The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 23

To Thomas Stevenson

With all his throat and lung troubles actively renewed, Stevenson fled to Davos again in October. This time he and his wife and stepson occupied a small house by themselves, the Chalet am Stein, near the Buol Hotel. The election to the Edinburgh Professorship was still pending, and the following note to his father shows that he thought for a moment of giving the electors a specimen of his qualifications in the shape of a magazine article on the Appin murder – a theme afterwards turned to more vital account in the tales of Kidnapped and Catriona.

[Chalet am Stein, Davos, October 1881.]

MY DEAR FATHER, – It occurred to me last night in bed that I could write

The Murder of Red Colin,A Story of the Forfeited Estates.

This I have all that is necessary for, with the following exceptions: —

Trials of the Sons of Roy Rob with Anecdotes: Edinburgh, 1818, and

The second volume of Blackwood’s Magazine.

You might also look in Arnot’s Criminal Trials up in my room, and see what observations he has on the case (Trial of James Stewart in Appin for murder of Campbell of Glenure, 1752); if he has none, perhaps you could see – O yes, see if Burton has it in his two vols. of trial stories. I hope he hasn’t; but care not; do it over again anyway.

The two named authorities I must see. With these, I could soon pull off this article; and it shall be my first for the electors. – Ever affectionate son,

R. L. S.

To Edmund Gosse

Some of the habitual readers of Young Folks had written objecting to the early instalments of Treasure Island, and the editor had come forward in their defence.

Davos Printing Office, managed by Samuel LloydOsbourne & Co., The Chalet [Nov. 9, 1881].

DEAR WEG, – If you are taking Young Folks, for God’s Sake Twig the editorial style; it is incredible; we are all left panting in the rear; twig, O twig it. His name is Clinton; I should say the most melodious prosewriter now alive; it’s like buttermilk and blacking; it sings and hums away in that last sheet, like a great old kettle full of bilge water. You know: none of us could do it, boy. See No. 571, last page: an article called “Sir Claude the Conqueror,” and read it aloud in your best rhythmic tones; mon cher, c’est épatant.

Observe in the same number, how Will J. Shannon girds at your poor friend; and how the rhythmic Clinton steps chivalrously forth in his defence. First the Rev. Purcell; then Will J. Shannon: thick fall the barbéd arrows.42

I wish I could play a game of chess with you.

If I survive, I shall have Clinton to dinner: it is plain I must make hay while the sun shines; I shall not long keep a footing in the world of penny writers, or call them obolists. It is a world full of surprises, a romantic world. Weg, I was known there; even I. The obolists, then, sometimes peruse our works. It is only fair; since I so much batten upon theirs. Talking of which, in Heaven’s name, get The Bondage of Brandon (3 vols.) by Bracebridge Hemming. It’s the devil and all for drollery. There is a Superior (sic) of the Jesuits, straight out of Skelt.

And now look here, I had three points: Clinton – disposed of – (2nd) Benj. Franklin – do you want him? (3rd) A radiant notion begot this morning over an atlas: why not, you who know the lingo, give us a good legendary and historical book on Iceland? It would, or should, be as romantic as a book of Scott’s; as strange and stirring as a dream. Think on’t. My wife screamed with joy at the idea; and the little Lloyd clapped his hands; so I offer you three readers on the spot.

Fanny and I have both been in bed, tended by the hired sick nurse; Lloyd has a broken finger (so he did not clap his hands literally); Wogg has had an abscess in his ear; our servant is a devil. – I am yours ever, with both of our best regards to Mrs. Gosse,

Robert Louis Stevenson,The Rejected Obolist.

To W. E. Henley

This letter speaks of contributions to the Magazine of Art (in these years edited by Mr. Henley) from J. A. Symonds and from R. L. S. himself, “Bunyan” meaning the essay on the cuts in Bagster’s edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress. A toy press had just been set up in the chalet for the lad Lloyd.

Davos Printing Office, managed by Samuel LloydOsbourne & Co., The Chalet [Nov. 1881].

DEAR HENLEY, – I have done better for you than you deserved to hope; the Venice Medley is withdrawn; and I have a Monte Oliveto (short) for you, with photographs and sketches. I think you owe luck a candle; for this no skill could have accomplished without the aid of accident.

