A climate of surprising worth;
Innumerable dogs that bark;
Some air, some weather, and some earth;
A native race — God save the mark! —
A race that works, yet cannot work,
Yodels, but cannot yodel right,
Such as, unhelp’d, with rusty dirk,
I vow that I could wholly smite.
A river that from morn to night
Down all the valley plays the fool;
Not once she pauses in her flight,
Nor knows the comfort of a pool;
But still keeps up, by straight or bend,
The selfsame pace she hath begun —
Still hurry, hurry, to the end —
Good God, is that the way to run?
If I a river were, I hope
That I should better realise
The opportunities and scope
Of that romantic enterprise.
I should not ape the merely strange,
But aim besides at the divine;
And continuity and change
I still should labour to combine.
Here should I gallop down the race,
Here charge the sterling like a bull;
There, as a man might wipe his face,
Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.
But what, my Dew, in idle mood,
What prate I, minding not my debt?
What do I talk of bad or good?
The best is still a cigarette.
Me whether evil fate assault,
Or smiling providences crown —
Whether on high the eternal vault
Be blue, or crash with thunder down —
I judge the best, whate’er befall,
Is still to sit on one’s behind,
And, having duly moistened all,
Smoke with an unperturbed mind.
R. L. S.
To Thomas Stevenson
R. L. S. here sketches for his father the plan of the work on Highland history which they had discussed together in the preceding summer, and which Principal Tulloch had urged him to attempt.
Hotel Belvedere, Davos [December 12, 1880].
MY DEAR FATHER, — Here is the scheme as well as I can foresee. I begin the book immediately after the ‘15, as then began the attempt to suppress the Highlands.
I. Thirty Years’ Interval
(1) Rob Roy.
(2) The Independent Companies: the Watches.
(3) Story of Lady Grange.
(4) The Military Roads, and Disarmament: Wadeand
(5) Burt.
II. The Heroic Age
(1) Duncan Forbes of Culloden.
(2) Flora Macdonald.
(3) The Forfeited Estates; including Hereditary Jurisdictions; and the admirable conduct of the tenants.
III. Literature here intervenes
(1) The Ossianic Controversy.
(2) Boswell and Johnson.
(3) Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
IV. Economy
(1) Highland Economics.
(2) The Reinstatement of the Proprietors.
(3) The Evictions.
(4) Emigration.
(5) Present State.
V. Religion
(1) The Catholics, Episcopals, and Kirk, and Soc. Prop. Christ. Knowledge.
(2) The Men.
(3) The Disruption.
All this, of course, will greatly change in form, scope, and order; this is just a bird’s-eye glance. Thank you for Burt, which came, and for your Union notes. I have read one-half (about 900 pages) of Wodrow’s Correspondence, with some improvement, but great fatigue. The doctor thinks well of my recovery, which puts me in good hope for the future. I should certainly be able to make a fine history of this.
My Essays are going through the press, and should be out in January or February. — Ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
To Sidney Colvin
[Hotel Belvedere, Davos, December 1880]
MY DEAR COLVIN, — I feel better, but variable. I see from the doctor’s report that I have more actual disease than I supposed; but there seems little doubt of my recovery. I like the place and shall like it much better when you come at Christmas. That is written on my heart: S. C. comes at Christmas: so if you play me false, I shall have a lie upon my conscience. I like Symonds very well, though he is much, I think, of an invalid in mind and character. But his mind is interesting, with 292 many beautiful corners, and his consumptive smile very winning to see. We have had some good talks; one went over Zola, Balzac, Flaubert, Whitman, Christ, Handel, Milton, Sir Thomas Browne; do you see the liaison? — in another, I, the Bohnist, the un-Grecian, was the means of his conversion in the matter of the Ajax. It is truly not for nothing that I have read my Buckley.
To-day the south wind blows; and I am seedy in consequence.
Later. — I want to know when you are coming, so as to get you a room. You will toboggan and skate your head off, and I will talk it off, and briefly if you don’t come pretty soon, I will cut you off with a shilling.
