inland) he is nearly starved
before he finds out the island is tidal; then he crosses Mull to
Toronsay, meeting the blind catechist by the way; then crosses Morven
from Kinlochaline to Kingairloch, where he stays the night with the good
catechist; that is where I am; next day he is to be put ashore in Appin,
and be present at Colin Campbell’s death. To-day I rest, being a little
run down. Strange how liable we are to brain fag in this scooty family!
But as far as I have got, all but the last chapter, I think David is on
his feet, and (to my mind) a far better story and far sounder at heart
than _Treasure Island_.
I have no earthly news, living entirely in my story, and only coming out
of it to play patience. The Shelleys are gone; the Taylors kinder than
can be imagined. The other day, Lady Taylor drove over and called on me;
she is a delightful old lady, and great fun. I mentioned a story about
the Duchess of Wellington which I had heard Sir Henry tell; and though he
was very tired, he looked it up and copied it out for me in his own
hand.—Your most affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO C. W. STODDARD
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _Feb._ 13_th_, 1886.
MY DEAR STODDARD,—I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have at last
taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This is already my
sixth letter to-day, and I have many more waiting; and my wrist gives me
a jog on the subject of scrivener’s cramp, which is not encouraging.
I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you wrote your last. I
am as usual pretty cheerful, but not very strong. I stay in the house
all winter, which is base; but, as you continue to see, the pen goes from
time to time, though neither fast enough nor constantly enough to please
me.
My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and the interval of
widowery explains my writing. Another person writing for you when you
have done work is a great enemy to correspondence. To-day I feel out of
health, and shan’t work; and hence this so much overdue reply.
I was re-reading some of your South Sea Idyls the other day: some of the
chapters are very good indeed; some pages as good as they can be.
How does your class get along? If you like to touch on _Otto_, any day
in a by-hour, you may tell them—as the author’s last dying
confession—that it is a strange example of the difficulty of being ideal
in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy-mindedness, which spoils
the book and often gives it a wanton air of unreality and juggling with
air-bells, comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too great realism of
some chapters and passages—some of which I have now spotted, others I
dare say I shall never spot—which disprepares the imagination for the
cast of the remainder.
Any story can be made _true_ in its own key; any story can be made
_false_ by the choice of a wrong key of detail or style: Otto is made to
reel like a drunken—I was going to say man, but let us substitute
cipher—by the variations of the key. Have you observed that the famous
problem of realism and idealism is one purely of detail? Have you seen
my ‘Note on Realism’ in Cassell’s _Magazine of Art_; and ‘Elements of
Style’ in the _Contemporary_; and ‘Romance’ and ‘Humble Apology’ in
_Longman’s_? They are all in your line of business; let me know what you
have not seen and I’ll send ’em.
I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was a pleasant old spot,
and I remember you there, though still more dearly in your own strange
den upon a hill in San Francisco; and one of the most San Francisco-y
parts of San Francisco.
Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO J. A. SYMONDS
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_ [_Spring_ 1886].
MY DEAR SYMONDS,—If we have lost touch, it is (I think) only in a
material sense; a question of letters, not hearts. You will find a warm
welcome at Skerryvore from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed, we never
tell ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run to Davos is a
prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship; and I think I can
promise you you have a pair of trusty well-wishers and friends in
Bournemouth: whether they write or not is but a small thing; the flag may
not be waved, but it is there.
Jekyll is a dreadful thing, I own; but the only thing I feel dreadful
about is that damned old business of the war in the members. This time
it came out; I hope it will stay in, in future.
Raskolnikoff {20} is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years; I
am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: Henry James could not finish
it: all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was like having an
illness. James did not care for it because the character of Raskolnikoff
was not objective; and at that I divined a great gulf between us, and, on
further reflection, the existence of a certain impotence in many minds of
to-day, which prevents them from living _in_ a book or a character, and
keeps them standing afar off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I
suppose the book may seem empty in the centre; to the others it is a
room, a house of life, into which they themselves enter, and are tortured
and purified. The Juge d’Instruction I thought a wonderful, weird,
touching, ingenious creation: the drunken father, and Sonia, and the
student friend, and the uncircumscribed, protaplasmic humanity of
Raskolnikoff, all upon a level that filled me with wonder: the execution
also, superb in places. Another has been translated—_Humiliés et
Offensés_. It is even more incoherent than _Le Crime et le Châtiment_,
but breathes much of the same lovely goodness, and has passages of power.
Dostoieffsky is a devil of a swell, to be sure. Have you heard that he
became a stout, imperialist conservative? It is interesting to know. To
something of that side, the balance leans with me also in view of the
incoherency and incapacity of all. The old boyish idea of the march on
Paradise being now out of season, and all plans and ideas that I hear
debated being built on a superb indifference to the first principles of
human character, a helpless desire to acquiesce in anything of which I
know the worst assails me. Fundamental errors in human nature of two
sorts stand on the skyline of all this modern world of aspirations.
First, that it is happiness that men want; and second, that happiness
consists of anything but an internal harmony. Men do not want, and I do
not think they would accept, happiness; what they live for is rivalry,
effort, success—the elements our friends wish to eliminate. And, on the
other hand, happiness is a question of morality—or of immorality, there
is no difference—and conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his
worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I suppose, in his
ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy in the detested camp; Pepys was
pretty happy, and I am pretty happy on the whole, because we both
somewhat crowingly accepted a _via media_, both liked to attend to our
affairs, and both had some success in managing the same. It is quite an
open question whether Pepys and I ought to be happy; on the other hand,
there is no doubt that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he
said it) that he was _la misère humaine_, cureless misery—unless perhaps
by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had
justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece
ornaments, the bourgeois (_quorum pars_), and their cowardly dislike of
dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly
they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment
and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two
flaunting emblems of their hollowness.
God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch.
Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I
have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle.
Pray don’t fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment,
now it has been spoken of, if you do.—Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
TO W. H. LOW
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _March_ 1886.]
MY DEAR LOW,—This is the most enchanting picture. Now understand my
state: I am really an invalid, but of a mysterious order. I might be a
_malade imaginaire_, but for one too tangible symptom, my tendency to
bleed from the lungs. If we could go, (1_st_) We must have money enough
to travel with _leisure and comfort_—especially the first. (_2nd_) You
must be prepared for a comrade who would go to bed some part of every day
and often stay silent (3_rd_) You would have to play the part of a
thoughtful courier, sparing me fatigue, looking out that my bed was
warmed, etc. (4_th_) If you are very nervous, you must recollect a bad
hæmorrhage is always on the cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and
horror for those who are beside me.
Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it.
If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, I believe the
trip might do me good, and I feel sure that, working together, we might
produce a fine book. The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have
adored it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train.
Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. I have stood the
winter hitherto with some credit, but the dreadful weather still
continues, and I cannot holloa till I am through the wood.
Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I embrace the prospect
with glorious feelings.
I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no circumstance of
pleasure except your letter. That, however, counts for much. I am glad
you liked the doggerel: I have already had a liberal cheque, over which I
licked my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to make money
by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is only too welcome in my
handsome but impecunious house.
Let me know soon what is to be expected—as far as it does not hang by
that inconstant quantity, my want of health. Remember me to Madam with
the best thanks and wishes; and believe me your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _April_ 1886.]
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,—I try to tell myself it is good nature, but I know
it is vanity that makes me write.
I have drafted the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming and his friends,
his influence on me, his views on religion and literature, his part at
the Savile; it should boil down to about ten pages, and I really do think
it admirably good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that I
found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after a serious talk
with him: surely that means it is good? I had to write and tell you,
being alone.
I have excellent news of Fanny, who is much better for the change. My
father is still very yellow, and very old, and very weak, but yesterday
he seemed happier, and smiled, and followed what was said; even laughed,
I think. When he came away, he said to me, ‘Take care of yourself, my
dearie,’ which had a strange sound of childish days, and will not leave
my mind.
You must get Litolf’s _Gavottes Célèbres_: I have made another trover
there: a musette of Lully’s. The second part of it I have not yet got
the hang of; but the first—only a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful and
pretty hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the end of it,
this musette enters with the most really thrilling effect of simple
beauty. O—it’s first-rate. I am quite mad over it. If you find other
books containing Lully, Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you
might tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be found. I
write all morning, come down, and never leave the piano till about five;
write letters, dine, get down again about eight, and never leave the
piano till I go to bed. This is a fine life.—Yours most sincerely,
R. L. S.
If you get the musette (Lully’s), please tell me if I am right, and it
was probably written for strings. Anyway, it is as neat as—as neat as
Bach—on the piano; or seems so to my ignorance.
I play much of the Rigadoon but it is strange, it don’t come off _quite_
so well with me!
[Picture: Music store]
There is the first part of the musette copied (from memory, so I hope
there’s nothing wrong). Is it not angelic? But it ought, of course, to
have the gavotte before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote
thus (if I remember):—
[Picture: Music store]
staccato, I think. Then you sail into the musette.
_N.B._—Where I have put an ‘A,’ is that a dominant eleventh, or what? or
just a seventh on the D? and if the latter, is that allowed? It sounds
very funny. Never mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which
is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble
questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The
whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could easily be played too
fast? The dignity must not be lost; the periwig feeling.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _March_ 1886.]
MY DEAR FATHER,—The David problem has to-day been decided. I am to leave
the door open for a sequel if the public take to it, and this will save
me from butchering a lot of good material to no purpose. Your letter
from Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to see; the
hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am for action quite unfit, and
even a letter is beyond me; so pray take these scraps at a vast deal more
than their intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about David, Colvin
agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it far the most human
of my labours hitherto. As to whether the long-eared British public may
take to it, all think it more than doubtful; I wish they would, for I
could do a second volume with ease and pleasure, and Colvin thinks it sin
and folly to throw away David and Alan Breck upon so small a field as
this one.—Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _April_ 15 _or_ 16 (_the hour not being
known_), 1886.
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,—It is I know not what hour of the night; but I
cannot sleep, have lit the gas, and here goes.
First, all your packet arrived: I have dipped into the Schumann already
with great pleasure. Surely, in what concerns us there is a sweet little
chirrup; the _Good Words_ arrived in the morning just when I needed it,
and the famous notes that I had lost were recovered also in the nick of
time.
And now I am going to bother you with my affairs: premising, first, that
this is _private_; second, that whatever I do the _Life_ shall be done
first, and I am getting on with it well; and third, that I do not quite
know why I consult you, but something tells me you will hear with
fairness.
Here is my problem. The Curtin women are still miserable prisoners; no
one dare buy their farm of them, all the manhood of England and the world
stands aghast before a threat of murder. (1) Now, my work can be done
anywhere; hence I can take up without loss a back-going Irish farm, and
live on, though not (as I had originally written) in it: First Reason.
(2) If I should be killed, there are a good many who would feel it:
writers are so much in the public eye, that a writer being murdered would
attract attention, throw a bull’s-eye light upon this cowardly business:
Second Reason. (3) I am not unknown in the States, from which the funds
come that pay for these brutalities: to some faint extent, my death (if I
should be killed) would tell there: Third Reason. (4) _Nobody else is
taking up this obvious and crying duly_: Fourth Reason. (5) I have a
crazy health and may die at any moment, my life is of no purchase in an
insurance office, it is the less account to husband it, and the business
of husbanding a life is dreary and demoralising: Fifth Reason.
I state these in no order, but as they occur to me. And I shall do the
like with the objections.
First Objection: It will do no good; you have seen Gordon die and nobody
minded; nobody will mind if you die. This is plainly of the devil.
Second Objection: You will not even be murdered, the climate will
miserably kill you, you will strangle out in a rotten damp heat, in
congestion, etc. Well, what then? It changes nothing: the purpose is to
brave crime; let me brave it, for such time and to such an extent as God
allows. Third Objection: The Curtin women are probably highly
uninteresting females. I haven’t a doubt of it. But the Government
cannot, men will not, protect them. If I am the only one to see this
public duty, it is to the public and the Right I should perform it—not to
Mesdames Curtin. Fourth Objection: I am married. ‘I have married a
wife!’ I seem to have heard it before. It smells ancient! what was the
context? Fifth Objection: My wife has had a mean life (1), loves me (2),
could not bear to lose me (3). (1) I admit: I am sorry. (2) But what
does she love me for? and (3) she must lose me soon or late. And after
all, because we run this risk, it does not follow we should fail. Sixth
Objection: My wife wouldn’t like it. No, she wouldn’t. Who would? But
the Curtins don’t like it. And all those who are to suffer if this goes
on, won’t like it. And if there is a great wrong, somebody must suffer.
Seventh Objection: I won’t like it. No, I will not; I have thought it
through, and I will not. But what of that? And both she and I may like
it more than we suppose. We shall lose friends, all comforts, all
society: so has everybody who has ever done anything; but we shall have
some excitement, and that’s a fine thing; and we shall be trying to do
the right, and that’s not to be despised. Eighth Objection: I am an
author with my work before me. See Second Reason. Ninth Objection: But
am I not taken with the hope of excitement? I was at first. I am not
much now. I see what a dreary, friendless, miserable, God-forgotten
business it will be. And anyway, is not excitement the proper reward of
doing anything both right and a little dangerous? Tenth Objection: But
am I not taken with a notion of glory? I dare say I am. Yet I see quite
clearly how all points to nothing coming, to a quite inglorious death by
disease and from the lack of attendance; or even if I should be knocked
on the head, as these poor Irish promise, how little any one will care.
It will be a smile at a thousand breakfast-tables. I am nearly forty
now; I have not many illusions. And if I had? I do not love this
health-tending, housekeeping life of mine. I have a taste for danger,
which is human, like the fear of it. Here is a fair cause; a just cause;
no knight ever set lance in rest for a juster. Yet it needs not the
strength I have not, only the passive courage that I hope I could muster,
and the watchfulness that I am sure I could learn.
Here is a long midnight dissertation; with myself; with you. Please let
me hear. But I charge you this: if you see in this idea of mine the
finger of duty, do not dissuade me. I am nearing forty, I begin to love
my ease and my home and my habits, I never knew how much till this arose;
do not falsely counsel me to put my head under the bed-clothes. And I
will say this to you: my wife, who hates the idea, does not refuse. ‘It
is nonsense,’ says she, ‘but if you go, I will go.’ Poor girl, and her
home and her garden that she was so proud of! I feel her garden most of
all, because it is a pleasure (I suppose) that I do not feel myself to
share.
1. Here is a great wrong.
2. ,, growing wrong.
3. ,, wrong founded on crime.
4. ,, crime that the Government cannot prevent.
5. ,, crime that it occurs to no man to defy.
6. But it has occurred to me.
7. Being a known person, some will notice my defiance.
8. Being a writer, I can _make_ people notice it.
9. And, I think, _make_ people imitate me.
10. Which would destroy in time this whole scaffolding of oppression.
11. And if I fail, however ignominiously, that is not my concern. It
is, with an odd mixture of reverence and humorous remembrances of
Dickens, be it said—it is A-nother’s.
And here, at I cannot think what hour of the morning, I shall dry up, and
remain,—Yours, really in want of a little help,
R. L S.
Sleepless at midnight’s dewy hour.
,, ,, witching ,,
,, ,, maudlin ,,
,, ,, etc.
_Next morning_.—Eleventh Objection: I have a father and mother. And who
has not? Macduff’s was a rare case; if we must wait for a Macduff.
Besides, my father will not perhaps be long here. Twelfth Objection: The
cause of England in Ireland is not worth supporting. _À qui le
dites-vous_? And I am not supporting that. Home Rule, if you like.
Cause of decency, the idea that populations should not be taught to gain
public ends by private crime, the idea that for all men to bow before a
threat of crime is to loosen and degrade beyond redemption the whole
fabric of man’s decency.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _April_ 1886.]
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,—The Book—It is all drafted: I hope soon to send you
for comments Chapters III., IV., and V. Chapter VII. is roughly but
satisfactorily drafted: a very little work should put that to rights.
But Chapter VI. is no joke; it is a _mare magnum_: I swim and drown and
come up again; and it is all broken ends and mystification: moreover, I
perceive I am in want of more matter. I must have, first of all, a
little letter from Mr. Ewing about the phonograph work: _If_ you think he
would understand it is quite a matter of chance whether I use a word or a
fact out of it. If you think he would not: I will go without. Also,
could I have a look at Ewing’s _précis_? And lastly, I perceive I must
interview you again about a few points; they are very few, and might come
to little; and I propose to go on getting things as well together as I
can in the meanwhile, and rather have a final time when all is ready and
only to be criticised. I do still think it will be good. I wonder if
Trélat would let me cut? But no, I think I wouldn’t after all; ’tis so
quaint and pretty and clever and simple and French, and gives such a good
sight of Fleeming: the plum of the book, I think.
You misunderstood me in one point: I always hoped to found such a
society; that was the outside of my dream, and would mean entire success.
_But_—I cannot play Peter the Hermit. In these days of the Fleet Street
journalist, I cannot send out better men than myself, with wives or
mothers just as good as mine, and sisters (I may at least say) better, to
a danger and a long-drawn dreariness that I do not share. My wife says
it’s cowardice; what brave men are the leader-writers! Call it
cowardice; it is mine. Mind you, I may end by trying to do it by the pen
only: I shall not love myself if I do; and is it ever a good thing to do
a thing for which you despise yourself?—even in the doing? And if the
thing you do is to call upon others to do the thing you neglect? I have
never dared to say what I feel about men’s lives, because my own was in
the wrong: shall I dare to send them to death? The physician must heal
himself; he must honestly _try_ the path he recommends: if he does not
even try, should he not be silent?
I thank you very heartily for your letter, and for the seriousness you
brought to it. You know, I think when a serious thing is your own, you
keep a saner man by laughing at it and yourself as you go. So I do not
write possibly with all the really somewhat sickened gravity I feel. And
indeed, what with the book, and this business to which I referred, and
Ireland, I am scarcely in an enviable state. Well, I ought to be glad,
after ten years of the worst training on earth—valetudinarianism—that I
can still be troubled by a duty. You shall hear more in time; so far, I
am at least decided: I will go and see Balfour when I get to London.
We have all had a great pleasure: a Mrs. Rawlinson came and brought with
her a nineteen-year-old daughter, simple, human, as beautiful as—herself;
I never admired a girl before, you know it was my weakness: we are all
three dead in love with her. How nice to be able to do so much good to
harassed people by—yourself! Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO MISS RAWLINSON
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _April_ 1886.]
OF the many flowers you brought me,
Only some were meant to stay,
And the flower I thought the sweetest
Was the flower that went away.
Of the many flowers you brought me,
All were fair and fresh and gay,
But the flower I thought the sweetest
Was the blossom of the May.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MONROE
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _May_ 25_th_, 1886.
DEAR MISS MONROE,—(I hope I have this rightly) I must lose no time in
thanking you for a letter singularly pleasant to receive. It may
interest you to know that I read to the signature without suspecting my
correspondent was a woman; though in one point (a reference to the
Countess) I might have found a hint of the truth. You are not pleased
with Otto; since I judge you do not like weakness; and no more do I. And
yet I have more than tolerance for Otto, whose faults are the faults of
weakness, but never of ignoble weakness, and who seeks before all to be
both kind and just. Seeks, not succeeds. But what is man? So much of
cynicism to recognise that nobody does right is the best equipment for
those who do not wish to be cynics in good earnest. Think better of
Otto, if my plea can influence you; and this I mean for your own sake—not
his, poor fellow, as he will never learn your opinion; but for yours,
because, as men go in this world (and women too), you will not go far
wrong if you light upon so fine a fellow; and to light upon one and not
perceive his merits is a calamity. In the flesh, of course, I mean; in
the book the fault, of course, is with my stumbling pen. Seraphina made
a mistake about her Otto; it begins to swim before me dimly that you may
have some traits of Seraphina?
With true ingratitude you see me pitch upon your exception; but it is
easier to defend oneself gracefully than to acknowledge praise. I am
truly glad that you should like my books; for I think I see from what you
write that you are a reader worth convincing. Your name, if I have
properly deciphered it, suggests that you may be also something of my
countrywoman; for it is hard to see where Monroe came from, if not from
Scotland. I seem to have here a double claim on your good nature: being
myself pure Scotch and having appreciated your letter, make up two
undeniable merits which, perhaps, if it should be quite without trouble,
you might reward with your photograph.—Yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MONROE
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _June_ 1886.]
MY DEAR MISS MONROE,—I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; yet
I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible you
must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, as it
fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The interest
taken in an author is fragile: his next book, or your next year of
culture, might see the interest frosted or outgrown; and himself, in
spite of all, you might probably find the most distasteful person upon
earth. My case is different. I have bad health, am often condemned to
silence for days together—was so once for six weeks, so that my voice was
awful to hear when I first used it, like the whisper of a shadow—have
outlived all my chief pleasures, which were active and adventurous, and
ran in the open air: and being a person who prefers life to art, and who
knows it is a far finer thing to be in love, or to risk a danger, than to
paint the finest picture or write the noblest book, I begin to regard
what remains to me of my life as very shadowy. From a variety of
reasons, I am ashamed to confess I was much in this humour when your
letter came. I had a good many troubles; was regretting a high average
of sins; had been recently reminded that I had outlived some friends, and
wondering if I had not outlived some friendships; and had just, while
boasting of better health, been struck down again by my haunting enemy,
an enemy who was exciting at first, but has now, by the iteration of his
strokes, become merely annoying and inexpressibly irksome. Can you fancy
that to a person drawing towards the elderly this sort of conjunction of
circumstances brings a rather aching sense of the past and the future?
Well, it was just then that your letter and your photograph were brought
to me in bed; and there came to me at once the most agreeable sense of
triumph. My books were still young; my words had their good health and
could go about the world and make themselves welcome; and even (in a
shadowy and distant sense) make something in the nature of friends for
the sheer hulk that stays at home and bites his pen over the manuscripts.
It amused me very much to remember that I had been in Chicago, not so
many years ago, in my proper person; where I had failed to awaken much
remark, except from the ticket collector; and to think how much more
gallant and persuasive were the fellows that I now send instead of me,
and how these are welcome in that quarter to the sitter of Herr Platz,
while their author was not very welcome even in the villainous restaurant
where he tried to eat a meal and rather failed.
And this leads me directly to a confession. The photograph which shall
accompany this is not chosen as the most like, but the best-looking. Put
yourself in my place, and you will call this pardonable. Even as it is,
even putting forth a flattered presentment, I am a little pained; and
very glad it is a photograph and not myself that has to go; for in this
case, if it please you, you can tell yourself it is my image—and if it
displeased you, you can lay the blame on the photographer; but in that,
there were no help, and the poor author might belie his labours.
_Kidnapped_ should soon appear; I am afraid you may not like it, as it is
very unlike _Prince Otto_ in every way; but I am myself a great admirer
of the two chief characters, Alan and David. _Virginibus Puerisque_ has
never been issued in the States. I do not think it is a book that has
much charm for publishers in any land; but I am to bring out a new
edition in England shortly, a copy of which I must try to remember to
send you. I say try to remember, because I have some superficial
acquaintance with myself: and I have determined, after a galling
discipline, to promise nothing more until the day of my death: at least,
in this way, I shall no more break my word, and I must now try being
churlish instead of being false.
I do not believe you to be the least like Seraphina. Your photograph has
no trace of her, which somewhat relieves me, as I am a good deal afraid
of Seraphinas—they do not always go into the woods and see the sunrise,
and some are so well-mailed that even that experience would leave them
unaffected and unsoftened. The ‘hair and eyes of several complexions’
was a trait taken from myself; and I do not bind myself to the opinions
of Sir John. In this case, perhaps—but no, if the peculiarity is shared
by two such pleasant persons as you and I (as you and me—the grammatical
nut is hard), it must be a very good thing indeed, and Sir John must be
an ass.
The _Book Reader_ notice was a strange jumble of fact and fancy. I wish
you could have seen my father’s old assistant and present partner when he
heard my father described as an ‘inspector of lighthouses,’ for we are
all very proud of the family achievements, and the name of my house here
in Bournemouth is stolen from one of the sea-towers of the Hebrides which
are our pyramids and monuments. I was never at Cambridge, again; but
neglected a considerable succession of classes at Edinburgh. But to
correct that friendly blunderer were to write an autobiography.—And so
now, with many thanks, believe me yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _July_ 1886.
SIR,—Your foolish letter was unduly received. There may be hidden
fifths, and if there are, it shows how dam spontaneous the thing was. I
could tinker and tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper, but scorned the act
with a Threnody, which was poured forth like blood and water on the
groaning organ. If your heart (which was what I addressed) remained
unmoved, let us refer to the affair no more: crystallised emotion, the
statement and the reconciliation of the sorrows of the race and the
individual, is obviously no more to you than supping sawdust. Well,
well. If ever I write another Threnody! My next op. will probably be a
Passepied and fugue in G (or D).
The mind is in my case shrunk to the size and sp. gr. of an aged Spanish
filbert. O, I am so jolly silly. I now pickle with some freedom (1) the
refrain of _Martini’s Moutons_; (2) _Sul margine d’un rio_, arranged for
the infant school by the Aged Statesman; (3) the first phrase of Bach’s
musette (Sweet Englishwoman, No. 3), {37} the rest of the musette being
one prolonged cropper, which I take daily for the benefit of my health.
All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R.
L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged
and melancholy croppers. . . . I find one can get a notion of music very
nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have
arranged _La dove prende_, almost to the end, for two melodious
forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler _Colomba o
tortorella_ for the same instruments.
This day is published
The works of Ludwig van Beethoven
arranged
and wiederdurchgearbeiteted
for two melodious forefingers
by,
Sir,—Your obedient servant,
PIMPERLY STIPPLE.
That’s a good idea? There’s a person called Lenz who actually does
it—beware his den; I lost eighteenpennies on him, and found the bleeding
corpses of pieces of music divorced from their keys, despoiled of their
graces, and even changed in time; I do not wish to regard music (nor to
be regarded) through that bony Lenz. You say you are ‘a spumfed idiot’;
but how about Lenz? And how about me, sir, me?
I yesterday sent Lloyd by parcel post, at great expense, an empty
matchbox and empty cigarette-paper book, a bell from a cat’s collar, an
iron kitchen spoon, and a piece of coal more than half the superficies of
this sheet of paper. They are now (appropriately enough) speeding
towards the Silly Isles; I hope he will find them useful. By that, and
my telegram with prepaid answer to yourself, you may judge of my
spiritual state. The finances have much brightened; and if _Kidnapped_
keeps on as it has begun, I may be solvent.—Yours,
THRENODIÆ AVCTOR
(The authour of ane Threnodie).
Op. 2: Scherzo (in G Major) expressive of the Sense of favours to come.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Skerryvore_ [_Bournemouth_, _July_ 1886].
DEAR BOB,—Herewith another shy; more melancholy than before, but I think
not so abjectly idiotic. The musical terms seem to be as good as in
Beethoven, and that, after all, is the great affair. Bar the dam
bareness of the base, it looks like a piece of real music from a
distance. I am proud to say it was not made one hand at a time; the base
was of synchronous birth with the treble; they are of the same age, sir,
and may God have mercy on their souls!—Yours,
THE MAESTRO.
TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _July_ 7_th_, 1886.
MY DEAR PEOPLE,—It is probably my fault, and not yours, that I did not
understand. I think it would be well worth trying the winter in
Bournemouth; but I would only take the house by the month—this after
mature discussion. My leakage still pursues its course; if I were only
well, I have a notion to go north and get in (if I could) at the inn at
Kirkmichael, which has always smiled upon me much. If I did well there,
we might then meet and do what should most smile at the time.
Meanwhile, of course, I must not move, and am in a rancid box here,
feeling the heat a great deal, and pretty tired of things. Alexander did
a good thing of me at last; it looks like a mixture of an aztec idol, a
lion, an Indian Rajah, and a woman; and certainly represents a mighty
comic figure. F. and Lloyd both think it is the best thing that has been
done of me up to now.
You should hear Lloyd on the penny whistle, and me on the piano! Dear
powers, what a concerto! I now live entirely for the piano, he for the
whistle; the neighbours, in a radius of a furlong and a half, are packing
up in quest of brighter climes.—Ever yours,
R. L. S.
_P.S._—Please say if you can afford to let us have money for this trip,
and if so, how much. I can see the year through without help, I believe,
and supposing my health to keep up; but can scarce make this change on my
own metal.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _July_ 1886].
DEAR CHARLES,—Doubtless, if all goes well, towards the 1st of August we
shall be begging at your door. Thanks for a sight of the papers, which I
return (you see) at once, fearing further responsibility.
Glad you like Dauvit; but eh, man, yon’s terrible strange conduc’ o’ thon
man Rankeillor. Ca’ him a legal adviser! It would make a bonny
law-shuit, the Shaws case; and yon paper they signed, I’m thinking,
wouldnae be muckle thought o’ by Puggy Deas.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _July_ 28, 1886.
MY DEAR FATHER,—We have decided not to come to Scotland, but just to do
as Dobell wished, and take an outing. I believe this is wiser in all
ways; but I own it is a disappointment. I am weary of England; like
Alan, ‘I weary for the heather,’ if not for the deer. Lloyd has gone to
Scilly with Katharine and C., where and with whom he should have a good
time. David seems really to be going to succeed, which is a pleasant
prospect on all sides. I am, I believe, floated financially; a book that
sells will be a pleasant novelty. I enclose another review; mighty
complimentary, and calculated to sell the book too.
Coolin’s tombstone has been got out, honest man! and it is to be
polished, for it has got scratched, and have a touch of gilding in the
letters, and be sunk in the front of the house. Worthy man, he, too,
will maybe weary for the heather, and the bents of Gullane, where (as I
dare say you remember) he gaed clean gyte, and jumped on to his crown
from a gig, in hot and hopeless chase of many thousand rabbits. I can
still hear the little cries of the honest fellow as he disappeared; and
my mother will correct me, but I believe it was two days before he turned
up again at North Berwick: to judge by his belly, he had caught not one
out of these thousands, but he had had some exercise.
I keep well.—Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
_British Museum_ [_August_ 10_th_, 1886].
MY DEAR MOTHER,—We are having a capital holiday, and I am much better,
and enjoying myself to the nines. Richmond is painting my portrait.
To-day I lunch with him, and meet Burne-Jones; to-night Browning dines
with us. That sounds rather lofty work, does it not? His path was paved
with celebrities. To-morrow we leave for Paris, and next week, I
suppose, or the week after, come home. Address here, as we may not reach
Paris. I am really very well.—Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
TO T. WATTS-DUNTON
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_ [_September_ 1886].
DEAR MR. WATTS, The sight of the last _Athenæum_ reminds me of you, and
of my debt, now too long due. I wish to thank you for your notice of
_Kidnapped_; and that not because it was kind, though for that also I
valued it, but in the same sense as I have thanked you before now for a
hundred articles on a hundred different writers. A critic like you is
one who fights the good fight, contending with stupidity, and I would
fain hope not all in vain; in my own case, for instance, surely not in
vain.
What you say of the two parts in _Kidnapped_ was felt by no one more
painfully than by myself. I began it partly as a lark, partly as a
pot-boiler; and suddenly it moved, David and Alan stepped out from the
canvas, and I found I was in another world. But there was the cursed
beginning, and a cursed end must be appended; and our old friend Byles
the butcher was plainly audible tapping at the back door. So it had to
go into the world, one part (as it does seem to me) alive, one part
merely galvanised: no work, only an essay. For a man of tentative
method, and weak health, and a scarcity of private means, and not too
much of that frugality which is the artist’s proper virtue, the days of
sinecures and patrons look very golden: the days of professional
literature very hard. Yet I do not so far deceive myself as to think I
should change my character by changing my epoch; the sum of virtue in our
books is in a relation of equality to the sum of virtues in ourselves;
and my _Kidnapped_ was doomed, while still in the womb and while I was
yet in the cradle, to be the thing it is.
And now to the more genial business of defence. You attack my fight on
board the _Covenant_: I think it literal. David and Alan had every
advantage on their side—position, arms, training, a good conscience; a
handful of merchant sailors, not well led in the first attack, not led at
all in the second, could only by an accident have taken the round-house
by attack; and since the defenders had firearms and food, it is even
doubtful if they could have been starved out. The only doubtful point
with me is whether the seamen would have ever ventured on the second
onslaught; I half believe they would not; still the illusion of numbers
and the authority of Hoseason would perhaps stretch far enough to justify
the extremity.—I am, dear Mr. Watts, your very sincere admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
_Skerryvore_, _September_ 4, 1886.
NOT roses to the rose, I trow,
The thistle sends, nor to the bee
Do wasps bring honey. Wherefore now
Should Locker ask a verse from me?
Martial, perchance,—but he is dead,
And Herrick now must rhyme no more;
Still burning with the muse, they tread
(And arm in arm) the shadowy shore.
They, if they lived, with dainty hand,
To music as of mountain brooks,
Might bring you worthy words to stand
Unshamed, dear Locker, in your books.
But tho’ these fathers of your race
Be gone before, yourself a sire,
To-day you see before your face
Your stalwart youngsters touch the lyre—
On these—on Lang, or Dobson—call,
Long leaders of the songful feast.
They lend a verse your laughing fall—
A verse they owe you at the least.
TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
[_Skerryvore_], _Bournemouth_, _September_ 1886.
DEAR LOCKER,—You take my verses too kindly, but you will admit, for such
a bluebottle of a versifier to enter the house of Gertrude, where her
necklace hangs, was not a little brave. Your kind invitation, I fear,
must remain unaccented; and yet—if I am very well—perhaps next
spring—(for I mean to be very well)—my wife might. . . . But all that is
in the clouds with my better health. And now look here: you are a rich
man and know many people, therefore perhaps some of the Governors of
Christ’s Hospital. If you do, I know a most deserving case, in which I
would (if I could) do anything. To approach you, in this way, is not
decent; and you may therefore judge by my doing it, how near this matter
lies to my heart. I enclose you a list of the Governors, which I beg you
to return, whether or not you shall be able to do anything to help me.
The boy’s name is —; he and his mother are very poor. It may interest
you in her cause if I tell you this: that when I was dangerously ill at
Hyères, this brave lady, who had then a sick husband of her own (since
dead) and a house to keep and a family of four to cook for, all with her
own hands, for they could afford no servant, yet took watch-about with my
wife, and contributed not only to my comfort, but to my recovery in a
degree that I am not able to limit. You can conceive how much I suffer
from my impotence to help her, and indeed I have already shown myself a
thankless friend. Let not my cry go up before you in vain!—Yours in
hope,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _September_ 1886.
MY DEAR LOCKER,—That I should call myself a man of letters, and land
myself in such unfathomable ambiguities! No, my dear Locker, I did not
want a cheque; and in my ignorance of business, which is greater even
than my ignorance of literature, I have taken the liberty of drawing a
pen through the document and returning it; should this be against the
laws of God or man, forgive me. All that I meant by my excessively
disgusting reference to your material well-being was the vague notion
that a man who is well off was sure to know a Governor of Christ’s
Hospital; though how I quite arrived at this conclusion I do not see. A
man with a cold in the head does not necessarily know a ratcatcher; and
the connection is equally close—as it now appears to my awakened and
somewhat humbled spirit. For all that, let me thank you in the warmest
manner for your friendly readiness to contribute. You say you have hopes
of becoming a miser: I wish I had; but indeed I believe you deceive
yourself, and are as far from it as ever. I wish I had any excuse to
keep your cheque, for it is much more elegant to receive than to return;
but I have my way of making it up to you, and I do sincerely beg you to
write to the two Governors. This extraordinary outpouring of
correspondence would (if you knew my habits) convince you of my great
eagerness in this matter. I would promise gratitude; but I have made a
promise to myself to make no more promises to anybody else, having broken
such a host already, and come near breaking my heart in consequence; and
as for gratitude, I am by nature a thankless dog, and was spoiled from a
child up. But if you can help this lady in the matter of the Hospital,
you will have helped the worthy. Let me continue to hope that I shall
make out my visit in the spring, and believe me, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
It may amuse you to know that a very long while ago, I broke my heart to
try to imitate your verses, and failed hopelessly. I saw some of the
evidences the other day among my papers, and blushed to the heels.
R. L. S.
I give up finding out your name in the meantime, and keep to that by
which you will be known—Frederick Locker.
TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], 24_th_ _September_ 1886.
MY DEAR LOCKER,—You are simply an angel of light, and your two letters
have gone to the post; I trust they will reach the hearts of the
recipients—at least, that could not be more handsomely expressed. About
the cheque: well now, I am going to keep it; but I assure you Mrs. — has
never asked me for money, and I would not dare to offer any till she did.
For all that I shall stick to the cheque now, and act to that amount as
your almoner. In this way I reward myself for the ambiguity of my
epistolary style.
I suppose, if you please, you may say your verses are thin (would you so
describe an arrow, by the way, and one that struck the gold? It scarce
strikes me as exhaustively descriptive), and, thin or not, they are (and
I have found them) inimitably elegant. I thank you again very sincerely
for the generous trouble you have taken in this matter which was so near
my heart, and you may be very certain it will be the fault of my health
and not my inclination, if I do not see you before very long; for all
that has past has made me in more than the official sense sincerely
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Skerryvore_, _Dec._ 14, 1886.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—This is first-rate of you, the Lord love you for it! I
am truly much obliged. He—my father—is very changeable; at times, he
seems only a slow quiet edition of himself; again, he will be very heavy
and blank; but never so violent as last spring; and therefore, to my
mind, better on the whole.
Fanny is pretty peepy; I am splendid. I have been writing much
verse—quite the bard, in fact; and also a dam tale to order, which will
be what it will be: I don’t love it, but some of it is passable in its
mouldy way, _The Misadventures of John Nicholson_. All my bardly
exercises are in Scotch; I have struck my somewhat ponderous guitar in
that tongue to no small extent: with what success, I know not, but I
think it’s better than my English verse; more marrow and fatness, and
more ruggedness.
How goes _Keats_? Pray remark, if he (Keats) hung back from Shelley, it
was not to be wondered at, _when so many of his friends were Shelley’s
pensioners_. I forget if you have made this point; it has been borne in
upon me reading Dowden and the _Shelley Papers_; and it will do no harm
if you have made it. I finished a poem to-day, and writ 3000 words of a
story, _tant bien que mal_; and have a right to be sleepy, and (what is
far nobler and rarer) am so.—My dear Colvin, ever yours,
THE REAL MACKAY.
TO FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _February_ 5_th_, 1887.
MY DEAR LOCKER,—Here I am in my bed as usual, and it is indeed a long
while since I went out to dinner. You do not know what a crazy fellow
this is. My winter has not so far been luckily passed, and all hope of
paying visits at Easter has vanished for twelve calendar months. But
because I am a beastly and indurated invalid, I am not dead to human
feelings; and I neither have forgotten you nor will forget you. Some day
the wind may round to the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am
still truly yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_, _February_ 1887.]
MY DEAR JAMES,—My health has played me it in once more in the absurdest
fashion, and the creature who now addresses you is but a stringy and
white-faced _bouilli_ out of the pot of fever, with the devil to pay in
every corner of his economy. I suppose (to judge by your letter) I need
not send you these sheets, which came during my collapse by the rush. I
am on the start with three volumes, that one of tales, {48a} a second one
of essays, {48b} and one of—ahem—verse. {48c} This is a great order, is
it not? After that I shall have empty lockers. All new work stands
still; I was getting on well with Jenkin when this blessed malady
unhorsed me, and sent me back to the dung-collecting trade of the
republisher. I shall re-issue _Virg. Puer._ as Vol. I. of _Essays_, and
the new vol. as Vol. II. of ditto; to be sold, however, separately. This
is but a dry maundering; however, I am quite unfit—‘I am for action quite
unfit Either of exercise or wit.’ My father is in a variable state; many
sorrows and perplexities environ the house of Stevenson; my mother shoots
north at this hour on business of a distinctly rancid character; my
father (under my wife’s tutorage) proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; I
remain here in my bed and whistle; in no quarter of heaven is anything
encouraging apparent, except that the good Colvin comes to the hotel here
on a visit. This dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the fact
that my head aches, which I always regard as a liberty on the part of the
powers that be. This is also my first letter since my recovery. God
speed your laudatory pen!
My wife joins in all warm messages.—Yours,
R. L. S.
TO W. H. LOW
(_April_ 1887.)
MY DEAR LOW,—The fares to London may be found in any continental Bradshaw
or sich; from London to Bournemouth impoverished parties who can stoop to
the third class get their ticket for the matter of 10s., or, as my wife
loves to phrase it, ‘a half a pound.’ You will also be involved in a 3s.
fare to get to Skerryvore; but this, I dare say, friends could help you
in on your arrival; so that you may reserve your energies for the two
tickets—costing the matter of a pound—and the usual gratuities to
porters. This does not seem to me much: considering the intellectual
pleasures that await you here, I call it dirt cheap. I _believe_ the
third class from Paris to London (_viâ_ Dover) is _about_ forty francs,
but I cannot swear. Suppose it to be fifty.
50 × 2=100 100
The expense of spirit or spontaneous lapse of coin 10
on the journey, at 5 frcs. a head, 5 × 2=10
Victuals on ditto, at 5 frcs. a head, 5 × 2 = 10 10
Gratuity to stewardess, in case of severe 3
prostration, at 3 francs
One night in London, on a modest footing, say 20 20
Two tickets to Bournemouth at 12.50, 12.50 × 2=25 25
Porters and general devilment, say 5 5
Cabs in London, say 2 shillings, and in 6.25
Bournemouth, 3 shillings=5 shillings, 6 frcs. 25
frcs. 179.25
Or, the same in pounds, £7, 3s. 6½d.
Or, the same in dollars, $35.45
if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out dinner in
London in case you want to blow out, which would come extry, and with the
aid of _vangs fangs_ might easily double the whole amount—above all if
you have a few friends to meet you.
In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered for the first
time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the singular costliness of
travelling with your wife. Anybody would count the tickets double; but
how few would have remembered—or indeed has any one ever remembered?—to
count the spontaneous lapse of coin double also? Yet there are two of
you, each must do his daily leakage, and it must be done out of your
travelling fund. You will tell me, perhaps, that you carry the coin
yourself: my dear sir, do you think you can fool your Maker? Your wife
has to lose her quota; and by God she will—if you kept the coin in a
belt. One thing I have omitted: you will lose a certain amount on the
exchange, but this even I cannot foresee, as it is one of the few things
that vary with the way a man has.—I am, dear sir, yours financially,
SAMUEL BUDGETT.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
_Skerryvore_, _April_ 16_th_, 1887.
MY DEAREST CUMMY,—As usual, I have been a dreary bad fellow and not
written for ages; but you must just try to forgive me, to believe (what
is the truth) that the number of my letters is no measure of the number
of times I think of you, and to remember how much writing I have to do.
The weather is bright, but still cold; and my father, I’m afraid, feels
it sharply. He has had—still has, rather—a most obstinate jaundice,
which has reduced him cruelly in strength, and really upset him
altogether. I hope, or think, he is perhaps a little better; but he
suffers much, cannot sleep at night, and gives John and my mother a
severe life of it to wait upon him. My wife is, I think, a little
better, but no great shakes. I keep mightily respectable myself.
Coolin’s Tombstone is now built into the front wall of Skerryvore, and
poor Bogie’s (with a Latin inscription also) is set just above it. Poor,
unhappy wee man, he died, as you must have heard, in fight, which was
what he would have chosen; for military glory was more in his line than
the domestic virtues. I believe this is about all my news, except that,
as I write, there is a blackbird singing in our garden trees, as it were
at Swanston. I would like fine to go up the burnside a bit, and sit by
the pool and be young again—or no, be what I am still, only there instead
of here, for just a little. Did you see that I had written about John
Todd? In this month’s _Longman_ it was; if you have not seen it, I will
try and send it you. Some day climb as high as Halkerside for me (I am
never likely to do it for myself), and sprinkle some of the well water on
the turf. I am afraid it is a pagan rite, but quite harmless, and _ye
can sain it wi’ a bit prayer_. Tell the Peewies that I mind their
forbears well. My heart is sometimes heavy, and sometimes glad to mind
it all. But for what we have received, the Lord make us truly thankful.
Don’t forget to sprinkle the water, and do it in my name; I feel a
childish eagerness in this.
Remember me most kindly to James, and with all sorts of love to yourself,
believe me, your laddie,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—I suppose Mrs. Todd ought to see the paper about her man; judge of
that, and if you think she would not dislike it, buy her one from me, and
let me know. The article is called ‘Pastoral,’ in _Longman’s Magazine_
for April. I will send you the money; I would to-day, but it’s the
Sabbie day, and I cannae.
R. L. S.
Remembrances from all here.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Edinburgh_, _June_ 1887.]
MY DEAR S. C.,—At last I can write a word to you. Your little note in
the _P. M. G._ was charming. I have written four pages in the
_Contemporary_, which Bunting found room for: they are not very good, but
I shall do more for his memory in time.
About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long before I could tell my
mind; and now I know it, and can but say that I am glad. If we could
have had my father, that would have been a different thing. But to keep
that changeling—suffering changeling—any longer, could better none and
nothing. Now he rests; it is more significant, it is more like himself.
He will begin to return to us in the course of time, as he was and as we
loved him.
My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene—‘O let him pass,’
Kent and Lear—was played for me here in the first moment of my return. I
believe Shakespeare saw it with his own father. I had no words; but it
was shocking to see. He died on his feet, you know; was on his feet the
last day, knowing nobody—still he would be up. This was his constant
wish; also that he might smoke a pipe on his last day. The funeral would
have pleased him; it was the largest private funeral in man’s memory
here.
We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home without going through
town. I do not know; I have no views yet whatever; nor can have any at
this stage of my cold and my business.—Ever yours,
R. L. S.
IX
THE UNITED STATES AGAIN:
WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS
AUGUST 1887-OCTOBER 1888
TO W. E. HENLEY
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], _August_ 1887.
DEAR LAD,—I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson’s well-known work,
_Virginibus Puerisque_, is about to be reprinted. At the same time a
second volume called _Memories and Portraits_ will issue from the roaring
loom. Its interest will be largely autobiographical, Mr. S. having
sketched there the lineaments of many departed friends, and dwelt fondly,
and with a m’istened eye, upon byegone pleasures. The two will be issued
under the common title of _Familiar Essays_; but the volumes will be
vended separately to those who are mean enough not to hawk at both.
The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began to think I should
not get away. However, I hope—I hope—remark the word—no boasting—I hope
I may luff up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw, gave as usual a good
account of my lungs, and expressed himself, like his neighbours,
hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle says, Scott says, Brown
says—they all say—You ought not to be in such a state of health; you
should recover. Well, then, I mean to. My spirits are rising again
after three months of black depression: I almost begin to feel as if I
should care to live: I would, by God! And so I believe I shall.—Yours,
BULLETIN M‘GURDER.
How has the Deacon gone?
TO W. H. LOW
[_Skerryvore_, _Bournemouth_], August 6_th_, 1887.
MY DEAR LOW,—We—my mother, my wife, my stepson, my maidservant, and
myself, five souls—leave, if all is well, Aug. 20th, per Wilson line SS.
_Ludgate Hill_. Shall probably evade N. Y. at first, cutting straight to
a watering-place: Newport, I believe, its name. Afterwards we shall
steal incognito into _la bonne villa_, and see no one but you and the
Scribners, if it may be so managed. You must understand I have been very
seedy indeed, quite a dead body; and unless the voyage does miracles, I
shall have to draw it dam fine. Alas, ‘The Canoe Speaks’ is now out of
date; it will figure in my volume of verses now imminent. However, I may
find some inspiration some day.—Till very soon, yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Bournemouth_, _August_ 19_th_, 1887.
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,—I promise you the paper-knife shall go to sea with
me; and if it were in my disposal, I should promise it should return with
me too. All that you say, I thank you for very much; I thank you for all
the pleasantness that you have brought about our house; and I hope the
day may come when I shall see you again in poor old Skerryvore, now left
to the natives of Canada, or to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am
afraid my attempt to jest is rather _à contre-cœur_. Good-bye—_au
revoir_—and do not forget your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MESSRS. CHATTO AND WINDUS
_Bournemouth_ [_August_ 1887].
DEAR SIRS,—I here enclose the two titles. Had you not better send me the
bargains to sign? I shall be here till Saturday; and shall have an
address in London (which I shall send you) till Monday, when I shall
sail. Even if the proofs do not reach you till Monday morning, you could
send a clerk from Fenchurch Street Station at 10.23 A.M. for Galleons
Station, and he would find me embarking on board the _Ludgate Hill_,
Island Berth, Royal Albert Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be
necessary to catch this last chance. I am most anxious to have the
proofs with me on the voyage.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_H.M.S._ ‘_Vulgarium_,’
_Off Havre de Grace_, _this_ 22_nd_ _day of August_ [1887].
SIR,—The weather has been hitherto inimitable. Inimitable is the only
word that I can apply to our fellow-voyagers, whom a categorist, possibly
premature, has been already led to divide into two classes—the better
sort consisting of the baser kind of Bagman, and the worser of
undisguised Beasts of the Field. The berths are excellent, the pasture
swallowable, the champagne of H. James (to recur to my favourite
adjective) inimitable. As for the Commodore, he slept awhile in the
evening, tossed off a cup of Henry James with his plain meal, walked the
deck till eight, among sands and floating lights and buoys and wrecked
brigantines, came down (to his regret) a minute too soon to see Margate
lit up, turned in about nine, slept, with some interruptions, but on the
whole sweetly, until six, and has already walked a mile or so of deck,
among a fleet of other steamers waiting for the tide, within view of
Havre, and pleasantly entertained by passing fishing-boats, hovering
sea-gulls, and Vulgarians pairing on deck with endearments of primitive
simplicity. There, sir, can be viewed the sham quarrel, the sham desire
for information, and every device of these two poor ancient sexes (who
might, you might think, have learned in the course of the ages something
new) down to the exchange of head-gear.—I am, sir, yours,
BOLD BOB BOLTSPRIT.
B. B. B. (_alias_ the Commodore) will now turn to his proofs. Havre de
Grace is a city of some show. It is for-ti-fied; and, so far as I can
see, is a place of some trade. It is situ-ated in France, a country of
Europe. You always complain there are no facts in my letters.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Newport_, _R. I. U.S.A._ [_September_ 1887].
MY DEAR COLVIN,—So long it went excellent well, and I had a time I am
glad to have had; really enjoying my life. There is nothing like being
at sea, after all. And O, why have I allowed myself to rot so long on
land? But on the Banks I caught a cold, and I have not yet got over it.
My reception here was idiotic to the last degree. . . . It is very
silly, and not pleasant, except where humour enters; and I confess the
poor interviewer lads pleased me. They are too good for their trade;
avoided anything I asked them to avoid, and were no more vulgar in their
reports than they could help. I liked the lads.
O, it was lovely on our stable-ship, chock full of stallions. She rolled
heartily, rolled some of the fittings out of our state-room, and I think
a more dangerous cruise (except that it was summer) it would be hard to
imagine. But we enjoyed it to the masthead, all but Fanny; and even she
perhaps a little. When we got in, we had run out of beer, stout, cocoa,
soda-water, water, fresh meat, and (almost) of biscuit. But it was a
thousandfold pleasanter than a great big Birmingham liner like a new
hotel; and we liked the officers, and made friends with the
quartermasters, and I (at least) made a friend of a baboon (for we
carried a cargo of apes), whose embraces have pretty near cost me a coat.
The passengers improved, and were a very good specimen lot, with no
drunkard, no gambling that I saw, and less grumbling and backbiting than
one would have asked of poor human nature. Apes, stallions, cows,
matches, hay, and poor men-folk, all, or almost all, came successfully to
land.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Newport_, _U.S.A._, _September_ 1887.]
MY DEAR JAMES,—Here we are at Newport in the house of the good
Fairchilds; and a sad burthen we have laid upon their shoulders. I have
been in bed practically ever since I came. I caught a cold on the Banks
after having had the finest time conceivable, and enjoyed myself more
than I could have hoped on board our strange floating menagerie:
stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent
of these incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the
stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking through the ports at
our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; and the little
monkeys stared at each other in their cages, and were thrown overboard
like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the
ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the
man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein
at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates;
and the other passengers, when they were not sick, looked on and laughed.
Take all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound
unexpected notes and the fittings shall break lose in our state-room, and
you have the voyage of the _Ludgate Hill_. She arrived in the port of
New York, without beer, porter, soda-water, curaçoa, fresh meat, or fresh
water; and yet we lived, and we regret her.
My wife is a good deal run down, and I am no great shakes.
America is, as I remarked, a fine place to eat in, and a great place for
kindness; but, Lord, what a silly thing is popularity! I envy the cool
obscurity of Skerryvore. If it even paid, said Meanness! and was abashed
at himself.—Yours most sincerely,
R. L S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_New York_: _end of September_ 1887.]
MY DEAR S. C.,—Your delightful letter has just come, and finds me in a
New York hotel, waiting the arrival of a sculptor (St. Gaudens) who is
making a medallion of yours truly and who is (to boot) one of the
handsomest and nicest fellows I have seen. I caught a cold on the Banks;
fog is not for me; nearly died of interviewers and visitors, during
twenty-four hours in New York; cut for Newport with Lloyd and Valentine,
a journey like fairy-land for the most engaging beauties, one little
rocky and pine-shaded cove after another, each with a house and a boat at
anchor, so that I left my heart in each and marvelled why American
authors had been so unjust to their country; caught another cold on the
train; arrived at Newport to go to bed and to grow worse, and to stay in
bed until I left again; the Fairchilds proving during this time kindness
itself; Mr. Fairchild simply one of the most engaging men in the world,
and one of the children, Blair, _aet._ ten, a great joy and amusement in
his solemn adoring attitude to the author of _Treasure Island_.
Here I was interrupted by the arrival of my sculptor. I have begged him
to make a medallion of himself and give me a copy. I will not take up
the sentence in which I was wandering so long, but begin fresh. I was
ten or twelve days at Newport; then came back convalescent to New York.
Fanny and Lloyd are off to the Adirondacks to see if that will suit; and
the rest of us leave Monday (this is Saturday) to follow them up. I hope
we may manage to stay there all winter. I have a splendid appetite and
have on the whole recovered well after a mighty sharp attack. I am now
on a salary of £500 a year for twelve articles in _Scribner’s Magazine_
on what I like; it is more than £500, but I cannot calculate more
precisely. You have no idea how much is made of me here; I was offered
£2000 for a weekly article—eh heh! how is that? but I refused that
lucrative job. The success of _Underwoods_ is gratifying. You see, the
verses are sane; that is their strong point, and it seems it is strong
enough to carry them.
A thousand thanks for your grand letter, ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_New York_ [_September_ 1887]
MY DEAR LAD,—Herewith verses for Dr. Hake, which please communicate. I
did my best with the interviewers; I don’t know if Lloyd sent you the
result; my heart was too sick: you can do nothing with them; and
yet—literally sweated with anxiety to please, and took me down in long
hand!
I have been quite ill, but go better. I am being not busted, but
medallioned, by St. Gaudens, who is a first-rate, plain, high-minded
artist and honest fellow; you would like him down to the ground. I
believe sculptors are fine fellows when they are not demons. O, I am now
a salaried person, £600 a year, {66} to write twelve articles in
_Scribner’s Magazine_; it remains to be seen if it really pays, huge as
the sum is, but the slavery may overweigh me. I hope you will like my
answer to Hake, and specially that he will.
Love to all.—Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
(_le salarie_).
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Saranac Lake_, _Adirondacks_,
_New York_, _U.S.A._ [_October_ 1887].
MY DEAR BOB,—The cold [of Colorado] was too rigorous for me; I could not
risk the long railway voyage, and the season was too late to risk the
Eastern, Cape Hatteras side of the steamer one; so here we stuck and
stick. We have a wooden house on a hill-top, overlooking a river, and a
village about a quarter of a mile away, and very wooded hills; the whole
scene is very Highland, bar want of heather and the wooden houses.
I have got one good thing of my sea voyage: it is proved the sea agrees
heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no
worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in summer.
Good Lord! What fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and
a string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these
I hold that £700 a year is as much as anybody can possibly want; and I
have had more, so I know, for the extry coins were for no use, excepting
for illness, which damns everything.
I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it possible.
