Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson
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24 The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume II
Scanned and proofed by David Price
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume II
CHAPTER VIII - LIFE AT BOURNEMOUTH, CONTINUED, JANUARY 1886-JULY 1887
Letter: TO MRS. DE MATTOS
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], JANUARY 1ST, 1886.
DEAREST KATHARINE, - Here, on a very little book and accompanied
with lame verses, I have put your name. Our kindness is now
getting well on in years; it must be nearly of age; and it gets
more valuable to me with every time I see you. It is not possible
to express any sentiment, and it is not necessary to try, at least
between us. You know very well that I love you dearly, and that I
always will. I only wish the verses were better, but at least you
like the story; and it is sent to you by the one that loves you -
Jekyll, and not Hyde.
R. L. S.
AVE!
Bells upon the city are ringing in the night;
High above the gardens are the houses full of light;
On the heathy Pentlands is the curlew flying free;
And the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.
We cannae break the bonds that God decreed to bind,
Still we'll be the children of the heather and the wind;
Far away from home, O, it's still for you and me
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie!
R. L. S.
Letter: TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], 1ST, 1886.
MY DEAR KINNICUM, - I am a very bad dog, but not for the first
time. Your book, which is very interesting, came duly; and I
immediately got a very bad cold indeed, and have been fit for
nothing whatever. I am a bit better now, and aye on the mend; so I
write to tell you, I thought of you on New Year's Day; though, I
own, it would have been more decent if I had thought in time for
you to get my letter then. Well, what can't be cured must be
endured, Mr. Lawrie; and you must be content with what I give. If
I wrote all the letters I ought to write, and at the proper time, I
should be very good and very happy; but I doubt if I should do
anything else.
I suppose you will be in town for the New Year; and I hope your
health is pretty good. What you want is diet; but it is as much
use to tell you that as it is to tell my father. And I quite admit
a diet is a beastly thing. I doubt, however, if it be as bad as
not being allowed to speak, which I have tried fully, and do not
like. When, at the same time, I was not allowed to read, it passed
a joke. But these are troubles of the past, and on this day, at
least, it is proper to suppose they won't return. But we are not
put here to enjoy ourselves: it was not God's purpose; and I am
prepared to argue, it is not our sincere wish. As for our deserts,
the less said of them the better, for somebody might hear, and
nobody cares to be laughed at. A good man is a very noble thing to
see, but not to himself; what he seems to God is, fortunately, not
our business; that is the domain of faith; and whether on the first
of January or the thirty-first of December, faith is a good word to
end on.
My dear Cummy, many happy returns to you and my best love. - The
worst correspondent in the world,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], JANUARY 1ST, 1886.
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - Many happy returns of the day to you all; I am
fairly well and in good spirits; and much and hopefully occupied
with dear Jenkin's life. The inquiry in every detail, every letter
that I read, makes me think of him more nobly. I cannot imagine
how I got his friendship; I did not deserve it. I believe the
notice will be interesting and useful.
My father's last letter, owing to the use of a quill pen and the
neglect of blotting-paper, was hopelessly illegible. Every one
tried, and every one failed to decipher an important word on which
the interest of one whole clause (and the letter consisted of two)
depended.
I find I can make little more of this; but I'll spare the blots. -
Dear people, ever your loving son,
R. L. S.
I will try again, being a giant refreshed by the house being empty.
The presence of people is the great obstacle to letter-writing. I
deny that letters should contain news (I mean mine; those of other
people should). But mine should contain appropriate sentiments and
humorous nonsense, or nonsense without the humour. When the house
is empty, the mind is seized with a desire - no, that is too strong
- a willingness to pour forth unmitigated rot, which constitutes
(in me) the true spirit of correspondence. When I have no remarks
to offer (and nobody to offer them to), my pen flies, and you see
the remarkable consequence of a page literally covered with words
and genuinely devoid of sense. I can always do that, if quite
alone, and I like doing it; but I have yet to learn that it is
beloved by correspondents. The deuce of it is, that there is no
end possible but the end of the paper; and as there is very little
left of that - if I cannot stop writing - suppose you give up
reading. It would all come to the same thing; and I think we
should all be happier...
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH], JAN. 2ND, 1886.
MY DEAR LOW, - LAMIA has come, and I do not know how to thank you,
not only for the beautiful art of the designs, but for the handsome
and apt words of the dedication. My favourite is 'Bathes unseen,'
which is a masterpiece; and the next, 'Into the green recessed
woods,' is perhaps more remarkable, though it does not take my
fancy so imperiously. The night scene at Corinth pleases me also.
