Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  His friends were very few, and those of but a few weeks’ standing. They hardly extended, indeed, beyond Mr. Virgil Williams and his wife, the artist couple to whom The Silverado Squatters was afterwards dedicated, and Mr. Charles Warren Stoddard, whose picturesque lodging is commemorated in The Wrecker.

  In Mr. Williams he found a man of great culture and refinement, a scholar as well as a painter, who was always ready to respond to his verses, and, together with his wife, able and eager to discuss the literatures of Europe. Their house was always open to Stevenson, and their only regret was that he could not come more frequently. To Mr. Stoddard also he was no less welcome a companion; from him he borrowed the delightful books of Herman Melville, Typee and Omooy and the South Sea Idylls,2 which charmed Stevenson alike with their subject and their style. So here in his darkest hour he received the second impulse, which in the end was to ‘ cast him out as by a freshet’ upon those 4 ultimate islands.’

  1 Later Essays: Edinburgh Edition, .

  2 Published in England by Mr. John Murray in 1874 as Summer Cruising in the South Seas, by Charles Warren Stoddard.

  San Francisco itself was still far from a prosaic place; its early history and its large foreign population rendered it not less dangerous than picturesque. Kearney, the Irish demagogue, had only just ‘been snuffed out by Mr. Coleman, backed by his San Francisco Vigilantes and three Gatling guns.’ Stevenson himself was not without experiences,, perhaps less uncommon there at that time than in other large cities. ‘There are rough quarters where it is dangerous o’ nights; cellars of public entertainment which the wary pleasure-seeker chooses to avoid. Concealed weapons are unlawful, but the law is continually broken. One editor was shot dead while I was there; another walked the streets accompanied by a bravo, his guardian angel. I have been quietly eating a dish of oysters in a restaurant, where, not more than ten minutes after I had left, shots were exchanged and took effect; and one night, about ten o’clock, I saw a man standing watchfully at a street corner with a long Smith-and-Wesson glittering in his hand behind his back. Somebody had done something he should not, and was being looked for with a vengeance.’1

  But his private needs now pressed upon him; money was growing scarce; the funds he had brought with him were exhausted, and those transmitted from England, being partly his own money and partly the payment for his recent work, very frequently failed to reach him. In the end of January he had to drop from a fifty cent to a twenty-five cent dinner, and already had directed his friend Mr. Charles Baxter to dispose of his books in Edinburgh and to send him the proceeds.

  His diligence had not been without results. The Amateur Emigrant had been finished and sent home; likewise two Cornhill articles on Thoreau and Yoshida Torajiro. His interest in Japan was chiefly derived from his acquaintance with sundry Japanese who came to Edinburgh to study lighthouse engineering, with some 1 Pacific Capitals: Edinburgh Edition, .

  of whom he afterwards for a while carried on correspondence.

  The influence of America in literature during the nineteenth century has perhaps been most deeply exercised upon English authors through Hawthorne, Whitman, and Poe. Other names have been more widely celebrated, but these three have the most intimately affected their fellow-writers, and the influence of the two latter at any rate has been out of proportion to their achievement, With Stevenson Thoreau came after his countrymen in point of time, but the effect was even more considerable-: ‘I have scarce written ten sentences since I was introduced to Thoreau, but his influence might be somewhere detected by a close observer.’ Had Stevenson not now been on the threshold of marriage, he might yet more strongly have been affected by these ascetic and self-sufficing doctrines.

  At this time Prince Otto began to suffer a resurrection out of one of his old plays, Semiramis, a Tragedy, but as yet it was known as The Greenwood State, a Romance. An article on Benjamin Franklin and the Art of Virtue was projected, and another upon William Penn, whose Fruits of Solitude now became a very favourite book with Stevenson. ‘A Dialogue between Two Puppets’1 was also written, and about the half of an autobiography in five books.2

  His prospects were gloomy; for although the manuscripts he had sent home were accepted by editors, yet the judgment of his friends upon some of them was justly unfavourable, and at this crisis he could not afford rejection or even delay in payment.

