Richard Brinsley Sheridan - "St. Patrick's Day"

Laura Lee Hope - "The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West"

Martin van Buren - "State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren"

G. K. Chesterton - "The Wisdom of Father Brown"

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson

R >> Robert Louis Stevenson >> The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson




My new book, THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT, is about half drafted. I don't
know if it will be good, but I think it ought to sell in spite of
the deil and the publishers; for it tells an odd enough experience,
and one, I think, never yet told before. Look for my 'Burns' in
the CORNHILL, and for my 'Story of a Lie' in Paul's withered babe,
the NEW QUARTERLY. You may have seen the latter ere this reaches
you: tell me if it has any interest, like a good boy, and remember
that it was written at sea in great anxiety of mind. What is your
news? Send me your works, like an angel, AU FUR ET A MESURE of
their apparition, for I am naturally short of literature, and I do
not wish to rust.

I fear this can hardly be called a letter. To say truth, I feel
already a difficulty of approach; I do not know if I am the same
man I was in Europe, perhaps I can hardly claim acquaintance with
you. My head went round and looks another way now; for when I
found myself over here in a new land, and all the past uprooted in
the one tug, and I neither feeling glad nor sorry, I got my last
lesson about mankind; I mean my latest lesson, for of course I do
not know what surprises there are yet in store for me. But that I
could have so felt astonished me beyond description. There is a
wonderful callousness in human nature which enables us to live. I
had no feeling one way or another, from New York to California,
until, at Dutch Flat, a mining camp in the Sierra, I heard a cock
crowing with a home voice; and then I fell to hope and regret both
in the same moment.

Is there a boy or a girl? and how is your wife? I thought of you
more than once, to put it mildly.

I live here comfortably enough; but I shall soon be left all alone,
perhaps till Christmas. Then you may hope for correspondence - and
may not I? - Your friend,

R L S.



Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY



[MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER 1879.]

MY DEAR HENLEY, - Herewith the PAVILION ON THE LINKS, grand
carpentry story in nine chapters, and I should hesitate to say how
many tableaux. Where is it to go? God knows. It is the dibbs
that are wanted. It is not bad, though I say it; carpentry, of
course, but not bad at that; and who else can carpenter in England,
now that Wilkie Collins is played out? It might be broken for
magazine purposes at the end of Chapter IV. I send it to you, as I
dare say Payn may help, if all else fails. Dibbs and speed are my
mottoes.

Do acknowledge the PAVILION by return. I shall be so nervous till
I hear, as of course I have no copy except of one or two places
where the vein would not run. God prosper it, poor PAVILION! May
it bring me money for myself and my sick one, who may read it, I do
not know how soon.

Love to your wife, Anthony and all. I shall write to Colvin to-day
or to-morrow. - Yours ever,

R. L. S.



Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY



[MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, OCTOBER 1879.]

MY DEAR HENLEY, - Many thanks for your good letter, which is the
best way to forgive you for your previous silence. I hope Colvin
or somebody has sent me the CORNHILL and the NEW QUARTERLY, though
I am trying to get them in San Francisco. I think you might have
sent me (1) some of your articles in the P. M. G.; (2) a paper with
the announcement of second edition; and (3) the announcement of the
essays in ATHENAEUM. This to prick you in the future. Again,
choose, in your head, the best volume of Labiche there is, and post
it to Jules Simoneau, Monterey, Monterey Co., California: do this
at once, as he is my restaurant man, a most pleasant old boy with
whom I discuss the universe and play chess daily. He has been out
of France for thirty-five years, and never heard of Labiche. I
have eighty-three pages written of a story called a VENDETTA IN THE
WEST, and about sixty pages of the first draft of the AMATEUR
EMIGRANT. They should each cover from 130 to 150 pages when done.
That is all my literary news. Do keep me posted, won't you? Your
letter and Bob's made the fifth and sixth I have had from Europe in
three months.

At times I get terribly frightened about my work, which seems to
advance too slowly. I hope soon to have a greater burthen to
support, and must make money a great deal quicker than I used. I
may get nothing for the VENDETTA; I may only get some forty quid
for the EMIGRANT; I cannot hope to have them both done much before
the end of November.

O, and look here, why did you not send me the SPECTATOR which
slanged me? Rogues and rascals, is that all you are worth?