How about carving and gilding? I have nearly killed myself over Bunyan; and am too tired to finish him to-day, as I might otherwise have done. For his back is broken. For some reason, it proved one of the hardest things I ever tried to write; perhaps – but no – I have no theory to offer – it went against the spirit. But as I say I girt my loins up and nearly died of it.

In five weeks, six at the latest, I should have a complete proof of Treasure Island. It will be from 75 to 80,000 words; and with anything like half good pictures, it should sell. I suppose I may at least hope for eight pic’s? I aspire after ten or twelve. You had better

– Two days later.

Bunyan skips to-day, pretty bad, always with an official letter. Yours came last night. I had already spotted your Dickens; very pleasant and true.

My wife is far from well; quite confined to bed now; drain poisoning. I keep getting better slowly; appetite dicky; but some days I feel and eat well. The weather has been hot and heartless and unDavosy.

I shall give Symonds his note in about an hour from now.

Have done so; he will write of Vesalius and of Botticelli’s Dante for you.

Morris’s Sigurd is a grrrrreat poem; that is so. I have cried aloud at this re-reading; he had fine stuff to go on, but he has touched it, in places, with the hand of a master. Yes. Regin and Fafnir are incredibly fine. Love to all. – Yours ever,

R. L. S.

To P. G. Hamerton

The volume of republished essays here mentioned is Familiar Studies of Men and Books. “The silly story of the election” refers again to his correspondent’s failure as a candidate for the Edinburgh Chair of Fine Arts.

[Chalet am Stein, Davos, December1881.]

MY DEAR MR. HAMERTON, – My conscience has long been smiting me, till it became nearly chronic. My excuses, however, are many and not pleasant. Almost immediately after I last wrote to you, I had a hemorreage (I can’t spell it), was badly treated by a doctor in the country, and have been a long while picking up – still, in fact, have much to desire on that side. Next, as soon as I got here, my wife took ill; she is, I fear, seriously so; and this combination of two invalids very much depresses both.

I have a volume of republished essays coming out with Chatto and Windus; I wish they would come, that my wife might have the reviews to divert her. Otherwise my news is nil. I am up here in a little chalet, on the borders of a pinewood, overlooking a great part of the Davos Thal, a beautiful scene at night, with the moon upon the snowy mountains, and the lights warmly shining in the village. J. A. Symonds is next door to me, just at the foot of my Hill Difficulty (this you will please regard as the House Beautiful), and his society is my great stand-by.

Did you see I had joined the band of the rejected? “Hardly one of us,” said my confrères at the bar.

I was blamed by a common friend for asking you to give me a testimonial; in the circumstances he thought it was indelicate. Lest, by some calamity, you should ever have felt the same way, I must say in two words how the matter appeared to me. That silly story of the election altered in no tittle the value of your testimony: so much for that. On the other hand, it led me to take quite a particular pleasure in asking you to give it; and so much for the other. I trust, even if you cannot share it, you will understand my view.

I am in treaty with Bentley for a life of Hazlitt; I hope it will not fall through, as I love the subject, and appear to have found a publisher who loves it also. That, I think, makes things more pleasant. You know I am a fervent Hazlittite; I mean regarding him as the English writer who has had the scantiest justice. Besides which, I am anxious to write biography; really, if I understand myself in quest of profit, I think it must be good to live with another man from birth to death. You have tried it, and know.

How has the cruising gone? Pray remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your son, and believe me, yours very sincerely,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Charles Baxter

The memory here evoked of Brash the publican, who had been a special butt for some of the youthful pranks of R. L. S. and his friends, inspired in the next few weeks the sets of verses mentioned below (vol. 24, pp. 14, 15, 38) in letters which show that the fictitious Johnson and Thomson were far from being dead.

[Chalet am Stein], Davos, December 5, 1881.

MY DEAR CHARLES, – We have been in miserable case here; my wife worse and worse; and now sent away with Lloyd for sick nurse, I not being allowed to go down. I do not know what is to become of us; and you may imagine how rotten I have been feeling, and feel now, alone with my weasel-dog and my German maid, on the top of a hill here, heavy mist and thin snow all about me, and the devil to pay in general. I don’t care so much for solitude as I used to; results, I suppose, of marriage.

