Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
Page 743
God knows where I am driving to. But here comes my lunch.
Which interruption, happily for you, seems to have stayed the issue. I have now nothing to say, that had formerly such a pressure of twaddle. Pray don’t fail to come this summer. It will be a great disappointment, now it has been spoken of, if you do, — Yours ever,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
To F. W. H. Myers
In reply to a paper of criticisms on Jekyll and Hyde.
Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1st, 1886.
MY DEAR SIR, — I know not how to thank you: this is as handsome as it is clever. With almost every word I agree — much of it I even knew before — much of it, I must confess, would never have been, if I had been able to do what I like, and lay the thing by for the matter of a year. But the wheels of Byles the Butcher drive exceeding swiftly, and Jekyll was conceived, written, re-written, re-rewritten, and printed inside ten weeks. Nothing but this white-hot haste would explain the gross error of Hyde’s speech at Lanyon’s. Your point about the specialised fiend is more subtle, but not less just: I had not seen it. — About the picture, I rather meant that Hyde had brought it himself; and Utterson’s hypothesis of the gift () an error. — The tidiness of the room, I thought, but I dare say my psychology is here too ingenious to be sound, was due to the dread weariness and horror of the imprisonment. Something has to be done: he would tidy the room. But I dare say it is false.
I shall keep your paper; and if ever my works come to be collected, I will put my back into these suggestions. In the meanwhile, I do truly lack words in which to express my sense of gratitude for the trouble you have taken. The receipt of such a paper is more than a reward for my labours. I have read it with pleasure, and as I say, I hope to use it with profit. — Believe me, your most obliged,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
To W. H. Low
The following letter relates to a suggestion which Mr. Gilder, as editor of the Century Magazine, had already made in the Hyères time nearly three years previously, and had now lately revived, that Stevenson and his friend Mr. W. H. Low should make a joint excursion down the Saône and Rhone, the result to be a book written by R. L. S. and illustrated by Mr. Low. Considerations of health caused the plan to be promptly abandoned for the second time.
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886.]
MY DEAR LOW, — This is the most enchanting picture. Now understand my state: I am really an invalid, but of a mysterious order. I might be a malade imaginaire, but for one too tangible symptom, my tendency to bleed from the lungs. If we could go (1st) We must have money enough to travel with leisure and comfort — especially the first. (2nd) You must be prepared for a comrade who would go to bed some part of every day and often stay silent. (3rd) You would have to play the part of a thoughtful courier, sparing me fatigue, looking out that my bed was warmed, etc. (4th) If you are very nervous, you must recollect a bad hemorrhage is always on the cards, with its concomitants of anxiety and horror for those who are beside me.
Do you blench? If so, let us say no more about it.
If you are still unafraid, and the money were forthcoming, I believe the trip might do me good, and I feel sure that, working together, we might produce a fine book. 186 The Rhone is the river of Angels. I adore it: have adored it since I was twelve, and first saw it from the train.
Lastly, it would depend on how I keep from now on. I have stood the winter hitherto with some credit, but the dreadful weather still continues, and I cannot holloa till I am through the wood.
Subject to these numerous and gloomy provisos, I embrace the prospect with glorious feelings.
I write this from bed, snow pouring without, and no circumstance of pleasure except your letter. That, however, counts for much. I am glad you liked the doggerel: I have already had a liberal cheque, over which I licked my fingers with a sound conscience. I had not meant to make money by these stumbling feet, but if it comes, it is only too welcome in my handsome but impecunious house.
Let me know soon what is to be expected — as far as it does not hang by that inconstant quantity, my want of health. Remember me to Madam with the best thanks and wishes; and believe me your friend,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
To Sidney Colvin
Written just before a visit to London; not, this time, as my guest at the British Museum, but to stay with his father at an hotel in Fitzroy Square.
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, — I have been reading the Vth and VIth Aeneid — the latter for the first time — and am overpowered. That is one of the most astonishing pieces of literature, or rather it contains the best, I ever met with. We are all damned small fry, and Virgil is one of the tops of human achievement; I never appreciated this; you should have a certain age to feel this; it is no book for boys, who grind under the lack of enterprise and dash, and pass ignorantly over miracles of performance that leave an old hoary-headed practitioner like me stricken 187 down with admiration. Even as a boy, the Sibyl would have bust me; but I never read the VIth till I began it two days ago; it is all fresh and wonderful; do you envy me? If only I knew any Latin! if you had a decent edition with notes — many notes — I should like well to have it; mine is a damned Didot with not the ghost of a note, type that puts my eyes out, and (I suspect) no very splendid text — but there, the carnal feelings of the man who can’t construe are probably parents to the suspicion.
My dear fellow, I would tenfold rather come to the Monument; but my father is an old man, and if I go to town, it shall be (this time) for his pleasure. He has many marks of age, some of childhood; I wish this knighthood business could come off, though even the talk of it has been already something, but the change (to my eyes) is thoroughly begun; and a very beautiful, simple, honourable, high-spirited and child-like (and childish) man is now in process of deserting us piecemeal. Si quis piorum — God knows, not that he was pious, but he did his hand’s darg or tried to do it; and if not, — well, it is a melancholy business. — Yours ever,
R. L. S.
To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin
The first letter showing Stevenson’s new interest in the technicalities of music.