We had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the mere fact of
its being a tramp-ship gave us many comforts; we could cut about with the
men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all manner of things,
and really be a little at sea. And truly there is nothing else. I had
literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full mind—full of
external and physical things, not full of cares and labours and rot about
a fellow’s behaviour. My heart literally sang; I truly care for nothing
so much as for that. We took so north a course, that we saw
Newfoundland; no one in the ship had ever seen it before.
It was beyond belief to me how she rolled; in seemingly smooth water, the
bell striking, the fittings bounding out of our state-room. It is worth
having lived these last years, partly because I have written some better
books, which is always pleasant, but chiefly to have had the joy of this
voyage. I have been made a lot of here, and it is sometimes pleasant,
sometimes the reverse; but I could give it all up, and agree that—was the
author of my works, for a good seventy ton schooner and the coins to keep
her on. And to think there are parties with yachts who would make the
exchange! I know a little about fame now; it is no good compared to a
yacht; and anyway there is more fame in a yacht, more genuine fame; to
cross the Atlantic and come to anchor in Newport (say) with the Union
Jack, and go ashore for your letters and hang about the pier, among the
holiday yachtsmen—that’s fame, that’s glory, and nobody can take it away;
they can’t say your book is bad; you _have_ crossed the Atlantic. I
should do it south by the West Indies, to avoid the damned Banks; and
probably come home by steamer, and leave the skipper to bring the yacht
home.
Well, if all goes well, we shall maybe sail out of Southampton water some
of these days and take a run to Havre, and try the Baltic, or somewhere.
Love to you all.—Ever your afft.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Saranac Lake_, _Oct._ 8_th_, 1887.
MY DEAR GOSSE,—I have just read your article twice, with cheers of
approving laughter. I do not believe you ever wrote anything so funny:
Tyndall’s ‘shell,’ the passage on the Davos press and its invaluable
issues, and that on V. Hugo and Swinburne, are exquisite; so, I say it
more ruefully, is the touch about the doctors. For the rest, I am very
glad you like my verses so well; and the qualities you ascribe to them
seem to me well found and well named. I own to that kind of candour you
attribute to me: when I am frankly interested, I suppose I fancy the
public will be so too; and when I am moved, I am sure of it. It has been
my luck hitherto to meet with no staggering disillusion. ‘Before’ and
‘After’ may be two; and yet I believe the habit is now too thoroughly
ingrained to be altered. About the doctors, you were right, that
dedication has been the subject of some pleasantries that made me grind,
and of your happily touched reproof which made me blush. And to miscarry
in a dedication is an abominable form of book-wreck; I am a good captain,
I would rather lose the tent and save my dedication.
I am at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, I suppose for the winter: it
seems a first-rate place; we have a house in the eye of many winds, with
a view of a piece of running water—Highland, all but the dear hue of
peat—and of many hills—Highland also, but for the lack of heather. Soon
the snow will close on us; we are here some twenty miles—twenty-seven,
they say, but this I profoundly disbelieve—in the woods; communication by
letter is slow and (let me be consistent) aleatory; by telegram is as
near as may be impossible.
I had some experience of American appreciation; I liked a little of it,
but there is too much; a little of that would go a long way to spoil a
man; and I like myself better in the woods. I am so damned candid and
ingenuous (for a cynic), and so much of a ‘cweatu’ of impulse—aw’ (if you
remember that admirable Leech), that I begin to shirk any more taffy; I
think I begin to like it too well. But let us trust the Gods; they have
a rod in pickle; reverently I doff my trousers, and with screwed eyes
await the _amari aliquid_ of the great God Busby.
I thank you for the article in all ways, and remain yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO W. H. LOW
[_Saranac_, _October_ 1887.]
SIR,—I have to trouble you with the following _paroles bien senties_. We
are here at a first-rate place. ‘Baker’s’ is the name of our house, but
we don’t address there; we prefer the tender care of the Post-Office, as
more aristocratic (it is no use to telegraph even to the care of the
Post-Office who does not give a single damn {70}). Baker’s has a
prophet’s chamber, which the hypercritical might describe as a garret
with a hole in the floor: in that garret, sir, I have to trouble you and
your wife to come and slumber. Not now, however: with manly hospitality,
I choke off any sudden impulse. Because first, my wife and my mother are
gone (a note for the latter, strongly suspected to be in the hand of your
talented wife, now sits silent on the mantel shelf), one to Niagara and
t’other to Indianapolis. Because, second, we are not yet installed. And
because third, I won’t have you till I have a buffalo robe and leggings,
lest you should want to paint me as a plain man, which I am not, but a
rank Saranacker and wild man of the woods.—Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER.
_Saranac Lake_, _October_ 1887.
DEAR ARCHER,—Many thanks for the Wondrous Tale. It is scarcely a work of
genius, as I believe you felt. Thanks also for your pencillings; though
I defend ‘shrew,’ or at least many of the shrews.
We are here (I suppose) for the winter in the Adirondacks, a hill and
forest country on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled
and primitive and cold, and healthful, or we are the more bitterly
deceived. I believe it will do well for me; but must not boast.
My wife is away to Indiana to see her family; my mother, Lloyd, and I
remain here in the cold, which has been exceeding sharp, and the hill
air, which is inimitably fine. We all eat bravely, and sleep well, and
make great fires, and get along like one o’clock.
I am now a salaried party; I am a _bourgeois_ now; I am to write a weekly
paper for Scribner’s, at a scale of payment which makes my teeth ache for
shame and diffidence. The editor is, I believe, to apply to you; for we
were talking over likely men, and when I instanced you, he said he had
had his eye upon you from the first. It is worth while, perhaps, to get
in tow with the Scribners; they are such thorough gentlefolk in all ways
that it is always a pleasure to deal with them. I am like to be a
millionaire if this goes on, and be publicly hanged at the social
revolution: well, I would prefer that to dying in my bed; and it would be
a godsend to my biographer, if ever I have one. What are you about? I
hope you are all well and in good case and spirits, as I am now, after a
most nefast experience of despondency before I left; but indeed I was
quite run down. Remember me to Mrs. Archer, and give my respects to
Tom.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Saranac Lake_, _October_ 1887.]
I know not the day; but the month it
is the drear October by the
ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—This is to say _First_, the voyage was a huge
success. We all enjoyed it (bar my wife) to the ground: sixteen days at
sea with a cargo of hay, matches, stallions, and monkeys, and in a ship
with no style on, and plenty of sailors to talk to, and the endless
pleasures of the sea—the romance of it, the sport of the scratch dinner
and the smashing crockery, the pleasure—an endless pleasure—of balancing
to the swell: well, it’s over.
_Second_, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport and New
York; saw much of and liked hugely the Fairchilds, St. Gaudens the
sculptor, Gilder of the _Century_—just saw the dear Alexander—saw a lot
of my old and admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you knew and
appreciated—was medallioned by St. Gaudens, and at last escaped to
_Third_, Saranac Lake, where we now are, and which I believe we mean to
like and pass the winter at. Our house—emphatically ‘Baker’s’—is on a
hill, and has a sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley—bless
the face of running water!—and sees some hills too, and the paganly
prosaic roofs of Saranac itself; the Lake it does not see, nor do I
regret that; I like water (fresh water I mean) either running swiftly
among stones, or else largely qualified with whisky. As I write, the sun
(which has been long a stranger) shines in at my shoulder; from the next
room, the bell of Lloyd’s typewriter makes an agreeable music as it
patters off (at a rate which astonishes this experienced novelist) the
early chapters of a humorous romance; from still further off—the walls of
Baker’s are neither ancient nor massive—rumours of Valentine about the
kitchen stove come to my ears; of my mother and Fanny I hear nothing, for
the excellent reason that they have gone sparking off, one to Niagara,
one to Indianapolis. People complain that I never give news in my
letters. I have wiped out that reproach.
But now, _Fourth_, I have seen the article; and it may be from natural
partiality, I think it the best you have written. O—I remember the
Gautier, which was an excellent performance; and the Balzac, which was
good; and the Daudet, over which I licked my chops; but the R. L. S. is
better yet. It is so humorous, and it hits my little frailties with so
neat (and so friendly) a touch; and Alan is the occasion for so much
happy talk, and the quarrel is so generously praised. I read it twice,
though it was only some hours in my possession; and Low, who got it for
me from the _Century_, sat up to finish it ere he returned it; and, sir,
we were all delighted. Here is the paper out, nor will anything, not
even friendship, not even gratitude for the article, induce me to begin a
second sheet; so here with the kindest remembrances and the warmest good
wishes, I remain, yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Saranac_, 18_th_ _November_ 1887.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—No likely I’m going to waste a sheet of paper. . . . I
am offered £1600 ($8000) for the American serial rights on my next story!
As you say, times are changed since the Lothian Road. Well, the Lothian
Road was grand fun too; I could take an afternoon of it with great
delight. But I’m awfu’ grand noo, and long may it last!
Remember me to any of the faithful—if there are any left. I wish I could
have a crack with you.—Yours ever affectionately,
R. L. S.
I find I have forgotten more than I remembered of business. . . . Please
let us know (if you know) for how much Skerryvore is let; you will here
detect the female mind; I let it for what I could get; nor shall the
possession of this knowledge (which I am happy to have forgot) increase
the amount by so much as the shadow of a sixpenny piece; but my females
are agog.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES SCRIBNER
[_Saranac_, _November_ 20 _or_ 21, 1887.]
MY DEAR MR. SCRIBNER,—Heaven help me, I am under a curse just now. I
have played fast and loose with what I said to you; and that, I beg you
to believe, in the purest innocence of mind. I told you you should have
the power over all my work in this country; and about a fortnight ago,
when M’Clure was here, I calmly signed a bargain for the serial
publication of a story. You will scarce believe that I did this in mere
oblivion; but I did; and all that I can say is that I will do so no more,
and ask you to forgive me. Please write to me soon as to this.
Will you oblige me by paying in for three articles, as already sent, to
my account with John Paton & Co., 52 William Street? This will be most
convenient for us.
The fourth article is nearly done; and I am the more deceived, or it is
_A Buster_.
Now as to the first thing in this letter, I do wish to hear from you
soon; and I am prepared to hear any reproach, or (what is harder to hear)
any forgiveness; for I have deserved the worst.—Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Saranac_, _November_ 1887.
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,—I enclose corrected proof of _Beggars_, which seems
good. I mean to make a second sermon, which, if it is about the same
length as _Pulvis et Umbra_, might go in along with it as two sermons, in
which case I should call the first ‘The Whole Creation,’ and the second
‘Any Good.’ We shall see; but you might say how you like the notion.
One word: if you have heard from Mr. Scribner of my unhappy oversight in
the matter of a story, you will make me ashamed to write to you, and yet
I wish to beg you to help me into quieter waters. The oversight
committed—and I do think it was not so bad as Mr. Scribner seems to think
it-and discovered, I was in a miserable position. I need not tell you
that my first impulse was to offer to share or to surrender the price
agreed upon when it should fall due; and it is almost to my credit that I
arranged to refrain. It is one of these positions from which there is no
escape; I cannot undo what I have done. And I wish to beg you—should Mr.
Scribner speak to you in the matter—to try to get him to see this neglect
of mine for no worse than it is: unpardonable enough, because a breach of
an agreement; but still pardonable, because a piece of sheer carelessness
and want of memory, done, God knows, without design and since most
sincerely regretted. I have no memory. You have seen how I omitted to
reserve the American rights in _Jekyll_: last winter I wrote and
demanded, as an increase, a less sum than had already been agreed upon
for a story that I gave to Cassell’s. For once that my forgetfulness
has, by a cursed fortune, seemed to gain, instead of lose, me money, it
is painful indeed that I should produce so poor an impression on the mind
of Mr. Scribner. But I beg you to believe, and if possible to make him
believe, that I am in no degree or sense a _faiseur_, and that in matters
of business my design, at least, is honest. Nor (bating bad memory and
self-deception) am I untruthful in such affairs.
If Mr. Scribner shall have said nothing to you in the matter, please
regard the above as unwritten, and believe me, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Saranac_, _November_ 1887.
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,—The revise seemed all right, so I did not trouble
you with it; indeed, my demand for one was theatrical, to impress that
obdurate dog, your reader. Herewith a third paper: it has been a cruel
long time upon the road, but here it is, and not bad at last, I fondly
hope. I was glad you liked the _Lantern Bearers_; I did, too. I thought
it was a good paper, really contained some excellent sense, and was
ingeniously put together. I have not often had more trouble than I have
with these papers; thirty or forty pages of foul copy, twenty is the very
least I have had. Well, you pay high; it is fit that I should have to
work hard, it somewhat quiets my conscience.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO J. A. SYMONDS
_Saranac Lake_, _Adirondack Mountains_,
_New York_, _U.S.A._, _November_ 21, 1887.
MY DEAR SYMONDS,—I think we have both meant and wanted to write to you
any time these months; but we have been much tossed about, among new
faces and old, and new scenes and old, and scenes (like this of Saranac)
which are neither one nor other. To give you some clue to our affairs, I
had best begin pretty well back. We sailed from the Thames in a vast
bucket of iron that took seventeen days from shore to shore. I cannot
describe how I enjoyed the voyage, nor what good it did me; but on the
Banks I caught friend catarrh. In New York and then in Newport I was
pretty ill; but on my return to New York, lying in bed most of the time,
with St. Gaudens the sculptor sculping me, and my old friend Low around,
I began to pick up once more. Now here we are in a kind of wilderness of
hills and firwoods and boulders and snow and wooden houses. So far as we
have gone the climate is grey and harsh, but hungry and somnolent; and
although not charming like that of Davos, essentially bracing and
briskening. The country is a kind of insane mixture of Scotland and a
touch of Switzerland and a dash of America, and a thought of the British
Channel in the skies. We have a decent house—
_December_ 6_th_.
—A decent house, as I was saying, sir, on a hill-top, with a look down a
Scottish river in front, and on one hand a Perthshire hill; on the other,
the beginnings and skirts of the village play hide and seek among other
hills. We have been below zero, I know not how far (10 at 8 A.M. once),
and when it is cold it is delightful; but hitherto the cold has not held,
and we have chopped in and out from frost to thaw, from snow to rain,
from quiet air to the most disastrous north-westerly curdlers of the
blood. After a week of practical thaw, the ice still bears in favoured
places. So there is hope.
I wonder if you saw my book of verses? It went into a second edition,
because of my name, I suppose, and its _prose_ merits. I do not set up
to be a poet. Only an all-round literary man: a man who talks, not one
who sings. But I believe the very fact that it was only speech served
the book with the public. Horace is much a speaker, and see how popular!
most of Martial is only speech, and I cannot conceive a person who does
not love his Martial; most of Burns, also, such as ‘The Louse,’ ‘The
Toothache,’ ‘The Haggis,’ and lots more of his best. Excuse this little
apology for my house; but I don’t like to come before people who have a
note of song, and let it be supposed I do not know the difference.
To return to the more important—news. My wife again suffers in high and
cold places; I again profit. She is off to-day to New York for a change,
as heretofore to Berne, but I am glad to say in better case than then.
Still it is undeniable she suffers, and you must excuse her (at least) if
we both prove bad correspondents. I am decidedly better, but I have been
terribly cut up with business complications: one disagreeable, as
threatening loss; one, of the most intolerable complexion, as involving
me in dishonour. The burthen of consistent carelessness: I have lost
much by it in the past; and for once (to my damnation) I have gained. I
am sure you will sympathise. It is hard work to sleep; it is hard to be
told you are a liar, and have to hold your peace, and think, ‘Yes, by
God, and a thief too!’ You remember my lectures on Ajax, or the
Unintentional Sin? Well, I know all about that now. Nothing seems so
unjust to the sufferer: or is more just in essence. _Laissez passer la
justice de Dieu_.
Lloyd has learned to use the typewriter, and has most gallantly completed
upon that the draft of a tale, which seems to me not without merit and
promise, it is so silly, so gay, so absurd, in spots (to my partial eyes)
so genuinely humorous. It is true, he would not have written it but for
the New Arabian Nights; but it is strange to find a young writer funny.
Heavens, but I was depressing when I took the pen in hand! And now I
doubt if I am sadder than my neighbours. Will this beginner move in the
inverse direction?
Let me have your news, and believe me, my dear Symonds, with genuine
affection, yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Saranac_ [_December_ 1887].
MY DEAR LAD,—I was indeed overjoyed to hear of the Dumas. In the matter
of the dedication, are not cross dedications a little awkward? Lang and
Rider Haggard did it, to be sure. Perpend. And if you should conclude
against a dedication, there is a passage in _Memories and Portraits_
written _at_ you, when I was most desperate (to stir you up a bit), which
might be quoted: something about Dumas still waiting his biographer. I
have a decent time when the weather is fine; when it is grey, or windy,
or wet (as it too often is), I am merely degraded to the dirt. I get
some work done every day with a devil of a heave; not extra good ever;
and I regret my engagement. Whiles I have had the most deplorable
business annoyances too; have been threatened with having to refund
money; got over that; and found myself in the worse scrape of being a
kind of unintentional swindler. These have worried me a great deal; also
old age with his stealing steps seems to have clawed me in his clutch to
some tune.
Do you play All Fours? We are trying it; it is still all haze to me.
Can the elder hand _beg_ more than once? The Port Admiral is at Boston
mingling with millionaires. I am but a weed on Lethe wharf. The wife is
only so-so. The Lord lead us all: if I can only get off the stage with
clean hands, I shall sing Hosanna. ‘Put’ is described quite differently
from your version in a book I have; what are your rules? The Port
Admiral is using a game of put in a tale of his, the first copy of which
was gloriously finished about a fortnight ago, and the revise gallantly
begun: _The Finsbury Tontine_ it is named, and might fill two volumes,
and is quite incredibly silly, and in parts (it seems to me) pretty
humorous.—Love to all from
AN OLD, OLD MAN.
I say, Taine’s _Origines de la France Contemporaine_ is no end; it would
turn the dead body of Charles Fox into a living Tory.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
[_Saranac Lake_, _December_ 1887.]
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,—The Opal is very well; it is fed with glycerine when
it seems hungry. I am very well, and get about much more than I could
have hoped. My wife is not very well; there is no doubt the high level
does not agree with her, and she is on the move for a holiday to New
York. Lloyd is at Boston on a visit, and I hope has a good time. My
mother is really first-rate; she and I, despairing of other games for
two, now play All Fours out of a gamebook, and have not yet discovered
its niceties, if any.
You will have heard, I dare say, that they made a great row over me here.
They also offered me much money, a great deal more than my works are
worth: I took some of it, and was greedy and hasty, and am now very
sorry. I have done with big prices from now out. Wealth and
self-respect seem, in my case, to be strangers.
We were talking the other day of how well Fleeming managed to grow rich.
Ah, that is a rare art; something more intellectual than a virtue. The
book has not yet made its appearance here; the life alone, with a little
preface, is to appear in the States; and the Scribners are to send you
half the royalties. I should like it to do well, for Fleeming’s sake.
Will you please send me the Greek water-carrier’s song? I have a
particular use for it.
Have I any more news, I wonder?—and echo wonders along with me. I am
strangely disquieted on all political matters; and I do not know if it is
‘the signs of the times’ or the sign of my own time of life. But to me
the sky seems black both in France and England, and only partly clear in
America. I have not seen it so dark in my time; of that I am sure.
Please let us have some news; and, excuse me, for the sake of my
well-known idleness; and pardon Fanny, who is really not very well, for
this long silence.—Very sincerely your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
[_Saranac Lake_, _December_ 1887.]
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,—I am so much afraid, our gamekeeper may weary of
unacknowledged reports! Hence, in the midst of a perfect horror of
detestable weathers of a quite incongruous strain, and with less desire
for correspondence than—well, than—well, with no desire for
correspondence, behold me dash into the breach. Do keep up your letters.
They are most delightful to this exiled backwoods family; and in your
next, we shall hope somehow or other to hear better news of you and
yours—that in the first place—and to hear more news of our beasts and
birds and kindly fruits of earth and those human tenants who are (truly)
too much with us.
I am very well; better than for years: that is for good. But then my
wife is no great shakes; the place does not suit her—it is my private
opinion that no place does—and she is now away down to New York for a
change, which (as Lloyd is in Boston) leaves my mother and me and
Valentine alone in our wind-beleaguered hilltop hatbox of a house. You
should hear the cows butt against the walls in the early morning while
they feed; you should also see our back log when the thermometer goes (as
it does go) away—away below zero, till it can be seen no more by the eye
of man—not the thermometer, which is still perfectly visible, but the
mercury, which curls up into the bulb like a hibernating bear; you should
also see the lad who ‘does chores’ for us, with his red stockings and his
thirteen year old face, and his highly manly tramp into the room; and his
two alternative answers to all questions about the weather: either
‘Cold,’ or with a really lyrical movement of the voice,
‘_Lovely_—raining!’
Will you take this miserable scarp for what it is worth? Will you also
understand that I am the man to blame, and my wife is really almost too
much out of health to write, or at least doesn’t write?—And believe me,
with kind remembrance to Mrs. Boodle and your sisters, very sincerely
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Saranac_, 12_th_ _December_ ’87.
Give us news of all your folk. A Merry Christmas from all of us.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Will you please send £20 to — for a Christmas gift from
—? Moreover, I cannot remember what I told you to send to —; but as God
has dealt so providentially with me this year, I now propose to make it
£20.
I beg of you also to consider my strange position. I jined a club which
it was said was to defend the Union; and had a letter from the secretary,
which his name I believe was Lord Warmingpan (or words to that effect),
to say I am elected, and had better pay up a certain sum of money, I
forget what. Now I cannae verra weel draw a blank cheque and send to—
LORD WARMINGPAN (or words to that effect),
London, England.
And, man, if it was possible, I would be dooms glad to be out o’ this bit
scrapie. Mebbe the club was ca’d ‘The Union,’ but I wouldnae like to
sweir; and mebbe it wasnae, or mebbe only words to that effec’—but I
wouldnae care just exac’ly about sweirin’. Do ye no think Henley, or
Pollick, or some o’ they London fellies, micht mebbe perhaps find out for
me? and just what the soom was? And that you would aiblins pay for me?
For I thocht I was sae dam patriotic jinin’, and it would be a kind o’ a
come-doun to be turned out again. Mebbe Lang would ken; or mebbe Rider
Haggyard: they’re kind o’ Union folks. But it’s my belief his name was
Warmingpan whatever. Yours,
THOMSON,
_alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Could it be Warminster? {83}
TO MISS MONROE
_Saranac Lake_, _New York_ [_December_ 19, 1887].
DEAR MISS MONROE,—Many thanks for your letter and your good wishes. It
was much my desire to get to Chicago: had I done—or if I yet do—so, I
shall hope to see the original of my photograph, which is one of my show
possessions; but the fates are rather contrary. My wife is far from
well; I myself dread worse than almost any other imaginable peril, that
miraculous and really insane invention the American Railroad Car. Heaven
help the man—may I add the woman—that sets foot in one! Ah, if it were
only an ocean to cross, it would be a matter of small thought to me—and
great pleasure. But the railroad car—every man has his weak point; and I
fear the railroad car as abjectly as I do an earwig, and, on the whole,
on better grounds. You do not know how bitter it is to have to make such
a confession; for you have not the pretension nor the weakness of a man.
If I do get to Chicago, you will hear of me: so much can be said. And do
you never come east?
I was pleased to recognise a word of my poor old Deacon in your letter.
It would interest me very much to hear how it went and what you thought
of piece and actors; and my collaborator, who knows and respects the
photograph, would be pleased too.—Still in the hope of seeing you, I am,
yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Saranac Lake_, _Winter_ 1887–8.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—It may please you to know how our family has been
employed. In the silence of the snow the afternoon lamp has lighted an
eager fireside group: my mother reading, Fanny, Lloyd, and I devoted
listeners; and the work was really one of the best works I ever heard;
and its author is to be praised and honoured; and what do you suppose is
the name of it? and have you ever read it yourself? and (I am bound I
will get to the bottom of the page before I blow the gaff, if I have to
fight it out on this line all summer; for if you have not to turn a leaf,
there can be no suspense, the conspectory eye being swift to pick out
proper names; and without suspense, there can be little pleasure in this
world, to my mind at least)—and, in short, the name of it is _Roderick
Hudson_, if you please. My dear James, it is very spirited, and very
sound, and very noble too. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson, Rowland, O, all
first-rate: Rowland a very fine fellow; Hudson as good as he can stick
(did you know Hudson? I suspect you did), Mrs. H. his real born mother,
a thing rarely managed in fiction.
We are all keeping pretty fit and pretty hearty; but this letter is not
from me to you, it is from a reader of _R. H._ to the author of the same,
and it says nothing, and has nothing to say, but thank you.
We are going to re-read _Casamassima_ as a proper pendant. Sir, I think
these two are your best, and care not who knows it.
May I beg you, the next time _Roderick_ is printed off, to go over the
sheets of the last few chapters, and strike out ‘immense’ and
‘tremendous’? You have simply dropped them there like your
pocket-handkerchief; all you have to do is to pick them up and pouch
them, and your room—what do I say?—your cathedral!—will be swept and
garnished.—I am, dear sir, your delighted reader,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—Perhaps it is a pang of causeless honesty, perhaps. I hope it
will set a value on my praise of _Roderick_, perhaps it’s a burst of the
diabolic, but I must break out with the news that I can’t bear the
_Portrait of a Lady_. I read it all, and I wept too; but I can’t stand
your having written it; and I beg you will write no more of the like.
_Infra_, sir; Below you: I can’t help it—it may be your favourite work,
but in my eyes it’s BELOW YOU to write and me to read. I thought
_Roderick_ was going to be another such at the beginning; and I cannot
describe my pleasure as I found it taking bones and blood, and looking
out at me with a moved and human countenance, whose lineaments are
written in my memory until my last of days.
R. L. S.
My wife begs your forgiveness; I believe for her silence.
[Picture: Manuscript of letter]
[Picture: Manuscript of letter]
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Saranac Lake_ [_December_ 1887].
MY DEAR COLVIN,—This goes to say that we are all fit, and the place is
very bleak and wintry, and up to now has shown no such charms of climate
as Davos, but is a place where men eat and where the cattarh, catarrh
(cattarrh, or cattarrhh) appears to be unknown. I walk in my verandy in
the snaw, sir, looking down over one of those dabbled wintry landscapes
that are (to be frank) so chilly to the human bosom, and up at a grey,
English—nay, _mehercle_, Scottish—heaven; and I think it pretty bleak;
and the wind swoops at me round the corner, like a lion, and fluffs the
snow in my face; and I could aspire to be elsewhere; but yet I do not
catch cold, and yet, when I come in, I eat. So that hitherto Saranac, if
not deliriously delectable, has not been a failure; nay, from the mere
point of view of the wicked body, it has proved a success. But I wish I
could still get to the woods; alas, _nous n’irons plus au bois_ is my
poor song; the paths are buried, the dingles drifted full, a little walk
is grown a long one; till spring comes, I fear the burthen will hold
good.
I get along with my papers for _Scribner_ not fast, nor so far specially
well; only this last, the fourth one (which makes a third part of my
whole task), I do believe is pulled off after a fashion. It is a mere
sermon: ‘Smith opens out’; {86} but it is true, and I find it touching
and beneficial, to me at least; and I think there is some fine writing in
it, some very apt and pregnant phrases. _Pulvis et Umbra_, I call it; I
might have called it a Darwinian Sermon, if I had wanted. Its
sentiments, although parsonic, will not offend even you, I believe. The
other three papers, I fear, bear many traces of effort, and the ungenuine
inspiration of an income at so much per essay, and the honest desire of
the incomer to give good measure for his money. Well, I did my damndest
anyway.
We have been reading H. James’s _Roderick Hudson_, which I eagerly press
you to get at once: it is a book of a high order—the last volume in
particular. I wish Meredith would read it. It took my breath away.
I am at the seventh book of the _Æneid_, and quite amazed at its merits
(also very often floored by its difficulties). The Circe passage at the
beginning, and the sublime business of Amata with the simile of the boy’s
top—O Lord, what a happy thought!—have specially delighted me.—I am, dear
sir, your respected friend,
JOHN GREGG GILLSON, J.P., M.R.I.A., etc.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Saranac_, _December_ 24, 1887.]
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Thank you for your explanations. I have done no more
Virgil since I finished the seventh book, for I have, first been eaten up
with Taine, and next have fallen head over heels into a new tale, _The
Master of Ballantrae_. No thought have I now apart from it, and I have
got along up to page ninety-two of the draft with great interest. It is
to me a most seizing tale: there are some fantastic elements; the most is
a dead genuine human problem—human tragedy, I should say rather. It will
be about as long, I imagine, as _Kidnapped_.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
(1) My old Lord Durrisdeer.
(2) The Master of Ballantrae, _and_
(3) Henry Durie, _his sons_.
(4) Clementina, _engaged to the first_, _married to the second_.
(5) Ephraim Mackellar, _land steward at Durrisdeer and narrator of the
most of the book_.
(6) Francis Burke, Chevalier de St. Louis, _one of Prince Charlie’s
Irishmen and narrator of the rest_.
Besides these, many instant figures, most of them dumb or nearly so:
Jessie Brown the whore, Captain Crail, Captain MacCombie, our old friend
Alan Breck, our old friend Riach (both only for an instant), Teach the
pirate (vulgarly Blackbeard), John Paul and Macconochie, servants at
Durrisdeer. The date is from 1745 to ’65 (about). The scene, near
Kirkcudbright, in the States, and for a little moment in the French East
Indies. I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the
brothers, and announcement of the death to Clementina and my
Lord—Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really
very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil. I have known
hints of him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as a lion,
but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so much
surprise in my two cowards. ’Tis true, I saw a hint of the same nature
in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to attend
to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here come my
visitors—and have now gone, or the first relay of them; and I hope no
more may come. For mark you, sir, this is our ‘day’—Saturday, as ever
was, and here we sit, my mother and I, before a large wood fire and await
the enemy with the most steadfast courage; and without snow and greyness:
and the woman Fanny in New York for her health, which is far from good;
and the lad Lloyd at the inn in the village because he has a cold; and
the handmaid Valentine abroad in a sleigh upon her messages; and
to-morrow Christmas and no mistake. Such is human life: _la carrière
humaine_. I will enclose, if I remember, the required autograph.
I will do better, put it on the back of this page. Love to all, and
mostly, my very dear Colvin, to yourself. For whatever I say or do, or
don’t say or do, you may be very sure I am,—Yours always affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Saranac Lake_, _Adirondacks_, _N.Y._, _U.S.A._, _Christmas_ 1887.
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,—And a very good Christmas to you all; and better
fortune; and if worse, the more courage to support it—which I think is
the kinder wish in all human affairs. Somewhile—I fear a good
while—after this, you should receive our Christmas gift; we have no tact
and no taste, only a welcome and (often) tonic brutality; and I dare say
the present, even after my friend Baxter has acted on and reviewed my
hints, may prove a White Elephant. That is why I dread presents. And
therefore pray understand if any element of that hamper prove unwelcome,
_it is to be exchanged_. I will not sit down under the name of a giver
of White Elephants. I never had any elephant but one, and his initials
were R. L. S.; and he trod on my foot at a very early age. But this is a
fable, and not in the least to the point: which is that if, for once in
my life, I have wished to make things nicer for anybody but the Elephant
(see fable), do not suffer me to have made them ineffably more
embarrassing, and exchange—ruthlessly exchange!
For my part, I am the most cockered up of any mortal being; and one of
the healthiest, or thereabout, at some modest distance from the bull’s
eye. I am condemned to write twelve articles in _Scribner’s Magazine_
for the love of gain; I think I had better send you them; what is far
more to the purpose, I am on the jump with a new story which has
bewitched me—I doubt it may bewitch no one else. It is called _The
Master of Ballantrae_—pronounce Bällän-tray. If it is not good, well,
mine will be the fault; for I believe it is a good tale.
The greetings of the season to you, and your mother, and your sisters.
My wife heartily joins.—And I am, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—You will think me an illiterate dog: I am, for the first time,
reading _Robertson’s Sermons_. I do not know how to express how much I
think of them. If by any chance you should be as illiterate as I, and
not know them, it is worth while curing the defect.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Saranac Lake_, _January_ ’88.
DEAR CHARLES,—You are the flower of Doers. . . . Will my doer collaborate
thus much in my new novel? In the year 1794 or 5, Mr. Ephraim Mackellar,
A.M., late steward on the Durrisdeer estates, completed a set of
memoranda (as long as a novel) with regard to the death of the (then)
late Lord Durrisdeer, and as to that of his attainted elder brother,
called by the family courtesy title the Master of Ballantrae. These he
placed in the hands of John Macbrair. W.S., the family agent, on the
understanding they were to be sealed until 1862, when a century would
have elapsed since the affair in the wilderness (my lord’s death). You
succeeded Mr. Macbrair’s firm; the Durrisdeers are extinct; and last
year, in an old green box, you found these papers with Macbrair’s
indorsation. It is that indorsation of which I want a copy; you may
remember, when you gave me the papers, I neglected to take that, and I am
sure you are a man too careful of antiquities to have let it fall aside.
I shall have a little introduction descriptive of my visit to Edinburgh,
arrival there, denner with yoursel’, and first reading of the papers in
your smoking-room: all of which, of course, you well remember.—Ever yours
affectionately,
R. L S.
Your name is my friend Mr. Johnstone Thomson, W.S.!!!
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Saranac_, _Winter_ 1887–8.
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,—I am keeping the sermon to see if I can’t add
another. Meanwhile, I will send you very soon a different paper which
may take its place. Possibly some of these days soon I may get together
a talk on things current, which should go in (if possible) earlier than
either. I am now less nervous about these papers; I believe I can do the
trick without great strain, though the terror that breathed on my back in
the beginning is not yet forgotten.
_The Master of Ballantrae_ I have had to leave aside, as I was quite
worked out. But in about a week I hope to try back and send you the
first four numbers: these are all drafted, it is only the revision that
has broken me down, as it is often the hardest work. These four I
propose you should set up for me at once, and we’ll copyright ’em in a
pamphlet. I will tell you the names of the _bona fide_ purchasers in
England.
The numbers will run from twenty to thirty pages of my manuscript. You
can give me that much, can you not? It is a howling good tale—at least
these first four numbers are; the end is a trifle more fantastic, but
’tis all picturesque.
Don’t trouble about any more French books; I am on another scent, you
see, just now. Only the _French in Hindustan_ I await with impatience,
as that is for _Ballantrae_. The scene of that romance is Scotland—the
States—Scotland—India—Scotland—and the States again; so it jumps like a
flea. I have enough about the States now, and very much obliged I am;
yet if Drake’s _Tragedies of the Wilderness_ is (as I gather) a
collection of originals, I should like to purchase it. If it is a
picturesque vulgarisation, I do not wish to look it in the face.
Purchase, I say; for I think it would be well to have some such
collection by me with a view to fresh works.—Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—If you think of having the _Master_ illustrated, I suggest that
Hole would be very well up to the Scottish, which is the larger part. If
you have it done here, tell your artist to look at the hall of Craigievar
in Billing’s _Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities_, and he will get a
broad hint for the hall at Durrisdeer: it is, I think, the chimney of
Craigievar and the roof of Pinkie, and perhaps a little more of Pinkie
altogether; but I should have to see the book myself to be sure. Hole
would be invaluable for this. I dare say if you had it illustrated, you
could let me have one or two for the English edition.
R. L. S.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
[_Saranac_, _Winter_ 1887–8.]
MY DEAR ARCHER,—What am I to say? I have read your friend’s book with
singular relish. If he has written any other, I beg you will let me see
it; and if he has not, I beg him to lose no time in supplying the
deficiency. It is full of promise; but I should like to know his age.
There are things in it that are very clever, to which I attach small
importance; it is the shape of the age. And there are passages,
particularly the rally in presence of the Zulu king, that show genuine
and remarkable narrative talent—a talent that few will have the wit to
understand, a talent of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision,
and sufficient self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a
narrator.
As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most feverish. Over
Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I dote on
Bashville—I could read of him for ever; _de Bashville je suis le
fervent_—there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave;
_Bashville est magnifique_, _mais il n’est guère possible_. He is the
note of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the
author has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott’s or Dumas’, and then he
daubs in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the
romantic griffon—even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with
laughter at the nature of the quest—and I believe in his heart he thinks
he is labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism.
It is this that makes me—the most hardened adviser now extant—stand back
and hold my peace. If Mr. Shaw is below five-and-twenty, let him go his
path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic, and
pursue romance with his eyes open;—or perhaps he knows it;—God knows!—my
brain is softened.
It is HORRID FUN. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure
you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author.
(I say, Archer, my God, what women!)—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
_Saranac_, _February_ 1888.
MY DEAR ARCHER,—Pretty sick in bed; but necessary to protest and continue
your education.
Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think because not amusing (I
think he often was amusing). The reason is this: I never, or almost
never, saw two pages of his work that I could not have put in one without
the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I know of writing.
If there is anywhere a thing said in two sentences that could have been
as clearly and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then it’s
amateur work. Then you will bring me up with old Dumas. Nay, the object
of a story is to be long, to fill up hours; the story-teller’s art of
writing is to water out by continual invention, historical and technical,
and yet not seem to water; seem on the other hand to practise that same
wit of conspicuous and declaratory condensation which is the proper art
of writing. That is one thing in which my stories fail: I am always
cutting the flesh off their bones.
I would rise from the dead to preach!
Hope all well. I think my wife better, but she’s not allowed to write;
and this (only wrung from me by desire to Boss and Parsonise and
Dominate, strong in sickness) is my first letter for days, and will
likely be my last for many more. Not blame my wife for her silence:
doctor’s orders. All much interested by your last, and fragment from
brother, and anecdotes of Tomarcher.—The sick but still Moral
R. L. S.
Tell Shaw to hurry up: I want another.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
[_Saranac_, _Spring_ 1888?]
MY DEAR ARCHER,—It happened thus. I came forth from that performance in
a breathing heat of indignation. (Mind, at this distance of time and
with my increased knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the piece; but
I saw none then, except a problem in brutality; and I still consider the
problem in that case not established.) On my way down the _Français_
stairs, I trod on an old gentleman’s toes, whereupon with that suavity
that so well becomes me, I turned about to apologise, and on the instant,
repenting me of that intention, stopped the apology midway, and added
something in French to this effect: No, you are one of the _lâches_ who
have been applauding that piece. I retract my apology. Said the old
Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and with a smile that was truly
heavenly in temperance, irony, good-nature, and knowledge of the world,
‘Ah, monsieur, vous êtes bien jeune!’—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Saranac_ [_February_ 1888].
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,—Will you send me (from the library) some of the
works of my dear old G. P. R. James. With the following especially I
desire to make or to renew acquaintance: _The Songster_, _The Gipsy_,
_The Convict_, _The Stepmother_, _The Gentleman of the Old School_, _The
Robber_.
_Excusez du peu_.
This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an accident. The
‘Franklin County Library’ contains two works of his, _The Cavalier_ and
_Morley Ernstein_. I read the first with indescribable amusement—it was
worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; the second (to my
surprise) was better than I had dared to hope: a good honest, dull,
interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned talent in the invention
when not strained; and a genuine old-fashioned feeling for the English
language. This experience awoke appetite, and you see I have taken steps
to stay it.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Saranac_, _February_ 1888.]
DEAR MR. BURLINGAME,—1. Of course then don’t use it. Dear Man, I write
these to please you, not myself, and you know a main sight better than I
do what is good. In that case, however, I enclose another paper, and
return the corrected proof of _Pulvis et Umbra_, so that we may be
afloat.
2. I want to say a word as to the _Master_. (_The Master of Ballantrae_
shall be the name by all means.) If you like and want it, I leave it to
you to make an offer. You may remember I thought the offer you made when
I was still in England too small; by which I did not at all mean, I
thought it less than it was worth, but too little to tempt me to undergo
the disagreeables of serial publication. This tale (if you want it) you
are to have; for it is the least I can do for you; and you are to observe
that the sum you pay me for my articles going far to meet my wants, I am
quite open to be satisfied with less than formerly. I tell you I do
dislike this battle of the dollars. I feel sure you all pay too much
here in America; and I beg you not to spoil me any more. For I am
getting spoiled: I do not want wealth, and I feel these big sums
demoralise me.
My wife came here pretty ill; she had a dreadful bad night; to-day she is
better. But now Valentine is ill; and Lloyd and I have got breakfast,
and my hand somewhat shakes after washing dishes.—Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—Please order me the _Evening Post_ for two months. My
subscription is run out. The _Mutiny_ and _Edwardes_ to hand.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Saranac_, _March_ 1888.]
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Fanny has been very unwell. She is not long home, has
been ill again since her return, but is now better again to a degree.
You must not blame her for not writing, as she is not allowed to write at
all, not even a letter. To add to our misfortunes, Valentine is quite
ill and in bed. Lloyd and I get breakfast; I have now, 10.15, just got
the dishes washed and the kitchen all clear, and sit down to give you as
much news as I have spirit for, after such an engagement. Glass is a
thing that really breaks my spirit: I do not like to fail, and with glass
I cannot reach the work of my high calling—the artist’s.
I am, as you may gather from this, wonderfully better: this harsh, grey,
glum, doleful climate has done me good. You cannot fancy how sad a
climate it is. When the thermometer stays all day below 10°, it is
really cold; and when the wind blows, O commend me to the result.
Pleasure in life is all delete; there is no red spot left, fires do not
radiate, you burn your hands all the time on what seem to be cold stones.
It is odd, zero is like summer heat to us now; and we like, when the
thermometer outside is really low, a room at about 48°: 60° we find
oppressive. Yet the natives keep their holes at 90° or even 100°.
This was interrupted days ago by household labours. Since then I have
had and (I tremble to write it, but it does seem as if I had) beaten off
an influenza. The cold is exquisite. Valentine still in bed. The
proofs of the first part of the _Master of Ballantrae_ begin to come in;
soon you shall have it in the pamphlet form; and I hope you will like it.
The second part will not be near so good; but there—we can but do as
it’ll do with us. I have every reason to believe this winter has done me
real good, so far as it has gone; and if I carry out my scheme for next
winter, and succeeding years, I should end by being a tower of strength.
I want you to save a good holiday for next winter; I hope we shall be
able to help you to some larks. Is there any Greek Isle you would like
to explore? or any creek in Asia Minor?—Yours ever affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS
[_Saranac Lake_, _Winter_ 1887–1888.]
MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,—I have asked Douglas and Foulis to send you my
last volume, so that you may possess my little paper on my father in a
permanent shape; not for what that is worth, but as a tribute of respect
to one whom my father regarded with such love, esteem, and affection.
Besides, as you will see, I have brought you under contribution, and I
have still to thank you for your letter to my mother; so more than kind;
in much, so just. It is my hope, when time and health permit, to do
something more definite for my father’s memory. You are one of the very
few who can (if you will) help me. Pray believe that I lay on you no
obligation; I know too well, you may believe me, how difficult it is to
put even two sincere lines upon paper, where all, too, is to order. But
if the spirit should ever move you, and you should recall something
memorable of your friend, his son will heartily thank you for a note of
it.—With much respect, believe me, yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Saranac Lake_, _March_ 1888.]
MY DEAR DELIGHTFUL JAMES,—To quote your heading to my wife, I think no
man writes so elegant a letter, I am sure none so kind, unless it be
Colvin, and there is more of the stern parent about him. I was vexed at
your account of my admired Meredith: I wish I could go and see him; as it
is I will try to write. I read with indescribable admiration your
_Emerson_. I begin to long for the day when these portraits of yours
shall be collected: do put me in. But Emerson is a higher flight. Have
you a _Tourgueneff_? You have told me many interesting things of him,
and I seem to see them written, and forming a graceful and _bildend_
sketch. My novel is a tragedy; four parts out of six or seven are
written, and gone to Burlingame. Five parts of it are sound, human
tragedy; the last one or two, I regret to say, not so soundly designed; I
almost hesitate to write them; they are very picturesque, but they are
fantastic; they shame, perhaps degrade, the beginning. I wish I knew;
that was how the tale came to me however. I got the situation; it was an
old taste of mine: The older brother goes out in the ’45, the younger
stays; the younger, of course, gets title and estate and marries the
bride designate of the elder—a family match, but he (the younger) had
always loved her, and she had really loved the elder. Do you see the
situation? Then the devil and Saranac suggested this _dénouement_, and I
joined the two ends in a day or two of constant feverish thought, and
began to write. And now—I wonder if I have not gone too far with the
fantastic? The elder brother is an INCUBUS: supposed to be killed at
Culloden, he turns up again and bleeds the family of money; on that
stopping he comes and lives with them, whence flows the real tragedy, the
nocturnal duel of the brothers (very naturally, and indeed, I think,
inevitably arising), and second supposed death of the elder. Husband and
wife now really make up, and then the cloven hoof appears. For the third
supposed death and the manner of the third reappearance is steep; steep,
sir. It is even very steep, and I fear it shames the honest stuff so
far; but then it is highly pictorial, and it leads up to the death of the
elder brother at the hands of the younger in a perfectly cold-blooded
murder, of which I wish (and mean) the reader to approve. You see how
daring is the design. There are really but six characters, and one of
these episodic, and yet it covers eighteen years, and will be, I imagine,
the longest of my works.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
_Read Gosse’s Raleigh_. First-rate.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO THE REV. DR. CHARTERIS
_Saranac Lake_, _Adirondacks_,
_New York_, _U.S.A._, _Spring_ 1888.
MY DEAR DR. CHARTERIS,—The funeral letter, your notes, and many other
things, are reserved for a book, _Memorials of a Scottish Family_, if
ever I can find time and opportunity. I wish I could throw off all else
and sit down to it to-day. Yes, my father was a ‘distinctly religious
man,’ but not a pious. The distinction painfully and pleasurably recalls
old conflicts; it used to be my great gun—and you, who suffered for the
whole Church, know how needful it was to have some reserve artillery!
His sentiments were tragic; he was a tragic thinker. Now, granted that
life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion to
make us accept and serve in that tragedy, as officers in that other and
comparable one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the
military sense; and the religious man—I beg pardon, the pious man—is he
who has a military joy in duty—not he who weeps over the wounded. We can
do no more than try to do our best. Really, I am the grandson of the
manse—I preach you a kind of sermon. Box the brat’s ears!
My mother—to pass to matters more within my competence—finely enjoys
herself. The new country, some new friends we have made, the interesting
experiment of this climate-which (at least) is tragic—all have done her
good. I have myself passed a better winter than for years, and now that
it is nearly over have some diffident hopes of doing well in the summer
and ‘eating a little more air’ than usual.
I thank you for the trouble you are taking, and my mother joins with me
in kindest regards to yourself and Mrs. Charteris.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO S. R. CROCKETT
[_Saranac Lake_, _Spring_ 1888.]
DEAR MINISTER OF THE FREE KIRK AT PENICUIK,—For O, man, I cannae read
your name!—That I have been so long in answering your delightful letter
sits on my conscience badly. The fact is I let my correspondence
accumulate until I am going to leave a place; and then I pitch in,
overhaul the pile, and my cries of penitence might be heard a mile about.
Yesterday I despatched thirty-five belated letters: conceive the state of
my conscience, above all as the Sins of Omission (see boyhood’s guide,
the Shorter Catechism) are in my view the only serious ones; I call it my
view, but it cannot have escaped you that it was also Christ’s. However,
all that is not to the purpose, which is to thank you for the sincere
pleasure afforded by your charming letter. I get a good few such; how
few that please me at all, you would be surprised to learn—or have a
singularly just idea of the dulness of our race; how few that please me
as yours did, I can tell you in one word—_None_. I am no great kirkgoer,
for many reasons—and the sermon’s one of them, and the first prayer
another, but the chief and effectual reason is the stuffiness. I am no
great kirkgoer, says I, but when I read yon letter of yours, I thought I
would like to sit under ye. And then I saw ye were to send me a bit
buik, and says I, I’ll wait for the bit buik, and then I’ll mebbe can
read the man’s name, and anyway I’ll can kill twa birds wi’ ae stane.
And, man! the buik was ne’er heard tell o’!
That fact is an adminicle of excuse for my delay.
And now, dear minister of the illegible name, thanks to you, and greeting
to your wife, and may you have good guidance in your difficult labours,
and a blessing on your life.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
(No just so young sae young’s he was, though—
I’m awfae near forty, man.)
Address c/o CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
743 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
Don’t put ‘N.B.’ in your paper: put _Scotland_, and be done with it.
Alas, that I should be thus stabbed in the home of my friends! The name
of my native land is not _North Britain_, whatever may be the name of
yours.
R. L. S.
TO MISS FERRIER
[_Saranac Lake_, _April_ 1888.]
MY DEAREST COGGIE,—I wish I could find the letter I began to you some
time ago when I was ill; but I can’t and I don’t believe there was much
in it anyway. We have all behaved like pigs and beasts and barn-door
poultry to you; but I have been sunk in work, and the lad is lazy and
blind and has been working too; and as for Fanny, she has been (and still
is) really unwell. I had a mean hope you might perhaps write again
before I got up steam: I could not have been more ashamed of myself than
I am, and I should have had another laugh.
They always say I cannot give news in my letters: I shall shake off that
reproach. On Monday, if she is well enough, Fanny leaves for California
to see her friends; it is rather an anxiety to let her go alone; but the
doctor simply forbids it in my case, and she is better anywhere than
here—a bleak, blackguard, beggarly climate, of which I can say no good
except that it suits me and some others of the same or similar
persuasions whom (by all rights) it ought to kill. It is a form of
Arctic St. Andrews, I should imagine; and the miseries of forty degrees
below zero, with a high wind, have to be felt to be appreciated. The
greyness of the heavens here is a circumstance eminently revolting to the
soul; I have near forgot the aspect of the sun—I doubt if this be news;
it is certainly no news to us. My mother suffers a little from the
inclemency of the place, but less on the whole than would be imagined.
Among other wild schemes, we have been projecting yacht voyages; and I
beg to inform you that Cogia Hassan was cast for the part of passenger.
They may come off!—Again this is not news. The lad? Well, the lad wrote
a tale this winter, which appeared to me so funny that I have taken it in
hand, and some of these days you will receive a copy of a work entitled
‘_A Game of Bluff_, by Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson.’
Otherwise he (the lad) is much as usual. There remains, I believe, to be
considered only R. L. S., the house-bond, prop, pillar, bread-winner, and
bully of the establishment. Well, I do think him much better; he is
making piles of money; the hope of being able to hire a yacht ere long
dances before his eyes; otherwise he is not in very high spirits at this
particular moment, though compared with last year at Bournemouth an angel
of joy.
And now is this news, Cogia, or is it not? It all depends upon the point
of view, and I call it news. The devil of it is that I can think of
nothing else, except to send you all our loves, and to wish exceedingly
you were here to cheer us all up. But we’ll see about that on board the
yacht.—Your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Saranac Lake_], _April_ 9_th_!! 1888
MY DEAR COLVIN,—I have been long without writing to you, but am not to
blame, I had some little annoyances quite for a private eye, but they ran
me so hard that I could not write without lugging them in, which (for
several reasons) I did not choose to do. Fanny is off to San Francisco,
and next week I myself flit to New York: address Scribner’s. Where we
shall go I know not, nor (I was going to say) care; so bald and bad is my
frame of mind. Do you know our—ahem!—fellow clubman, Colonel Majendie?
I had such an interesting letter from him. Did you see my sermon? It
has evoked the worst feeling: I fear people don’t care for the truth, or
else I don’t tell it. Suffer me to wander without purpose. I have sent
off twenty letters to-day, and begun and stuck at a twenty-first, and
taken a copy of one which was on business, and corrected several galleys
of proof, and sorted about a bushel of old letters; so if any one has a
right to be romantically stupid it is I—and I am. Really deeply stupid,
and at that stage when in old days I used to pour out words without any
meaning whatever and with my mind taking no part in the performance. I
suspect that is now the case. I am reading with extraordinary pleasure
the life of Lord Lawrence: Lloyd and I have a mutiny novel—
(_Next morning_, _after twelve other letters_)—mutiny novel on hand—a
tremendous work—so we are all at Indian books. The idea of the novel is
Lloyd’s: I call it a novel. ’Tis a tragic romance, of the most tragic
sort: I believe the end will be almost too much for human endurance—when
the hero is thrown to the ground with one of his own (Sepoy) soldier’s
knees upon his chest, and the cries begin in the Beebeeghar. O truly,
you know it is a howler! The whole last part is—well the difficulty is
that, short of resuscitating Shakespeare, I don’t know who is to write
it.
I still keep wonderful. I am a great performer before the Lord on the
penny whistle. Dear sir, sincerely yours,
ANDREW JACKSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
[_Saranac Lake_, _April_ 1888.]
_Address c/o Messrs. Scribner’s Sons_,
743 _Broadway_, _N.Y._
MY DEAR GAMEKEEPER,—Your p. c. (proving you a good student of Micawber)
has just arrived, and it paves the way to something I am anxious to say.
I wrote a paper the other day—_Pulvis et Umbra_;—I wrote it with great
feeling and conviction: to me it seemed bracing and healthful, it is in
such a world (so seen by me), that I am very glad to fight out my battle,
and see some fine sunsets, and hear some excellent jests between whiles
round the camp fire. But I find that to some people this vision of mine
is a nightmare, and extinguishes all ground of faith in God or pleasure
in man. Truth I think not so much of; for I do not know it. And I could
wish in my heart that I had not published this paper, if it troubles folk
too much: all have not the same digestion, nor the same sight of things.
And it came over me with special pain that perhaps this article (which I
was at the pains to send to her) might give dismalness to my _Gamekeeper
at Home_. Well, I cannot take back what I have said; but yet I may add
this. If my view be everything but the nonsense that it may be—to me it
seems self-evident and blinding truth—surely of all things it makes this
world holier. There is nothing in it but the moral side—but the great
battle and the breathing times with their refreshments. I see no more
and no less. And if you look again, it is not ugly, and it is filled
with promise.
Pray excuse a desponding author for this apology. My wife is away off to
the uttermost parts of the States, all by herself. I shall be off, I
hope, in a week; but where? Ah! that I know not. I keep wonderful, and
my wife a little better, and the lad flourishing. We now perform duets
on two D tin whistles; it is no joke to make the bass; I think I must
really send you one, which I wish you would correct . . . I may be said
to live for these instrumental labours now, but I have always some
childishness on hand.—I am, dear Gamekeeper, your indulgent but
intemperate Squire,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Union House_, _Manasquan_, _N.J._, _but address to Scribner’s_,
11_th_ _May_ 1888.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I have found a yacht, and we are going the full pitch
for seven months. If I cannot get my health back (more or less), ’tis
madness; but, of course, there is the hope, and I will play big. . . . If
this business fails to set me up, well, £2000 is gone, and I know I can’t
get better. We sail from San Francisco, June 15th, for the South Seas in
the yacht _Casco_.—With a million thanks for all your dear friendliness,
ever yours affectionately,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HOMER ST. GAUDENS
_Manasquan_, _New Jersey_, 27_th_ _May_ 1888.
DEAR HOMER ST. GAUDENS,—Your father has brought you this day to see me,
and he tells me it is his hope you may remember the occasion. I am going
to do what I can to carry out his wish; and it may amuse you, years
after, to see this little scrap of paper and to read what I write. I
must begin by testifying that you yourself took no interest whatever in
the introduction, and in the most proper spirit displayed a single-minded
ambition to get back to play, and this I thought an excellent and
admirable point in your character. You were also (I use the past tense,
with a view to the time when you shall read, rather than to that when I
am writing) a very pretty boy, and (to my European views) startlingly
self-possessed. My time of observation was so limited that you must
pardon me if I can say no more: what else I marked, what restlessness of
foot and hand, what graceful clumsiness, what experimental designs upon
the furniture, was but the common inheritance of human youth. But you
may perhaps like to know that the lean flushed man in bed, who interested
you so little, was in a state of mind extremely mingled and unpleasant:
harassed with work which he thought he was not doing well, troubled with
difficulties to which you will in time succeed, and yet looking forward
to no less a matter than a voyage to the South Seas and the visitation of
savage and desert islands.—Your father’s friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Manasquan_ (_ahem_!), _New Jersey_, _May_ 28_th_, 1888.
