Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  I have come, for the moment, to a pause in my moral works; for I have many irons in the fire, and I wish to finish something to bring coin before I can afford to go on with what I think doubtfully to be a duty. It is a most difficult work; a touch of the parson will drive off those I hope to influence; a touch of overstrained laxity, besides disgusting, like a grimace, may do harm. Nothing that I have ever seen yet speaks directly and efficaciously to young men; and I do hope I may find the art and wisdom to fill up a gap. The great point, as I see it, is to ask as little as possible, and meet, if it may be, every view or absence of view; and it should be, must be, easy. Honesty is the one desideratum; but think how hard a one to meet. I think all the time of Ferrier and myself; these are the pair that I address. Poor Ferrier, so much a better man than I, and such a temporal wreck. But the thing of which we must divest our minds is to look partially upon others; all is to be viewed; and the creature judged, as he must be by his Creator, not dissected through a prism of morals, but in the unrefracted ray. So seen, and in relation to the almost omnipotent surroundings, who is to distinguish between F. and such a man as Dr. Candlish, or between such a man as David Hume and such an one as Robert Burns? To compare my poor and good Walter with myself is to make me startle; he, upon all grounds above the merely expedient, was the nobler being. Yet wrecked utterly ere the full age of manhood; and the last skirmishes so well fought, so humanly useless, so pathetically brave, only the leaps of an expiring lamp. All this is a very pointed instance. It shuts the mouth. I have learned more, in some ways, from him than from any other soul I ever met; and he, strange to think, was the best gentleman, in all kinder senses, that I ever knew. - Ever your affectionate son,

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

  Letter: TO W H LOW

  [CHALET LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, OCT. 23, 1883.]

  MY DEAR LOW, - C’EST D’UN BON CAMARADE; and I am much obliged to you for your two letters and the inclosure. Times are a lityle changed with all of us since the ever memorable days of Lavenue: hallowed be his name! hallowed his old Fleury! - of which you did not see - I think - as I did - the glorious apotheosis: advanced on a Tuesday to three francs, on the Thursday to six, and on Friday swept off, holus bolus, for the proprietor’s private consumption. Well, we had the start of that proprietor. Many a good bottle came our way, and was, I think, worthily made welcome.

  I am pleased that Mr. Gilder should like my literature; and I ask you particularly to thank Mr. Bunner (have I the name right?) for his notice, which was of that friendly, headlong sort that really pleases an author like what the French call a ‘shake-hands.’ It pleased me the more coming from the States, where I have met not much recognition, save from the buccaneers, and above all from pirates who misspell my name. I saw my book advertised in a number of the CRITIC as the work of one R. L. Stephenson; and, I own, I boiled. It is so easy to know the name of the man whose book you have stolen; for there it is, at full length, on the title-page of your booty. But no, damn him, not he! He calls me Stephenson. These woes I only refer to by the way, as they set a higher value on the CENTURY notice.

  I am now a person with an established ill-health - a wife - a dog possessed with an evil, a Gadarene spirit - a chalet on a hill, looking out over the Mediterranean - a certain reputation - and very obscure finances. Otherwise, very much the same, I guess; and were a bottle of Fleury a thing to be obtained, capable of developing theories along with a fit spirit even as of yore. Yet I now draw near to the Middle Ages; nearly three years ago, that fatal Thirty struck; and yet the great work is not yet done - not yet even conceived. But so, as one goes on, the wood seems to thicken, the footpath to narrow, and the House Beautiful on the hill’s summit to draw further and further away. We learn, indeed, to use our means; but only to learn, along with it, the paralysing knowledge that these means are only applicable to two or three poor commonplace motives. Eight years ago, if I could have slung ink as I can now, I should have thought myself well on the road after Shakespeare; and now - I find I have only got a pair of walking- shoes and not yet begun to travel. And art is still away there on the mountain summit. But I need not continue; for, of course, this is your story just as much as it is mine; and, strange to think, it was Shakespeare’s too, and Beethoven’s, and Phidias’s. It is a blessed thing that, in this forest of art, we can pursue our wood- lice and sparrows, AND NOT CATCH THEM, with almost the same fervour of exhilaration as that with which Sophocles hunted and brought down the Mastodon.