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, March 1886.]
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN, — I try to tell myself it is good nature, but I know it is vanity that makes me write.
I have drafted the first part of Chapter VI., Fleeming and his friends, his influence on me, his views on religion and literature, his part at the Savile; it should boil down to about ten pages, and I really do think it admirably good. It has so much evoked Fleeming for myself that I found my conscience stirred just as it used to be after a serious talk with him: surely that means it is good? I had to write and tell you, being alone.
I have excellent news of Fanny, who is much better for the change. My father is still very yellow, and very old, and very weak, but yesterday he seemed happier, and smiled, and followed what was said; even laughed, I think. When he came away, he said to me, “Take care of yourself, my dearie,” which had a strange sound of childish days, and will not leave my mind.
You must get Litolf’s Gavottes Célèbres: I have made another trover there: a musette of Lully’s. The second part of it I have not yet got the hang of; but the first — only a few bars! The gavotte is beautiful and pretty hard, I think, and very much of the period; and at the end of it, this musette enters with the most really thrilling effect of simple beauty. O — it’s first-rate. I am quite mad over it. If you find other books containing Lully, Rameau, Martini, please let me know; also you might tell me, you who know Bach, where the easiest is to be found. I write all morning, come down, and never leave the piano till about five; write letters, dine, get down again about eight, and never leave the piano till I go to bed. This is a fine life. — Yours most sincerely,
R. L. S.
If you get the musette (Lully’s), please tell me if I am right, and it was probably written for strings. Anyway, it is as neat as — as neat as Bach — on
the piano; or seems so to my ignorance.
I play much of the Rigadoon; but it’s strange, it don’t come off quite so well with me!
There is the first part of the musette copied (from memory, so I hope there’s nothing wrong). Is it not angelic? But it ought, of course, to have the gavotte before. The gavotte is in G, and ends on the keynote thus (if I remember): —
staccato, I think. Then you sail into the musette.
N.B. — Where I have put an “A” is that a dominant eleventh, or what? or just a seventh on the D? and if the latter, is that allowed? It sounds very funny. Never mind all my questions; if I begin about music (which is my leading ignorance and curiosity), I have always to babble questions: all my friends know me now, and take no notice whatever. The whole piece is marked allegro; but surely could easily be played too fast? The dignity must not be lost; the periwig feeling.
To Sidney Colvin
Written after his return from an excursion to Matlock with his father, following on their visit to London. “The verses” means Underwoods. The suppressed poem is that headed “To — — ,” afterwards printed in Songs of Travel.
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, — This is to announce to you, what I believe should have been done sooner, that we are at Skerryvore. We were both tired, and I was fighting my second cold, so we came straight through by the west.
We have a butler! He doesn’t buttle, but the point of the thing is the style. When Fanny gardens, he stands over her and looks genteel. He opens the door, and I am told waits at table. Well, what’s the odds; I shall have it on my tomb — ”He ran a butler.”
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He may have been this and that,
A drunkard or a guttler;
He may have been bald and fat —
At least he kept a butler.
He may have sprung from ill or well,
From Emperor or sutler;
He may be burning now in Hell —
On earth he kept a butler.
I want to tell you also that I have suppressed your poem. I shall send it you for yourself, and I hope you will agree with me that it was not good enough in point of view of merit, and a little too intimate as between you and me. I would not say less of you, my friend, but I scarce care to say so much in public while we live. A man may stand on his own head; it is not fair to set his friend on a pedestal.
The verses are now at press; I have written a damn fine ballad. — And I am, dear S. C., ever yours,
Tomnoddy.
To Thomas Stevenson
Want of health preventing the author at this time from carrying the adventures of David Balfour, as narrated in Kidnapped, through to their issue as originally designed, it was resolved to wind them up for the present with the discomfiture of the wicked uncle, leaving open the possibility of a sequel, which was supplied six years later in Catriona.
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April 1886.]
MY DEAR FATHER, — The David problem has to-day been decided. I am to leave the door open for a sequel if the public take to it, and this will save me from butchering a lot of good material to no purpose. Your letter from Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to see; the hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am for action quite unfit, and even a letter is beyond me; 191 so pray take these scraps at a vast deal more than their intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about David, Colvin agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it far the most human of my labours hitherto. As to whether the long-eared British public may take to it, all think it more than doubtful; I wish they would, for I could do a second volume with ease and pleasure, and Colvin thinks it sin and folly to throw away David and Alan Breck upon so small a field as this one. — Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. S.
To Miss Monroe
The next is in answer to criticisms on Prince Otto received from a lady correspondent in Chicago.
Skerryvore, Bournemouth, May 25th, 1886.
