Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (948 page)

R. L. S.

To Cosmo Monkhouse

This amiable and excellent public servant, art-critic, and versifier was a friend of old Savile Club days; the drift of his letter can easily be guessed from this reply. The reference to Lamb is to the essay on the Restoration dramatists.

La Solitude, Hyères, March
16, 1884.

MY DEAR MONKHOUSE, — You see with what promptitude I plunge into correspondence; but the truth is, I am condemned to a complete inaction, stagnate dismally, and love a letter. Yours, which would have been welcome at any time, was thus doubly precious.

Dover sounds somewhat shiveringly in my ears. You should see the weather
I
have — cloudless, clear as crystal, with just a punkah-draft of the most aromatic air, all pine and gum tree. You would be ashamed of Dover; you would scruple to refer, sir, to a spot so paltry. To be idle at Dover is a strange pretension; pray, how do you warm yourself? If I were there I should grind knives or write blank verse, or —  — But at least you do not bathe? It is idle to deny it: I have — I may say I nourish — a growing jealousy of the robust, large-legged, healthy Britain-dwellers, patient of grog, scorners of the timid umbrella, innocuously breathing fog: all which I once was, and I am ashamed to say liked it. How ignorant is youth! grossly rolling among unselected pleasures; and how nobler, purer, sweeter, and lighter, to sip the choice tonic, to recline in the luxurious invalid chair, and to tread, well-shawled, the little round of the constitutional. Seriously, do you like to repose? Ye gods, I hate it. I 86 never rest with any acceptation; I do not know what people mean who say they like sleep and that damned bedtime which, since long ere I was breeched, has rung a knell to all my day’s doings and beings. And when a man, seemingly sane, tells me he has “fallen in love with stagnation,” I can only say to him, “You will never be a Pirate!” This may not cause any regret to Mrs. Monkhouse; but in your own soul it will clang hollow — think of it! Never! After all boyhood’s aspirations and youth’s immoral day-dreams, you are condemned to sit down, grossly draw in your chair to the fat board, and be a beastly Burgess till you die. Can it be? Is there not some escape, some furlough from the Moral Law, some holiday jaunt contrivable into a Better Land? Shall we never shed blood? This prospect is too grey.

To confess plainly, I had intended to spend my life (or any leisure I might have from Piracy upon the high seas) as the leader of a great horde of irregular cavalry, devastating whole valleys. I can still, looking back, see myself in many favourite attitudes; signalling for a boat from my pirate ship with a pocket-handkerchief, I at the jetty end, and one or two of my bold blades keeping the crowd at bay; or else 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: this last by moonlight.

Et point du tout.
I am a poor scribe, and have scarce broken a commandment to mention, and have recently dined upon cold veal! As for you (who probably had some ambitions), I hear of you living at Dover, in lodgings, like the beasts of the field. But in heaven, when we get 87 there, we shall have a good time, and see some real carnage. For heaven is — must be — that great Kingdom of Antinomia, which Lamb saw dimly adumbrated in the
Country Wife
, where the worm which never dies (the conscience) peacefully expires, and the sinner lies down beside the Ten Commandments. Till then, here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling, with neither health nor vice for anything more spirited than procrastination, which I may well call the Consolation Stakes of Wickedness; and by whose diligent practice, without the least amusement to ourselves, we can rob the orphan and bring down grey hairs with sorrow to the dust.

This astonishing gush of nonsense I now hasten to close, envelope, and expedite to Shakespeare’s Cliff. Remember me to Shakespeare, and believe me, yours very sincerely,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Edmund Gosse

Mr. Gosse had written describing the office which he then occupied, a picturesque old-fashioned chamber in the upper stories of the Board of Trade.

La Solitude, Hyères, March
17, 1884.

MY DEAR GOSSE, — Your office — office is profanely said — your bower upon the leads is divine. Have you, like Pepys, “the right to fiddle” there? I see you mount the companion, barbiton in hand, and, fluttered about by city sparrows, pour forth your spirit in a voluntary. Now when the spring begins, you must lay in your flowers: how do you say about a potted hawthorn? Would it bloom? Wallflower is a choice pot-herb; lily-of-the-valley, too, and carnation, and Indian cress trailed about the window, is not only beautiful by colour, but the leaves are good to eat. I recommend thyme and rosemary for the aroma, which should not be left upon one side; they are good quiet growths.

