The Inland Voyage, it must be remembered, at this time just put into the publisher’s hands, was the author’s first book. The “Crane sketch” mentioned in the second of the following notes to me was the well-known frontispiece to that book on which Mr. Walter Crane was then at work. The essay Pan’s Pipes, reprinted in Virginibus Puerisque, was written about this time.

Hôtel des Étrangers, Dieppe, January 1, 1878.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – I am at the Inland Voyage again: have finished another section, and have only two more to execute. But one at least of these will be very long – the longest in the book – being a great digression on French artistic tramps. I only hope Paul may take the thing; I want coin so badly, and besides it would be something done – something put outside of me and off my conscience; and I should not feel such a muff as I do, if once I saw the thing in boards with a ticket on its back. I think I shall frequent circulating libraries a good deal. The Preface shall stand over, as you suggest, until the last, and then, sir, we shall see. This to be read with a big voice.

This is New Year’s Day: let me, my dear Colvin, wish you a very good year, free of all misunderstanding and bereavement, and full of good weather and good work. You know best what you have done for me, and so you will know best how heartily I mean this. – Ever yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Sidney Colvin

I had had business in Edinburgh, and had stayed with Stevenson’s parents in his absence.

[Paris, January or February 1878.]

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Many thanks for your letter. I was much interested by all the Edinburgh gossip. Most likely I shall arrive in London next week. I think you know all about the Crane sketch; but it should be a river, not a canal, you know, and the look should be “cruel, lewd, and kindly,” all at once. There is more sense in that Greek myth of Pan than in any other that I recollect except the luminous Hebrew one of the Fall: one of the biggest things done. If people would remember that all religions are no more than representations of life, they would find them, as they are, the best representations, licking Shakespeare.

What an inconceivable cheese is Alfred de Musset! His comedies are, to my view, the best work of France this century: a large order. Did you ever read them? They are real, clear, living work. – Ever yours,

R. L. S.

To Thomas Stevenson

Café de la Source, Bd. St. Michel, Paris, 15th Feb. 1878.

MY DEAR FATHER, – A thought has come into my head which I think would interest you. Christianity is among other things, a very wise, noble, and strange doctrine of life. Nothing is so difficult to specify as the position it occupies with regard to asceticism. It is not ascetic. Christ was of all doctors (if you will let me use the word) one of the least ascetic. And yet there is a theory of living in the Gospels which is curiously indefinable, and leans towards asceticism on one side, although it leans away from it on the other. In fact, asceticism is used therein as a means, not as an end. The wisdom of this world consists in making oneself very little in order to avoid many knocks; in preferring others, in order that, even when we lose, we shall find some pleasure in the event; in putting our desires outside of ourselves, in another ship, so to speak, so that, when the worst happens, there will be something left. You see, I speak of it as a doctrine of life, and as a wisdom for this world. People must be themselves, I suppose. I feel every day as if religion had a greater interest for me; but that interest is still centred on the little rough-and-tumble world in which our fortunes are cast for the moment. I cannot transfer my interests, not even my religious interest, to any different sphere… I have had some sharp lessons and some very acute sufferings in these last seven-and-twenty years – more even than you would guess. I begin to grow an old man; a little sharp, I fear, and a little close and unfriendly; but still I have a good heart, and believe in myself and my fellow-men and the God who made us all… There are not many sadder people in this world, perhaps, than I. I have my eye on a sickbed;²² I have written letters to-day that it hurt me to write, and I fear it will hurt others to receive; I am lonely and sick and out of heart. Well, I still hope; I still believe; I still see the good in the inch, and cling to it. It is not much, perhaps, but it is always something.

I find I have wandered a thousand miles from what I meant. It was this: of all passages bearing on Christianity in that form of a worldly wisdom, the most Christian, and so to speak, the key of the whole position, is the Christian doctrine of revenge. And it appears that this came into the world through Paul! There is a fact for you. It was to speak of this that I began this letter; but I have got into deep seas and must go on.

There is a fine text in the Bible, I don’t know where, to the effect that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. Strange as it may seem to you, everything has been, in one way or the other, bringing me a little nearer to what I think you would like me to be. ’Tis a strange world, indeed, but there is a manifest God for those who care to look for him.

This is a very solemn letter for my surroundings in this busy café; but I had it on my heart to write it; and, indeed, I was out of the humour for anything lighter. – Ever your affectionate son,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

P.S.– While I am writing gravely, let me say one word more. I have taken a step towards more intimate relations with you. But don’t expect too much of me. Try to take me as I am. This is a rare moment, and I have profited by it; but take it as a rare moment. Usually I hate to speak of what I really feel, to that extent that when I find myself cornered, I have a tendency to say the reverse.

