Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson
Page 742
Please pardon me for having been so long of writing, and show your pardon by writing soon to me; it will be a kindness, for I am sometimes very dull. Edinburgh is much changed for the worse by the absence of Bob; and this damned weather weighs on me like a curse. Yesterday, or the day before, there came so black a rain squall that I was frightened - what a child would call frightened, you know, for want of a better word - although in reality it has nothing to do with fright. I lit the gas and sat cowering in my chair until it went away again. - Ever yours,
R. L. S.
O I am trying my hand at a novel just now; it may interest you to know, I am bound to say I do not think it will be a success. However, it’s an amusement for the moment, and work, work is your only ally against the ‘bearded people’ that squat upon their hams in the dark places of life and embrace people horribly as they go by. God save us from the bearded people! to think that the sun is still shining in some happy places!
R. L S.
Letter: TO MRS SITWELL
[EDINBURGH, JANUARY 1876.]
. . . OUR weather continues as it was, bitterly cold, and raining often. There is not much pleasure in life certainly as it stands at present. NOUS N’IRONS PLUS AU BOSS, HELAS!
I meant to write some more last night, but my father was ill and it put it out of my way. He is better this morning.
If I had written last night, I should have written a lot. But this morning I am so dreadfully tired and stupid that I can say nothing. I was down at Leith in the afternoon. God bless me, what horrid women I saw; I never knew what a plain-looking race it was before. I was sick at heart with the looks of them. And the children, filthy and ragged! And the smells! And the fat black mud!
My soul was full of disgust ere I got back. And yet the ships were beautiful to see, as they are always; and on the pier there was a clean cold wind that smelt a little of the sea, though it came down the Firth, and the sunset had a certain ECLAT and warmth. Perhaps if I could get more work done, I should be in a better trim to enjoy filthy streets and people and cold grim weather; but I don’t much feel as if it was what I would have chosen. I am tempted every day of my life to go off on another walking tour. I like that better than anything else that I know. - Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[EDINBURGH, FEBRUARY 1876.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - 1ST. I have sent ‘Fontainebleau’ long ago, long ago. And Leslie Stephen is worse than tepid about it - liked ‘some parts’ of it ‘very well,’ the son of Belial. Moreover, he proposes to shorten it; and I, who want MONEY, and money soon, and not glory and the illustration of the English language, I feel as if my poverty were going to consent.
2ND. I’m as fit as a fiddle after my walk. I am four inches bigger about the waist than last July! There, that’s your prophecy did that. I am on ‘Charles of Orleans’ now, but I don’t know where to send him. Stephen obviously spews me out of his mouth, and I spew him out of mine, so help me! A man who doesn’t like my ‘Fontainebleau’! His head must be turned.
3RD. If ever you do come across my ‘Spring’ (I beg your pardon for referring to it again, but I don’t want you to forget) send it off at once.
4TH. I went to Ayr, Maybole, Girvan, Ballantrae, Stranraer,
Glenluce, and Wigton. I shall make an article of it some day soon,
‘A Winter’s Walk in Carrick and Galloway.’ I had a good time. -
Yours,
R. L S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[SWANSTON COTTAGE, LOTHIANBURN, JULY 1876.]
HERE I am, here, and very well too. I am glad you liked ‘Walking Tours’; I like it, too; I think it’s prose; and I own with contrition that I have not always written prose. However, I am ‘endeavouring after new obedience’ (Scot. Shorter Catechism). You don’t say aught of ‘Forest Notes,’ which is kind. There is one, if you will, that was too sweet to be wholesome.
I am at ‘Charles d’Orleans.’ About fifteen CORNHILL pages have already coule’d from under my facile plume - no, I mean eleven, fifteen of MS. - and we are not much more than half-way through, ‘Charles’ and I; but he’s a pleasant companion. My health is very well; I am in a fine exercisy state. Baynes is gone to London; if you see him, inquire about my ‘Burns.’ They have sent me 5 pounds, 5s, for it, which has mollified me horrid. 5 pounds, 5s. is a good deal to pay for a read of it in MS.; I can’t complain. - Yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[SWANSTON COTTAGE, LOTHIANBURN, JULY 1876.]