  His correspondence with his parents since his departure had been brief and unsatisfactory. His father, being imperfectly informed as to his motives and plans, naturally took that dark view of his son’s conduct to which his temperament predisposed him. But even so, hearing of 1 Miscellanea, . 2 See p, 86.

  Louis’ earlier illness, he sent him a twenty-pound note, though, as fate would have it, this was one of the letters that miscarried.

  Lonely, ill, and poor; estranged from his people, unsuccessful in his work, and discouraged in his attempt to maintain himself, Stevenson yet did not lose heart or go back for one moment from his resolution. He wrote to Mr. Baxter: 20 th Jan. — 41 lead a pretty happy life, though you might not think it. I have great fun trying to be economical, which I find as good a game of play as any other. I have no want of occupation, and though I rarely see any one to speak to, have little time to weary.’

  4 However ill he might be,’ says Mrs. Williams, 4 or however anxious had been his vigils, he was always gay, eloquent, and boyish, with the peculiar youthfulness of spirit that was destined to last him to the end.’

  He stuck to his work; even, a harder feat, he had the determination to give himself a week’s holiday. But though his spirit was indomitable, his physical powers were exhausted; his landlady’s small child was very ill, and he sat up nursing it. The child recovered, but Stevenson a short while afterwards broke down, and could go on no more.

  He was, as he afterwards wrote to Mr. Gosse, on the verge of a galloping consumption, subject to cold sweats, prostrating attacks of cough, sinking fits in which he lost the power of speech, fever, and all the ugliest circumstances of the disease.1

  Fortunately by this date his future wife had obtained her divorce, and was at liberty to give him as nurse those services, for which there was unfortunately only too frequent occasion during the next few years. It was a very anxious time, and he was nearer ‘ the grey ferry’ than he had been since childhood. Slowly he mended, and his recovery was helped by his letters and telegrams from home. Already by the middle of February he must 1 Letters, i. .

  have heard that his father admitted that the case was not what he supposed, and that if there were as long a delay as possible, he was prepared to do his best in the matter. At that very date Mr. Stevenson was writing again that it was preposterous of Louis to scrimp himself, and that if he would inform him what money he wanted, it would be sent by telegram, if required. And early in April a telegram came, announcing to Louis that in future he might count upon two hundred and fifty pounds a year His gratitude was unbounded, he realised very clearly what his extremity had been and the fate from which he had been rescued.

  To Mr. Baxter again he wrote:—’ It was a considerable shock to my pride to break down; but there — it’s done, and cannot be helped. Had my health held out another month, I should have made a year’s income; but breaking down when I did, I am surrounded by unfinished works. It is a good thing my father was on the spot, or I should have had to work and die.’

  All obstacles were at last removed, and on May 19, 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson was married to Fanny Van de Grift at San Francisco, in the house of the Rev. Dr. Scott, no one else but Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Williams being present.

  Of the marriage it need only be said that from the beginning to the end husband and wife were all in all to one another. His friends rejoiced to find in her, as Mr. Colvin says, ‘a character as strong, interesting, and romantic almost as his own; an inseparable sharer of all his thoughts, and staunch companion of all his adventures; the most open-hearted of friends to all who loved him; the most shrewd and stimulating critic of his work; and i
n sickness, despite her own precarious health, the most devoted and most efficient of nurses.’1

  Two years before his death Stevenson wrote, in refer- 1 Letters, vol. i. .

  ence to another love match: 4 To be sure it is always annoying when people choose their own wives; and I know only one form of consolation — they know best what they want. As I look back, I think my marriage was the best move I ever made in my life. Not only would I do it again; I cannot conceive the idea of doing otherwise.’

  Of his devotion to his wife he was even more reticent than of his affection to his parents. 41 love my wife,’ he once wrote, 41 do not know how much, nor can, nor shall, unless I lost her.’ And once or twice in letters to those who knew and loved them best, he almost unconsciously revealed his affection, which, for the rest, is embodied in the lyric written a year or two before his death, and printed at the head of this chapter. As he lived, so he died, and the last moments of his consciousness were occupied with the attempt to lift the burden of foreboding which was weighing so heavily upon his wife.