Yesterday I set fire to the forest, for which, had I been caught, I
should have been hung out of hand to the nearest tree, Judge Lynch
being an active person hereaway. You should have seen my retreat
(which was entirely for strategical purposes). I ran like hell.
It was a fine sight. At night I went out again to see it; it was a
good fire, though I say it that should not. I had a near escape
for my life with a revolver: I fired six charges, and the six
bullets all remained in the barrel, which was choked from end to
end, from muzzle to breach, with solid lead; it took a man three
hours to drill them out. Another shot, and I'd have gone to
kingdom come.

This is a lovely place, which I am growing to love. The Pacific
licks all other oceans out of hand; there is no place but the
Pacific Coast to hear eternal roaring surf. When I get to the top
of the woods behind Monterey, I can hear the seas breaking all
round over ten or twelve miles of coast from near Carmel on my
left, out to Point Pinas in front, and away to the right along the
sands of Monterey to Castroville and the mouth of the Salinas. I
was wishing yesterday that the world could get - no, what I mean
was that you should be kept in suspense like Mahomet's coffin until
the world had made half a revolution, then dropped here at the
station as though you had stepped from the cars; you would then
comfortably enter Walter's waggon (the sun has just gone down, the
moon beginning to throw shadows, you hear the surf rolling, and
smell the sea and the pines). That shall deposit you at Sanchez's
saloon, where we take a drink; you are introduced to Bronson, the
local editor ('I have no brain music,' he says; 'I'm a mechanic,
you see,' but he's a nice fellow); to Adolpho Sanchez, who is
delightful. Meantime I go to the P. O. for my mail; thence we walk
up Alvarado Street together, you now floundering in the sand, now
merrily stumping on the wooden side-walks; I call at Hadsell's for
my paper; at length behold us installed in Simoneau's little white-
washed back-room, round a dirty tablecloth, with Francois the
baker, perhaps an Italian fisherman, perhaps Augustin Dutra, and
Simoneau himself. Simoneau, Francois, and I are the three sure
cards; the others mere waifs. Then home to my great airy rooms
with five windows opening on a balcony; I sleep on the floor in my
camp blankets; you instal yourself abed; in the morning coffee with
the little doctor and his little wife; we hire a waggon and make a
day of it; and by night, I should let you up again into the air, to
be returned to Mrs. Henley in the forenoon following. By God, you
would enjoy yourself. So should I. I have tales enough to keep
you going till five in the morning, and then they would not be at
an end. I forget if you asked me any questions, and I sent your
letter up to the city to one who will like to read it. I expect
other letters now steadily. If I have to wait another two months,
I shall begin to be happy. Will you remember me most
affectionately to your wife? Shake hands with Anthony from me; and
God bless your mother.

God bless Stephen! Does he not know that I am a man, and cannot
live by bread alone, but must have guineas into the bargain.
Burns, I believe, in my own mind, is one of my high-water marks;
Meiklejohn flames me a letter about it, which is so complimentary
that I must keep it or get it published in the MONTEREY
CALIFORNIAN. Some of these days I shall send an exemplaire of that
paper; it is huge. - Ever your affectionate friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.



Letter: TO P. G. HAMERTON



MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA [NOVEMBER 1879].

MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON, - Your letter to my father was forwarded to
me by mistake, and by mistake I opened it. The letter to myself
has not yet reached me. This must explain my own and my father's
silence. I shall write by this or next post to the only friends I
have who, I think, would have an influence, as they are both
professors. I regret exceedingly that I am not in Edinburgh, as I
could perhaps have done more, and I need not tell you that what I
might do for you in the matter of the election is neither from
friendship nor gratitude, but because you are the only man (I beg
your pardon) worth a damn. I shall write to a third friend, now I
think of it, whose father will have great influence.

I find here (of all places in the world) your ESSAYS ON ART, which
I have read with signal interest. I believe I shall dig an essay
of my own out of one of them, for it set me thinking; if mine could
only produce yet another in reply, we could have the marrow out
between us.

I hope, my dear sir, you will not think badly of me for my long
silence. My head has scarce been on my shoulders. I had scarce
recovered from a long fit of useless ill-health than I was whirled
over here double-quick time and by cheapest conveyance.

I have been since pretty ill, but pick up, though still somewhat of
a mossy ruin. If you would view my countenance aright, come - view
it by the pale moonlight. But that is on the mend. I believe I
have now a distant claim to tan.