MY DEAR JAMES,—With what a torrent it has come at last! Up to now, what
I like best is the first number of a _London Life_. You have never done
anything better, and I don’t know if perhaps you have ever done anything
so good as the girl’s outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching your
later works in your native land. I had to present the Beltraffio volume
to Low, and it has brought him to his knees; he was _amazed_ at the first
part of Georgina’s Reasons, although (like me) not so well satisfied with
Part II. It is annoying to find the American public as stupid as the
English, but they will waken up in time: I wonder what they will think of
_Two Nations_? . . .
This, dear James, is a valedictory. On June 15th the schooner yacht
_Casco_ will (weather and a jealous providence permitting) steam through
the Golden Gates for Honolulu, Tahiti, the Galapagos, Guayaquil, and—I
hope _not_ the bottom of the Pacific. It will contain your obedient
’umble servant and party. It seems too good to be true, and is a very
good way of getting through the green-sickness of maturity which, with
all its accompanying ills, is now declaring itself in my mind and life.
They tell me it is not so severe as that of youth; if I (and the _Casco_)
are spared, I shall tell you more exactly, as I am one of the few people
in the world who do not forget their own lives.
Good-bye, then, my dear fellow, and please write us a word; we expect to
have three mails in the next two months: Honolulu, Tahiti, and Guayaquil.
But letters will be forwarded from Scribner’s, if you hear nothing more
definite directly. In 3 (three) days I leave for San Francisco.—Ever
yours most cordially,
R. L. S.
X
PACIFIC VOYAGES
JUNE 1888-NOVEMBER 1890
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Yacht_ ‘_Casco_,’ _Anaho Bay_, _Nukahiva_,
_Marquesas Islands_ [_July_ 1888].
MY DEAR COLVIN,—From this somewhat (ahem) out of the way place, I write
to say how d’ye do. It is all a swindle: I chose these isles as having
the most beastly population, and they are far better, and far more
civilised than we. I know one old chief Ko-o-amua, a great cannibal in
his day, who ate his enemies even as he walked home from killing ’em, and
he is a perfect gentleman and exceedingly amiable and simple-minded: no
fool, though.
The climate is delightful; and the harbour where we lie one of the
loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score
natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare now.
Very rare and equally absurd to view.
This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: it takes me all
the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come home and
note, the strangeness around us. I shouldn’t wonder if there came
trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a nation that is not
beloved in certain islands—and it does not know it! {114} Strange: like
ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all and much to yourself.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Yacht_ ‘_Casco_,’ _at sea_, _near the Paumotus_,
7 A.M., _September_ 6_th_, 1888, _with a dreadful pen_.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Last night as I lay under my blanket in the cockpit,
courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the
southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we were
all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow, praying
God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the Dangerous
Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a sudden I had a
vision of—Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash of lightning: I
simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I remember all I
hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east
wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and yet timidly hoped
not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far less a wife, and yet
passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did not take to drink) I
should possibly write one little book, etc. etc. And then now—what a
change! I feel somehow as if I should like the incident set upon a brass
plate at the corner of that dreary thoroughfare for all students to read,
poor devils, when their hearts are down. And I felt I must write one
word to you. Excuse me if I write little: when I am at sea, it gives me
a headache; when I am in port, I have my diary crying ‘Give, give.’ I
shall have a fine book of travels, I feel sure; and will tell you more of
the South Seas after very few months than any other writer has
done—except Herman Melville perhaps, who is a howling cheese. Good luck
to you, God bless you.—Your affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Fakarava_, _Low Archipelago_, _September_ 21_st_, 1888.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Only a word. Get out your big atlas, and imagine a
straight line from San Francisco to Anaho, the N.E. corner of Nukahiva,
one of the Marquesas Islands; imagine three weeks there: imagine a day’s
sail on August 12th round the eastern end of the island to Tai-o-hae, the
capital; imagine us there till August 22nd: imagine us skirt the east
side of Ua-pu—perhaps Rona-Poa on your atlas—and through the Bondelais
straits to Taaka-uku in Hiva-Oa, where we arrive on the 23rd; imagine us
there until September 4th, when we sailed for Fakarava, which we reached
on the 9th, after a very difficult and dangerous passage among these
isles. Tuesday, we shall leave for Taiti, where I shall knock off and do
some necessary work ashore. It looks pretty bald in the atlas; not in
fact; nor I trust in the 130 odd pages of diary which I have just been
looking up for these dates: the interest, indeed, has been _incredible_:
I did not dream there were such places or such races. My health has
stood me splendidly; I am in for hours wading over the knees for shells;
I have been five hours on horseback: I have been up pretty near all night
waiting to see where the _Casco_ would go ashore, and with my diary all
ready—simply the most entertaining night of my life. Withal I still have
colds; I have one now, and feel pretty sick too; but not as at home:
instead of being in bed, for instance, I am at this moment sitting
snuffling and writing in an undershirt and trousers; and as for colour,
hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner than the berry: only my
trunk and the aristocratic spot on which I sit retain the vile whiteness
of the north.
Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry James, and any whom
you see of well-wishers. Accept from me the very best of my affection:
and believe me ever yours,
THE OLD MAN VIRULENT.
* * * * *
_Taiti_, _October_ 7_th_, 1888.
Never having found a chance to send this off, I may add more of my news.
My cold took a very bad turn, and I am pretty much out of sorts at this
particular, living in a little bare one-twentieth-furnished house,
surrounded by mangoes, etc. All the rest are well, and I mean to be
soon. But these Taiti colds are very severe and, to children, often
fatal; so they were not the thing for me. Yesterday the brigantine came
in from San Francisco, so we can get our letters off soon. There are in
Papeete at this moment, in a little wooden house with grated verandahs,
two people who love you very much, and one of them is
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Taiti_, _as ever was_, 6_th_ _October_ 1888.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—. . . You will receive a lot of mostly very bad proofs
of photographs: the paper was so bad. Please keep them very private, as
they are for the book. We send them, having learned so dread a fear of
the sea, that we wish to put our eggs in different baskets. We have been
thrice within an ace of being ashore: we were lost (!) for about twelve
hours in the Low Archipelago, but by God’s blessing had quiet weather all
the time; and once, in a squall, we cam’ so near gaun heels ower hurdies,
that I really dinnae ken why we didnae athegither. Hence, as I say, a
great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, particularly on the
Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean.
You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, owing to incidental
beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, owing to the intrinsic interest of
these isles. I hope the book will be a good one; nor do I really very
much doubt that—the stuff is so curious; what I wonder is, if the public
will rise to it. A copy of my journal, or as much of it as is made,
shall go to you also; it is, of course, quite imperfect, much being to be
added and corrected; but O, for the eggs in the different baskets.
All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the cruise so far, in
spite of its drawbacks. We have had an awfae time in some ways, Mr.
Baxter; and if I wasnae sic a verra patient man (when I ken that I _have_
to be) there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I hadnae happened to be
on deck about three in the marnin’, I _think_ there would have been
_murder_ done. The American Mairchant Marine is a kent service; ye’ll
have heard its praise, I’m thinkin’; an’ if ye never did, ye can get _Twa
Years Before the Mast_, by Dana, whaur forbye a great deal o’ pleisure,
ye’ll get a’ the needcessary information. Love to your father and all
the family.—Ever your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Taiti_, _October_ 10_th_, 1888.
DEAR GIVER,—I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a
person so locomotory as my proprietor. The number of thousand miles that
I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made
acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your
imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more
exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master’s righthand
trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of
Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have
been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea
shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular
company for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master—or as I more
justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him, does
not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African
potentate on my subject’s legs?—_he_ is delighted with these isles, and
this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. He now
blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes the poor thing appears
stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues his
career with truculent insensibility. Health appears to reign in the
party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left
England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there
is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate
WOODEN PAPER-CUTTER.
A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Taiti_, _October_ 16_th_, 1888.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning
bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet will
travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a better
ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will wag your
pow over it; and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has it not spirit
all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy painted it, has
it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has considerable
merit! Read it, get a typewritten copy taken, and send me that and your
opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting the most
excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending the thing is
that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS. go down
with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it has
left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for
putting eggs in various baskets.
We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Reiatea, Bora-Bora, and the
Sandwiches.
O, how my spirit languishes
To step ashore on the Sanguishes;
For there my letters wait,
There shall I know my fate.
O, how my spirit languidges
To step ashore on the Sanguidges.
18_th_.—I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am quite
recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these climates and
this voyage have given me more strength than I could have thought
possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the mind
and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of space, the
cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors, the captain,
the passengers—but you are amply repaid when you sight an island, and
drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble has attended this trip, but I
must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, as in the last
few weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that were the
bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and to some
degree from my temper. Do you know what they called the _Casco_ at
Fakarava? The _Silver Ship_. Is that not pretty? Pray tell Mrs.
Jenkin, _die silberne Frau_, as I only learned it since I wrote her. I
think of calling the book by that name: _The Cruise of the Silver
Ship_—so there will be one poetic page at least—the title. At the
Sandwiches we shall say farewell to the _S. S._ with mingled feelings.
She is a lovely creature: the most beautiful thing at this moment in
Taiti.
Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to say.
You would think I was bursting: but the voyage is all stored up for the
book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the
time are not worth telling; and our news is little.
Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now stored, and the Blue
Peter metaphorically flies.
R. L. S.
TO WILLIAM AND THOMAS ARCHER
_Taiti_, _October_ 17_th_, 1888.
DEAR ARCHER,—Though quite unable to write letters, I nobly send you a
line signifying nothing. The voyage has agreed well with all; it has had
its pains, and its extraordinary pleasures; nothing in the world can
equal the excitement of the first time you cast anchor in some bay of a
tropical island, and the boats begin to surround you, and the tattooed
people swarm aboard. Tell Tomarcher, with my respex, that hide-and-seek
is not equal to it; no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of
that, is a game for the unskilful: the artist prefers daylight, a
good-sized garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, and—come on, Macduff.
TOMARCHER, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but that was not the
real bent of my genius. I was the best player of hide-and-seek going;
not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge, I could jink very
well, I could crawl without any noise through leaves, I could hide under
a carrot plant, it used to be my favourite boast that I always _walked_
into the den. You may care to hear, Tomarcher, about the children in
these parts; their parents obey them, they do not obey their parents; and
I am sorry to tell you (for I dare say you are already thinking the idea
a good one) that it does not pay one halfpenny. There are three sorts of
civilisation, Tomarcher: the real old-fashioned one, in which children
either had to find out how to please their dear papas, or their dear
papas cut their heads off. This style did very well, but is now out of
fashion. Then the modern European style: in which children have to
behave reasonably well, and go to school and say their prayers, or their
dear papas _will know the reason why_. This does fairly well. Then
there is the South Sea Island plan, which does not do one bit. The
children beat their parents here; it does not make their parents any
better; so do not try it.
Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your new house, but will
send this to one of your papa’s publishers. Remember us all to all of
you, and believe me, yours respectably,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Tautira_ (_The Garden of the World_), _otherwise called_
_Hans-Christian-Andersen-ville_ [_November_ 1888].
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Whether I have a penny left in the wide world, I know
not, nor shall know, till I get to Honolulu, where I anticipate a devil
of an awakening. It will be from a mighty pleasant dream at least:
Tautira being mere Heaven. But suppose, for the sake of argument, any
money to be left in the hands of my painful doer, what is to be done with
it? Save us from exile would be the wise man’s choice, I suppose; for
the exile threatens to be eternal. But yet I am of opinion—in case there
should be _some_ dibs in the hand of the P.D., _i.e._ painful doer;
because if there be none, I shall take to my flageolet on the high-road,
and work home the best way I can, having previously made away with my
family—I am of opinion that if — and his are in the customary state, and
you are thinking of an offering, and there should be still some funds
over, you would be a real good P.D. to put some in with yours and tak’
the credit o’t, like a wee man! I know it’s a beastly thing to ask; but
it, after all, does no earthly harm, only that much good. And besides,
like enough there’s nothing in the till, and there is an end. Yet I live
here in the full lustre of millions; it is thought I am the richest son
of man that has yet been to Tautira: I!—and I am secretly eaten with the
fear of lying in pawn, perhaps for the remainder of my days, in San
Francisco. As usual, my colds have much hashed my finances.
Do tell Henley I write this just after having dismissed Ori the
sub-chief, in whose house I live, Mrs. Ori, and Pairai, their adopted
child, from the evening hour of music: during which I Publickly (with a
k) Blow on the Flageolet. These are words of truth. Yesterday I told
Ori about W. E. H., counterfeited his playing on the piano and the pipe,
and succeeded in sending the six feet four there is of that sub-chief
somewhat sadly to his bed; feeling that his was not the genuine article
after all. Ori is exactly like a colonel in the Guards.—I am, dear
Charles, ever yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
_Tautira_, 10_th_ _November_ ’88.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Our mainmast is dry-rotten, and we are all to the devil;
I shall lie in a debtor’s jail. Never mind, Tautira is first chop. I am
so besotted that I shall put on the back of this my attempt at words to
Wandering Willie; if you can conceive at all the difficulty, you will
also conceive the vanity with which I regard any kind of result; and
whatever mine is like, it has some sense, and Burns’s has none.
Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree.
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door—
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
R. L. S.
TO J. A. SYMONDS
_November_ 11_th_ 1888.
_One November night_, _in the village of Tautira_, _we sat at the high
table in the hall of assembly_, _hearing the natives sing_. _It was dark
in the hall_, _and very warm_; _though at times the land wind blew a
little shrewdly through the chinks_, _and at times_, _through the larger
openings_, _we could see the moonlight on the lawn_. _As the songs arose
in the rattling Tahitian chorus_, _the chief translated here and there a
verse_. _Farther on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves_;
_and I am in hopes that not you only_, _but all who can find a savour in
the ancient poetry of places_, _will read them with some pleasure_. _You
are to conceive us_, _therefore_, _in strange circumstances and very
pleasing_; _in a strange land and climate_, _the most beautiful on
earth_; _surrounded by a foreign race that all travellers have agreed to
be the most engaging_; _and taking a double interest in two foreign
arts_.
_We came forth again at last_, _in a cloudy moonlight_, _on the forest
lawn which is the street of Tautira_. _The Pacific roared outside upon
the reef_. _Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone
out under the shadow of the wood_, _the lamplight bursting through the
crannies of the wall_. _We went homeward slowly_, _Ori a Ori carrying
behind us the lantern and the chairs_, _properties with which we had just
been enacting our part of the distinguished visitor_. _It was one of
those moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and
deplore the absence of congenial friends_; _and it was your name that
first rose upon our lips_. ‘_How Symonds would have enjoyed this
evening_!’ _said one_, _and then another_. _The word caught in my mind_;
_I went to bed_, _and it was still there_. _The glittering_, _frosty
solitudes in which your days are cast arose before me_: _I seemed to see
you walking there in the late night_, _under the pine-trees and the
stars_; _and I received the image with something like remorse_.
_There is a modern attitude towards fortune_; _in this place I will not
use a graver name_. _Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy
with equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old_. _Our
fathers_, _it should seem_, _wondered and doubted how they had merited
their misfortunes_: _we_, _rather how we have deserved our happiness_.
_And we stand often abashed and sometimes revolted_, _at those
partialities of fate by which we profit most_. _It was so with me on
that November night_: _I felt that our positions should be changed_. _It
was you_, _dear Symonds_, _who should have gone upon that voyage and
written this account_. _With your rich stores of knowledge_, _you could
have remarked and understood a thousand things of interest and beauty
that escaped my ignorance_; _and the brilliant colours of your style
would have carried into a thousand sickrooms the sea air and the strong
sun of tropic islands_. _It was otherwise decreed_. _But suffer me at
least to connect you_, _if only in name and only in the fondness of
imagination_, _with the voyage of the_ ‘Silver Ship.’
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
DEAR SYMONDS,—I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its
completion. If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place this
letter at the beginning? It represents—I need not tell you, for you too
are an artist—a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake last
night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think it a good piece of
writing. We are _in heaven here_. Do not forget
R. L. S.
Please keep this: I have no perfect copy.
_Tautira_, _on the peninsula of Tahiti_.
TO THOMAS ARCHER
_Tautira_, _Island of Tahiti_ [_November_ 1888].
DEAR TOMARCHER,—This is a pretty state of things! seven o’clock and no
word of breakfast! And I was awake a good deal last night, for it was
full moon, and they had made a great fire of cocoa-nut husks down by the
sea, and as we have no blinds or shutters, this kept my room very bright.
And then the rats had a wedding or a school-feast under my bed. And then
I woke early, and I have nothing to read except Virgil’s _Æneid_, which
is not good fun on an empty stomach, and a Latin dictionary, which is
good for naught, and by some humorous accident, your dear papa’s article
on Skerryvore. And I read the whole of that, and very impudent it is,
but you must not tell your dear papa I said so, or it might come to a
battle in which you might lose either a dear papa or a valued
correspondent, or both, which would be prodigal. And still no breakfast;
so I said ‘Let’s write to Tomarcher.’
This is a much better place for children than any I have hitherto seen in
these seas. The girls (and sometimes the boys) play a very elaborate
kind of hopscotch. The boys play horses exactly as we do in Europe; and
have very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each other down, in which
they do not often succeed. The children of all ages go to church and are
allowed to do what they please, running about the aisles, rolling balls,
stealing mamma’s bonnet and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to
sleep in the middle of the floor. I forgot to say that the whips to play
horses, and the balls to roll about the church—at least I never saw them
used elsewhere—grow ready made on trees; which is rough on toy-shops.
The whips are so good that I wanted to play horses myself; but no such
luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, ugly man. The balls are
rather hard, but very light and quite round. When you grow up and become
offensively rich, you can charter a ship in the port of London, and have
it come back to you entirely loaded with these balls; when you could
satisfy your mind as to their character, and give them away when done
with to your uncles and aunts. But what I really wanted to tell you was
this: besides the tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on the tree-top!),
I have seen some real _made_ toys, the first hitherto observed in the
South Seas.
This was how. You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; one horse; in the
front seat two Tahiti natives, in their Sunday clothes, blue coat, white
shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue stuff with big
white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the back seat me and my
wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, plenty of lunch and
things: among us a great deal of fun in broken Tahitian, one of the
natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a great ally of mine.
Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is now called Rui, the nearest
they can come to Louis, for they have no _l_ and no _s_ in their
language. Rui is six feet three in his stockings, and a magnificent man.
We all have straw hats, for the sun is strong. We drive between the sea,
which makes a great noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a
forest mostly of fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of
our ivy, heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than your head
and far nicer, called Barbedine. Presently we came to a house in a
pretty garden, quite by itself, very nicely kept, the doors and windows
open, no one about, and no noise but that of the sea. It looked like a
house in a fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a river, and there we
saw the inhabitants. Just in the mouth of the river, where it met the
sea waves, they were ducking and bathing and screaming together like a
covey of birds: seven or eight little naked brown boys and girls as happy
as the day was long; and on the banks of the stream beside them, real
toys—toy ships, full rigged, and with their sails set, though they were
lying in the dust on their beam ends. And then I knew for sure they were
all children in a fairy-story, living alone together in that lonely house
with the only toys in all the island; and that I had myself driven, in my
four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, and the question was,
should I get out again? But it was all right; I guess only one of the
wheels of the gig had got into the fairy-story; and the next jolt the
whole thing vanished, and we drove on in our sea-side forest as before,
and I have the honour to be Tomarcher’s valued correspondent, TERIITEPA,
which he was previously known as
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Yacht_ ‘_Casco_,’ _at Sea_, 14_th_ _January_, 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Twenty days out from Papeete. Yes, sir, all that, and
only (for a guess) in 4° north or at the best 4° 30′, though already the
wind seems to smell a little of the North Pole. My handwriting you must
take as you get, for we are speeding along through a nasty swell, and I
can only keep my place at the table by means of a foot against the divan,
the unoccupied hand meanwhile gripping the ink-bottle. As we begin (so
very slowly) to draw near to seven months of correspondence, we are all
in some fear; and I want to have letters written before I shall be
plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables which I constantly expect
at Honolulu. What is needful can be added there.
We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of my dear old friend,
Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this invaluable yacht had been
repaired. It was all for the best: Tautira being the most beautiful
spot, and its people the most amiable, I have ever found. Besides which,
the climate suited me to the ground; I actually went sea-bathing almost
every day, and in our feasts (we are all huge eaters in Taiarapu) have
been known to apply four times for pig. And then again I got wonderful
materials for my book, collected songs and legends on the spot; songs
still sung in chorus by perhaps a hundred persons, not two of whom can
agree on their translation; legends, on which I have seen half a dozen
seniors sitting in conclave and debating what came next. Once I went a
day’s journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high chief of
the Tevas—_my_ chief that is, for I am now a Teva and Teriitera, at your
service—to collect more and correct what I had already. In the meanwhile
I got on with my work, almost finished the _Master of Ballantrae_, which
contains more human work than anything of mine but _Kidnapped_, and wrote
the half of another ballad, the _Song of Rahero_, on a Taiarapu legend of
my own clan, sir—not so much fire as the _Feast of Famine_, but promising
to be more even and correct. But the best fortune of our stay at Tautira
was my knowledge of Ori himself, one of the finest creatures extant. The
day of our parting was a sad one. We deduced from it a rule for
travellers: not to stay two months in one place—which is to cultivate
regrets.
At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for
Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now have
experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary
winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came almost
to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken. Three days ago our
luck seemed to improve, we struck a leading breeze, got creditably
through the doldrums, and just as we looked to have the N.E. trades and a
straight run, the rains and squalls and calms began again about midnight,
and this morning, though there is breeze enough to send us along, we are
beaten back by an obnoxious swell out of the north. Here is a page of
complaint, when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps been more in place.
For all this time we must have been skirting past dangerous weather, in
the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and getting only annoyance
where we should have had peril, and ill-humour instead of fear.
I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this time, or whether the
usual damn hangs over my letter? ‘The midwife whispered, Be thou dull!’
or at least inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted with
the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. I cannot tell
you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: two nights
ago, the 12th January, we had it all planned out, arrived in the lights
and whirl of Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road, over the
bridge, etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in triumph and with
indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, I always think we are too
sparing of assurances: Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and
Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer I live,
the more dear do you become to me; nor does my heart own any stronger
sentiment. If the bloody schooner didn’t send me flying in every sort of
direction at the same time, I would say better what I feel so much; but
really, if you were here, you would not be writing letters, I believe;
and even I, though of a more marine constitution, am much perturbed by
this bobbery and wish—O ye Gods, how I wish!—that it was done, and we had
arrived, and I had Pandora’s Box (my mail bag) in hand, and was in the
lively hope of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse, tinned
mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, which now make up our
whole repertory. O Pandora’s Box! I wonder what you will contain. As
like as not you will contain but little money: if that be so, we shall
have to retire to ’Frisco in the _Casco_, and thence by sea _via_ Panama
to Southampton, where we should arrive in April. I would like fine to
see you on the tug: ten years older both of us than the last time you
came to welcome Fanny and me to England. If we have money, however, we
shall do a little differently: send the _Casco_ away from Honolulu empty
of its high-born lessees, for that voyage to ’Frisco is one long dead
beat in foul and at last in cold weather; stay awhile behind, follow by
steamer, cross the States by train, stay awhile in New York on business,
and arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton. But all this is a
question of money. We shall have to lie very dark awhile to recruit our
finances: what comes from the book of the cruise, I do not want to touch
until the capital is repaid.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Honolulu_, _January_ 1889.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—Here at last I have arrived. We could not get away
from Tahiti till Christmas Day, and then had thirty days of calms and
squalls, a deplorable passage. This has thrown me all out of gear in
every way. I plunge into business.
1. _The Master_: Herewith go three more parts. You see he grows in
balk; this making ten already, and I am not yet sure if I can finish it
in an eleventh; which shall go to you _quam primum_—I hope by next mail.
2. _Illustrations to M_. I totally forgot to try to write to Hole. It
was just as well, for I find it impossible to forecast with sufficient
precision. You had better throw off all this and let him have it at
once. _Please do_: _all_, _and at once_: _see further_; and I should
hope he would still be in time for the later numbers. The three pictures
I have received are so truly good that I should bitterly regret having
the volume imperfectly equipped. They are the best illustrations I have
seen since I don’t know when.
3. _Money_. To-morrow the mail comes in, and I hope it will bring me
money either from you or home, but I will add a word on that point.
4. My address will be Honolulu—no longer Yacht _Casco_, which I am
packing off—till probably April.
5. As soon as I am through with _The Master_, I shall finish the _Game
of Bluff_—now rechristened _The Wrong Box_. This I wish to sell, cash
down. It is of course copyright in the States; and I offer it to you for
five thousand dollars. Please reply on this by return. Also please tell
the typewriter who was so good as to be amused by our follies that I am
filled with admiration for his piece of work.
6. _Master_ again. Please see that I haven’t the name of the Governor
of New York wrong (1764 is the date) in part ten. I have no book of
reference to put me right. Observe you now have up to August inclusive
in hand, so you should begin to feel happy.
Is this all? I wonder, and fear not. Henry the Trader has not yet
turned up: I hope he may to-morrow, when we expect a mail. Not one word
of business have I received either from the States or England, nor
anything in the shape of coin; which leaves me in a fine uncertainty and
quite penniless on these islands. H.M. {132} (who is a gentleman of a
courtly order and much tinctured with letters) is very polite; I may
possibly ask for the position of palace doorkeeper. My voyage has been a
singular mixture of good and ill-fortune. As far as regards interest and
material, the fortune has been admirable; as far as regards time, money,
and impediments of all kinds, from squalls and calms to rotten masts and
sprung spars, simply detestable. I hope you will be interested to hear
of two volumes on the wing. The cruise itself, you are to know, will
make a big volume with appendices; some of it will first appear as (what
they call) letters in some of M’Clure’s papers. I believe the book when
ready will have a fair measure of serious interest: I have had great
fortune in finding old songs and ballads and stories, for instance, and
have many singular instances of life in the last few years among these
islands.
The second volume is of ballads. You know _Ticonderoga_. I have written
another: _The Feast of Famine_, a Marquesan story. A third is half done:
_The Song of Rahero_, a genuine Tahitian legend. A fourth dances before
me. A Hawaiian fellow this, _The Priest’s Drought_, or some such name.
If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects out of the islands,
_Ticonderoga_ shall be suppressed, and we’ll call the volume _South Sea
Ballads_. In health, spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do
believe, refreshed capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise folly.
Still we’re not home, and (although the friend of a crowned head) are
penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents used to call them)
‘lovely but _fatil_ islands.’ By the way, who wrote the _Lion of the
Nile_? My dear sir, that is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it has a
true thought and a true ring of language. Beg the anonymous from me, to
delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, and end on ‘the
lion of the Nile.’ One Lampman has a good sonnet on a ‘Winter Evening’
in, I think, the same number: he seems ill named, but I am tempted to
hope a man is not always answerable for his name. {133} For instance,
you would think you knew mine. No such matter. It is—at your service
and Mr. Scribner’s and that of all of the faithful—Teriitera (pray
pronounce Tayree-Tayra) or (_gallicé_) Téri-téra.
R. L. S.
More when the mail shall come.
* * * * *
I am an idiot. I want to be clear on one point. Some of Hole’s drawings
must of course be too late; and yet they seem to me so excellent I would
fain have the lot complete. It is one thing for you to pay for drawings
which are to appear in that soul-swallowing machine, your magazine: quite
another if they are only to illustrate a volume. I wish you to take a
brisk (even a fiery) decision on the point; and let Hole know. To resume
my desultory song, I desire you would carry the same fire (hereinbefore
suggested) into your decision on the _Wrong Box_; for in my present state
of benighted ignorance as to my affairs for the last seven months—I know
not even whether my house or my mother’s house have been let—I desire to
see something definite in front of me—outside the lot of palace
doorkeeper. I believe the said _Wrong Box_ is a real lark; in which, of
course, I may be grievously deceived; but the typewriter is with me. I
may also be deceived as to the numbers of _The Master_ now going and
already gone; but to me they seem First Chop, sir, First Chop. I hope I
shall pull off that damned ending; but it still depresses me: this is
your doing, Mr. Burlingame: you would have it there and then, and I fear
it—I fear that ending.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu_, _February_ 8_th_, 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Here we are at Honolulu, and have dismissed the yacht,
and lie here till April anyway, in a fine state of haze, which I am yet
in hopes some letter of yours (still on the way) may dissipate. No
money, and not one word as to money! However, I have got the yacht paid
off in triumph, I think; and though we stay here impignorate, it should
not be for long, even if you bring us no extra help from home. The
cruise has been a great success, both as to matter, fun, and health; and
yet, Lord, man! we’re pleased to be ashore! Yon was a very fine voyage
from Tahiti up here, but—the dry land’s a fine place too, and we don’t
mind squalls any longer, and eh, man, that’s a great thing. Blow, blow,
thou wintry wind, thou hast done me no appreciable harm beyond a few grey
hairs! Altogether, this foolhardy venture is achieved; and if I have but
nine months of life and any kind of health, I shall have both eaten my
cake and got it back again with usury. But, man, there have been days
when I felt guilty, and thought I was in no position for the head of a
house.
Your letter and accounts are doubtless at S. F., and will reach me in
course. My wife is no great shakes; she is the one who has suffered
most. My mother has had a Huge Old Time; Lloyd is first chop; I so well
that I do not know myself—sea-bathing, if you please, and what is far
more dangerous, entertaining and being entertained by His Majesty here,
who is a very fine intelligent fellow, but O, Charles! what a crop for
the drink! He carries it, too, like a mountain with a sparrow on its
shoulders. We calculated five bottles of champagne in three hours and a
half (afternoon), and the sovereign quite presentable, although
perceptibly more dignified at the end. . . .
The extraordinary health I enjoy and variety of interests I find among
these islands would tempt me to remain here; only for Lloyd, who is not
well placed in such countries for a permanency; and a little for Colvin,
to whom I feel I owe a sort of filial duty. And these two considerations
will no doubt bring me back—to go to bed again—in England.—Yours ever
affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Honolulu_, _Hawaiian Islands_, _February_ 1889.
MY DEAR BOB,—My extremely foolhardy venture is practically over. How
foolhardy it was I don’t think I realised. We had a very small schooner,
and, like most yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and like many
American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The waters we sailed in
are, of course, entirely unlighted, and very badly charted; in the
Dangerous Archipelago, through which we were fools enough to go, we were
perfectly in ignorance of where we were for a whole night and half the
next day, and this in the midst of invisible islands and rapid and
variable currents; and we were lucky when we found our whereabouts at
last. We have twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as I
came on deck, I found the green sea over the cockpit coamings and running
down the companion like a brook to meet me; at that same moment the
foresail sheet jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the only
occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, but I worked
like a Trojan, judging the possibility of hæmorrhage better than the
certainty of drowning. Another time I saw a rather singular thing: our
whole ship’s company as pale as paper from the captain to the cook; we
had a black squall astern on the port side and a white squall ahead to
starboard; the complication passed off innocuous, the black squall only
fetching us with its tail, and the white one slewing off somewhere else.
Twice we were a long while (days) in the close vicinity of hurricane
weather, but again luck prevailed, and we saw none of it. These are
dangers incident to these seas and small craft. What was an amazement,
and at the same time a powerful stroke of luck, both our masts were
rotten, and we found it out—I was going to say in time, but it was
stranger and luckier than that. The head of the mainmast hung over so
that hands were afraid to go to the helm; and less than three weeks
before—I am not sure it was more than a fortnight—we had been nearly
twelve hours beating off the lee shore of Eimeo (or Moorea, next island
to Tahiti) in half a gale of wind with a violent head sea: she would
neither tack nor wear once, and had to be boxed off with the mainsail—you
can imagine what an ungodly show of kites we carried—and yet the mast
stood. The very day after that, in the southern bight of Tahiti, we had
a near squeak, the wind suddenly coming calm; the reefs were close in
with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought we were gone, and the
captain had a boat cleared, when a lucky squall came to our rescue. My
wife, hearing the order given about the boats, remarked to my mother,
‘Isn’t that nice? We shall soon be ashore!’ Thus does the female mind
unconsciously skirt along the verge of eternity. Our voyage up here was
most disastrous—calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain, hurricane
weather all about, and we in the midst of the hurricane season, when even
the hopeful builder and owner of the yacht had pronounced these seas
unfit for her. We ran out of food, and were quite given up for lost in
Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to Belle {137} about the _Casco_, as
a deadly subject.
But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; and though I am
very glad to be done with them for a while and comfortably ashore, where
a squall does not matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall
want to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took was
financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink a lot of money in the
cruise, and if I didn’t get health, how was I to get it back? I have got
health to a wonderful extent; and as I have the most interesting matter
for my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a
profit. But, second (what I own I never considered till too late), there
was the danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of
disablement, towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned
round and cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear
the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her
deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine till she
gets there.
From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful success.
I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last voyage we had grown
so used to sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a full month,
except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our visits to the islands
have been more like dreams than realities: the people, the life, the
beachcombers, the old stories and songs I have picked up, so interesting;
the climate, the scenery, and (in some places) the women, so beautiful.
The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the Marquesas; both as
fine types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me, I have not told you one
characteristic incident of the cruise from a semi-naval point of view.
One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay; the most awful noise on
deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the cabin; and there I had to
sit below, entertaining in my best style a negroid native chieftain, much
the worse for rum! You can imagine the evening’s pleasure.
This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would be incomplete
without one other trait. On our voyage up here I came one day into the
dining-room, the hatch in the floor was open, the ship’s boy was below
with a baler, and two of the hands were carrying buckets as for a fire;
this meant that the pumps had ceased working.
One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. It blew fair, but
very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all single-reefed,
and she carried her lee rail under water and flew. The swell, the
heaviest I have ever been out in—I tried in vain to estimate the height,
_at least_ fifteen feet—came tearing after us about a point and a half
off the wind. We had the best hand—old Louis—at the wheel; and, really,
he did nobly, and had noble luck, for it never caught us once. At times
it seemed we must have it; Louis would look over his shoulder with the
queerest look and dive down his neck into his shoulders; and then it
missed us somehow, and only sprays came over our quarter, turning the
little outside lane of deck into a mill race as deep as to the cockpit
coamings. I never remember anything more delightful and exciting.
Pretty soon after we were lying absolutely becalmed under the lee of
Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the captain never confessed he
had done it on purpose, but when accused, he smiled. Really, I suppose
he did quite right, for we stood committed to a dangerous race, and to
bring her to the wind would have been rather a heart-sickening manœuvre.
R. L. S.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
_Honolulu_, _Sandwich Islands_, _February_ 8_th_, 1889.
DEAR SIR,—I thank you—from the midst of such a flurry as you can imagine,
with seven months’ accumulated correspondence on my table—for your two
friendly and clever letters. Pray write me again. I shall be home in
May or June, and not improbably shall come to Paris in the summer. Then
we can talk; or in the interval I may be able to write, which is to-day
out of the question. Pray take a word from a man of crushing
occupations, and count it as a volume. Your little _conte_ is
delightful. Ah yes, you are right, I love the eighteenth century; and so
do you, and have not listened to its voice in vain.—The Hunted One,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu_, 8_th_ _March_ 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—At last I have the accounts: the Doer has done
excellently, and in the words of —, ‘I reciprocate every step of your
behaviour.’ . . I send a letter for Bob in your care, as I don’t know
his Liverpool address, by which (for he is to show you part of it) you
will see we have got out of this adventure—or hope to have—with wonderful
fortune. I have the retrospective horrors on me when I think of the
liabilities I incurred; but, thank God, I think I’m in port again, and I
have found one climate in which I can enjoy life. Even Honolulu is too
cold for me; but the south isles were a heaven upon earth to a puir,
catarrhal party like Johns’one. We think, as Tahiti is too complete a
banishment, to try Madeira. It’s only a week from England, good
communications, and I suspect in climate and scenery not unlike our dear
islands; in people, alas! there can be no comparison. But friends could
go, and I could come in summer, so I should not be quite cut off.
Lloyd and I have finished a story, _The Wrong Box_. If it is not funny,
I am sure I do not know what is. I have split over writing it. Since I
have been here, I have been toiling like a galley slave: three numbers of
_The Master_ to rewrite, five chapters of the _Wrong Box_ to write and
rewrite, and about five hundred lines of a narrative poem to write,
rewrite, and re-rewrite. Now I have _The Master_ waiting me for its
continuation, two numbers more; when that’s done, I shall breathe. This
spasm of activity has been chequered with champagne parties: Happy and
Glorious, Hawaii Ponoi paua: kou moi—(Native Hawaiians, dote upon your
monarch!) Hawaiian God save the King. (In addition to my other labours,
I am learning the language with a native moonshee.) Kalakaua is a
terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry to him, he
thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon as a whet for dinner. You
should see a photograph of our party after an afternoon with H. H. M.:
my! what a crew!—Yours ever affectionately,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Honolulu_ [_March_ 1889].
MY DEAR JAMES,—Yes—I own up—I am untrue to friendship and (what is less,
but still considerable) to civilisation. I am not coming home for
another year. There it is, cold and bald, and now you won’t believe in
me at all, and serve me right (says you) and the devil take me. But look
here, and judge me tenderly. I have had more fun and pleasure of my life
these past months than ever before, and more health than any time in ten
long years. And even here in Honolulu I have withered in the cold; and
this precious deep is filled with islands, which we may still visit; and
though the sea is a deathful place, I like to be there, and like squalls
(when they are over); and to draw near to a new island, I cannot say how
much I like. In short, I take another year of this sort of life, and
mean to try to work down among the poisoned arrows, and mean (if it may
be) to come back again when the thing is through, and converse with Henry
James as heretofore; and in the meanwhile issue directions to H. J. to
write to me once more. Let him address here at Honolulu, for my views
are vague; and if it is sent here it will follow and find me, if I am to
be found; and if I am not to be found the man James will have done his
duty, and we shall be at the bottom of the sea, where no post-office
clerk can be expected to discover us, or languishing on a coral island,
the philosophic drudges of some barbarian potentate: perchance, of an
American Missionary. My wife has just sent to Mrs. Sitwell a translation
(_tant bien que mal_) of a letter I have had from my chief friend in this
part of the world: go and see her, and get a hearing of it; it will do
you good; it is a better method of correspondence than even Henry
James’s. {141} I jest, but seriously it is a strange thing for a tough,
sick, middle-aged scrivener like R. L. S. to receive a letter so
conceived from a man fifty years old, a leading politician, a crack
orator, and the great wit of his village: boldly say, ‘the highly popular
M.P. of Tautira.’ My nineteenth century strikes here, and lies alongside
of something beautiful and ancient. I think the receipt of such a letter
might humble, shall I say even —? and for me, I would rather have
received it than written _Redgauntlet_ or the _Sixth Æneid_. All told,
if my books have enabled or helped me to make this voyage, to know Rui,
and to have received such a letter, they have (in the old prefatorial
expression) not been writ in vain. It would seem from this that I have
been not so much humbled as puffed up; but, I assure you, I have in fact
been both. A little of what that letter says is my own earning; not all,
but yet a little; and the little makes me proud, and all the rest
ashamed; and in the contrast, how much more beautiful altogether is the
ancient man than him of to-day!
Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he _is_ of the nineteenth
century, and that glaringly. And to curry favour with him, I wish I
could be more explicit; but, indeed, I am still of necessity extremely
vague, and cannot tell what I am to do, nor where I am to go for some
while yet. As soon as I am sure, you shall hear. All are fairly
well—the wife, your countrywoman, least of all; troubles are not entirely
wanting; but on the whole we prosper, and we are all affectionately
yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Honolulu_, _April_ 2_nd_, 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—I am beginning to be ashamed of writing on to you without
the least acknowledgment, like a tramp; but I do not care—I am hardened;
and whatever be the cause of your silence, I mean to write till all is
blue. I am outright ashamed of my news, which is that we are not coming
home for another year. I cannot but hope it may continue the vast
improvement of my health: I think it good for Fanny and Lloyd; and we
have all a taste for this wandering and dangerous life. My mother I send
home, to my relief, as this part of our cruise will be (if we can carry
it out) rather difficult in places. Here is the idea: about the middle
of June (unless the Boston Board objects) we sail from Honolulu in the
missionary ship (barquentine auxiliary steamer) _Morning Star_: she takes
us through the Gilberts and Marshalls, and drops us (this is my great
idea) on Ponape, one of the volcanic islands of the Carolines. Here we
stay marooned among a doubtful population, with a Spanish vice-governor
and five native kings, and a sprinkling of missionaries all at
loggerheads, on the chance of fetching a passage to Sydney in a trader, a
labour ship, or (maybe, but this appears too bright) a ship of war. If
we can’t get the _Morning Star_ (and the Board has many reasons that I
can see for refusing its permission) I mean to try to fetch Fiji, hire a
schooner there, do the Fijis and Friendlies, hit the course of the
_Richmond_ at Tonga Tabu, make back by Tahiti, and so to S. F., and home:
perhaps in June 1890. For the latter part of the cruise will likely be
the same in either case. You can see for yourself how much variety and
adventure this promises, and that it is not devoid of danger at the best;
but if we can pull it off in safety, gives me a fine book of travel, and
Lloyd a fine lecture and diorama, which should vastly better our
finances.
I feel as if I were untrue to friendship; believe me, Colvin, when I look
forward to this absence of another year, my conscience sinks at thought
of the Monument; but I think you will pardon me if you consider how much
this tropical weather mends my health. Remember me as I was at home, and
think of me sea-bathing and walking about, as jolly as a sandboy: you
will own the temptation is strong; and as the scheme, bar fatal
accidents, is bound to pay into the bargain, sooner or later, it seems it
would be madness to come home now, with an imperfect book, no
illustrations to speak of, no diorama, and perhaps fall sick again by
autumn. I do not think I delude myself when I say the tendency to
catarrh has visibly diminished.
It is a singular tiring that as I was packing up old papers ere I left
Skerryvore, I came on the prophecies of a drunken Highland sibyl, when I
was seventeen. She said I was to be very happy, to visit America, and
_to be much upon the sea_. It seems as if it were coming true with a
vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong, old, rooted belief that I
shall die by drowning? I don’t want that to come true, though it is an
easy death; but it occurs to me oddly, with these long chances in front.
I cannot say why I like the sea; no man is more cynically and constantly
alive to its perils; I regard it as the highest form of gambling; and yet
I love the sea as much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean emotions; a world
all and always beautiful; air better than wine; interest unflagging;
there is upon the whole no better life.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Honolulu_, _April_ 1889.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—This is to announce the most prodigious change of
programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I desire to see
more, and I get so much health here that I dread a return to our vile
climates. I have applied accordingly to the missionary folk to let me go
round in the _Morning Star_; and if the Boston Board should refuse, I
shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a trading schooner, and see the Fijis and
Friendlies and Samoa. He would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. Of
course, if I go in the _Morning Star_, I see all the eastern (or
western?) islands.
Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last of _The Master_:
though I tell you it sticks!—and I hope to have had some proofs forbye,
of the verses anyway. And now to business.
I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if not, in
some equally compact and portable shape—Seaside Library, for instance—the
Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can get ’em, and the
following of Marryat: _Phantom Ship_, _Peter Simple_, _Percival Keene_,
_Privateersman_, _Children of the New Forest_, _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton
Forster_, _Dog Fiend_ (_Snarleyyow_). Also _Midshipman Easy_,
_Kingsburn_, Carlyle’s _French Revolution_, Motley’s _Dutch Republic_,
Lang’s _Letters on Literature_, a complete set of my works, _Jenkin_, in
duplicate; also _Familiar Studies_, ditto.
I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory indeed, and
for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have come and gone before
I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite
worked out, and this cursed end of _The Master_ hangs over me like the
arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before dawn, and no doubt
the clouds will soon rise; but it is a difficult thing to write, above
all in Mackellarese; and I cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this
off, _The Master_ will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived;
and even if I don’t pull it off, it’ll still have some stuff in it.
We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother
leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to come
here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address, which will
probably be Sydney. If we get on the _Morning Star_, I propose at
present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of getting a
passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons mighty vague, and
the cruise is risky; but I shall know something of the South Seas when it
is done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. It
should give me a fine book of travels, anyway.
Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him have
them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my books should go
to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht _Casco_, Oakland, Cal.
In haste,
R. L. S.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Honolulu_, _April_ 6_th_, 1889.
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,—Nobody writes a better letter than my Gamekeeper: so
gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular, answering (by some delicate
instinct) all the questions she suggests. It is a shame you should get
such a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially and originally
incapable of the art epistolary. I would let the paper-cutter take my
place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden seaman did after the
manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies. The place he seems to
have stayed at—seems, for his absence was not observed till we were near
the Equator—was Tautira, and, I assure you, he displayed good taste,
Tautira being as ‘nigh hand heaven’ as a paper-cutter or anybody has a
right to expect.
I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and I give the
grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly—we are not coming home for
another year. My mother returns next month. Fanny, Lloyd, and I push on
again among the islands on a trading schooner, the _Equator_—first for
the Gilbert group, which we shall have an opportunity to explore
thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to the Marshalls and Carolines; and
if occasion (or money) fail, to Samoa, and back to Tahiti. I own we are
deserters, but we have excuses. You cannot conceive how these climates
agree with the wretched house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find
himself sea-bathing, and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up
person. They agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her
rheumatism, and with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is
endless; and the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very
delightful. We had applied for places in the American missionary ship,
the _Morning Star_, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea,
giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we determined to
cut off the missionaries with a shilling.
The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; we live here,
oppressed with civilisation, and look for good things in the future. But
it would surprise you if you came out to-night from Honolulu (all shining
with electric lights, and all in a bustle from the arrival of the mail,
which is to carry you these lines) and crossed the long wooden causeway
along the beach, and came out on the road through Kapiolani park, and
seeing a gate in the palings, with a tub of gold-fish by the wayside,
entered casually in. The buildings stand in three groups by the edge of
the beach, where an angry little spitfire sea continually spirts and
thrashes with impotent irascibility, the big seas breaking further out
upon the reef. The first is a small house, with a very large summer
parlour, or _lanai_, as they call it here, roofed, but practically open.
There you will find the lamps burning and the family sitting about the
table, dinner just done: my mother, my wife, Lloyd, Belle, my wife’s
daughter, Austin her child, and to-night (by way of rarity) a guest. All
about the walls our South Sea curiosities, war clubs, idols, pearl
shells, stone axes, etc.; and the walls are only a small part of a lanai,
the rest being glazed or latticed windows, or mere open space. You will
see there no sign of the Squire, however; and being a person of a humane
disposition, you will only glance in over the balcony railing at the
merry-makers in the summer parlour, and proceed further afield after the
Exile. You look round, there is beautiful green turf, many trees of an
outlandish sort that drop thorns—look out if your feet are bare; but I
beg your pardon, you have not been long enough in the South Seas—and many
oleanders in full flower. The next group of buildings is ramshackle, and
quite dark; you make out a coach-house door, and look in—only some
cocoanuts; you try round to the left and come to the sea front, where
Venus and the moon are making luminous tracks on the water, and a great
swell rolls and shines on the outer reef; and here is another door—all
these places open from the outside—and you go in, and find photography,
tubs of water, negatives steeping, a tap, and a chair and an inkbottle,
where my wife is supposed to write; round a little further, a third door,
entering which you find a picture upon the easel and a table sticky with
paints; a fourth door admits you to a sort of court, where there is a hen
sitting—I believe on a fallacious egg. No sign of the Squire in all
this. But right opposite the studio door you have observed a third
little house, from whose open door lamplight streams and makes hay of the
strong moonlight shadows. You had supposed it made no part of the
grounds, for a fence runs round it lined with oleander; but as the Squire
is nowhere else, is it not just possible he may be here? It is a grim
little wooden shanty; cobwebs bedeck it; friendly mice inhabit its
recesses; the mailed cockroach walks upon the wall; so also, I regret to
say, the scorpion. Herein are two pallet beds, two mosquito curtains,
strung to the pitch-boards of the roof, two tables laden with books and
manuscripts, three chairs, and, in one of the beds, the Squire busy
writing to yourself, as it chances, and just at this moment somewhat
bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect powder, and
will be all right in no time; but just now he contemplates large white
blisters, and would like to scratch them, but knows better. The house is
not bare; it has been inhabited by Kanakas, and—you know what children
are!—the bare wood walls are pasted over with pages from the _Graphic_,
_Harper’s Weekly_, etc. The floor is matted, and I am bound to say the
matting is filthy. There are two windows and two doors, one of which is
condemned; on the panels of that last a sheet of paper is pinned up, and
covered with writing. I cull a few plums:—
‘A duck-hammock for each person.
A patent organ like the commandant’s at Taiohae.
Cheap and bad cigars for presents.
Revolvers.
Permanganate of potass.
Liniment for the head and sulphur.
Fine tooth-comb.’
What do you think this is? Simply life in the South Seas foreshortened.
These are a few of our desiderata for the next trip, which we jot down as
they occur.
There, I have really done my best and tried to send something like a
letter—one letter in return for all your dozens. Pray remember us all to
yourself, Mrs. Boodle, and the rest of your house. I do hope your mother
will be better when this comes. I shall write and give you a new address
when I have made up my mind as to the most probable, and I do beg you
will continue to write from time to time and give us airs from home.
To-morrow—think of it—I must be off by a quarter to eight to drive in to
the palace and breakfast with his Hawaiian Majesty at 8.30: I shall be
dead indeed. Please give my news to Scott, I trust he is better; give
him my warm regards. To you we all send all kinds of things, and I am
the absentee Squire,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu_, _April_ 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—As usual, your letter is as good as a cordial, and I
thank you for it, and all your care, kindness, and generous and
thoughtful friendship, from my heart. I was truly glad to hear a word of
Colvin, whose long silence has terrified me; and glad to hear that you
condoned the notion of my staying longer in the South Seas, for I have
decided in that sense. The first idea was to go in the _Morning Star_,
missionary ship; but now I have found a trading schooner, the _Equator_,
which is to call for me here early in June and carry us through the
Gilberts. What will happen then, the Lord knows. My mother does not
accompany us: she leaves here for home early in May, and you will hear of
us from her; but not, I imagine, anything more definite. We shall get
dumped on Butaritari, and whether we manage to go on to the Marshalls and
Carolines, or whether we fall back on Samoa, Heaven must decide; but I
mean to fetch back into the course of the _Richmond_—(to think you don’t
know what the _Richmond_ is!—the steamer of the Eastern South Seas,
joining New Zealand, Tongatabu, the Samoas, Taheite, and Rarotonga, and
carrying by last advices sheep in the saloon!)—into the course of the
_Richmond_ and make Taheite again on the home track. Would I like to see
the _Scots Observer_? Wouldn’t I not? But whaur? I’m direckit at
space. They have nae post offishes at the Gilberts, and as for the
Car’lines! Ye see, Mr. Baxter, we’re no just in the punkshewal _centre_
o’ civ’lisation. But pile them up for me, and when I’ve decided on an
address, I’ll let you ken, and ye’ll can send them stavin’ after me.—Ever
your affectionate,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu_, 10_th_ _May_ 1889.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I am appalled to gather from your last just to hand that
you have felt so much concern about the letter. Pray dismiss it from
your mind. But I think you scarce appreciate how disagreeable it is to
have your private affairs and private unguarded expressions getting into
print. It would soon sicken any one of writing letters. I have no doubt
that letter was very wisely selected, but it just shows how things crop
up. There was a raging jealousy between the two yachts; our captain was
nearly in a fight over it. However, no more; and whatever you think, my
dear fellow, do not suppose me angry with you or —; although I was
_annoyed at the circumstance_—a very different thing. But it is
difficult to conduct life by letter, and I continually feel I may be
drifting into some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no part.
I must now turn to a point of business. This new cruise of ours is
somewhat venturesome; and I think it needful to warn you not to be in a
hurry to suppose us dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is quite on the
cards we might be cast on some unvisited, or very rarely visited, island;
that there we might lie for a long time, even years, unheard of; and yet
turn up smiling at the hinder end. So do not let me be ‘rowpit’ till you
get some certainty we have gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or graced the
feast of some barbarian in the character of Long Pig.
I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only
white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day,
living with a native, seeing four lepers shipped off to Molokai, hearing
native causes, and giving my opinion as _amicus curiæ_ as to the
interpretation of a statute in English; a lovely week among God’s best—at
least God’s sweetest works—Polynesians. It has bettered me greatly. If
I could only stay there the time that remains, I could get my work done
and be happy; but the care of my family keeps me in vile Honolulu, where
I am always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and cesspools and beastly
_haoles_. {152} What is a haole? You are one; and so, I am sorry to
say, am I. After so long a dose of whites, it was a blessing to get
among Polynesians again even for a week.
Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel’, I’ll say that for ye;
and trust before I sail I shall get another letter with more about
yourself.—Ever your affectionate friend
R. L. S.
TO W. H. LOW
_Honolulu_, (_about_) 20_th_ _May_ ’89.
MY DEAR LOW,—. . . The goods have come; many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excellest them all.—I have at length finished _The
Master_; it has been a sore cross to me; but now he is buried, his body’s
under hatches,—his soul, if there is any hell to go to, gone to hell; and
I forgive him: it is harder to forgive Burlingame for having induced me
to begin the publication, or myself for suffering the induction.—Yes, I
think Hole has done finely; it will be one of the most adequately
illustrated books of our generation; he gets the note, he tells the
story—_my_ story: I know only one failure—the Master standing on the
beach.—You must have a letter for me at Sydney—till further notice.
Remember me to Mrs. Will. H., the godlike sculptor, and any of the
faithful. If you want to cease to be a republican, see my little
Kaiulani, as she goes through—but she is gone already. You will die a
red, I wear the colours of that little royal maiden, _Nous allons chanter
à la ronde_, _si vous voulez_! only she is not blonde by several chalks,
though she is but a half-blood, and the wrong half Edinburgh Scots like
mysel’. But, O Low, I love the Polynesian: this civilisation of ours is
a dingy, ungentlemanly business; it drops out too much of man, and too
much of that the very beauty of the poor beast: who has his beauties in
spite of Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with no news: I
am a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt Zola is a better
correspondent.—Long live your fine old English admiral—yours, I mean—the
U.S.A. one at Samoa; I wept tears and loved myself and mankind when I
read of him: he is not too much civilised. And there was Gordon, too;
and there are others, beyond question. But if you could live, the only
white folk, in a Polynesian village; and drink that warm, light _vin du
pays_ of human affection, and enjoy that simple dignity of all about
you—I will not gush, for I am now in my fortieth year, which seems highly
unjust, but there it is, Mr. Low, and the Lord enlighten your
affectionate
R. L. S.
TO MRS. R. L. STEVENSON
_Kalawao_, _Molokai_ [_May_ 1889].
DEAR FANNY,—I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron and Mr. Gilfillan,
both born in the States, yet the first still with a strong Highland, and
the second still with a strong Lowland accent, were good company; the
night was warm, the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gilfillan gave me his
berth, and I slept well, though I heard the sisters sick in the next
stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling woke me in the morning; I turned in
all standing, so went right on the upper deck. The day was on the peep
out of a low morning bank, and we were wallowing along under stupendous
cliffs. As the lights brightened, we could see certain abutments and
buttresses on their front where wood clustered and grass grew brightly.
But the whole brow seemed quite impassable, and my heart sank at the
sight. Two thousand feet of rock making 19° (the Captain guesses) seemed
quite beyond my powers. However, I had come so far; and, to tell you the
truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that I dared not go back on
the adventure in the interests of my own self-respect. Presently we came
up with the leper promontory: lowland, quite bare and bleak and harsh, a
little town of wooden houses, two churches, a landing-stair, all
unsightly, sour, northerly, lying athwart the sunrise, with the great
wall of the pali cutting the world out on the south. Our lepers were
sent on the first boat, about a dozen, one poor child very horrid, one
white man, leaving a large grown family behind him in Honolulu, and then
into the second stepped the sisters and myself. I do not know how it
would have been with me had the sisters not been there. My horror of the
horrible is about my weakest point; but the moral loveliness at my elbow
blotted all else out; and when I found that one of them was crying, poor
soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a little myself; then I felt as
right as a trivet, only a little crushed to be there so uselessly. I
thought it was a sin and a shame she should feel unhappy; I turned round
to her, and said something like this: ‘Ladies, God Himself is here to
give you welcome. I’m sure it is good for me to be beside you; I hope it
will be blessed to me; I thank you for myself and the good you do me.’