R. L. S.

To Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

Paris, 44 Bd. Haussmann, Friday, February 21, 1878.

MY DEAR PEOPLE, – Do you know who is my favourite author just now? How are the mighty fallen! Anthony Trollope. I batten on him; he is so nearly wearying you, and yet he never does; or rather, he never does, until he gets near the end, when he begins to wean you from him, so that you’re as pleased to be done with him as you thought you would be sorry. I wonder if it’s old age? It is a little, I am sure. A young person would get sickened by the dead level of meanness and cowardliness; you require to be a little spoiled and cynical before you can enjoy it. I have just finished the Way of the World; there is only one person in it – no, there are three – who are nice: the wild American woman, and two of the dissipated young men, Dolly and Lord Nidderdale. All the heroes and heroines are just ghastly. But what a triumph is Lady Carbury! That is real, sound, strong, genuine work: the man who could do that, if he had had courage, might have written a fine book; he has preferred to write many readable ones. I meant to write such a long, nice letter, but I cannot hold the pen.

R. L. S.

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

The following refers to the newspaper criticisms on the Inland Vogage: —

Hôtel du Val de Grâce, Rue St. Jacques, Paris, Sunday [June 1878].

MY DEAR MOTHER, – About criticisms, I was more surprised at the tone of the critics than I suppose any one else. And the effect it has produced in me is one of shame. If they liked that so much, I ought to have given them something better, that’s all. And I shall try to do so. Still, it strikes me as odd; and I don’t understand the vogue. It should sell the thing. – Ever your affectionate son,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

This letter tells of the progress of the Portfolio papers called Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, and of preparations for the walking tour narrated in Travels with a Donkey. The late Philip Gilbert Hamerton, editor of the Portfolio and author of A Painter’s Camp in the Highlands and of many well-known works on art, landscape, and French social life, was at this time and for many years living at a small chateau near Autun; and the visit here proposed was actually paid and gave great pleasure alike to host and guest (see P. G. Hamerton, an Autobiography, etc., p. 451).

Monastier, September 1878.

MY DEAR MOTHER, – You must not expect to hear much from me for the next two weeks; for I am near starting. Donkey purchased – a love – price, 65 francs and a glass of brandy. My route is all pretty well laid out; I shall go near no town till I get to Alais. Remember, Poste Restante, Alais, Gard. Greyfriars will be in October. You did not say whether you liked September; you might tell me that at Alais. The other No.’s of Edinburgh are: Parliament Close, Villa Quarters (which perhaps may not appear), Calton Hill, Winter and New Year, and to the Pentland Hills. ’Tis a kind of book nobody would ever care to read; but none of the young men could have done it better than I have, which is always a consolation. I read Inland Voyage the other day: what rubbish these reviewers did talk! It is not badly written, thin, mildly cheery, and strained. Selon moi. I mean to visit Hamerton on my return journey; otherwise, I should come by sea from Marseilles. I am very well known here now; indeed, quite a feature of the place. – Your affectionate son,

R. L. S.

The Engineer is the Conductor of Roads and Bridges; then I have the Receiver of Registrations, the First Clerk of Excise, and the Perceiver of the Impost. That is our dinner party. I am a sort of hovering government official, as you see. But away – away from these great companions!

To W. E. Henley

[Monastier, September 1878.]

DEAR HENLEY, – I hope to leave Monastier this day (Saturday) week; thenceforward Poste Restante, Alais, Gard, is my address. Travels with a Donkey in the French Highlands. I am no good to-day. I cannot work, nor even write letters. A colossal breakfast yesterday at Puy has, I think, done for me for ever; I certainly ate more than ever I ate before in my life – a big slice of melon, some ham and jelly, a filet, a helping of gudgeons, the breast and leg of a partridge, some green peas, eight crayfish, some Mont d’Or cheese, a peach, and a handful of biscuits, macaroons, and things. It sounds Gargantuan: it cost three francs a head. So that it was inexpensive to the pocket, although I fear it may prove extravagant to the fleshly tabernacle. I can’t think how I did it or why. It is a new form of excess for me; but I think it pays less than any of them.

R. L. S.

To Charles Baxter

Monastier, at Morel’s [September 1878].
Lud knows about date, vide postmark.

