Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  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, although 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.

  Mrs. Stevenson at once started off for Hyeres, whence she returned with their books and other belongings. The new house, however, was not ready for their occupation until the end of April, and when the move was made, to no one did it bring greater satisfaction than to Stevenson.

  Wanderer as he was, and still gave the impression of being, he entered into his new property with a keenness of delight that must have amused those of his friends who remembered his former disparagement of all household possessions.2 “Our drawing-room is now a place so beautiful that it’s like eating to sit in it. No other room is so lovely in the world; there I sit like an old Irish beggarman’s cast-off bauchle in a palace throne-room. Incongruity never went so far; I blush for the figure I cut in such a bower.”

  The large dovecot is commemorated in Underwoods; the garden was an endless pleasure to Mrs. Stevenson, , 1 See vol. i. p. n. 2 Vol. i. p. 176. and having long been the domain of “ Boguey “ in his lifetime, became at last his resting-place. Having been sent to hospital to recover from wounds received in battle, he broke loose, in his maimed state attacked another dog more powerful than himself, and so perished. His master and mistress were inconsolable, and never, even in Samoa, could bring themselves to allow any successor.

  I have already referred to the easy access to Bournemouth, which was, of course, a prime consideration with his parents. But Stevenson’s friends had seen little of him for several years past, so in this also there was a welcome change from Hyeres. Nearly all the old and tried companions whom I have mentioned came to Skerryvore during these years: R. A. M. Stevenson and his wife, and his sister, Mrs. de Mattos, and her children; Miss Ferrier, Mr. Baxter, Professor Jenkin and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Colvin, and Mr. Henley all paid more or less frequent visits. Among the newcomers were Mr. Sargent, who twice came to paint his host’s portrait; Mr. James Sully, an old friend at the Savile Club; Mr. William Archer, who owed his first coming to his severe but inspiring analysis of Stevenson, and remained as one of the most valued of his critics and appreciative of his friends; and last and most welcome of the admissions into the inmost circle, his very dear friend, Mr. Henry James.

  One of the most frequent visitors was R. A. M. Stevenson, who had, after some time, decided to give up the thankless task of producing pictures for the public which were not those he wanted to paint, and to use his technical knowledge and matchless powers of exposition in the criticism of art. That other art of writing, however, which Louis had spent his life in learning, could not be mastered in a day for the purposes of journalism even by so brilliant a talker as Bob, and it fell to Louis and Mr. Henley to give him many hints and put him through an apprenticeship in the technical part of the new profession in which he so rapidly made his mark.

  Nor were the residents of Bournemouth to be overlooked, although (besides Dr. Scott, to whom Underwoods was chiefly dedicated, and Mrs. Boodle and her daughter, the “Gamekeeper” of the Letters) close friendship was confined to two families — Sir Henry Taylor and his wife and daughters, and Sir Percy and Lady Shelley. Sir Percy, the son of the poet, was devoted to yachting and the theatre (especially melodrama), and his genial, kindly nature, in which shrewdness and simplicity were most attractively blended, endeared him to his new as to all his old friends, while Lady Shelley, no less warm-hearted, took the greatest fancy to Louis, and discovering in him a close likeness to her renowned father-in-law, she forthwith claimed him as her son.

  But it was the Taylors with whom he lived in more intimate relations in spite of the impression he seems here again to have produced of a being wholly transitory and detached, a bird of passage resting in his flight from some strange source to regions yet more unknown. Sir Henry indeed died almost before the friendship had commenced, but Lady Taylor and her daughters continued to live at Bournemouth until long after Skerryvore was transferred to other hands. But before Sir Henry Taylor passed away, Stevenson had suffered a more unexpected and a heavier blow in the death of his friend Fleeming Jenkin on June 12th, 1885. Only once again in his life was he to lose one very near to him, and the subsequent task of writing his friend’s life not only raised his great admiration, but even deepened the regret for his loss.

  To some of his friends in these days, and chiefly to Miss Una Taylor, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Henley, and his cousin Bob, he owed the revival of his interest in music, which now laid greater hold upon him than ever before. He began to learn the piano, though he never reached even a moderate degree of skill; he flung himself with the greatest zeal into the mysteries of composition, # wherein it is but honest to say that he failed to master the rudiments. “ Books are of no use,” he says; “ they tell you how to write in four parts, and that cannot be done by man. Or do you know a book that really tells a fellow? I suppose people are expected to have ears. To my ear a fourth is delicious, and consecutive fifths the music of the spheres. As for hidden fifths, those who pretend to dislike ‘em I can never acquit of affectation. Besides (this in your ear) there is nothing else in music;
I know; I have tried to write four parts.”