It seemed to cheer her up; but indeed I had scarce said it when we were
at the landing-stairs, and there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God save
us!) pantomime masks in poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters
and the new patients.
Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made up my mind on the
boat’s voyage _not_ to give my hand; that seemed less offensive than the
gloves. So the sisters and I went up among that crew, and presently I
got aside (for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot across
the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. All horror was quite
gone from me: to see these dread creatures smile and look happy was
beautiful. On my way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful
_alohas_ with the patients coming galloping over on their horses; I was
stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was happy, only ashamed of myself
that I was here for no good. One woman was pretty, and spoke good
English, and was infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly;
she thought I was the new white patient; and when she found I was only a
visitor, a curious change came in her face and voice—the only sad thing,
morally sad, I mean—that I met that morning. But for all that, they tell
me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses became rare; dry
stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick pandanus; a dreary country;
from overhead in the little clinging wood shogs of the pali chirruping of
birds fell; the low sun was right in my face; the trade blew pure and
cool and delicious; I felt as right as ninepence, and stopped and chatted
with the patients whom I still met on their horses, with not the least
disgust. About half-way over, I met the superintendent (a leper) with a
horse for me, and O, wasn’t I glad! But the horse was one of those
curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always dully want to go somewhere
else, and my traffic with him completed my crushing fatigue. I got to
the guest-house, an empty house with several rooms, kitchen, bath, etc.
There was no one there, and I let the horse go loose in the garden, lay
down on the bed, and fell asleep.
Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came back and slept again
while he was at the dispensary, and he woke me for dinner; and I came
back and slept again, and he woke me about six for supper; and then in
about an hour I felt tired again, and came up to my solitary guest-house,
played the flageolet, and am now writing to you. As yet, you see, I have
seen nothing of the settlement, and my crushing fatigue (though I believe
that was moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the doctor’s opinion
make me think the pali hopeless. ‘You don’t look a strong man,’ said the
doctor; ‘but are you sound?’ I told him the truth; then he said it was
out of the question, and if I were to get up at all, I must be carried
up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses continually fall on this
ascent: the doctor goes up with a change of clothes—it is plain that to
be carried would in itself be very fatiguing to both mind and body; and I
should then be at the beginning of thirteen miles of mountain road to be
ridden against time. How should I come through? I hope you will think
me right in my decision: I mean to stay, and shall not be back in
Honolulu till Saturday, June first. You must all do the best you can to
make ready.
Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to toddle and run, and
they live here as composed as brick and mortar—at least the wife does, a
Kentucky German, a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite amazed
at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! Gilfillan too, a
good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, kept up his hard Lowland
Scottish talk in the boat while the sister was covering her face; but I
believe he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and part perhaps
in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, why I made my speech
to them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed to do so, and
remembered one of my golden rules, ‘When you are ashamed to speak, speak
up at once.’ But, mind you, that rule is only golden with strangers;
with your own folks, there are other considerations. This is a strange
place to be in. A bell has been sounded at intervals while I wrote, now
all is still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike the sound of
telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch dark, with a small
fine rain; one light over in the leper settlement, one cricket whistling
in the garden, my lamp here by my bedside, and my pen cheeping between my
inky fingers.
Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80° in the shade, strong,
sweet Anaho trade-wind.
LOUIS.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Honolulu_, _June_ 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—I am just home after twelve days journey to Molokai,
seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only say that the
sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high
to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. I used to ride over
from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three miles across the promontory, the
cliff-wall, ivied with forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my
left), go to the Sisters’ home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a
game of croquet with seven leper girls (90° in the shade), got a little
old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired
enough, but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing
them. You who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who know so
many dressmakers, please make it known it would be an acceptable gift to
send scraps for doll dressmaking to the Reverend Sister Maryanne, Bishop
Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaiian Islands.
I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard stories that cannot be
repeated: yet I never admired my poor race so much, nor (strange as it
may seem) loved life more than in the settlement. A horror of moral
beauty broods over the place: that’s like bad Victor Hugo, but it is the
only way I can express the sense that lived with me all these days. And
this even though it was in great part Catholic, and my sympathies flew
never with so much difficulty as towards Catholic virtues. The pass-book
kept with heaven stirs me to anger and laughter. One of the sisters
calls the place ‘the ticket office to heaven.’ Well, what is the odds?
They do their darg and do it with kindness and efficiency incredible; and
we must take folk’s virtues as we find them, and love the better part.
Of old Damien, whose weaknesses and worse perhaps I heard fully, I think
only the more. It was a European peasant: dirty, bigoted, untruthful,
unwise, tricky, but superb with generosity, residual candour and
fundamental good-humour: convince him he had done wrong (it might take
hours of insult) and he would undo what he had done and like his
corrector better. A man, with all the grime and paltriness of mankind,
but a saint and hero all the more for that. The place as regards scenery
is grand, gloomy, and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer
along the whole face of the island into a sea unusually deep; the front
of the mountain ivied and furred with clinging forest, one viridescent
cliff: about half-way from east to west, the low, bare, stony promontory
edged in between the cliff and the ocean; the two little towns (Kalawao
and Kalaupapa) seated on either side of it, as bare almost as bathing
machines upon a beach; and the population—gorgons and chimaeras dire.
All this tear of the nerves I bore admirably; and the day after I got
away, rode twenty miles along the opposite coast and up into the
mountains: they call it twenty, I am doubtful of the figures: I should
guess it nearer twelve; but let me take credit for what residents allege;
and I was riding again the day after, so I need say no more about health.
Honolulu does not agree with me at all: I am always out of sorts there,
with slight headache, blood to the head, etc. I had a good deal of work
to do and did it with miserable difficulty; and yet all the time I have
been gaining strength, as you see, which is highly encouraging. By the
time I am done with this cruise I shall have the material for a very
singular book of travels: names of strange stories and characters,
cannibals, pirates, ancient legends, old Polynesian poetry,—never was so
generous a farrago. I am going down now to get the story of a
shipwrecked family, who were fifteen months on an island with a murderer:
there is a specimen. The Pacific is a strange place; the nineteenth
century only exists there in spots: all round, it is a no man’s land of
the ages, a stir-about of epochs and races, barbarisms and civilisations,
virtues and crimes.
It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had known how ill you
were, I should be now on my way home. I had chartered my schooner and
made all arrangements before (at last) we got definite news. I feel
highly guilty; I should be back to insult and worry you a little. Our
address till further notice is to be c/o R. Towns and Co., Sydney. That
is final: I only got the arrangement made yesterday; but you may now
publish it abroad.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
_Honolulu_, _H.I._, _June_ 13_th_, 1889.
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,—I get sad news of you here at my offsetting for
further voyages: I wish I could say what I feel. Sure there was never
any man less deserved this calamity; for I have heard you speak time and
again, and I remember nothing that was unkind, nothing that was untrue,
nothing that was not helpful, from your lips. It is the ill-talkers that
should hear no more. God knows, I know no word of consolation; but I do
feel your trouble. You are the more open to letters now; let me talk to
you for two pages. I have nothing but happiness to tell; and you may
bless God you are a man so sound-hearted that (even in the freshness of
your calamity) I can come to you with my own good fortune unashamed and
secure of sympathy. It is a good thing to be a good man, whether deaf or
whether dumb; and of all our fellow-craftsmen (whom yet they count a
jealous race), I never knew one but gave you the name of honesty and
kindness: come to think of it gravely, this is better than the finest
hearing. We are all on the march to deafness, blindness, and all
conceivable and fatal disabilities; we shall not all get there with a
report so good. My good news is a health astonishingly reinstated. This
climate; these voyagings; these landfalls at dawn; new islands peaking
from the morning bank; new forested harbours; new passing alarms of
squalls and surf; new interests of gentle natives,—the whole tale of my
life is better to me than any poem.
I am fresh just now from the leper settlement of Molokai, playing croquet
with seven leper girls, sitting and yarning with old, blind, leper
beachcombers in the hospital, sickened with the spectacle of abhorrent
suffering and deformation amongst the patients, touched to the heart by
the sight of lovely and effective virtues in their helpers: no stranger
time have I ever had, nor any so moving. I do not think it a little
thing to be deaf, God knows, and God defend me from the same!—but to be a
leper, of one of the self-condemned, how much more awful! and yet there’s
a way there also. ‘There are Molokais everywhere,’ said Mr. Dutton,
Father Damien’s dresser; you are but new landed in yours; and my dear and
kind adviser, I wish you, with all my soul, that patience and courage
which you will require. Think of me meanwhile on a trading schooner,
bound for the Gilbert Islands, thereafter for the Marshalls, with a diet
of fish and cocoanut before me; bound on a cruise of—well, of
investigation to what islands we can reach, and to get (some day or
other) to Sydney, where a letter addressed to the care of R. Towns & Co.
will find me sooner or later; and if it contain any good news, whether of
your welfare or the courage with which you bear the contrary, will do me
good.—Yours affectionately (although so near a stranger),
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Schooner_ ‘_Equator_,’ _Apaiang Lagoon_, _August_ 22_nd_, 1889.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—The missionary ship is outside the reef trying (vainly)
to get in; so I may have a chance to get a line off. I am glad to say I
shall be home by June next for the summer, or we shall know the reason
why. For God’s sake be well and jolly for the meeting. I shall be, I
believe, a different character from what you have seen this long while.
This cruise is up to now a huge success, being interesting, pleasant, and
profitable. The beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting character
here; the natives are very different, on the whole, from Polynesians:
they are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), and protected by a dark
tongue. It is delightful to meet the few Hawaiians (mostly missionaries)
that are dotted about, with their Italian _brio_ and their ready
friendliness. The whites are a strange lot, many of them good, kind,
pleasant fellows; others quite the lowest I have ever seen even in the
slums of cities. I wish I had time to narrate to you the doings and
character of three white murderers (more or less proven) I have met.
One, the only undoubted assassin of the lot, quite gained my affection in
his big home out of a wreck, with his New Hebrides wife in her savage
turban of hair and yet a perfect lady, and his three adorable little
girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand organ, performing
circus on the floor with startling effects of nudity, and curling up
together on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes, three Rob Roy
dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer meanwhile brooding
and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart went out to him; and
yet his crime on the face of it was dark: disembowelling, in his own
house, an old man of seventy, and him drunk.
It is lunch-time, I see, and I must close up with my warmest love to you.
I wish you were here to sit upon me when required. Ah! if you were but a
good sailor! I will never leave the sea, I think; it is only there that
a Briton lives: my poor grandfather, it is from him I inherit the taste,
I fancy, and he was round many islands in his day; but I, please God,
shall beat him at that before the recall is sounded. Would you be
surprised to learn that I contemplate becoming a shipowner? I do, but it
is a secret. Life is far better fun than people dream who fall asleep
among the chimney stacks and telegraph wires.
Love to Henry James and others near.—Ever yours, my dear fellow,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
* * * * *
_Equator Town_, _Apemama_, _October_ 1889.
No _Morning Star_ came, however; and so now I try to send this to you by
the schooner _J. L. Tiernan_. We have been about a month ashore, camping
out in a kind of town the king set up for us: on the idea that I was
really a ‘big chief’ in England. He dines with us sometimes, and sends
up a cook for a share of our meals when he does not come himself. This
sounds like high living! alas, undeceive yourself. Salt junk is the
mainstay; a low island, except for cocoanuts, is just the same as a ship
at sea: brackish water, no supplies, and very little shelter. The king
is a great character—a thorough tyrant, very much of a gentleman, a poet,
a musician, a historian, or perhaps rather more a genealogist—it is
strange to see him lying in his house among a lot of wives (nominal
wives) writing the History of Apemama in an account-book; his description
of one of his own songs, which he sang to me himself, as ‘about
sweethearts, and trees, and the sea—and no true, all-the-same lie,’ seems
about as compendious a definition of lyric poetry as a man could ask.
Tembinoka is here the great attraction: all the rest is heat and tedium
and villainous dazzle, and yet more villainous mosquitoes. We are like
to be here, however, many a long week before we get away, and then
whither? A strange trade this voyaging: so vague, so bound-down, so
helpless. Fanny has been planting some vegetables, and we have actually
onions and radishes coming up: ah, onion-despiser, were you but awhile in
a low island, how your heart would leap at sight of a coster’s barrow! I
think I could shed tears over a dish of turnips. No doubt we shall all
be glad to say farewell to low islands—I had near said for ever. They
are very tame; and I begin to read up the directory, and pine for an
island with a profile, a running brook, or were it only a well among the
rocks. The thought of a mango came to me early this morning and set my
greed on edge; but you do not know what a mango is, so—.
I have been thinking a great deal of you and the Monument of late, and
even tried to get my thoughts into a poem, hitherto without success. God
knows how you are: I begin to weary dreadfully to see you—well, in nine
months, I hope; but that seems a long time. I wonder what has befallen
me too, that flimsy part of me that lives (or dwindles) in the public
mind; and what has befallen _The Master_, and what kind of a Box the
Merry Box has been found. It is odd to know nothing of all this. We had
an old woman to do devil-work for you about a month ago, in a Chinaman’s
house on Apaiang (August 23rd or 24th). You should have seen the crone
with a noble masculine face, like that of an old crone [_sic_], a body
like a man’s (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting
cocoanut leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain
of the _Equator_, and the Chinaman and his native wife and sister-in-law,
all squatting on the floor about the sibyl; and a crowd of dark faces
watching from behind her shoulder (she sat right in the doorway) and
tittering aloud with strange, appalled, embarrassed laughter at each
fresh adjuration. She informed us you were in England, not travelling
and now no longer sick; she promised us a fair wind the next day, and we
had it, so I cherish the hope she was as right about Sidney Colvin. The
shipownering has rather petered out since I last wrote, and a good many
other plans beside.
Health? Fanny very so-so; I pretty right upon the whole, and getting
through plenty work: I know not quite how, but it seems to me not bad and
in places funny.
South Sea Yarns:
1. _The Wrecker_
2. _The Pearl Fisher_
3. _The Beachcombers_
by R. L. S. and Lloyd O.
_The Pearl Fisher_, part done, lies in Sydney. It is _The Wrecker_ we
are now engaged upon: strange ways of life, I think, they set forth:
things that I can scarce touch upon, or even not at all, in my travel
book; and the yarns are good, I do believe. _The Pearl Fisher_ is for
the _New York Ledger_: the yarn is a kind of Monte Cristo one. _The
Wrecker_ is the least good as a story, I think; but the characters seem
to me good. _The Beachcombers_ is more sentimental. These three scarce
touch the outskirts of the life we have been viewing; a hot-bed of
strange characters and incidents: Lord, how different from Europe or the
Pallid States! Farewell. Heaven knows when this will get to you. I
burn to be in Sydney and have news.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Schooner_ ‘_Equator_,’ _at sea_. 190 _miles off Samoa_.
_Monday_, _December_ 2_nd_, 1889
MY DEAR COLVIN,—We are just nearing the end of our long cruise. Rain,
calms, squalls, bang—there’s the foretopmast gone; rain, calm, squalls,
away with the staysail; more rain, more calm, more squalls; a prodigious
heavy sea all the time, and the _Equator_ staggering and hovering like a
swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great square, crowded with wet human
beings, and the rain avalanching on the deck, and the leaks dripping
everywhere: Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, bearing up wonderfully.
But such voyages are at the best a trial. We had one particularity:
coming down on Winslow Reef, p. d. (position doubtful): two positions in
the directory, a third (if you cared to count that) on the chart; heavy
sea running, and the night due. The boats were cleared, bread put on
board, and we made up our packets for a boat voyage of four or five
hundred miles, and turned in, expectant of a crash. Needless to say it
did not come, and no doubt we were far to leeward. If we only had
twopenceworth of wind, we might be at dinner in Apia to-morrow evening;
but no such luck: here we roll, dead before a light air—and that is no
point of sailing at all for a fore and aft schooner—the sun blazing
overhead, thermometer 88°, four degrees above what I have learned to call
South Sea temperature; but for all that, land so near, and so much grief
being happily astern, we are all pretty gay on board, and have been
photographing and draught-playing and sky-larking like anything. I am
minded to stay not very long in Samoa and confine my studies there (as
far as any one can forecast) to the history of the late war. My book is
now practically modelled: if I can execute what is designed, there are
few better books now extant on this globe, bar the epics, and the big
tragedies, and histories, and the choice lyric poetics and a novel or
so—none. But it is not executed yet; and let not him that putteth on his
armour, vaunt himself. At least, nobody has had such stuff; such wild
stories, such beautiful scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners
and traditions, so incredible a mixture of the beautiful and horrible,
the savage and civilised. I will give you here some idea of the table of
contents, which ought to make your mouth water. I propose to call the
book _The South Seas_: it is rather a large title, but not many people
have seen more of them than I, perhaps no one—certainly no one capable of
using the material.
_Part I_. _General_. ‘_Of schooners_, _islands_, _and maroons_.’
CHAPTER I. Marine.
II. Contraband (smuggling, barratry, labour
traffic).
III. The Beachcomber.
IV. Beachcomber stories. i. The Murder of the
Chinaman. ii. Death of a Beachcomber. iii.
A Character. iv. The Apia Blacksmith.
_Part II_. _The Marquesas_.
V. Anaho. i. Arrival. ii. Death. iii. The
Tapu. iv. Morals. v. Hoka.
VI. Tai-o-hae. i. Arrival. ii. The French.
iii. The Royal Family. iv. Chiefless Folk.
v. The Catholics. vi. Hawaiian
Missionaries.
VII. Observations of a Long Pig. i. Cannibalism.
ii. Hatiheu. iii. Frère Michel. iv.
Toahauka and Atuona. v. The Vale of Atuona.
vi. Moipu. vii. Captain Hati.
_Part III_. _The Dangerous Archipelago_.
VIII. The Group.
IX. A House to let in a Low Island.
X. A Paumotuan Funeral. i. The Funeral. ii.
Tales of the Dead.
_Part IV_. _Tahiti_.
XI. Tautira.
XII. Village Government in Tahiti.
XIII. A Journey in Quest of Legends.
XIV. Legends and Songs.
XV. Life in Eden.
XVI. Note on the French Regimen.
_Part V_. _The Eight Islands_.
XVII. A Note on Missions.
XVIII. The Kona Coast of Hawaii. i. Hookena. ii.
A Ride in the Forest. iii. A Law Case. iv.
The City of Refuge. v. The Lepers.
XIX. Molokai. i. A Week in the Precinct. ii.
History of the Leper Settlement. iii. The
Mokolii. iv. The Free Island.
_Part VI_. _The Gilberts_.
XX. The Group. ii. Position of Woman. iii. The
Missions. iv. Devilwork. v. Republics.
XXI. Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari,
its King and Court. ii. History of Three
Kings. iii. The Drink Question.
XXII. A Butaritarian Festival.
XXIII. The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions.
ii. Equator Town and the Palace. iii. The
Three Corselets.
_Part VII_. _Samoa_.
which I have not yet reached.
Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than 300 _Cornhill_
pages; and I suspect not much under 500. Samoa has yet to be accounted
for: I think it will be all history, and I shall work in observations on
Samoan manners, under the similar heads in other Polynesian islands. It
is still possible, though unlikely, that I may add a passing visit to
Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I am growing impatient to see yourself,
and I do not want to be later than June of coming to England. Anyway,
you see it will be a large work, and as it will be copiously illustrated,
the Lord knows what it will cost. We shall return, God willing, by
Sydney, Ceylon, Suez and, I guess, Marseilles the many-masted (copyright
epithet). I shall likely pause a day or two in Paris, but all that is
too far ahead—although now it begins to look near—so near, and I can hear
the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street, and see the gates swing back,
and feel myself jump out upon the Monument steps—Hosanna!—home again. My
dear fellow, now that my father is done with his troubles, and 17 Heriot
Row no more than a mere shell, you and that gaunt old Monument in
Bloomsbury are all that I have in view when I use the word home; some
passing thoughts there may be of the rooms at Skerryvore, and the
black-birds in the chine on a May morning; but the essence is S. C. and
the Museum. Suppose, by some damned accident, you were no more: well, I
should return just the same, because of my mother and Lloyd, whom I now
think to send to Cambridge; but all the spring would have gone out of me,
and ninety per cent. of the attraction lost. I will copy for you here a
copy of verses made in Apemama.
I heard the pulse of the besieging sea
Throb far away all night. I heard the wind
Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms.
I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand,
And flailing fans and shadows of the palm:
The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault—
The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept.
The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives,
Slept in the precinct of the palisade:
Where single, in the wind, under the moon,
Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire,
Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel.
To other lands and nights my fancy turned,
To London first, and chiefly to your house,
The many-pillared and the well-beloved.
There yearning fancy lighted; there again
In the upper room I lay and heard far off
The unsleeping city murmur like a shell;
The muffled tramp of the Museum guard
Once more went by me; I beheld again
Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street;
Again I longed for the returning morn,
The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds,
The consentaneous trill of tiny song
That weaves round monumental cornices
A passing charm of beauty: most of all,
For your light foot I wearied, and your knock
That was the glad réveillé of my day.
Lo, now, when to your task in the great house
At morning through the portico you pass,
One moment glance where, by the pillared wall,
Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke,
Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument
Of faiths forgot and races undivined;
Sit now disconsolate, remembering well
The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd,
The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice
Incessant, of the breakers on the shore.
As far as these from their ancestral shrine,
So far, so foreign, your divided friends
Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Schooner_ ‘_Equator_,’ _at sea_, _Wednesday_, 4_th_ _December_ 1889.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—We are now about to rise, like whales, from this long
dive, and I make ready a communication which is to go to you by the first
mail from Samoa. How long we shall stay in that group I cannot forecast;
but it will be best still to address at Sydney, where I trust, when I
shall arrive, perhaps in one month from now, more probably in two or
three, to find all news.
_Business_.—Will you be likely to have a space in the Magazine for a
serial story, which should be, ready, I believe, by April, at latest by
autumn? It is called _The Wrecker_; and in book form will appear as
number 1 of South Sea Yarns by R. L. S. and Lloyd Osbourne. Here is the
table as far as fully conceived, and indeed executed. {170} . . .
The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really believe to be
insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has never been handled before, no more
has San Francisco. These seem all elements of success. There is,
besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, on whom
we build a good deal; and some sketches of the American merchant marine,
opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three hundred
pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles upon you, if
you will have a vacancy, and what you will be willing to pay. It will of
course be copyright in both the States and England. I am a little
anxious to have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of the
mystery.
_Pleasure_.—We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though four
months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largish order; and
my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health,
though our long and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain,
sails carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets made on
the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me of salt brine, and
filled me with a longing for beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted.
The interest has been immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the
Napoleon of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me
the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and,
what pleased me more, told me their singular story, then all manner of
strange tales, facts and experiences for my South Sea book, which should
be a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff.
We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the heat is cruel—it is
the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but a pair of
serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze—O, yes, and
a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, sweat
streams from me. The rest are on deck under a bit of awning; we are not
much above a hundred miles from port, and we might as well be in
Kamschatka. However, I should be honest: this is the first calm I have
endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated
blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the helpless ship.
I wonder how you liked the end of _The Master_; that was the hardest job
I ever had to do; did I do it?
My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame. Remember
all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I don’t get a word
through for him.—I am, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Samoa_, [_December_ 1889].
MY DEAR BAXTER,—. . . I cannot return until I have seen either Tonga or
Fiji or both: and I must not leave here till I have finished my
collections on the war—a very interesting bit of history, the truth often
very hard to come at, and the search (for me) much complicated by the
German tongue, from the use of which I have desisted (I suppose) these
fifteen years. The last two days I have been mugging with a dictionary
from five to six hours a day; besides this, I have to call upon, keep
sweet, and judiciously interview all sorts of persons—English, American,
German, and Samoan. It makes a hard life; above all, as after every
interview I have to come and get my notes straight on the nail. I
believe I should have got my facts before the end of January, when I
shall make our Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in the hurricane season;
but they had so bad a one last year, I don’t imagine there will be much
of an edition this. Say that I get to Sydney some time in April, and I
shall have done well, and be in a position to write a very singular and
interesting book, or rather two; for I shall begin, I think, with a
separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about as long as _Kidnapped_,
not very interesting, but valuable—and a thing proper to be done. And
then, hey! for the big South Sea Book: a devil of a big one, and full of
the finest sport.
This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before seven,
reading a number of _Blackwood’s Magazine_, I was startled by a soft
_talofa_, _alii_ (note for my mother: they are quite courteous here in
the European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa
coming from early mass in his white coat and white linen kilt, with three
fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest thing to a hero in my
history, and really a fine fellow; plenty sense, and the most dignified,
quiet, gentle manners. Talking of _Blackwood_—a file of which I was
lucky enough to find here in the lawyer’s—Mrs. Oliphant seems in a
staggering state: from the _Wrong Box_ to _The Master_ I scarce recognise
either my critic or myself. I gather that _The Master_ should do well,
and at least that notice is agreeable reading. I expect to be home in
June: you will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to my
labours, I suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and almost every day I
ride up and see Fanny and Lloyd, who are in a house in the bush with Ah
Fu. I live in Apia for history’s sake with Moors, an American trader.
Day before yesterday I was arrested and fined for riding fast in the
street, which made my blood bitter, as the wife of the manager of the
German Firm has twice almost ridden me down, and there seems none to say
her nay. The Germans have behaved pretty badly here, but not in all ways
so ill as you may have gathered: they were doubtless much provoked; and
if the insane Knappe had not appeared upon the scene, might have got out
of the muddle with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as
things occur to me.
I hope from my outcries about printing you do not think I want you to
keep my news or letters in a Blue Beard closet. I like all friends to
hear of me; they all should if I had ninety hours in the day, and
strength for all of them; but you must have gathered how hard worked I
am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty tired man.
29_th_ _December_, [1889].
To-morrow (Monday, I won’t swear to my day of the month; this is the
Sunday between Christmas and New Year) I go up the coast with Mr. Clarke,
one of the London Society missionaries, in a boat to examine schools, see
Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph. Pray Heaven we have good
weather; this is the rainy season; we shall be gone four or five days;
and if the rain keep off, I shall be glad of the change; if it rain, it
will be beastly. This explains still further how hard pressed I am, as
the mail will be gone ere I return, and I have thus lost the days I meant
to write in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets and copies for me, and
is a great nuisance. He said he wished to come to me in order to learn
‘long expressions.’ Henry goes up along with us; and as I am not fond of
him, he may before the trip is over hear some ‘strong expressions.’ I am
writing this on the back balcony at Moors’, palms and a hill like the
hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; myself lying on the floor, and (like
the parties in Handel’s song) ‘clad in robes of virgin white’; the ink is
dreadful, the heat delicious, a fine going breeze in the palms, and from
the other side of the house the sudden angry splash and roar of the
Pacific on the reef, where the warships are still piled from last year’s
hurricane, some under water, one high and dry upon her side, the
strangest figure of a ship was ever witnessed; the narrow bay there is
full of ships; the men-of-war covered with sail after the rains, and
(especially the German ship, which is fearfully and awfully top heavy)
rolling almost yards in, in what appears to be calm water.
Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the Marquesas or Tahiti:
a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of nature; and
this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great German plantations with
their countless regular avenues of palms. The island has beautiful
rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in the Lothians, with pleasant
pools and waterfalls and overhanging verdure, and often a great volume of
sound, so that once I thought I was passing near a mill, and it was only
the voice of the river. I am not specially attracted by the people; but
they are courteous; the women very attractive, and dress lovely; the men
purposelike, well set up, tall, lean, and dignified. As I write the
breeze is brisking up, doors are beginning to slam: and shutters; a
strong draught sweeps round the balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow.
Here I shut up.—Ever your affectionate,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO DR. SCOTT
_Apia_, _Samoa_, _January_ 20_th_, 1890.
MY DEAR SCOTT,—Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of me
before! I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up
to date) a person whom you would scarce know. I think nothing of long
walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone the other day, partly
riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine. I have stood a six months’
voyage on a copra schooner with about three months ashore on coral
atolls, which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever
from ship’s food. My wife suffered badly—it was too rough a business
altogether—Lloyd suffered—and, in short, I was the only one of the party
who ‘kept my end up.’
I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle; have
even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred acres, I know
not which till the survey is completed, and shall only return next summer
to wind up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a subject of
the High Commissioner.
Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant patient,
but that I have a medical discovery to communicate. I find I can (almost
immediately) fight off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if
obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from
one to five days sees the cold generally to the door. I find it at once
produces a glow, stops rigour, and though it makes one very
uncomfortable, prevents the advance of the disease. Hearing of this
influenza, it occurred to me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps
a stronger exhibition—injections of cocaine, for instance—still better.
If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems
highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much inclined
to make the experiment. See what a gulf you may save me from if you
shall have previously made it on _anima vili_, on some less important
sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless.
How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your brother and all
friends in Bournemouth, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Februar den_ 3_en_ 1890.
_Dampfer Lübeck zwischen Apia und Sydney_.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I have got one delightful letter from you, and heard
from my mother of your kindness in going to see her. Thank you for that:
you can in no way more touch and serve me. . . . Ay, ay, it is sad to
sell 17; sad and fine were the old days: when I was away in Apemama, I
wrote two copies of verse about Edinburgh and the past, so ink black, so
golden bright. I will send them, if I can find them, for they will say
something to you, and indeed one is more than half addressed to you.
This is it—
TO MY OLD COMRADES
Do you remember—can we e’er forget?—
How, in the coiled perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain,
The rare and welcome silence of the snows,
The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,
The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,
Do you remember?—Ah, could one forget!
As when the fevered sick that all night long
Listed the wind intone, and hear at last
The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer
Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn,—
With sudden ardour, these desire the day:
(Here a squall sends all flying.)
So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;
So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.
For lo! as in the palace porch of life
We huddled with chimeras, from within—
How sweet to hear!—the music swelled and fell,
And through the breach of the revolving doors
What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!
I have since then contended and rejoiced;
Amid the glories of the house of life
Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:
Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes
Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love
Fall insignificant on my closing ears,
What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind
In our inclement city? what return
But the image of the emptiness of youth,
Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice
Of discontent and rapture and despair?
So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp,
The momentary pictures gleam and fade
And perish, and the night resurges—these
Shall I remember, and then all forget.
They’re pretty second-rate, but felt. I can’t be bothered to copy the
other.
I have bought 314½ acres of beautiful land in the bush behind Apia; when
we get the house built, the garden laid, and cattle in the place, it will
be something to fall back on for shelter and food; and if the island
could stumble into political quiet, it is conceivable it might even bring
a little income. . . . We range from 600 to 1500 feet, have five streams,
waterfalls, precipices, profound ravines, rich tablelands, fifty head of
cattle on the ground (if any one could catch them), a great view of
forest, sea, mountains, the warships in the haven: really a noble place.
Some day you are to take a long holiday and come and see us: it has been
all planned.
With all these irons in the fire, and cloudy prospects, you may be sure I
was pleased to hear a good account of business. I believed _The Master_
was a sure card: I wonder why Henley thinks it grimy; grim it is, God
knows, but sure not grimy, else I am the more deceived. I am sorry he
did not care for it; I place it on the line with _Kidnapped_ myself.
We’ll see as time goes on whether it goes above or falls below.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_SS. Lübeck_, [_between Apia and Sydney_, _February_] 1890.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—I desire nothing better than to continue my relation
with the Magazine, to which it pleases me to hear I have been useful.
The only thing I have ready is the enclosed barbaric piece. As soon as I
have arrived in Sydney I shall send you some photographs, a portrait of
Tembinoka, perhaps a view of the palace or of the ‘matted men’ at their
singing; also T.’s flag, which my wife designed for him: in a word, what
I can do best for you. It will be thus a foretaste of my book of
travels. I shall ask you to let me have, if I wish it, the use of the
plates made, and to make up a little tract of the verses and
illustrations, of which you might send six copies to H. M. Tembinoka,
King of Apemama _via_ Butaritari, Gilbert Islands. It might be best to
send it by Crawford and Co., S. F. There is no postal service; and
schooners must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps some such note as
this might be prefixed:
_At my departure from the island of Apemama_, _for which you will look in
vain in most atlases_, _the king and I agreed_, _since we both set up to
be in the poetical way_, _that we should celebrate our separation in
verse_. _Whether or not his majesty has been true to his bargain_, _the
laggard posts of the Pacific may perhaps inform me in six months_,
_perhaps not before a year_. _The following lines represent my part of
the contract_, _and it is hoped_, _by their pictures of strange manners_,
_they may entertain a civilised audience_. _Nothing throughout has been
invented or exaggerated_; _the lady herein referred to as the author’s
Muse_, _has confined herself to stringing into rhyme facts and legends
that I saw or heard during two months’ residence upon the island_.
R. L. S.
You will have received from me a letter about _The Wrecker_. No doubt it
is a new experiment for me, being disguised so much as a study of
manners, and the interest turning on a mystery of the detective sort, I
think there need be no hesitation about beginning it in the fall of the
year. Lloyd has nearly finished his part, and I shall hope to send you
very soon the MS. of about the first four-sevenths. At the same time, I
have been employing myself in Samoa, collecting facts about the recent
war; and I propose to write almost at once and to publish shortly a small
volume, called I know not what—the War In Samoa, the Samoa Trouble, an
Island War, the War of the Three Consuls, I know not—perhaps you can
suggest. It was meant to be a part of my travel book; but material has
accumulated on my hands until I see myself forced into volume form, and I
hope it may be of use, if it come soon. I have a few photographs of the
war, which will do for illustrations. It is conceivable you might wish
to handle this in the Magazine, although I am inclined to think you
won’t, and to agree with you. But if you think otherwise, there it is.
The travel letters (fifty of them) are already contracted for in papers;
these I was quite bound to let M’Clure handle, as the idea was of his
suggestion, and I always felt a little sore as to one trick I played him
in the matter of the end-papers. The war-volume will contain some very
interesting and picturesque details: more I can’t promise for it. Of
course the fifty newspaper letters will be simply patches chosen from the
travel volume (or volumes) as it gets written.
But you see I have in hand:—
Say half done. 1. _The Wrecker_.
Lloyd’s copy half done, mine not 2. _The Pearl Fisher_ (a novel
touched. promised to the _Ledger_, and
which will form, when it comes in
book form, No. 2 of our _South
Sea Yarns_).
Not begun, but all material 3. _The War Volume_.
ready.
Ditto. 4. _The Big Travel Book_, which
includes the letters.
You know how they stand. 5. _The Ballads_.
_Excusez du peu_! And you see what madness it would be to make any fresh
engagement. At the same time, you have _The Wrecker_ and the _War
Volume_, if you like either—or both—to keep my name in the Magazine.
It begins to look as if I should not be able to get any more ballads done
this somewhile. I know the book would sell better if it were all
ballads; and yet I am growing half tempted to fill up with some other
verses. A good few are connected with my voyage, such as the ‘Home of
Tembinoka’ sent herewith, and would have a sort of slight affinity to the
_South Sea Ballads_. You might tell me how that strikes a stranger.
In all this, my real interest is with the travel volume, which ought to
be of a really extraordinary interest.
I am sending you ‘Tembinoka’ as he stands; but there are parts of him
that I hope to better, particularly in stanzas III. and II. I scarce
feel intelligent enough to try just now; and I thought at any rate you
had better see it, set it up if you think well, and let me have a proof;
so, at least, we shall get the bulk of it straight. I have spared you
Teñkoruti, Tenbaitake, Tembinatake, and other barbarous names, because I
thought the dentists in the States had work enough without my assistance;
but my chiefs name is TEMBINOKA, pronounced, according to the present
quite modern habit in the Gilberts, Tembinok’. Compare in the margin
Tengkorootch; a singular new trick, setting at defiance all South Sea
analogy, for nowhere else do they show even the ability, far less the
will, to end a word upon a consonant. Loia is Lloyd’s name, ship becomes
shipé, teapot, tipoté, etc. Our admirable friend Herman Melville, of
whom, since I could judge, I have thought more than ever, had no ear for
languages whatever: his Hapar tribe should be Hapaa, etc.
But this is of no interest to you: suffice it, you see how I am as usual
up to the neck in projects, and really all likely bairns this time. When
will this activity cease? Too soon for me, I dare to say.
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
_February_ 4_th_, 1890, _SS._ ‘_Lübeck_.’
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,—In virtue of confessions in your last, you would at
the present moment, if you were along of me, be sick; and I will ask you
to receive that as an excuse for my hand of write. Excuse a plain seaman
if he regards with scorn the likes of you pore land-lubbers ashore now.
(Reference to nautical ditty.) Which I may however be allowed to add
that when eight months’ mail was laid by my side one evening in Apia, and
my wife and I sat up the most of the night to peruse the same—(precious
indisposed we were next day in consequence)—no letter, out of so many,
more appealed to our hearts than one from the pore, stick-in-the-mud,
land-lubbering, common (or garden) Londoner, James Payn. Thank you for
it; my wife says, ‘Can’t I see him when we get back to London?’ I have
told her the thing appeared to me within the spear of practical politix.
(Why can’t I spell and write like an honest, sober, god-fearing litry
gent? I think it’s the motion of the ship.) Here I was interrupted to
play chess with the chief engineer; as I grow old, I prefer the ‘athletic
sport of cribbage,’ of which (I am sure I misquote) I have just been
reading in your delightful _Literary Recollections_. How you skim along,
you and Andrew Lang (different as you are), and yet the only two who can
keep a fellow smiling every page, and ever and again laughing out loud.
I joke wi’ deeficulty, I believe; I am not funny; and when I am, Mrs.
Oliphant says I’m vulgar, and somebody else says (in Latin) that I’m a
whore, which seems harsh and even uncalled for: I shall stick to weepers;
a 5s. weeper, 2s. 6d. laugher, 1s. shocker.
My dear sir, I grow more and more idiotic; I cannot even feign sanity.
Sometime in the month of June a stalwart weather-beaten man, evidently of
seafaring antecedents, shall be observed wending his way between the
Athenæum Club and Waterloo Place. Arrived off No. 17, he shall be
observed to bring his head sharply to the wind, and tack into the outer
haven. ‘Captain Payn in the harbour?’—‘Ay, ay, sir. What
ship?’—‘Barquentin R. L. S., nine hundred and odd days out from the port
of Bournemouth, homeward bound, with yarns and curiosities.’
Who was it said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t speak of it!’ about Scott and his
tears? He knew what he was saying. The fear of that hour is the
skeleton in all our cupboards; that hour when the pastime and the
livelihood go together; and—I am getting hard of hearing myself; a pore
young child of forty, but new come frae my Mammy, O!
Excuse these follies, and accept the expression of all my regards.—Yours
affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Union Club_, _Sydney_, _March_ 7_th_, 1890.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I did not send off the enclosed before from laziness;
having gone quite sick, and being a blooming prisoner here in the club,
and indeed in my bedroom. I was in receipt of your letters and your
ornamental photo, and was delighted to see how well you looked, and how
reasonably well I stood. . . . I am sure I shall never come back home
except to die; I may do it, but shall always think of the move as
suicidal, unless a great change comes over me, of which as yet I see no
symptom. This visit to Sydney has smashed me handsomely; and yet I made
myself a prisoner here in the club upon my first arrival. This is not
encouraging for further ventures; Sydney winter—or, I might almost say,
Sydney spring, for I came when the worst was over—is so small an affair,
comparable to our June depression at home in Scotland. . . . The pipe is
right again; it was the springs that had rusted, and ought to have been
oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but, Lord! here in the club I
dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience to be in my own backwoods and
raise the sound of minstrelsy. What pleasures are to be compared with
those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso.—Yours ever affectionately, the
Unvirtuous Virtuoso,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_SS._ ‘_Janet Nicoll_,’ _off Upolu_ [_Spring_ 1890].
MY DEAREST COLVIN,—I was sharply ill at Sydney, cut off, right out of
bed, in this steamer on a fresh island cruise, and have already reaped
the benefit. We are excellently found this time, on a spacious vessel,
with an excellent table; the captain, supercargo, our one
fellow-passenger, etc., very nice; and the charterer, Mr. Henderson, the
very man I could have chosen. The truth is, I fear, this life is the
only one that suits me; so long as I cruise in the South Seas, I shall be
well and happy—alas, no, I do not mean that, and _absit omen_!—I mean
that, so soon as I cease from cruising, the nerves are strained, the
decline commences, and I steer slowly but surely back to bedward. We
left Sydney, had a cruel rough passage to Auckland, for the _Janet_ is
the worst roller I was ever aboard of. I was confined to my cabin, ports
closed, self shied out of the berth, stomach (pampered till the day I
left on a diet of perpetual egg-nogg) revolted at ship’s food and ship
eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging with one hand to the plate, with the
other to the glass, and using the knife and fork (except at intervals)
with the eyelid. No matter: I picked up hand over hand. After a day in
Auckland, we set sail again; were blown up in the main cabin with calcium
fires, as we left the bay. Let no man say I am unscientific: when I ran,
on the alert, out of my stateroom, and found the main cabin incarnadined
with the glow of the last scene of a pantomime, I stopped dead: ‘What is
this?’ said I. ‘This ship is on fire, I see that; but why a pantomime?’
And I stood and reasoned the point, until my head was so muddled with the
fumes that I could not find the companion. A few seconds later, the
captain had to enter crawling on his belly, and took days to recover (if
he has recovered) from the fumes. By singular good fortune, we got the
hose down in time and saved the ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes
and a great part of our photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw the native
sailors tossing overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and
behold, it contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two)
days fine weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a
vexatious sea. As we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage
Island, a man ashore told me afterwards the sight of the _Janet Nicoll_
made him sick; and indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night
before. All through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem,
spearing the ink-bottle like a flying fish, and holding my papers
together as I might. For, of all things, what I was at was history—the
Samoan business—and I had to turn from one to another of these piles of
manuscript notes, and from one page to another in each, until I should
have found employment for the hands of Briareus. All the same, this
history is a godsend for a voyage; I can put in time, getting events
co-ordinated and the narrative distributed, when my much-heaving numskull
would be incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met the
missionary barque _John Williams_. I tell you it was a great day for
Savage Island: the path up the cliffs was crowded with gay islandresses
(I like that feminine plural) who wrapped me in their embraces, and
picked my pockets of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch would
have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, like the Golden
Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, with a red flower behind her
ear, had searched me with extraordinary zeal; and when, soon after, I
missed my matches, I accused her (she still following us) of being the
thief. After some delay, and with a subtle smile, she produced the box,
gave me _one match_, and put the rest away again. Too tired to add
more.—Your most affectionate,
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_S.S._ ‘_Janet Nicoll_,’ _off Peru Island_, _Kingsmills Group_,
_July_ 13_th_, ’90.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—I am moved to write to you in the matter of the end
papers. I am somewhat tempted to begin them again. Follow the reasons
_pro_ and _con_:—
1st. I must say I feel as if something in the nature of the end paper
were a desirable finish to the number, and that the substitutes of
occasional essays by occasional contributors somehow fail to fill the
bill. Should you differ with me on this point, no more is to be said.
And what follows must be regarded as lost words.
2nd. I am rather taken with the idea of continuing the work. For
instance, should you have no distaste for papers of the class called
_Random Memories_, I should enjoy continuing them (of course at
intervals), and when they were done I have an idea they might make a
readable book. On the other hand, I believe a greater freedom of choice
might be taken, the subjects more varied and more briefly treated, in
somewhat approaching the manner of Andrew Lang in the _Sign of the Ship_;
it being well understood that the broken sticks {187} method is one not
very suitable (as Colonel Burke would say) to my genius, and not very
likely to be pushed far in my practice. Upon this point I wish you to
condense your massive brain. In the last lot I was promised, and I
fondly expected to receive, a vast amount of assistance from intelligent
and genial correspondents. I assure you, I never had a scratch of a pen
from any one above the level of a village idiot, except once, when a lady
sowed my head full of grey hairs by announcing that she was going to
direct her life in future by my counsels. Will the correspondents be
more copious and less irrelevant in the future? Suppose that to be the
case, will they be of any use to me in my place of exile? Is it possible
for a man in Samoa to be in touch with the great heart of the People?
And is it not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so hopeless a
distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers? Upon these points,
perpend, and give me the results of your perpensions.
3rd. The emolument would be agreeable to your humble servant.
I have now stated all the _pros_, and the most of the _cons_ are come in
by the way. There follows, however, one immense Con (with a capital
‘C’), which I beg you to consider particularly. I fear that, to be of
any use for your magazine, these papers should begin with the beginning
of a volume. Even supposing my hands were free, this would be now
impossible for next year. You have to consider whether, supposing you
have no other objection, it would be worth while to begin the series in
the middle of a volume, or desirable to delay the whole matter until the
beginning of another year.
Now supposing that the _cons_ have it, and you refuse my offer, let me
make another proposal, which you will be very inclined to refuse at the
first off-go, but which I really believe might in time come to something.
You know how the penny papers have their answers to correspondents. Why
not do something of the same kind for the ‘culchawed’? Why not get men
like Stimson, Brownell, Professor James, Goldwin Smith, and others who
will occur to you more readily than to me, to put and to answer a series
of questions of intellectual and general interest, until at last you
should have established a certain standard of matter to be discussed in
this part of the Magazine?
I want you to get me bound volumes of the Magazine from its start. The
Lord knows I have had enough copies; where they are I know not. A
wandering author gathers no magazines.
_The Wrecker_ is in no forrader state than in last reports. I have
indeed got to a period when I cannot well go on until I can refresh
myself on the proofs of the beginning. My respected collaborator, who
handles the machine which is now addressing you, has indeed carried his
labours farther, but not, I am led to understand, with what we used to
call a blessing; at least, I have been refused a sight of his latest
labours. However, there is plenty of time ahead, and I feel no anxiety
about the tale, except that it may meet with your approval.
All this voyage I have been busy over my _Travels_, which, given a very
high temperature and the saloon of a steamer usually going before the
wind, and with the cabins in front of the engines, has come very near to
prostrating me altogether. You will therefore understand that there are
no more poems. I wonder whether there are already enough, and whether
you think that such a volume would be worth the publishing? I shall hope
to find in Sydney some expression of your opinion on this point. Living
as I do among—not the most cultured of mankind (‘splendidly educated and
perfect gentlemen when sober’)—I attach a growing importance to friendly
criticisms from yourself.
I believe that this is the most of our business. As for my health, I got
over my cold in a fine style, but have not been very well of late. To my
unaffected annoyance, the blood-spitting has started again. I find the
heat of a steamer decidedly wearing and trying in these latitudes, and I
am inclined to think the superior expedition rather dearly paid for.
Still, the fact that one does not even remark the coming of a squall, nor
feel relief on its departure, is a mercy not to be acknowledged without
gratitude. The rest of the family seem to be doing fairly well; both
seem less run down than they were on the _Equator_, and Mrs. Stevenson
very much less so. We have now been three months away, have visited
about thirty-five islands, many of which were novel to us, and some
extremely entertaining; some also were old acquaintances, and pleasant to
revisit. In the meantime, we have really a capital time aboard ship, in
the most pleasant and interesting society, and with (considering the
length and nature of the voyage) an excellent table. Please remember us
all to Mr. Scribner, the young chieftain of the house, and the lady,
whose health I trust is better. To Mrs. Burlingame we all desire to be
remembered, and I hope you will give our news to Low, St. Gaudens, Faxon,
and others of the faithful in the city. I shall probably return to Samoa
direct, having given up all idea of returning to civilisation in the
meanwhile. There, on my ancestral acres, which I purchased six months
ago from a blind Scots blacksmith, you will please address me until
further notice. The name of the ancestral acres is going to be Vailima;
but as at the present moment nobody else knows the name, except myself
and the co-patentees, it will be safer, if less ambitious, to address R.
L. S., Apia, Samoa. The ancestral acres run to upwards of three hundred;
they enjoy the ministrations of five streams, whence the name. They are
all at the present moment under a trackless covering of magnificent
forest, which would be worth a great deal if it grew beside a railway
terminus. To me, as it stands, it represents a handsome deficit.
Obliging natives from the Cannibal Islands are now cutting it down at my
expense. You would be able to run your magazine to much greater
advantage if the terms of authors were on the same scale with those of my
cannibals. We have also a house about the size of a manufacturer’s
lodge. ’Tis but the egg of the future palace, over the details of which
on paper Mrs. Stevenson and I have already shed real tears; what it will
be when it comes to paying for it, I leave you to imagine. But if it can
only be built as now intended, it will be with genuine satisfaction and a
growunded pride that I shall welcome you at the steps of my Old Colonial
Home, when you land from the steamer on a long-merited holiday. I speak
much at my ease; yet I do not know, I may be now an outlaw, a bankrupt,
the abhorred of all good men. I do not know, you probably do. Has Hyde
{190} turned upon me? Have I fallen, like Danvers Carew?
It is suggested to me that you might like to know what will be my future
society. Three consuls, all at logger-heads with one another, or at the
best in a clique of two against one; three different sects of
missionaries, not upon the best of terms; and the Catholics and
Protestants in a condition of unhealable ill-feeling as to whether a
wooden drum ought or ought not to be beaten to announce the time of
school. The native population, very genteel, very songful, very
agreeable, very good-looking, chronically spoiling for a fight (a
circumstance not to be entirely neglected in the design of the palace).
As for the white population of (technically, ‘The Beach’), I don’t
suppose it is possible for any person not thoroughly conversant with the
South Seas to form the smallest conception of such a society, with its
grog-shops, its apparently unemployed hangers-on, its merchants of all
degrees of respectability and the reverse. The paper, of which I must
really send you a copy—if yours were really a live magazine, you would
have an exchange with the editor: I assure you, it has of late contained
a great deal of matter about one of your contributors—rejoices in the
name of _Samoa Times and South Sea Advertiser_. The advertisements in
the _Advertiser_ are permanent, being simply subsidies for its existence.
A dashing warfare of newspaper correspondence goes on between the various
residents, who are rather fond of recurring to one another’s antecedents.
But when all is said, there are a lot of very nice, pleasant people, and
I don’t know that Apia is very much worse than half a hundred towns that
I could name.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Hotel Sebastopol_, _Noumea_, _August_ 1890.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I have stayed here a week while Lloyd and my wife
continue to voyage in the _Janet Nicoll_; this I did, partly to see the
convict system, partly to shorten my stay in the extreme cold—hear me
with my extreme! _moi qui suis originaire d’Edinbourg_—of Sydney at this
season. I am feeling very seedy, utterly fatigued, and overborne with
sleep. I have a fine old gentleman of a doctor, who attends and cheers
and entertains, if he does not cure me; but even with his ministrations I
am almost incapable of the exertion sufficient for this letter; and I am
really, as I write, falling down with sleep. What is necessary to say, I
must try to say shortly. Lloyd goes to clear out our establishments:
pray keep him in funds, if I have any; if I have not, pray try to raise
them. Here is the idea: to install ourselves, at the risk of bankruptcy,
in Samoa. It is not the least likely it will pay (although it may); but
it is almost certain it will support life, with very few external
expenses. If I die, it will be an endowment for the survivors, at least
for my wife and Lloyd; and my mother, who might prefer to go home, has
her own. Hence I believe I shall do well to hurry my installation. The
letters are already in part done; in part done is a novel for Scribner;
in the course of the next twelve months I should receive a considerable
amount of money. I am aware I had intended to pay back to my capital
some of this. I am now of opinion I should act foolishly. Better to
build the house and have a roof and farm of my own; and thereafter, with
a livelihood assured, save and repay . . . There is my livelihood, all
but books and wine, ready in a nutshell; and it ought to be more easy to
save and to repay afterwards. Excellent, say you, but will you save and
will you repay? I do not know, said the Bell of Old Bow. . . . It seems
clear to me. . . . The deuce of the affair is that I do not know when I
shall see you and Colvin. I guess you will have to come and see me: many
a time already we have arranged the details of your visit in the yet
unbuilt house on the mountain. I shall be able to get decent wine from
Noumea. We shall be able to give you a decent welcome, and talk of old
days. _Apropos_ of old days, do you remember still the phrase we heard
in Waterloo Place? I believe you made a piece for the piano on that
phrase. Pray, if you remember it, send it me in your next. If you find
it impossible to write correctly, send it me _à la récitative_, and
indicate the accents. Do you feel (you must) how strangely heavy and
stupid I am? I must at last give up and go sleep; I am simply a rag.
The morrow: I feel better, but still dim and groggy. To-night I go to
the governor’s; such a lark—no dress clothes—twenty-four hours’
notice—able-bodied Polish tailor—suit made for a man with the figure of a
puncheon—same hastily altered for self with the figure of a bodkin—sight
inconceivable. Never mind; dress clothes, ‘which nobody can deny’; and
the officials have been all so civil that I liked neither to refuse nor
to appear in mufti. Bad dress clothes only prove you are a grisly ass;
no dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of respect. I
wish you were here with me to help me dress in this wild raiment, and to
accompany me to M. Noel-Pardon’s. I cannot say what I would give if
there came a knock now at the door and you came in. I guess Noel-Pardon
would go begging, and we might burn the fr. 200 dress clothes in the back
garden for a bonfire; or what would be yet more expensive and more
humorous, get them once more expanded to fit you, and when that was done,
a second time cut down for my gossamer dimensions.
I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, who has always a
place in my heart, as I hope I have a little in his. His kindness helped
me infinitely when you and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and
affection in this town of convicts at the world’s end. There are very
few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a retrospect of life, the
day’s flash and colour, one day with another, flames, dazzles, and puts
to sleep; and when the days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope,
they make but a single pattern. Only a few things stand out; and among
these—most plainly to me—Rutland Square,—Ever, my dear Charles, your
affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—Just returned from trying on the dress clo’. Lord, you should see
the coat! It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross in
front, the sleeves are like bags.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Union Club_, _Sydney_ [_August_ 1890].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—
_Ballads_.
The deuce is in this volume. It has cost me more botheration and dubiety
than any other I ever took in hand. On one thing my mind is made up: the
verses at the end have no business there, and throw them down. Many of
them are bad, many of the rest want nine years’ keeping, and the
remainder are not relevant—throw them down; some I never want to hear of
more, others will grow in time towards decent items in a second
_Underwoods_—and in the meanwhile, down with them! At the same time, I
have a sneaking idea the ballads are not altogether without merit—I don’t
know if they’re poetry, but they’re good narrative, or I’m deceived.
(You’ve never said one word about them, from which I astutely gather you
are dead set against: ‘he was a diplomatic man’—extract from epitaph of
E. L. B.—‘and remained on good terms with Minor Poets.’) You will have
to judge: one of the Gladstonian trinity of paths must be chosen. (1st)
Either publish the five ballads, such as they are, in a volume called
_Ballads_; in which case pray send sheets at once to Chatto and Windus.
Or (2nd) write and tell me you think the book too small, and I’ll try and
get into the mood to do some more. Or (3rd) write and tell me the whole
thing is a blooming illusion; in which case draw off some twenty copies
for my private entertainment, and charge me with the expense of the whole
dream.
In the matter of rhyme no man can judge himself; I am at the world’s end,
have no one to consult, and my publisher holds his tongue. I call it
unfair and almost unmanly. I do indeed begin to be filled with
animosity; Lord, wait till you see the continuation of _The Wrecker_,
when I introduce some New York publishers. . . It’s a good scene; the
quantities you drink and the really hideous language you are represented
as employing may perhaps cause you one tithe of the pain you have
inflicted by your silence on, sir, The Poetaster,
R. L. S.
Lloyd is off home; my wife and I dwell sundered: she in lodgings,
preparing for the move; I here in the club, and at my old
trade—bedridden. Naturally, the visit home is given up; we only wait our
opportunity to get to Samoa, where, please, address me.
Have I yet asked you to despatch the books and papers left in your care
to me at Apia, Samoa? I wish you would, _quam primum_.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Union Club_, _Sydney_, _August_ 1890.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—Kipling is too clever to live. The _Bête Humaine_ I
had already perused in Noumea, listening the while to the strains of the
convict band. He a Beast; but not human, and, to be frank, not very
interesting. ‘Nervous maladies: the homicidal ward,’ would be the better
name: O, this game gets very tedious.
Your two long and kind letters have helped to entertain the old familiar
sickbed. So has a book called _The Bondman_, by Hall Caine; I wish you
would look at it. I am not half-way through yet. Read the book, and
communicate your views. Hall Caine, by the way, appears to take Hugo’s
view of History and Chronology. (_Later_; the book doesn’t keep up; it
gets very wild.)