A letter will be more than welcome in this distant clime where I
have a box at the post-office - generally, I regret to say, empty.
Could your recommendation introduce me to an American publisher?
My next book I should really try to get hold of here, as its
interest is international, and the more I am in this country the
more I understand the weight of your influence. It is pleasant to
be thus most at home abroad, above all, when the prophet is still
not without honour in his own land. . . .



Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE



MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, 15TH NOVEMBER 1879.

MY DEAR GOSSE, - Your letter was to me such a bright spot that I
answer it right away to the prejudice of other correspondents or -
dants (don't know how to spell it) who have prior claims. . . . It
is the history of our kindnesses that alone makes this world
tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words,
kind looks, kind letters, multiplying, spreading, making one happy
through another and bringing forth benefits, some thirty, some
fifty, some a thousandfold, I should be tempted to think our life a
practical jest in the worst possible spirit. So your four pages
have confirmed my philosophy as well as consoled my heart in these
ill hours.

Yes, you are right; Monterey is a pleasant place; but I see I can
write no more to-night. I am tired and sad, and being already in
bed, have no more to do but turn out the light. - Your affectionate
friend,

R. L S.

I try it again by daylight. Once more in bed however; for to-day
it is MUCHO FRIO, as we Spaniards say; and I had no other means of
keeping warm for my work. I have done a good spell, 9 and a half
foolscap pages; at least 8 of CORNHILL; ah, if I thought that I
could get eight guineas for it. My trouble is that I am all too
ambitious just now. A book whereof 70 out of 120 are scrolled. A
novel whereof 85 out of, say, 140 are pretty well nigh done. A
short story of 50 pp., which shall be finished to-morrow, or I'll
know the reason why. This may bring in a lot of money: but I
dread to think that it is all on three chances. If the three were
to fail, I am in a bog. The novel is called A VENDETTA IN THE
WEST. I see I am in a grasping, dismal humour, and should, as we
Americans put it, quit writing. In truth, I am so haunted by
anxieties that one or other is sure to come up in all that I write.

I will send you herewith a Monterey paper where the works of R. L.
S. appear, nor only that, but all my life on studying the
advertisements will become clear. I lodge with Dr. Heintz; take my
meals with Simoneau; have been only two days ago shaved by the
tonsorial artist Michaels; drink daily at the Bohemia saloon; get
my daily paper from Hadsel's; was stood a drink to-day by Albano
Rodriguez; in short, there is scarce a person advertised in that
paper but I know him, and I may add scarce a person in Monterey but
is there advertised. The paper is the marrow of the place. Its
bones - pooh, I am tired of writing so sillily.

R. L. S.



Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN



[MONTEREY, DECEMBER 1879.]

TO-DAY, my dear Colvin, I send you the first part of the AMATEUR
EMIGRANT, 71 pp., by far the longest and the best of the whole. It
is not a monument of eloquence; indeed, I have sought to be prosaic
in view of the nature of the subject; but I almost think it is
interesting.

Whatever is done about any book publication, two things remember:
I must keep a royalty; and, second, I must have all my books
advertised, in the French manner, on the leaf opposite the title.
I know from my own experience how much good this does an author
with book BUYERS.

The entire A. E. will be a little longer than the two others, but
not very much. Here and there, I fancy, you will laugh as you read
it; but it seems to me rather a CLEVER book than anything else:
the book of a man, that is, who has paid a great deal of attention
to contemporary life, and not through the newspapers.

I have never seen my Burns! the darling of my heart! I await your
promised letter. Papers, magazines, articles by friends; reviews
of myself, all would be very welcome, I am reporter for the
MONTEREY CALIFORNIAN, at a salary of two dollars a week! COMMENT
TROUVEZ-VOUS CA? I am also in a conspiracy with the American
editor, a French restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against
the Padre. The enclosed poster is my last literary appearance. It
was put up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour;
and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I
think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits;
twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth
from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses of beer would cost
two bits. The Italian fisherman, an old Garibaldian, is a splendid
fellow.

R. L. S.



Letter: To EDMUND GOSSE



MONTEREY, MONTEREY CO., CALIFORNIA, DEC. 8, 1879.