  Tell me something of your work, and your wife. - My dear fellow, I am yours ever,

  R. L. STEVENSON.

  My wife begs to be remembered to both of you; I cannot say as much for my dog, who has never seen you, but he would like, on general principles, to bite you.

  Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY

  [HYERES, NOVEMBER 1883.]

  MY DEAR LAD, - . . . Of course, my seamanship is jimmy: did I not beseech you I know not how often to find me an ancient mariner - and you, whose own wife’s own brother is one of the ancientest, did nothing for me? As for my seamen, did Runciman ever know eighteenth century buccaneers? No? Well, no more did I. But I have known and sailed with seamen too, and lived and eaten with them; and I made my put-up shot in no great ignorance, but as a put-up thing has to be made, I.E. to be coherent and picturesque, and damn the expense. Are they fairly lively on the wires? Then, favour me with your tongues. Are they wooden, and dim, and no sport? Then it is I that am silent, otherwise not. The work, strange as it may sound in the ear, is not a work of realism. The next thing I shall hear is that the etiquette is wrong in Otto’s Court! With a warrant, and I mean it to be so, and the whole matter never cost me half a thought. I make these paper people to please myself, and Skelt, and God Almighty, and with no ulterior purpose. Yet am I mortal myself; for, as I remind you, I begged for a supervising mariner. However, my heart is in the right place. I have been to sea, but I never crossed the threshold of a court; and the courts shall be the way I want ‘em.

  I’m glad to think I owe you the review that pleased me best of all the reviews I ever had; the one I liked best before that was -’s on the ARABIANS. These two are the flowers of the collection, according to me. To live reading such reviews and die eating ortolans - sich is my aspiration.

  Whenever you come you will be equally welcome. I am trying to finish OTTO ere you shall arrive, so as to take and be able to enjoy a well-earned - O yes, a well-earned - holiday. Longman fetched by Otto: is it a spoon or a spoilt horn? Momentous, if the latter; if the former, a spoon to dip much praise and pudding, and to give, I do think, much pleasure. The last part, now in hand, much smiles upon me. - Ever yours,

  R. L. S.

  Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

  LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, [NOVEMBER 1883].

  MY DEAR MOTHER, - You must not blame me too much for my silence; I am over head and ears in work, and do not know what to do first. I have been hard at OTTO, hard at SILVERADO proofs, which I have worked over again to a tremendous extent; cutting, adding, rewriting, until some of the worst chapters of the original are now, to my mind, as good as any. I was the more bound to make it good, as I had such liberal terms; it’s not for want of trying if I have failed.

  I got your letter on my birthday; indeed, that was how I found it out about three in the afternoon, when postie comes. Thank you for all you said. As for my wife, that was the best investment ever made by man; but ‘in our branch of the family’ we seem to marry well. I, considering my piles of work, am wonderfully well; I have not been so busy for I know not how long. I hope you will send me the money I asked however, as I am not only penniless, but shall remain so in all human probability for some considerable time. I have got in the mass of my expectations; and the 100 pounds which is to float us on the new year can not come due till SILVERADO is all ready; I am delaying it myself for the moment; then will follow the binders and the travellers and an infinity of other nuisances; and only at the last, the jingling-tingling.

  Do you know that TREASURE ISL
AND has appeared? In the November number of Henley’s Magazine, a capital number anyway, there is a funny publisher’s puff of it for your book; also a bad article by me. Lang dotes on TREASURE ISLAND: ‘Except TOM SAWYER and the ODYSSEY,’ he writes, ‘I never liked any romance so much.’ I will inclose the letter though. The Bogue is angelic, although very dirty. It has rained - at last! It was jolly cold when the rain came.

  I was overjoyed to hear such good news of my father. Let him go on at that! Ever your affectionate,

  R. L. S.

  Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN

  LA SOLITUDE, HYERES-LES-PALMIERS, VAR, [NOVEMBER 1883].

  MY DEAR COLVIN, - I have been bad, but as you were worse, I feel no shame. I raise a blooming countenance, not the evidence of a self- righteous spirit.