I must tell you plainly—I can’t tell Colvin—I do not think I shall come
to England more than once, and then it’ll be to die. Health I enjoy in
the tropics; even here, which they call sub- or semi-tropical, I come
only to catch cold. I have not been out since my arrival; live here in a
nice bedroom by the fireside, and read books and letters from Henry
James, and send out to get his _Tragic Muse_, only to be told they can’t
be had as yet in Sydney, and have altogether a placid time. But I can’t
go out! The thermometer was nearly down to 50° the other day—no
temperature for me, Mr. James: how should I do in England? I fear not at
all. Am I very sorry? I am sorry about seven or eight people in
England, and one or two in the States. And outside of that, I simply
prefer Samoa. These are the words of honesty and soberness. (I am
fasting from all but sin, coughing, _The Bondman_, a couple of eggs and a
cup of tea.) I was never fond of towns, houses, society, or (it seems)
civilisation. Nor yet it seems was I ever very fond of (what is
technically called) God’s green earth. The sea, islands, the islanders,
the island life and climate, make and keep me truly happier. These last
two years I have been much at sea, and I have _never wearied_; sometimes
I have indeed grown impatient for some destination; more often I was
sorry that the voyage drew so early to an end; and never once did I lose
my fidelity to blue water and a ship. It is plain, then, that for me my
exile to the place of schooners and islands can be in no sense regarded
as a calamity.
Good-bye just now: I must take a turn at my proofs.
_N.B._—Even my wife has weakened about the sea. She wearied, the last
time we were ashore, to get afloat again.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
_Union Club_, _Sydney_, _August_ 19_th_, 1890.
MY DEAR MR. SCHWOB,—_Mais_, _alors_, _vous avez tous les bonheurs_,
_vous_! More about Villon; it seems incredible: when it is put in order,
pray send it me.
You wish to translate the _Black Arrow_: dear sir, you are hereby
authorised; but I warn you, I do not like the work. Ah, if you, who know
so well both tongues, and have taste and instruction—if you would but
take a fancy to translate a book of mine that I myself admired—for we
sometimes admire our own—or I do—with what satisfaction would the
authority be granted! But these things are too much to expect. _Vous ne
détestez pas alors mes bonnes femmes_? _moi_, _je les déteste_. I have
never pleased myself with any women of mine save two character parts, one
of only a few lines—the Countess of Rosen, and Madame Desprez in the
_Treasure of Franchard_.
I had indeed one moment of pride about my poor _Black Arrow_: Dickon
Crookback I did, and I do, think is a spirited and possible figure.
Shakespeare’s—O, if we can call that cocoon Shakespeare!—Shakespeare’s is
spirited—one likes to see the untaught athlete butting against the
adamantine ramparts of human nature, head down, breach up; it reminds us
how trivial we are to-day, and what safety resides in our triviality.
For spirited it may be, but O, sure not possible! I love Dumas and I
love Shakespeare: you will not mistake me when I say that the Richard of
the one reminds me of the Porthos of the other; and if by any sacrifice
of my own literary baggage I could clear the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ of
Porthos, _Jekyll_ might go, and the _Master_, and the _Black Arrow_, you
may be sure, and I should think my life not lost for mankind if half a
dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in.
The tone of your pleasant letters makes me egotistical; you make me take
myself too gravely. Comprehend how I have lived much of my time in
France, and loved your country, and many of its people, and all the time
was learning that which your country has to teach—breathing in rather
that atmosphere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the time
knew—and raged to know—that I might write with the pen of angels or of
heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps in M.
Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, and reads and
understands, and is kind enough to like my work.
I am just now overloaded with work. I have two huge novels on hand—_The
Wrecker_ and the _Pearl Fisher_, {198} in collaboration with my stepson:
the latter, the _Pearl Fisher_, I think highly of, for a black, ugly,
trampling, violent story, full of strange scenes and striking characters.
And then I am about waist-deep in my big book on the South Seas: _the_
big book on the South Seas it ought to be, and shall. And besides, I
have some verses in the press, which, however, I hesitate to publish.
For I am no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so facile.
All this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa keep me very
busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed.
Alas, I shall not have the pleasure to see you yet awhile, if ever. You
must be content to take me as a wandering voice, and in the form of
occasional letters from recondite islands; and address me, if you will be
good enough to write, to Apia, Samoa. My stepson, Mr. Osbourne, goes
home meanwhile to arrange some affairs; it is not unlikely he may go to
Paris to arrange about the illustrations to my South Seas; in which case
I shall ask him to call upon you, and give you some word of our
outlandish destinies. You will find him intelligent, I think; and I am
sure, if (_par hasard_) you should take any interest in the islands, he
will have much to tell you.—Herewith I conclude, and am your obliged and
interested correspondent,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—The story you refer to has got lost in the post.
TO ANDREW LANG
_Union Club_, _Sydney_ [_August _1890].
MY DEAR LANG,—I observed with a great deal of surprise and interest that
a controversy in which you have been taking sides at home, in yellow
London, hinges in part at least on the Gilbert Islanders and their
customs in burial. Nearly six months of my life has been passed in the
group: I have revisited it but the other day; and I make haste to tell
you what I know. The upright stones—I enclose you a photograph of one on
Apemama—are certainly connected with religion; I do not think they are
adored. They stand usually on the windward shore of the islands, that is
to say, apart from habitation (on _enclosed islands_, where the people
live on the sea side, I do not know how it is, never having lived on
one). I gathered from Tembinoka, Rex Apemamae, that the pillars were
supposed to fortify the island from invasion: spiritual martellos. I
think he indicated they were connected with the cult of Tenti—pronounce
almost as chintz in English, the _t_ being explosive; but you must take
this with a grain of salt, for I knew no word of Gilbert Island; and the
King’s English, although creditable, is rather vigorous than exact. Now,
here follows the point of interest to you: such pillars, or standing
stones, have no connection with graves. The most elaborate grave that I
have ever seen in the group—to be certain—is in the form of a _raised
border_ of gravel, usually strewn with broken glass. One, of which I
cannot be sure that it was a grave, for I was told by one that it was,
and by another that it was not—consisted of a mound about breast high in
an excavated taro swamp, on the top of which was a child’s house, or
rather _maniapa_—that is to say, shed, or open house, such as is used in
the group for social or political gatherings—so small that only a child
could creep under its eaves. I have heard of another great tomb on
Apemama, which I did not see; but here again, by all accounts, no sign of
a standing stone. My report would be—no connection between standing
stones and sepulture. I shall, however, send on the terms of the problem
to a highly intelligent resident trader, who knows more than perhaps any
one living, white or native, of the Gilbert group; and you shall have the
result. In Samoa, whither I return for good, I shall myself make
inquiries; up to now, I have neither seen nor heard of any standing
stones in that group.—Yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
_Union Club_, _Sydney_ [_September_ 1890].
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,—I began a letter to you on board the _Janet
Nicoll_ on my last cruise, wrote, I believe, two sheets, and ruthlessly
destroyed the flippant trash. Your last has given me great pleasure and
some pain, for it increased the consciousness of my neglect. Now, this
must go to you, whatever it is like.
. . . You are quite right; our civilisation is a hollow fraud, all the
fun of life is lost by it; all it gains is that a larger number of
persons can continue to be contemporaneously unhappy on the surface of
the globe. O, unhappy!—there is a big word and a false—continue to be
not nearly—by about twenty per cent.—so happy as they might be: that
would be nearer the mark.
When—observe that word, which I will write again and larger—WHEN you come
to see us in Samoa, you will see for yourself a healthy and happy people.
You see, you are one of the very few of our friends rich enough to come
and see us; and when my house is built, and the road is made, and we have
enough fruit planted and poultry and pigs raised, it is undeniable that
you must come—must is the word; that is the way in which I speak to
ladies. You and Fairchild, anyway—perhaps my friend Blair—we’ll arrange
details in good time. It will be the salvation of your souls, and make
you willing to die.
Let me tell you this: In ’74 or 5 there came to stay with my father and
mother a certain Mr. Seed, a prime minister or something of New Zealand.
He spotted what my complaint was; told me that I had no business to stay
in Europe; that I should find all I cared for, and all that was good for
me, in the Navigator Islands; sat up till four in the morning persuading
me, demolishing my scruples. And I resisted: I refused to go so far from
my father and mother. O, it was virtuous, and O, wasn’t it silly! But
my father, who was always my dearest, got to his grave without that pang;
and now in 1890, I (or what is left of me) go at last to the Navigator
Islands. God go with us! It is but a Pisgah sight when all is said; I
go there only to grow old and die; but when you come, you will see it is
a fair place for the purpose.
Flaubert {201} has not turned up; I hope he will soon; I knew of him only
through Maxime Descamps.—With kindest messages to yourself and all of
yours, I remain,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
XI
LIFE IN SAMOA,
NOVEMBER 1890–DECEMBER 1892
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima_, _Apia_, _Samoa_, _Nov._ 7, 1890.
I WISH you to add to the words at the end of the prologue; they run, I
think, thus, ‘And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd’; add, ‘not as he told,
but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion.’ This becomes the more
needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to Tai-o-hae,
and give final details about the characters in the way of a conversation
between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of information and
_faits-divers_ have always a disjointed, broken-backed appearance; yet,
readers like them. In this book we have introduced so many characters,
that this kind of epilogue will be looked for; and I rather hope, looking
far ahead, that I can lighten it in dialogue.
We are well past the middle now. How does it strike you? and can you
guess my mystery? It will make a fattish volume!
I say, have you ever read the _Highland Widow_? I never had till
yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip or two, to think it Scott’s
masterpiece; and it has the name of a failure! Strange things are
readers.
I expect proofs and revises in duplicate.
We have now got into a small barrack at our place. We see the sea six
hundred feet below filling the end of two vales of forest. On one hand
the mountain runs above us some thousand feet higher; great trees stand
round us in our clearing; there is an endless voice of birds; I have
never lived in such a heaven; just now, I have fever, which mitigates but
not destroys my gusto in my circumstances.—You may envy
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
. . . O, I don’t know if I mentioned that having seen your new tail to
the magazine, I cried off interference, at least for this trip. Did I
ask you to send me my books and papers, and all the bound volumes of the
mag.? _quorum pars_. I might add that were there a good book or so—new—I
don’t believe there is—such would be welcome.
I desire—I positively begin to awake—to be remembered to Scribner, Low,
St. Gaudens, Russell Sullivan. Well, well, you fellows have the feast of
reason and the flow of soul; I have a better-looking place and climate:
you should hear the birds on the hill now! The day has just wound up
with a shower; it is still light without, though I write within here at
the cheek of a lamp; my wife and an invaluable German are wrestling about
bread on the back verandah; and how the birds and the frogs are rattling,
and piping, and hailing from the woods! Here and there a throaty
chuckle; here and there, cries like those of jolly children who have lost
their way; here and there, the ringing sleigh-bell of the tree frog. Out
and away down below me on the sea it is still raining; it will be wet
under foot on schooners, and the house will leak; how well I know that!
Here the showers only patter on the iron roof, and sometimes roar; and
within, the lamp burns steady on the tafa-covered walls, with their dusky
tartan patterns, and the book-shelves with their thin array of books; and
no squall can rout my house or bring my heart into my mouth.—The
well-pleased South Sea Islander,
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Vailima_, _December_ 1890.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—By some diabolical accident, I have mislaid your
last. What was in it? I know not, and here I am caught unexpectedly by
the American mail, a week earlier than by computation. The computation,
not the mail, is supposed to be in error. The vols. of _Scribner’s_ have
arrived, and present a noble appearance in my house, which is not a noble
structure at present. But by autumn we hope to be sprawling in our
verandah, twelve feet, sir, by eighty-eight in front, and seventy-two on
the flank; view of the sea and mountains, sunrise, moonrise, and the
German fleet at anchor three miles away in Apia harbour. I hope some day
to offer you a bowl of kava there, or a slice of a pineapple, or some
lemonade from my own hedge. ‘I know a hedge where the lemons
grow’—_Shakespeare_. My house at this moment smells of them strong; and
the rain, which a while ago roared there, now rings in minute drops upon
the iron roof. I have no _Wrecker_ for you this mail, other things
having engaged me. I was on the whole rather relieved you did not vote
for regular papers, as I feared the traces. It is my design from time to
time to write a paper of a reminiscential (beastly word) description;
some of them I could scarce publish from different considerations; but
some of them—for instance, my long experience of gambling places—Homburg,
Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, old Monaco, and new Monte Carlo—would make good
magazine padding, if I got the stuff handled the right way. I never
could fathom why verse was put in magazines; it has something to do with
the making-up, has it not? I am scribbling a lot just now; if you are
taken badly that way, apply to the South Seas. I could send you some, I
believe, anyway, only none of it is thoroughly ripe. If kept back the
volume of ballads, I’ll soon make it a respectable size if this fit
continue. By the next mail you may expect some more _Wrecker_, or I
shall be displeased. Probably no more than a chapter, however, for it is
a hard one, and I am denuded of my proofs, my collaborator having walked
away with them to England; hence some trouble in catching the just note.
I am a mere farmer: my talk, which would scarce interest you on Broadway,
is all of fuafua and tuitui, and black boys, and planting and weeding,
and axes and cutlasses; my hands are covered with blisters and full of
thorns; letters are, doubtless, a fine thing, so are beer and skittles,
but give me farmering in the tropics for real interest. Life goes in
enchantment; I come home to find I am late for dinner; and when I go to
bed at night, I could cry for the weariness of my loins and thighs. Do
not speak to me of vexation, the life brims with it, but with living
interest fairly.
Christmas I go to Auckland, to meet Tamate, the New Guinea missionary, a
man I love. The rest of my life is a prospect of much rain, much weeding
and making of paths, a little letters, and devilish little to eat.—I am,
my dear Burlingame, with messages to all whom it may concern, very
sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Vailima_, _Apia_, _Samoa_, _December_ 29_th_, 1890.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—It is terrible how little everybody writes, and how
much of that little disappears in the capacious maw of the Post Office.
Many letters, both from and to me, I now know to have been lost in
transit: my eye is on the Sydney Post Office, a large ungainly structure
with a tower, as being not a hundred miles from the scene of
disappearance; but then I have no proof. _The Tragic Muse_ you announced
to me as coming; I had already ordered it from a Sydney bookseller: about
two months ago he advised me that his copy was in the post; and I am
still tragically museless.
News, news, news. What do we know of yours? What do you care for ours?
We are in the midst of the rainy season, and dwell among alarms of
hurricanes, in a very unsafe little two-storied wooden box 650 feet above
and about three miles from the sea-beach. Behind us, till the other
slope of the island, desert forest, peaks, and loud torrents; in front
green slopes to the sea, some fifty miles of which we dominate. We see
the ships as they go out and in to the dangerous roadstead of Apia; and
if they lie far out, we can even see their topmasts while they are at
anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there reach
us, at very long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour, the
bell of the cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling the
labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday, which was Sunday—the
_quantième_ is most likely erroneous; you can now correct it—we had a
visitor—Baker of Tonga. Heard you ever of him? He is a great man here:
he is accused of theft, rape, judicial murder, private poisoning,
abortion, misappropriation of public moneys—oddly enough, not forgery,
nor arson: you would be amused if you knew how thick the accusations fly
in this South Sea world. I make no doubt my own character is something
illustrious; or if not yet, there is a good time coming.
But all our resources have not of late been Pacific. We have had
enlightened society: La Farge the painter, and your friend Henry Adams: a
great privilege—would it might endure. I would go oftener to see them,
but the place is awkward to reach on horseback. I had to swim my horse
the last time I went to dinner; and as I have not yet returned the
clothes I had to borrow, I dare not return in the same plight: it seems
inevitable—as soon as the wash comes in, I plump straight into the
American consul’s shirt or trousers! They, I believe, would come oftener
to see me but for the horrid doubt that weighs upon our commissariat
department; we have _often_ almost nothing to eat; a guest would simply
break the bank; my wife and I have dined on one avocado pear; I have
several times dined on hard bread and onions. What would you do with a
guest at such narrow seasons?—eat him? or serve up a labour boy
fricasseed?
Work? work is now arrested, but I have written, I should think, about
thirty chapters of the South Sea book; they will all want rehandling, I
dare say. Gracious, what a strain is a long book! The time it took me
to design this volume, before I could dream of putting pen to paper, was
excessive; and then think of writing a book of travels on the spot, when
I am continually extending my information, revising my opinions, and
seeing the most finely finished portions of my work come part by part in
pieces. Very soon I shall have no opinions left. And without an
opinion, how to string artistically vast accumulations of fact? Darwin
said no one could observe without a theory; I suppose he was right; ’tis
a fine point of metaphysic; but I will take my oath, no man can write
without one—at least the way he would like to, and my theories melt,
melt, melt, and as they melt the thaw-waters wash down my writing, and
leave unideal tracts—wastes instead of cultivated farms.
Kipling is by far the most promising young man who has appeared
since—ahem—I appeared. He amazes me by his precocity and various
endowment. But he alarms me by his copiousness and haste. He should
shield his fire with both hands ‘and draw up all his strength and
sweetness in one ball.’ (‘Draw all his strength and all His sweetness up
into one ball’? I cannot remember Marvell’s words.) So the critics have
been saying to me; but I was never capable of—and surely never guilty
of—such a debauch of production. At this rate his works will soon fill
the habitable globe; and surely he was armed for better conflicts than
these succinct sketches and flying leaves of verse? I look on, I admire,
I rejoice for myself; but in a kind of ambition we all have for our
tongue and literature I am wounded. If I had this man’s fertility and
courage, it seems to me I could heave a pyramid.
Well, we begin to be the old fogies now; and it was high time _something_
rose to take our places. Certainly Kipling has the gifts; the fairy
godmothers were all tipsy at his christening: what will he do with them?
Goodbye, my dear James; find an hour to write to us, and register your
letter.—Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO RUDYARD KIPLING
[_Vailima_, 1891.]
SIR,—I cannot call to mind having written you, but I am so throng with
occupation this may have fallen aside. I never heard tell I had any
friends in Ireland, and I am led to understand you are come of no
considerable family. The gentleman I now serve with assures me, however,
you are a very pretty fellow and your letter deserves to be remarked.
It’s true he is himself a man of a very low descent upon the one side;
though upon the other he counts cousinship with a gentleman, my very good
friend, the late Mr. Balfour of the Shaws, in the Lothian; which I should
be wanting in good fellowship to forget. He tells me besides you are a
man of your hands; I am not informed of your weapon; but if all be true
it sticks in my mind I would be ready to make exception in your favour,
and meet you like one gentleman with another. I suppose this’ll be your
purpose in your favour, which I could very ill make out; it’s one I would
be sweir to baulk you of. It seems, Mr. McIlvaine, which I take to be
your name, you are in the household of a gentleman of the name of
Coupling: for whom my friend is very much engaged. The distances being
very uncommodious, I think it will be maybe better if we leave it to
these two to settle all that’s necessary to honour. I would have you to
take heed it’s a very unusual condescension on my part, that bear a
King’s name; and for the matter of that I think shame to be mingled with
a person of the name of Coupling, which is doubtless a very good house
but one I never heard tell of, any more than Stevenson. But your purpose
being laudable, I would be sorry (as the word goes) to cut off my nose to
spite my face.—I am, Sir, your humble servant,
A. STEWART,
_Chevalier de St. Louis_.
_To Mr. M’Ilvaine_,
_Gentleman Private in a foot regiment_,
_under cover to Mr. Coupling_.
He has read me some of your Barrack Room Ballants, which are not of so
noble a strain as some of mine in the Gaelic, but I could set some of
them to the pipes if this rencounter goes as it’s to be desired. Let’s
first, as I understand you to move, do each other this rational
courtesys; and if either will survive, we may grow better acquaint. For
your tastes for what’s martial and for poetry agree with mine.
A. S.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
_Sydney_, _January_ 19_th_, 1891.
MY DEAR SIR,—_Sapristi_, _comme vous y allez_! Richard III. and Dumas,
with all my heart; but not Hamlet. Hamlet is great literature; Richard
III. a big, black, gross, sprawling melodrama, writ with infinite spirit
but with no refinement or philosophy by a man who had the world, himself,
mankind, and his trade still to learn. I prefer the Vicomte de
Bragelonne to Richard III.; it is better done of its kind: I simply do
not mention the Vicomte in the same part of the building with Hamlet, or
Lear, or Othello, or any of those masterpieces that Shakespeare survived
to give us.
Also, _comme vous y allez_ in my commendation! I fear my _solide
éducation classique_ had best be described, like Shakespeare’s, as
‘little Latin and no Greek,’ and I was educated, let me inform you, for
an engineer. I shall tell my bookseller to send you a copy of _Memories
and Portraits_, where you will see something of my descent and education,
as it was, and hear me at length on my dear Vicomte. I give you
permission gladly to take your choice out of my works, and translate what
you shall prefer, too much honoured that so clever a young man should
think it worth the pains. My own choice would lie between _Kidnapped_
and the _Master of Ballantrae_. Should you choose the latter, pray do
not let Mrs. Henry thrust the sword up to the hilt in the frozen
ground—one of my inconceivable blunders, an exaggeration to stagger Hugo.
Say ‘she sought to thrust it in the ground.’ In both these works you
should be prepared for Scotticisms used deliberately.
I fear my stepson will not have found time to get to Paris; he was
overwhelmed with occupation, and is already on his voyage back. We live
here in a beautiful land, amid a beautiful and interesting people. The
life is still very hard: my wife and I live in a two-roomed cottage,
about three miles and six hundred and fifty feet above the sea; we have
had to make the road to it; our supplies are very imperfect; in the wild
weather of this (the hurricane) season we have much discomfort: one night
the wind blew in our house so outrageously that we must sit in the dark;
and as the sound of the rain on the roof made speech inaudible, you may
imagine we found the evening long. All these things, however, are
pleasant to me. You say _l’artiste inconscient_ set off to travel: you
do not divide me right. 0.6 of me is artist; 0.4, adventurer. First, I
suppose, come letters; then adventure; and since I have indulged the
second part, I think the formula begins to change: 0.55 of an artist,
0.45 of the adventurer were nearer true. And if it had not been for my
small strength, I might have been a different man in all things.
Whatever you do, do not neglect to send me what you publish on Villon: I
look forward to that with lively interest. I have no photograph at hand,
but I will send one when I can. It would be kind if you would do the
like, for I do not see much chance of our meeting in the flesh: and a
name, and a handwriting, and an address, and even a style? I know about
as much of Tacitus, and more of Horace; it is not enough between
contemporaries, such as we still are. I have just remembered another of
my books, which I re-read the other day, and thought in places
good—_Prince Otto_. It is not as good as either of the others; but it
has one recommendation—it has female parts, so it might perhaps please
better in France.
I will ask Chatto to send you, then—_Prince Otto_, _Memories and
Portraits_, _Underwoods_, and _Ballads_, none of which you seem to have
seen. They will be too late for the New Year: let them be an Easter
present.
You must translate me soon; you will soon have better to do than to
transverse the work of others.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
With the worst pen in the South Pacific.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_SS._ ‘_Lübeck_,’ _at sea_ [_on the return voyage from Sydney_, _March_
1891].
MY DEAR CHARLES,—Perhaps in my old days I do grow irascible; ‘the old man
virulent’ has long been my pet name for myself. Well, the temper is at
least all gone now; time is good at lowering these distemperatures; far
better is a sharp sickness, and I am just (and scarce) afoot again after
a smoking hot little malady at Sydney. And the temper being gone, I
still think the same. . . . We have not our parents for ever; we are
never very good to them; when they go and we have lost our front-file
man, we begin to feel all our neglects mighty sensibly. I propose a
proposal. My mother is here on board with me; to-day for once I mean to
make her as happy as I am able, and to do that which I know she likes.
You, on the other hand, go and see your father, and do ditto, and give
him a real good hour or two. We shall both be glad hereafter.—Yours
ever,
R. L. S.
TO H. B. BAILDON
_Vailima_, _Upolu_ [_Undated_, _but written in_ 1891].
MY DEAR BAILDON,—This is a real disappointment. It was so long since we
had met, I was anxious to see where time had carried and stranded us.
Last time we saw each other—it must have been all ten years ago, as we
were new to the thirties—it was only for a moment, and now we’re in the
forties, and before very long we shall be in our graves. Sick and well,
I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little—and
then only some little corners of misconduct for which I deserve hanging,
and must infallibly be damned—and, take it all over, damnation and all,
would hardly change with any man of my time, unless perhaps it were
Gordon or our friend Chalmers: a man I admire for his virtues, love for
his faults, and envy for the really A1 life he has, with everything
heart—my heart, I mean—could wish. It is curious to think you will read
this in the grey metropolis; go the first grey, east-windy day into the
Caledonian Station, if it looks at all as it did of yore: I met Satan
there. And then go and stand by the cross, and remember the other
one—him that went down—my brother, Robert Fergusson. It is a pity you
had not made me out, and seen me as patriarch and planter. I shall look
forward to some record of your time with Chalmers: you can’t weary me of
that fellow, he is as big as a house and far bigger than any church,
where no man warms his hands. Do you know anything of Thomson? Of A—,
B—, C—, D—, E—, F—, at all? As I write C.’s name mustard rises my nose;
I have never forgiven that weak, amiable boy a little trick he played me
when I could ill afford it: I mean that whenever I think of it, some of
the old wrath kindles, not that I would hurt the poor soul, if I got the
world with it. And Old X—? Is he still afloat? Harmless bark! I
gather you ain’t married yet, since your sister, to whom I ask to be
remembered, goes with you. Did you see a silly tale, _John Nicholson’s
Predicament_, {220} or some such name, in which I made free with your
home at Murrayfield? There is precious little sense in it, but it might
amuse. Cassell’s published it in a thing called _Yule-Tide_ years ago,
and nobody that ever I heard of read or has ever seen _Yule-Tide_. It is
addressed to a class we never met—readers of Cassell’s series and that
class of conscientious chaff, and my tale was dull, though I don’t recall
that it was conscientious. Only, there’s the house at Murrayfield and a
dead body in it. Glad the _Ballads_ amused you. They failed to
entertain a coy public, at which I wondered, not that I set much account
by my verses, which are the verses of Prosator; but I do know how to tell
a yarn, and two of the yarns are great. _Rahero_ is for its length a
perfect folk-tale: savage and yet fine, full of tailforemost morality,
ancient as the granite rocks; if the historian, not to say the
politician, could get that yarn into his head, he would have learned some
of his A B C. But the average man at home cannot understand antiquity; he
is sunk over the ears in Roman civilisation; and a tale like that of
_Rahero_ falls on his ears inarticulate. The _Spectator_ said there was
no psychology in it; that interested me much: my grandmother (as I used
to call that able paper, and an able paper it is, and a fair one) cannot
so much as observe the existence of savage psychology when it is put
before it. I am at bottom a psychologist and ashamed of it; the tale
seized me one-third because of its picturesque features, two-thirds
because of its astonishing psychology, and the _Spectator_ says there’s
none. I am going on with a lot of island work, exulting in the knowledge
of a new world, ‘a new created world’ and new men; and I am sure my
income will DECLINE and FALL off; for the effort of comprehension is
death to the intelligent public, and sickness to the dull.
I do not know why I pester you with all this trash, above all as you
deserve nothing. I give you my warm _talofa_ (‘my love to you,’ Samoan
salutation). Write me again when the spirit moves you. And some day, if
I still live, make out the trip again and let us hob-a-nob with our grey
pows on my verandah.—Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _April_ 1891.
DEAR MR. ANGUS,—Surely I remember you! It was W. C. Murray who made us
acquainted, and we had a pleasant crack. I see your poet is not yet
dead. I remember even our talk—or you would not think of trusting that
invaluable _Jolly Beggars_ to the treacherous posts, and the perils of
the sea, and the carelessness of authors. I love the idea, but I could
not bear the risk. However—
‘Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle—’
it was kindly thought upon.
My interest in Burns is, as you suppose, perennial. I would I could be
present at the exhibition, with the purpose of which I heartily
sympathise; but the _Nancy_ has not waited in vain for me, I have
followed my chest, the anchor is weighed long ago, I have said my last
farewell to the hills and the heather and the lynns: like Leyden, I have
gone into far lands to die, not stayed like Burns to mingle in the end
with Scottish soil. I shall not even return like Scott for the last
scene. Burns Exhibitions are all over. ’Tis a far cry to Lochow from
tropical Vailima.
‘But still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.’
When your hand is in, will you remember our poor Edinburgh Robin? Burns
alone has been just to his promise; follow Burns, he knew best, he knew
whence he drew fire—from the poor, white-faced, drunken, vicious boy that
raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse. Surely there is more
to be gleaned about Fergusson, and surely it is high time the task was
set about. I may tell you (because your poet is not dead) something of
how I feel: we are three Robins who have touched the Scots lyre this last
century. Well, the one is the world’s, he did it, he came off, he is for
ever; but I and the other—ah! what bonds we have—born in the same city;
both sickly, both pestered, one nearly to madness, one to the madhouse,
with a damnatory creed; both seeing the stars and the dawn, and wearing
shoe-leather on the same ancient stones, under the same pends, down the
same closes, where our common ancestors clashed in their armour, rusty or
bright. And the old Robin, who was before Burns and the flood, died in
his acute, painful youth, and left the models of the great things that
were to come; and the new, who came after, outlived his greensickness,
and has faintly tried to parody the finished work. If you will collect
the strays of Robin Fergusson, fish for material, collect any last
re-echoing of gossip, command me to do what you prefer—to write the
preface—to write the whole if you prefer: anything, so that another
monument (after Burns’s) be set up to my unhappy predecessor on the
causey of Auld Reekie. You will never know, nor will any man, how deep
this feeling is: I believe Fergusson lives in me. I do, but tell it not
in Gath; every man has these fanciful superstitions, coming, going, but
yet enduring; only most men are so wise (or the poet in them so dead)
that they keep their follies for themselves.—I am, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Vailima_, _April_ 1891.
MY DEAR GOSSE,—I have to thank you and Mrs. Gosse for many mementoes,
chiefly for your _Life_ of your father. There is a very delicate task,
very delicately done. I noted one or two carelessnesses, which I meant
to point out to you for another edition; but I find I lack the time, and
you will remark them for yourself against a new edition. They were two,
or perhaps three, flabbinesses of style which (in your work) amazed me.
Am I right in thinking you were a shade bored over the last chapters? or
was it my own fault that made me think them susceptible of a more
athletic compression? (The flabbinesses were not there, I think, but in
the more admirable part, where they showed the bigger.) Take it all
together, the book struck me as if you had been hurried at the last, but
particularly hurried over the proofs, and could still spend a very
profitable fortnight in earnest revision and (towards the end) heroic
compression. The book, in design, subject, and general execution, is
well worth the extra trouble. And even if I were wrong in thinking it
specially wanted, it will not be lost; for do we not know, in Flaubert’s
dread confession, that ‘prose is never done’? What a medium to work in,
for a man tired, perplexed among different aims and subjects, and spurred
by the immediate need of ‘siller’! However, it’s mine for what it’s
worth; and it’s one of yours, the devil take it; and you know, as well as
Flaubert, and as well as me, that it is _never done_; in other words, it
is a torment of the pit, usually neglected by the bards who (lucky
beggars!) approached the Styx in measure. I speak bitterly at the
moment, having just detected in myself the last fatal symptom, three
blank verses in succession—and I believe, God help me, a hemistich at the
tail of them; hence I have deposed the labourer, come out of hell by my
private trap, and now write to you from my little place in purgatory.
But I prefer hell: would I could always dig in those red coals—or else be
at sea in a schooner, bound for isles unvisited: to be on shore and not
to work is emptiness—suicidal vacancy.
I was the more interested in your _Life_ of your father, because I
meditate one of mine, or rather of my family. I have no such materials
as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with
despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to
me—lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance that
has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple passages. I
wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do of mine? I
wonder if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I wonder; I can
tell you at least what is wrong with yours—they are treated in the spirit
of verse. The spirit—I don’t mean the measure, I don’t mean you fall
into bastard cadences; what I mean is that they seem vacant and smoothed
out, ironed, if you like. And in a style which (like yours) aims more
and more successfully at the academic, one purple word is already much;
three—a whole phrase—is inadmissible. Wed yourself to a clean austerity:
that is your force. Wear a linen ephod, splendidly candid. Arrange its
folds, but do not fasten it with any brooch. I swear to you, in your
talking robes, there should be no patch of adornment; and where the
subject forces, let it force you no further than it must; and be ready
with a twinkle of your pleasantry. Yours is a fine tool, and I see so
well how to hold it; I wonder if you see how to hold mine? But then I am
to the neck in prose, and just now in the ‘dark _interstylar_ cave,’ all
methods and effects wooing me, myself in the midst impotent to follow
any. I look for dawn presently, and a full flowing river of expression,
running whither it wills. But these useless seasons, above all, when a
man _must_ continue to spoil paper, are infinitely weary.
We are in our house after a fashion; without furniture, ’tis true,
camping there, like the family after a sale. But the bailiff has not yet
appeared; he will probably come after. The place is beautiful beyond
dreams; some fifty miles of the Pacific spread in front; deep woods all
round; a mountain making in the sky a profile of huge trees upon our
left; about us, the little island of our clearing, studded with brave old
gentlemen (or ladies, or ‘the twa o’ them’) whom we have spared. It is a
good place to be in; night and morning, we have Theodore Rousseaus
(always a new one) hung to amuse us on the walls of the world; and the
moon—this is our good season, we have a moon just now—makes the night a
piece of heaven. It amazes me how people can live on in the dirty north;
yet if you saw our rainy season (which is really a caulker for wind, wet,
and darkness—howling showers, roaring winds, pit-blackness at noon) you
might marvel how we could endure that. And we can’t. But there’s a
winter everywhere; only ours is in the summer. Mark my words: there will
be a winter in heaven—and in hell. _Cela rentre dans les procédés du bon
Dieu_; _et vous verrez_! There’s another very good thing about Vailima,
I am away from the little bubble of the literary life. It is not all
beer and skittles, is it? By the by, my _Ballads_ seem to have been dam
bad; all the crickets sing so in their crickety papers; and I have no
ghost of an idea on the point myself: verse is always to me the
unknowable. You might tell me how it strikes a professional bard: not
that it really matters, for, of course, good or bad, I don’t think I
shall get into _that_ galley any more. But I should like to know if you
join the shrill chorus of the crickets. The crickets are the devil in
all to you: ’tis a strange thing, they seem to rejoice like a strong man
in their injustice. I trust you got my letter about your Browning book.
In case it missed, I wish to say again that your publication of
Browning’s kind letter, as an illustration of _his_ character, was
modest, proper, and in radiant good taste.—In Witness whereof, etc.,
etc.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS RAWLINSON
_Vailima_, _Apia_, _Samoa_, _April_ 1891.
MY DEAR MAY,—I never think of you by any more ceremonial name, so I will
not pretend. There is not much chance that I shall forget you until the
time comes for me to forget all this little turmoil in a corner (though
indeed I have been in several corners) of an inconsiderable planet. You
remain in my mind for a good reason, having given me (in so short a time)
the most delightful pleasure. I shall remember, and you must still be
beautiful. The truth is, you must grow more so, or you will soon be
less. It is not so easy to be a flower, even when you bear a flower’s
name. And if I admired you so much, and still remember you, it is not
because of your face, but because you were then worthy of it, as you must
still continue.
Will you give my heartiest congratulations to Mr. S.? He has my
admiration; he is a brave man; when I was young, I should have run away
from the sight of you, pierced with the sense of my unfitness. He is
more wise and manly. What a good husband he will have to be! And
you—what a good wife! Carry your love tenderly. I will never forgive
him—or you—it is in both your hands—if the face that once gladdened my
heart should be changed into one sour or sorrowful.
What a person you are to give flowers! It was so I first heard of you;
and now you are giving the May flower!
Yes, Skerryvore has passed; it was, for us. But I wish you could see us
in our new home on the mountain, in the middle of great woods, and
looking far out over the Pacific. When Mr. S. is very rich, he must
bring you round the world and let you see it, and see the old gentleman
and the old lady. I mean to live quite a long while yet, and my wife
must do the same, or else I couldn’t manage it; so, you see, you will
have plenty of time; and it’s a pity not to see the most beautiful
places, and the most beautiful people moving there, and the real stars
and moon overhead, instead of the tin imitations that preside over
London. I do not think my wife very well; but I am in hopes she will now
have a little rest. It has been a hard business, above all for her; we
lived four months in the hurricane season in a miserable house, overborne
with work, ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in perpetual rain,
beaten upon by wind, so that we must sit in the dark in the evenings; and
then I ran away, and she had a month of it alone. Things go better now;
the back of the work is broken; and we are still foolish enough to look
forward to a little peace. I am a very different person from the
prisoner of Skerryvore. The other day I was three-and-twenty hours in an
open boat; it made me pretty ill; but fancy its not killing me half-way!
It is like a fairy story that I should have recovered liberty and
strength, and should go round again among my fellow-men, boating, riding,
bathing, toiling hard with a wood-knife in the forest. I can wish you
nothing more delightful than my fortune in life; I wish it you; and
better, if the thing be possible.
Lloyd is tinkling below me on the typewriter; my wife has just left the
room; she asks me to say she would have written had she been well enough,
and hopes to do it still.—Accept the best wishes of your admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
[_Vailima_, _May_ 1891.]
MY DEAR ADELAIDE,—I will own you just did manage to tread on my gouty
toe; and I beg to assure you with most people I should simply have turned
away and said no more. My cudgelling was therefore in the nature of a
caress or testimonial.
God forbid, I should seem to judge for you on such a point; it was what
you seemed to set forth as your reasons that fluttered my old
Presbyterian spirit—for, mind you, I am a child of the Covenanters—whom I
do not love, but they are mine after all, my father’s and my mother’s—and
they had their merits too, and their ugly beauties, and grotesque
heroisms, that I love them for, the while I laugh at them; but in their
name and mine do what you think right, and let the world fall. That is
the privilege and the duty of private persons; and I shall think the more
of you at the greater distance, because you keep a promise to your
fellow-man, your helper and creditor in life, by just so much as I was
tempted to think the less of you (O not much, or I would never have been
angry) when I thought you were the swallower of a (tinfoil) formula.
I must say I was uneasy about my letter, not because it was too strong as
an expression of my unregenerate sentiments, but because I knew full well
it should be followed by something kinder. And the mischief has been in
my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney, was put aboard the _Lübeck_
pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung on a month there, and didn’t pick up as
well as my work needed; set off on a journey, gained a great deal, lost
it again; and am back at Vailima, still no good at my necessary work. I
tell you this for my imperfect excuse that I should not have written you
again sooner to remove the bad taste of my last.
A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from the back of our house
to the bridge, and thence to the garden, and by a bifurcation to the pig
pen. It is thus much traversed, particularly by Fanny. An oleander, the
only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate, grows there; and
the name is now some week or ten days applied and published. ADELAIDE
ROAD leads also into the bush, to the banana patch, and by a second
bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the plateau and the
right hand of the gorges. In short, it leads to all sorts of good, and
is, besides, in itself a pretty winding path, bound downhill among big
woods to the margin of the stream.
What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah and David and Heine
are good enough for me; and I leave more unsaid. Were I of Jew blood, I
do not think I could ever forgive the Christians; the ghettos would get
in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder. Just so you as being a
child of the Presbytery, I retain—I need not dwell on that. The
ascendant hand is what I feel most strongly; I am bound in and in with my
forbears; were he one of mine, I should not be struck at all by Mr. Moss
of Bevis Marks, I should still see behind him Moses of the Mount and the
Tables and the shining face. We are all nobly born; fortunate those who
know it; blessed those who remember.
I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Write by return to say you are better, and I will try to do the same.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Vailima_], _Tuesday_, 19_th_ _May_ ’91.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I don’t know what you think of me, not having written to
you at all during your illness. I find two sheets begun with your name,
but that is no excuse. . . . I am keeping bravely; getting about better,
every day, and hope soon to be in my usual fettle. My books begin to
come; and I fell once more on the Old Bailey session papers. I have
1778, 1784, and 1786. Should you be able to lay hands on any other
volumes, above all a little later, I should be very glad you should buy
them for me. I particularly want _one_ or _two_ during the course of the
Peninsular War. Come to think, I ought rather to have communicated this
want to Bain. Would it bore you to communicate to that effect with the
great man? The sooner I have them, the better for me. ’Tis for Henry
Shovel. But Henry Shovel has now turned into a work called ‘The Shovels
of Newton French: Including Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private in the
Peninsular War,’ which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage of
Skipper, afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry’s
great-great-grandfather, and end about 1832 with his own second marriage
to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the public ever stand such an
opus? Gude kens, but it tickles me. Two or three historical personages
will just appear: Judge Jeffreys, Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I
think Townsend the runner. I know the public won’t like it; let ’em lump
it then; I mean to make it good; it will be more like a saga.—Adieu,
yours ever affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima_ [_Summer_ 1891].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—I find among my grandfather’s papers his own
reminiscences of his voyage round the north with Sir Walter, eighty years
ago, _labuntur anni_! They are not remarkably good, but he was not a bad
observer, and several touches seem to me speaking. It has occurred to me
you might like them to appear in the _Magazine_. If you would, kindly
let me know, and tell me how you would like it handled. My grandad’s MS.
runs to between six and seven thousand words, which I could abbreviate of
anecdotes that scarce touch Sir W. Would you like this done? Would you
like me to introduce the old gentleman? I had something of the sort in
my mind, and could fill a few columns rather _à propos_. I give you the
first offer of this, according to your request; for though it may
forestall one of the interests of my biography, the thing seems to me
particularly suited for prior appearance in a magazine.
I see the first number of the _Wrecker_; I thought it went lively enough;
and by a singular accident, the picture is not unlike Tai-o-hae!
Thus we see the age of miracles, etc.—Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
Proofs for next mail.
TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
[_Summer_ 1891.]
DEAR MR. ANGUS,—You can use my letter as you will. The parcel has not
come; pray Heaven the next post bring it safe. Is it possible for me to
write a preface here? I will try if you like, if you think I must:
though surely there are Rivers in Assyria. Of course you will send me
sheets of the catalogue; I suppose it (the preface) need not be long;
perhaps it should be rather very short? Be sure you give me your views
upon these points. Also tell me what names to mention among those of
your helpers, and do remember to register everything, else it is not
safe.
The true place (in my view) for a monument to Fergusson were the
churchyard of Haddington. But as that would perhaps not carry many
votes, I should say one of the two following sites:—First, either as near
the site of the old Bedlam as we could get, or, second, beside the Cross,
the heart of his city. Upon this I would have a fluttering butterfly,
and, I suggest, the citation,
Poor butterfly, thy case I mourn.
For the case of Fergusson is not one to pretend about. A more miserable
tragedy the sun never shone upon, or (in consideration of our climate) I
should rather say refused to brighten.—Yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Where Burns goes will not matter. He is no local poet, like your Robin
the First; he is general as the casing air. Glasgow, as the chief city
of Scottish men, would do well; but for God’s sake, don’t let it be like
the Glasgow memorial to Knox: I remember, when I first saw this, laughing
for an hour by Shrewsbury clock.
R. L. S.
TO H. C. IDE
[_Vailima_, _June_ 19, 1891.]
DEAR MR. IDE,—Herewith please find the DOCUMENT, which I trust will prove
sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in its eclecticism;
Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all indifferently introduced,
and a quotation from the works of Haynes Bayly can hardly fail to attract
the indulgence of the Bench.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of _The
Master of Ballantrae_ and _Moral Emblems_, stuck civil engineer, sole
owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the
island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and
pretty well, I thank you, in body:
In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide, in the
town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the state of
Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all reason, upon
Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice denied the consolation
and profit of a proper birthday;
And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have attained an
age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no further use for a
birthday of any description;
And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of the said
Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner as I
require:
_Have transferred_, and _do hereby transfer_, to the said Annie H. Ide,
_all and whole_ my rights and priviledges in the thirteenth day of
November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the birthday
of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy the same in
the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich
meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of verse, according
to the manner of our ancestors;
_And I direct_ the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie H.
Ide the name Louisa—at least in private; and I charge her to use my said
birthday with moderation and humanity, _et tamquam bona filia familiæ_,
the said birthday not being so young as it once was, and having carried
me in a very satisfactory manner since I can remember;
And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or contravene either of
the above conditions, I hereby revoke the donation and transfer my rights
in the said birthday to the President of the United States of America for
the time being:
In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this nineteenth day
of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-one.
[Picture: Circle with word ‘seal’ in it]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_Witness_, LLOYD OSBOURNE,
_Witness_, HAROLD WATTS.
TO HENRY JAMES
[_Vailima_, _October_ 1891.]
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—From this perturbed and hunted being expect but a
line, and that line shall be but a whoop for Adela. O she’s delicious,
delicious; I could live and die with Adela—die, rather the better of the
two; you never did a straighter thing, and never will.
_David Balfour_, second part of _Kidnapped_, is on the stocks at last;
and is not bad, I think. As for _The Wrecker_, it’s a machine, you
know—don’t expect aught else—a machine, and a police machine; but I
believe the end is one of the most genuine butcheries in literature; and
we point to our machine with a modest pride, as the only police machine
without a villain. Our criminals are a most pleasing crew, and leave the
dock with scarce a stain upon their character.
What a different line of country to be trying to draw Adela, and trying
to write the last four chapters of _The Wrecker_! Heavens, it’s like two
centuries; and ours is such rude, transpontine business, aiming only at a
certain fervour of conviction and sense of energy and violence in the
men; and yours is so neat and bright and of so exquisite a surface!
Seems dreadful to send such a book to such an author; but your name is on
the list. And we do modestly ask you to consider the chapters on the
_Norah Creina_ with the study of Captain Nares, and the forementioned
last four, with their brutality of substance and the curious (and perhaps
unsound) technical manœuvre of running the story together to a point as
we go along, the narrative becoming more succinct and the details fining
off with every page.—Sworn affidavit of
R. L. S.
_No person now alive has beaten Adela_: _I adore Adela and her maker_.
_Sic subscrib._
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
A Sublime Poem to follow.
Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,
What have you done to my elderly heart?
Of all the ladies of paper and ink
I count you the paragon, call you the pink.
The word of your brother depicts you in part:
‘You raving maniac!’ Adela Chart;
But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,
So delightful a maniac was ne’er to be found.
I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,
I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,
And thank my dear maker the while I admire
That I can be neither your husband nor sire.
Your husband’s, your sire’s were a difficult part;
You’re a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;
But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,
O, sure you’re the flower and quintessence of dames.
R. L. S.
_Eructavit cor meum._
My heart was inditing a goodly matter about Adela Chart.
Though oft I’ve been touched by the volatile dart,
To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,
There are passable ladies, no question, in art—
But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?
I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart—
I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:
From the first I awoke with a palpable start,
The second dumfoundered me, Adela Chart!
Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the violence of the
Muse.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_October_ 8_th_, 1891.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—All right, you shall have the _Tales of my
Grandfather_ soon, but I guess we’ll try and finish off _The Wrecker_
first. _À propos_ of whom, please send some advanced sheets to
Cassell’s—away ahead of you—so that they may get a dummy out.
Do you wish to illustrate _My Grandfather_? He mentions as excellent a
portrait of Scott by Basil Hall’s brother. I don’t think I ever saw this
engraved; would it not, if you could get track of it, prove a taking
embellishment? I suggest this for your consideration and inquiry. A new
portrait of Scott strikes me as good. There is a hard, tough,
constipated old portrait of my grandfather hanging in my aunt’s house,
Mrs. Alan Stevenson, 16 St. Leonard’s Terrace, Chelsea, which has never
been engraved—the better portrait, Joseph’s bust has been reproduced, I
believe, twice—and which, I am sure, my aunt would let you have a copy
of. The plate could be of use for the book when we get so far, and thus
to place it in the _Magazine_ might be an actual saving.
I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for the last, time in
my sublunary career. It is a painful, thankless trade; but one thing
that came up I could not pass in silence. Much drafting, addressing,
deputationising has eaten up all my time, and again (to my contrition) I
leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves I tackle it
straight.—Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima_ [_Autumn_ 1891].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—The time draws nigh, the mail is near due, and I
snatch a moment of collapse so that you may have at least some sort of a
scratch of note along with the
end
of
The
Wrecker.
Hurray!
which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil of a pull, but I
think it’s going to be ready. If I did not know you were on the stretch
waiting for it and trembling for your illustrations, I would keep it for
another finish; but things being as they are, I will let it go the best
way I can get it. I am now within two pages of the end of Chapter XXV.,
which is the last chapter, the end with its gathering up of loose
threads, being the dedication to Low, and addressed to him: this is my
last and best expedient for the knotting up of these loose cards. ’Tis
possible I may not get that finished in time, in which case you’ll
receive only Chapters XXII. to XXV. by this mail, which is all that can
be required for illustration.
I wish you would send me _Memoirs of Baron Marbot_ (French);
_Introduction to the Study of the History of Language_, Strong, Logeman &
Wheeler; _Principles of Psychology_, William James; Morris & Magnusson’s
_Saga Library_, any volumes that are out; George Meredith’s _One of our
Conquerors_; _Là Bas_, by Huysmans (French); O’Connor Morris’s _Great
Commanders of Modern Times_; _Life’s Handicap_, by Kipling; of Taine’s
_Origines de la France Contemporaine_, I have only as far as _la
Révolution_, vol. iii.; if another volume is out, please add that. There
is for a book-box.
I hope you will like the end; I think it is rather strong meat. I have
got into such a deliberate, dilatory, expansive turn, that the effort to
compress this last yarn was unwelcome; but the longest yarn has to come
to an end sometime. Please look it over for carelessnesses, and tell me
if it had any effect upon your jaded editorial mind. I’ll see if ever I
have time to add more.
I add to my book-box list Adams’ _Historical Essays_; the Plays of A. W.
Pinero—all that have appeared, and send me the rest in course as they do
appear; _Noughts and Crosses_ by Q.; Robertson’s _Scotland under her
Early Kings_.
_Sunday_.
The deed is done, didst thou not hear a noise? ‘The end’ has been
written to this endless yarn, and I am once more a free man. What will
he do with it?
TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _November_ 1891.
MY DEAR MR. ANGUS,—Herewith the invaluable sheets. They came months
after your letter, and I trembled; but here they are, and I have scrawled
my vile name on them, and ‘thocht shame’ as I did it. I am expecting the
sheets of your catalogue, so that I may attack the preface. Please give
me all the time you can. The sooner the better; you might even send me
early proofs as they are sent out, to give me more incubation. I used to
write as slow as judgment; now I write rather fast; but I am still ‘a
slow study,’ and sit a long while silent on my eggs. Unconscious
thought, there is the only method: macerate your subject, let it boil
slow, then take the lid off and look in—and there your stuff is, good or
bad. But the journalist’s method is the way to manufacture lies; it is
will-worship—if you know the luminous quaker phrase; and the will is only
to be brought in the field for study, and again for revision. The
essential part of work is not an act, it is a state.
I do not know why I write you this trash.
Many thanks for your handsome dedication. I have not yet had time to do
more than glance at Mrs. Begg; it looks interesting.—Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ANNIE H. IDE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_ [_November_ 1891].
MY DEAR LOUISA,—Your picture of the church, the photograph of yourself
and your sister, and your very witty and pleasing letter, came all in a
bundle, and made me feel I had my money’s worth for that birthday. I am
now, I must be, one of your nearest relatives; exactly what we are to
each other, I do not know, I doubt if the case has ever happened
before—your papa ought to know, and I don’t believe he does; but I think
I ought to call you in the meanwhile, and until we get the advice of
counsel learned in the law, my name-daughter. Well, I was extremely
pleased to see by the church that my name-daughter could draw; by the
letter, that she was no fool; and by the photograph, that she was a
pretty girl, which hurts nothing. See how virtues are rewarded! My
first idea of adopting you was entirely charitable; and here I find that
I am quite proud of it, and of you, and that I chose just the kind of
name-daughter I wanted. For I can draw too, or rather I mean to say I
could before I forgot how; and I am very far from being a fool myself,
however much I may look it; and I am as beautiful as the day, or at least
I once hoped that perhaps I might be going to be. And so I might. So
that you see we are well met, and peers on these important points. I am
_very_ glad also that you are older than your sister. So should I have
been, if I had had one. So that the number of points and virtues which
you have inherited from your name-father is already quite surprising.
I wish you would tell your father—not that I like to encourage my
rival—that we have had a wonderful time here of late, and that they are
having a cold day on Mulinuu, and the consuls are writing reports, and I
am writing to the _Times_, and if we don’t get rid of our friends this
time I shall begin to despair of everything but my name-daughter.
You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday on your age. From
the moment the deed was registered (as it was in the public press with
every solemnity), the 13th of November became your own _and only_
birthday, and you ceased to have been born on Christmas Day. Ask your
father: I am sure he will tell you this is sound law. You are thus
become a month and twelve days younger than you were, but will go on
growing older for the future in the regular and human manner from one
13th November to the next. The effect on me is more doubtful; I may, as
you suggest, live for ever; I might, on the other hand, come to pieces
like the one-horse shay at a moment’s notice; doubtless the step was
risky, but I do not the least regret that which enables me to sign myself
your revered and delighted name-father,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO FRED ORR
_Vailima_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_, _November_ 28_th_, 1891.
DEAR SIR,—Your obliging communication is to hand. I am glad to find that
you have read some of my books, and to see that you spell my name right.
This is a point (for some reason) of great difficulty; and I believe that
a gentleman who can spell Stevenson with a v at sixteen, should have a
show for the Presidency before fifty. By that time
I, nearer to the wayside inn,
predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs, but
perhaps your son may have inherited the collection, and on the morning of
the great day will recall my prophecy to your mind. And in the papers of
1921 (say) this letter may arouse a smile.
Whatever you do, read something else besides novels and newspapers; the
first are good enough when they are good; the second, at their best, are
worth nothing. Read great books of literature and history; try to
understand the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages; be sure you do not
understand when you dislike them; condemnation is non-comprehension. And
if you know something of these two periods, you will know a little more
about to-day, and may be a good President.
I send you my best wishes, and am yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
_Author of a vast quantity of little books_.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Vailima_, _December_ 1891.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—The end of _The Wrecker_ having but just come in, you
will, I dare say, be appalled to receive three (possibly four) chapters
of a new book of the least attractive sort: a history of nowhere in a
corner, for no time to mention, running to a volume! Well, it may very
likely be an illusion; it is very likely no one could possibly wish to
read it, but I wish to publish it. If you don’t cotton to the idea,
kindly set it up at my expense, and let me know your terms for
publishing. The great affair to me is to have per return (if it might
be) four or five—better say half a dozen—sets of the roughest proofs that
can be drawn. There are a good many men here whom I want to read the
blessed thing, and not one would have the energy to read MS. At the same
time, if you care to glance at it, and have the time, I should be very
glad of your opinion as to whether I have made any step at all towards
possibly inducing folk at home to read matter so extraneous and
outlandish. I become heavy and owlish; years sit upon me; it begins to
seem to me to be a man’s business to leave off his damnable faces and say
his say. Else I could have made it pungent and light and lively. In
considering, kindly forget that I am R. L. S.; think of the four chapters
as a book you are reading, by an inhabitant of our ‘lovely but fatil’
islands; and see if it could possibly amuse the hebetated public. I have
to publish anyway, you understand; I have a purpose beyond; I am
concerned for some of the parties to this quarrel. What I want to hear
is from curiosity; what I want you to judge of is what we are to do with
the book in a business sense. To me it is not business at all; I had
meant originally to lay all the profits to the credit of Samoa; when it
comes to the pinch of writing, I judge this unfair—I give too much—and I
mean to keep (if there be any profit at all) one-half for the artisan;
the rest I shall hold over to give to the Samoans _for that which I
choose and against work done_. I think I have never heard of greater
insolence than to attempt such a subject; yet the tale is so strange and
mixed, and the people so oddly charactered—above all, the whites—and the
high note of the hurricane and the warships is so well prepared to take
popular interest, and the latter part is so directly in the day’s
movement, that I am not without hope but some may read it; and if they
don’t, a murrain on them! Here is, for the first time, a tale of
Greeks—Homeric Greeks—mingled with moderns, and all true; Odysseus
alongside of Rajah Brooke, _proportion gardée_; and all true. Here is
for the first time since the Greeks (that I remember) the history of a
handful of men, where all know each other in the eyes, and live close in
a few acres, narrated at length, and with the seriousness of history.