It would be handsome of you to write. The doctor says I may be as well as ever; but in the meantime I go slow and am fit for little. — Ever yours,
R. L. S.
To Edmund Gosse
The suggestions contained in the following two letters to Mr. Gosse refer to the collection of English Odes which that gentleman was then engaged in editing (Kegan Paul, 1881).
Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [Dec. 6, 1880].
MY DEAR WEG, — I have many letters that I ought to write in preference to this; but a duty to letters and to you prevails over any private consideration. You are going to collect odes; I could not wish a better man to do so; but I tremble lest you should commit two sins of omission. You will not, I am sure, be so far left to yourself as to give us no more of Dryden than the hackneyed St. Cecilia; I know you will give us some others of those surprising masterpieces where there is more sustained eloquence and harmony of English numbers than in all that has been written since; there is a machine about a poetical young lady, and another about either Charles or 293 James, I know not which; and they are both indescribably fine. (Is Marvell’s Horatian Ode good enough? I half think so.) But my great point is a fear that you are one of those who are unjust to our old Tennyson’s Duke of Wellington. I have just been talking it over with Symonds; and we agreed that whether for its metrical effects, for its brief, plain, stirring words of portraiture, as — he “that never lost an English gun,” or — the soldier salute; or for the heroic apostrophe to Nelson; that ode has never been surpassed in any tongue or time. Grant me the Duke, O Weg! I suppose you must not put in yours about the warship; you will have to admit worse ones, however. — Ever yours,
R. L. S.
To Edmund Gosse
Hotel Belvedere, Davos, Dec. 19, 1880.
This letter is a report of a long sederunt, also steterunt, in small committee at Davos Platz, Dec. 15, 1880. Its results are unhesitatingly shot at your head.
MY DEAR WEG, — We both insist on the Duke of Wellington. Really it cannot be left out. Symonds said you would cover yourself with shame, and I add, your friends with confusion, if you leave it out. Really, you know it is the only thing you have, since Dryden, where that irregular odic, odal, odous (?) verse is used with mastery and sense. And it’s one of our few English blood-boilers.
(2) Byron: if anything: Prometheus.
(3) Shelley (1) The World’s Great Age from Hellas; we are both dead on. After that you have, of course, The West Wind thing. But we think (1) would maybe be enough; no more than two any way.
(4) Herrick. Meddowes and Come, my Corinna. After that Mr. Wickes: two any way.
(5) Leave out stanza 3rd of Congreve’s thing, like a dear; we can’t stand the “sigh” nor the “peruke.”
(6) Milton. Time and the Solemn Music. We both agree we would rather go without L’Allegro and Il Penseroso than these; for the reason that these are not so well known to the brutish herd.<
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(7) Is the Royal George an ode, or only an elegy? It’s so good.
(8) We leave Campbell to you.
(9) If you take anything from Clough, but we don’t either of us fancy you will, let it be Come back.
(10) Quite right about Dryden. I had a hankering after Threnodia Augustalis; but I find it long and with very prosaic holes: though, O! what fine stuff between whiles.
(11) Right with Collins.
(12) Right about Pope’s Ode. But what can you give? The Dying Christian? or one of his inimitable courtesies? These last are fairly odes, by the Horatian model, just as my dear Meddowes is an ode in the name and for the sake of Bandusia.
(13) Whatever you do, you’ll give us the Greek Vase.
(14) Do you like Jonson’s “loathed stage”? Verses 2, 3, and 4 are so bad, also the last line. But there is a fine movement and feeling in the rest.
We will have the Duke of Wellington by God. Pro Symonds and Stevenson.
R. L. S.
To Charles Warren Stoddard
The prospect here alluded to of a cheap edition of the little travel-books did not get realised. The volume of essays in the printer’s hands was Virginibus Puerisque. I do not know what were the pages in broad Scots copied by way of enclosure.
Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [December 1880].