  I continue my uphill fight with the twin spirits of bankruptcy and indigestion. Duns rage about my portal, at least to fancy’s ear.

  I suppose you heard of Ferrier’s death: my oldest friend, except Bob. It has much upset me. I did not fancy how much. I am strangely concerned about it.

  My house is the loveliest spot in the universe; the moonlight nights we have are incredible; love, poetry and music, and the Arabian Nights, inhabit just my corner of the world - nest there like mavises.

  Here lies The carcase of Robert Louis Stevenson, An active, austere, and not inelegant writer, who, at the termination of a long career, wealthy, wise, benevolent, and honoured by the attention of two hemispheres, yet owned it to have been his crowning favour TO INHABIT LA SOLITUDE.

  (With the consent of the intelligent edility of Hyeres, he has been interred, below this frugal stone, in the garden which he honoured for so long with his poetic presence.)

  I must write more solemn letters. Adieu. Write.

  R. L. S.

  Letter: TO MRS. MILNE

  LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, [NOVEMBER 1883].

  MY DEAR HENRIETTA, - Certainly; who else would they be? More by token, on that particular occasion, you were sailing under the title of Princess Royal; I, after a furious contest, under that of Prince Alfred; and Willie, still a little sulky, as the Prince of Wales. We were all in a buck basket about half-way between the swing and the gate; and I can still see the Pirate Squadron heave in sight upon the weather bow.

  I wrote a piece besides on Giant Bunker; but I was not happily inspired, and it is condemned. Perhaps I’ll try again; he was a horrid fellow, Giant Bunker! and some of my happiest hours were passed in pursuit of him. You were a capital fellow to play: how few there were who could! None better than yourself. I shall never forget some of the days at Bridge of Allan; they were one golden dream. See ‘A Good Boy’ in the PENNY WHISTLES, much of the sentiment of which is taken direct from one evening at B. of A. when we had had a great play with the little Glasgow girl. Hallowed be that fat book of fairy tales! Do you remember acting the Fair One with Golden Locks? What a romantic drama! Generally speaking, whenever I think of play, it is pretty certain that you will come into my head. I wrote a paper called ‘Child’s Play’ once, where, I believe, you or Willie would recognise things. . . .

  Surely Willie is just the man to marry; and if his wife wasn’t a happy woman, I think I could tell her who was to blame. Is there no word of it? Well, these things are beyond arrangement; and the wind bloweth where it listeth - which, I observe, is generally towards the west in Scotland. Here it prefers a south-easterly course, and is called the Mistral - usually with an adjective in front. But if you will remember my yesterday’s toothache and this morning’s crick, you will be in a position to choose an adjective for yourself. Not that the wind is unhealthy; only when it comes strong, it is both very high and very cold, which makes it the d-v- l. But as I am writing to a lady, I had better avoid this topic; winds requiring a great scope of language.

  Please remember me to all at home; give Ramsay a pennyworth of acidulated drops for his good taste. - And believe me, your affectionate cousin,

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

  Letter: TO MISS FERRIER

  LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, VAR, NOVEMBER 22, 1883.

  DEAR MISS FERRIER, - Many thanks for the photograph. It is - well, it is like most photographs. The sun is an artist of too much renown; and, at any rate, we who knew Walter ‘in the brave days of old’ will be difficult to please.

  I was inexpressibly touched to get a letter from some lawyers as to some money. I have never had any account with my friends; some have gained and some lost; and I should feel there was something dishonest in a partial liquidation even if I could recollect the facts, WHICH I CANNOT. But the fact of his having put aside this memorandum touched me greatly.

  The mystery of his life is great. Our chemist in this place, who had been at Malvern, recognised the picture. You may remember Walter had a romantic affection for all pharmacies? and the bottles in the window were for him a poem? He said once that he knew no pleasure like driving through a lamplit city, waiting for the chemists to go by.

  All these things return now.