Talk of the modern novel; here is a modern history. And if I had the
misfortune to found a school, the legitimate historian might lie down and
die, for he could never overtake his material. Here is a little tale
that has not ‘caret’-ed its ‘vates’; ‘sacer’ is another point.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
_December_ 7_th_, 1891.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—Thanks for yours; your former letter was lost; so it
appears was my long and masterly treatise on the _Tragic Muse_. I
remember sending it very well, and there went by the same mail a long and
masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy’s life, for which I have been
long expecting an acknowledgment, and which is plainly gone to the bottom
with the other. If you see Gosse, please mention it. These gems of
criticism are now lost literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I could
not do ’em again. And I must ask you to be content with a dull head, a
weary hand, and short commons, for to-day, as I am physically tired with
hard work of every kind, the labours of the planter and the author both
piled upon me mountain deep. I am delighted beyond expression by
Bourget’s book: he has phrases which affect me almost like Montaigne; I
had read ere this a masterly essay of his on Pascal; this book does it; I
write for all his essays by this mail, and shall try to meet him when I
come to Europe. The proposal is to pass a summer in France, I think in
Royat, where the faithful could come and visit me; they are now not many.
I expect Henry James to come and break a crust or two with us. I believe
it will be only my wife and myself; and she will go over to England, but
not I, or possibly incog. to Southampton, and then to Boscombe to see
poor Lady Shelley. I am writing—trying to write in a Babel fit for the
bottomless pit; my wife, her daughter, her grandson and my mother, all
shrieking at each other round the house—not in war, thank God! but the
din is ultra martial, and the note of Lloyd joins in occasionally, and
the cause of this to-do is simply cacao, whereof chocolate comes. You
may drink of our chocolate perhaps in five or six years from now, and not
know it. It makes a fine bustle, and gives us some hard work, out of
which I have slunk for to-day.
I have a story coming out: God knows when or how; it answers to the name
of the _Beach of Falesà_, and I think well of it. I was delighted with
the _Tragic Muse_; I thought the Muse herself one of your best works; I
was delighted also to hear of the success of your piece, as you know I am
a dam failure, {245} and might have dined with the dinner club that
Daudet and these parties frequented.
_Next day_.
I have just been breakfasting at Baiae and Brindisi, and the charm of
Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite fellow, all made of
fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear any of my bald
prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a copy of these
last essays of mine when they appear; and tell Bourget they go to him
from a South Sea Island as literal homage. I have read no new book for
years that gave me the same literary thrill as his _Sensations d’Italie_.
If (as I imagine) my cut-and-dry literature would be death to him, and
worse than death—journalism—be silent on the point. For I have a great
curiosity to know him, and if he doesn’t know my work, I shall have the
better chance of making his acquaintance. I read _The Pupil_ the other
day with great joy; your little boy is admirable; why is there no little
boy like that unless he hails from the Great Republic?
Here I broke off, and wrote Bourget a dedication; no use resisting; it’s
a love affair. O, he’s exquisite, I bless you for the gift of him. I
have really enjoyed this book as I—almost as I—used to enjoy books when I
was going twenty—twenty-three; and these are the years for reading!
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Vailima_] _Jan._ 2_nd_, ’92.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—Overjoyed you were pleased with _Wrecker_, and shall
consider your protests. There is perhaps more art than you think for in
the peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a
dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not
recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim
Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, all shall be
prayerfully considered.
To come to a more painful subject. Herewith go three more chapters of
the wretched _History_; as you see, I approach the climax. I expect the
book to be some 70,000 words, of which you have now 45. Can I finish it
for next mail? I am going to try! ’Tis a long piece of journalism, and
full of difficulties here and there, of this kind and that, and will make
me a power of friends to be sure. There is one Becker who will probably
put up a window to me in the church where he was baptized; and I expect a
testimonial from Captain Hand.
Sorry to let the mail go without the Scott; this has been a bad month
with me, and I have been below myself. I shall find a way to have it
come by next, or know the reason why. The mail after, anyway.
A bit of a sketch map appears to me necessary for my _History_; perhaps
two. If I do not have any, ’tis impossible any one should follow; and I,
even when not at all interested, demand that I shall be able to follow;
even a tourist book without a map is a cross to me; and there must be
others of my way of thinking. I inclose the very artless one that I
think needful. Vailima, in case you are curious, is about as far again
behind Tanugamanono as that is from the sea.
M‘Clure is publishing a short story of mine, some 50,000 words, I think,
_The Beach of Falesà_; when he’s done with it, I want you and Cassell to
bring it out in a little volume; I shall send you a dedication for it; I
believe it good; indeed, to be honest, very good. Good gear that pleases
the merchant.
The other map that I half threaten is a chart for the hurricane. Get me
Kimberley’s report of the hurricane: not to be found here. It is of most
importance; I _must_ have it with my proofs of that part, if I cannot
have it earlier, which now seems impossible.—Yours in hot haste,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _February_ 1892.
DEAR MR. BARRIE,—This is at least the third letter I have written you,
but my correspondence has a bad habit of not getting so far as the post.
That which I possess of manhood turns pale before the business of the
address and envelope. But I hope to be more fortunate with this: for,
besides the usual and often recurrent desire to thank you for your
work-you are one of four that have come to the front since I was watching
and had a corner of my own to watch, and there is no reason, unless it be
in these mysterious tides that ebb and flow, and make and mar and murder
the works of poor scribblers, why you should not do work of the best
order. The tides have borne away my sentence, of which I was weary at
any rate, and between authors I may allow myself so much freedom as to
leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I suspect both rather
Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness tends to intermittency, but is at times
erisypelitous—if that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I have gathered we had
both made our stages in the metropolis of the winds: our Virgil’s ‘grey
metropolis,’ and I count that a lasting bond. No place so brands a man.
Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress. This may be
an error, but I believed I detected your hand in an article—it may be an
illusion, it may have been by one of those industrious insects who catch
up and reproduce the handling of each emergent man—but I’ll still hope it
was yours—and hope it may please you to hear that the continuation of
_Kidnapped_ is under way. I have not yet got to Alan, so I do not know
if he is still alive, but David seems to have a kick or two in his
shanks. I was pleased to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell into the
trap: I gave my Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even commented on the fact
in the text; yet almost all critics recognised in Alan and David a Saxon
and a Celt. I know not about England; in Scotland at least, where Gaelic
was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in Galloway not much
earlier, I deny that there exists such a thing as a pure Saxon, and I
think it more than questionable if there be such a thing as a pure Celt.
But what have you to do with this? and what have I? Let us continue to
inscribe our little bits of tales, and let the heathen rage! Yours, with
sincere interest in your career,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO WILLIAM MORRIS
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _Feb._ 1892.
MASTER,—A plea from a place so distant should have some weight, and from
a heart so grateful should have some address. I have been long in your
debt, Master, and I did not think it could be so much increased as you
have now increased it. I was long in your debt and deep in your debt for
many poems that I shall never forget, and for _Sigurd_ before all, and
now you have plunged me beyond payment by the Saga Library. And so now,
true to human nature, being plunged beyond payment, I come and bark at
your heels.
For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that you have
illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws, and is
our mother, our queen, and our instrument. Now in that living tongue
_where_ has one sense, _whereas_ another. In the _Heathslayings Story_,
p. 241, line 13, it bears one of its ordinary senses. Elsewhere and
usually through the two volumes, which is all that has yet reached me of
this entrancing publication, _whereas_ is made to figure for _where_.
For the love of God, my dear and honoured Morris, use _where_, and let us
know _whereas_ we are, wherefore our gratitude shall grow, whereby you
shall be the more honoured wherever men love clear language, whereas now,
although we honour, we are troubled.
Whereunder, please find inscribed to this very impudent but yet very
anxious document, the name of one of the most distant but not the
youngest or the coldest of those who honour you.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
[_Vailima_, _March_ 1892.]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,—I am guilty in your sight, but my affairs besiege
me. The chief-justiceship of a family of nineteen persons is in
itself no sinecure, and sometimes occupies me for days: two weeks ago for
four days almost entirely, and for two days entirely. Besides which, I
have in the last few months written all but one chapter of a _History of
Samoa_ for the last eight or nine years; and while I was unavoidably
delayed in the writing of this, awaiting material, put in one-half of
_David Balfour_, the sequel to _Kidnapped_. Add the ordinary impediments
of life, and admire my busyness. I am now an old, but healthy skeleton,
and degenerate much towards the machine. By six at work: stopped at
half-past ten to give a history lesson to a step-grandson; eleven, lunch;
after lunch we have a musical performance till two; then to work again;
bath, 4.40, dinner, five; cards in the evening till eight; and then to
bed—only I have no bed, only a chest with a mat and blankets—and read
myself to sleep. This is the routine, but often sadly interrupted. Then
you may see me sitting on the floor of my verandah haranguing and being
harangued by squatting chiefs on a question of a road; or more privately
holding an inquiry into some dispute among our familiars, myself on my
bed, the boys on the floor—for when it comes to the judicial I play
dignity—or else going down to Apia on some more or less unsatisfactory
errand. Altogether it is a life that suits me, but it absorbs me like an
ocean. That is what I have always envied and admired in Scott; with all
that immensity of work and study, his mind kept flexible, glancing to all
points of natural interest. But the lean hot spirits, such as mine,
become hypnotised with their bit occupations—if I may use Scotch to
you—it is so far more scornful than any English idiom. Well, I can’t
help being a skeleton, and you are to take this devious passage for an
apology.
I thought _Aladdin_ capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend it
was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, _où va-t-il se
nicher_? ’Tis a trifle, but Pyle would do well to knock the passage out,
and leave his boguey tale a boguey tale, and a good one at that.
The arrival of your box was altogether a great success to the castaways.
You have no idea where we live. Do you know, in all these islands there
are not five hundred whites, and no postal delivery, and only one
village—it is no more—and would be a mean enough village in Europe? We
were asked the other day if Vailima were the name of our post town, and
we laughed. Do you know, though we are but three miles from the village
metropolis, we have no road to it, and our goods are brought on the
pack-saddle? And do you know—or I should rather say, can you believe—or
(in the famous old Tichborne trial phrase) would you be surprised to
learn, that all you have read of Vailima—or Subpriorsford, as I call
it—is entirely false, and we have no ice-machine, and no electric light,
and no water supply but the cistern of the heavens, and but one public
room, and scarce a bedroom apiece? But, of course, it is well known that
I have made enormous sums by my evanescent literature, and you will smile
at my false humility. The point, however, is much on our minds just now.
We are expecting an invasion of Kiplings; very glad we shall be to see
them; but two of the party are ladies, and I tell you we had to hold a
council of war to stow them. You European ladies are so particular; with
all of mine, sleeping has long become a public function, as with natives
and those who go down much into the sea in ships.
Dear Mrs. Fairchild, I must go to my work. I have but two words to say
in conclusion.
First, civilisation is rot.
Second, console a savage with more of the milk of that over civilised
being, your adorable schoolboy.
As I wrote these remarkable words, I was called down to eight o’clock
prayers, and have just worked through a chapter of Joshua and five
verses, with five treble choruses of a Samoan hymn; but the music was
good, our boys and precentress (’tis always a woman that leads) did
better than I ever heard them, and to my great pleasure I understood it
all except one verse. This gave me the more time to try and identify
what the parts were doing, and further convict my dull ear. Beyond the
fact that the soprano rose to the tonic above, on one occasion I could
recognise nothing. This is sickening, but I mean to teach my ear better
before I am done with it or this vile carcase.
I think it will amuse you (for a last word) to hear that our
precentress—she is the washerwoman—is our shame. She is a good, healthy,
comely, strapping young wench, full of energy and seriousness, a splendid
workwoman, delighting to train our chorus, delighting in the poetry of
the hymns, which she reads aloud (on the least provocation) with a great
sentiment of rhythm. Well, then, what is curious? Ah, we did not know!
but it was told us in a whisper from the cook-house—she is not of good
family. Don’t let it get out, please; everybody knows it, of course,
here; there is no reason why Europe and the States should have the
advantage of me also. And the rest of my housefolk are all chief-people,
I assure you. And my late overseer (far the best of his race) is a
really serious chief with a good ‘name.’ Tina is the name; it is not in
the Almanach de Gotha, it must have got dropped at press. The odd thing
is, we rather share the prejudice. I have almost always—though not quite
always—found the higher the chief the better the man through all the
islands; or, at least, that the best man came always from a highish rank.
I hope Helen will continue to prove a bright exception.
With love to Fairchild and the Huge Schoolboy, I am, my dear Mrs.
Fairchild, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Vailima_, _March_ 1892.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left face to
face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen: pray for those
that go down to the sea in ships. I have promised Henley shall have a
chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so please let the
slips be sent _quam primum_ to C. Baxter, W.S., 11 S. Charlotte Street,
Edinburgh. I got on mighty quick with that chapter—about five days of
the toughest kind of work. God forbid I should ever have such another
pirn to wind! When I invent a language, there shall be a direct and an
indirect pronoun differently declined—then writing would be some fun.
DIRECT INDIRECT
He Tu
Him Tum
His Tus
Ex.: _He_ seized _tum_ by _tus_ throat; but _tu_ at the same moment
caught _him_ by _his_ hair. A fellow could write hurricanes with an
inflection like that! Yet there would he difficulties too.
Do what you please about _The Beach_; and I give you _carte blanche_ to
write in the matter to Baxter—or telegraph if the time press—to delay the
English contingent. Herewith the two last slips of _The Wrecker_. I
cannot go beyond. By the way, pray compliment the printers on the proofs
of the Samoa racket, but hint to them that it is most unbusiness-like and
unscholarly to clip the edges of the galleys; these proofs should really
have been sent me on large paper; and I and my friends here are all put
to a great deal of trouble and confusion by the mistake. For, as you
must conceive, in a matter so contested and complicated, the number of
corrections and the length of explanations is considerable.
Please add to my former orders—
_Le Chevalier Des Touches_ by Barbey d’Aurévilly.
_Les Diaboliques_
_Correspondance de Henri Beyle_ (Stendahl).
Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO T. W. DOVER
_Vailima Plantation_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_, _June_ 20_th_, 1892.
SIR,—In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot fairly say that I
have ever been poor, or known what it was to want a meal. I have been
reduced, however, to a very small sum of money, with no apparent prospect
of increasing it; and at that time I reduced myself to practically one
meal a day, with the most disgusting consequences to my health. At this
time I lodged in the house of a working man, and associated much with
others. At the same time, from my youth up, I have always been a good
deal and rather intimately thrown among the working-classes, partly as a
civil engineer in out-of-the-way places, partly from a strong and, I
hope, not ill-favoured sentiment of curiosity. But the place where,
perhaps, I was most struck with the fact upon which you comment was the
house of a friend, who was exceedingly poor, in fact, I may say
destitute, and who lived in the attic of a very tall house entirely
inhabited by persons in varying stages of poverty. As he was also in
ill-health, I made a habit of passing my afternoon with him, and when
there it was my part to answer the door. The steady procession of people
begging, and the expectant and confident manner in which they presented
themselves, struck me more and more daily; and I could not but remember
with surprise that though my father lived but a few streets away in a
fine house, beggars scarce came to the door once a fortnight or a month.
From that time forward I made it my business to inquire, and in the
stories which I am very fond of hearing from all sorts and conditions of
men, learned that in the time of their distress it was always from the
poor they sought assistance, and almost always from the poor they got it.
Trusting I have now satisfactorily answered your question, which I thank
you for asking, I remain, with sincere compliments,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima_, _Summer_ 1892.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—First of all, _you have all the corrections on_ ‘_The
Wrecker_.’ I found I had made what I meant and forgotten it, and was so
careless as not to tell you.
Second, of course, and by all means, charge corrections on the Samoa book
to me; but there are not near so many as I feared. The Lord hath dealt
bountifully with me, and I believe all my advisers were amazed to see how
nearly correct I had got the truck, at least I was. With this you will
receive the whole revise and a typewritten copy of the last chapter. And
the thing now is Speed, to catch a possible revision of the treaty. I
believe Cassells are to bring it out, but Baxter knows, and the thing has
to be crammed through _prestissimo_, _à la chasseur_.
You mention the belated Barbeys; what about the equally belated Pineros?
And I hope you will keep your bookshop alive to supplying me continuously
with the _Saga Library_. I cannot get enough of _Sagas_; I wish there
were nine thousand; talk about realism!
All seems to flourish with you; I also prosper; none the less for being
quit of that abhorred task, Samoa. I could give a supper party here were
there any one to sup. Never was such a disagreeable task, but the thing
had to be told. . . .
There, I trust I am done with this cursed chapter of my career, bar the
rotten eggs and broken bottles that may follow, of course. Pray
remember, speed is now all that can be asked, hoped, or wished. I give
up all hope of proofs, revises, proof of the map, or sic like; and you on
your side will try to get it out as reasonably seemly as may be.
Whole Samoa book herewith. Glory be to God.—Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Vailima Plantation_, _Upolu_, _Samoan Islands_, 18_th_ _July_ 1892.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—. . . I have been now for some time contending with
powers and principalities, and I have never once seen one of my own
letters to the _Times_. So when you see something in the papers that you
think might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice, out with
your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima. Of what you say of the
past, eh, man, it was a queer time, and awful miserable, but there’s no
sense in denying it was awful fun. Do you mind the youth in Highland
garb and the tableful of coppers? Do you mind the SIGNAL of Waterloo
Place?—Hey, how the blood stands to the heart at such a memory!—Hae ye
the notes o’t? Gie’s them.—Gude’s sake, man, gie’s the notes o’t; I mind
ye made a tune o’t an’ played it on your pinanny; gie’s the notes. Dear
Lord, that past.
Glad to hear Henley’s prospects are fair: his new volume is the work of a
real poet. He is one of those who can make a noise of his own with
words, and in whom experience strikes an individual note. There is
perhaps no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns. In case I cannot
overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this mail, please let him hear
of my pleasure and admiration. How poorly—compares! He is all smart
journalism and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and limpid, like
a business paper—a good one, _s’entend_; but there is no blot of heart’s
blood and the Old Night: there are no harmonics, there is scarce harmony
to his music; and in Henley—all of these; a touch, a sense within sense,
a sound outside the sound, the shadow of the inscrutable, eloquent beyond
all definition. The First London Voluntary knocked me wholly.—Ever yours
affectionately, my dear Charles,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Kind memories to your father and all friends.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Vailima Plantation_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_, _August_ 1_st_, 1892.
MY DEAR HENLEY,—It is impossible to let your new volume pass in silence.
I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.’s _Joy of
Earth_ volume and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that even that
was so intimate and deep. Again and again, I take the book down, and
read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in youth. _Andante con
moto_ in the _Voluntaries_, and the thing about the trees at night (No.
XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not guess you were so
great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an undertone of the true
Apollo; these are not verse, they are poetry—inventions, creations, in
language. I thank you for the joy you have given me, and remain your old
friend and present huge admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened
scrivener’s cramp.
For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation.
Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read—
‘But life in act? How should the grave
Be victor over these,
Mother, a mother of men?’
The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you
insist on the longer line, equip ‘grave’ with an epithet.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima_, _Upolu_, _August_ 1_st_, ’92.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—Herewith _My Grandfather_. I have had rather a bad
time suppressing the old gentleman, who was really in a very garrulous
stage; as for getting him _in order_, I could do but little towards that;
however, there are one or two points of interest which may justify us in
printing. The swinging of his stick and not knowing the sailor of
Coruiskin, in particular, and the account of how he wrote the lives in
the Bell Book particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction
is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was that old
gentleman’s blood that brought me to Samoa.
By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams’s _History_ have never
come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.
Please send me _Stonehenge on Horse_, _Stories and Interludes_ by Barry
Pain, and _Edinburgh Sketches and Memoirs_ by David Masson. _The
Wrecker_ has turned up. So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory,
but on pp. 548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The two
Latin quotations instead of following each other being separated
(doubtless for printing considerations) by a line of prose. My
compliments to the printers; there is doubtless such a thing as good
printing, but there is such a thing as good sense.
The sequel to _Kidnapped_, _David Balfour_ by name, is about
three-quarters done and gone to press for serial publication. By what I
can find out it ought to be through hand with that and ready for volume
form early next spring.—Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
TO ANDREW LANG
[_Vailima_, _August_ 1892.]
MY DEAR LANG,—I knew you would prove a trusty purveyor. The books you
have sent are admirable. I got the name of my hero out of Brown—Blair of
Balmyle—Francie Blair. But whether to call the story _Blair of Balmyle_,
or whether to call it _The Young Chevalier_, I have not yet decided. The
admirable Cameronian tract—perhaps you will think this a cheat—is to be
boned into _David Balfour_, where it will fit better, and really
furnishes me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.
_Later_; no, it won’t go in, and I fear I must give up ‘the idolatrous
occupant upon the throne,’ a phrase that overjoyed me beyond expression.
I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I
certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at
such an exhibition as our government. ’Taint decent; no gent can hold a
candle to it. But it’s a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers
and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed) and
petitions (which ain’t petited) and letters to the _Times_, which it
makes my jaws yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with
David Balfour: he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh, James
More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than the
Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either—he got the news of James More’s
escape from the Lord Advocate, and started off straight to comfort
Catriona. You don’t know her; she’s James More’s daughter, and a
respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so—the Lord Advocate’s
daughters—so there can’t be anything really wrong. Pretty soon we all go
to Holland, and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned; and the tale
concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted. This is the last authentic
news. You are not a real hard-working novelist; not a practical
novelist; so you don’t know the temptation to let your characters
maunder. Dumas did it, and lived. But it is not war; it ain’t
sportsmanlike, and I have to be stopping their chatter all the time.
Brown’s appendix is great reading.
My only grief is that I can’t
Use the idolatrous occupant.
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Blessing and praising you for a useful (though idolatrous) occupant of
Kensington.
TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
_August_ 14, 1745.
TO MISS AMELIA BALFOUR—MY DEAR COUSIN,—We are going an expedition to
leeward on Tuesday morning. If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on
horseback—say, towards the Gasi-gasi river—about six A.M., I think we
should have an episode somewhat after the style of the ’45. What a
misfortune, my dear cousin, that you should have arrived while your
cousin Graham was occupying my only guest-chamber—for Osterley Park is
not so large in Samoa as it was at home—but happily our friend Haggard
has found a corner for you!
The King over the Water—the Gasi-gasi water—will be pleased to see the
clan of Balfour mustering so thick around his standard.
I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a really secret
interpreter, so all is for the best in our little adventure into the
_Waverley Novels_.—I am your affectionate cousin,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my signature, but we must
be political _à outrance_.
TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
MY DEAR COUSIN,—I send for your information a copy of my last letter to
the gentleman in question. ’Tis thought more wise, in consideration of
the difficulty and peril of the enterprise, that we should leave the town
in the afternoon, and by several detachments. If you would start for a
ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart of Lee, say at three
o’clock of the afternoon, you would make some rencounters by the wayside
which might be agreeable to your political opinions. All present will be
staunch.
The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little, and return through
the marsh and by the nuns’ house (I trust that has the proper flavour),
so as a little to diminish the effect of separation.—I remain, your
affectionate cousin to command,
O TUSITALA.
_P.S._—It is to be thought this present year of grace will be historical.
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
[_Vailima_, _August_ 1892.]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,—Thank you a thousand times for your letter. You
are the Angel of (the sort of) Information (that I care about); I appoint
you successor to the newspaper press; and I beg of you, whenever you wish
to gird at the age, or think the bugs out of proportion to the roses, or
despair, or enjoy any cosmic or epochal emotion, to sit down again and
write to the Hermit of Samoa. What do I think of it all? Well, I love
the romantic solemnity of youth; and even in this form, although not
without laughter, I have to love it still. They are such ducks! But
what are they made of? We were just as solemn as that about atheism and
the stars and humanity; but we were all for belief anyway—we held atheism
and sociology (of which none of us, nor indeed anybody, knew anything)
for a gospel and an iron rule of life; and it was lucky enough, or there
would have been more windows broken. What is apt to puzzle one at first
sight in the New Youth is that, with such rickety and risky problems
always at heart, they should not plunge down a Niagara of Dissolution.
But let us remember the high practical timidity of youth. I was a
particularly brave boy—this I think of myself, looking back—and plunged
into adventures and experiments, and ran risks that it still surprises me
to recall. But, dear me, what a fear I was in of that strange blind
machinery in the midst of which I stood; and with what a compressed heart
and what empty lungs I would touch a new crank and await developments! I
do not mean to say I do not fear life still; I do; and that terror (for
an adventurer like myself) is still one of the chief joys of living.
But it was different indeed while I was yet girt with the priceless robes
of inexperience; then the fear was exquisite and infinite. And so, when
you see all these little Ibsens, who seem at once so dry and so
excitable, and faint in swathes over a play (I suppose—for a wager) that
would seem to me merely tedious, smile behind your hand, and remember the
little dears are all in a blue funk. It must be very funny, and to a
spectator like yourself I almost envy it. But never get desperate; human
nature is human nature; and the Roman Empire, since the Romans founded it
and made our European human nature what it is, bids fair to go on and to
be true to itself. These little bodies will all grow up and become men
and women, and have heaps of fun; nay, and are having it now; and
whatever happens to the fashion of the age, it makes no difference—there
are always high and brave and amusing lives to be lived; and a change of
key, however exotic, does not exclude melody. Even Chinamen, hard as we
find it to believe, enjoy being Chinese. And the Chinaman stands alone
to be unthinkable; natural enough, as the representative of the only
other great civilisation. Take my people here at my doors; their life is
a very good one; it is quite thinkable, quite acceptable to us. And the
little dears will be soon skating on the other foot; sooner or later, in
each generation, the one-half of them at least begin to remember all the
material they had rejected when first they made and nailed up their
little theory of life; and these become reactionaries or conservatives,
and the ship of man begins to fill upon the other tack.
Here is a sermon, by your leave! It is your own fault, you have amused
and interested me so much by your breath of the New Youth, which comes to
me from so far away, where I live up here in my mountain, and secret
messengers bring me letters from rebels, and the government sometimes
seizes them, and generally grumbles in its beard that Stevenson should
really be deported. O, my life is the more lively, never fear!
It has recently been most amusingly varied by a visit from Lady Jersey.
I took her over mysteriously (under the pseudonym of my cousin, Miss
Amelia Balfour) to visit Mataafa, our rebel; and we had great fun, and
wrote a Ouida novel on our life here, in which every author had to
describe himself in the Ouida glamour, and of which—for the Jerseys
intend printing it—I must let you have a copy. My wife’s chapter, and my
description of myself, should, I think, amuse you. But there were finer
touches still; as when Belle and Lady Jersey came out to brush their
teeth in front of the rebel King’s palace, and the night guard squatted
opposite on the grass and watched the process; or when I and my
interpreter, and the King with his secretary, mysteriously disappeared to
conspire.—Ever yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO GORDON BROWNE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _Autumn_ 1892.
_To the Artist who did the illustrations to_ ‘_Uma_.’
DEAR SIR,—I only know you under the initials G. B., but you have done
some exceedingly spirited and satisfactory illustrations to my story _The
Beach of Falesà_, and I wish to write and thank you expressly for the
care and talent shown. Such numbers of people can do good black and
whites! So few can illustrate a story, or apparently read it. You have
shown that you can do both, and your creation of Wiltshire is a real
illumination of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and
looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an
inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in
his last appearance. It is a singular fact—which seems to point still
more directly to inspiration in your case—that your missionary actually
resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was drawn.
The general effect of the islands is all that could be wished; indeed I
have but one criticism to make, that in the background of Case taking the
dollar from Mr. Tarleton’s head—head—not hand, as the fools have printed
it—the natives have a little too much the look of Africans.
But the great affair is that you have been to the pains to illustrate my
story instead of making conscientious black and whites of people sitting
talking. I doubt if you have left unrepresented a single pictorial
incident. I am writing by this mail to the editor in the hopes that I
may buy from him the originals, and I am, dear sir, your very much
obliged,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MORSE
_Vailima_, _Samoan Islands_, _October_ 7_th_, 1892.
DEAR MADAM,—I have a great diffidence in answering your valued letter.
It would be difficult for me to express the feelings with which I read
it—and am now trying to re-read it as I dictate this.
You ask me to forgive what you say ‘must seem a liberty,’ and I find that
I cannot thank you sufficiently or even find a word with which to qualify
your letter. Dear Madam, such a communication even the vainest man would
think a sufficient reward for a lifetime of labour. That I should have
been able to give so much help and pleasure to your sister is the subject
of my grateful wonder.
That she, being dead, and speaking with your pen, should be able to repay
the debt with such a liberal interest, is one of those things that
reconcile us with the world and make us take hope again. I do not know
what I have done to deserve so beautiful and touching a compliment; and I
feel there is but one thing fit for me to say here, that I will try with
renewed courage to go on in the same path, and to deserve, if not to
receive, a similar return from others.
You apologise for speaking so much about yourselves. Dear Madam, I
thought you did so too little. I should have wished to have known more
of those who were so sympathetic as to find a consolation in my work, and
so graceful and so tactful as to acknowledge it in such a letter as was
yours.
Will you offer to your mother the expression of a sympathy which (coming
from a stranger) must seem very airy, but which yet is genuine; and
accept for yourself my gratitude for the thought which inspired you to
write to me and the words which you found to express it.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima Plantation_, _Samoan Islands_, _Oct._ 10_th_, 1892.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—It is now, as you see, the 10th of October, and there
has not reached the Island of Upolu one single copy, or rag of a copy, of
the Samoa book. I lie; there has come one, and that in the pocket of a
missionary man who is at daggers drawn with me, who lends it to all my
enemies, conceals it from all my friends, and is bringing a lawsuit
against me on the strength of expressions in the same which I have
forgotten, and now cannot see. This is pretty tragic, I think you will
allow; and I was inclined to fancy it was the fault of the Post Office.
But I hear from my sister-in-law Mrs. Sanchez that she is in the same
case, and has received no ‘Footnote.’ I have also to consider that I had
no letter from you last mail, although you ought to have received by that
time ‘My Grandfather and Scott,’ and ‘Me and my Grandfather.’ Taking one
consideration with another, therefore, I prefer to conceive that No. 743
Broadway has fallen upon gentle and continuous slumber, and is become an
enchanted palace among publishing houses. If it be not so, if the
‘Footnotes’ were really sent, I hope you will fall upon the Post Office
with all the vigour you possess. How does _The Wrecker_ go in the
States? It seems to be doing exceptionally well in England.—Yours
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima Plantation_, _Samoan Islands_, _November_ 1_st_, 1892.
DEAR MR. BARRIE,—I can scarce thank you sufficiently for your extremely
amusing letter. No, _The Auld Licht Idyls_ never reached me—I wish it
had, and I wonder extremely whether it would not be good for me to have a
pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular thing that I
should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new and so
striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit that cold old
huddle of grey hills from which we come. I have just finished _David
Balfour_; I have another book on the stocks, _The Young Chevalier_, which
is to be part in France and part in Scotland, and to deal with Prince
Charlie about the year 1749; and now what have I done but begun a third
which is to be all moorland together, and is to have for a centrepiece a
figure that I think you will appreciate—that of the immortal
Braxfield—Braxfield himself is my _grand premier_, or, since you are so
much involved in the British drama, let me say my heavy lead. . . .
Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfully
unconscientious. You should never write about anybody until you persuade
yourself at least for the moment that you love him, above all anybody on
whom your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the book; and, if
he has anything to do with the mechanism, prove a stick in your
machinery. But you know all this better than I do, and it is one of your
most promising traits that you do not take your powers too seriously.
The _Little Minister_ ought to have ended badly; we all know it did; and
we are infinitely grateful to you for the grace and good feeling with
which you lied about it. If you had told the truth, I for one could
never have forgiven you. As you had conceived and written the earlier
parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably true to fact, would
have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord in art. If you are going to
make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning. Now your
book began to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and fondle,
and smile at your puppets. Once you had done that, your honour was
committed—at the cost of truth to life you were bound to save them. It
is the blot on _Richard Feverel_, for instance, that it begins to end
well; and then tricks you and ends ill. But in that case there is worse
behind, for the ill-ending does not inherently issue from the plot—the
story _had_, in fact, _ended well_ after the great last interview between
Richard and Lucy—and the blind, illogical bullet which smashes all has no
more to do between the boards than a fly has to do with the room into
whose open window it comes buzzing. It _might_ have so happened; it
needed not; and unless needs must, we have no right to pain our readers.
I have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind about my Braxfield
story. Braxfield—only his name is Hermiston—has a son who is condemned
to death; plainly, there is a fine tempting fitness about this; and I
meant he was to hang. But now on considering my minor characters, I saw
there were five people who would—in a sense who must—break prison and
attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy folks, too, who might very
well succeed. Why should they not then? Why should not young Hermiston
escape clear out of the country? and be happy, if he could, with his—
But soft! I will not betray my secret of my heroine. Suffice it to
breathe in your ear that she was what Hardy calls (and others in their
plain way don’t) a Pure Woman. Much virtue in a capital letter, such as
yours was.
Write to me again in my infinite distance. Tell me about your new book.
No harm in telling _me_; I am too far off to be indiscreet; there are too
few near me who would care to hear. I am rushes by the riverside, and
the stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly; and if
the Trade Wind caught and carried them away, there are none to catch them
nearer than Australia, unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the
unavoidable absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner, I
have thus concluded my despatch, like St. Paul, with my own hand.
And in the inimitable words of Lord Kames, Faur ye weel, ye bitch.—Yours
very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima Plantation_, _Nov._ 2_nd_, 1892.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—In the first place, I have to acknowledge receipt of
your munificent cheque for three hundred and fifty dollars. Glad you
liked the Scott voyage; rather more than I did upon the whole. As the
proofs have not turned up at all, there can be no question of returning
them, and I am therefore very much pleased to think you have arranged not
to wait. The volumes of Adams arrived along with yours of October 6th.
One of the dictionaries has also blundered home, apparently from the
Colonies; the other is still to seek. I note and sympathise with your
bewilderment as to _Falesà_. My own direct correspondence with Mr.
Baxter is now about three months in abeyance. Altogether you see how
well it would be if you could do anything to wake up the Post Office.
Not a single copy of the ‘Footnote’ has yet reached Samoa, but I hear of
one having come to its address in Hawaii. Glad to hear good news of
Stoddard.—Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
_P.S._—Since the above was written an aftermath of post matter came in,
among which were the proofs of _My Grandfather_. I shall correct and
return them, but as I have lost all confidence in the Post Office, I
shall mention here: first galley, 4th line from the bottom, for ‘AS’ read
‘OR.’
Should I ever again have to use my work without waiting for proofs, bear
in mind this golden principle. From a congenital defect, I must suppose,
I am unable to write the word OR—wherever I write it the printer
unerringly puts AS—and those who read for me had better, wherever it is
possible, substitute _or_ for _as_. This the more so since many writers
have a habit of using _as_ which is death to my temper and confusion to
my face.
R. L. S.
TO LIEUTENANT EELES
_Vailima Plantation_, _Upolu_, _Samoan Islands_, _November_ 15_th_, 1892.
DEAR EELES,—In the first place, excuse me writing to you by another hand,
as that is the way in which alone all my correspondence gets effected.
Before I took to this method, or rather before I found a victim, it
_simply_ didn’t get effected.
Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought of writing to me,
and second for your extremely amusing and interesting letter. You can
have no guess how immediately interesting it was to our family. First of
all, the poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we have
actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to the island. I don’t
know if Hoskin would approve of our treatment; it consisted, I believe,
mostly in a present of stout and a recommendation to put nails in his
water-tank. We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to leave
the island; and I remember very well how wise and kind we thought his
answer. He had half-caste children (he said) who would suffer and
perhaps be despised if he carried them elsewhere; if he left them there
alone, they would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing was that
he should stay and die with them. But the cream of the fun was your
meeting with Burn. We not only know him, but (as the French say) we
don’t know anybody else; he is our intimate and adored original;
and—prepare your mind—he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON! {271}
As I don’t believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
Tommy is really ‘a good chap,’ though about as comic as they make them.
I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
in your capital account of the _Curaçoa’s_ misadventure. Alas! we have
nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
misgovernment, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the Ringarooma instead of
the _Curaçoa_. The former ship burst upon by the run—she had been sent
off by despatch and without orders—and to make me a little more easy in
my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration. Since
then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he had
read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must regard
it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the same
time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for them
here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
being on the way—I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
is pretty sure—if that issue prove to be a German Protectorate, I shall
have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of energy?
We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill the
bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
hundred black boys and about a score draught-oxen perished, or at least
barely escaped with their lives, from the mud-holes on our road, bringing
up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.’s Protectorate,
and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country-house. The
Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked Stansfield
particularly.
Our middy {272} has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit of the phantom
Education. We have good word of him, and I hope he will not be in
disgrace again, as he was when the hope of the British Navy—need I say
that I refer to Admiral Burney?—honoured us last. The next time you
come, as the new house will be finished, we shall be able to offer you a
bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may like to hear that our new room is to be
big enough to dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
Curaçoa in port again and at least a proper contingent of her officers
‘skipping in my ’all.’
We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the
Ringaromas, and I wish they had been three _Curaçoas_—say yourself,
Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our
boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows—oh,
brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab—four smaller
pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat
down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the kitchen
that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was blue.
Then we had about half an hour’s holiday with some beer and sherry and
brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to the
old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed off
in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted for the
_Curaçoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not know the
draught of the _Curaçoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be
particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward, as
I do myself, in the hope of your return.—Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
And let me hear from you again!
TO CHARLES BAXTER
1_st_ _Dec._ ’92.
. . . I have a novel on the stocks to be called _The Justice-Clerk_. It
is pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is taken from Braxfield—(Oh, by the
by, send me Cockburn’s _Memorials_)—and some of the story is—well—queer.
The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally disappears with the other
man who shot him. . . . Mind you, I expect the _Justice-Clerk_ to be my
masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of beauty and a joy for
ever, and so far as he has gone _far_ my best character.
[_Later_.]
Second thought. I wish Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials quam primum_. Also,
an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath.
Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a
report as possible of a Scotch murder trial between 1790–1820.
Understand, _the fullest possible_.
Is there any book which would guide me as to the following facts?
The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain
evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the J.-C.’s own son.
Of course, in the next trial the J.-C. is excluded, and the case is
called before the Lord-Justice General.
Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not
suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. JENKIN
_December_ 5_th_, 1892.
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,—. . . So much said, I come with guilty speed to what
more immediately concerns myself. Spare us a month or two for old sake’s
sake, and make my wife and me happy and proud. We are only fourteen days
from San Francisco, just about a month from Liverpool; we have our new
house almost finished. The thing _can_ be done; I believe we can make
you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the world, our
political troubles seem near an end. It can be done, it must! Do,
please, make a virtuous effort, come and take a glimpse of a new world I
am sure you do not dream of, and some old friends who do often dream of
your arrival.
Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there goes the lunch
bell, and after lunch I must make up the mail.
Do come. You must not come in February or March—bad months. From April
on it is delightful.—Your sincere friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_December_ 5_th_, 1892.
MY DEAR JAMES,—How comes it so great a silence has fallen? The still
small voice of self-approval whispers me it is not from me. I have
looked up my register, and find I have neither written to you nor heard
from you since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable work
began. This is not as it should be. How to get back? I remember
acknowledging with rapture the — of the _Master_, and I remember
receiving _Marbot_: was that our last relation?
Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered from the papers, I
have been in devilish hot water, and (what may be new to you) devilish
hard at work. In twelve calendar months I finished _The Wrecker_, wrote
all of _Falesà_ but the first chapter (well, much of), the _History of
Samoa_, did something here and there to my _Life of my Grandfather_, and
began And Finished _David Balfour_. What do you think of it for a year?
Since then I may say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
another novel, _The Justice-Clerk_, which ought to be shorter and a
blower—at least if it don’t make a spoon, it will spoil the horn of an
Aurochs (if that’s how it should be spelt).
On the hot water side it may entertain you to know that I have been
actually sentenced to deportation by my friends on Mulinuu, C. J.
Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach. The awful doom, however,
declined to fall, owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had walked among
rumours. The whole tale will be some day put into my hand, and I shall
share it with humorous friends.
It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in Samoa
will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat no
longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask
ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a
disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow over the
stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it has been a deeply
interesting time. You don’t know what news is, nor what politics, nor
what the life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with your
own liberty on the board for stake. I would not have missed it for much.
And anxious friends beg me to stay at home and study human nature in
Brompton drawing-rooms! _Farceurs_! And anyway you know that such is
not my talent. I could never be induced to take the faintest interest in
Brompton _qua_ Brompton or a drawing-room _qua_ a drawing-room. I am an
Epick Writer with a k to it, but without the necessary genius.
Hurry up with another book of stories. I am now reduced to two of my
contemporaries, you and Barrie—O, and Kipling—you and Barrie and Kipling
are now my Muses Three. And with Kipling, as you know, there are
reservations to be made. And you and Barrie don’t write enough. I
should say I also read Anstey when he is serious, and can almost always
get a happy day out of Marion Crawford—_ce n’est pas toujours la guerre_,
but it’s got life to it and guts, and it moves. Did you read the _Witch
of Prague_? Nobody could read it twice, of course; and the first time
even it was necessary to skip. _E pur si muove_. But Barrie is a
beauty, the _Little Minister_ and the _Window in Thrums_, eh? Stuff in
that young man; but he must see and not be too funny. Genius in him, but
there’s a journalist at his elbow—there’s the risk. Look, what a page is
the glove business in the _Window_! knocks a man flat; that’s guts, if
you please.
Why have I wasted the little time that is left with a sort of naked
review article? I don’t know, I’m sure. I suppose a mere ebullition of
congested literary talk I am beginning to think a visit from friends
would be due. Wish you could come!
Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly stale
effusion.—Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO J. M. BARRIE
[_Vailima_, _December_ 1892.]
DEAR J. M. BARRIE,—You will be sick of me soon; I cannot help it. I have
been off my work for some time, and re-read the _Edinburgh Eleven_, and
had a great mind to write a parody and give you all your sauce back
again, and see how you would like it yourself. And then I read (for the
first time—I know not how) the _Window in Thrums_; I don’t say that it is
better than _The Minister_; it’s less of a tale—and there is a beauty, a
material beauty, of the tale _ipse_, which clever critics nowadays long
and love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it is—well, I
read it last anyway, and it’s by Barrie. And he’s the man for my money.
The glove is a great page; it is startlingly original, and as true as
death and judgment. Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but I think it
was a journalist that got in the word ‘official.’ The same character
plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard. Thomas affects me as a
lie—I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew, that leads
people so far astray. The actual is not the true.
I am proud to think you are a Scotchman—though to be sure I know nothing
of that country, being only an English tourist, quo’ Gavin Ogilvy. I
commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie, whose work is
to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national pride. There
are two of us now that the Shirra might have patted on the head. And
please do not think when I thus seem to bracket myself with you, that I
am wholly blinded with vanity. Jess is beyond my frontier line; I could
not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of twilight on my pen. I am
a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you were a man of
genius. Take care of yourself, for my sake. It’s a devilish hard thing
for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should get so few to
read. And I can read yours, and I love them.
A pity for you that my amanuensis is not on stock to-day, and my own hand
perceptibly worse than usual.—Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_December_ 5_th_, 1892.
_P.S._—They tell me your health is not strong. Man, come out here and
try the Prophet’s chamber. There’s only one bad point to us—we do rise
early. The Amanuensis states that you are a lover of silence—and that
ours is a noisy house—and she is a chatterbox—I am not answerable for
these statements, though I do think there is a touch of garrulity about
my premises. We have so little to talk about, you see. The house is
three miles from town, in the midst of great silent forests. There is a
burn close by, and when we are not talking you can hear the burn, and the
birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six hundred
feet below us, and about three times a month a bell—I don’t know where
the bell is, nor who rings it; it may be the bell in Hans Andersen’s
story for all I know. It is never hot here—86 in the shade is about our
hottest—and it is never cold except just in the early mornings. Take it
for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by far the healthiest
in the world—even the influenza entirely lost its sting. Only two
patients died, and one was a man nearly eighty, and the other a child
below four months. I won’t tell you if it is beautiful, for I want you
to come here and see for yourself. Everybody on the premises except my
wife has some Scotch blood in their veins—I beg your pardon—except the
natives—and then my wife is a Dutchwoman—and the natives are the next
thing conceivable to Highlanders before the forty-five. We would have
some grand cracks!
R. L. S.
COME, it will broaden your mind, and be the making of me.
XII
LIFE IN SAMOA,
_Continued_
JANUARY 1893–DECEMBER 1894
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_April_, 1893.]
. . . About _The Justice-Clerk_, I long to go at it, but will first try
to get a short story done. Since January I have had two severe
illnesses, my boy, and some heart-breaking anxiety over Fanny; and am
only now convalescing. I came down to dinner last night for the first
time, and that only because the service had broken down, and to relieve
an inexperienced servant. Nearly four months now I have rested my
brains; and if it be true that rest is good for brains, I ought to be
able to pitch in like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn, I hope to
send you some _Justice-Clerk_, or _Weir of Hermiston_, as Colvin seems to
prefer; I own to indecision. Received _Syntax_, _Dance of Death_, and
_Pitcairn_, which last I have read from end to end since its arrival,
with vast improvement. What a pity it stops so soon! I wonder is there
nothing that seems to prolong the series? Why doesn’t some young man
take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall’s _Decisions_? I
remember as a boy that there was some good reading there. Perhaps you
could borrow me that, and send it on loan; and perhaps Laing’s
_Memorials_ therewith; and a work I’m ashamed to say I have never read,
_Balfour’s Letters_. . . . I have come by accident, through a
correspondent, on one very curious and interesting fact—namely, that
Stevenson was one of the names adopted by the MacGregors at the
proscription. The details supplied by my correspondent are both
convincing and amusing; but it would be highly interesting to find out
more of this.
R. L. S.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
_Vailima_, _Apia_, _Samoa_, _April_ 5_th_, 1893.
DEAR SIR,—You have taken many occasions to make yourself very agreeable
to me, for which I might in decency have thanked you earlier. It is now
my turn; and I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on your
very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes. That
is the class of literature that I like when I have the toothache. As a
matter of fact, it was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the volume
up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know that the cure was
for the moment effectual. Only the one thing troubles me: can this be my
old friend Joe Bell?—I am, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—And lo, here is your address supplied me here in Samoa! But do
not take mine, O frolic fellow Spookist, from the same source; mine is
wrong.
R. L. S.
TO S. R. CROCKETT
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _May_ 17_th_, 1893.
DEAR MR. CROCKETT,—I do not owe you two letters, nor yet nearly one, sir!
The last time I heard of you, you wrote about an accident, and I sent you
a letter to my lawyer, Charles Baxter, which does not seem to have been
presented, as I see nothing of it in his accounts. Query, was that lost?
I should not like you to think I had been so unmannerly and so inhuman.
If you have written since, your letter also has miscarried, as is much
the rule in this part of the world, unless you register.
Your book is not yet to hand, but will probably follow next month. I
detected you early in the _Bookman_, which I usually see, and noted you
in particular as displaying a monstrous ingratitude about the footnote.
Well, mankind is ungrateful; ‘Man’s ingratitude to man makes countless
thousands mourn,’ quo’ Rab—or words to that effect. By the way, an
anecdote of a cautious sailor: ‘Bill, Bill,’ says I to him, ‘_or words to
that effect_.’
I shall never take that walk by the Fisher’s Tryst and Glencorse. I
shall never see Auld Reekie. I shall never set my foot again upon the
heather. Here I am until I die, and here will I be buried. The word is
out and the doom written. Or, if I do come, it will be a voyage to a
further goal, and in fact a suicide; which, however, if I could get my
family all fixed up in the money way, I might, perhaps, perform, or
attempt. But there is a plaguey risk of breaking down by the way; and I
believe I shall stay here until the end comes like a good boy, as I am.
If I did it, I should put upon my trunks: ‘Passenger to—Hades.’ How
strangely wrong your information is! In the first place, I should never
carry a novel to Sydney; I should post it from here. In the second
place, _Weir of Hermiston_ is as yet scarce begun. It’s going to be
excellent, no doubt; but it consists of about twenty pages. I have a
tale, a shortish tale in length, but it has proved long to do, _The Ebb
Tide_, some part of which goes home this mail. It is by me and Mr.
Osbourne, and is really a singular work. There are only four characters,
and three of them are bandits—well, two of them are, and the third is
their comrade and accomplice. It sounds cheering, doesn’t it? Barratry,
and drunkenness, and vitriol, and I cannot tell you all what, are the
beams of the roof. And yet—I don’t know—I sort of think there’s
something in it. You’ll see (which is more than I ever can) whether
Davis and Attwater come off or not.
_Weir of Hermiston_ is a much greater undertaking, and the plot is not
good, I fear; but Lord Justice-Clerk Hermiston ought to be a plum. Of
other schemes, more or less executed, it skills not to speak.
I am glad to hear so good an account of your activity and interests, and
shall always hear from you with pleasure; though I am, and must continue,
a mere sprite of the inkbottle, unseen in the flesh. Please remember me
to your wife and to the four-year-old sweetheart, if she be not too
engrossed with higher matters. Do you know where the road crosses the
burn under Glencorse Church? Go there, and say a prayer for me:
_moriturus salutat_. See that it’s a sunny day; I would like it to be a
Sunday, but that’s not possible in the premises; and stand on the
right-hand bank just where the road goes down into the water, and shut
your eyes, and if I don’t appear to you! well, it can’t be helped, and
will be extremely funny.
I have no concern here but to work and to keep an eye on this distracted
people. I live just now wholly alone in an upper room of my house,
because the whole family are down with influenza, bar my wife and myself.
I get my horse up sometimes in the afternoon and have a ride in the
woods; and I sit here and smoke and write, and rewrite, and destroy, and
rage at my own impotence, from six in the morning till eight at night,
with trifling and not always agreeable intervals for meals.
I am sure you chose wisely to keep your country charge. There a minister
can be something, not in a town. In a town, the most of them are empty
houses—and public speakers. Why should you suppose your book will be
slated because you have no friends? A new writer, if he is any good,
will be acclaimed generally with more noise than he deserves. But by
this time you will know for certain.—I am, yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—Be it known to this fluent generation that I R. L. S., in the
forty-third of my age and the twentieth of my professional life, wrote
twenty-four pages in twenty-one days, working from six to eleven, and
again in the afternoon from two to four or so, without fail or
interruption. Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us withal: such
was the facility of this prolific writer!
R. L. S.
TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _May_ 29_th_, 1893
MY DEAR GOD-LIKE SCULPTOR,—I wish in the most delicate manner in the
world to insinuate a few commissions:—
No. 1. Is for a couple of copies of my medallion, as gilt-edged and
high-toned as it is possible to make them. One is for our house here,
and should be addressed as above. The other is for my friend Sidney
Colvin, and should be addressed—Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the Print
Room, British Museum, London.
No. 2. This is a rather large order, and demands some explanation. Our
house is lined with varnished wood of a dark ruddy colour, very beautiful
to see; at the same time, it calls very much for gold; there is a limit
to picture frames, and really you know there has to be a limit to the
pictures you put inside of them. Accordingly, we have had an idea of a
certain kind of decoration, which, I think, you might help us to make
practical. What we want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very much such
as people play with), and all mounted on spikes like drawing-pins; say
two spikes to each letter, one at top, and one at bottom. Say that they
were this height, [Picture: large letter capital I about 4 times bigger
than normal size] and that you chose a model of some really exquisitely
fine, clear type from some Roman monument, and that they were made either
of metal or some composition gilt—the point is, could not you, in your
land of wooden houses, get a manufacturer to take the idea and
manufacture them at a venture, so that I could get two or three hundred
pieces or so at a moderate figure? You see, suppose you entertain an
honoured guest, when he goes he leaves his name in gilt letters on your
walls; an infinity of fun and decoration can be got out of hospitable and
festive mottoes; and the doors of every room can be beautified by the
legend of their names. I really think there is something in the idea,
and you might be able to push it with the brutal and licentious
manufacturer, using my name if necessary, though I should think the name
of the god-like sculptor would be more germane. In case you should get
it started, I should tell you that we should require commas in order to
write the Samoan language, which is full of words written thus: la’u,
ti’e ti’e. As the Samoan language uses but a very small proportion of
the consonants, we should require a double or treble stock of all vowels
and of F, G, L, U, N, P, S, T, and V.
The other day in Sydney, I think you might be interested to hear, I was
sculpt a second time by a man called —, as well as I can remember and
read. I mustn’t criticise a present, and he had very little time to do
it in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness of Mark
Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met with the devil of an accident.
A model of a statue which he had just finished with a desperate effort
was smashed to smithereens on its way to exhibition.
Please be sure and let me know if anything is likely to come of this
letter business, and the exact cost of each letter, so that I may count
the cost before ordering.—Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_June_ 10_th_, 1893.
MY DEAR GOSSE,—My mother tells me you never received the very long and
careful letter that I sent you more than a year ago; or is it two years?
I was indeed so much surprised at your silence that I wrote to Henry
James and begged him to inquire if you had received it; his reply was an
(if possible) higher power of the same silence; whereupon I bowed my head
and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was written and sent;
and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained, among other things, an
irrecoverable criticism of your father’s _Life_, with a number of
suggestions for another edition, which struck me at the time as
excellent.
Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as before? It is
fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the
day. But, alas! when I see ‘works of the late J. A. S.,’ {292} I can
see no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I
think, three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received
it, waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in
a humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the
strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night,
and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I
am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light
lie the turf! The _Saturday_ is the only obituary I have seen, and I
thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write
an _In Memoriam_, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to
do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only
academician.
So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw it
announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not order
it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes,
honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to _carry_
your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according the
narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third person) is extreme.
That is one reason out of half a dozen why I so often prefer the first.
It is much in my mind just now, because of my last work, just off the
stocks three days ago, _The Ebb Tide_: a dreadful, grimy business in the
third person, where the strain between a vilely realistic dialogue and a
narrative style pitched about (in phrase) ‘four notes higher’ than it
should have been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe so—if my
head escaped, my heart has them.
The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand bemused at the
cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have dozens; I have at least four novels
begun, they are none good enough; and the mill waits, and I’ll have to
take second best. _The Ebb Tide_ I make the world a present of; I
expect, and, I suppose, deserve to be torn to pieces; but there was all
that good work lying useless, and I had to finish it!
All your news of your family is pleasant to hear. My wife has been very
ill, but is now better; I may say I am ditto, _The Ebb Tide_ having left
me high and dry, which is a good example of the mixed metaphor. Our
home, and estate, and our boys, and the politics of the island, keep us
perpetually amused and busy; and I grind away with an odd, dogged, down
sensation—and an idea _in petto_ that the game is about played out. I
have got too realistic, and I must break the trammels—I mean I would if I
could; but the yoke is heavy. I saw with amusement that Zola says the
same thing; and truly the _Débâcle_ was a mighty big book, I have no need
for a bigger, though the last part is a mere mistake in my opinion. But
the Emperor, and Sedan, and the doctor at the ambulance, and the horses
in the field of battle, Lord, how gripped it is! What an epical
performance! According to my usual opinion, I believe I could go over
that book and leave a masterpiece by blotting and no ulterior art. But
that is an old story, ever new with me. Taine gone, and Renan, and
Symonds, and Tennyson, and Browning; the suns go swiftly out, and I see
no suns to follow, nothing but a universal twilight of the
demi-divinities, with parties like you and me and Lang beating on toy
drums and playing on penny whistles about glow-worms. But Zola is big
anyway; he has plenty in his belly; too much, that is all; he wrote the
_Débâcle_ and he wrote _La Bête humaine_, perhaps the most excruciatingly
silly book that I ever read to an end. And why did I read it to an end,
W. E. G.? Because the animal in me was interested in the lewdness. Not
sincerely, of course, my mind refusing to partake in it; but the flesh
was slightly pleased. And when it was done, I cast it from me with a
peal of laughter, and forgot it, as I would forget a Montépin. Taine is
to me perhaps the chief of these losses; I did luxuriate in his
_Origines_; it was something beyond literature, not quite so good, if you
please, but so much more systematic, and the pages that had to be
‘written’ always so adequate. Robespierre, Napoleon, were both excellent
good.