Pray write me something cheery. A little Edinburgh gossip, in Heaven’s name. Ah! what would I not give to steal this evening with you through the big, echoing, college archway, and away south under the street lamps, and away to dear Brash’s, now defunct! But the old time is dead also, never, never to revive. It was a sad time too, but so gay and so hopeful, and we had such sport with all our low spirits and all our distresses, that it looks like a kind of lamplit fairyland behind me. O for ten Edinburgh minutes – sixpence between us, and the ever-glorious Lothian Road, or dear mysterious Leith Walk! But here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling; here in this strange place, whose very strangeness would have been heaven to him then; and aspires, yes, C. B., with tears, after the past. See what comes of being left alone. Do you remember Brash? the sheet of glass that we followed along George Street? Granton? the night at Bonny mainhead? the compass near the sign of the Twinkling Eye? the night I lay on the pavement in misery?

I swear it by the eternal skyJohnson – nor – Thomson ne’er shall die!

Yet I fancy they are dead too; dead like Brash.

R. L. S.

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

The next is after going down to meet his wife and stepson, when the former had left the doctor’s hands at Berne.

Chalet Buol, Davos-Platz, December 26, 1881.

MY DEAR MOTHER, – Yesterday, Sunday and Christmas, we finished this eventful journey by a drive in an open sleigh – none others were to be had – seven hours on end through whole forests of Christmas trees. The cold was beyond belief. I have often suffered less at a dentist’s. It was a clear, sunny day, but the sun even at noon falls, at this season, only here and there into the Prättigau. I kept up as long as I could in an imitation of a street singer: —

“Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses,” etc.

At last Lloyd remarked, a blue mouth speaking from a corpse-coloured face, “You seem to be the only one with any courage left?” And, do you know, with that word my courage disappeared, and I made the rest of the stage in the same dumb wretchedness as the others. My only terror was lest Fanny should ask for brandy, or laudanum, or something. So awful was the idea of putting my hands out, that I half thought I would refuse.

Well, none of us are a penny the worse, Lloyd’s cold better; I, with a twinge of the rheumatiz; and Fanny better than her ordinary.

General conclusion between Lloyd and me as to the journey: A prolonged visit to the dentist’s, complicated with the fear of death.

Never, O never, do you get me there again. – Ever affectionate son,

R. L. S.

To Edmund Gosse

Mr. Gosse and R. L. S. had proposed to Mr. R. W. Gilder, of the Century Magazine, that they should collaborate for him on a series of murder papers, beginning with the Elstree murder; and he had accepted the proposal on terms which they thought liberal.

Hotel Buol, Davos, Dec. 26, 1881.

MY DEAR GOSSE, – I have just brought my wife back, through such cold, in an open sleigh too, as I had never fancied to exist. I won’t use the word torture, but go to your dentist’s and in nine cases out of ten you will not suffer more pain than we suffered.

This is merely in acknowledgment of your editorial: to say that I shall give my mind at once to the Murder. But I bethink me you can say so much and convey my sense of the liberality of our Cousins, without exhibiting this scrawl. So I may go on to tell you that I have at last found a publisher as eager to publish, as I am to write a Hazlitt. Bentley is the Boy; and very liberal, at least, as per last advices; certainly very friendly and eager, which makes work light, like whistling. I wish I was with the rest of – well, of us – in the red books. But I am glad to get a whack at Hazlitt, howsoe’er.

How goes your Gray? I would not change with you; brother! Gray would never be suited to my temperament, while Hazlitt fits me like a glove.

I hope in your studies in Young Folks you did not miss the delicious reticences, the artistic concealments, and general fine-shade graduation, through which the fact of the Xmas Nr. being 3d. was instilled – too strong – inspired into the mind of the readers. It was superb.

I may add as a postscript: I wish to God I or anybody knew what was the matter with my wife. – Yours ever,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Sidney Colvin

[Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, March 1882.]

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Herewith Moral Emblems. The elephant by Fanny – the rest by me.

I would have sent it long ago. But I must explain. I brought home with me from my bad times in America two strains of unsoundness of mind, the first, a perpetual fear that I can do no more work – the second, a perpetual fear that my friends have quarrelled with me.43 This last long silence of yours drove me into really believing it, and I dared not write to you.

Well, it’s ancient history now, and here are the emblems. A second series is in the press.