On one of your tables keep a great map spread out; a 88 chart is still better — it takes one further — the havens with their little anchors, the rocks, banks, and soundings, are adorably marine; and such furniture will suit your ship-shape habitation. I wish I could see those cabins; they smile upon me with the most intimate charm. From your leads, do you behold St. Paul’s? I always like to see the Foolscap; it is London
per se
and no spot from which it is visible is without romance. Then it is good company for the man of letters, whose veritable nursing Pater-Noster is so near at hand.

I am all at a standstill; as idle as a painted ship, but not so pretty. My romance, which has so nearly butchered me in the writing, not even finished; though so near, thank God, that a few days of tolerable strength will see the roof upon that structure. I have worked very hard at it, and so do not expect any great public favour.
In moments of effort, one learns to do the easy things that people like.
There is the golden maxim; thus one should strain and then play, strain again and play again. The strain is for us, it educates; the play is for the reader, and pleases. Do you not feel so? We are ever threatened by two contrary faults: both deadly. To sink into what my forefathers would have called “rank conformity,” and to pour forth cheap replicas, upon the one hand; upon the other, and still more insidiously present, to forget that art is a diversion and a decoration, that no triumph or effort is of value, nor anything worth reaching except charm. — Yours affectionately,

R. L. S.

To Miss Ferrier

Soon after the date of the following letter Miss Ferrier went out to her friends and stayed with them through the trying weeks which followed.

La Solitude, Hyères
[
March
22, 1884].

MY DEAR MISS FERRIER, — Are you really going to fail us? This seems a dreadful thing. My poor wife, who is 89 not well off for friends on this bare coast, has been promising herself, and I have been promising her, a rare acquisition. And now Miss Burn has failed, and you utter a very doubtful note. You do not know how delightful this place is, nor how anxious we are for a visit. Look at the names: “The Solitude” — is that romantic? The palm-trees? — how is that for the gorgeous East? “Var”? the name of a river — ”the quiet waters by”! ‘Tis true, they are in another department, and consist of stones and a biennial spate; but what a music, what a plash of brooks, for the imagination! We have hills; we have skies; the roses are putting forth, as yet sparsely; the meadows by the sea are one sheet of jonquils; the birds sing as in an English May — for, considering we are in France and serve up our song-birds, I am ashamed to say, on a little field of toast and with a sprig of thyme (my own receipt) in their most innocent and now unvocal bellies — considering all this, we have a wonderfully fair wood-music round this Solitude of ours. What can I say more? — All this awaits you.
Kennst du das Land
, in short. — Your sincere friend,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To W. H. Low

The verses enclosed were the set entitled “The Canoe Speaks,” afterwards printed in
Underwoods
. Stevenson was suffering at this time from a temporary weakness of the eyesight.

La Solitude, Hyères
[
April
1884].

MY DEAR LOW, — The blind man in these sprawled lines sends greeting. I have been ill, as perhaps the papers told you. The news — ”great news — glorious news — sec-ond ed-ition!” — went the round in England.

Anyway, I now thank you for your pictures, which, particularly the Arcadian one, we all (Bob included, he was here sick-nursing me) much liked.

Herewith are a set of verses which I thought pretty enough to send to press. Then I thought of the Manhattan, 90 towards whom I have guilty and compunctious feelings. Last, I had the best thought of all — to send them to you in case you might think them suitable for illustration. It seemed to me quite in your vein. If so, good; if not, hand them on to Manhattan, Century, or Lippincott, at your pleasure, as all three desire my work or pretend to. But I trust the lines will not go unattended. Some riverside will haunt you; and O! be tender to my bathing girls. The lines are copied in my wife’s hand, as I cannot see to write otherwise than with the pen of Cormoran, Gargantua, or Nimrod. Love to your wife. — Yours ever,

R. L. S.

Copied it myself.

To Thomas Stevenson

La Solitude, Hyères, April
19, 1884.