_June_ 18_th_, ’93
Well, I have left fiction wholly, and gone to my _Grandfather_, and on
the whole found peace. By next month my _Grandfather_ will begin to be
quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as good as done; by
which, of course, as you know, I mean till further notice or the next
discovery. I like biography far better than fiction myself: fiction is
too free. In biography you have your little handful of facts, little
bits of a puzzle, and you sit and think, and fit ’em together this way
and that, and get up and throw ’em down, and say damn, and go out for a
walk. And it’s real soothing; and when done, gives an idea of finish to
the writer that is very peaceful. Of course, it’s not really so finished
as quite a rotten novel; it always has and always must have the incurable
illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of slack and the miles of
tedium. Still, that’s where the fun comes in; and when you have at last
managed to shut up the castle spectre (dulness), the very outside of his
door looks beautiful by contrast. There are pages in these books that
may seem nothing to the reader; but you _remember what they were_, _you
know what they might have been_, and they seem to you witty beyond
comparison. In my _Grandfather_ I’ve had (for instance) to give up the
temporal order almost entirely; doubtless the temporal order is the great
foe of the biographer; it is so tempting, so easy, and lo! there you are
in the bog!—Ever yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
With all kind messages from self and wife to you and yours. My wife is
very much better, having been the early part of this year alarmingly ill.
She is now all right, only complaining of trifles, annoying to her, but
happily not interesting to her friends. I am in a hideous state, having
stopped drink and smoking; yes, both. No wine, no tobacco; and the
dreadful part of it is that—looking forward—I have—what shall I
say?—nauseating intimations that it ought to be for ever.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Vailima Plantation_, _Samoan Islands_, _June_ 17_th_, 1893.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—I believe I have neglected a mail in answering
yours. You will be very sorry to hear that my wife was exceedingly ill,
and very glad to hear that she is better. I cannot say that I feel any
more anxiety about her. We shall send you a photograph of her taken in
Sydney in her customary island habit as she walks and gardens and shrilly
drills her brown assistants. She was very ill when she sat for it, which
may a little explain the appearance of the photograph. It reminds me of
a friend of my grandmother’s who used to say when talking to younger
women, ‘Aweel, when I was young, I wasnae just exactly what ye wad call
_bonny_, but I was pale, penetratin’, and interestin’.’ I would not
venture to hint that Fanny is ‘no bonny,’ but there is no doubt but that
in this presentment she is ‘pale, penetratin’, and interesting.’
As you are aware, I have been wading deep waters and contending with the
great ones of the earth, not wholly without success. It is, you may be
interested to hear, a dreary and infuriating business. If you can get
the fools to admit one thing, they will always save their face by denying
another. If you can induce them to take a step to the right hand, they
generally indemnify themselves by cutting a caper to the left. I always
held (upon no evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or intuition) that
politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the most random of human
employments. I always held, but now I know it! Fortunately, you have
nothing to do with anything of the kind, and I may spare you the horror
of further details.
I received from you a book by a man by the name of Anatole France. Why
should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. He writes very
prettily, and then afterwards? Baron Marbot was a different pair of
shoes. So likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I am now perusing
with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best pages I remember
anywhere to have read. But Marbot and Vitrolles are dead, and what has
become of the living? It seems as if literature were coming to a stand.
I am sure it is with me; and I am sure everybody will say so when they
have the privilege of reading _The Ebb Tide_. My dear man, the grimness
of that story is not to be depicted in words. There are only four
characters, to be sure, but they are such a troop of swine! And their
behaviour is really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on a
retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them myself until the yarn
was finished. Well, there is always one thing; it will serve as a
touchstone. If the admirers of Zola admire him for his pertinent
ugliness and pessimism, I think they should admire this; but if, as I
have long suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man’s art,
and only wallow in his rancidness like a hound in offal, then they will
certainly be disappointed in _The Ebb Tide_. _Alas_! poor little tale,
it is not _even_ rancid.
By way of an antidote or febrifuge, I am going on at a great rate with my
_History of the Stevensons_, which I hope may prove rather amusing, in
some parts at least. The excess of materials weighs upon me. My
grandfather is a delightful comedy part; and I have to treat him besides
as a serious and (in his way) a heroic figure, and at times I lose my
way, and I fear in the end will blur the effect. However, _à la grâce de
Dieu_! I’ll make a spoon or spoil a horn. You see, I have to do the
Building of the Bell Rock by cutting down and packing my grandsire’s
book, which I rather hope I have done, but do not know. And it makes a
huge chunk of a very different style and quality between Chapters II. and
IV. And it can’t be helped! It is just a delightful and exasperating
necessity. You know, the stuff is really excellent narrative: only,
perhaps there’s too much of it! There is the rub. Well, well, it will
be plain to you that my mind is affected; it might be with less. _The
Ebb Tide_ and _Northern Lights_ are a full meal for any plain man.
I have written and ordered your last book, _The Real Thing_, so be sure
and don’t send it. What else are you doing or thinking of doing? News I
have none, and don’t want any. I have had to stop all strong drink and
all tobacco, and am now in a transition state between the two, which
seems to be near madness. You never smoked, I think, so you can never
taste the joys of stopping it. But at least you have drunk, and you can
enter perhaps into my annoyance when I suddenly find a glass of claret or
a brandy-and-water give me a splitting headache the next morning. No
mistake about it; drink anything, and there’s your headache. Tobacco
just as bad for me. If I live through this breach of habit, I shall be a
white-livered puppy indeed. Actually I am so made, or so twisted, that I
do not like to think of a life without the red wine on the table and the
tobacco with its lovely little coal of fire. It doesn’t amuse me from a
distance. I may find it the Garden of Eden when I go in, but I don’t
like the colour of the gate-posts. Suppose somebody said to you, you are
to leave your home, and your books, and your clubs, and go out and camp
in mid-Africa, and command an expedition, you would howl, and kick, and
flee. I think the same of a life without wine and tobacco; and if this
goes on, I’ve got to go and do it, sir, in the living flesh!
I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought the French were a
polite race? He has taken my dedication with a stately silence that has
surprised me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate my book {298a} to the
nasty alien, and the ’norrid Frenchman, and the Bloody Furrineer? Well,
I wouldn’t do it again; and unless his case is susceptible of
explanation, you might perhaps tell him so over the walnuts and the wine,
by way of speeding the gay hours. Sincerely, I thought my dedication
worth a letter.
If anything be worth anything here below! Do you know the story of the
man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter? ‘What do you
call that?’ says he. ‘Well,’ said the waiter, ‘what d’you expect?
Expect to find a gold watch and chain?’ Heavenly apologue, is it not? I
expected (rather) to find a gold watch and chain; I expected to be able
to smoke to excess and drink to comfort all the days of my life; and I am
still indignantly staring on this button! It’s not even a button; it’s a
teetotal badge!—Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Apia_, _July_ 1893.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—Yes. _Les Trophées_, on the whole, a book. {298b}
It is excellent; but is it a life’s work? I always suspect _you_ of a
volume of sonnets up your sleeve; when is it coming down? I am in one of
my moods of wholesale impatience with all fiction and all verging on it,
reading instead, with rapture, _Fountainhall’s Decisions_. You never
read it: well, it hasn’t much form, and is inexpressibly dreary, I should
suppose, to others—and even to me for pages. It’s like walking in a mine
underground, and with a damned bad lantern, and picking out pieces of
ore. This, and war, will be my excuse for not having read your
(doubtless) charming work of fiction. The revolving year will bring me
round to it; and I know, when fiction shall begin to feel a little
_solid_ to me again, that I shall love it, because it’s James. Do you
know, when I am in this mood, I would rather try to read a bad book?
It’s not so disappointing, anyway. And _Fountainhall_ is prime, two big
folio volumes, and all dreary, and all true, and all as terse as an
obituary; and about one interesting fact on an average in twenty pages,
and ten of them unintelligible for technicalities. There’s literature,
if you like! It feeds; it falls about you genuine like rain. Rain:
nobody has done justice to rain in literature yet: surely a subject for a
Scot. But then you can’t do rain in that ledger-book style that I am
trying for—or between a ledger-book and an old ballad. How to get over,
how to escape from, the besotting _particularity_ of fiction. ‘Roland
approached the house; it had green doors and window blinds; and there was
a scraper on the upper step.’ To hell with Roland and the scraper!—Yours
ever,
R. L. S.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
_Vailima_, _July_ 12, 1893.
MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,—The _White Company_ has not yet turned up; but
when it does—which I suppose will be next mail—you shall hear news of me.
I have a great talent for compliment, accompanied by a hateful, even a
diabolic frankness.
Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and Mrs. Doyle; Mrs.
Stevenson bids me say (what is too true) that our rations are often
spare. Are you Great Eaters? Please reply.
As to ways and means, here is what you will have to do. Leave San
Francisco by the down mail, get off at Samoa, and twelve days or a
fortnight later, you can continue your journey to Auckland per Upolu,
which will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the way. Make
this a _first part of your plans_. A fortnight, even of Vailima diet,
could kill nobody.
We are in the midst of war here; rather a nasty business, with the
head-taking; and there seem signs of other trouble. But I believe you
need make no change in your design to visit us. All should be well over;
and if it were not, why! you need not leave the steamer.—Yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
19_th_ _July_ ’93.
. . . We are in the thick of war—see _Illustrated London News_—we have
only two outside boys left to us. Nothing is doing, and _per contra_
little paying. . . My life here is dear; but I can live within my income
for a time at least—so long as my prices keep up—and it seems a clear
duty to waste none of it on gadding about. . . . My life of my family
fills up intervals, and should be an excellent book when it is done, but
big, damnably big.
My dear old man, I perceive by a thousand signs that we grow old, and are
soon to pass away! I hope with dignity; if not, with courage at least.
I am myself very ready; or would be—will be—when I have made a little
money for my folks. The blows that have fallen upon you are truly
terrifying; I wish you strength to bear them. It is strange, I must seem
to you to blaze in a Birmingham prosperity and happiness; and to myself I
seem a failure. The truth is, I have never got over the last influenza
yet, and am miserably out of heart and out of kilter. Lungs pretty
right, stomach nowhere, spirits a good deal overshadowed; but we’ll come
through it yet, and cock our bonnets. (I confess with sorrow that I am
not yet quite sure about the _intellects_; but I hope it is only one of
my usual periods of non-work. They are more unbearable now, because I
cannot rest. _No rest but the grave for Sir Walter_! O the words ring
in a man’s head.)
R. L. S.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
_Vailima_, _August_ 23_rd_, 1893.
MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,—I am reposing after a somewhat severe experience
upon which I think it my duty to report to you. Immediately after dinner
this evening it occurred to me to re-narrate to my native overseer Simelè
your story of _The Engineer’s Thumb_. And, sir, I have done it. It was
necessary, I need hardly say, to go somewhat farther afield than you have
done. To explain (for instance) what a railway is, what a steam hammer,
what a coach and horse, what coining, what a criminal, and what the
police. I pass over other and no less necessary explanations. But I did
actually succeed; and if you could have seen the drawn, anxious features
and the bright, feverish eyes of Simelè, you would have (for the moment
at least) tasted glory. You might perhaps think that, were you to come
to Samoa, you might be introduced as the Author of _The Engineer’s
Thumb_. Disabuse yourself. They do not know what it is to make up a
story. _The Engineer’s Thumb_ (God forgive me) was narrated as a piece
of actual and factual history. Nay, and more, I who write to you have
had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling piece of fiction entitled
_The Bottle Imp_. Parties who come up to visit my unpretentious mansion,
after having admired the ceilings by Vanderputty and the tapestry by
Gobbling, manifest towards the end a certain uneasiness which proves them
to be fellows of an infinite delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown
shoulder, to roll up a speaking eye, and at last secret bursts from them:
‘Where is the bottle?’ Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you
will find it by the Engineer’s Thumb! Talofa-soifuia.
Oa’u, O lau no moni, O Tusitala.
More commonly known as,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Have read the _Refugees_; Condé and old P. Murat very good; Louis XIV.
and Louvois with the letter bag very rich. You have reached a trifle
wide perhaps; too _many_ celebrities? Though I was delighted to
re-encounter my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your high
water mark; ’tis excellently human, cheerful and real. Do it again.
Madame de Maintenon struck me as quite good. Have you any document for
the decapitation? It sounds steepish. The devil of all that first part
is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis XIV. is _distinctly good_. I
am much interested with this book, which fulfils a good deal, and
promises more. Question: How far a Historical Novel should be wholly
episodic? I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands with
you on old Murat.
R. L. S.
TO GEORGE MEREDITH
_Sept._ 5_th_, 1893, _Vailima Plantation_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_.
MY DEAR MEREDITH,—I have again and again taken up the pen to write to
you, and many beginnings have gone into the waste paper basket (I have
one now—for the second time in my life—and feel a big man on the strength
of it). And no doubt it requires some decision to break so long a
silence. My health is vastly restored, and I am now living patriarchally
in this place six hundred feet above the sea on the shoulder of a
mountain of 1500. Behind me, the unbroken bush slopes up to the backbone
of the island (3 to 4000) without a house, with no inhabitants save a few
runaway black boys, wild pigs and cattle, and wild doves and flying
foxes, and many parti-coloured birds, and many black, and many white: a
very eerie, dim, strange place and hard to travel. I am the head of a
household of five whites, and of twelve Samoans, to all of whom I am the
chief and father: my cook comes to me and asks leave to marry—and his
mother, a fine old chief woman, who has never lived here, does the same.
You may be sure I granted the petition. It is a life of great interest,
complicated by the Tower of Babel, that old enemy. And I have all the
time on my hands for literary work. My house is a great place; we have a
hall fifty feet long with a great red-wood stair ascending from it, where
we dine in state—myself usually dressed in a singlet and a pair of
trousers—and attended on by servants in a single garment, a kind of
kilt—also flowers and leaves—and their hair often powdered with lime.
The European who came upon it suddenly would think it was a dream. We
have prayers on Sunday night—I am a perfect pariah in the island not to
have them oftener, but the spirit is unwilling and the flesh proud, and I
cannot go it more. It is strange to see the long line of the brown folk
crouched along the wall with lanterns at intervals before them in the big
shadowy hall, with an oak cabinet at one end of it and a group of Rodin’s
(which native taste regards as _prodigieusement leste_) presiding over
all from the top—and to hear the long rambling Samoan hymn rolling up
(God bless me, what style! But I am off business to-day, and this is not
meant to be literature.).
I have asked Colvin to send you a copy of _Catriona_, which I am
sometimes tempted to think is about my best work. I hear word
occasionally of the _Amazing Marriage_. It will be a brave day for me
when I get hold of it. Gower Woodseer is now an ancient, lean, grim,
exiled Scot, living and labouring as for a wager in the tropics; still
active, still with lots of fire in him, but the youth—ah, the youth where
is it? For years after I came here, the critics (those genial gentlemen)
used to deplore the relaxation of my fibre and the idleness to which I
had succumbed. I hear less of this now; the next thing is they will tell
me I am writing myself out! and that my unconscientious conduct is
bringing their grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. I do not know—I mean
I do know one thing. For fourteen years I have not had a day’s real
health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my
work unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of it,
written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing,
written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it seems to me I
have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now, have been
rightly speaking since first I came to the Pacific; and still, few are
the days when I am not in some physical distress. And the battle goes
on—ill or well, is a trifle; so as it goes. I was made for a contest,
and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy,
inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I have not
failed, but I would have preferred a place of trumpetings and the open
air over my head.
This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to imitate me in that
if the spirit ever moves you to reply? And meantime be sure that away in
the midst of the Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the
name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory (since it must be no
more) is continually honoured.—Ever your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my wife sends her most kind
remembrances to yourself.
R. L. S.
TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
_Vailima_, _September_ 1893.
MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,—I had determined not to write to you till I had seen
the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends or
the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is
ours that halts—the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little
road on boys’ backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this
work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
horse’s back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to
say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and
the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the
well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the
medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days
longer; and hear me meanwhile on the golden letters.
Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is prohibitive. I
cannot do it. It is another day-dream burst. Another gable of
Abbotsford has gone down, fortunately before it was builded, so there’s
nobody injured—except me. I had a strong conviction that I was a great
hand at writing inscriptions, and meant to exhibit and test my genius on
the walls of my house; and now I see I can’t. It is generally thus. The
Battle of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making
preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself face to face
with invincible difficulties, in which the rapacity of a mercenary
soldiery and the complaints of an impoverished treasury played an equal
part.—Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I enclose a bill for the medallion; have been trying to find your letter,
quite in vain, and therefore must request you to pay for the bronze
letters yourself and let me know the damage.
R. L. S.
TO J. HORNE STEVENSON
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _November_ 5_th_, 1893.
MY DEAR STEVENSON,—A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful
collections. Baxter—so soon as it is ready—will let you see a proof of
my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And
you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a
perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to an exile. My uncle’s
pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course,
but they were tenants of the Muirs; the farm held by them is in my
introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a
search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the
inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to
your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but
what you and we and old John Stevenson, ‘land labourer in the parish of
Dailly,’ came all of the same stock. Ayrshire—and probably
Cunningham—seems to be the home of the race—our part of it. From the
distribution of the name—which your collections have so much extended
without essentially changing my knowledge of—we seem rather pointed to a
British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must
be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to
walk about!—as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after all,
I am writing _this_ for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you and
other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!—Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—I have a different version of my grandfather’s arms—or my father
had if I could find it.
R. L. S.
TO JOHN P—N
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 3_rd_, 1893.
DEAR JOHNNIE,—Well, I must say you seem to be a tremendous fellow!
Before I was eight I used to write stories—or dictate them at least—and I
had produced an excellent history of Moses, for which I got £1 from an
uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you have beaten me
fairly on my own ground. I hope you may continue to do so, and thanking
you heartily for your nice letter, I shall beg you to believe me yours
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO RUSSELL P—N
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 3_rd_, 1893.
DEAR RUSSELL,—I have to thank you very much for your capital letter,
which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother’s. When you
‘grow up and write stories like me,’ you will be able to understand that
there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen;
he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at
the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write
much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to
another—though I was not born in Ceylon—you’re ahead of me there).—Yours
very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
_Vailima_, _December_ 5, 1893.
MY DEAREST CUMMY,—This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you about
_Noor’s Day_. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you remember
when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry me to the
back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me.
‘A’ the hills are covered wi’ snaw,
An’ winter’s noo come fairly’?
There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how my mother is going
to stand the winter. If she can, it will be a very good thing for her.
We are in that part of the year which I like the best—the Rainy or
Hurricane Season. ‘When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it
is bad, it is horrid,’ and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven;
such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the
hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a
baby’s breath, and yet not hot!
The mail is on the move, and I must let up.—With much love, I am, your
laddie,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
6_th_ _December_ 1893.
‘_October_ 25, 1685.—At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of
the King’s Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last,
obtain a clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person
of Janet Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having
retired out of the way upon information, he got an order against
Andrew Pringle, her uncle, to produce her. . . . But she having
married Andrew Pringle, her uncle’s son (to disappoint all their
designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen years old.’ But my boy is
to be fourteen, so I extract no further.—FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.
‘_May_ 6, 1685.—Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all,
and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving
security for 7000 marks.’—i. 372.
No, it seems to have been _her_ brother who had succeeded.
* * * * *
MY DEAR CHARLES,—The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can be
thrown on it. I prefer the girl’s father dead; and the question is, How
in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to ‘apprehend’
and his power to ‘sell’ her in marriage?
Or—might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles,
and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?
A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it will
be the corner-stone of my novel.
This is for—I am quite wrong to tell you—for you will tell others—and
nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish and
reappear again like shapes in the clouds—it is for _Heathercat_: whereof
the first volume will be called _The Killing Time_, and I believe I have
authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to be called (I
believe) _Darien_, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal of truck:—
_Darien Papers_,
_Carstairs Papers_,
_Marchmont Papers_,
_Jerviswoode Correspondence_,
I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if
there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to
have—the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure
to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690–1700—a deuce of a want
of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of
Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also—I am
the daughter of the horse-leech truly—‘Black’s new large map of
Scotland,’ sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can
get the
_Caldwell Papers_,
they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work—but no, I
must call a halt. . . .
I fear the song looks doubtful, but I’ll consider of it, and I can
promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether
or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it’s an unco
business to _supply_ deid-heid coapy.
TO J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 7_th_, 1893.
MY DEAR BARRIE,—I have received duly the _magnum opus_, and it really is
a _magnum opus_. {311} It is a beautiful specimen of Clark’s printing,
paper sufficient, and the illustrations all my fancy painted. But the
particular flower of the flock to whom I have hopelessly lost my heart is
Tibby Birse. I must have known Tibby Birse when she was a servant’s
mantua-maker in Edinburgh and answered to the name of Miss _Broddie_.
She used to come and sew with my nurse, sitting with her legs crossed in
a masculine manner; and swinging her foot emphatically, she used to pour
forth a perfectly unbroken stream of gossip. I didn’t hear it, I was
immersed in far more important business with a box of bricks, but the
recollection of that thin, perpetual, shrill sound of a voice has echoed
in my ears sinsyne. I am bound to say she was younger than Tibbie, but
there is no mistaking that and the indescribable and eminently Scottish
expression.
I have been very much prevented of late, having carried out thoroughly to
my own satisfaction two considerable illnesses, had a birthday, and
visited Honolulu, where politics are (if possible) a shade more
exasperating than they are with us. I am told that it was just when I
was on the point of leaving that I received your superlative epistle
about the cricket eleven. In that case it is impossible I should have
answered it, which is inconsistent with my own recollection of the fact.
What I remember is, that I sat down under your immediate inspiration and
wrote an answer in every way worthy. If I didn’t, as it seems proved
that I couldn’t, it will never be done now. However, I did the next best
thing, I equipped my cousin Graham Balfour with a letter of introduction,
and from him, if you know how—for he is rather of the Scottish
character—you may elicit all the information you can possibly wish to
have as to us and ours. Do not be bluffed off by the somewhat stern and
monumental first impression that he may make upon you. He is one of the
best fellows in the world, and the same sort of fool that we are, only
better-looking, with all the faults of Vailimans and some of his own—I
say nothing about virtues.
I have lately been returning to my wallowing in the mire. When I was a
child, and indeed until I was nearly a man, I consistently read
Covenanting books. Now that I am a grey-beard—or would be, if I could
raise the beard—I have returned, and for weeks back have read little else
but Wodrow, Walker, Shields, etc. Of course this is with an idea of a
novel, but in the course of it I made a very curious discovery. I have
been accustomed to hear refined and intelligent critics—those who know so
much better what we are than we do ourselves,—trace down my literary
descent from all sorts of people, including Addison, of whom I could
never read a word. Well, laigh i’ your lug, sir—the clue was found. My
style is from the Covenanting writers. Take a particular case—the
fondness for rhymes. I don’t know of any English prose-writer who rhymes
except by accident, and then a stone had better be tied around his neck
and himself cast into the sea. But my Covenanting buckies rhyme all the
time—a beautiful example of the unconscious rhyme above referred to.
Do you know, and have you really tasted, these delightful works? If not,
it should be remedied; there is enough of the Auld Licht in you to be
ravished.
I suppose you know that success has so far attended my banners—my
political banners I mean, and not my literary. In conjunction with the
Three Great Powers I have succeeded in getting rid of My President and My
Chief-Justice. They’ve gone home, the one to Germany, the other to
Souwegia. I hear little echoes of footfalls of their departing footsteps
through the medium of the newspapers. . . .
Whereupon I make you my salute with the firm remark that it is time to be
done with trifling and give us a great book, and my ladies fall into line
with me to pay you a most respectful courtesy, and we all join in the
cry, ‘Come to Vailima!’
My dear sir, your soul’s health is in it—you will never do the great
book, you will never cease to work in L., etc., till you come to Vailima.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO R. LE GALLIENNE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 28_th_, 1893.
DEAR MR. LE GALLIENNE,—I have received some time ago, through our friend
Miss Taylor, a book of yours. But that was by no means my first
introduction to your name. The same book had stood already on my
shelves; I had read articles of yours in the _Academy_; and by a piece of
constructive criticism (which I trust was sound) had arrived at the
conclusion that you were ‘Log-roller.’ Since then I have seen your
beautiful verses to your wife. You are to conceive me, then, as only too
ready to make the acquaintance of a man who loved good literature and
could make it. I had to thank you, besides, for a triumphant exposure of
a paradox of my own: the literary-prostitute disappeared from view at a
phrase of yours—‘The essence is not in the pleasure but the sale.’ True:
you are right, I was wrong; the author is not the whore, but the
libertine; and yet I shall let the passage stand. It is an error, but it
illustrated the truth for which I was contending, that
literature—painting—all art, are no other than pleasures, which we turn
into trades.
And more than all this, I had, and I have to thank you for the intimate
loyalty you have shown to myself; for the eager welcome you give to what
is good—for the courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects. I
begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy;—and I have written
too many books. The world begins to be weary of the old booth; and if
not weary, familiar with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I do not
know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I am sensitive
indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read such criticism as yours, I
am emboldened to go on and praise God.
You are still young, and you may live to do much. The little, artificial
popularity of style in England tends, I think, to die out; the British
pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the
shapeless, of the slapdash and the disorderly. There is trouble coming,
I think; and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil days.
Lastly, let me apologise for the crucifixion that I am inflicting on you
(_bien à contre-cœur_) by my bad writing. I was once the best of
writers; landladies, puzzled as to my ‘trade,’ used to have their honest
bosoms set at rest by a sight of a page of manuscript.—‘Ah,’ they would
say, ‘no wonder they pay you for that’;—and when I sent it in to the
printers, it was given to the boys! I was about thirty-nine, I think,
when I had a turn of scrivener’s palsy; my hand got worse; and for the
first time, I received clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now, I
know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to correspondents; and
you would not believe the care with which this has been written.—Believe
me to be, very sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. A. BAKER
_December_ 1893.
DEAR MADAM,—There is no trouble, and I wish I could help instead. As it
is, I fear I am only going to put you to trouble and vexation. This
Braille writing is a kind of consecration, and I would like if I could to
have your copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as Vols. I.
and II. of _The Adventures of David Balfour_. 1st, _Kidnapped_; 2nd,
_Catriona_. I am just sending home a corrected _Kidnapped_ for this
purpose to Messrs. Cassell, and in order that I may if possible be in
time, I send it to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted
the changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle Sauvage Yard,
Ludgate Hill.
I am writing to them by this mail to send you _Catriona_.
You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it is ‘a keen pleasure’
to you to bring my book within the reach of the blind.
Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me, sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I was a barren tree before,
I blew a quenchèd coal,
I could not, on their midnight shore,
The lonely blind console.
A moment, lend your hand, I bring
My sheaf for you to bind,
And you can teach my words to sing
In the darkness of the blind.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Apia_, _December_ 1893.
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,—The mail has come upon me like an armed man three
days earlier than was expected; and the Lord help me! It is impossible I
should answer anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over
_Catriona_ did me good, and still more the subtlety and truth of your
remark on the starving of the visual sense in that book. ’Tis true, and
unless I make the greater effort—and am, as a step to that, convinced of
its necessity—it will be more true I fear in the future. I _hear_ people
talking, and I _feel_ them acting, and that seems to me to be fiction.
My two aims may be described as—
1_st_. War to the adjective.
2_nd_. Death to the optic nerve.
Admitted we live in an age of the optic nerve in literature. For how
many centuries did literature get along without a sign of it? However,
I’ll consider your letter.
How exquisite is your character of the critic in _Essays in London_! I
doubt if you have done any single thing so satisfying as a piece of style
and of insight.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
1_st_ _January_ ’94.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—I am delighted with your idea, and first, I will here
give an amended plan and afterwards give you a note of some of the
difficulties.
[Plan of the Edinburgh edition—14 vols.]
. . . It may be a question whether my _Times_ letters might not be
appended to the ‘Footnote’ with a note of the dates of discharge of
Cedercrantz and Pilsach.
I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to a
dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any
rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I’m heard of
again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the
text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know
how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on
_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_—I
have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with
the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David
Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don’t think I could say
anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don’t want to. But it is probable I
could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I
can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend
_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _Apropos_, if I were to
get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools
might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay
expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply
photographs of the illustrations—and the poems are of Vailima and the
family—I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.
R. L. S.
TO H. B. BAILDON
_Vailima_, _January_ 15_th_, 1894.
MY DEAR BAILDON,—Last mail brought your book and its Dedication.
‘Frederick Street and the gardens, and the short-lived Jack o’ Lantern,’
are again with me—and the note of the east wind, and Froebel’s voice, and
the smell of soup in Thomson’s stair. Truly, you had no need to put
yourself under the protection of any other saint, were that saint our
Tamate himself! Yourself were enough, and yourself coming with so rich a
sheaf.
For what is this that you say about the Muses? They have certainly never
better inspired you than in ‘Jael and Sisera,’ and ‘Herodias and John the
Baptist,’ good stout poems, fiery and sound. ‘’Tis but a mask and behind
it chuckles the God of the Garden,’ I shall never forget. By the by, an
error of the press, page 49, line 4, ‘No infant’s lesson are the ways of
God.’ _The_ is dropped.
And this reminds me you have a bad habit which is to be comminated in my
theory of letters. Same page, two lines lower: ‘But the vulture’s track’
is surely as fine to the ear as ‘But vulture’s track,’ and this latter
version has a dreadful baldness. The reader goes on with a sense of
impoverishment, of unnecessary sacrifice; he has been robbed by footpads,
and goes scouting for his lost article! Again, in the second Epode,
these fine verses would surely sound much finer if they began, ‘As a
hardy climber who has set his heart,’ than with the jejune ‘As hardy
climber.’ I do not know why you permit yourself this license with
grammar; you show, in so many pages, that you are superior to the paltry
sense of rhythm which usually dictates it—as though some poetaster had
been suffered to correct the poet’s text. By the way, I confess to a
heartfelt weakness for _Auriculas_.—Believe me the very grateful and
characteristic pick-thank, but still sincere and affectionate,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. H. LOW.
_Vailima_, _January_ 15th, 1894.
MY DEAR LOW,—. . . Pray you, stoop your proud head, and sell yourself to
some Jew magazine, and make the visit out. I assure you, this is the
spot for a sculptor or painter. This, and no other—I don’t say to stay
there, but to come once and get the living colour into them. I am used
to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections
of Scotland; but there it is, and every morning is a thing to give thanks
for, and every night another—bar when it rains, of course.
About _The Wrecker_—rather late days, and I still suspect I had somehow
offended you; however, all’s well that ends well, and I am glad I am
forgiven—did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and there is an
undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then the problem that Pinkerton
laid down: why the artist can _do nothing else_? is one that continually
exercises myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And Montaigne.
And Julius Cæsar. And many more. And why can’t R. L. S.? Does it not
amaze you? It does me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their
all-round human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable smallness
of the field in which we labour and in which we do so little. I think
_David Balfour_ a nice little book, and very artistic, and just the thing
to occupy the leisure of a busy man; but for the top flower of a man’s
life it seems to me inadequate. Small is the word; it is a small age,
and I am of it. I could have wished to be otherwise busy in this world.
I ought to have been able to build lighthouses and write _David Balfours_
too. _Hinc illae lacrymae_. I take my own case as most handy, but it is
as illustrative of my quarrel with the age. We take all these pains, and
we don’t do as well as Michael Angelo or Leonardo, or even Fielding, who
was an active magistrate, or Richardson, who was a busy bookseller.
_J’ai honte pour nous_; my ears burn.
I am amazed at the effect which this Chicago exhibition has produced upon
you and others. It set Mrs. Fairchild literally mad—to judge by her
letters. And I wish I had seen anything so influential. I suppose there
was an aura, a halo, some sort of effulgency about the place; for here I
find you louder than the rest. Well, it may be there is a time coming;
and I wonder, when it comes, whether it will be a time of little,
exclusive, one-eyed rascals like you and me, or parties of the old stamp
who can paint and fight, and write and keep books of double entry, and
sculp, and scalp. It might be. You have a lot of stuff in the kettle,
and a great deal of it Celtic. I have changed my mind progressively
about England, practically the whole of Scotland is Celtic, and the
western half of England, and all Ireland, and the Celtic blood makes a
rare blend for art. If it is stiffened up with Latin blood, you get the
French. We were less lucky: we had only Scandinavians, themselves
decidedly artistic, and the Low-German lot. However, that is a good
starting-point, and with all the other elements in your crucible, it may
come to something great very easily. I wish you would hurry up and let
me see it. Here is a long while I have been waiting for something _good_
in art; and what have I seen? Zola’s _Débâcle_ and a few of Kipling’s
tales. Are you a reader of Barbey d’Aurevilly? He is a never-failing
source of pleasure to me, for my sins, I suppose. What a work is the
_Rideau Cramoisi_! and _L’Ensorcelée_! and _Le Chevalier Des Touches_!
This is degenerating into mere twaddle. So please remember us all most
kindly to Mrs. Low, and believe me ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—Were all your privateers voiceless in the war of 1812? Did _no
one_ of them write memoirs? I shall have to do my privateer from chic,
if you can’t help me. {320} My application to Scribner has been quite in
vain. See if you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and
tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs or notes of some
sort; perhaps still unprinted; if that be so, get them copied for me.
R. L. S.
TO H. B. BAILDON
_Vailima_, _January_ 30_th_, 1894.
MY DEAR BAILDON,—‘Call not blessed.’—Yes, if I could die just now, or say
in half a year, I should have had a splendid time of it on the whole.
But it gets a little stale, and my work will begin to senesce; and
parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look as if I should
survive to see myself impotent and forgotten. It’s a pity suicide is not
thought the ticket in the best circles.
But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having done the one thing I
am a little sorry for; a little—not much—for my father himself lived to
think that I had been wiser than he. But the cream of the jest is that I
have lived to change my mind; and think that he was wiser than I. Had I
been an engineer, and literature my amusement, it would have been better
perhaps. I pulled it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is pleasant
while it lasts; but how long will it last? I don’t know, say the Bells
of Old Bow.
All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane in judging himself.
Truly, had I given way and gone in for engineering, I should be dead by
now. Well, the gods know best.
. . . I hope you got my letter about the _Rescue_.—Adieu,
R. L. S.
True for you about the benefit: except by kisses, jests, song, _et hoc
genus omne_, man _cannot_ convey benefit to another. The universal
benefactor has been there before him.
TO J. H. BATES
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _March_ 25_th_, 1894.
MY DEAR MR. JOE H. BATES,—I shall have the greatest pleasure in acceding
to your complimentary request. I shall think it an honour to be
associated with your chapter, and I need not remind you (for you have
said it yourself) how much depends upon your own exertions whether to
make it to me a real honour or only a derision. This is to let you know
that I accept the position that you have seriously offered to me in a
quite serious spirit. I need scarce tell you that I shall always be
pleased to receive reports of your proceedings; and if I do not always
acknowledge them, you are to remember that I am a man very much occupied
otherwise, and not at all to suppose that I have lost interest in my
chapter.
In this world, which (as you justly say) is so full of sorrow and
suffering, it will always please me to remember that my name is connected
with some efforts after alleviation, nor less so with purposes of
innocent recreation which, after all, are the only certain means at our
disposal for bettering human life.
With kind regards, to yourself, to Mr. L. C. Congdon, to E. M. G. Bates,
and to Mr. Edward Hugh Higlee Bates, and the heartiest wishes for the
future success of the chapter, believe me, yours cordially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _March_ 27_th_, 1894.
MY DEAR ARCHER,—Many thanks for your _Theatrical World_. Do you know, it
strikes me as being really very good? I have not yet read much of it,
but so far as I have looked, there is not a dull and not an empty page in
it. Hazlitt, whom you must often have thought of, would have been
pleased. Come to think of it, I shall put this book upon the Hazlitt
shelf. You have acquired a manner that I can only call august;
otherwise, I should have to call it such amazing impudence. The _Bauble
Shop_ and _Becket_ are examples of what I mean. But it ‘sets you weel.’
Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for long. She was
possibly—no, I take back possibly—she was one of the greatest works of
God. Your note about the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great
joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by, was it not over
_The Child’s Garden of Verses_ that we first scraped acquaintance? I am
sorry indeed to hear that my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such
poor taste in literature. {323} I fear he cannot have inherited this
trait from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it, for I remember
the energy of papa’s disapproval when the work passed through his hands
on its way to a second birth, which none regrets more than myself. It is
an odd fact, or perhaps a very natural one; I find few greater pleasures
than reading my own works, but I never, O I never read _The Black Arrow_.
In that country Tomarcher reigns supreme. Well, and after all, if
Tomarcher likes it, it has not been written in vain.
We have just now a curious breath from Europe. A young fellow just
beginning letters, and no fool, turned up here with a letter of
introduction in the well-known blue ink and decorative hieroglyphs of
George Meredith. His name may be known to you. It is Sidney Lysaght.
He is staying with us but a day or two, and it is strange to me and not
unpleasant to hear all the names, old and new, come up again. But oddly
the new are so much more in number. If I revisited the glimpses of the
moon on your side of the ocean, I should know comparatively few of them.
My amanuensis deserts me—I should have said you, for yours is the loss,
my script having lost all bond with humanity. One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin: that nobody can read my hand. It is a humiliating
circumstance that thus evens us with printers!
You must sometimes think it strange—or perhaps it is only I that should
so think it—to be following the old round, in the gas lamps and the
crowded theatres, when I am away here in the tropical forest and the vast
silences!
My dear Archer, my wife joins me in the best wishes to yourself and Mrs.
Archer, not forgetting Tom; and I am yours very cordially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. B. YEATS
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _April_ 14, 1894.
DEAR SIR,—Long since when I was a boy I remember the emotions with which
I repeated Swinburne’s poems and ballads. Some ten years ago, a similar
spell was cast upon me by Meredith’s _Love in the Valley_; the stanzas
beginning ‘When her mother tends her’ haunted me and made me drunk like
wine; and I remember waking with them all the echoes of the hills about
Hyères. It may interest you to hear that I have a third time fallen in
slavery: this is to your poem called the _Lake Isle of Innisfrae_. It is
so quaint and airy, simple, artful, and eloquent to the heart—but I seek
words in vain. Enough that ‘always night and day I hear lake water
lapping with low sounds on the shore,’ and am, yours gratefully,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO GEORGE MEREDITH
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _April_ 17_th_, 1894.
MY DEAR MEREDITH,—Many good things have the gods sent to me of late.
First of all there was a letter from you by the kind hand of Mariette, if
she is not too great a lady to be remembered in such a style; and then
there came one Lysaght with a charming note of introduction in the
well-known hand itself. We had but a few days of him, and liked him
well. There was a sort of geniality and inward fire about him at which I
warmed my hands. It is long since I have seen a young man who has left
in me such a favourable impression; and I find myself telling myself, ‘O,
I must tell this to Lysaght,’ or, ‘This will interest him,’ in a manner
very unusual after so brief an acquaintance. The whole of my family
shared in this favourable impression, and my halls have re-echoed ever
since, I am sure he will be amused to know, with _Widdicombe Fair_.
He will have told you doubtless more of my news than I could tell you
myself; he has your European perspective, a thing long lost to me. I
heard with a great deal of interest the news of Box Hill. And so I
understand it is to be enclosed! Allow me to remark, that seems a far
more barbaric trait of manners than the most barbarous of ours. We
content ourselves with cutting off an occasional head.
I hear we may soon expect the _Amazing Marriage_. You know how long, and
with how much curiosity, I have looked forward to the book. Now, in so
far as you have adhered to your intention, Gower Woodsere will be a
family portrait, age twenty-five, of the highly respectable and slightly
influential and fairly aged _Tusitala_. You have not known that
gentleman; console yourself, he is not worth knowing. At the same time,
my dear Meredith, he is very sincerely yours—for what he is worth, for
the memories of old times, and in the expectation of many pleasures still
to come. I suppose we shall never see each other again; flitting youths
of the Lysaght species may occasionally cover these unconscionable
leagues and bear greetings to and fro. But we ourselves must be content
to converse on an occasional sheet of notepaper, and I shall never see
whether you have grown older, and you shall never deplore that Gower
Woodsere should have declined into the pantaloon _Tusitala_. It is
perhaps better so. Let us continue to see each other as we were, and
accept, my dear Meredith, my love and respect.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—My wife joins me in the kindest messages to yourself and Mariette.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Vailima_], _April_ 17, ’94.
MY DEAR CHARLES,—_St. Ives_ is now well on its way into the second
volume. There remains no mortal doubt that it will reach the three
volume standard.
I am very anxious that you should send me—
1_st_. _Tom and Jerry_, a cheap edition.
2nd. The book by Ashton—the _Dawn of the Century_, I think it was
called—which Colvin sent me, and which has miscarried, and
3rd. If it is possible, a file of the _Edinburgh Courant_ for the years
1811, 1812, 1813, or 1814. I should not care for a whole year. If it
were possible to find me three months, winter months by preference, it
would do my business not only for _St. Ives_, but for the _Justice-Clerk_
as well. Suppose this to be impossible, perhaps I could get the loan of
it from somebody; or perhaps it would be possible to have some one read a
file for me and make notes. This would be extremely bad, as unhappily
one man’s food is another man’s poison, and the reader would probably
leave out everything I should choose. But if you are reduced to that,
you might mention to the man who is to read for me that balloon
ascensions are in the order of the day.
4th. It might be as well to get a book on balloon ascension,
particularly in the early part of the century.
. . . . .
III. At last this book has come from Scribner, and, alas! I have the
first six or seven chapters of _St. Ives_ to recast entirely. Who could
foresee that they clothed the French prisoners in yellow? But that one
fatal fact—and also that they shaved them twice a week—damns the whole
beginning. If it had been sent in time, it would have saved me a deal of
trouble. . . .
I have had a long letter from Dr. Scott Dalgleish, 25 Mayfield Terrace,
asking me to put my name down to the Ballantyne Memorial Committee. I
have sent him a pretty sharp answer in favour of cutting down the
memorial and giving more to the widow and children. If there is to be
any foolery in the way of statues or other trash, please send them a
guinea; but if they are going to take my advice and put up a simple
tablet with a few heartfelt words, and really devote the bulk of the
subscriptions to the wife and family, I will go to the length of twenty
pounds, if you will allow me (and if the case of the family be at all
urgent), and at least I direct you to send ten pounds. I suppose you had
better see Scott Dalgleish himself on the matter. I take the opportunity
here to warn you that my head is simply spinning with a multitude of
affairs, and I shall probably forget a half of my business at last.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
_Vailima_, _April_ 1894.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I have at last got some photographs, and hasten to send
you, as you asked, a portrait of Tusitala. He is a strange person; not
so lean, say experts, but infinitely battered; mighty active again on the
whole; going up and down our break-neck road at all hours of the day and
night on horseback; holding meetings with all manner of chiefs; quite a
political personage—God save the mark!—in a small way, but at heart very
conscious of the inevitable flat failure that awaits every one. I shall
never do a better book than _Catriona_, that is my high-water mark, and
the trouble of production increases on me at a great rate—and mighty
anxious about how I am to leave my family: an elderly man, with elderly
preoccupations, whom I should be ashamed to show you for your old friend;
but not a hope of my dying soon and cleanly, and ‘winning off the stage.’
Rather I am daily better in physical health. I shall have to see this
business out, after all; and I think, in that case, they should have—they
might have—spared me all my ill-health this decade past, if it were not
to unbar the doors. I have no taste for old age, and my nose is to be
rubbed in it in spite of my face. I was meant to die young, and the gods
do not love me.
This is very like an epitaph, bar the handwriting, which is anything but
monumental, and I dare say I had better stop. Fanny is down at her own
cottage planting or deplanting or replanting, I know not which, and she
will not be home till dinner, by which time the mail will be all closed,
else she would join me in all good messages and remembrances of love. I
hope you will congratulate Burne Jones from me on his baronetcy. I
cannot make out to be anything but raspingly, harrowingly sad; so I will
close, and not affect levity which I cannot feel. Do not altogether
forget me; keep a corner of your memory for the exile
LOUIS.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Vailima_, _May_ 1894.]
MY DEAR CHARLES,—My dear fellow, I wish to assure you of the greatness of
the pleasure that this Edinburgh Edition gives me. I suppose it was your
idea to give it that name. No other would have affected me in the same
manner. Do you remember, how many years ago—I would be afraid to hazard
a guess—one night when I communicated to you certain intimations of early
death and aspirations after fame? I was particularly maudlin; and my
remorse the next morning on a review of my folly has written the matter
very deeply in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If any one
at that moment could have shown me the Edinburgh Edition, I suppose I
should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that I consider ‘the
way in which I have been led.’ Could a more preposterous idea have
occurred to us in those days when we used to search our pockets for
coppers, too often in vain, and combine forces to produce the threepence
necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down the Lothian Road
without any, than that I should be strong and well at the age of
forty-three in the island of Upolu, and that you should be at home
bringing out the Edinburgh Edition? If it had been possible, I should
almost have preferred the Lothian Road Edition, say, with a picture of
the old Dutch smuggler on the covers. I have now something heavy on my
mind. I had always a great sense of kinship with poor Robert
Fergusson—so clever a boy, so wild, of such a mixed strain, so
unfortunate, born in the same town with me, and, as I always felt, rather
by express intimation than from evidence, so like myself. Now the
injustice with which the one Robert is rewarded and the other left out in
the cold sits heavy on me, and I wish you could think of some way in
which I could do honour to my unfortunate namesake. Do you think it
would look like affectation to dedicate the whole edition to his memory?
I think it would. The sentiment which would dictate it to me is too
abstruse; and besides, I think my wife is the proper person to receive
the dedication of my life’s work. At the same time, it is very odd—it
really looks like the transmigration of souls—I feel that I must do
something for Fergusson; Burns has been before me with the gravestone.
It occurs to me you might take a walk down the Canongate and see in what
condition the stone is. If it be at all uncared for, we might repair it,
and perhaps add a few words of inscription.
I must tell you, what I just remembered in a flash as I was walking about
dictating this letter—there was in the original plan of the _Master of
Ballantrae_ a sort of introduction describing my arrival in Edinburgh on
a visit to yourself and your placing in my hands the papers of the story.
I actually wrote it, and then condemned the idea—as being a little too
like Scott, I suppose. Now I must really find the MS. and try to finish
it for the E. E. It will give you, what I should so much like you to
have, another corner of your own in that lofty monument.
Suppose we do what I have proposed about Fergusson’s monument, I wonder
if an inscription like this would look arrogant—
This stone originally erected
by Robert Burns has been
repaired at the
charges of Robert Louis Stevenson,
and is by him re-dedicated to
the memory of Robert Fergusson,
as the gift of one Edinburgh
lad to another.
In spacing this inscription I would detach the names of Fergusson and
Burns, but leave mine in the text.
Or would that look like sham modesty, and is it better to bring out the
three Roberts?
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Vailima_, _June_ 1894.
MY DEAR BOB,—I must make out a letter this mail or perish in the attempt.
All the same, I am deeply stupid, in bed with a cold, deprived of my
amanuensis, and conscious of the wish but not the furnished will. You
may be interested to hear how the family inquiries go. It is now quite
certain that we are a second-rate lot, and came out of Cunningham or
Clydesdale, therefore _British_ folk; so that you are Cymry on both
sides, and I Cymry and Pict. We may have fought with King Arthur and
known Merlin. The first of the family, Stevenson of Stevenson, was quite
a great party, and dates back to the wars of Edward First. The last male
heir of Stevenson of Stevenson died 1670, £220, 10s. to the bad, from
drink. About the same time the Stevensons, who were mostly in Cunningham
before, crop up suddenly in the parish of Neilston, over the border in
Renfrewshire. Of course, they may have been there before, but there is
no word of them in that parish till 1675 in any extracts I have. Our
first traceable ancestor was a tenant farmer of Muir of Cauldwells—James
in Nether-Carsewell. Presently two families of maltmen are found in
Glasgow, both, by re-duplicated proofs, related to James (the son of
James) in Nether Carsewell. We descend by his second marriage from
Robert; one of these died 1733. It is not very romantic up to now, but
has interested me surprisingly to fish out, always hoping for more—and
occasionally getting at least a little clearness and confirmation. But
the earliest date, 1655, apparently the marriage of James in Nether
Carsewell, cannot as yet be pushed back. From which of any number of
dozen little families in Cunningham we should derive, God knows! Of
course, it doesn’t matter a hundred years hence, an argument fatal to all
human enterprise, industry, or pleasure. And to me it will be a deadly
disappointment if I cannot roll this stone away! One generation further
might be nothing, but it is my present object of desire, and we are so
near it! There is a man in the same parish called Constantine; if I
could only trace to him, I could take you far afield by that one talisman
of the strange Christian name of Constantine. But no such luck! And I
kind of fear we shall stick at James.
So much, though all inchoate, I trouble you with, knowing that you, at
least, must take an interest in it. So much is certain of that strange
Celtic descent, that the past has an interest for it apparently
gratuitous, but fiercely strong. I wish to trace my ancestors a thousand
years, if I trace them by gallowses. It is not love, not pride, not
admiration; it is an expansion of the identity, intimately pleasing, and
wholly uncritical; I can expend myself in the person of an inglorious
ancestor with perfect comfort; or a disgraced, if I could find one. I
suppose, perhaps, it is more to me who am childless, and refrain with a
certain shock from looking forwards. But, I am sure, in the solid
grounds of race, that you have it also in some degree. {332}
I. JAMES, a tenant of the Muirs, in Nether-Carsewell, Neilston,
married (1665?) Jean Keir.
II. ROBERT (Maltman in Glasgow), died 1733, married 1st; married
second, Elizabeth Cumming.
[Of ROBERT and 1st marriage: William (Maltman in Glasgow), of him:
ROBERT, MARION and ELIZABETH]
III. ROBERT [of Robert and Elizabeth Cumming] (Maltman in Glasgow),
married Margaret Fulton (had a large family).
IV. ALAN, West India merchant, married Jean Lillie.
V. ROBERT, married Jean Smith.
VI. ALAN.—Margaret Jones.
VII. R. A. M. S.
NOTE.—Between 1730–1766 flourished in Glasgow Alan the Coppersmith, who
acts as a kind of a pin to the whole Stevenson system there. He was
caution to Robert the Second’s will, and to William’s will, and to the
will of a John, another maltman.
Enough genealogy. I do not know if you will be able to read my hand.
Unhappily, Belle, who is my amanuensis, is out of the way on other
affairs, and I have to make the unwelcome effort. (O this is beautiful,
I am quite pleased with myself.) Graham has just arrived last night (my
mother is coming by the other steamer in three days), and has told me of
your meeting, and he said you looked a little older than I did; so that I
suppose we keep step fairly on the downward side of the hill. He thought
you looked harassed, and I could imagine that too. I sometimes feel
harassed. I have a great family here about me, a great anxiety. The
loss (to use my grandfather’s expression), the ‘loss’ of our family is
that we are disbelievers in the morrow—perhaps I should say, rather, in
next year. The future is _always_ black to us; it was to Robert
Stevenson; to Thomas; I suspect to Alan; to R. A. M. S. it was so almost
to his ruin in youth; to R. L. S., who had a hard hopeful strain in him
from his mother, it was not so much so once, but becomes daily more so.
Daily so much more so, that I have a painful difficulty in believing I
can ever finish another book, or that the public will ever read it.
I have so huge a desire to know exactly what you are doing, that I
suppose I should tell you what I am doing by way of an example. I have a
room now, a part of the twelve-foot verandah sparred in, at the most
inaccessible end of the house. Daily I see the sunrise out of my bed,
which I still value as a tonic, a perpetual tuning fork, a look of God’s
face once in the day. At six my breakfast comes up to me here, and I
work till eleven. If I am quite well, I sometimes go out and bathe in
the river before lunch, twelve. In the afternoon I generally work again,
now alone drafting, now with Belle dictating. Dinner is at six, and I am
often in bed by eight. This is supposing me to stay at home. But I must
often be away, sometimes all day long, sometimes till twelve, one, or two
at night, when you might see me coming home to the sleeping house,
sometimes in a trackless darkness, sometimes with a glorious tropic moon,
everything drenched with dew—unsaddling and creeping to bed; and you
would no longer be surprised that I live out in this country, and not in
Bournemouth—in bed.
My great recent interruptions have (as you know) come from politics; not
much in my line, you will say. But it is impossible to live here and not
feel very sorely the consequences of the horrid white mismanagement. I
tried standing by and looking on, and it became too much for me. They
are such illogical fools; a logical fool in an office, with a lot of red
tape, is conceivable. Furthermore, he is as much as we have any reason
to expect of officials—a thoroughly common-place, unintellectual lot.
But these people are wholly on wires; laying their ears down, skimming
away, pausing as though shot, and presto! full spread on the other tack.
I observe in the official class mostly an insane jealousy of the smallest
kind, as compared to which the artist’s is of a grave, modest
character—the actor’s, even; a desire to extend his little authority, and
to relish it like a glass of wine, that is _impayable_. Sometimes, when
I see one of these little kings strutting over one of his
victories—wholly illegal, perhaps, and certain to be reversed to his
shame if his superiors ever heard of it—I could weep. The strange thing
is that they _have nothing else_. I auscultate them in vain; no real
sense of duty, no real comprehension, no real attempt to comprehend, no
wish for information—you cannot offend one of them more bitterly than by
offering information, though it is certain that you have _more_, and
obvious that you have _other_, information than they have; and talking of
policy, they could not play a better stroke than by listening to you, and
it need by no means influence their action. _Tenez_, you know what a
French post office or railway official is? That is the diplomatic card
to the life. Dickens is not in it; caricature fails.
All this keeps me from my work, and gives me the unpleasant side of the
world. When your letters are disbelieved it makes you angry, and that is
rot; and I wish I could keep out of it with all my soul. But I have just
got into it again, and farewell peace!
My work goes along but slowly. I have got to a crossing place, I
suppose; the present book, _Saint Ives_, is nothing; it is in no style in
particular, a tissue of adventures, the central character not very well
done, no philosophic pith under the yarn; and, in short, if people will
read it, that’s all I ask; and if they won’t, damn them! I like doing it
though; and if you ask me why!—after that I am on _Weir of Hermiston_ and
_Heathercat_, two Scotch stories, which will either be something
different, or I shall have failed. The first is generally designed, and
is a private story of two or three characters in a very grim vein. The
second—alas! the thought—is an attempt at a real historical novel, to
present a whole field of time; the race—our own race—the west land and
Clydesdale blue bonnets, under the influence of their last trial, when
they got to a pitch of organisation in madness that no other peasantry
has ever made an offer at. I was going to call it _The Killing Time_,
but this man Crockett has forestalled me in that. Well, it’ll be a big
smash if I fail in it; but a gallant attempt. All my weary reading as a
boy, which you remember well enough, will come to bear on it; and if my
mind will keep up to the point it was in a while back, perhaps I can pull
it through.
For two months past, Fanny, Belle, Austin (her child), and I have been
alone; but yesterday, as I mentioned, Graham Balfour arrived, and on
Wednesday my mother and Lloyd will make up the party to its full
strength. I wish you could drop in for a month or a week, or two hours.
That is my chief want. On the whole, it is an unexpectedly pleasant
corner I have dropped into for an end of it, which I could scarcely have
foreseen from Wilson’s shop, or the Princes Street Gardens, or the
Portobello Road. Still, I would like to hear what my _alter ego_ thought
of it; and I would sometimes like to have my old _maître ès arts_ express
an opinion on what I do. I put this very tamely, being on the whole a
quiet elderly man; but it is a strong passion with me, though
intermittent. Now, try to follow my example and tell me something about
yourself, Louisa, the Bab, and your work; and kindly send me some
specimens of what you’re about. I have only seen one thing by you, about
Notre Dame in the _Westminster_ or _St. James’s_, since I left England,
now I suppose six years ago.
I have looked this trash over, and it is not at all the letter I wanted
to write—not truck about officials, ancestors, and the like
rancidness—but you have to let your pen go in its own broken-down gait,
like an old butcher’s pony, stop when it pleases, and go on again as it
will.—Ever, my dear Bob, your affectionate cousin,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Vailima_, _July_ 7_th_, 1894.