Silverado is still unfinished; but I think I have done well on the whole, as you say. I shall be home, I hope, sometime in May, perhaps before; it depends on Fanny’s health, which is still far from good and often alarms me. I shall then see your collectanea. I shall not put pen to paper till I settle somewhere else; Hazlitt had better simmer awhile. I have to see Ireland too, who has most kindly written to me and invited me to see his collections.

Symonds grows much on me: in many ways, what you would least expect, a very sound man, and very wise in a wise way. It is curious how F. and I always turn to him for advice: we have learned that his advice is good. – Yours ever,

R. L. S.

To Alison Cunningham

[Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, February 1882.]

MY DEAR CUMMY, – My wife and I are very much vexed to hear you are still unwell. We are both keeping far better; she especially seems quite to have taken a turn —the turn, we shall hope. Please let us know how you get on, and what has been the matter with you; Braemar I believe – the vile hole. You know what a lazy rascal I am, so you won’t be surprised at a short letter, I know; indeed, you will be much more surprised at my having had the decency to write at all. We have got rid of our young, pretty, and incompetent maid; and now we have a fine, canny, twinkling, shrewd, auld-farrant peasant body, who gives us good food and keeps us in good spirits. If we could only understand what she says! But she speaks Davos language, which is to German what Aberdeen-awa’ is to English, so it comes heavy. God bless you, my dear Cummy; and so says Fanny forbye. – Ever your affectionate,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Charles Baxter

[Chalet am Stein, Davos], 22nd February ’82.

MY DEAR CHARLES, – Your most welcome letter has raised clouds of sulphur from my horizon…

I am glad you have gone back to your music. Life is a poor thing, I am more and more convinced, without an art, that always waits for us and is always new. Art and marriage are two very good stand-by’s.

In an article which will appear some time in the Cornhill, Talk and Talkers, and where I have full-lengthened the conversation of Bob, Henley, Jenkin, Simpson, Symonds, and Gosse, I have at the end one single word about yourself. It may amuse you to see it.

We are coming to Scotland after all, so we shall meet, which pleases me, and I do believe I am strong enough to stand it this time. My knee is still quite lame.

My wife is better again… But we take it by turns; it is the dog that is ill now. – Ever yours,

R. L. S.

To W. E. Henley

In the early months of this year a hurt knee kept Stevenson more indoors than was good for him.

[Chalet am Stein, Davos-Platz, February 1882.]

MY DEAR HENLEY, – Here comes the letter as promised last night. And first two requests: Pray send the enclosed to c/o Blackmore’s publisher, ’tis from Fanny; second, pray send us Routledge’s shilling book, Edward Mayhew’s Dogs, by return if it can be managed.

Our dog is very ill again, poor fellow, looks very ill too, only sleeps at night because of morphine; and we do not know what ails him, only fear it to be canker of the ear. He makes a bad, black spot in our life, poor, selfish, silly, little tangle; and my wife is wretched. Otherwise she is better, steadily and slowly moving up through all her relapses. My knee never gets the least better; it hurts to-night, which it has not done for long. I do not suppose my doctor knows any least thing about it. He says it is a nerve that I struck, but I assure you he does not know.

I have just finished a paper, A Gossip on Romance, in which I have tried to do, very popularly, about one-half of the matter you wanted me to try. In a way, I have found an answer to the question. But the subject was hardly fit for so chatty a paper, and it is all loose ends. If ever I do my book on the Art of Literature, I shall gather them together and be clear.

To-morrow, having once finished off the touches still due on this, I shall tackle San Francisco for you. Then the tide of work will fairly bury me, lost to view and hope. You have no idea what it costs me to wring out my work now. I have certainly been a fortnight over this Romance, sometimes five hours a day; and yet it is about my usual length – eight pages or so, and would be a d – d sight the better for another curry. But I do not think I can honestly re-write it all; so I call it done, and shall only straighten words in a revision currently.

I had meant to go on for a great while, and say all manner of entertaining things. But all’s gone. I am now an idiot. – Yours ever,

R. L. S.

To W. E. Henley

The following flight of fancy refers to supposed errors of judgment on the part of an eminent firm of publishers, with whom Stevenson had at this time no connection. Very soon afterwards he entered into relations with them which proved equally pleasant and profitable to both parties, and were continued on the most cordial terms until his death.

[Chalet am Stein, Davos, March 1882.]

