Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Its author, at all events, did not lose his head or overestimate his merits. Writing to his parents he says: ‘This gives one strange thoughts of how very bad the common run of books must be; and generally all the books that the wiseacres think too bad to print are the very ones that bring me praise and pudding.’

  One link with the past had snapped, one friendship had vanished, and Stevenson was looking forward all the more eagerly to seeing two of his oldest friends, Mr. Henley and Mr. Baxter, who were coming out to spend a long-promised holiday with him. Before it could begin, Prince Otto ought to be finished, and to this end he devoted all his powers. The New Year came, his friends arrived at Hyeres, and for about a week he enjoyed the delights to which he had looked forward But the house was too small for their reception, and Stevenson proposed that they should all go away together to some other place, that he might share with them the benefit of a change. Accordingly the party of four went to Nice, and there almost at once Stevenson took cold. At first it seemed slight, and his friends who were due to return home went away without thought of anxiety. The cold, however, resulted in congestion of the lungs, and suddenly the situation became grave. ‘ At a consultation of doctors,’ Mrs. Stevenson says, 11 was told there was no hope, and I had better send for some member of the family to be with me at the end. Bob Stevenson came, and I can never be grateful enough for what he did for me then. He helped me to nurse Louis, and he kept me from despair as I believe no one else could have done; he inspired me with hope when there seemed no hope.’

  Very slowly he grew better; it was some time before he was out of danger, and a month before he was able to set foot outside the house; but at last they returned to La Solitude. Before his return he wrote in answer to his mother’s inquiries: * I survived, where a stronger man would not. There were never two opinions as to my immediate danger; of course it was chuck-farthing for my life. That is over, and I have only weakness to contend against. . . . Z told me to leave off wine, to regard myself as “ an old man,” and to “ sit by my fire.” None of which I wish to do. . . . As for my general health, as for my consumption, we can learn nothing till Vidal1 sees me, but I believe the harm is little, my lungs are so tough.’

  This illness, however, marked the beginning of a new and protracted period of ill-health, which lasted with but little intermission until he had left Europe.

  Miss Ferrier, his friend’s sister, came out at this time and stayed with them until their return to England, proving an unfailing support to them in their increasing troubles. For in the first week in May Stevenson was attacked with the most violent and dangerous hemorrhage he ever experienced. It occurred late at night, but in a moment his wife was by his side. Being choked with the flow of blood and unable to speak, he made signs to her for a paper and pencil, and wrote in a neat firm hand, ‘ Don’t be frightened; if this is death, it is an easy one.’ Mrs. Stevenson had always a small bottle of ergotin and 1 His own extremely clever doctor at Hyeres.

  a minim glass in readiness; these she brought in order to administer the prescribed quantity. Seeing her alarm, he took bottle and glass away from her, measured the dose correctly with a perfectly steady hand, and gave the things back to her with a reassuring smile.

  Recovery was very slow and attended by numerous complications, less dangerous, but even more painful than the original malady. The dust of street refuse gave him Egyptian ophthalmia, and sciatica descending upon him caused him the more pain, as he was suffering already from restlessness. The hemorrhage was not yet healed, and We now hear for the first time of the injunctions to absolute silence, orders patiently obeyed, distasteful as they were. In silence and the dark, and in acute suffering, he was still cheery and undaunted. When the ophthalmia began and the doctor first announced his diagnosis, Mrs. Stevenson felt that it was more than any one could be expected to bear, and went into another room, and there, in her own phrase, ‘sat and gloomed.’ Louis rang his bell and she went to him, saying, in the bitterness of her spirit, as she entered the room,’ Well, I suppose that this is the very best thing that could have happened!’ ‘ Why, how odd!’ wrote Louis on a piece of paper,’ I was just going to say those very words.’ When darkness fell upon him and silence was imposed, and his right arm was in a sling on account of the hemorrhage, his wife used to amuse him for part of the day by making up tales, some of which they afterwards used in the Dynamiter; when these were at an end, he continued the Child’s Garden, writing down the new verses for himself in the dim light with his left hand. And at this time he wrote the best of all his poems, the ‘ Requiem’ beginning ‘ Under the wide and starry sky,’ which ten years later was to mark his grave upon the lonely hill-top in Samoa.

