Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (966 page)

I thank you very heartily for your letter, and for the seriousness you brought to it. You know, I think when a serious thing is your own, you keep a saner man by laughing at it and yourself as you go. So I do not write possibly with all the really somewhat sickened gravity I feel. And indeed, what with the book, and this business to which I referred, and Ireland, I am scarcely in an enviable state. Well, I ought to be glad, after ten years of the worst training on earth — valetudinarianism — that I can still be troubled by a duty. You shall hear more in time; so far, I am at least decided: I will go and see Balfour when I get to London.

We have all had a great pleasure: a Mrs. Rawlinson came and brought with her a nineteen-year-old daughter, simple, human, as beautiful as — herself; I never admired a girl before, you know it was my weakness: we are all three dead in love with her. How nice to be able to do so much good to harassed people by — yourself! — Ever yours,

R. L. S.

To Miss Rawlinson

Here follows a compliment in verse to the young lady last mentioned, whose Christian name was May.

[
Skerryvore, Bournemouth, April
1887.]

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Sidney Colvin

Within a fortnight after the date of the above Stevenson went himself, and for the last time, to Scotland, and was present, too late for recognition, at the death of his father (May 8, 1887). Business detained him for some weeks, and the following was written just before his return to Bournemouth.

[
Edinburgh, June
1887.]

MY DEAR S. C., — At last I can write a word to you. Your little note in the P.M.G. was charming. I have written four pages in the Contemporary, which Bunting found room for: they are not very good, but I shall do more for his memory in time.

About the death, I have long hesitated, I was long before I could tell my mind; and now I know it, and can but say that I am glad. If we could have had my father, that would have been a different thing. But to keep that changeling — suffering changeling — any longer, could better none and nothing. Now he rests; it is more significant, it is more like himself. He will begin to return to us in the course of time, as he was and as we loved him.

My favourite words in literature, my favourite scene — ”O let him pass,” Kent and Lear — was played for me here in the first moment of my return. I believe Shakespeare saw it with his own father. I had no words; but it was shocking to see. He died on his feet, you know; was on his feet the last day, knowing nobody — still he would be up. This was his constant wish; also that he might smoke a pipe on his last day. The funeral would have pleased him; it was the largest private funeral in man’s memory here.

We have no plans, and it is possible we may go home without going through town. I do not know; I have no views yet whatever; nor can have any at this stage of my cold and my business. — Ever yours,

R. L. S.

To Sir Walter Simpson

Written during a short visit to me between his return from Scotland and his departure for New York.

British Museum
[
July
1887].

MY DEAR SIMPSON, — This is a long time I have not acknowledged the Art of Golf, though I read it through within thirty-six hours of its arrival. I have been ill and out of heart, and ill again and again ill, till I am weary of it, and glad indeed to try the pitch-farthing hazard of a trip to colourado or New Mexico. There we go, if I prove fit for the start, on August 20th.

Meanwhile, the Art of Golf. A lot of it is very funny, and I liked the fun very well; but what interested me most was the more serious part, because it turns all the while on a branch of psychology that no one has treated and that interests me much: the psychology of athletics. I had every reason to be interested in it, because I am abnormal: I have no memory in athletics. I have forgotten how to ride and how to skate; and I should not be the least surprised if I had forgotten how to swim.

I find I can write no more: it is the first I have tried since I was ill; and I am too weak. — Yours ever,

R. L. S.

To W. E. Henley

During the two months following his father’s death Stevenson had suffered much both from his old complaints and from depression of mind. His only work had been in preparing for press the 230 verse collection
Underwoods
, the
Life of Fleeming Jenkin
, and the volume of essays called
Memories and Portraits
. The opinions quoted are those of physicians.

[Skerryvore, Bournemouth] August
1887.

DEAR LAD, — I write to inform you that Mr. Stevenson’s well-known work,
Virginibus Puerisque
, is about to be reprinted. At the same time a second volume called
Memories and Portraits
will issue from the roaring loom. Its interest will be largely autobiographical, Mr. S. having sketched there the lineaments of many departed friends, and dwelt fondly, and with a m’istened eye, upon by-gone pleasures. The two will be issued under the common title of
Familiar Essays
; but the volumes will be vended separately to those who are mean enough not to hawk at both.

The blood is at last stopped: only yesterday. I began to think I should not get away. However, I hope — I hope — remark the word — no boasting — I hope I may luff up a bit now. Dobell, whom I saw, gave as usual a good account of my lungs, and expressed himself, like his neighbours, hopefully about the trip. He says, my uncle says, Scott says, Brown says — they all say — You ought not to be in such a state of health; you should recover. Well, then, I mean to. My spirits are rising again after three months of black depression: I almost begin to feel as if I should care to live: I would, by God! And so I believe I shall. — Yours,

Bulletin M’Gurder.

How has the
Deacon
gone?

To W. H. Low

[
Skerryvore, Bournemouth
]
August 6th,
1887.

MY DEAR LOW, — We — my mother, my wife, my stepson, my maidservant, and myself, five souls — leave, if all is well, Aug. 20th, per Wilson line s.s. Ludgate Hill. Shall 231 probably evade N. Y. at first, cutting straight to a watering-place: Newport, I believe, its name. Afterwards we shall steal incognito into
la bonne ville
, and see no one but you and the Scribners, if it may be so managed. You must understand I have been very seedy indeed, quite a dead body; and unless the voyage does miracles, I shall have to draw it dam fine. Alas, “The Canoe Speaks” is now out of date; it will figure in my volume of verses now imminent. However, I may find some inspiration some day. — Till very soon, yours ever,

R. L. S.

To Miss Adelaide Boodle

The lady to whom the following (and much correspondence yet to come) is addressed had been an attached friend of the Skerryvore household and a pupil of Stevenson’s in the art of writing. She had given R. L. S. a paper-cutter by way of farewell token at his starting.