MY DEAR WEG, - I received your book last night as I lay abed with a
pleurisy, the result, I fear, of overwork, gradual decline of
appetite, etc. You know what a wooden-hearted curmudgeon I am
about contemporary verse. I like none of it, except some of my
own. (I look back on that sentence with pleasure; it comes from an
honest heart.) Hence you will be kind enough to take this from me
in a kindly spirit; the piece 'To my daughter' is delicious. And
yet even here I am going to pick holes. I am a BEASTLY curmudgeon.
It is the last verse. 'Newly budded' is off the venue; and haven't
you gone ahead to make a poetry daybreak instead of sticking to
your muttons, and comparing with the mysterious light of stars the
plain, friendly, perspicuous, human day? But this is to be a
beast. The little poem is eminently pleasant, human, and original.

I have read nearly the whole volume, and shall read it nearly all
over again; you have no rivals!

Bancroft's HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, even in a centenary
edition, is essentially heavy fare; a little goes a long way; I
respect Bancroft, but I do not love him; he has moments when he
feels himself inspired to open up his improvisations upon universal
history and the designs of God; but I flatter myself I am more
nearly acquainted with the latter than Mr. Bancroft. A man, in the
words of my Plymouth Brother, 'who knows the Lord,' must needs,
from time to time, write less emphatically. It is a fetter dance
to the music of minute guns - not at sea, but in a region not a
thousand miles from the Sahara. Still, I am half-way through
volume three, and shall count myself unworthy of the name of an
Englishman if I do not see the back of volume six. The countryman
of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Drake, Cook, etc.!

I have been sweated not only out of my pleuritic fever, but out of
all my eating cares, and the better part of my brains (strange
coincidence!), by aconite. I have that peculiar and delicious
sense of being born again in an expurgated edition which belongs to
convalescence. It will not be for long; I hear the breakers roar;
I shall be steering head first for another rapid before many days;
NITOR AQUIS, said a certain Eton boy, translating for his sins a
part of the INLAND VOYAGE into Latin elegiacs; and from the hour I
saw it, or rather a friend of mine, the admirable Jenkin, saw and
recognised its absurd appropriateness, I took it for my device in
life. I am going for thirty now; and unless I can snatch a little
rest before long, I have, I may tell you in confidence, no hope of
seeing thirty-one. My health began to break last winter, and has
given me but fitful times since then. This pleurisy, though but a
slight affair in itself was a huge disappointment to me, and marked
an epoch. To start a pleurisy about nothing, while leading a dull,
regular life in a mild climate, was not my habit in past days; and
it is six years, all but a few months, since I was obliged to spend
twenty-four hours in bed. I may be wrong, but if the niting is to
continue, I believe I must go. It is a pity in one sense, for I
believe the class of work I MIGHT yet give out is better and more
real and solid than people fancy. But death is no bad friend; a
few aches and gasps, and we are done; like the truant child, I am
beginning to grow weary and timid in this big jostling city, and
could run to my nurse, even although she should have to whip me
before putting me to bed.

Will you kiss your little daughter from me, and tell her that her
father has written a delightful poem about her? Remember me,
please, to Mrs. Gosse, to Middlemore, to whom some of these days I
will write, to -, to -, yes, to -, and to -. I know you will gnash
your teeth at some of these; wicked, grim, catlike old poet. If I
were God, I would sort you - as we say in Scotland. - Your sincere
friend,

R. L. S.

'Too young to be our child': blooming good.



Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN



608 BUSH STREET, SAN FRANCISCO [DECEMBER 26, 1879].

MY DEAR COLVIN, - I am now writing to you in a cafe waiting for
some music to begin. For four days I have spoken to no one but to
my landlady or landlord or to restaurant waiters. This is not a
gay way to pass Christmas, is it? and I must own the guts are a
little knocked out of me. If I could work, I could worry through
better. But I have no style at command for the moment, with the
second part of the EMIGRANT, the last of the novel, the essay on
Thoreau, and God knows all, waiting for me. But I trust something
can be done with the first part, or, by God, I'll starve here . . .
.