  Immediately after the marriage Stevenson and his wife and stepson went to the country fifty miles north of San Francisco, there to seek health in the mountains. How they took possession of all that was left of a mining- town, and lived in isolation and independence among the ruins, is told once for all in The Silverado Squatters; but it is not mentioned that Mrs. Stevenson and her son there sickened of diphtheria,,and that the anxiety and danger of a serious illness were added to their lot.

  By this time Stevenson knew that his father and mother were longing for nothing in the world so much as to see his face again, to make the acquaintance of his wife, and to welcome her for his sake.

  It was not however until July was well advanced that the party could leave Calistoga, but on the seventh of August they sailed from New York, and, ten days later, found Thomas Stevenson and his wife and Sidney Colvin waiting for them at Liverpool. In California the year before, Louis had written of his father:4 Since I have gone away, I have found out for the first time how I love that man; he is dearer to me than all, except Fanny/ And now his joy at seeing his parents was heightened, if possible, by the share which his wife had in their reception. Any doubts that had existed as to the wisdom of his choice were soon driven from their minds, and the new-comer was received into their affection with as much readiness and cordiality as if it were they and not Louis who had made the match. Old Mr. Stevenson in particular discovered in his daughter- in-law so many points which she possessed in common with himself, that his natural liking passed rapidly into an appreciation and affection such as are usually the result only of years of intimacy. In his own wife’s notes I find that before his death he made his son promise that he would ‘ never publish anything without Fanny’s approval/

  In consequence of the new order of things, Swanston Cottage had finally been given up early in the summer, and the family party, passing hastily through Edinburgh, went on first to Blair Athol and then to Strathpeffer, returning to Heriot Row in the middle of September. Never before, Stevenson declared, had he appreciated the beauty of the Highlands, but now he was all enthusiasm. Except an article at Calistoga, he had done no work for months, but these new influences suffered him to rest no longer: he wrote ‘The Scotsman’s Return from Abroad,’1 and was planning for himself no less a book on Scotland than a History of the Union. At Strathpeffer he met Principal Tulloch, already a friend of his parents, and the editor of Fraser’s Magazine, with whom he had much talk, and by whom he was confirmed in the purpose of his book. Moreover,’ The Scotsman’s Return ‘ and the paper on Monterey were accepted for Fraser.

  On the other hand, both Stevenson and his father now considered it undesirable to publish the account of his 1 Underwoods, xii.: In Scots.

  VOL. I. M

  recent experiences as an emigrant in its existing form. It was necessarily somewhat personal, and the circumstances under which it was written had told against its success. It had been sold, but it was the work which his friends had criticised most severely, and there no longer existed the dire need for making money by any possible means. The sum paid by the publishers was refunded by Mr. Stevenson, and for the time being the book was withdrawn.

  The exile’s return to his native country was of short duration, for the hardships he had endured and his consequent illness had rendered him quite unable to face a Scottish winter. On consulting his uncle, Dr. George Balfour, the well-known Edinburgh doctor, he was informed of his condition, and advised to try the climate of the High Alps, which had lately come into favour as a resort for patients suffering from phthisis.

  Accordingly, on October 7th Stevenson left Edinburgh with his wife and stepson and a new member of the family, who held a high place in their affections, and was an important element in all their arrangements for the next half-dozen years. This was a black Skye terrier, a present from Sir Walter Simpson, after whom he was called, until 4 Wattie’ had passed into ‘ Woggs,’ and finally became unrecognisable as ‘ Bogue.’ In Heriot Row every dog worshipped Thomas Stevenson (with the sole exception of ‘Jura,’ who was alienated by jealousy) and so Louis never had a dog until now who really regarded him as owner. But Woggs was a person of great character, with views and a temper of his own, entirely devoted to his master and mistress, and at odds with the world at large.