DEAR MISS MONROE, — (I hope I have this rightly) I must lose no time in thanking you for a letter singularly pleasant to receive. It may interest you to know that I read to the signature without suspecting my correspondent was a woman; though in one point (a reference to the Countess) I might have found a hint of the truth. You are not pleased with Otto; since I judge you do not like weakness; and no more do I. And yet I have more than tolerance for Otto, whose faults are the faults of weakness, but never of ignoble weakness, and who seeks before all to be both kind and just. Seeks, not succeeds. But what is man? So much of cynicism to recognise that nobody does right is the best equipment for those who do not wish to be cynics in good earnest. Think better of Otto, if my plea can influence you; and this I mean for your own sake — not his, poor fellow, as he will never learn your opinion; but for yours, because, as men go in this world (and women too), you will not go far wrong if you light upon so fine a fellow; and to light upon one and not perceive his merits is a calamity. In the flesh, of course, I mean; in the book the fault, of course, is with my 192 stumbling pen. Seraphina made a mistake about her Otto; it begins to swim before me dimly that you may have some traits of Seraphina?
With true ingratitude you see me pitch upon your exception; but it is easier to defend oneself gracefully than to acknowledge praise. I am truly glad that you should like my books; for I think I see from what you write that you are a reader worth convincing. Your name, if I have properly deciphered it, suggests that you may be also something of my countrywoman; for it is hard to see where Monroe came from, if not from Scotland. I seem to have here a double claim on your good nature: being myself pure Scotch and having appreciated your letter, make up two undeniable merits which, perhaps, if it should be quite without trouble, you might reward with your photograph. — Yours truly,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
To Sidney Colvin
Evidently written about the 10th of June, very soon after the decision of Mr. Gladstone to dissolve Parliament on the defeat of the Home Rule Bill (June 8). As to the Travelling Companion, see above, .
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, — I am in bed again — bloodie jackery and be damned to it. Lloyd is better, I think; and money matters better; only my rascal carcase, and the muddy and oily lees of what was once my immortal soul are in a poor and pitiful condition.
Litany
Damn
the political situation
“
you
“
me
and
“
Gladstone.
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I am a kind of dam home ruler, worse luck to it. I would support almost anything but that bill. How am I to vote? Great Cæsar’s Ghost! — Ever yours,
R. L. S.
O! the Travelling Companion won’t do; I am back on it entirely: it is a foul, gross, bitter, ugly daub, with lots of stuff in it, and no urbanity and no glee and no true tragedy — to the crows with it, a carrion tale! I will do no more carrion, I have done too much in this carrion epoch; I will now be clean; and by clean, I don’t mean any folly about purity, but such things as a healthy man with his bowels open shall find fit to see and speak about without a pang of nausea. — I am, yours,
A Repentant Dankist.
The lakeists, the drainists, the brookists, and the riverites; let me be a brookist, faute de mieux.
I did enjoy myself in town, and was a thousandfold the better of it.
To Miss Monroe
[Skerryvore, Bournemouth, June 1886.]
MY DEAR MISS MONROE, — I am ill in bed and stupid, incoherently stupid; yet I have to answer your letter, and if the answer is incomprehensible you must forgive me. You say my letter caused you pleasure; I am sure, as it fell out, not near so much as yours has brought to me. The interest taken in an author is fragile: his next book, or your next year of culture, might see the interest frosted or outgrown; and himself, in spite of all, you might probably find the most distasteful
person upon earth. My case is different. I have bad health, am often condemned to silence for days together — was so once for six weeks, so that my voice was awful to hear when I first used it, like the whisper of a shadow — have outlived all 194 my chief pleasures, which were active and adventurous, and ran in the open air: and being a person who prefers life to art, and who knows it is a far finer thing to be in love, or to risk a danger, than to paint the finest picture or write the noblest book, I begin to regard what remains to me of my life as very shadowy. From a variety of reasons, I am ashamed to confess I was much in this humour when your letter came. I had a good many troubles; was regretting a high average of sins; had been recently reminded that I had outlived some friends, and wondering if I had not outlived some friendships; and had just, while boasting of better health, been struck down again by my haunting enemy, an enemy who was exciting at first, but has now, by the iteration of his strokes, become merely annoying and inexpressibly irksome. Can you fancy that to a person drawing towards the elderly this sort of conjunction of circumstances brings a rather aching sense of the past and the future? Well, it was just then that your letter and your photograph were brought to me in bed; and there came to me at once the most agreeable sense of triumph. My books were still young; my words had their good health and could go about the world and make themselves welcome; and even (in a shadowy and distant sense) make something in the nature of friends for the sheer hulk that stays at home and bites his pen over the manuscripts. It amused me very much to remember that I had been in Chicago, not so many years ago, in my proper person; where I had failed to awaken much remark, except from the ticket collector; and to think how much more gallant and persuasive were the fellows that I now send instead of me, and how these are welcome in that quarter to the sitter of Herr Platz, while their author was not very welcome even in the villainous restaurant where he tried to eat a meal and rather failed.
And this leads me directly to a confession. The photograph which shall accompany this is not chosen 195 as the most like, but the best-looking. Put yourself in my place, and you will call this pardonable. Even as it is, even putting forth a flattered presentment, I am a little pained; and very glad it is a photograph and not myself that has to go; for in this case, if it please you, you can tell yourself it is my image — and if it displease you, you can lay the blame on the photographer; but in that, there were no help, and the poor author might belie his labours.