  When he got a little better he wrote to his mother,’ I

  do nothing but play patience and write verse, the true sign of my decadence.’ With careful nursing he began to mend. Here, as everywhere, he excited the utmost sympathy, which manifested itself sometimes in embarrassing and unexpected ways. ‘The washerwoman’s little boy brought, of all things in the world, a canary to amuse the sick gentleman! Fortunately it doesn’t sing, or it would drive the sick gentleman mad.’

  Thomas Stevenson was in too precarious health even to be told of his son’s illness, but the two friends who had visited Louis at Nice in January took counsel and on their own responsibility sent their doctor from London to see what could be done, and at any rate to learn the exact condition of the patient. In a few days Mrs. Stevenson was able to write to her mother-in-law: —

  May 1884.] — . . . The doctor says, “Keep him alive till he is forty, and then although a winged bird, he may live to ninety.” But between now and forty he must live as though he were walking on eggs, and for the next two years, no matter how well he feels, he must live the life of an invalid. He must be perfectly tranquil, trouble about nothing, have no shocks or surprises, not even pleasant ones; must not eat too much, drink too much, laugh too much; may write a little, but not too much; talk very little, and walk no more than can be helped.’

  His recovery was steady and satisfactory; with great caution and by the aid of a courier the party made their way to Royat without mishap early in June. For a moment Stevenson turned his thoughts reluctantly towards Davos, and then wrote to his mother announcing his return to England in order to obtain a final medical opinion upon his health and prospects. The only course before him apparently was to ‘ live the life of a delicate girl’ until he was forty. But uncongenial

  as this seemed, his spirits were as high as ever, and he signed the letter with a string of names worthy of Bunyan’s own invention—’ I am, yours,

  Mr. Muddler.

  Mr. Addlehead.

  Mr. Wandering Butterwits.

  Mr. Shiftless Inconsistency.

  Sir Indecision Contentment.’

  The journey was safely accomplished, and Stevenson and his wife reached England on the ist of July, the day before the first representation on the London stage of Deacon Brodie.

  VOLUME II

  CHAPTER XI

  BOURNEMOUTH — 1884-87

  “This is the study where a smiling

  God Beholds each day my stage of labour trod,

  And smiles and praises, and I hear him say:

  ‘ The day is brief; be diligent in play.’”

  R. L. S.

  THE next three years Stevenson was to spend in England — the only time he was ever resident in this country — and then Europe was to see him no more. At first sight the chronicle of this time would seem to be more full of interest than any other period of his life. Treasure Island, his “first book,” had just been given to the world; the year after his return A Child’s Garden of Verses and Prince Otto were published, and Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped appeared in the following year. To have written almost any one of these brilliant yet widely dissimilar books would be to challenge the attention of the most distinguished contemporary men of letters; and to meet Stevenson at this time was instantly to acknowledge the quality and ch
arm of the man and the strong fascination of his talk. For the whole of the period he made his home at Bournemouth, within easy reach of London visitors; and in London itself Mr. Colvin (who had now become Keeper of Prints at the British Museum) not only had a house always open to him, but delighted to bring together those who by their own powers were best fitted to appreciate his society.

  Yet the reality is disappointing To produce brilliant writings it is not necessary at the time to live an exciting or even a very full life, and Stevenson’s health deprived him more and more of the ordinary incidents which happen to most men in their daily course. Looking back on this period in after-days, he cries out: “ Remember the pallid brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit.” Nearly all the time which was not devoted to contending with illness was taken up with his work, and as he rarely left home without returning in a more or less disabled condition, he stayed in his own house and led the most retired of lives. Even there it was no uncommon experience for a visitor who had come to Bournemouth specially to see him to find himself put to the door, either on the ground of having a cold, to the contagion of which it was unsafe for Stevenson to be exposed, or because his host was already too ill to receive him.

