Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (964 page)

The Real Mackay.

To Lady Taylor

Stevenson’s volume of tales
The Merry Men
, so called from the story which heads the collection, was about to appear with a dedication to Lady Taylor. Professor Dowden’s
Shelley
had lately come out, and had naturally been read with eager interest in a circle where Sir Percy (the poet’s son) and Lady Shelley were intimate friends and neighbours.

Skerryvore, Bournemouth
[
New Year,
1887].

MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR, — This is to wish you all the salutations of the year, with some regret that I cannot offer them in person; yet less than I had supposed. For hitherto your flight to London seems to have worked well; and time flies and will soon bring you back again. Though 212 time is ironical, too; and it would be like his irony if the same tide that brought you back carried me away. That would not be, at least, without some meeting.

I feel very sorry to think the book to which I have put your name will be no better, and I can make it no better. The tales are of all dates and places; they are like the box, the goose, and the cottage of the ferryman; and must go floating down time together as best they can. But I am after all a (superior) penny-a-liner; I must do, in the Scotch phrase, as it will do with me; and I cannot always choose what my books are to be, only seize the chance they offer to link my name to a friend’s. I hope the lot of them (the tales) will look fairly disciplined when they are clapped in binding; but I fear they will be but an awkward squad. I have a mild wish that you at least would read them no further than the dedication.

I suppose we have all been reading Dowden. It seems to me a really first-rate book, full of justice, and humour without which there can be no justice; and of fine intelligence besides. Here and there, perhaps a trifle precious, but this is to spy flaws in a fine work. I was weary at my resemblances to Shelley; I seem but a Shelley with less oil, and no genius; though I have had the fortune to live longer and (partly) to grow up. He was growing up. There is a manlier note in the last days; in spite of such really sickening aberrations as the Emillia Viviani business. I try to take a humorously-genial view of life; but Emillia Viviani, if I have her detested name aright, is too much for my philosophy. I cannot smile when I see all these grown folk waltzing and piping the eye about an insubordinate and perfectly abominable schoolgirl, as silly and patently as false as Blanche Amory. I really think it is one of those episodes that make the angels weep.

With all kind regards and affectionate good wishes to and for you and yours, believe me, your affectionate friend,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Lady Taylor

The reference in the last paragraph to a “vision” cannot be explained, his correspondent’s daughters retaining no memory on the subject.

[
Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January
1887.]

MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR, — I don’t know but what I agree fairly well with all you say, only I like
The Merry Men
, as a fantasia or vision of the sea, better than you do. The trouble with
Olalla
is that it somehow sounds false; and I think it must be this that gives you the feeling of irreverence. Of
Thrawn Janet
, which I like very much myself, you say nothing, thus uttering volumes; but it is plain that people cannot always agree. I do not think it is a wholesome part of me that broods on the evil in the world and man; but I do not think that I get harm from it; possibly my readers may, which is more serious; but at any account, I do not purpose to write more in this vein. But the odd problem is: what makes a story true?
Markheim
is true;
Olalla
false; and I don’t know why, nor did I feel it while I worked at them; indeed I had more inspiration with
Olalla
, as the style shows. I am glad you thought that young Spanish woman well dressed; I admire the style of it myself, more than is perhaps good for me; it is so solidly written. And that again brings back (almost with the voice of despair) my unanswerable: why is it false?

Here is a great deal about my works. I am in bed again; and my wife but so-so; and we have no news recently from Lloyd; and the cat is well; and we see, or I see, no one; so that other matters are all closed against me.

Your vision is strange indeed; but I see not how to use it; I fear I am earthy enough myself to regard it as a case of disease, but certainly it is a thrilling case to hear of. — Ever affectionately yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Henry James

This letter is written on the front page of a set of proofs of
Memories and Portraits
. The “silly Xmas story” is
The Misadventures of John Nicholson
; the “volume of verse” appeared later in the year as
Underwoods
. The signature refers to the two Scots poets of whom, “in his native speech,” he considered himself the follower.

Skerryvore, Bournemouth, January
1887.

All the salutations!

MY DEAR JAMES, — I send you the first sheets of the new volume, all that has yet reached me, the rest shall follow in course. I am really a very fair sort of a fellow all things considered, have done some work; a silly Xmas story (with some larks in it) which won’t be out till I don’t know when. I am also considering a volume of verse, much of which will be cast in my native speech, that very dark oracular medium: I suppose this is a folly, but what then? As the nurse says in Marryat, “It was only a little one.”

My wife is peepy and dowie: two Scotch expressions with which I will leave you to wrestle unaided, as a preparation for my poetical works. She is a woman (as you know) not without art: the art of extracting the gloom of the eclipse from sunshine; and she has recently laboured in this field not without success or (as we used to say) not without a blessing. It is strange: “we fell out my wife and I” the other night; she tackled me savagely for being a canary-bird; I replied (bleatingly) protesting that there was no use in turning life into King Lear; presently it was discovered that there were two dead combatants upon the field, each slain by an arrow of the truth, and we tenderly carried off each other’s corpses. Here is a little comedy for Henry James to write! The beauty was each thought the other quite unscathed at first. But we had dealt shrewd stabs.

You say nothing of yourself, which I shall take to be 215 good news. Archer’s note has gone. He is, in truth, a very clever fellow that Archer, and I believe a good one. It is a pleasant thing to see a man who can use a pen; he can: really says what he means, and says it with a manner; comes into print like one at his ease, not shame-faced and wrong-foot-foremost like the bulk of us. Well, here is luck, and here are the kindest recollections from the canary-bird and from King Lear, from the Tragic Woman and the Flimsy Man.