  His delight and eagerness were enhanced rather than decreased by difficulties, and in a period of his life when nearly all pleasures were taken away from him, he was able at least to sit at the piano and create for the ear of his imagination some of the heavenly joys it is the prerogative of music to bestow. •

  Besides enjoying the company of his friends, he made good use of his few other opportunities. Since at Bournemouth his health hardly ever allowed him to pass beyond the gate of Skerryvore, the chance seldom presented itself to him of meeting men of any other class whose lives lay outside his own, but those who fell in his way received unusual attention at his hands, more especially if they possessed originality or any independence of character. Thus, the barber that came to cut his hair, the picture-framer, the “vet” who attended “ Boguey,” each in their different way were originals to a man whose life was so secluded; their coming was welcomed, they invariably stayed to meals, and, sooner or later, told the story of their lives.

  Such was his own life, and such were his surround- 4 ings at this period; and yet to leave the picture without a word of warning would be wholly to misrepresent Stevenson. A popular novelist, toiling incessantly at his writing, and confined by ill-health almost entirely within the walls of a suburban villa at an English watering-place, is about as dreary a figure as could be formed from the facts. The details are as accurate as if they were in a realistic novel, and yet the essence is wholly untrue to life. It is necessary to insist again and again on the “ spirit intense and rare,” the courage, the vivacity, the restless intellect ever forming new schemes with unceasing profusion. There are people who might live a life of the wildest adventure, of the most picturesque diversity, and yet be dull. Stevenson could lie in a sick-room for weeks without speaking, and yet declare truly, as he asserted to Mr. Archer, “ I never was bored in my life.” When everything else failed, and he was entirely incapable of work, he would build card-houses, or lie in bed modelling small figures of wax or clay, taking the keenest interest in either process. On being told that a friend of his “ has fallen in love with stagnation,” from his invalid chair he protests that the dream of his life is to be “ the leader of a great horde of irregular cavalry,” and his favourite attitude “turning in the saddle to look back at my whole command (some five thousand strong) following me at the hand-gallop up the road out of the burning valley by moonlight.”1 In him at least the romantic daydream called out as completely the splendid virtues of courage and enterprise and resolution as he could ever have displayed them on the field of battle.

  Illness and anxiety had, as he afterwards said, put an end to the happiness of Hyeres, but he was maintaining the unequal fight with much of the spirit and gaiety that he always showed; his sufferings did not dull the kindliness and sympathy which largely formed the fascination of his character, unique, perhaps, in being at once so lovable and so brilliant.

  In the meantime he was hard at work. His interest in all questions relating to the methods of literature was unfailing. A lecture from Sir Walter Besant and an answer by Mr. Henry James brought Stevenson in his turn into the pages of Longman’s Magazine for December, 1884. In “ A Humble Remonstrance “ he urged the paramount claims of the “ story “ in fiction, and dwelt on the problems involved for the student of method. Several months later he followed this up by a most inspiring but more strictly professional disquisition on “The Technical Elements of Style,” “the work of five days in bed,” which appeared in the Contemporary 1 Letters, i. 311. Review for April. At the time it was ill received and generally misunderstood: it is, however, the result of long and close study, and is a singularly suggestive inquiry into a subject which has been considered too vague and difficult for analysis, at any rate since the days of the classical writers on rhetoric, whom Stevenson had never read. He continued to meditate and to develop his ideas, and during 1886 had even planned a course of lectures to be delivered in London to students of his art. So full of the subject was he that when this project was peremptorily forbidden by the doctors, he could not rest until he found a pupil to whom he could disburden himself of the ideas with which he was overflowing.

  In March, 1885, A Child’s Garden of Verses was published at last, after having been set up twice in proof. In April Prince Otto began to run in Longman’s Magazine, coming out as a book in October, and by May More New Arabian Nights appeared. Soon after the issue of Prince Otto, Stevenson wrote to Mr. Henley: “ 1 had yesterday a letter from George Meredith, which was one of the events of my life. He cottoned (for one thing), though with differences, to Otto; cottoned more than my rosiest visions had inspired me to hope; said things that (from him) 1 would blush to quote.” Mr. Meredith’s letter unfortunately has disappeared, but in another from the same source there occur these words: “ I have read pieces of Prince Otto, admiring the royal manner of your cutting away of the novelist’s lumber. Straight to matter is the secret. Also approvingly your article on style.”