  But this is to anticipate matters. On his return from Royat he was unable to be present at the matinee on July 2nd, at the Prince’s Theatre,1 when the Deacon was played by Mr. Henley’s brother. The play had been given at Bradford eighteen months before, and during the summer of 1883 had been acted by a travelling company some forty times in Scotland and the North of England without any marked success. It was in the gallery of one of the houses where it was performed that the complaint was heard during the performance of another piece: “ A dunna what’s coom to Thayter Royal. Thar’s been na good moorder there for last six months and the Deacon’s fate may not have 1 Now the Prince of Wales’ Theatre.

  been up to the usual standard. The play was now received in London with interest, and regarded as full of promise by critics who knew better what to expect of it, but the lack of stage experience told against it, and it has not been revived in this country.

  Having passed a few days in a hotel at Richmond, Stevenson and his wife went down to Bournemouth, where Lloyd Osbourne had for some months past been at school. After staying at a hotel, and trying first one and then another set of lodgings on the West Cliff, at the end of October they migrated into a furnished house in Branksome Park. The doctors whom he consulted were equally divided in their opinions, two saying it would be safe for him to stay in this country, while two advised him to go abroad; and in the end he yielded only to the desire to be near his father, who, though still at work, was evidently failing fast.

  Meanwhile the first two months at Bournemouth were spent chiefly in the company of Mr. Henley, and were devoted to collaboration over two new plays. The reception of Deacon Brodie had been sufficiently promising to serve as an incentive to write a piece which should be a complete success, and so to grasp some of the rewards which now seemed within reach of the authors. They had never affected to disregard the fact that in this country the prizes of the dramatist are out of all proportion to the payment of the man of letters, and already in 1883 Stevenson had written to his father: “The theatre is the gold-mine; and on that I must keep an eye.” Now that they were again able to meet, and to be constantly together, the friends embarked upon some of the schemes they had projected long ago, and no doubt had talked over at Nice at the beginning of the year. By October the drafts of Beau Austin and Admiral Guinea1 were completed and set up in type; and in the following spring, at the suggestion of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the two collaborators again set to work and produced their English version of Macaire.

  These were to have been but the beginning of their labours, but more necessary work intervened, and the plays were never resumed.2

  It may be convenient here to round off the history of Stevenson’s dramatic writings: early in 1887 he helped his wife with a play, Tbe Hanging Judge, which was not completed at the time and has never yet been printed. Except for an unfinished fragment, intended for home representation at Vailima, he never again turned his hand to any work for the stage. Beau Austin was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1890, Admiral Guinea and Macaire have since been performed, and all the plays written in partnership with Mr. Henley have thus been seen upon the stage, though 1 Letters, ii. 362.

  2 A list in Stevenson’s writing shows some of their projects at the time, though it is certain that these had not been worked out, and we may doubt whether they would ever have been seriously considered. “ Farmer George” was to have covered the whole reign of George the Third, ending with a scene in which the mad king recovered for a while his reason: —

  Deacon Brodie: Drama in Four Acts and Ten Tableaux.

  Beau Austin: Play in Four Acts.

  Admiral Guinea: Melodrama in Four Acts.

  Honour and Arms: Drama in Three Acts and Five Tableaux.

  The King of Clubs: Drama in Four Acts. none of them have kept it. The want of practical stage-craft may partly be to blame, and it must be remembered that Stevenson, at any rate, had not been inside a theatre since his return from America; but their chief interest lies in their literary quality, and it is to be feared that Mr. Archer was premature in his declaration that the production of Beau Austin showed triumphantly that “the aroma of literature can be brought over the footlights with stimulating and exhilarating effect.”1

  As soon as the two finished plays were laid aside, husband and wife began to put together the second series of New Arabian Nigbts from the stories which Mrs. Stevenson had made up to while away the hours of illness at Hyeres. Stevenson wrote the passages relating to Prince Florizel and collaborated in the remainder; but the only complete story of his invention in the book was “ The Explosive Bomb “: by which he designed “ to make dynamite ridiculous, if he could not make it horrible.” Meanwhile, on receiving an application from the pro-

  Pepys’ Diary: Comedy.

