Chapter IX: Introduction (8)

V. King Matthias's Hunting Horn (all ready).

VI. Autolycus at Court (in gremio).

VII. The Family of Love (in gremio).

VIII. The Barrel Organ (all ready).

IX. The Last Sinner (wants copying).

X. Margery Bonthron (wants a few pages).

XI. Martin's Madonna (in gremio).

XII. Life and Death (all ready).

--when I have these twelve ready, should I not do better to try to get a publisher for them, call them _A Book of Stories_ and put a good dedicatory letter at the fore end of them. I should get less coin than by going into magazines perhaps; but I should also get more notice, should I not? and so, do better for myself in the long run. Now, should I not? Besides a book with boards is a book with boards, even if it bain't a very fat one and has no references to Ammianus Marcellinus and German critics at the foot of the pages. On all this, I shall want your serious advice. I am sure I shall stand or fall by the stories; and you'll think so too, when you see those poor excrescences the two John Knox and Women games. However, judge for yourself and be prudent on my behalf, like a good soul.

Yes, I'll come to Cambridge then or thereabout, if God doesn't put a real tangible spoke in my wheel.

My terms with my parents are admirable; we are a very united family.

Good-bye, _mon cher, je ne puis plus ecrire_. I have not quite got over a damned affecting part in my story this morning. O cussed stories, they will never affect any one but me I fear.--Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL

In the following is related Stevenson's first introduction to Mr. W.
E. Henley. The acquaintance thus formed ripened quickly, as is well
known, into a close and stimulating friendship. Of the story called
_A Country Dance_ no trace remains.

_Edinburgh, Tuesday [February 1875]._

I got your nice long gossiping letter to-day--I mean by that that there was more news in it than usual--and so, of course, I am pretty jolly. I am in the house, however, with such a beastly cold in the head. Our east winds begin already to be very cold.

O, I have such a longing for children of my own; and yet I do not think I could bear it if I had one. I fancy I must feel more like a woman than like a man about that. I sometimes hate the children I see on the street--you know what I mean by hate--wish they were somewhere else, and not there to mock me; and sometimes, again, I don't know how to go by them for the love of them, especially the very wee ones.

_Thursday._--I have been still in the house since I wrote, and I _have_ worked. I finished the Italian story; not well, but as well as I can just now; I must go all over it again, some time soon, when I feel in the humour to better and perfect it. And now I have taken up an old story, begun years ago; and I have now re-written all I had written of it then, and mean to finish it. What I have lost and gained is odd. As far as regards simple writing, of course, I am in another world now; but in some things, though more clumsy, I seem to have been freer and more plucky: this is a lesson I have taken to heart. I have got a jolly new name for my old story. I am going to call it _A Country Dance_; the two heroes keep changing places, you know; and the chapter where the most of this changing goes on is to be called "Up the middle, down the middle." It will be in six or (perhaps) seven chapters. I have never worked harder in my life than these last four days. If I can only keep it up.

_Saturday._--Yesterday, Leslie Stephen, who was down here to lecture, called on me and took me up to see a poor fellow, a sort of poet who writes for him, and who has been eighteen months in our infirmary, and may be, for all I know, eighteen months more. It was very sad to see him there, in a little room with two beds, and a couple of sick children in the other bed; a girl came in to visit the children, and played dominoes on the counterpane with them; the gas flared and crackled, the fire burned in a dull economical way; Stephen and I sat on a couple of chairs, and the poor fellow sat up in his bed with his hair and beard all tangled, and talked as cheerfully as if he had been in a King's palace, or the great King's palace of the blue air. He has taught himself two languages since he has been lying there. I shall try to be of use to him.

We have had two beautiful spring days, mild as milk, windy withal, and the sun hot. I dreamed last night I was walking by moonlight round the place where the scene of my story is laid; it was all so quiet and sweet, and the blackbirds were singing as if it was day; it made my heart very cool and happy.--Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_[Edinburgh] February 8, 1875._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Forgive my bothering you. Here is the proof of my second _Knox_. Glance it over, like a good fellow, and if there's anything very flagrant send it to me marked. I have no confidence in myself; I feel such an ass. What have I been doing? As near as I can calculate, nothing. And yet I have worked all this month from three to five hours a day, that is to say, from one to three hours more than my doctor allows me; positively no result.

No, I can write no article just now; I am _pioching_, like a madman, at my stories, and can make nothing of them; my simplicity is tame and dull--my passion tinsel, boyish, hysterical. Never mind--ten years hence, if I live, I shall have learned, so help me God. I know one must work, in the meantime (so says Balzac) _comme le mineur enfoui sous un eboulement_.

_J'y parviendrai, nom de nom de nom!_ But it's a long look forward.--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

As the spring advanced Stevenson had again been much out of sorts,
and had gone for a change, in the company of Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson,
on his first visit to the artist haunts of Fontainebleau which were
afterwards so much endeared to him.

