Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1 Part 45

Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY

[WENSLEYDALE, BOURNEMOUTH, OCTOBER 1884?]

DEAR BOY, - I trust this finds you well; it leaves me so-so. The weather is so cold that I must stick to bed, which is rotten and tedious, but can't be helped.

I find in the blotting book the enclosed, which I wrote to you the eve of my blood. Is it not strange? That night, when I naturally thought I was coopered, the thought of it was much in my mind; I thought it had gone; and I thought what a strange prophecy I had made in jest, and how it was indeed like to be the end of many letters. But I have written a good few since, and the spell is broken. I am just as pleased, for I earnestly desire to live.

This pleasant middle age into whose port we are steering is quite to my fancy. I would cast anchor here, and go ash.o.r.e for twenty years, and see the manners of the place. Youth was a great time, but somewhat fussy. Now in middle age (bar lucre) all seems mighty placid. It likes me; I spy a little bright cafe in one corner of the port, in front of which I now propose we should sit down.

There is just enough of the bustle of the harbour and no more; and the s.h.i.+ps are close in, regarding us with stern-windows - the s.h.i.+ps that bring deals from Norway and parrots from the Indies. Let us sit down here for twenty years, with a packet of tobacco and a drink, and talk of art and women. By-and-by, the whole city will sink, and the s.h.i.+ps too, and the table, and we also; but we shall have sat for twenty years and had a fine talk; and by that time, who knows? exhausted the subject.

I send you a book which (or I am mistook) will please you; it pleased me. But I do desire a book of adventure - a romance - and no man will get or write me one. Dumas I have read and re-read too often; Scott, too, and I am short. I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to begin in a good way; a book, I guess, like TREASURE ISLAND, alas! which I have never read, and cannot though I live to ninety. I would G.o.d that some one else had written it! By all that I can learn, it is the very book for my complaint. I like the way I hear it opens; and they tell me John Silver is good fun. And to me it is, and must ever be, a dream unrealised, a book unwritten. O my sighings after romance, or even Skeltery, and O!

the weary age which will produce me neither!

CHAPTER I

The night was damp and cloudy, the ways foul. The single horseman, cloaked and booted, who pursued his way across Willesden Common, had not met a traveller, when the sound of wheels -

CHAPTER I

'Yes, sir,' said the old pilot, 'she must have dropped into the bay a little afore dawn. A queer craft she looks.'

'She shows no colours,' returned the young gentleman musingly.

'They're a-lowering of a quarter-boat, Mr. Mark,' resumed the old salt. 'We shall soon know more of her.'

'Ay,' replied the young gentleman called Mark, 'and here, Mr.

Seadrift, comes your sweet daughter Nancy tripping down the cliff.'

'G.o.d bless her kind heart, sir,' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed old Seadrift.

CHAPTER I

The notary, Jean Rossignol, had been summoned to the top of a great house in the Isle St. Louis to make a will; and now, his duties finished, wrapped in a warm roquelaure and with a lantern swinging from one hand, he issued from the mansion on his homeward way.

Little did he think what strange adventures were to befall him! -

That is how stories should begin. And I am offered HUSKS instead.

What should be: What is: The Filibuster's Cache. Aunt Anne's Tea Cosy.

Jerry Abershaw. Mrs. Brierly's Niece.

Blood Money: A Tale. Society: A Novel

R. L. S.

Letter: TO THE REV. PROFESSOR LEWIS CAMPBELL

[WENSLEYDALE, BOURNEMOUTH, NOVEMBER 1884.]

MY DEAR CAMPBELL, - The books came duly to hand. My wife has occupied the translation ever since, nor have I yet been able to dislodge her. As for the primer, I have read it with a very strange result: that I find no fault. If you knew how, dogmatic and pugnacious, I stand warden on the literary art, you would the more appreciate your success and my - well, I will own it - disappointment. For I love to put people right (or wrong) about the arts. But what you say of Tragedy and of Sophocles very amply satisfies me; it is well felt and well said; a little less technically than it is my weakness to desire to see it put, but clear and adequate. You are very right to express your admiration for the resource displayed in OEdipus King; it is a miracle. Would it not have been well to mention Voltaire's interesting onslaught, a thing which gives the best lesson of the difference of neighbour arts? - since all his criticisms, which had been fatal to a narrative, do not amount among them to exhibit one flaw in this masterpiece of drama. For the drama, it is perfect; though such a fable in a romance might make the reader crack his sides, so imperfect, so ethereally slight is the verisimilitude required of these conventional, rigid, and egg-dancing arts.