Robert Ramsay Fergusson Stevenson.

To Frederick Locker-Lampson

Stevenson suffered more even than usual after the turn of the year and during the spring of 1887, and for several months his correspondence almost entirely fails. This is in reply to an invitation to Rowfant for Easter.

Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February 5th,
1887.

MY DEAR LOCKER, — Here I am in my bed as usual, and it is indeed a long while since I went out to dinner. You do not know what a crazy fellow this is. My winter has not so far been luckily passed, and all hope of paying visits at Easter has vanished for twelve calendar months. But because I am a beastly and indurated invalid, I am not dead to human feelings; and I neither have forgotten you nor will forget you. Some day the wind may round to the right quarter and we may meet; till then I am still truly yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Henry James

The volume of tales here mentioned is
The Merry Men
; that of essays,
Memories and Portraits
; that of verse,
Underwoods
.

[
Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February
1887.]

MY DEAR JAMES, — My health has played me it in once more in the absurdest fashion, and the creature who now 216 addresses you is but a stringy and white-faced
bouilli
out of the pot of fever, with the devil to pay in every corner of his economy. I suppose (to judge by your letter) I need not send you these sheets, which came during my collapse by the rush. I am on the start with three volumes, that one of tales, a second one of essays, and one of — ahem — verse. This is a great order, is it not? After that I shall have empty lockers. All new work stands still; I was getting on well with Jenkin when this blessed malady unhorsed me, and sent me back to the dung-collecting trade of the republisher. I shall re-issue
Virg. Puer.
as vol. I. of
Essays
, and the new vol. as vol. II. of ditto; to be sold, however, separately. This is but a dry maundering; however, I am quite unfit — ”I am for action quite unfit Either of exercise or wit.” My father is in a variable state; many sorrows and perplexities environ the house of Stevenson; my mother shoots north at this hour on business of a distinctly rancid character; my father (under my wife’s tutorage) proceeds to-morrow to Salisbury; I remain here in my bed and whistle; in no quarter of heaven is anything encouraging apparent, except that the good Colvin comes to the hotel here on a visit. This dreary view of life is somewhat blackened by the fact that my head aches, which I always regard as a liberty on the part of the powers that be. This is also my first letter since my recovery. God speed your laudatory pen!

My wife joins in all warm messages. — Yours,

R. L. S.

To Auguste Rodin

Skerryvore, Bournemouth, February
1887.

MON CHER AMI, — Je vous néglige, et cependant ce n’est véritablement pas de ma faute. J’ai fait encore une maladie; et je puis dire que je l’ai royalement bien faite. Que celà vous aide à me pardonner. Certes je ne vous oublie pas; et je puis dire que je ne vous oublierai jamais. 217 Si je n’écris pas, dites que je suis malade — c’est trop souvent vrai, dites que je suis las d’écrivailler — ce sera toujours vrai; mais ne dites pas, et ne pensez pas, que je deviens indifférent. J’ai devant moi votre portrait tiré d’un journal anglais (et encadré à mes frais), et je le regarde avec amitié, je le regarde même avec une certaine complaisance — dirai-je, de faux aloi? comme un certificat de jeunesse. Je me croyais trop vieux — au moins trop quarante-ans — pour faire de nouveaux amis; et quand je regarde votre portrait, et quand je pense au plaisir de vous revoir, je sens que je m’étais trompé. Écrivez-moi donc un petit mot, pour me dire que vous ne gardez pas rancune de mon silence, et que vous comptez bientôt venir en Angleterre. Si vous tardez beaucoup, ce sera moi qui irai vous relancer. — Bien à vous, mon cher ami,

R. L. Stevenson.

To W. H. Low

Mr. Low and his wife, who were at this time leaving Paris for good, had been meditating a visit to the Stevensons at Bournemouth on their way home to the United States.

[
April
1887.]

MY DEAR LOW, — The fares to London may be found in any continental Bradshaw or sich; from London to Bournemouth impoverished parties who can stoop to the third class get their ticket for the matter of 10s., or, as my wife loves to phrase it, “a half a pound.” You will also be involved in a 3s. fare to get to Skerryvore; but this, I dare say, friends could help you in on your arrival; so that you may reserve your energies for the two tickets — costing the matter of a pound — and the usual gratuities to porters. This does not seem to me much: considering the intellectual pleasures that await you here, I call it dirt cheap. I
believe
the third class from Paris to London (
via
Dover) is
about
forty francs, but I cannot swear. Suppose it to be fifty.

218

if there be any arithmetical virtue in me. I have left out dinner in London in case you want to blow out, which would come extry, and with the aid of
vangs fangs
might easily double the whole amount — above all if you have a few friends to meet you.

In making this valuable project, or budget, I discovered for the first time a reason (frequently overlooked) for the singular costliness of travelling with your wife. Anybody would count the tickets double; but how few would have remembered — or indeed has any one ever remembered? — to count the spontaneous lapse of coin double also? Yet there are two of you, each must do his daily leakage, and it must be done out of your travelling fund. You will tell me, perhaps, that you carry the coin yourself: my dear sir, do you think you can fool your Maker? Your wife has to lose her quota; and by God she will — if you kept the coin in a belt. One thing I have omitted: 219 you will lose a certain amount on the exchange, but this even I cannot foresee, as it is one of the few things that vary with the way a man has. — I am, dear sir, yours financially,