The second part offers fewer opportunities. I own I should like to
see both ISABELLA and the EVE thus illustrated; and then there's
HYPERION - O, yes, and ENDYMION! I should like to see the lot:
beautiful pictures dance before me by hundreds: I believe ENDYMION
would suit you best. It also is in faery-land; and I see a hundred
opportunities, cloudy and flowery glories, things as delicate as
the cobweb in the bush; actions, not in themselves of any mighty
purport, but made for the pencil: the feast of Pan, Peona's isle,
the 'slabbed margin of a well,' the chase of the butterfly, the
nymph, Glaucus, Cybele, Sleep on his couch, a farrago of
unconnected beauties. But I divagate; and all this sits in the
bosom of the publisher.
What is more important, I accept the terms of the dedication with a
frank heart, and the terms of your Latin legend fairly. The sight
of your pictures has once more awakened me to my right mind;
something may come of it; yet one more bold push to get free of
this prisonyard of the abominably ugly, where I take my daily
exercise with my contemporaries. I do not know, I have a feeling
in my bones, a sentiment which may take on the forms of
imagination, or may not. If it does, I shall owe it to you; and
the thing will thus descend from Keats even if on the wrong side of
the blanket. If it can be done in prose - that is the puzzle - I
divagate again. Thank you again: you can draw and yet you do not
love the ugly: what are you doing in this age? Flee, while it is
yet time; they will have your four limbs pinned upon a stable door
to scare witches. The ugly, my unhappy friend, is DE RIGUEUR: it
is the only wear! What a chance you threw away with the serpent!
Why had Apollonius no pimples? Heavens, my dear Low, you do not
know your business....
I send you herewith a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph; but the
gnome is interesting, I think, and he came out of a deep mine,
where he guards the fountain of tears. It is not always the time
to rejoice. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
The gnome's name is JEKYLL & HYDE; I believe you will find he is
likewise quite willing to answer to the name of Low or Stevenson.
SAME DAY. - I have copied out on the other sheet some bad verses,
which somehow your picture suggested; as a kind of image of things
that I pursue and cannot reach, and that you seem - no, not to have
reached - but to have come a thought nearer to than I. This is the
life we have chosen: well, the choice was mad, but I should make
it again.
What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be printed in (say)
the CENTURY for the sake of my name; and if that were possible,
they might advertise your book. It might be headed as sent in
acknowledgment of your LAMIA. Or perhaps it might be introduced by
the phrases I have marked above. I dare say they would stick it
in: I want no payment, being well paid by LAMIA. If they are not,
keep them to yourself.
TO WILL H. LOW
DAMNED BAD LINES IN RETURN FOR A BEAUTIFUL BOOK
Youth now flees on feathered foot.
Faint and fainter sounds the flute;
Rarer songs of Gods.
And still,
Somewhere on the sunny hill,
Or along the winding stream,
Through the willows, flits a dream;
Flits, but shows a smiling face,
Flees, but with so quaint a grace,
None can choose to stay at home,
All must follow - all must roam.
This is unborn beauty: she
Now in air floats high and free,
Takes the sun, and breaks the blue; -
Late, with stooping pinion flew
Raking hedgerow trees, and wet
Her wing in silver streams, and set
Shining foot on temple roof.
Now again she flies aloof,
Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed
By the evening's amethyst.
In wet wood and miry lane
Still we pound and pant in vain;
Still with earthy foot we chase
Waning pinion, fainting face;
Still, with grey hair, we stumble on
Till - behold! - the vision gone!
Where has fleeting beauty led?
To the doorway of the dead!
qy. omit? [Life is gone, but life was gay:
We have come the primrose way!]
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JAN. 2ND, 1886.
MY DEAR GOSSE, - Thank you for your letter, so interesting to my
vanity. There is a review in the St. James's, which, as it seems
to hold somewhat of your opinions, and is besides written with a
pen and not a poker, we think may possibly be yours. The PRINCE
has done fairly well in spite of the reviews, which have been bad:
he was, as you doubtless saw, well slated in the SATURDAY; one
paper received it as a child's story; another (picture my agony)
described it as a 'Gilbert comedy.' It was amusing to see the race
between me and Justin M'Carthy: the Milesian has won by a length.
That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and you take
longer over your work, and it will not be so successful as if you
had aimed low and rushed it. What the public likes is work (of any
kind) a little loosely executed; so long as it is a little wordy, a
little slack, a little dim and knotless, the dear public likes it;
it should (if possible) be a little dull into the bargain. I know
that good work sometimes hits; but, with my hand on my heart, I
think it is by an accident. And I know also that good work must
succeed at last; but that is not the doing of the public; they are
only shamed into silence or affectation. I do not write for the
public; I do write for money, a nobler deity; and most of all for
myself, not perhaps any more noble, but both more intelligent and
nearer home.
Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast
whom we feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press
is the mouth of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an
university chair, and everything prurient, and ignoble, and
essentially dull, finds its abode and pulpit. I do not like
mankind; but men, and not all of these - and fewer women. As for
respecting the race, and, above all, that fatuous rabble of
burgesses called 'the public,' God save me from such irreligion! -
that way lies disgrace and dishonour. There must be something
wrong in me, or I would not be popular.
This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and permanent
opinion. Not much, I think. As for the art that we practise, I
have never been able to see why its professors should be respected.
They chose the primrose path; when they found it was not all
primroses, but some of it brambly, and much of it uphill, they
began to think and to speak of themselves as holy martyrs. But a
man is never martyred in any honest sense in the pursuit of his
pleasure; and DELIRIUM TREMENS has more of the honour of the cross.
We were full of the pride of life, and chose, like prostitutes, to
live by a pleasure. We should be paid if we give the pleasure we
pretend to give; but why should we be honoured?
I hope some day you and Mrs. Gosse will come for a Sunday; but we
must wait till I am able to see people. I am very full of Jenkin's
life; it is painful, yet very pleasant, to dig into the past of a
dead friend, and find him, at every spadeful, shine brighter. I
own, as I read, I wonder more and more why he should have taken me
to be a friend. He had many and obvious faults upon the face of
him; the heart was pure gold. I feel it little pain to have lost
him, for it is a loss in which I cannot believe; I take it, against
reason, for an absence; if not to-day, then to-morrow, I still
fancy I shall see him in the door; and then, now when I know him
better, how glad a meeting! Yes, if I could believe in the
immortality business, the world would indeed be too good to be
true; but we were put here to do what service we can, for honour
and not for hire: the sods cover us, and the worm that never dies,
the conscience, sleeps well at last; these are the wages, besides
what we receive so lavishly day by day; and they are enough for a
man who knows his own frailty and sees all things in the proportion
of reality. The soul of piety was killed long ago by that idea of
reward. Nor is happiness, whether eternal or temporal, the reward
that mankind seeks. Happinesses are but his wayside campings; his
soul is in the journey; he was born for the struggle, and only
tastes his life in effort and on the condition that he is opposed.
How, then, is such a creature, so fiery, so pugnacious, so made up
of discontent and aspiration, and such noble and uneasy passions -
how can he be rewarded but by rest? I would not say it aloud; for
man's cherished belief is that he loves that happiness which he
continually spurns and passes by; and this belief in some ulterior
happiness exactly fits him. He does not require to stop and taste
it; he can be about the rugged and bitter business where his heart
lies; and yet he can tell himself this fairy tale of an eternal
tea-party, and enjoy the notion that he is both himself and
something else; and that his friends will yet meet him, all ironed
out and emasculate, and still be lovable, - as if love did not live
in the faults of the beloved only, and draw its breath in an
unbroken round of forgiveness! But the truth is, we must fight
until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet for mankind but
complete resumption into - what? - God, let us say - when all these
desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last.
Here came my dinner and cut this sermon short - EXCUSEZ.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO JAMES PAYN
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JAN. 2ND, 1886.
DEAR JAMES PAYN, - Your very kind letter came very welcome; and
still more welcome the news that you see -'s tale. I will now tell
you (and it was very good and very wise of me not to tell it
before) that he is one of the most unlucky men I know, having put
all his money into a pharmacy at Hyeres, when the cholera
(certainly not his fault) swept away his customers in a body. Thus
you can imagine the pleasure I have to announce to him a spark of
hope, for he sits to-day in his pharmacy, doing nothing and taking
nothing, and watching his debts inexorably mount up.
To pass to other matters: your hand, you are perhaps aware, is not
one of those that can be read running; and the name of your
daughter remains for me undecipherable. I call her, then, your
daughter - and a very good name too - and I beg to explain how it
came about that I took her house. The hospital was a point in my
tale; but there is a house on each side. Now the true house is the
one before the hospital: is that No. 11? If not, what do you
complain of? If it is, how can I help what is true? Everything in
the DYNAMITER is not true; but the story of the Brown Box is, in
almost every particular; I lay my hand on my heart and swear to it.
It took place in that house in 1884; and if your daughter was in
that house at the time, all I can say is she must have kept very
bad society.