. . . I HAVE the strangest repugnance for writing; indeed, I have nearly got myself persuaded into the notion that letters don’t arrive, in order to salve my conscience for never sending them off. I’m reading a great deal of fifteenth century: TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC, PASTON LETTERS, BASIN, etc., also BOSWELL daily by way of a Bible; I mean to read BOSWELL now until the day I die. And now and again a bit of PILGRIM’S PROGRESS. Is that all? Yes, I think that’s all. I have a thing in proof for the CORNHILL called VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE. ‘Charles of Orleans’ is again laid aside, but in a good state of furtherance this time. A paper called ‘A Defence of Idlers’ (which is really a defence of R. L. S.) is in a good way. So, you see, I am busy in a tumultuous, knotless sort of fashion; and as I say, I take lots of exercise, and I’m as brown a berry.
This is the first letter I’ve written for - O I don’t know how long.
JULY 30TH. - This is, I suppose, three weeks after I began. Do, please, forgive me.
To the Highlands, first, to the Jenkins’, then to Antwerp; thence, by canoe with Simpson, to Paris and Grez (on the Loing, and an old acquaintance of mine on the skirts of Fontainebleau) to complete our cruise next spring (if we’re all alive and jolly) by Loing and Loire, Saone and Rhone to the Mediterranean. It should make a jolly book of gossip, I imagine.
God bless you.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
P.S. - VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE is in August CORNHILL. ‘Charles of Orleans’ is finished, and sent to Stephen; ‘Idlers’ ditto, and sent to Grove; but I’ve no word of either. So I’ve not been idle.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
CHAUNY, AISNE [SEPTEMBER 1876].
MY DEAR HENLEY, - Here I am, you see; and if you will take to a map, you will observe I am already more than two doors from Antwerp, whence I started. I have fought it through under the worst weather I ever saw in France; I have been wet through nearly every day of travel since the second (inclusive); besides this, I have had to fight against pretty mouldy health; so that, on the whole, the essayist and reviewer has shown, I think, some pluck. Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from being miserably drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of friends and the permanent impoverishment of British Essayism and Reviewery. My boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in a very rapid current; and I was a good while before I got on to the outside of that fallen tree; rather a better while than I cared about. When I got up, I lay some time on my belly, panting, and exuded fluid. All my symptoms JUSQU’ ICI are trifling. But I’ve a damned sore throat. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, MAY 1877.
. . . A PERFECT chorus of repudiation is sounding in my ears; and although you say nothing, I know you must be repudiating me, all the same. Write I cannot - there’s no good mincing matters, a letter frightens me worse than the devil; and I am just as unfit for correspondence as if I had never learned the three R.’s.
Let me give my news quickly before I relapse into my usual idleness. I have a terror lest I should relapse before I get this finished. Courage, R. L. S.! On Leslie Stephen’s advice, I gave up the idea of a book of essays. He said he didn’t imagine I was rich enough for such an amusement; and moreover, whatever was worth publication was worth republication. So the best of those I had ready: ‘An Apology for Idlers’ is in proof for the CORNHILL. I have ‘Villon’ to do for the same
magazine, but God knows when I’ll get it done, for drums, trumpets - I’m engaged upon - trumpets, drums - a novel! ‘THE HAIR TRUNK; OR, THE IDEAL COMMONWEALTH.’ It is a most absurd story of a lot of young Cambridge fellows who are going to found a new society, with no ideas on the subject, and nothing but Bohemian tastes in the place of ideas; and who are - well, I can’t explain about the trunk - it would take too long - but the trunk is the fun of it - everybody steals it; burglary, marine fight, life on desert island on west coast of Scotland, sloops, etc. The first scene where they make their grand schemes and get drunk is supposed to be very funny, by Henley. I really saw him laugh over it until he cried.
Please write to me, although I deserve it so little, and show a
Christian spirit. - Ever your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[EDINBURGH, AUGUST 1877.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I’m to be whipped away to-morrow to Penzance, where at the post-office a letter will find me glad and grateful. I am well, but somewhat tired out with overwork. I have only been home a fortnight this morning, and I have already written to the tune of forty-five CORNHILL pages and upwards. The most of it was only very laborious re-casting and re-modelling, it is true; but it took it out of me famously, all the same.