  Still, with all this production, and with praise from so high a quarter, it must not be supposed that Stevenson’s writing as yet brought in any very extravagant payment. His professional income for this year, in point of fact, was exactly the same as that which he had averaged for the three years preceding, and amounted to less than four hundred pounds. Nor were his receipts materially increased before he reached America.

  A subject much in his thoughts at this time was the duality of man’s nature and the alternation of good and evil; and he was for a long while casting about for a story to embody this central idea. Out of this frame of mind had come the sombre imagination of “ Mark- heim,” but that was not what he required. The true story still delayed, till suddenly one night he had a dream. He awoke, and found himself in possession of two, or rather three, of the scenes in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  Its waking existence, however, was by no mear.. without incident. He dreamed these scenes in considerable detail, including the circumstance of the transforming powders, and so vivid was the impression that he wrote the story off at a red heat, just as it had presented itself to him in his sleep.

  “In the small hours of one morning,” says Mrs. Stevenson, “ I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, I awakened him. He said angrily: ‘ Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.’ I had awakened him at the first transformation scene.”

  Mr. Osbourne writes: “ I don’t believe that there was ever such a literary feat before as the writing of Dr. JehylL I remember the first reading as though it were yesterday. Louis came downstairs in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud; and then, while we were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. I doubt if the first draft took so long as three days.”

  He had lately had a hemorrhage, and was strictly forbidden all discussion or excitement. No doubt the reading aloud was contrary to the doctor’s orders; at any rate Mrs. Stevenson, according to the custom then in force, wrote her detailed criticism of the story as it then stood, pointing out her chief objection — that it was really an allegory, whereas he had treated it purely as if it were a story. In the first draft Jekyll’s nature was bad all through, and the Hyde change was worked only for the sake of a disguise. She gave the paper to her husband and left the room. After a while his bell rang; on her return she found him sitting up in bed (the clinical thermometer in his mouth), pointing with a long denunciatory finger to a pile of ashes. He had burned the entire draft. Having realised that he had taken the wrong point of view, that the tale was an allegory and not another “Markheim,” he at once destroyed his manuscript, acting not out of pique, but from a fear that he might be tempted to make too much use of it, and not rewrite the whole from a new standpoint.

  It was written again in three days (“ I drive on with Jekyll: bankruptcy at my heels “); but the fear of losing the story altogether prevented much further criticism. The powder was condemned as too material an agency, but this he could not eli
minate, because in the dream it had made so strong an impression upon him.

  “The mere physical feat,” Mr. Osbourne continues, “was tremendous; and instead of harming him, it roused and cheered him inexpressibly.” Of course it must not be supposed that these three days represent all the time that Stevenson spent upon the story, for after this he was working hard for a month or six weeks in bringing it into its present form.

  The manuscript was then offered to Messrs. Longmans for their magazine; and on their judgment the decision was taken not to break it up into monthly sections, but to issue it as a shilling book in paper covers. The chief drawbacks of this plan to the author were the loss of immediate payment and the risk of total failure, but these were generously met by an advance payment from the publishers on account of royalties. “The little book was printed,” says Mr. Charles Longman, “ but when it was ready the bookstalls were already full of Christmas numbers, etc., and the trade would [not look at it. We therefore withdrew it till after Christmas. In January it was launched — not without difficulty. The trade did not feel inclined to take it up, till a review appeared in the Times1 calling attention to the story. This gave it a start, and in the next six months close on forty thousand copies were sold in this country alone.” Besides the authorised edition in America, the book was widely pirated, and probably not less than a quarter of a million copies in all have been sold in the United States.

  Its success was probably due rather to the moral instincts of the public than to any conscious perception of the merits of its art. It was read by those who never read fiction, it was quoted in pulpits, and made the sub-

  1 The Times, January 25th, 1886. ject of leading articles in religious newspapers. But the praise, though general, was not always according to knowledge, as, for example, in one panegyric, which lauded “ a new writer, following in some detail, perhaps more of style than matter, the much regretted Hugh Conway.” Yet even this criticism by no means represents the extreme range of its circulation.