[_Barbizon, April 1875._]

MY DEAR FRIEND,--This is just a line to say I am well and happy. I am here in my dear forest all day in the open air. It is very be--no, not beautiful exactly, just now, but very bright and living. There are one or two song birds and a cuckoo; all the fruit-trees are in flower, and the beeches make sunshine in a shady place. I begin to go all right; you need not be vexed about my health; I really was ill at first, as bad as I have been for nearly a year; but the forest begins to work, and the air, and the sun, and the smell of the pines. If I could stay a month here, I should be as right as possible. Thanks for your letter.--Your faithful

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

[_Swanston, Tuesday, April 1875._]

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have been so busy, away to Bridge of Allan with my father first, and then with Simpson and Baxter out here from Saturday till Monday. I had no time to write, and, as it is, am strangely incapable. Thanks for your letter. I have been reading such lots of law, and it seems to take away the power of writing from me. From morning to night, so often as I have a spare moment, I am in the embrace of a law book--barren embraces. I am in good spirits; and my heart smites me as usual, when I am in good spirits, about my parents. If I get a bit dull, I am away to London without a scruple; but so long as my heart keeps up, I am all for my parents.

What do you think of Henley's hospital verses?[19] They were to have been dedicated to me, but Stephen wouldn't allow it--said it would be pretentious.

_Wednesday._--I meant to have made this quite a decent letter this morning, but listen. I had pain all last night, and did not sleep well, and now am cold and sickish, and strung up ever and again with another flash of pain. Will you remember me to everybody? My principal characteristics are cold, poverty, and Scots Law--three very bad things. Oo, how the rain falls! The mist is quite low on the hill. The birds are twittering to each other about the indifferent season. O, here's a gem for you. An old godly woman predicted the end of the world, because the seasons were becoming indistinguishable; my cousin Dora objected that last winter had been pretty well marked. "Yes, my dear," replied the soothsayeress; "but I think you'll find the summer will be rather co-amplicated."--Ever your faithful

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

The rehearsals were those of Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_ for
amateur theatricals at Professor Fleeming Jenkin's, in which
Stevenson played the part of Orsino.

_[Edinburgh, April 1875] Saturday._

I am getting on with my rehearsals, but I find the part very hard. I rehearsed yesterday from a quarter to seven, and to-day from four (with interval for dinner) to eleven. You see the sad strait I am in for ink.--_A demain._

_Sunday._--This is the third ink-bottle I have tried, and still it's nothing to boast of. My journey went off all right, and I have kept ever in good spirits. Last night, indeed, I did think my little bit of gaiety was going away down the wind like a whiff of tobacco smoke, but to-day it has come back to me a little. The influence of this place is assuredly all that can be worst against one; _mais il faut lutter_. I was haunted last night when I was in bed by the most cold, desolate recollections of my past life here; I was glad to try and think of the forest, and warm my hands at the thought of it. O the quiet, grey thickets, and the yellow butterflies, and the woodpeckers, and the outlook over the plain as it were over a sea! O for the good, fleshly stupidity of the woods, the body conscious of itself all over and the mind forgotten, the clean air nestling next your skin as though your clothes were gossamer, the eye filled and content, the whole MAN HAPPY! Whereas here it takes a pull to hold yourself together; it needs both hands, and a book of stoical maxims, and a sort of bitterness at the heart by way of armour.--Ever your faithful R. L. S.

_Wednesday._--I am so played out with a cold in my eye that I cannot see to write or read without difficulty. It is swollen _horrible_; so how I shall look as Orsino, God knows! I have my fine clothes tho'. Henley's sonnets have been taken for the Cornhill. He is out of hospital now, and dressed, but still not too much to brag of in health, poor fellow, I am afraid.

_Sunday._--So. I have still rather bad eyes, and a nasty sore throat. I play Orsino every day, in all the pomp of Solomon, splendid Francis the First clothes, heavy with gold and stage jewellery. I play it ill enough, I believe; but me and the clothes, and the wedding wherewith the clothes and me are reconciled, produce every night a thrill of admiration. Our cook told my mother (there is a servants' night, you know) that she and the housemaid were "just prood to be able to say it was oor young gentleman." To sup afterwards with these clothes on, and a wonderful lot of gaiety and Shakespearean jokes about the table, is something to live for. It is so nice to feel you have been dead three hundred years, and the sound of your laughter is faint and far off in the centuries.--Ever your faithful

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL

[_Edinburgh, April 1875._]