  In London, Dr. Andrew Clark confirmed both the opinion and the advice which had been given, and a few days only were spent in seeing Stevenson’s friends, who now found their first opportunity to welcome him back and to make the acquaintance of his wife.

  CHAPTER IX

  DAVOS AND THE HIGHLANDS — 1880-82

  ‘ A mountain valley, an Alpine winter, and an invalid’s weakness make up among them a prison of the most effective kind.’

  R. L. S. Pall Mall Gazette, 21st February 1881.

  By the middle of October the party again started, made a journey broken by frequent halts, and on the fourth of November reached Davos Platz, where they were to spend the winter. They took up their quarters in the Hotel Belvedere, the nucleus of the present large establishment, and there they stayed until the following April.

  The great feature of the place for Stevenson was the presence of John Addington Symonds, who, having come there three years before on his way to Egypt, had taken up his abode in Davos, and was now building himself a house. To him the new-comer bore a letter of introduction from Mr. Gosse. On November 5 th Louis wrote to his mother: 4 We got to Davos last evening; and I feel sure we shall like it greatly. I saw Symonds this morning, and already like him; it is such sport to have a literary man around. My father can understand me, when he thinks what it would be to come up here for a winter and find Tait.1 Symonds is like a Tait to me; eternal interest in the same topics, eternal cross-causewaying of special knowledge. That makes hours to fly.’

  1 Professor P. G. Tait, the eminent man of science, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, 1860-1901: a close friend of Thomas Stevenson.

  And a little later he wrote: 4 Beyond its splendid climate, Davos has but one advantage — the neighbourhood of J. A. Symonds. I dare say you know his work, but the man is far more interesting.’1

  This first winter Stevenson produced but little. He arrived full of eagerness to begin his Scottish history, but a little study and reflection, following upon his newfound enthusiasm for the parts of Scotland where he had been staying, had fixed his attention exclusively upon one section of his original subject, and for the time he limited his view to a history of the Highlands extending from 1715 to his own day. ‘I breathe after this Highland business,’ he wrote in December, ‘feeling a real, fresh, lively, and modern subject, full of romance and scientific interest in front of me. It is likely it will turn into a long essay.’

  Even this, it seemed, was beyond his powers for the present. The doctor in a few weeks spoke hopefully of his case, but the climate, though beneficial in the long run, was not at first conducive to any deliberate effort. Of the sen
sations produced in himself, Stevenson has left an analysis2 that may be contrasted with the moods of the convalescent in Ordered South.

  ‘. . . In many ways it is a trying business to reside upon the Alps.. . . But one thing is undeniable — that in the rare air, clear, cold, and blinding light of Alpine winters, a man takes a certain troubled delight in his existence, which can nowhere else be paralleled. He is perhaps no happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, perhaps, come out of him in work or exercise, yet he feels an enthusiasm of the blood unknown in more temperate climates. It may not be health, but it is fun.

  ‘There is nothing more difficult to communicate on paper than this baseless ardour, this stimulation of the brain, this sterile joyousness of spirits. You wake every 1 Dictionary of National Biography, sub 1 Symonds.’

  2 Pall Mall Gazette, 5th March 1881,4 The Stimulation of the Alps.’

  morning, see the gold upon the snow-peaks, become tilled with courage, and bless God for your prolonged existence. The valleys are but a stride to you; you cast your shoe over the hill-tops; your ears and your heart sing; in the words of an unverified quotation from the Scotch psalms, you feel yourself fit “on the wings of all the winds” to “ come flying all abroad.” Europe and your mind are too narrow for that flood of energy. Yet it is notable that you are hard to root out of your bed; that you start forth singing, indeed, on your walk, yet are unusually ready to turn home again; that the best of you is volatile; and that although the restlessness remains till night, the strength is early at an end. With all these heady jollities, you are half conscious of an underlying languor in the body; you prove not to be so well as you had fancied; you weary before you have well begun; and though you mount at morning with the lark, that is not precisely a song-bird’s heart that you bring back with you when you return with aching limbs and peevish temper to your inn.