O Colvin, you don't know how much good I have done myself. I
feared to think this out by myself. I have made a base use of you,
and it comes out so much better than I had dreamed. But I have to
stick to work now; and here's December gone pretty near useless.
But, Lord love you, October and November saw a great harvest. It
might have affected the price of paper on the Pacific coast. As
for ink, they haven't any, not what I call ink; only stuff to write
cookery-books with, or the works of Hayley, or the pallid
perambulations of the - I can find nobody to beat Hayley. I like
good, knock-me-down black-strap to write with; that makes a mark
and done with it. - By the way, I have tried to read the SPECTATOR,
which they all say I imitate, and - it's very wrong of me, I know -
but I can't. It's all very fine, you know, and all that, but it's
vapid. They have just played the overture to NORMA, and I know
it's a good one, for I bitterly wanted the opera to go on; I had
just got thoroughly interested - and then no curtain to rise.

I have written myself into a kind of spirits, bless your dear
heart, by your leave. But this is wild work for me, nearly nine
and me not back! What will Mrs. Carson think of me! Quite a
night-hawk, I do declare. You are the worst correspondent in the
world - no, not that, Henley is that - well, I don't know, I leave
the pair of you to Him that made you - surely with small attention.
But here's my service, and I'll away home to my den O! much the
better for this crack, Professor Colvin.

R. L. S.



Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN



608 BUSH STREET, SAN FRANCISCO [JANUARY 10, 1880].

MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is a circular letter to tell my estate
fully. You have no right to it, being the worst of correspondents;
but I wish to efface the impression of my last, so to you it goes.

Any time between eight and half-past nine in the morning, a slender
gentleman in an ulster, with a volume buttoned into the breast of
it, may be observed leaving No. 608 Bush and descending Powell with
an active step. The gentleman is R. L. S.; the volume relates to
Benjamin Franklin, on whom he meditates one of his charming essays.
He descends Powell, crosses Market, and descends in Sixth on a
branch of the original Pine Street Coffee House, no less; I believe
he would be capable of going to the original itself, if he could
only find it. In the branch he seats himself at a table covered
with waxcloth, and a pampered menial, of High-Dutch extraction and,
indeed, as yet only partially extracted, lays before him a cup of
coffee, a roll and a pat of butter, all, to quote the deity, very
good. A while ago, and R. L. S. used to find the supply of butter
insufficient; but he has now learned the art to exactitude, and
butter and roll expire at the same moment. For this refection he
pays ten cents., or five pence sterling (0 pounds, 0s. 5d.).

Half an hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observe the same
slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his little
hatchet, splitting, kindling and breaking coal for his fire. He
does this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not to
be attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain of
his prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an axe),
and daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason
is this: that the sill is a strong, supporting beam, and that
blows of the same emphasis in other parts of his room might knock
the entire shanty into hell. Thenceforth, for from three to four
hours, he is engaged darkly with an inkbottle. Yet he is not
blacking his boots, for the only pair that he possesses are
innocent of lustre and wear the natural hue of the material turned
up with caked and venerable slush. The youngest child of his
landlady remarks several times a day, as this strange occupant
enters or quits the house, 'Dere's de author.' Can it be that this
bright-haired innocent has found the true clue to the mystery? The
being in question is, at least, poor enough to belong to that
honourable craft.

His next appearance is at the restaurant of one Donadieu, in Bush
Street, between Dupont and Kearney, where a copious meal, half a
bottle of wine, coffee and brandy may be procured for the sum of
four bits, ALIAS fifty cents., 0 pounds, 2s. 2d. sterling. The
wine is put down in a whole bottleful, and it is strange and
painful to observe the greed with which the gentleman in question
seeks to secure the last drop of his allotted half, and the
scrupulousness with which he seeks to avoid taking the first drop
of the other. This is partly explained by the fact that if he were
to go over the mark - bang would go a tenpence. He is again armed
with a book, but his best friends will learn with pain that he
seems at this hour to have deserted the more serious studies of the
morning. When last observed, he was studying with apparent zest
the exploits of one Rocambole by the late Viscomte Ponson du
Terrail. This work, originally of prodigious dimensions, he had
cut into liths or thicknesses apparently for convenience of
carriage.

Then the being walks, where is not certain. But by about half-past
four, a light beams from the windows of 608 Bush, and he may be
observed sometimes engaged in correspondence, sometimes once again
plunged in the mysterious rites of the forenoon. About six he
returns to the Branch Original, where he once more imbrues himself
to the worth of fivepence in coffee and roll. The evening is
devoted to writing and reading, and by eleven or half-past darkness
closes over this weird and truculent existence.

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