DEAR CHARLES WARREN STODDARD, — Many thanks to you for the letter and the photograph. Will you think it mean if I ask you to wait till there appears a promised 295 cheap edition? Possibly the canny Scot does feel pleasure in the superior cheapness; but the true reason is this, that I think to put a few words, by way of notes, to each book in its new form, because that will be the Standard Edition, without which no g.’s l. will be complete. The edition, briefly, sine qua non. Before that, I shall hope to send you my essays, which are in the printer’s hands. I look to get yours soon. I am sorry to hear that the Custom House has proved fallible, like all other human houses and customs. Life consists of that sort of business, and I fear that there is a class of man, of which you offer no inapt type, doomed to a kind of mild, general disappointment through life. I do not believe that a man is the more unhappy for that. Disappointment, except with one’s self, is not a very capital affair; and the sham beatitude, “Blessed is he that expecteth little,” one of the truest, and in a sense, the most Christlike things in literature.
Alongside of you, I have been all my days a red cannon ball of dissipated effort; here I am by the heels in this Alpine valley, with just so much of a prospect of future restoration as shall make my present caged estate easily tolerable to me — shall or should, I would not swear to the word before the trial’s done. I miss all my objects in the meantime; and, thank God, I have enough of my old, and maybe somewhat base philosophy, to keep me on a good understanding with myself and Providence.
The mere extent of a man’s travels has in it something consolatory. That he should have left friends and enemies in many different and distant quarters gives a sort of earthly dignity to his existence. And I think the better of myself for the belief that I have left some in California interested in me and my successes. Let me assure you, you who have made friends already among such various and distant races, that there is a certain 296 phthisical Scot who will always be pleased to hear good news of you, and would be better pleased by nothing than to learn that you had thrown off your present incubus, largely consisting of letters I believe, and had sailed into some square work by way of change.
And by way of change in itself, let me copy on the other pages some broad Scotch I wrote for you when I was ill last spring in Oakland. It is no muckle worth: but ye should na look a gien horse in the moo’. — Yours ever,
R. L. Stevenson.
To Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Stevenson
The verses here mentioned to Dr. John Brown (the admired author of Rab and his Friends) were meant as a reply to a letter of congratulation on the Inland Voyage received from him the year before. They are printed in Underwoods.
Hotel Belvedere, Davos, December 21, 1880.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, — I do not understand these reproaches. The letters come between seven and nine in the evening; and every one about the books was answered that same night, and the answer left Davos by seven o’clock next morning. Perhaps the snow delayed them; if so, ‘tis a good hint to you not to be uneasy at apparent silences. There is no hurry about my father’s notes; I shall not be writing anything till I get home again, I believe. Only I want to be able to keep reading ad hoc all winter, as it seems about all I shall be fit for. About John Brown, I have been breaking my heart to finish a Scotch poem to him. Some of it is not really bad, but the rest will not come, and I mean to get it right before I do anything else.
The bazaar is over, £160 gained, and everybody’s health lost: altogether, I never had a more uncomfortable time; apply to Fanny for further details of the discomfort.
We have our Wogg in somewhat better trim now, and 297 vastly better spirits. The weather has been bad — for Davos, but indeed it is a wonderful climate. It never feels cold; yesterday, with a little, chill, small, northerly draught, for the first time, it was pinching. Usually, it may freeze, or snow, or do what it pleases, you feel it not, or hardly any.
Thanks for your notes; that fishery question will come in, as you notice, in the Highland Book, as well as under the Union; it is very important. I hear no word of Hugh Miller’s Evictions; I count on that. What you say about the old and new Statistical is odd. It seems to me very much as if I were gingerly embarking on a History of Modern Scotland. Probably Tulloch will never carry it out. And, you see, once I have studied and written these two vols., The Transformation of the Scottish Highlands and Scotland and the Union, I shall have a good ground to go upon. The effect on my mind of what I have read has been to awaken a livelier sympathy for the Irish; although they never had the remarkable virtues, I fear they have suffered many of the injustices, of the Scottish Highlanders. Ruedi has seen me this morning; he says the disease is at a standstill, and I am to profit by it to take more exercise. Altogether, he seemed quite hopeful and pleased. — I am your ever affectionate son,
R. L. S.
To Sidney Colvin
Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [Christmas 1880].