MY DEAR HENLEY, – Last night we had a dinner-party, consisting of the John Addington, curry, onions (lovely onions), and beefsteak. So unusual is any excitement, that F. and I feel this morning as if we had been to a coronation. However I must, I suppose, write.

I was sorry about your female contributor squabble. ’Tis very comic, but really unpleasant. But what care I? Now that I illustrate my own books, I can always offer you a situation in our house – S. L. Osbourne and Co. As an author gets a halfpenny a copy of verses, and an artist a penny a cut, perhaps a proof-reader might get several pounds a year.

O that Coronation! What a shouting crowd there was! I obviously got a firework in each eye. The king looked very magnificent, to be sure; and that great hall where we feasted on seven hundred delicate foods, and drank fifty royal wines —quel coup d’œil! but was it not overdone, even for a coronation – almost a vulgar luxury? And eleven is certainly too late to begin dinner. (It was really 6.30 instead of 5.30.)

Your list of books that Cassells have refused in these weeks is not quite complete; they also refused: —

1. Six undiscovered Tragedies, one romantic Comedy, a fragment of Journal extending over six years, and an unfinished Autobiography reaching up to the first performance of King John. By William Shakespeare.

2. The Journals and Private Correspondence of David, King of Israel.

3. Poetical Works of Arthur, Iron Dook of Wellington including a Monody on Napoleon.

4. Eight books of an unfinished novel, Solomon Crabb. By Henry Fielding.

5. Stevenson’s Moral Emblems.

You also neglected to mention, as per contra, that they had during the same time accepted and triumphantly published Brown’s Handbook to Cricket, Jones’s First French Reader, and Robinson’s Picturesque Cheshire, uniform with the same author’s Stately Homes of Salop.

O if that list could come true! How we would tear at Solomon Crabb! O what a bully, bully, bully business. Which would you read first – Shakespeare’s autobiography, or his journals? What sport the monody on Napoleon would be – what wooden verse, what stucco ornament! I should read both the autobiography and the journals before I looked at one of the plays, beyond the names of them, which shows that Saintsbury was right, and I do care more for life than for poetry. No – I take it back. Do you know one of the tragedies – a Bible tragedy too —David– was written in his third period – much about the same time as Lear? The comedy, April Rain, is also a late work. Beckett is a fine ranting piece, like Richard II., but very fine for the stage. Irving is to play it this autumn when I’m in town; the part rather suits him – but who is to play Henry – a tremendous creation, sir. Betterton in his private journal seems to have seen this piece; and he says distinctly that Henry is the best part in any play. “Though,” he adds, “how it be with the ancient plays I know not. But in this I have ever feared to do ill, and indeed will not be persuaded to that undertaking.” So says Betterton. Rufus is not so good; I am not pleased with Rufus; plainly a rifaccimento of some inferior work; but there are some damned fine lines. As for the purely satiric ill-minded Abelard and Heloise, another Troilus, quoi! it is not pleasant, truly, but what strength, what verve, what knowledge of life, and the Canon! What a finished, humorous, rich picture is the Canon! Ah, there was nobody like Shakespeare. But what I like is the David and Absalom business: Absalom is so well felt – you love him as David did; David’s speech is one roll of royal music from the first act to the fifth.

I am enjoying Solomon Crabb extremely; Solomon’s capital adventure with the two highwaymen and Squire Trecothick and Parson Vance; it is as good, I think, as anything in Joseph Andrews. I have just come to the part where the highwayman with the black patch over his eye has tricked poor Solomon into his place, and the squire and the parson are hearing the evidence. Parson Vance is splendid. How good, too, is old Mrs. Crabb and the coastguardsman in the third chapter, or her delightful quarrel with the sexton of Seaham; Lord Conybeare is surely a little overdone; but I don’t know either; he’s such damned fine sport. Do you like Sally Barnes? I’m in love with her. Constable Muddon is as good as Dogberry and Verges put together; when he takes Solomon to the cage, and the highwayman gives him Solomon’s own guinea for his pains, and kisses Mrs. Muddon, and just then up drives Lord Conybeare, and instead of helping Solomon, calls him all the rascals in Christendom – O Henry Fielding, Henry Fielding! Yet perhaps the scenes at Seaham are the best. But I’m bewildered among all these excellences.