  The Admirable Crichton: Romantic Comedy in Five Acts.

  Ajax: Drama in Four Acts.

  The Passing of Vanderdecken: (Legend!) in Four Acts.

  Farmer George: Historical Play in Five Acts.

  The Gunpowder Plot: Historical Play in Marcus Aurelius: Historical Play The Atheists: Comedy.

  The Mother-in-Law: Drama.

  Madam Fate: Drama in a Prologue and Four Acts.

  Madam Destiny: 1 The World, 12th November, 1890. prietor of the Pall Mall Gazette for a Christmas story, he attempted to produce a new tale for the occasion. It proved, however, what, in the slang of the studio, he called a “machine,” and “Markheim,” which was now ready, being too short, as a last resource he bethought himself of “The Body Snatcher,” one of the “tales of horror” written at Pitlochry in 1881, and then “laid aside in a justifiable disgust.” It was not one of his greater achievements, and would probably have excited little comment, had it not been for the gruesome and unauthorized methods of advertisement.

  Soon afterwards he successfully concluded negotiations for a Life of the Duke of Wellington, which he was commissioned to write for the series of “English Worthies,” edited by Mr. Andrew Lang. The military genius of the strategist had long dazzled Stevenson, who had also been deeply fascinated by the study of his character. I will not say that to him the man who wrote the Letters to Miss J. was as remarkable as the victor of Waterloo, but it is certain that the great soldier became twice as interesting on account of that marvellous correspondence. According to Mr. Gosse, special emphasis was to be given to the humour of Wellington, and certainly the biography was by no means to be restricted to his military career. Three years before, Stevenson had written to his father about a book on George the Fourth, perhaps the Greville Memoirs: “ What a picture of Hell! Yet the punishment of the end seemed more, if possible, than he had deserved. Iron-handed Wellington crushing him in his fingers; contempt, insult, disease, terror — what a haunted, despicable scene!” The book, however, alth
ough it was in Stevenson’s mind for several years and was advertised as “ in preparation,” was never written, or, so far as I know, even begun. Not the least interesting part of the whole story is the picture of Stevenson sitting down to address a letter of inquiries to Mr. Gladstone, for whose political career he had always the most complete aversion, and finding himself, somewhat to his dismay, overcome with an involuntary reverence for the statesman who embodied so much of England’s past.

  Casting about for a new story, he turned in February to the highroad, that to him and to his father before him had for long been one of the richest fields of romance. When, to his delight, he had first found his powers of narrative in Treasure Island, and discovered what possibilities May before him of writing for boys the kind of stories he liked himself, he announced with glee to Mr. Henley that his next book was to be “Jerry Abershaw: A Tale of Putney Heath.”1 He was also to write “The Squaw Men: or, The Wild West,” and of this one chapter was actually drafted. The new venture was, however, called “The Great North Road,” but, like St. Ives in later days, it rapidly increased in proportions and in difficulty of management. So at the end of the eighth chapter it was relinquished for Kidnapped and apparently dropped out of sight. Already in its beginnings it showed an increase of skill in dealing with Nance Holdaway, who foreshadowed other heroines yet to come.

  By the end of January so successful had the winter 1 Letters, i. 223. Cf. “ A Gossip on Romance.” been that Thomas Stevenson bought a house at Bournemouth as a present for his daughter-in-law. Its name was forthwith changed to Skerryvore, in commemoration of the most difficult and beautiful of all the lighthouses erected by the family.1 It was no great distance from where they were already living: a modern brick house, closely covered with ivy; and from the top windows it was possible to catch a glimpse of the sea. There was half an acre of ground, very charmingly arranged, running down from the lawn at the back, past a bank of heather, into a chine or small ravine full of rhododendrons, and at the bottom a tiny stream.