MY DEAR FATHER, — Yesterday I very powerfully stated the
Hæresis Stevensoniana
, or the complete body of divinity of the family theologian, to Miss Ferrier. She was much impressed; so was I. You are a great heresiarch; and I know no better. Whaur the devil did ye get thon about the soap? Is it altogether your own? I never heard it elsewhere; and yet I suspect it must have been held at some time or other, and if you were to look up you would probably find yourself condemned by some Council.

I am glad to hear you are so well. The hear is excellent. The Cornhills came; I made Miss Ferrier read us
Thrawn Janet
, and was quite bowled over by my own works.
The Merry Men
I mean to make much longer, with a whole new dénouement, not yet quite clear to me.
The Story of a Lie
I must rewrite entirely also, as it is too weak and ragged, yet is worth saving for the Admiral. Did I ever tell you that the Admiral was recognised in America?

When they are all on their legs this will make an excellent collection.

Has Davie never read
Guy Mannering
,
Rob Roy
, or
The Antiquary
? All of which are worth three
Waverleys
. I think
Kenilworth
better than
Waverley
;
Nigel
, too; and
Quentin Durward
about as good. But it shows a true piece of insight to prefer
Waverley
, for it
is
different; and though not quite coherent, better worked in parts than almost any other: surely more carefully. It is undeniable that the love of the slap-dash and the shoddy grew upon Scott with success. Perhaps it does on many of us, which may be the granite on which D.’s opinion stands. However, I hold it, in Patrick Walker’s phrase, for an “old, condemned, damnable error.” Dr. Simson was condemned by P. W. as being “a bagful of” such. One of Patrick’s amenities!

Another ground there may be to D.’s opinion; those who avoid (or seek to avoid) Scott’s facility are apt to be continually straining and torturing their style to get in more of life. And to many the extra significance does not redeem the strain.

Doctor Stevenson.

To W. E. Henley

La Solitude, Hyères, April 20th,
1884.

I have been really ill for two days, hemorrhage, weakness, extreme nervousness that will not let me lie a moment, and damned sciatica o’ nights; but to-day I am on the recovery. Time; for I was miserable. It is not often that I suffer, with all my turns and tumbles, from the sense of serious illness; and I hate it, as I believe everybody does. And then the combination of not being able to read, not being allowed to speak, being too weak to write, and not wishing to eat, leaves a man with some empty seconds. But I bless God, it’s over now; to-day I am much mended.

Insatiable gulf, greedier than hell, and more silent than the woods of Styx, have you or have you not lost 92 the dedication to the
Child’s Garden
? Answer that plain question as otherwise I must try to tackle to it once again.

Sciatica is a word employed much by Shakespeare in a certain connection. ‘Tis true, he was no physician, but as I read, he had smarted in his day. I, too, do smart. And yet this keen soprano agony, these veins of fire and bombshell explosions in the knee, are as nothing to a certain dull, drowsy pain I had when my kidneys were congested at Nice; there was death in that; the creak of Charon’s rowlocks, and the miasmas of the Styx. I may say plainly, much as I have lost the power of bearing pain, I had still rather suffer much than die. Not only the love of life grows on me, but the fear of certain odd end-seconds grows as well. ‘Tis a suffocating business, take it how you will; and Tyrrel and Forest only bunglers.

Well, this is an essay on death, or worse, on dying: to return to daylight and the winds, I perceive I have grown to live too much in my work and too little in life. ‘Tis the dollars do it: the world is too much. Whenever I think I would like to live a little, I hear the butcher’s cart resounding through the neighbourhood; and so to plunge again. The fault is a good fault for me; to be able to do so, is to succeed in life; and my life has been a huge success. I can live with joy and without disgust in the art by which I try to support myself; I have the best wife in the world; I have rather more praise and nearly as much coin as I deserve; my friends are many and true-hearted. Sir, it is a big thing in successes. And if mine anchorage lies something open to the wind, Sciatica, if the crew are blind, and the captain spits blood, one cannot have all, and I may be patched up again, who knows? “His timbers yet are (indifferently) sound, and he may float again.”