  He had a pretty full translation of Schiller’s AESTHETIC LETTERS, which we read together, as well as the second part of FAUST, in Gladstone Terrace, he helping me with the German. There is no keepsake I should more value than the MS. of that translation. They were the best days I ever had with him, little dreaming all would so soon be over. It needs a blow like this to convict a man of mortality and its burthen. I always thought I should go by myself; not to survive. But now I feel as if the earth were undermined, and all my friends have lost one thickness of reality since that one passed. Those are happy who can take it otherwise; with that I found things all beginning to dislimn. Here we have no abiding city, and one felt as though he had - and O too much acted.

  But if you tell me, he did not feel my silence. However, he must have done so; and my guilt is irreparable now. I thank God at least heartily that he did not resent it.

  Please remember me to Sir Alexander and Lady Grant, to whose care I will address this. When next I am in Edinburgh I will take flowers, alas! to the West Kirk. Many a long hour we passed in graveyards, the man who has gone and I - or rather not that man - but the beautiful, genial, witty youth who so betrayed him. - Dear Miss Ferrier, I am yours most sincerely,

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

  Letter: TO W. H. LOW

  LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, VAR, 13TH DECEMBER 1883.

  MY DEAR LOW, - . . . I was much pleased with what you send about my work. Ill-health is a great handicapper in the race. I have never at command that press of spirits that are necessary to strike out a thing red-hot. SILVERADO is an example of stuff worried and pawed about, God knows how often, in poor health, and you can see for yourself the result: good pages, an imperfect fusion, a certain languor of the whole. Not, in short, art. I have told Roberts to send you a copy of the book when it appears, where there are some fair passages that will be new to you. My brief romance, PRINCE OTTO - far my most difficult adventure up to now - is near an end. I have still one chapter to write DE FOND EN COMBLE, and three or four to strengthen or recast. The rest is done. I do not know if I have made a spoon, or only spoiled a horn; but I am tempted to hope the first. If the present bargain hold, it will not see the light of day for some thirteen months. Then I shall be glad to know how it strikes you. There is a good deal of stuff in it, both dramatic and, I think, poetic; and the story is not like these purposeless fables of to-day, but is, at least, intended to stand FIRM upon a base of philosophy - or morals - as you please. It has been long gestated, and is wrought with care. ENFIN, NOUS VERRONS. My labours have this year for the first time been rewarded with upwards of 350 pounds; that of itself, so base we are! encourages me; and the better tenor of my health yet more. - Remember me to Mrs. Low, and believe me, yours most sincerely,

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

  Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON

  LA SOLITUDE, DECEMBER 20, 1883.

  MY DEAR FATHER, - I do not know which of us is to blame; I suspect it is you this time. The last accounts of you were pretty good, I was
pleased to see; I am, on the whole, very well - suffering a little still from my fever and liver complications, but better.

  I have just finished re-reading a book, which I counsel you above all things NOT to read, as it has made me very ill, and would make you worse - Lockhart’s SCOTT. It is worth reading, as all things are from time to time that keep us nose to nose with fact; though I think such reading may be abused, and that a great deal of life is better spent in reading of a light and yet chivalrous strain. Thus, no Waverley novel approaches in power, blackness, bitterness, and moral elevation to the diary and Lockhart’s narrative of the end; and yet the Waverley novels are better reading for every day than the Life. You may take a tonic daily, but not phlebotomy.

  The great double danger of taking life too easily, and taking it too hard, how difficult it is to balance that! But we are all too little inclined to faith; we are all, in our serious moments, too much inclined to forget that all are sinners, and fall justly by their faults, and therefore that we have no more to do with that than with the thunder-cloud; only to trust, and do our best, and wear as smiling a face as may be for others and ourselves. But there is no royal road among this complicated business. Hegel the German got the best word of all philosophy with his antinomies: the contrary of everything is its postulate. That is, of course, grossly expressed, but gives a hint of the idea, which contains a great deal of the mysteries of religion, and a vast amount of the practical wisdom of life. For your part, there is no doubt as to your duty - to take things easy and be as happy as you can, for your sake, and my mother’s, and that of many besides. Excuse this sermon. - Ever your loving son,

  R. L. S.

  Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

  LA SOLITUDE, DECEMBER 25, 1883.