I was sorry to see no more of you; but shall conclude by hoping for better luck next time. My wife begs to be remembered to both of you. - Yours sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO ANDREW CHATTO

WENSLEYDALE, BOURNEMOUTH, OCTOBER 3, 1884.

DEAR MR. CHATTO, - I have an offer of 25 pounds for OTTO from America. I do not know if you mean to have the American rights; from the nature of the contract, I think not; but if you understood that you were to sell the sheets, I will either hand over the bargain to you, or finish it myself and hand you over the money if you are pleased with the amount. You see, I leave this quite in your hands. To parody an old Scotch story of servant and master: if you don't know that you have a good author, I know that I have a good publisher. Your fair, open, and handsome dealings are a good point in my life, and do more for my crazy health than has yet been done by any doctor. - Very truly yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO W. H. LOW

BONALLIE TOWERS, BRANKSOME PARK, BOURNEMOUTH, HANTS, ENGLAND, FIRST WEEK IN NOVEMBER, I GUESS, 1884.

MY DEAR LOW, - NOW, look here, the above is my address for three months, I hope; continue, on your part, if you please, to write to Edinburgh, which is safe; but if Mrs. Low thinks of coming to England, she might take a run down from London (four hours from Waterloo, main line) and stay a day or two with us among the pines.

If not, I hope it will be only a pleasure deferred till you can join her.

My Children's Verses will be published here in a volume called A CHILD'S GARDEN. The sheets are in hand; I will see if I cannot send you the lot, so that you might have a bit of a start. In that case I would do nothing to publish in the States, and you might try an ill.u.s.trated edition there; which, if the book went fairly over here, might, when ready, be imported. But of this more fully ere long. You will see some verses of mine in the last MAGAZINE OF ART, with pictures by a young lady; rather pretty, I think. If we find a market for PHASELLULUS LOQUITUR, we can try another. I hope it isn't necessary to put the verse into that rustic printing. I am Philistine enough to prefer clean printer's type; indeed, I can form no idea of the verses thus transcribed by the incult and tottering hand of the draughtsman, nor gather any impression beyond one of weariness to the eyes. Yet the other day, in the CENTURY, I saw it imputed as a crime to Vedder that he had not thus travestied Omar Khayyam. We live in a rum age of music without airs, stories without incident, pictures without beauty, American wood engravings that should have been etchings, and dry-point etchings that ought to have been mezzo-tints. I think of giving 'em literature without words; and I believe if you were to try invisible ill.u.s.tration, it would enjoy a considerable vogue. So long as an artist is on his head, is painting with a flute, or writes with an etcher's needle, or conducts the orchestra with a meat-axe, all is well; and plaudits shower along with roses. But any plain man who tries to follow the obtrusive canons of his art, is but a commonplace figure. To h.e.l.l with him is the motto, or at least not that; for he will have his reward, but he will never be thought a person of parts.

JANUARY 3, 1885.

And here has this been lying near two months. I have failed to get together a preliminary copy of the Child's Verses for you, in spite of doughty efforts; but yesterday I sent you the first sheet of the definitive edition, and shall continue to send the others as they come. If you can, and care to, work them - why so, well. If not, I send you fodder. But the time presses; for though I will delay a little over the proofs, and though - it is even possible they may delay the English issue until Easter, it will certainly not be later. Therefore perpend, and do not get caught out. Of course, if you can do pictures, it will be a great pleasure to me to see our names joined; and more than that, a great advantage, as I daresay you may be able to make a bargain for some share a little less spectral than the common for the poor author. But this is all as you shall choose; I give you CARTE BLANCHE to do or not to do. - Yours most sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

O, Sargent has been and painted my portrait; a very nice fellow he is, and is supposed to have done well; it is a poetical but very chicken-boned figure-head, as thus represented. R. L. S. Go on.