But I see you coming. Perhaps your daughter's house has not a
balcony at the back? I cannot answer for that; I only know that
side of Queen Square from the pavement and the back windows of
Brunswick Row. Thence I saw plenty of balconies (terraces rather);
and if there is none to the particular house in question, it must
have been so arranged to spite me.
I now come to the conclusion of this matter. I address three
questions to your daughter:-
1st Has her house the proper terrace?
2nd. Is it on the proper side of the hospital?
3rd. Was she there in the summer of 1884?
You see, I begin to fear that Mrs. Desborough may have deceived me
on some trifling points, for she is not a lady of peddling
exactitude. If this should prove to be so, I will give your
daughter a proper certificate, and her house property will return
to its original value.
Can man say more? - Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I saw the other day that the Eternal had plagiarised from LOST SIR
MASSINGBERD: good again, sir! I wish he would plagiarise the
death of Zero.
Letter: TO W. H. LOW
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JAN. SOMETHINGOROTHER-TH, 1886.
MY DEAR LOW, - I send you two photographs: they are both done by
Sir Percy Shelley, the poet's son, which may interest. The sitting
down one is, I think, the best; but if they choose that, see that
the little reflected light on the nose does not give me a turn-up;
that would be tragic. Don't forget 'Baronet' to Sir Percy's name.
We all think a heap of your book; and I am well pleased with my
dedication. - Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
P.S. - APROPOS of the odd controversy about Shelley's nose: I have
before me four photographs of myself, done by Shelley's son: my
nose is hooked, not like the eagle, indeed, but like the
accipitrine family in man: well, out of these four, only one marks
the bend, one makes it straight, and one suggests a turn-up. This
throws a flood of light on calumnious man - and the scandal-
mongering sun. For personally I cling to my curve. To continue
the Shelley controversy: I have a look of him, all his sisters had
noses like mine; Sir Percy has a marked hook; all the family had
high cheek-bones like mine; what doubt, then, but that this turn-up
(of which Jeaffreson accuses the poet, along with much other
FATRAS) is the result of some accident similar to what has happened
in my photographs by his son?
R. L. S.
Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON
[SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JANUARY 25, 1886.]
MY DEAR FATHER, - Many thanks for a letter quite like yourself. I
quite agree with you, and had already planned a scene of religion
in BALFOUR; the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge
furnishes me with a catechist whom I shall try to make the man. I
have another catechist, the blind, pistol-carrying highway robber,
whom I have transferred from the Long Island to Mull. I find it a
most picturesque period, and wonder Scott let it escape. The
COVENANT is lost on one of the Tarrans, and David is cast on
Earraid, where (being from inland) he is nearly starved before he
finds out the island is tidal; then he crosses Mull to Toronsay,
meeting the blind catechist by the way; then crosses Morven from
Kinlochaline to Kingairloch, where he stays the night with the good
catechist; that is where I am; next day he is to be put ashore in
Appin, and be present at Colin Campbell's death. To-day I rest,
being a little run down. Strange how liable we are to brain fag in
this scooty family! But as far as I have got, all but the last
chapter, I think David is on his feet, and (to my mind) a far
better story and far sounder at heart than TREASURE ISLAND.
I have no earthly news, living entirely in my story, and only
coming out of it to play patience. The Shelleys are gone; the
Taylors kinder than can be imagined. The other day, Lady Taylor
drove over and called on me; she is a delightful old lady, and
great fun. I mentioned a story about the Duchess of Wellington
which I had heard Sir Henry tell; and though he was very tired, he
looked it up and copied it out for me in his own hand. - Your most
affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO C. W. STODDARD
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, FEB. 13TH, 1886.
MY DEAR STODDARD, - I am a dreadful character; but, you see, I have
at last taken pen in hand; how long I may hold it, God knows. This
is already my sixth letter to-day, and I have many more waiting;
and my wrist gives me a jog on the subject of scrivener's cramp,
which is not encouraging.
I gather you were a little down in the jaw when you wrote your
last. I am as usual pretty cheerful, but not very strong. I stay
in the house all winter, which is base; but, as you continue to
see, the pen goes from time to time, though neither fast enough nor
constantly enough to please me.
My wife is at Bath with my father and mother, and the interval of
widowery explains my writing. Another person writing for you when
you have done work is a great enemy to correspondence. To-day I
feel out of health, and shan't work; and hence this so much overdue
reply.
I was re-reading some of your South Sea Idyls the other day: some
of the chapters are very good indeed; some pages as good as they
can be.