TEMPLE BAR appears to like my ‘Villon,’ so I may count on another market there in the future, I hope. At least, I am going to put it to the proof at once, and send another story, ‘The Sire de Maletroit’s Mousetrap’: a true novel, in the old sense; all unities preserved moreover, if that’s anything, and I believe with some little merits; not so CLEVER perhaps as the last, but sounder and more natural.
My ‘Villon’ is out this month; I should so much like to know what you think of it. Stephen has written to me apropos of ‘Idlers,’ that something more in that vein would be agreeable to his views. From Stephen I count that a devil of a lot.
I am honestly so tired this morning that I hope you will take this for what it’s worth and give me an answer in peace. - Ever yours,
LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL
[PENZANCE, AUGUST 1877.]
. . . YOU will do well to stick to your burn, that is a delightful life you sketch, and a very fountain of health. I wish I could live like that but, alas! it is just as well I got my ‘Idlers’ written and done with, for I have quite lost all power of resting. I have a goad in my flesh continually, pushing me to work, work, work. I have an essay pretty well through for Stephen; a story, ‘The Sire de Maletroit’s Mousetrap,’ with which I shall try TEMPLE BAR; another story, in the clouds, ‘The Stepfather’s Story,’ most pathetic work of a high morality or immorality, according to point of view; and lastly, also in the clouds, or perhaps a little farther away, an essay on the ‘Two St. Michael’s Mounts,’ historical and picturesque; perhaps if it didn’t come too long, I might throw in the ‘Bass Rock,’ and call it ‘Three Sea Fortalices,’ or something of that kind. You see how work keeps bubbling in my mind. Then I shall do another fifteenth century paper this autumn - La Sale and PETIT JEHAN DE SAINTRE, which is a kind of fifteenth century SANDFORD AND MERTON, ending in horrid immoral cynicism, as if the author had got tired of being didactic, and just had a good wallow in the mire to wind up with and indemnify himself for so much restraint.
Cornwall is not much to my taste, being as bleak as the bleakest parts of Scotland, and nothing like so pointed and characteristic. It has a flavour of its own, though, which I may try and catch, if I find the space, in the proposed article. ‘Will o’ the Mill’ I sent, red hot, to Stephen in a fit of haste, and have not yet had an answer. I am quite prepared for a refusal. But I begin to have more hope in the story line, and that should improve my income anyway. I am glad you liked ‘Villon’; some of it was not as good as it ought to be, but on the whole it seems pretty vivid, and the features strongly marked. Vividness and not style is now my line; style is all very well, but vividness is the real line of country; if a thing is meant to be read, it seems just as well to try and make it readable. I am such a dull person I cannot keep off my own immortal works. Indeed, they are scarcely ever out of my head. And yet I value them less and less every day. But occupation is the great thing; so that a man should have his life in his own pocket, and never be thrown out of work by anything. I am glad to hear you are better. I must stop - going to Land’s End. - Always your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO A. PATCHETT MARTIN
[1877.]
DEAR SIR, - It would not be very easy for me to give you any idea of the pleasure I found in your present. People who write for the magazines (probably from a guilty conscience) are apt to suppose their works practically unpublished. It seems unlikely that any one would take the trouble to read a little paper buried among so many others; and reading it, read it with any attention or pleasure. And so, I can assure you, your little book, coming from so far, gave me all the pleasure and encouragement in the world.
I suppose you know and remember Charles Lamb’s essay on distant correspondents? Well, I was somewhat of his way of thinking about my mild productions. I did not indeed imagine they were read, and (I suppose I may say) enjoyed right round upon the other side of the big Football we have the honour to inhabit. And as your present was the first sign to the contrary, I feel I have been very ungrateful in not writing earlier to acknowledge the receipt. I dare say, however, you hate writing letters as much as I can do myself (for if you like my article, I may presume other points of sympathy between us); and on this hypothesis you will be ready to forgive me the delay.