Bournemouth, August 19th,
1887.

MY DEAR MISS BOODLE, — I promise you the paper-knife shall go to sea with me; and if it were in my disposal, I should promise it should return with me too. All that you say, I thank you for very much; I thank you for all the pleasantness that you have brought about our house; and I hope the day may come when I shall see you again in poor old Skerryvore, now left to the natives of Canada, or to worse barbarians, if such exist. I am afraid my attempt to jest is rather
à contre-cœur
. — Good-bye —
au revoir
— and do not forget your friend,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Messrs. Chatto and Windus

The titles and proofs mentioned in the text are presumably those of
Underwoods
and
Memories and Portraits
.

Bournemouth
[
August
1887].

DEAR SIRS, — I here enclose the two titles. Had you not better send me the bargains to sign? I shall be here 232 till Saturday; and shall have an address in London (which I shall send you) till Monday, when I shall sail. Even if the proofs do not reach you till Monday morning, you could send a clerk from Fenchurch Street Station at 10.23 A.M. for Galleons Station, and he would find me embarking on board the
Ludgate Hill
, Island Berth, Royal Albert Dock. Pray keep this in case it should be necessary to catch this last chance. I am most anxious to have the proofs with me on the voyage. — Yours very truly,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

 Cough.

 Loose talk.

 Mr. Charles Morley, at this time manager or assistant-manager of the Pall Mall Gazette.

 
Princess Casamassima.

 Lothian vernacular pronunciation of Cunningham.

 In
Underwoods
the lines thus bracketed as doubtful stand with the change:

“Life is over; life was gay.”

 
Prince Otto.

 The name of the hero in Dostoieffsky’s
Le Crime et le Châtiment
.

 
Suite anglaise.

 As in fact he had, all except the double l.

 In
Pendennis
.

IX

THE UNITED STATES AGAIN

WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS

August 1887 — June 1888

The letters printed in the following section are selected from those which tell of Stevenson’s voyage to New York and reception there at the beginning of September 1887; of his winter’s life and work at Saranac Lake, and of his decision taken in May 1888 to venture on a yachting cruise in the South Seas.

The moment of his arrival at New York was that when his reputation had first reached its height in the United States, owing to the popularity both of
Treasure Island
and
Kidnapped
, but more especially to the immense impression made by the
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
. He experienced consequently for the first time the pleasures, such as they were, of celebrity, and also its inconveniences; found the most hospitable of refuges in the house of his kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fairchild, at Newport; and quickly made many other friends, including the late Augustus St. Gaudens, the famous sculptor, with Mr. C. Scribner and Mr. E. L. Burlingame, the owner and the editor of Scribner’s Magazine, from whom he immediately received and accepted very advantageous offers of work. Having been dissuaded from braving for the present the fatigue of the long journey to 234 colourado and the extreme rigour of its winter climate, he determined to try instead a season at Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, New York State, which had lately been coming into reputation as a place of cure. There, under the care of the well-known resident physician, Dr. Trudeau, he spent nearly seven months, from the end of September 1887 to the end of April 1888, with results on the whole favourable to his own health, though not to that of his wife, which could never support these winter mountain cures. On the 16th of April, he and his party left Saranac. After spending a fortnight in New York, where, as always in cities, his health quickly flagged again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters at Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, for the sake of fresh air and boating. Here he enjoyed the occasional society of some of his New York friends, including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the meantime, Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco to see her relatives; and holding that the climate of the Pacific was likely to be better for the projected cruise than that of the Atlantic, had inquired there whether a yacht was to be hired for such a purpose. The schooner
Casco
, Captain Otis, was found. Stevenson signified by telegraph his assent to the arrangement; determined to risk in the adventure the sum of £2000, of which his father’s death had put him in possession, hoping to recoup himself by a series of Letters recounting his experiences, for which he had received a commission from Mr. S. S. M’Clure; and on the 2nd of June started with his mother and stepson for San Francisco, the first stage on that island cruise from which he was destined never to return.

His work during the season September 1887-May 1888 235 had consisted of the twelve papers published in the course of 1888 in Scribner’s Magazine, including perhaps the most striking of all his essays,
A Chapter on Dreams
,
Pulvis et Umbra
,
Beggars
,
The Lantern Bearers
,
Random Memories
, etc.; as well as the greater part of the
Master of Ballantrae
and
The Wrong Box
— the last originally conceived and drafted by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne.

To Sidney Colvin

A succession of Stevenson’s friends had visited and spent part of the day or the evening with him at Armfield’s hotel on Sunday, August 20th, each bringing some farewell gift or another (as related by Mr. Gosse in his volume
Critical Kitcats
, ). Among these, Mr. Henry James’s gift had been a case of champagne for consumption during the journey. On the morning of the 21st I accompanied him to the docks, saw him and his party embarked on board the steamer
Ludgate Hill
, a vessel sailing from the port of London and carrying animals and freight as well as passengers. They had chosen to go by this route for the sake alike of economy and amusement, rather than by one of the sumptuous liners sailing from Liverpool or Southampton. Leaving the ship’s side as she weighed anchor, and waving farewell to the party from the boat which landed me, I little knew what was the truth, that I was looking on the face of my friend for the last time. The letters next following were written during or Immediately after his passage across the Atlantic. “The Commodore” is of course R. L. S.