How does your class get along? If you like to touch on OTTO, any
day in a by-hour, you may tell them - as the author's last dying
confession - that it is a strange example of the difficulty of
being ideal in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy-
mindedness, which spoils the book and often gives it a wanton air
of unreality and juggling with air-bells, comes from unsteadiness
of key; from the too great realism of some chapters and passages -
some of which I have now spotted, others I dare say I shall never
spot - which disprepares the imagination for the cast of the
remainder.
Any story can be made TRUE in its own key; any story can be made
FALSE by the choice of a wrong key of detail or style: Otto is
made to reel like a drunken - I was going to say man, but let us
substitute cipher - by the variations of the key. Have you
observed that the famous problem of realism and idealism is one
purely of detail? Have you seen my 'Note on Realism' in Cassell's
MAGAZINE OF ART; and 'Elements of Style' in the CONTEMPORARY; and
'Romance' and 'Humble Apology' in LONGMAN'S? They are all in your
line of business; let me know what you have not seen and I'll send
'em.
I am glad I brought the old house up to you. It was a pleasant old
spot, and I remember you there, though still more dearly in your
own strange den upon a hill in San Francisco; and one of the most
San Francisco-y parts of San Francisco.
Good-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO J. A. SYMONDS
SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH [SPRING 1886].
MY DEAR SYMONDS, - If we have lost touch, it is (I think) only in a
material sense; a question of letters, not hearts. You will find a
warm welcome at Skerryvore from both the lightkeepers; and, indeed,
we never tell ourselves one of our financial fairy tales, but a run
to Davos is a prime feature. I am not changeable in friendship;
and I think I can promise you you have a pair of trusty well-
wishers and friends in Bournemouth: whether they write or not is
but a small thing; the flag may not be waved, but it is there.
Jekyll is a dreadful thing, I own; but the only thing I feel
dreadful about is that damned old business of the war in the
members. This time it came out; I hope it will stay in, in future.
Raskolnikoff is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years;
I am glad you took to it. Many find it dull: Henry James could
not finish it: all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was
like having an illness. James did not care for it because the
character of Raskolnikoff was not objective; and at that I divined
a great gulf between us, and, on further reflection, the existence
of a certain impotence in many minds of to-day, which prevents them
from living IN a book or a character, and keeps them standing afar
off, spectators of a puppet show. To such I suppose the book may
seem empty in the centre; to the others it is a room, a house of
life, into which they themselves enter, and are tortured and
purified. The Juge d'Instruction I thought a wonderful, weird,
touching, ingenious creation: the drunken father, and Sonia, and
the student friend, and the uncircumscribed, protaplasmic humanity
of Raskolnikoff, all upon a level that filled me with wonder: the
execution also, superb in places. Another has been translated -
HUMILIES ET OFFENSES. It is even more incoherent than LE CRIME ET
LE CHATIMENT, but breathes much of the same lovely goodness, and
has passages of power. Dostoieffsky is a devil of a swell, to be
sure. Have you heard that he became a stout, imperialist
conservative? It is interesting to know. To something of that
side, the balance leans with me also in view of the incoherency and
incapacity of all. The old boyish idea of the march on Paradise
being now out of season, and all plans and ideas that I hear
debated being built on a superb indifference to the first
principles of human character, a helpless desire to acquiesce in
anything of which I know the worst assails me. Fundamental errors
in human nature of two sorts stand on the skyline of all this modem
world of aspirations. First, that it is happiness that men want;
and second, that happiness consists of anything but an internal
harmony. Men do not want, and I do not think they would accept,
happiness; what they live for is rivalry, effort, success - the
elements our friends wish to eliminate. And, on the other hand,
happiness is a question of morality - or of immorality, there is no
difference - and conviction. Gordon was happy in Khartoum, in his
worst hours of danger and fatigue; Marat was happy, I suppose, in
his ugliest frenzy; Marcus Aurelius was happy in the detested camp;
Pepys was pretty happy, and I am pretty happy on the whole, because
we both somewhat crowingly accepted a VIA MEDIA, both liked to
attend to our affairs, and both had some success in managing the
same. It is quite an open question whether Pepys and I ought to be
happy; on the other hand, there is no doubt that Marat had better
be unhappy. He was right (if he said it) that he was LA MISERE
HUMAINE, cureless misery - unless perhaps by the gallows. Death is
a great and gentle solvent; it has never had justice done it, no,
not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece ornaments, the
bourgeois (QUORUM PARS), and their cowardly dislike of dying and
killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly they
have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment
and their treatment of their domestic servants are for me the two
flaunting emblems of their hollowness.
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