MY DEAR COLVIN, — Thanks for yours; I waited, as I said I would. I now expect no answer from you, regarding you as a mere dumb cock-shy, or a target, at which we fire our arrows diligently all day long, with no anticipation it will bring them back to us. We are both sadly mortified you are not coming, but health comes first; alas, that man should be so crazy. What fun we could have, if we were all well, what work we could do, what a 298 happy place we could make it for each other! If I were able to do what I want; but then I am not, and may leave that vein.
No. I do not think I shall require to know the Gaelic; few things are written in that language, or ever were; if you come to that, the number of those who could write, or even read it, through almost all my period, must, by all accounts, have been incredibly small. Of course, until the book is done, I must live as much as possible in the Highlands, and that suits my book as to health. It is a most interesting and sad story, and from the ‘45 it is all to be written for the first time. This, of course, will cause me a far greater difficulty about authorities; but I have already learned much, and where to look for more. One pleasant feature is the vast number of delightful writers I shall have to deal with: Burt, Johnson, Boswell, Mrs. Grant of Laggan, Scott. There will be interesting sections on the Ossianic controversy and the growth of the taste for Highland scenery. I have to touch upon Rob Roy, Flora Macdonald, the strange story of Lady Grange, the beautiful story of the tenants on the Forfeited Estates, and the odd, inhuman problem of the great evictions. The religious conditions are wild, unknown, very surprising. And three out of my five parts remain hitherto entirely unwritten. Smack! — Yours ever,
R. L. S.
To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson
Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [December 26, 1880]. Christmas Sermon.
/> MY DEAR MOTHER, — I was very tired yesterday and could not write; tobogganed so furiously all morning; we had a delightful day, crowned by an incredible dinner — more courses than I have fingers on my hands. Your letter arrived duly at night, and I thank you for it as I should. You need not suppose I am at all insensible to 299 my father’s extraordinary kindness about this book; he is a brick; I vote for him freely.
... The assurance you speak of is what we all ought to have, and might have, and should not consent to live without. That people do not have it more than they do is, I believe, because persons speak so much in large-drawn, theological similitudes, and won’t say out what they mean about life, and man, and God, in fair and square human language. I wonder if you or my father ever thought of the obscurities that lie upon human duty from the negative form in which the Ten Commandments are stated, or of how Christ was so continually substituting affirmations. “Thou shalt not” is but an example; “Thou shalt” is the law of God. It was this that seems meant in the phrase that “not one jot nor tittle of the law should pass.” But what led me to the remark is this: A kind of black, angry look goes with that statement of the law of negatives. “To love one’s neighbour as oneself” is certainly much harder, but states life so much more actively, gladly, and kindly, that you can begin to see some pleasure in it; and till you can see pleasure in these hard choices and bitter necessities, where is there any Good News to men? It is much more important to do right than not to do wrong; further, the one is possible, the other has always been and will ever be impossible; and the faithful design to do right is accepted by God; that seems to me to be the Gospel, and that was how Christ delivered us from the Law. After people are told that, surely they might hear more encouraging sermons. To blow the trumpet for good would seem the Parson’s business; and since it is not in our own strength, but by faith and perseverance (no account made of slips), that we are to run the race, I do not see where they get the material for their gloomy discourses. Faith is not to believe the Bible, but to believe in God; if you believe in God (or, for it’s the same thing, have that assurance you speak about), where is there any more room for 300 terror? There are only three possible attitudes — Optimism, which has gone to smash; Pessimism, which is on the rising hand, and very popular with many clergymen who seem to think they are Christians. And this Faith, which is the Gospel. Once you hold the last, it is your business (1) to find out what is right in any given case, and (2) to try to do it; if you fail in the last, that is by commission, Christ tells you to hope; if you fail in the first, that is by omission, his picture of the last day gives you but a black lookout. The whole necessary morality is kindness; and it should spring, of itself, from the one fundamental doctrine, Faith. If you are sure that God, in the long run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if happy, surely you should be kind.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) Page 719