DEAR HENRY JAMES,—I am going to try and dictate to you a letter or a
note, and begin the same without any spark of hope, my mind being
entirely in abeyance. This malady is very bitter on the literary man. I
have had it now coming on for a month, and it seems to get worse instead
of better. If it should prove to be softening of the brain, a melancholy
interest will attach to the present document. I heard a great deal about
you from my mother and Graham Balfour; the latter declares that you could
take a First in any Samoan subject. If that be so, I should like to hear
you on the theory of the constitution. Also to consult you on the force
of the particles _o lo ’o_ and _ua_, which are the subject of a dispute
among local pundits. You might, if you ever answer this, give me your
opinion on the origin of the Samoan race, just to complete the favour.
They both say that you are looking well, and I suppose I may conclude
from that that you are feeling passably. I wish I was. Do not suppose
from this that I am ill in body; it is the numskull that I complain of.
And when that is wrong, as you must be very keenly aware, you begin every
day with a smarting disappointment, which is not good for the temper. I
am in one of the humours when a man wonders how any one can be such an
ass as to embrace the profession of letters, and not get apprenticed to a
barber or keep a baked-potato stall. But I have no doubt in the course
of a week, or perhaps to-morrow, things will look better.
We have at present in port the model warship of Great Britain. She is
called the _Curaçoa_, and has the nicest set of officers and men
conceivable. They, the officers, are all very intimate with us, and the
front verandah is known as the Curaçoa Club, and the road up to Vailima
is known as the Curaçoa Track. It was rather a surprise to me; many
naval officers have I known, and somehow had not learned to think
entirely well of them, and perhaps sometimes ask myself a little uneasily
how that kind of men could do great actions? and behold! the answer comes
to me, and I see a ship that I would guarantee to go anywhere it was
possible for men to go, and accomplish anything it was permitted man to
attempt. I had a cruise on board of her not long ago to Manu’a, and was
delighted. The goodwill of all on board; the grim playfulness of — {337}
quarters, with the wounded falling down at the word; the ambulances
hastening up and carrying them away; the Captain suddenly crying, ‘Fire
in the ward-room!’ and the squad hastening forward with the hose; and,
last and most curious spectacle of all, all the men in their
dust-coloured fatigue clothes, at a note of the bugle, falling
simultaneously flat on deck, and the ship proceeding with its prostrate
crew—_quasi_ to ram an enemy; our dinner at night in a wild open
anchorage, the ship rolling almost to her gunwales, and showing us
alternately her bulwarks up in the sky, and then the wild broken cliffy
palm-crested shores of the island with the surf thundering and leaping
close aboard. We had the ward-room mess on deck, lit by pink wax tapers,
everybody, of course, in uniform but myself, and the first lieutenant
(who is a rheumaticky body) wrapped in a boat cloak. Gradually the
sunset faded out, the island disappeared from the eye, though it remained
menacingly present to the ear with the voice of the surf; and then the
captain turned on the searchlight and gave us the coast, the beach, the
trees, the native houses, and the cliffs by glimpses of daylight, a kind
of deliberate lightning. About which time, I suppose, we must have come
as far as the dessert, and were probably drinking our first glass of port
to Her Majesty. We stayed two days at the island, and had, in addition,
a very picturesque snapshot at the native life. The three islands of
Manu’a are independent, and are ruled over by a little slip of a
half-caste girl about twenty, who sits all day in a pink gown, in a
little white European house with about a quarter of an acre of roses in
front of it, looking at the palm-trees on the village street, and
listening to the surf. This, so far as I could discover, was all she had
to do. ‘This is a very dull place,’ she said. It appears she could go
to no other village for fear of raising the jealousy of her own people in
the capital. And as for going about ‘tafatafaoing,’ as we say here, its
cost was too enormous. A strong able-bodied native must walk in front of
her and blow the conch shell continuously from the moment she leaves one
house until the moment she enters another. Did you ever blow the conch
shell? I presume not; but the sweat literally hailed off that man, and I
expected every moment to see him burst a blood-vessel. We were
entertained to kava in the guest-house with some very original features.
The young men who run for the _kava_ have a right to misconduct
themselves _ad libitum_ on the way back; and though they were told to
restrain themselves on the occasion of our visit, there was a strange
hurly-burly at their return, when they came beating the trees and the
posts of the houses, leaping, shouting, and yelling like Bacchants.
I tasted on that occasion what it is to be great. My name was called
next after the captain’s, and several chiefs (a thing quite new to me,
and not at all Samoan practice) drank to me by name.
And now, if you are not sick of the _Curaçoa_ and Manu’a, I am, at least
on paper. And I decline any longer to give you examples of how not to
write.
By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole France, which I confess
I did not _taste_. Since then I have made the acquaintance of the _Abbé
Coignard_, and have become a faithful adorer. I don’t think a better
book was ever written.
And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no idea what I ought to
have said, and I am a total ass, but my heart is in the right place, and
I am, my dear Henry James, yours,
R. L. S.
TO MR. MARCEL SCHWOB
_Vailima_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_, _July_ 7, 1894.
DEAR MR. MARCEL SCHWOB,—Thank you for having remembered me in my exile.
I have read _Mimes_ twice as a whole; and now, as I write, I am reading
it again as it were by accident, and a piece at a time, my eye catching a
word and travelling obediently on through the whole number. It is a
graceful book, essentially graceful, with its haunting agreeable
melancholy, its pleasing savour of antiquity. At the same time, by its
merits, it shows itself rather as the promise of something else to come
than a thing final in itself. You have yet to give us—and I am expecting
it with impatience—something of a larger gait; something daylit, not
twilit; something with the colours of life, not the flat tints of a
temple illumination; something that shall be _said_ with all the
clearnesses and the trivialities of speech, not _sung_ like a
semi-articulate lullaby. It will not please yourself as well, when you
come to give it us, but it will please others better. It will be more of
a whole, more worldly, more nourished, more commonplace—and not so
pretty, perhaps not even so beautiful. No man knows better than I that,
as we go on in life, we must part from prettiness and the graces. We but
attain qualities to lose them; life is a series of farewells, even in
art; even our proficiencies are deciduous and evanescent. So here with
these exquisite pieces the XVIIth, XVIIIth, and IVth of the present
collection. You will perhaps never excel them; I should think the
‘Hermes,’ never. Well, you will do something else, and of that I am in
expectation.—Yours cordially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO A. ST. GAUDENS
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _July_ 8, 1894.
MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,—This is to tell you that the medallion has been at
last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my smoking-room
mantelpiece. It is considered by everybody a first-rate but flattering
portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings out the artistic
merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage. As for my own
opinion, I believe it to be a speaking likeness, and not flattered at
all; possibly a little the reverse. The verses (curse the rhyme) look
remarkably well.
Please do not longer delay, but send me an account for the expense of the
gilt letters. I was sorry indeed that they proved beyond the means of a
small farmer.—Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Vailima_, _July_ 14, 1894.
MY DEAR ADELAIDE,—. . . So, at last, you are going into mission work?
where I think your heart always was. You will like it in a way, but
remember it is dreary long. Do you know the story of the American tramp
who was offered meals and a day’s wage to chop with the back of an axe on
a fallen trunk. ‘Damned if I can go on chopping when I can’t see the
chips fly!’ You will never see the chips fly in mission work, never; and
be sure you know it beforehand. The work is one long dull
disappointment, varied by acute revulsions; and those who are by nature
courageous and cheerful and have grown old in experience, learn to rub
their hands over infinitesimal successes. However, as I really believe
there is some good done in the long run—_gutta cavat lapidem non vi_ in
this business—it is a useful and honourable career in which no one should
be ashamed to embark. Always remember the fable of the sun, the storm,
and the traveller’s cloak. Forget wholly and for ever all small
pruderies, and remember that _you cannot change ancestral feelings of
right and wrong without what is practically soul-murder_. Barbarous as
the customs may seem, always hear them with patience, always judge them
with gentleness, always find in them some seed of good; see that you
always develop them; remember that all you can do is to civilise the man
in the line of his own civilisation, such as it is. And never expect,
never believe in, thaumaturgic conversions. They may do very well for
St. Paul; in the case of an Andaman islander they mean less than nothing.
In fact, what you have to do is to teach the parents in the interests of
their great-grandchildren.
Now, my dear Adelaide, dismiss from your mind the least idea of fault
upon your side; nothing is further from the fact. I cannot forgive you,
for I do not know your fault. My own is plain enough, and the name of it
is cold-hearted neglect; and you may busy yourself more usefully in
trying to forgive me. But ugly as my fault is, you must not suppose it
to mean more than it does; it does not mean that we have at all forgotten
you, that we have become at all indifferent to the thought of you. See,
in my life of Jenkin, a remark of his, very well expressed, on the
friendships of men who do not write to each other. I can honestly say
that I have not changed to you in any way; though I have behaved thus
ill, thus cruelly. Evil is done by want of—well, principally by want of
industry. You can imagine what I would say (in a novel) of any one who
had behaved as I have done. _Deteriora sequor_. And you must somehow
manage to forgive your old friend; and if you will be so very good,
continue to give us news of you, and let us share the knowledge of your
adventures, sure that it will be always followed with interest—even if it
is answered with the silence of ingratitude. For I am not a fool; I know
my faults, I know they are ineluctable, I know they are growing on me. I
know I may offend again, and I warn you of it. But the next time I
offend, tell me so plainly and frankly like a lady, and don’t lacerate my
heart and bludgeon my vanity with imaginary faults of your own and purely
gratuitous penitence. I might suspect you of irony!
We are all fairly well, though I have been off work and off—as you know
very well—letter-writing. Yet I have sometimes more than twenty letters,
and sometimes more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny has had a
most distressing bronchitis for some time, which she is only now
beginning to get over. I have just been to see her; she is lying—though
she had breakfast an hour ago, about seven—in her big cool,
mosquito-proof room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you see that a doom
has come upon me: I cannot make marks with a pen—witness ‘ingloriously’
above; and my amanuensis not appearing so early in the day, for she is
then immersed in household affairs, and I can hear her ‘steering the
boys’ up and down the verandahs—you must decipher this unhappy letter for
yourself and, I fully admit, with everything against you. A letter
should be always well written; how much more a letter of apology!
Legibility is the politeness of men of letters, as punctuality of kings
and beggars. By the punctuality of my replies, and the beauty of my
hand-writing, judge what a fine conscience I must have!
Now, my dear gamekeeper, I must really draw to a close. For I have much
else to write before the mail goes out three days hence. Fanny being
asleep, it would not be conscientious to invent a message from her, so
you must just imagine her sentiments. I find I have not the heart to
speak of your recent loss. You remember perhaps, when my father died,
you told me those ugly images of sickness, decline, and impaired reason,
which then haunted me day and night, would pass away and be succeeded by
things more happily characteristic. I have found it so. He now haunts
me, strangely enough, in two guises; as a man of fifty, lying on a
hillside and carving mottoes on a stick, strong and well; and as a
younger man, running down the sands into the sea near North Berwick,
myself—_ætat_. 11—somewhat horrified at finding him so beautiful when
stripped! I hand on your own advice to you in case you have forgotten
it, as I know one is apt to do in seasons of bereavement.—Ever yours,
with much love and sympathy,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. BAKER
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _July_ 16, 1894.
DEAR MRS. BAKER,—I am very much obliged to you for your letter and the
enclosure from Mr. Skinner. Mr. Skinner says he ‘thinks Mr. Stevenson
must be a very kind man’; he little knows me. But I am very sure of one
thing, that you are a very kind woman. I envy you—my amanuensis being
called away, I continue in my own hand, or what is left of it—unusually
legible, I am thankful to see—I envy you your beautiful choice of an
employment. There must be no regrets at least for a day so spent; and
when the night falls you need ask no blessing on your work.
‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these.’—Yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima_, _July_ 13, 1894.
MY DEAR BARRIE,—This is the last effort of an ulcerated conscience. I
have been so long owing you a letter, I have heard so much of you, fresh
from the press, from my mother and Graham Balfour, that I have to write a
letter no later than to-day, or perish in my shame. But the deuce of it
is, my dear fellow, that you write such a very good letter that I am
ashamed to exhibit myself before my junior (which you are, after all) in
the light of the dreary idiot I feel. Understand that there will be
nothing funny in the following pages. If I can manage to be rationally
coherent, I shall be more than satisfied.
In the first place, I have had the extreme satisfaction to be shown that
photograph of your mother. It bears evident traces of the hand of an
amateur. How is it that amateurs invariably take better photographs than
professionals? I must qualify invariably. My own negatives have always
represented a province of chaos and old night in which you might dimly
perceive fleecy spots of twilight, representing nothing; so that, if I am
right in supposing the portrait of your mother to be yours, I must salute
you as my superior. Is that your mother’s breakfast? Or is it only
afternoon tea? If the first, do let me recommend to Mrs. Barrie to add
an egg to her ordinary. Which, if you please, I will ask her to eat to
the honour of her son, and I am sure she will live much longer for it, to
enjoy his fresh successes. I never in my life saw anything more
deliciously characteristic. I declare I can hear her speak. I wonder my
mother could resist the temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir,
which it was like your kindness to propose. By the way, I was twice in
Kirriemuir, I believe in the year ’71, when I was going on a visit to
Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir, was it not? I have a distinct recollection
of an inn at the end—I think the upper end—of an irregular open place or
square, in which I always see your characters evolve. But, indeed, I did
not pay much attention; being all bent upon my visit to a shooting-box,
where I should fish a real trout-stream, and I believe preserved. I did,
too, and it was a charming stream, clear as crystal, without a trace of
peat—a strange thing in Scotland—and alive with trout; the name of it I
cannot remember, it was something like the Queen’s River, and in some
hazy way connected with memories of Mary Queen of Scots. It formed an
epoch in my life, being the end of all my trout-fishing. I had always
been accustomed to pause and very laboriously to kill every fish as I
took it. But in the Queen’s River I took so good a basket that I forgot
these niceties; and when I sat down, in a hard rain shower, under a bank,
to take my sandwiches and sherry, lo! and behold, there was the basketful
of trouts still kicking in their agony. I had a very unpleasant
conversation with my conscience. All that afternoon I persevered in
fishing, brought home my basket in triumph, and sometime that night, ‘in
the wee sma’ hours ayont the twal,’ I finally forswore the gentle craft
of fishing. I dare say your local knowledge may identify this historic
river; I wish it could go farther and identify also that particular Free
kirk in which I sat and groaned on Sunday. While my hand is in I must
tell you a story. At that antique epoch you must not fall into the
vulgar error that I was myself ancient. I was, on the contrary, very
young, very green, and (what you will appreciate, Mr. Barrie) very shy.
There came one day to lunch at the house two very formidable old
ladies—or one very formidable, and the other what you please—answering to
the honoured and historic name of the Miss C— A—’s of Balnamoon. At
table I was exceedingly funny, and entertained the company with tales of
geese and bubbly-jocks. I was great in the expression of my terror for
these bipeds, and suddenly this horrid, severe, and eminently matronly
old lady put up a pair of gold eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in
silence, and pronounced in a clangorous voice her verdict. ‘You give me
very much the effect of a coward, Mr. Stevenson!’ I had very nearly left
two vices behind me at Glenogil—fishing and jesting at table. And of one
thing you may be very sure, my lips were no more opened at that meal.
_July_ 29_th_
No, Barrie, ’tis in vain they try to alarm me with their bulletins. No
doubt, you’re ill, and unco ill, I believe; but I have been so often in
the same case that I know pleurisy and pneumonia are in vain against
Scotsmen who can write, (I once could.) You cannot imagine probably how
near me this common calamity brings you. _Ce que j’ai toussé dans ma
vie_! How often and how long have I been on the rack at night and
learned to appreciate that noble passage in the Psalms when somebody or
other is said to be more set on something than they ‘who dig for hid
treasures—yea, than those who long for the morning’—for all the world, as
you have been racked and you have longed. Keep your heart up, and you’ll
do. Tell that to your mother, if you are still in any danger or
suffering. And by the way, if you are at all like me—and I tell myself
you are very like me—be sure there is only one thing good for you, and
that is the sea in hot climates. Mount, sir, into ‘a little frigot’ of
5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for the tropics; and what if the
ancient mariner, who guides your frigot, should startle the silence of
the ocean with the cry of land ho!—say, when the day is dawning—and you
should see the turquoise mountain tops of Upolu coming hand over fist
above the horizon? Mr. Barrie, sir, ’tis then there would be larks! And
though I cannot be certain that our climate would suit you (for it does
not suit some), I am sure as death the voyage would do you good—would do
you _Best_—and if Samoa didn’t do, you needn’t stay beyond the month, and
I should have had another pleasure in my life, which is a serious
consideration for me. I take this as the hand of the Lord preparing your
way to Vailima—in the desert, certainly—in the desert of Cough and by the
ghoul-haunted woodland of Fever—but whither that way points there can be
no question—and there will be a meeting of the twa Hoasting Scots Makers
in spite of fate, fortune, and the Devil. _Absit omen_!
My dear Barrie, I am a little in the dark about this new work of yours
{347}: what is to become of me afterwards? You say carefully—methought
anxiously—that I was no longer me when I grew up? I cannot bear this
suspense: what is it? It’s no forgery? And AM I HANGIT? These are the
elements of a very pretty lawsuit which you had better come to Samoa to
compromise. I am enjoying a great pleasure that I had long looked
forward to, reading Orme’s _History of Indostan_; I had been looking out
for it everywhere; but at last, in four volumes, large quarto, beautiful
type and page, and with a delectable set of maps and plans, and all the
names of the places wrongly spelled—it came to Samoa, little Barrie. I
tell you frankly, you had better come soon. I am sair failed a’ready;
and what I may be if you continue to dally, I dread to conceive. I may
be speechless; already, or at least for a month or so, I’m little better
than a teetoller—I beg pardon, a teetotaller. It is not exactly
physical, for I am in good health, working four or five hours a day in my
plantation, and intending to ride a paper-chase next Sunday—ay, man,
that’s a fact, and I havena had the hert to breathe it to my mother
yet—the obligation’s poleetical, for I am trying every means to live well
with my German neighbours—and, O Barrie, but it’s no easy! To be sure,
there are many exceptions. And the whole of the above must be regarded
as private—strictly private. Breathe it not in Kirriemuir: tell it not
to the daughters of Dundee! What a nice extract this would make for the
daily papers! and how it would facilitate my position here! . . .
_August_ 5_th_.
This is Sunday, the Lord’s Day. ‘The hour of attack approaches.’ And it
is a singular consideration what I risk; I may yet be the subject of a
tract, and a good tract too—such as one which I remember reading with
recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of a boy who was a very good
boy, and went to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped from it, and went and
actually bathed, and was dashed over a waterfall, and he was the only son
of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous trade, that, and one
that I have to practise. I’ll put in a word when I get home again, to
tell you whether I’m killed or not. ‘Accident in the (Paper) Hunting
Field: death of a notorious author. We deeply regret to announce the
death of the most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his neck at the
descent of Magagi, from the misconduct of his little raving lunatic of an
old beast of a pony. It is proposed to commemorate the incident by the
erection of a suitable pile. The design (by our local architect, Mr.
Walker) is highly artificial, with a rich and voluminous Crockett at each
corner, a small but impervious Barrièer at the entrance, an arch at the
top, an Archer of a pleasing but solid character at the bottom; the
colour will be genuine William-Black; and Lang, lang may the ladies sit
wi’ their fans in their hands.’ Well, well, they may sit as they sat for
me, and little they’ll reck, the ungrateful jauds! Muckle they cared
about Tusitala when they had him! But now ye can see the difference;
now, leddies, ye can repent, when ower late, o’ your former cauldness and
what ye’ll perhaps allow me to ca’ your _tepeedity_! He was beautiful as
the day, but his day is done! And perhaps, as he was maybe gettin’ a wee
thing fly-blawn, it’s nane too shüne.
_Monday_, _August_ 6_th_.
Well, sir, I have escaped the dangerous conjunction of the widow’s only
son and the Sabbath Day. We had a most enjoyable time, and Lloyd and I
were 3 and 4 to arrive; I will not tell here what interval had elapsed
between our arrival and the arrival of 1 and 2; the question, sir, is
otiose and malign; it deserves, it shall have no answer. And now without
further delay to the main purpose of this hasty note. We received and we
have already in fact distributed the gorgeous fahbrics of Kirriemuir.
Whether from the splendour of the robes themselves, or from the direct
nature of the compliments with which you had directed us to accompany the
presentations, one young lady blushed as she received the proofs of your
munificence. . . . Bad ink, and the dregs of it at that, but the heart in
the right place. Still very cordially interested in my Barrie and
wishing him well through his sickness, which is of the body, and long
defended from mine, which is of the head, and by the impolite might be
described as idiocy. The whole head is useless, and the whole sitting
part painful: reason, the recent Paper Chase.
There was racing and chasing in Vailile plantation,
And vastly we enjoyed it,
But, alas! for the state of my foundation,
For it wholly has destroyed it.
Come, my mind is looking up. The above is wholly impromptu.—On oath,
TUSITALA.
_August_ 12, 1894
And here, Mr. Barrie, is news with a vengeance. Mother Hubbard’s dog is
well again—what did I tell you? Pleurisy, pneumonia, and all that kind
of truck is quite unavailing against a Scotchman who can write—and not
only that, but it appears the perfidious dog is married. This incident,
so far as I remember, is omitted from the original epic—
She went to the graveyard
To see him get him buried,
And when she came back
The Deil had got merried.
It now remains to inform you that I have taken what we call here ‘German
offence’ at not receiving cards, and that the only reparation I will
accept is that Mrs. Barrie shall incontinently upon the receipt of this
Take and Bring you to Vailima in order to apologise and be pardoned for
this offence. The commentary of Tamaitai upon the event was brief but
pregnant: ‘Well, it’s a comfort our guest-room is furnished for two.’
This letter, about nothing, has already endured too long. I shall just
present the family to Mrs. Barrie—Tamaitai, Tamaitai Matua, Teuila,
Palema, Loia, and with an extra low bow, Yours,
TUSITALA.
TO DR. BAKEWELL
_Vailima_, _August_ 7, 1894.
DEAR DR. BAKEWELL,—I am not more than human. I am more human than is
wholly convenient, and your anecdote was welcome. What you say about
_unwilling work_, my dear sir, is a consideration always present with me,
and yet not easy to give its due weight to. You grow gradually into a
certain income; without spending a penny more, with the same sense of
restriction as before when you painfully scraped two hundred a year
together, you find you have spent, and you cannot well stop spending, a
far larger sum; and this expense can only be supported by a certain
production. However, I am off work this month, and occupy myself instead
in weeding my cacao, paper chases, and the like. I may tell you, my
average of work in favourable circumstances is far greater than you
suppose: from six o’clock till eleven at latest, {350} and often till
twelve, and again in the afternoon from two to four. My hand is quite
destroyed, as you may perceive, to-day to a really unusual extent. I can
sometimes write a decent fist still; but I have just returned with my
arms all stung from three hours’ work in the cacao.—Yours, etc.,
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
_Vailima_, _Upolu_, _Samoa_ [_August_ 11, 1894].
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,—I hear from Lang that you are unwell, and it reminds
me of two circumstances: First, that it is a very long time since you had
the exquisite pleasure of hearing from me; and second, that I have been
very often unwell myself, and sometimes had to thank you for a grateful
anodyne.
They are not good, the circumstances, to write an anodyne letter. The
hills and my house at less than (boom) a minute’s interval quake with
thunder; and though I cannot hear that part of it, shells are falling
thick into the fort of Luatuanu’u (boom). It is my friends of the
_Curaçoa_, the _Falke_, and the _Bussard_ bombarding (after all
these—boom—months) the rebels of Atua. (Boom-boom.) It is most
distracting in itself; and the thought of the poor devils in their fort
(boom) with their bits of rifles far from pleasant. (Boom-boom.) You
can see how quick it goes, and I’ll say no more about Mr. Bow-wow, only
you must understand the perpetual accompaniment of this discomfortable
sound, and make allowances for the value of my copy. It is odd, though,
I can well remember, when the Franco-Prussian war began, and I was in
Eilean Earraid, far enough from the sound of the loudest cannonade, I
could _hear_ the shots fired, and I felt the pang in my breast of a man
struck. It was sometimes so distressing, so instant, that I lay in the
heather on the top of the island, with my face hid, kicking my heels for
agony. And now, when I can hear the actual concussion of the air and
hills, when I _know_ personally the people who stand exposed to it, I am
able to go on _tant bien que mal_ with a letter to James Payn! The
blessings of age, though mighty small, are tangible. I have heard a
great deal of them since I came into the world, and now that I begin to
taste of them—Well! But this is one, that people do get cured of the
excess of sensibility; and I had as lief these people were shot at as
myself—or almost, for then I should have some of the fun, such as it is.
You are to conceive me, then, sitting in my little gallery room, shaken
by these continual spasms of cannon, and with my eye more or less singly
fixed on the imaginary figure of my dear James Payn. I try to see him in
bed; no go. I see him instead jumping up in his room in Waterloo Place
(where _ex hypothesi_ he is not), sitting on the table, drawing out a
very black briar-root pipe, and beginning to talk to a slim and
ill-dressed visitor in a voice that is good to hear and with a smile that
is pleasant to see. (After a little more than half an hour, the voice
that was ill to hear has ceased, the cannonade is over.) And I am
thinking how I can get an answering smile wafted over so many leagues of
land and water, and can find no way.
I have always been a great visitor of the sick; and one of the sick I
visited was W. E. Henley, which did not make very tedious visits, so I’ll
not get off much purgatory for them. That was in the Edinburgh
Infirmary, the old one, the true one, with Georgius Secundus standing and
pointing his toe in a niche of the façade; and a mighty fine building it
was! And I remember one winter’s afternoon, in that place of misery,
that Henley and I chanced to fall in talk about James Payn himself. I am
wishing you could have heard that talk! I think that would make you
smile. We had mixed you up with John Payne, for one thing, and stood
amazed at your extraordinary, even painful, versatility; and for another,
we found ourselves each students so well prepared for examinations on the
novels of the real Mackay. Perhaps, after all, this is worth something
in life—to have given so much pleasure to a pair so different in every
way as were Henley and I, and to be talked of with so much interest by
two such (beg pardon) clever lads!
The cheerful Lang has neglected to tell me what is the matter with you;
so, I’m sorry to say, I am cut off from all the customary consolations.
I can’t say, ‘Think how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!’
when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve, ‘But it is my leg
that is broken.’ This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are
an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been
made C.B.; your hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you
did not play either the fiddle or the banjo; you were never an æsthete;
you never contributed to —_’s Journal_; your name is not Jabez Balfour;
you are totally unconnected with the Army and Navy departments; I
understand you to have lived within your income—why, cheer up! here are
many legitimate causes of congratulation. I seem to be writing an
obituary notice. _Absit omen_! But I feel very sure that these
considerations will have done you more good than medicine.
By the by, did you ever play piquet? I have fallen a victim to this
debilitating game. It is supposed to be scientific; God save the mark,
what self-deceivers men are! It is distinctly less so than cribbage.
But how fascinating! There is such material opulence about it, such vast
ambitions may be realised—and are not; it may be called the Monte Cristo
of games. And the thrill with which you take five cards partakes of the
nature of lust—and you draw four sevens and a nine, and the seven and
nine of a suit that you discarded, and O! but the world is a desert! You
may see traces of discouragement in my letter: all due to piquet! There
has been a disastrous turn of the luck against me; a month or two ago I
was two thousand ahead; now, and for a week back, I have been anything
from four thousand eight hundred to five thousand two hundred astern. If
I have a sixième, my beast of a partner has a septième; and if I have
three aces, three kings, three queens, and three knaves (excuse the
slight exaggeration), the devil holds quatorze of tens!—I remain, my dear
James Payn, your sincere and obliged friend—old friend let me say,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MIDDLETON
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _September_ 9, 1894.
DEAR MISS MIDDLETON,—Your letter has been like the drawing up of a
curtain. Of course I remember you very well, and the Skye terrier to
which you refer—a heavy, dull, fatted, graceless creature he grew up to
be—was my own particular pet. It may amuse you, perhaps, as much as ‘The
Inn’ amused me, if I tell you what made this dog particularly mine. My
father was the natural god of all the dogs in our house, and poor Jura
took to him of course. Jura was stolen, and kept in prison somewhere for
more than a week, as I remember. When he came back Smeoroch had come and
taken my father’s heart from him. He took his stand like a man, and
positively never spoke to my father again from that day until the day of
his death. It was the only sign of character he ever showed. I took him
up to my room and to be my dog in consequence, partly because I was sorry
for him, and partly because I admired his dignity in misfortune.
With best regards and thanks for having reminded me of so many pleasant
days, old acquaintances, dead friends, and—what is perhaps as pathetic as
any of them—dead dogs, I remain, yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _September_ 9, 1894.
MY DEAR CONAN DOYLE,—If you found anything to entertain you in my
_Treasure Island_ article, it may amuse you to know that you owe it
entirely to yourself. _Your_ ‘First Book’ was by some accident read
aloud one night in my Baronial ’All. I was consumedly amused by it, so
was the whole family, and we proceeded to hunt up back _Idlers_ and read
the whole series. It is a rattling good series, even people whom you
would not expect came in quite the proper tone—Miss Braddon, for
instance, who was really one of the best where all are good—or all but
one! . . . In short, I fell in love with ‘The First Book’ series, and
determined that it should be all our first books, and that I could not
hold back where the white plume of Conan Doyle waved gallantly in the
front. I hope they will republish them, though it’s a grievous thought
to me that that effigy in the German cap—likewise the other effigy of the
noisome old man with the long hair, telling indelicate stories to a
couple of deformed negresses in a rancid shanty full of wreckage—should
be perpetuated. I may seem to speak in pleasantry—it is only a
seeming—that German cap, sir, would be found, when I come to die,
imprinted on my heart. Enough—my heart is too full. Adieu.—Yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
(in a German cap, damn ’em!)
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Vailima_, _September_ 1894.]
MY DEAR CHARLES,—. . . Well, there is no more Edmund Baxter now; and I
think I may say I know how you feel. He was one of the best, the
kindest, and the most genial men I ever knew. I shall always remember
his brisk, cordial ways and the essential goodness which he showed me
whenever we met with gratitude. And the always is such a little while
now! He is another of the landmarks gone; when it comes to my own turn
to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue; and
whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my
fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine. And these
deaths make me think of it with an ever greater readiness. Strange that
you should be beginning a new life, when I, who am a little your junior,
am thinking of the end of mine. But I have had hard lines; I have been
so long waiting for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about life
so long, that I have not a filament left to hold by; I have done my
fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I have almost forgotten to play,
and can only wait for the eruption, and think it long of coming.
Literally, no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it’s
good fun.
R. L. S.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
[_Vailima_, _September_ 1894.]
DEAR BOB,—You are in error about the Picts. They were a Gaelic race,
spoke a Celtic tongue, and we have no evidence that I know of that they
were blacker than other Celts. The Balfours, I take it, were plainly
Celts; their name shows it—the ‘cold croft,’ it means; so does their
country. Where the _black_ Scotch come from nobody knows; but I
recognise with you the fact that the whole of Britain is rapidly and
progressively becoming more pigmented; already in one man’s life I can
decidedly trace a difference in the children about a school door. But
colour is not an essential part of a man or a race. Take my Polynesians,
an Asiatic people probably from the neighbourhood of the Persian gulf.
They range through any amount of shades, from the burnt hue of the Low
Archipelago islander, which seems half negro, to the ‘bleached’ pretty
women of the Marquesas (close by on the map), who come out for a festival
no darker than an Italian; their colour seems to vary directly with the
degree of exposure to the sun. And, as with negroes, the babes are born
white; only it should seem a _little sack_ of pigment at the lower part
of the spine, which presently spreads over the whole field. Very
puzzling. But to return. The Picts furnish to-day perhaps a third of
the population of Scotland, say another third for Scots and Britons, and
the third for Norse and Angles is a bad third. Edinburgh was a Pictish
place. But the fact is, we don’t know their frontiers. Tell some of
your journalist friends with a good style to popularise old Skene; or say
your prayers, and read him for yourself; he was a Great Historian, and I
was his blessed clerk, and did not know it; and you will not be in a
state of grace about the Picts till you have studied him. J. Horne
Stevenson (do you know him?) is working this up with me, and the fact
is—it’s not interesting to the public—but it’s interesting, and very
interesting, in itself, and just now very embarrassing—this rural parish
supplied Glasgow with such a quantity of Stevensons in the beginning of
last century! There is just a link wanting; and we might be able to go
back to the eleventh century, always undistinguished, but clearly
traceable. When I say just a link, I guess I may be taken to mean a
dozen. What a singular thing is this undistinguished perpetuation of a
family throughout the centuries, and the sudden bursting forth of
character and capacity that began with our grandfather! But as I go on
in life, day by day, I become more of a bewildered child; I cannot get
used to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to hearing;
the commonest things are a burthen. The prim obliterated polite face of
life, and the broad, bawdy, and orgiastic—or mænadic—foundations, form a
spectacle to which no habit reconciles me; and ‘I could wish my days to
be bound each to each’ by the same open-mouthed wonder. They _are_
anyway, and whether I wish it or not.
I remember very well your attitude to life, this conventional surface of
it. You had none of that curiosity for the social stage directions, the
trivial _ficelles_ of the business; it is simian, but that is how the
wild youth of man is captured; you wouldn’t imitate, hence you kept
free—a wild dog, outside the kennel—and came dam’ near starving for your
pains. The key to the business is of course the belly; difficult as it
is to keep that in view in the zone of three miraculous meals a day in
which we were brought up. Civilisation has become reflex with us; you
might think that hunger was the name of the best sauce; but hunger to the
cold solitary under a bush of a rainy night is the name of something
quite different. I defend civilisation for the thing it is, for the
thing it has _come_ to be, the standpoint of a real old Tory. My ideal
would be the Female Clan. But how can you turn these crowding dumb
multitudes _back_? They don’t do anything _because_; they do things,
write able articles, stitch shoes, dig, from the purely simian impulse.
Go and reason with monkeys!
No, I am right about Jean Lillie. Jean Lillie, our double
great-grandmother, the daughter of David Lillie, sometime Deacon of the
Wrights, married, first, Alan Stevenson, who died May 26, 1774, ‘at Santt
Kittes of a fiver,’ by whom she had Robert Stevenson, born 8th June 1772;
and, second, in May or June 1787, Thomas Smith, a widower, and already
the father of our grandmother. This improbable double connection always
tends to confuse a student of the family, Thomas Smith being doubly our
great-grandfather.
I looked on the perpetuation of our honoured name with veneration. My
mother collared one of the photos, of course; the other is stuck up on my
wall as the chief of our sept. Do you know any of the Gaelic-Celtic
sharps? you might ask what the name means. It puzzles me. I find a
_M‘Stein_ and a _MacStephane_; and our own great-grandfather always
called himself Steenson, though he wrote it Stevenson. There are at
least three _places_ called Stevenson—_Stevenson_ in Cunningham,
_Stevenson_ in Peebles, and _Stevenson_ in Haddington. And it was not
the Celtic trick, I understand, to call places after people. I am going
to write to Sir Herbert Maxwell about the name, but you might find some
one.
Get the Anglo-Saxon heresy out of your head; they superimposed their
language, they scarce modified the race; only in Berwickshire and
Roxburgh have they very largely affected the place names. The
Scandinavians did much more to Scotland than the Angles. The Saxons
didn’t come.
Enough of this sham antiquarianism. Yes, it is in the matter of the
book, {359} of course, that collaboration shows; as for the manner, it is
superficially all mine, in the sense that the last copy is all in my
hand. Lloyd did not even put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the
Barbizon scene; it was no good; he wrote and often rewrote all the rest;
I had the best service from him on the character of Nares. You see, we
had been just meeting the man, and his memory was full of the man’s words
and ways. And Lloyd is an impressionist, pure and simple. The great
difficulty of collaboration is that you can’t explain what you mean. I
know what kind of effect I mean a character to give—what kind of _tache_
he is to make; but how am I to tell my collaborator in words? Hence it
was necessary to say, ‘Make him So-and-so’; and this was all right for
Nares and Pinkerton and Loudon Dodd, whom we both knew, but for Bellairs,
for instance—a man with whom I passed ten minutes fifteen years ago—what
was I to say? and what could Lloyd do? I, as a personal artist, can
begin a character with only a haze in my head, but how if I have to
translate the haze into words before I begin? In our manner of
collaboration (which I think the only possible—I mean that of one person
being responsible, and giving the _coup de pouce_ to every part of the
work) I was spared the obviously hopeless business of trying to explain
to my collaborator what _style_ I wished a passage to be treated in.
These are the times that illustrate to a man the inadequacy of spoken
language. Now—to be just to written language—I can (or could) find a
language for my every mood, but how could I _tell_ any one beforehand
what this effect was to be, which it would take every art that I
possessed, and hours and hours of deliberate labour and selection and
rejection, to produce? These are the impossibilities of collaboration.
Its immediate advantage is to focus two minds together on the stuff, and
to produce in consequence an extraordinarily greater richness of purview,
consideration, and invention. The hardest chapter of all was ‘Cross
Questions and Crooked Answers.’ You would not believe what that cost us
before it assumed the least unity and colour. Lloyd wrote it at least
thrice, and I at least five times—this is from memory. And was that last
chapter worth the trouble it cost? Alas, that I should ask the question!
Two classes of men—the artist and the educationalist—are sworn, on soul
and conscience, not to ask it. You get an ordinary, grinning, red-headed
boy, and you have to educate him. Faith supports you; you give your
valuable hours, the boy does not seem to profit, but that way your duty
lies, for which you are paid, and you must persevere. Education has
always seemed to me one of the few possible and dignified ways of life.
A sailor, a shepherd, a schoolmaster—to a less degree, a soldier—and (I
don’t know why, upon my soul, except as a sort of schoolmaster’s
unofficial assistant, and a kind of acrobat in tights) an artist, almost
exhaust the category.
If I had to begin again—I know not—_si jeunesse savait_, _si vieillesse
pouvait_ . . . I know not at all—I believe I should try to honour Sex
more religiously. The worst of our education is that Christianity does
not recognise and hallow Sex. It looks askance at it, over its shoulder,
oppressed as it is by reminiscences of hermits and Asiatic self-tortures.
It is a terrible hiatus in our modern religions that they cannot see and
make venerable that which they ought to see first and hallow most. Well,
it is so; I cannot be wiser than my generation.
But no doubt there is something great in the half-success that has
attended the effort of turning into an emotional religion, Bald Conduct,
without any appeal, or almost none, to the figurative, mysterious, and
constitutive facts of life. Not that conduct is not constitutive, but
dear! it’s dreary! On the whole, conduct is better dealt with on the
cast-iron ‘gentleman’ and duty formula, with as little fervour and poetry
as possible; stoical and short.
. . . There is a new something or other in the wind, which exercises me
hugely: anarchy,—I mean, anarchism. People who (for pity’s sake) commit
dastardly murders very basely, die like saints, and leave beautiful
letters behind ’em (did you see Vaillant to his daughter? it was the New
Testament over again); people whose conduct is inexplicable to me, and
yet their spiritual life higher than that of most. This is just what the
early Christians must have seemed to the Romans. Is this, then, a new
_drive_ {361} among the monkeys? Mind you, Bob, if they go on being
martyred a few years more, the gross, dull, not unkindly bourgeois may
get tired or ashamed or afraid of going on martyring; and the anarchists
come out at the top just like the early Christians. That is, of course,
they will step into power as a _personnel_, but God knows what they may
believe when they come to do so; it can’t be stranger or more improbable
than what Christianity had come to be by the same time.
Your letter was easily read, the pagination presented no difficulty, and
I read it with much edification and gusto. To look back, and to
stereotype one bygone humour—what a hopeless thing! The mind runs ever
in a thousand eddies like a river between cliffs. You (the ego) are
always spinning round in it, east, west, north, and south. You are
twenty years old, and forty, and five, and the next moment you are
freezing at an imaginary eighty; you are never the plain forty-four that
you should be by dates. (The most philosophical language is the Gaelic,
which has _no present tense_—and the most useless.) How, then, to choose
some former age, and stick there?
R. L. S.
TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _September_ 10, 1894.
DEAR SIR HERBERT MAXWELL,—I am emboldened by reading your very
interesting Rhind Lectures to put to you a question: What is my name,
Stevenson?
I find it in the forms Stevinetoun, Stevensoune, Stevensonne, Stenesone,
Stewinsoune, M’Stein, and MacStephane. My family, and (as far as I can
gather) the majority of the inglorious clan, hailed from the borders of
Cunningham and Renfrew, and the upper waters of the Clyde. In the Barony
of Bothwell was the seat of the laird Stevenson of Stevenson; but, as of
course you know, there is a parish in Cunningham and places in Peebles
and Haddington bearing the same name.
If you can at all help me, you will render me a real service which I wish
I could think of some manner to repay.—Believe me, yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._—I should have added that I have perfect evidence before me that
(for some obscure reason) Stevenson was a favourite alias with the
M‘Gregors.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
[_Vailima_], _October_ 8_th_ 1894.
MY DEAR CUMMY,—So I hear you are ailing? Think shame to yourself! So
you think there is nothing better to be done with time than that? and be
sure we can all do much ourselves to decide whether we are to be ill or
well! like a man on the gymnastic bars. We are all pretty well. As for
me, there is nothing the matter with me in the world, beyond the
disgusting circumstance that I am not so young as once I was. Lloyd has
a gymnastic machine, and practises upon it every morning for an hour: he
is beginning to be a kind of young Samson. Austin grows fat and brown,
and gets on not so ill with his lessons, and my mother is in great price.
We are having knock-me-down weather for heat; I never remember it so hot
before, and I fancy it means we are to have a hurricane again this year,
I think; since we came here, we have not had a single gale of wind! The
Pacific is but a child to the North Sea; but when she does get excited,
and gets up and girds herself, she can do something good. We have had a
very interesting business here. I helped the chiefs who were in prison;
and when they were set free, what should they do but offer to make a part
of my road for me out of gratitude? Well, I was ashamed to refuse, and
the trumps dug my road for me, and put up this inscription on a board:—
‘_Considering the great love of His Excellency Tusitala in his loving
care of us in our tribulation in the prison we have made this great
gift_; _it shall never be muddy_, _it shall go on for ever_, _this road
that we have dug_!’ We had a great feast when it was done, and I read
them a kind of lecture, which I dare say Auntie will have, and can let
you see. Weel, guid bye to ye, and joy be wi’ ye! I hae nae time to say
mair. They say I’m gettin’ _fat_—a fact!—Your laddie, with all love,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO JAMES PAYN
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _Nov._ 4, 1894.
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,—I am asked to relate to you a little incident of
domestic life at Vailima. I had read your _Gleams of Memory_, No. 1; it
then went to my wife, to Osbourne, to the cousin that is within my gates,
and to my respected amanuensis, Mrs. Strong. Sunday approached. In the
course of the afternoon I was attracted to the great ’all—the winders is
by Vanderputty, which upon entering I beheld a memorable scene. The
floor was bestrewn with the forms of midshipmen from the
_Curaçoa_—‘boldly say a wilderness of gunroom’—and in the midst of this
sat Mrs. Strong throned on the sofa and reading aloud _Gleams of Memory_.
They had just come the length of your immortal definition of boyhood in
the concrete, and I had the pleasure to see the whole party dissolve
under its influence with inextinguishable laughter. I thought this was
not half bad for arthritic gout! Depend upon it, sir, when I go into the
arthritic gout business, I shall be done with literature, or at least
with the funny business. It is quite true I have my battlefields behind
me. I have done perhaps as much work as anybody else under the most
deplorable conditions. But two things fall to be noticed: In the first
place, I never was in actual pain; and in the second, I was never funny.
I’ll tell you the worst day that I remember. I had a hæmorrhage, and was
not allowed to speak; then, induced by the devil, or an errant doctor, I
was led to partake of that bowl which neither cheers nor inebriates—the
castor-oil bowl. Now, when castor-oil goes right, it is one thing; but
when it goes wrong, it is another. And it went _wrong_ with me that day.
The waves of faintness and nausea succeeded each other for twelve hours,
and I do feel a legitimate pride in thinking that I stuck to my work all
through and wrote a good deal of Admiral Guinea (which I might just as
well not have written for all the reward it ever brought me) in spite of
the barbarous bad conditions. I think that is my great boast; and it
seems a little thing alongside of your _Gleams of Memory_ illustrated by
spasms of arthritic gout. We really should have an order of merit in the
trade of letters. For valour, Scott would have had it; Pope too; myself
on the strength of that castor-oil; and James Payn would be a Knight
Commander. The worst of it is, though Lang tells me you exhibit the
courage of Huish, that not even an order can alleviate the wretched
annoyance of the business. I have always said that there is nothing like
pain; toothache, dumb-ague, arthritic gout, it does not matter what you
call it, if the screw is put upon the nerves sufficiently strong, there
is nothing left in heaven or in earth that can interest the sufferer.
Still, even to this there is the consolation that it cannot last for
ever. Either you will be relieved and have a good hour again before the
sun goes down, or else you will be liberated. It is something after all
(although not much) to think that you are leaving a brave example; that
other literary men love to remember, as I am sure they will love to
remember, everything about you—your sweetness, your brightness, your
helpfulness to all of us, and in particular those one or two really
adequate and noble papers which you have been privileged to write during
these last years.—With the heartiest and kindest good-will, I remain,
yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO LIEUTENANT EELES
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _November_ 24, 1894.
MY DEAR EELES,—The hand, as you will perceive (and also the spelling!),
is Teuila’s, but the scrannel voice is what remains of Tusitala’s. First
of all, for business. When you go to London you are to charter a hansom
cab and proceed to the Museum. It is particular fun to do this on
Sundays when the Monument is shut up. Your cabman expostulates with you,
you persist. The cabman drives up in front of the closed gates and says,
‘I told you so, sir.’ You breathe in the porter’s ears the mystic name
of _Colvin_, and he immediately unfolds the iron barrier. You drive in,
and doesn’t your cabman think you’re a swell. A lord mayor is nothing to
it. Colvin’s door is the only one in the eastern gable of the building.
Send in your card to him with ‘From R. L. S.’ in the corner, and the
machinery will do the rest. Henry James’s address is 34 De Vere Mansions
West. I cannot remember where the place is; I cannot even remember on
which side of the park. But it’s one of those big Cromwell Road-looking
deserted thoroughfares out west in Kensington or Bayswater, or between
the two; and anyway, Colvin will be able to put you on the direct track
for Henry James. I do not send formal introductions, as I have taken the
liberty to prepare both of them for seeing you already.
Hoskyn is staying with us.
It is raining dismally. The Curaçoa track is hardly passable, but it
must be trod to-morrow by the degenerate feet of their successor the
Wallaroos. I think it a very good account of these last that we don’t
think them either deformed or habitual criminals—they seem to be a kindly
lot.
The doctor will give you all the gossip. I have preferred in this letter
to stick to the strictly solid and necessary. With kind messages from
all in the house to all in the wardroom, all in the gunroom, and (may we
dare to breathe it) to him who walks abaft, believe me, my dear Eeles,
yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 1, 1894.
DEAR SIR HERBERT,—Thank you very much for your long and kind letter. I
shall certainly take your advice and call my cousin, the Lyon King, into
council. It is certainly a very interesting subject, though I don’t
suppose it can possibly lead to anything, this connection between the
Stevensons and M’Gregors. Alas! your invitation is to me a mere
derision. My chances of visiting Heaven are about as valid as my chances
of visiting Monreith. Though I should like well to see you, shrunken
into a cottage, a literary Lord of Ravenscraig. I suppose it is the
inevitable doom of all those who dabble in Scotch soil; but really your
fate is the more blessed. I cannot conceive anything more grateful to
me, or more amusing or more picturesque, than to live in a cottage
outside your own park-walls.—With renewed thanks, believe me, dear Sir
Herbert, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO ANDREW LANG
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 1, 1894.
MY DEAR LANG,—For the portrait of Braxfield, much thanks! It is engraved
from the same Raeburn portrait that I saw in ’76 or ’77 with so extreme a
gusto that I have ever since been Braxfield’s humble servant, and am now
trying, as you know, to stick him into a novel. Alas! one might as well
try to stick in Napoleon. The picture shall be framed and hung up in my
study. Not only as a memento of you, but as a perpetual encouragement to
do better with his Lordship. I have not yet received the transcripts.
They must be very interesting. Do you know, I picked up the other day an
old _Longman’s_, where I found an article of yours that I had missed,
about Christie’s? I read it with great delight. The year ends with us
pretty much as it began, among wars and rumours of wars, and a vast and
splendid exhibition of official incompetence.—Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 1, 1894.
I AM afraid, MY DEAR WEG, that this must be the result of bribery and
corruption! The volume to which the dedication stands as preface seems
to me to stand alone in your work; it is so natural, so personal, so
sincere, so articulate in substance, and what you always were sure of—so
rich in adornment.
Let me speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart.
It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a
churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I
remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of
‘the pang of gratified vanity’ with which I had read it. The pang was
present again, but how much more sober and autumnal—like your volume.
Let me tell you a story, or remind you of a story. In the year of grace
something or other, anything between ’76 and ’78 I mentioned to you in my
usual autobiographical and inconsiderate manner that I was hard up. You
said promptly that you had a balance at your banker’s, and could make it
convenient to let me have a cheque, and I accepted and got the money—how
much was it?—twenty or perhaps thirty pounds? I know not—but it was a
great convenience. The same evening, or the next day, I fell in
conversation (in my usual autobiographical and . . . see above) with a
denizen of the Savile Club, name now gone from me, only his figure and a
dim three-quarter view of his face remaining. To him I mentioned that
you had given me a loan, remarking easily that of course it didn’t matter
to you. Whereupon he read me a lecture, and told me how it really stood
with you financially. He was pretty serious; fearing, as I could not
help perceiving, that I should take too light a view of the
responsibility and the service (I was always thought too light—the
irresponsible jester—you remember. O, _quantum mutatus ab illo_!) If I
remember rightly, the money was repaid before the end of the week—or, to
be more exact and a trifle pedantic, the sennight—but the service has
never been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient history,
_consule Planco_, as a salute for your dedication, and propose that we
should drink the health of the nameless one, who opened my eyes as to the
true nature of what you did for me on that occasion.
But here comes my Amanuensis, so we’ll get on more swimmingly now. You
will understand perhaps that what so particularly pleased me in the new
volume, what seems to me to have so personal and original a note, are the
middle-aged pieces in the beginning. The whole of them, I may say,
though I must own an especial liking to—
‘I yearn not for the fighting fate,
That holds and hath achieved;
I live to watch and meditate
And dream—and be deceived.’
You take the change gallantly. Not I, I must confess. It is all very
well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for
my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to
dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I
was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary
drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are
going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with
the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true
course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but love-stories.
This must repose upon some curious distinction of temperaments. I gather
from a phrase, boldly autobiographical, that you are—well, not precisely
growing thin. Can that be the difference?
It is rather funny that this matter should come up just now, as I am at
present engaged in treating a severe case of middle age in one of my
stories—‘The Justice-Clerk.’ The case is that of a woman, and I think
that I am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe, to see
the difference in our treatments. _Secreta Vitæ_, comes nearer to the
case of my poor Kirstie. Come to think of it, Gosse, I believe the main
distinction is that you have a family growing up around you, and I am a
childless, rather bitter, very clear-eyed, blighted youth. I have, in
fact, lost the path that makes it easy and natural for you to descend the
hill. I am going at it straight. And where I have to go down it is a
precipice.
I must not forget to give you a word of thanks for _An English Village_.
It reminds me strongly of Keats, which is enough to say; and I was
particularly pleased with the petulant sincerity of the concluding
sentiment.
Well, my dear Gosse, here’s wishing you all health and prosperity, as
well as to the mistress and the bairns. May you live long, since it
seems as if you would continue to enjoy life. May you write many more
books as good as this one—only there’s one thing impossible, you can
never write another dedication that can give the same pleasure to the
vanished
TUSITALA.
FOOTNOTES
{11} In _Underwoods_ the lines thus queried stand with the change: ‘Life
is over; life was gay.’
{12} _Prince Otto_.
{20} The name of the hero in Dostoieffsky’s _Le Crime et le Châtiment_.
{37} _Suite anglaise_.
{48a} _The Merry Men_.
{48b} _Memories and Portraits_.
{48c} _Underwoods_.
{66} The sum was really £700.
{70} ‘But she was more than usual calm,
She did not give a single dam.’—_Marjorie Fleming_.
{83} The secretary was really, I believe, Lord Pollington.
{86} ‘Smith opens out his cauld harangues
On practice and on morals.’
The Rev. George Smith of Galston, the minister thus referred to by Burns
(in the _Holy Fair_), was a great-grandfather of Stevenson on the
mother’s side; and against Stevenson himself, in his didactic moods, the
passage was often quoted by his friends when they wished to tease him.
{114} The French; the Marquesas, Paumotus, and Tahiti being all
dependencies of France.
{132} King Kalakaua.
{133} This is the Canadian poet Mr. Archibald Lampman, the news of whose
death reaches England as these sheets are preparing for the press.
{137} Stevenson’s stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time living
at Honolulu, and joined his party and family for good when they continued
their voyage from thence in the following June.
{141} The following is the letter in question:—
‘I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left
us, I was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Telime, also, and all of my
household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this
that I went upon the road, and you looked from that ship, and I
looked at you on the ship with great grief until you had raised the
anchor and hoisted the sails. When the ship started I ran along the
beach to see you still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out
to you, “Farewell Louis”; and when I was coming back to my house I
seemed to hear your voice crying “Rui farewell.” Afterwards I
watched the ship as long as I could until the night fell; and when it
was dark I said to myself, “If I had wings I should fly to the ship
to meet you, and to sleep amongst you, so that I might be able to
come back to shore and to tell Rui Telime, ‘I have slept upon the
ship of Teriitera.’” After that we passed that night in the
impatience of grief. Towards eight o’clock I seemed to hear your
voice, “Teriitera—Rui—here is the hour for _putter_ and _tiro_”
(cheese and syrup). I did not sleep that night, thinking continually
of you, my very dear friend, until the morning; being then still
awake, I went to see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not
there. Afterwards I looked into your rooms; they did not please me
as they used to do. I did not hear your voice saying, “Hail Rui”; I
thought then that you had gone, and that you had left me. Rising up,
I went to the beach to see your ship, and I could not see it. I
wept, then, until the night, telling myself continually, “Teriitera
returns into his own country and leaves his dear Rui in grief, so
that I suffer for him, and weep for him.” I will not forget you in
my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet you again. It is
my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in this world. It
is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be that your body
and my body shall eat together at one table: there is what would make
my heart content. But now we are separated. May God be with you
all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well
and we also, according to the words of Paul.
ORI A ORI, that is to say, RUI.’
{152} The Polynesian name for white men.
{170} Table of chapter headings follows.
{187} French _bâtons rompus_: disconnected thoughts or studies.
{190} The Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu: in reference to Stevenson’s letter
on Father Damien.
{198} Afterwards re-named _The Ebb Tide_.
{201} His letters.
{220} _The Misadventures of John Nicholson_.
{245} _i.e._ On the stage.
{271} A character in _The Wrecker_.
{272} The lad Austin Strong.
{292} John Addington Symonds.
{298a} _Across the Plains_.
{298b} Volume of Sonnets by José Maria de Hérédia.
{311} _The Window in Thrums_, with illustrations by W. Hole, R.S.A.
Hodder and Stoughton. 1892.
{320} This question is with a view to the adventures of the hero in _St.
Ives_, who, according to Stevenson’s original plan, was to have been
picked up from his foundered balloon by an American privateer.
{323} As to admire _The Black Arrow_.
{332} In the book the genealogy is given as a diagram. It has been
converted to text for this transcription so it’s available for everyone,
with the original diagram below.—DP.
[Picture: The Genealogy]
{337} Word omitted in MS.
{347} _Sentimental Tommy_: whose chief likeness to R. L. S. was meant to
be in the literary temperament and passion for the _mot propre_.
{350} _Sic_: query ‘least’?
{359} Of _The Wrecker_.
{361} _Trieb_, impulse
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