MY DEAR CHARLES, – Yours (with enclosures) of the 16th to hand. All work done. I go to Le Puy to-morrow to dispatch baggage, get cash, stand lunch to engineer, who has been very jolly and useful to me, and hope by five o’clock on Saturday morning to be driving Modestine towards the Gévaudan. Modestine is my ânesse; a darling, mouse-colour, about the size of a Newfoundland dog (bigger, between you and me), the colour of a mouse, costing 65 francs and a glass of brandy. Glad you sent on all the coin; was half afraid I might come to a stick in the mountains, donkey and all, which would have been the devil. Have finished Arabian Nights and Edinburgh book, and am a free man. Next address, Poste Restante, Alais, Gard. Give my servilities to the family. Health bad; spirits, I think, looking up. – Ever yours,

R. L. S.

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

Paris, October 1878.

MY DEAR MOTHER, – I have seen Hamerton; he was very kind, all his family seemed pleased to see an Inland Voyager, and the book seemed to be quite a household word with them. P. G. himself promised to help me in my bargains with publishers, which, said he, and I doubt not very truthfully, he could manage to much greater advantage than I. He is also to read an Inland Voyage over again, and send me his cuts and cuffs in private, after having liberally administered his kisses coram publico. I liked him very much. Of all the pleasant parts of my profession, I think the spirit of other men of letters makes the pleasantest.

Do you know, your sunset was very good? The “attack” (to speak learnedly) was so plucky and odd. I have thought of it repeatedly since. I have just made a delightful dinner by myself in the Café Félix, where I am an old established beggar, and am just smoking a cigar over my coffee. I came last night from Autun, and I am muddled about my plans. The world is such a dance! – Ever your affectionate son,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To W. E. Henley

Stevenson, hard at work upon Providence and the Guitar, New Arabian Nights, and Travels with a Donkey, was at this time occupying for a few days my rooms at Trinity in my absence. The college buildings and gardens, the ideal setting and careful tutelage of English academic life – in these respects so strongly contrasted with the Scottish – affected him always with a sense of unreality. The gyp mentioned is the present head porter of the college.

[Trinity College, Cambridge, Autumn 1878.]

MY DEAR HENLEY, – Here I am living like a fighting-cock, and have not spoken to a real person for about sixty hours. Those who wait on me are not real. The man I know to be a myth, because I have seen him acting so often in the Palais Royal. He plays the Duke in Tricoche et Cacolet; I knew his nose at once. The part he plays here is very dull for him, but conscientious. As for the bedmaker, she’s a dream, a kind of cheerful, innocent nightmare; I never saw so poor an imitation of humanity. I cannot work —cannot. Even the Guitar is still undone; I can only write ditch-water. ’Tis ghastly; but I am quite cheerful, and that is more important. Do you think you could prepare the printers for a possible breakdown this week? I shall try all I know on Monday; but if I can get nothing better than I got this morning, I prefer to drop a week. Telegraph to me if you think it necessary. I shall not leave till Wednesday at soonest. Shall write again.

R. L. S.

To Edmund Gosse

The matter of the loan and its repayment, here touched on, comes up again in Stevenson’s last letter of all, that which closes the book. Stevenson and Mr. Gosse had planned a joint book of old murder stories retold, and had been to visit the scene of one famous murder together.

[Edinburgh, April 16, 1879]
Pool of Siloam, by El Dorado, Delectable Mountains, Arcadia.

MY DEAR GOSSE, – Herewith of the dibbs – a homely fiver. How, and why, do you continue to exist? I do so ill, but for a variety of reasons. First, I wait an angel to come down and trouble the waters; second, more angels; third – well, more angels. The waters are sluggish; the angels – well, the angels won’t come, that’s about all. But I sit waiting and waiting, and people bring me meals, which help to pass time (I’m sure it’s very kind of them), and sometimes I whistle to myself; and as there’s a very pretty echo at my pool of Siloam, the thing’s agreeable to hear. The sun continues to rise every day, to my growing wonder. “The moon by night thee shall not smite.” And the stars are all doing as well as can be expected. The air of Arcady is very brisk and pure, and we command many enchanting prospects in space and time. I do not yet know much about my situation; for, to tell the truth, I only came here by the run since I began to write this letter; I had to go back to date it; and I am grateful to you for having been the occasion of this little outing. What good travellers we are, if we had only faith; no man need stay in Edinburgh but by unbelief; my religious organ has been ailing for a while past, and I have lain a great deal in Edinburgh, a sheer hulk in consequence. But I got out my wings, and have taken a change of air.

