Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 2 Part 13

R. L. S.

Letter: TO WILLIAM ARCHER

[SARANAC, WINTER 1887-8.]

MY DEAR ARCHER, - What am I to say? I have read your friend's book with singular relish. If he has written any other, I beg you will let me see it; and if he has not, I beg him to lose no time in supplying the deficiency. It is full of promise; but I should like to know his age. There are things in it that are very clever, to which I attach small importance; it is the shape of the age. And there are pa.s.sages, particularly the rally in presence of the Zulu king, that show genuine and remarkable narrative talent - a talent that few will have the wit to understand, a talent of strength, spirit, capacity, sufficient vision, and sufficient self-sacrifice, which last is the chief point in a narrator.

As a whole, it is (of course) a fever dream of the most feverish.

Over Bashville the footman I howled with derision and delight; I dote on Bashville - I could read of him for ever; DE BASHVILLE JE SUIS LE FERVENT - there is only one Bashville, and I am his devoted slave; BASHVILLE EST MAGNIFIQUE, MAIS IL N'EST GUERE POSSIBLE. He is the note of the book. It is all mad, mad and deliriously delightful; the author has a taste in chivalry like Walter Scott's or Dumas', and then he daubs in little bits of socialism; he soars away on the wings of the romantic griffon - even the griffon, as he cleaves air, shouting with laughter at the nature of the quest - and I believe in his heart he thinks he is labouring in a quarry of solid granite realism.

It is this that makes me - the most hardened adviser now extant - stand back and hold my peace. If Mr. Shaw is below five-and- twenty, let him go his path; if he is thirty, he had best be told that he is a romantic, and pursue romance with his eyes open; - or perhaps he knows it; - G.o.d knows! - my brain is softened.

It is HORRID FUN. All I ask is more of it. Thank you for the pleasure you gave us, and tell me more of the inimitable author.

(I say, Archer, my G.o.d, what women!) - Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO WILLIAM ARCHER

SARANAC, FEBRUARY 1888.

MY DEAR ARCHER, - Pretty sick in bed; but necessary to protest and continue your education.

Why was Jenkin an amateur in my eyes? You think because not amusing (I think he often was amusing). The reason is this: I never, or almost never, saw two pages of his work that I could not have put in one without the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I know of writing. If there is anywhere a thing said in two sentences that could have been as clearly and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then it's amateur work. Then you will bring me up with old Dumas. Nay, the object of a story is to be long, to fill up hours; the story-teller's art of writing is to water out by continual invention, historical and technical, and yet not seem to water; seem on the other hand to practise that same wit of conspicuous and declaratory condensation which is the proper art of writing. That is one thing in which my stories fail: I am always cutting the flesh off their bones.

I would rise from the dead to preach!

Hope all well. I think my wife better, but she's not allowed to write; and this (only wrung from me by desire to Boss and Parsonise and Dominate, strong in sickness) is my first letter for days, and will likely be my last for many more. Not blame my wife for her silence: doctor's orders. All much interested by your last, and fragment from brother, and anecdotes of Tomarcher. - The sick but still Moral

R. L. S.

Tell Shaw to hurry up: I want another.

Letter: TO WILLIAM ARCHER

[SARANAC, SPRING 1888?]

MY DEAR ARCHER, - It happened thus. I came forth from that performance in a breathing heat of indignation. (Mind, at this distance of time and with my increased knowledge, I admit there is a problem in the piece; but I saw none then, except a problem in brutality; and I still consider the problem in that case not established.) On my way down the FRANCAIS stairs, I trod on an old gentleman's toes, whereupon with that suavity that so well becomes me, I turned about to apologise, and on the instant, repenting me of that intention, stopped the apology midway, and added something in French to this effect: No, you are one of the LACHES who have been applauding that piece. I retract my apology. Said the old Frenchman, laying his hand on my arm, and with a smile that was truly heavenly in temperance, irony, good-nature, and knowledge of the world, 'Ah, monsieur, vous etes bien jeune!' - Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME

SARANAC [FEBRUARY 1888].

DEAR MR. BURLINGAME, - Will you send me (from the library) some of the works of my dear old G. P. R. James. With the following especially I desire to make or to renew acquaintance: THE SONGSTER, THE GIPSY, THE CONVICT, THE STEPMOTHER, THE GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL, THE ROBBER.

EXCUSEZ DU PEU.

This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an accident.

The 'Franklin County Library' contains two works of his, THE CAVALIER and MORLEY ERNSTEIN. I read the first with indescribable amus.e.m.e.nt - it was worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; the second (to my surprise) was better than I had dared to hope: a good honest, dull, interesting tale, with a genuine old-fas.h.i.+oned talent in the invention when not strained; and a genuine old-fas.h.i.+oned feeling for the English language. This experience awoke appet.i.te, and you see I have taken steps to stay it.

R. L. S.

Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME

[SARANAC, FEBRUARY 1888.]

DEAR MR. BURLINGAME, - 1. Of course then don't use it. Dear Man, I write these to please you, not myself, and you know a main sight better than I do what is good. In that case, however, I enclose another paper, and return the corrected proof of PULVIS ET UMBRA, so that we may be afloat.

2. I want to say a word as to the MASTER. (THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE shall be the name by all means.) If you like and want it, I leave it to you to make an offer. You may remember I thought the offer you made when I was still in England too small; by which I did not at all mean, I thought it less than it was worth, but too little to tempt me to undergo the disagreeables of serial publication. This tale (if you want it) you are to have; for it is the least I can do for you; and you are to observe that the sum you pay me for my articles going far to meet my wants, I am quite open to be satisfied with less than formerly. I tell you I do dislike this battle of the dollars. I feel sure you all pay too much here in America; and I beg you not to spoil me any more. For I am getting spoiled: I do not want wealth, and I feel these big sums demoralise me.

My wife came here pretty ill; she had a dreadful bad night; to-day she is better. But now Valentine is ill; and Lloyd and I have got breakfast, and my hand somewhat shakes after was.h.i.+ng dishes. - Yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

P.S. - Please order me the EVENING POST for two months. My subscription is run out. The MUTINY and EDWARDES to hand.

Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN

[SARANAC, MARCH 1888.]

MY DEAR COLVIN, - f.a.n.n.y has been very unwell. She is not long home, has been ill again since her return, but is now better again to a degree. You must not blame her for not writing, as she is not allowed to write at all, not even a letter. To add to our misfortunes, Valentine is quite ill and in bed. Lloyd and I get breakfast; I have now, 10.15, just got the dishes washed and the kitchen all clear, and sit down to give you as much news as I have spirit for, after such an engagement. Gla.s.s is a thing that really breaks my spirit: I do not like to fail, and with gla.s.s I cannot reach the work of my high calling - the artist's.