I may mention with regard to the piece of verses called ‘Such is Life,’ that I am not the only one on this side of the Football aforesaid to think it a good and bright piece of work, and recognised a link of sympathy with the poets who ‘play in hostelries at euchre.’ - Believe me, dear sir, yours truly,
R. L S.
Letter: TO A. PATCHETT MARTIN
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH [DECEMBER 1877].
MY DEAR SIR, - I am afraid you must already have condemned me for a very idle fellow truly. Here it is more than two months since I received your letter; I had no fewer than three journals to acknowledge; and never a sign upon my part. If you have seen a CORNHILL paper of mine upon idling, you will be inclined to set it all down to that. But you will not be doing me justice. Indeed, I have had a summer so troubled that I have had little leisure and still less inclination to write letters. I was keeping the devil at bay with all my disposable activities; and more than once I thought he had me by the throat. The odd conditions of our acquaintance enable me to say more to you than I would to a person who lived at my elbow. And besides, I am too much pleased and flattered at our correspondence not to go as far as I can to set myself right in your eyes.
In this damnable confusion (I beg pardon) I have lost all my possessions, or near about, and quite lost all my wits. I wish I could lay my hands on the numbers of the REVIEW, for I know I wished to say something on that head more particularly than I can from memory; but where they have escaped to, only time or chance can show. However, I can tell you so far, that I was very much pleased with the article on Bret Harte; it seemed to me just, clear, and to the point. I agreed pretty well with all you said about George Eliot: a high, but, may we not add? - a rather dry lady. Did you - I forget - did you have a kick at the stern works of that melancholy puppy and humbug Daniel Deronda himself? - the Prince of prigs; the literary abomination of desolation in the way of manhood; a type which is enough to make a man forswear the love of women, if that is how it must be gained. . . . Hats off all the same, you understand: a woman of genius.
Of your poems I have myself a kindness for ‘Noll and Nell,’ although I don’t think you have made it as good as you ought: verse five is surely not QUITE MELODIOUS. I confess I like the Sonnet in the last number of the REVIEW - the Sonnet to England.
Please, if you have not, and I don’t suppose you have, alread
y read it, institute a search in all Melbourne for one of the rarest and certainly one of the best of books - CLARISSA HARLOWE. For any man who takes an interest in the problems of the two sexes, that book is a perfect mine of documents. And it is written, sir, with the pen of an angel. Miss Howe and Lovelace, words cannot tell how good they are! And the scene where Clarissa beards her family, with her fan going all the while; and some of the quarrel scenes between her and Lovelace; and the scene where Colonel Marden goes to Mr. Hall, with Lord M. trying to compose matters, and the Colonel with his eternal ‘finest woman in the world,’ and the inimitable affirmation of Mowbray - nothing, nothing could be better! You will bless me when you read it for this recommendation; but, indeed, I can do nothing but recommend Clarissa. I am like that Frenchman of the eighteenth century who discovered Habakkuk, and would give no one peace about that respectable Hebrew. For my part, I never was able to get over his eminently respectable name; Isaiah is the boy, if you must have a prophet, no less. About Clarissa, I meditate a choice work: A DIALOGUE ON MAN, WOMAN, AND ‘CLARISSA HARLOWE.’ It is to be so clever that no array of terms can give you any idea; and very likely that particular array in which I shall finally embody it, less than any other.
Do you know, my dear sir, what I like best in your letter? The egotism for which you thought necessary to apologise. I am a rogue at egotism myself; and to be plain, I have rarely or never liked any man who was not. The first step to discovering the beauties of God’s universe is usually a (perhaps partial) apprehension of such of them as adorn our own characters. When I see a man who does not think pretty well of himself, I always suspect him of being in the right. And besides, if he does not like himself, whom he has seen, how is he ever to like one whom he never can see but in dim and artificial presentments?
I cordially reciprocate your offer of a welcome; it shall be at least a warm one. Are you not my first, my only, admirer - a dear tie? Besides, you are a man of sense, and you treat me as one by writing to me as you do, and that gives me pleasure also. Please continue to let me see your work. I have one or two things coming out in the CORNHILL: a story called ‘The Sire de Maletroit’s Door’ in TEMPLE BAR; and a series of articles on Edinburgh in the PORTFOLIO; but I don’t know if these last fly all the way to Melbourne. - Yours very truly,