I read your book with great interest, and ought long ago to have told you so. An ordinary man would say that he had been waiting till he could pay his debts… The book is good reading. Your personal notes of those you saw struck me as perhaps most sharp and “best held.” See as many people as you can, and make a book of them before you die. That will be a living book, upon my word. You have the touch required. I ask you to put hands to it in private already. Think of what Carlyle’s caricature of old Coleridge is to us who never saw S. T. C. With that and Kubla Khan, we have the man in the fact. Carlyle’s picture, of course, is not of the author of Kubla, but of the author of that surprising Friend which has knocked the breath out of two generations of hopeful youth. Your portraits would be milder, sweeter, more true perhaps, and perhaps not so truth-telling– if you will take my meaning.

I have to thank you for an introduction to that beautiful – no, that’s not the word – that jolly, with an Arcadian jollity – thing of Vogelweide’s. Also for your preface. Some day I want to read a whole book in the same picked dialect as that preface. I think it must be one E. W. Gosse who must write it. He has got himself into a fix with me by writing the preface; I look for a great deal, and will not be easily pleased.

I never thought of it, but my new book, which should soon be out, contains a visit to a murder scene, but not done as we should like to see them, for, of course, I was running another hare.

If you do not answer this in four pages, I shall stop the enclosed fiver at the bank, a step which will lead to your incarceration for life. As my visits to Arcady are somewhat uncertain, you had better address 17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, as usual. I shall walk over for the note if I am not yet home. – Believe me, very really yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

I charge extra for a flourish when it is successful; this isn’t, so you have it gratis. Is there any news in Babylon the Great? My fellow-creatures are electing school boards here in the midst of the ages. It is very composed of them. I can’t think why they do it. Nor why I have written a real letter. If you write a real letter back, damme, I’ll try to correspond with you. A thing unknown in this age. It is a consequence of the decay of faith; we cannot believe that the fellow will be at the pains to read us.

To W. E. Henley

This is in reply to some technical criticisms of his correspondent on the poem Our Lady of the Snows, referring to the Trappist monastery in the Cévennes so called, and afterwards published in Underwoods.

Edinburgh [April 1879].

MY DEAR HENLEY, – Heavens! have I done the like? “Clarify and strain,” indeed? “Make it like Marvell,” no less. I’ll tell you what – you may go to the devil; that’s what I think. “Be eloquent” is another of your pregnant suggestions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for that one. Portrait of a person about to be eloquent at the request of a literary friend. You seem to forget, sir, that rhyme is rhyme, sir, and – go to the devil.

I’ll try to improve it, but I shan’t be able to – O go to the devil.

Seriously, you’re a cool hand. And then you have the brass to ask me why “my steps went one by one“? Why? Powers of man! to rhyme with sun, to be sure. Why else could it be? And you yourself have been a poet! G-r-r-r-r-r! I’ll never be a poet any more. Men are so d – d ungrateful and captious, I declare I could weep.

O Henley, in my hours of ease
You may say anything you please,
But when I join the Muse’s revel,
Begad, I wish you at the devil!
In vain my verse I plane and bevel,
Like Banville’s rhyming devotees;
In vain by many an artful swivel
Lug in my meaning by degrees;
I’m sure to hear my Henley cavil;
And grovelling prostrate on my knees,
Devote his body to the seas,
His correspondence to the devil!

Impromptu poem.

I’m going to Shandon Hydropathic cum parentibus. Write here. I heard from Lang. Ferrier prayeth to be remembered; he means to write, likes his Tourgenieff greatly. Also likes my What was on the Slate, which, under a new title, yet unfound, and with a new and, on the whole, kindly dénouement, is going to shoot up and become a star…

I see I must write some more to you about my Monastery. I am a weak brother in verse. You ask me to re-write things that I have already managed just to write with the skin of my teeth. If I don’t re-write them, it’s because I don’t see how to write them better, not because I don’t think they should be. But, curiously enough, you condemn two of my favourite passages, one of which is J. W. Ferrier’s favourite of the whole. Here I shall think it’s you who are wrong. You see, I did not try to make good verse, but to say what I wanted as well as verse would let me. I don’t like the rhyme “ear” and “hear.” But the couplet, “My undissuaded heart I hear Whisper courage in my ear,” is exactly what I want for the thought, and to me seems very energetic as speech, if not as verse. Would “daring” be better than “courage“? Je me le demande. No, it would be ambiguous, as though I had used it licentiously for “daringly,” and that would cloak the sense.

In short, your suggestions have broken the heart of the scald. He doesn’t agree with them all; and those he does agree with, the spirit indeed is willing, but the d – d flesh cannot, cannot, cannot, see its way to profit by. I think I’ll lay it by for nine years, like Horace. I think the well of Castaly’s run out. No more the Muses round my pillow haunt. I am fallen once more to the mere proser. God bless you.