Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1 Part 23

[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, Christmas 1880.]

MY DEAR COLVIN, - Thanks for yours; I waited, as said I would. I now expect no answer from you, regarding you as a mere dumb c.o.c.k- shy, or a target, at which we fire our arrows diligently all day long, with no antic.i.p.ation 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 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.

Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

CHRISTMAS SERMON.

[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, DECEMBER 26, 1880.]

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 my father's extraordinary kindness about this book; he is a brick; I vote for him freely.

. . . The a.s.surance 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 G.o.d, 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 subst.i.tuting affirmations. 'Thou shalt not' is but an example; 'Thou shalt' is the law of G.o.d. It was this that seems meant in the phrase that 'not one jot nor t.i.ttle of the law should pa.s.s.' 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 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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d; if you believe in G.o.d (or, for it's the same thing, have that a.s.surance you speak about), where is there any more room for terror? There are only three possible att.i.tudes - 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 G.o.d, in the long run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if happy, surely you should be kind.

I beg your pardon for this long discourse; it is not all right, of course, but I am sure there is something in it. One thing I have not got clearly; that about the omission and the commission; but there is truth somewhere about it, and I have no time to clear it just now. Do you know, you have had about a Cornhill page of sermon? It is, however, true.

Lloyd heard with dismay f.a.n.n.y was not going to give me a present; so F. and I had to go and buy things for ourselves, and go through a representation of surprise when they were presented next morning.

It gave us both quite a Santa Claus feeling on Xmas Eve to see him so excited and hopeful; I enjoyed it hugely. - Your affectionate son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN

[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, SPRING 1881.]

MY DEAR COLVIN. - My health is not just what it should be; I have lost weight, pulse, respiration, etc., and gained nothing in the way of my old bellows. But these last few days, with tonic, cod- liver oil, better wine (there is some better now), and perpetual beef-tea, I think I have progressed. To say truth, I have been here a little over long. I was reckoning up, and since I have known you, already quite a while, I have not, I believe, remained so long in any one place as here in Davos. That tells on my old gipsy nature; like a violin hung up, I begin to lose what music there was in me; and with the music, I do not know what besides, or do not know what to call it, but something radically part of life, a rhythm, perhaps, in one's old and so brutally over-ridden nerves, or perhaps a kind of variety of blood that the heart has come to look for.

I purposely knocked myself off first. As to F. A. S., I believe I am no sound authority; I alternate between a stiff disregard and a kind of horror. In neither mood can a man judge at all. I know the thing to be terribly perilous, I fear it to be now altogether hopeless. Luck has failed; the weather has not been favourable; and in her true heart, the mother hopes no more. But - well, I feel a great deal, that I either cannot or will not say, as you well know. It has helped to make me more conscious of the wolverine on my own shoulders, and that also makes me a poor judge and poor adviser. Perhaps, if we were all marched out in a row, and a piece of platoon firing to the drums performed, it would be well for us; although, I suppose - and yet I wonder! - so ill for the poor mother and for the dear wife. But you can see this makes me morbid. SUFFICIT; EXPLICIT.

You are right about the Carlyle book; F. and I are in a world not ours; but pardon me, as far as sending on goes, we take another view: the first volume, A LA BONNE HEURE! but not - never - the second. Two hours of hysterics can be no good matter for a sick nurse, and the strange, hard, old being in so lamentable and yet human a desolation - crying out like a burnt child, and yet always wisely and beautifully - how can that end, as a piece of reading, even to the strong - but on the brink of the most cruel kind of weeping? I observe the old man's style is stronger on me than ever it was, and by rights, too, since I have just laid down his most attaching book. G.o.d rest the baith o' them! But even if they do not meet again, how we should all be strengthened to be kind, and not only in act, in speech also, that so much more important part.

See what this apostle of silence most regrets, not speaking out his heart.

I was struck as you were by the admirable, sudden, clear suns.h.i.+ne upon Southey - even on his works. Symonds, to whom I repeated it, remarked at once, a man who was thus respected by both Carlyle and Landor must have had more in him than we can trace. So I feel with true humility.

It was to save my brain that Symonds proposed reviewing. He and, it appears, Leslie Stephen fear a little some eclipse; I am not quite without sharing the fear. I know my own languor as no one else does; it is a dead down-draught, a heavy fardel. Yet if I could shake off the wolverine aforesaid, and his fangs are lighter, though perhaps I feel them more, I believe I could be myself again a while. I have not written any letter for a great time; none saying what I feel, since you were here, I fancy. Be duly obliged for it, and take my most earnest thanks not only for the books but for your letter. Your affectionate,

R. L. S.

The effect of reading this on f.a.n.n.y shows me I must tell you I am very happy, peaceful, and jolly, except for questions of work and the states of other people.

Woggin sends his love.

Letter: TO HORATIO F. BROWN

DAVOS, 1881.

MY DEAR BROWN. - Here it is, with the mark of a San Francis...o...b..UQUINISTE. And if ever in all my 'human conduct' I have done a better thing to any fellow-creature than handing on to you this sweet, dignified, and wholesome book, I know I shall hear of it on the last day. To write a book like this were impossible; at least one can hand it on - with a wrench - one to another. My wife cries out and my own heart misgives me, but still here it is. I could scarcely better prove myself - Yours affectionately,

R. L. STEVENSON.

Letter: TO HORATIO F. BROWN

DAVOS, 1881.

MY DEAR BROWN. - I hope, if you get thus far, you will know what an invaluable present I have made you. Even the copy was dear to me, printed in the colony that Penn established, and carried in my pocket all about the San Francisco streets, read in street cars and ferry-boats, when I was sick unto death, and found in all times and places a peaceful and sweet companion. But I hope, when you shall have reached this note, my gift will not have been in vain; for while just now we are so busy and intelligent, there is not the man living, no, nor recently dead, that could put, with so lovely a spirit, so much honest, kind wisdom into words.

R. L. S.

Letter: TO HORATIO F. BROWN

HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, SPRING 1881.

MY DEAR BROWN, - Nine years I have conded them.

Brave lads in olden musical centuries Sang, night by night, adorable choruses, Sat late by alehouse doors in April Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises, Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables; Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted; Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity, Those, only those, the bountiful choristers Gone - those are gone, those unremembered Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

So man himself appears and evanishes, So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at Some green-embowered house, play their music, Play and are gone on the windy highway;

Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory Long after they departed eternally, Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits, Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.

Youth sang the song in years immemorial; Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful; Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;

Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy - Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways, Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.