_Wednesday._--A moment at last. These last few days have been as jolly as days could be, and by good fortune I leave to-morrow for Swanston, so that I shall not feel the whole fall back to habitual self. The pride of life could scarce go further. To live in splendid clothes, velvet and gold and fur, upon principally champagne and lobster salad, with a company of people nearly all of whom are exceptionally good talkers; when your days began about eleven and ended about four--I have lost that sentence; I give it up; it is very admirable sport, any way. Then both my afternoons have been so pleasantly occupied--taking Henley drives. I had a business to carry him down the long stair, and more of a business to get him up again, but while he was in the carriage it was splendid. It is now just the top of spring with us. The whole country is mad with green. To see the cherry-blossom bitten out upon the black firs, and the black firs bitten out of the blue sky, was a sight to set before a king. You may imagine what it was to a man who has been eighteen months in an hospital ward. The look of his face was a wine to me. He plainly has been little in the country before. Imagine this: I always stopped him on the Bridges to let him enjoy the great _cry_ of green that goes up to Heaven out of the river beds, and he asked (more than once) "What noise is that?"--"The water."--"O!" almost incredulously; and then quite a long while after: "Do you know the noise of the water astonished me very much?" I was much struck by his putting the question _twice_; I have lost the sense of wonder of course; but there must be something to wonder at, for Henley has eyes and ears and an immortal soul of his own.

I shall send this off to-day to let you know of my new address--Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, Edinburgh. Salute the faithful in my name. Salute Priscilla, salute Barnabas, salute Ebenezer--O no, he's too much, I withdraw Ebenezer; enough of early Christians.--Ever your faithful

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

[_Edinburgh, May or June 1875._]

I say, we have a splendid picture here in Edinburgh. A Ruysdael of which one can never tire: I think it is one of the best landscapes in the world: a grey still day, a grey still river, a rough oak wood on one shore, on the other chalky banks with very complicated footpaths, oak woods, a field where a man stands reaping, church towers relieved against the sky and a beautiful distance, neither blue nor green. It is so still, the light is so cool and temperate, the river woos you to bathe in it. O I like it!

I say, I wonder if our Scottish Academy's exhibition is going to be done at all for Appleton or whether he does not care for it. It might amuse me, although I am not fit for it. Why and O why doesn't Grove publish me?--Ever yours,

R. L. STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

I was at this time, if I remember rightly, preparing some lectures on
Hogarth for a course at Cambridge.

[_Swanston, June 1875._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am a devil certainly; but write I cannot. Look here, you had better get hold of G. C. Lichtenberg's _Ausfuerliche Erklarung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche_: Goettingen, 1794 to 1816 (it was published in numbers seemingly). Douglas the publisher lent it to me: and tho' I hate the damned tongue too cordially to do more than dip into it, I have seen some shrewd things. If you cannot get it for yourself, (it seems scarce), I dare say I could negotiate with Douglas for a loan. This adorable spring has made me quite drunken, drunken with green colour and golden sound. We have the best blackbird here that we have had for years; we have two; but the other is but an average performer. Anything so rich and clear as the pipe of our first fiddle, it never entered into the heart of man to fancy. How the years slip away, Colvin; and we walk little cycles, and turn in little abortive spirals, and come out again, hot and weary, to find the same view before us, the same hill barring the road. Only, bless God for it, we have still the same eye to see with, and if the scene be not altogether unsightly, we can enjoy it whether or no. I feel quite happy, but curiously inert and passive, something for the winds to blow over, and the sun to glimpse on and go off again, as it might be a tree or a gravestone. All this willing and wishing and striving leads a man nowhere after all. Here I am back again in my old humour of a sunny equanimity; to see the world fleet about me; and the days chase each other like sun patches, and the nights like cloud-shadows, on a windy day; content to see them go and no wise reluctant for the cool evening, with its dew and stars and fading strain of tragic red. And I ask myself why I ever leave this humour? What I have gained? And the winds blow in the trees with a sustained "Pish"! and the birds answer me in a long derisive whistle.

So that for health, happiness, and indifferent literature, apply to--Ever yours,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

"_Burns_" means the article on Burns which R. L. S. had been
commissioned to write for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The "awfully
nice man" was the Hon. J. Seed, formerly Secretary to the Customs and
Marine Department of New Zealand; and it was from his conversation
that the notion of the Samoan Islands as a place of refuge for the
sick and world-worn first entered Stevenson's mind, to lie dormant (I
never heard him speak of it) and be revived thirteen years later.

[_Edinburgh, June 1875._]

Simply a scratch. All right, jolly, well, and through with the difficulty. My father pleased about the _Burns_. Never travel in the same carriage with three able-bodied seamen and a fruiterer from Kent; the A.-B.'s speak all night as though they were hailing vessels at sea; and the fruiterer as if he were crying fruit in a noisy market-place--such, at least, is my _funeste_ experience. I wonder if a fruiterer from some place else--say Worcestershire--would offer the same phenomena? insoluble doubt.

R. L. S.

_Later._--Forgive me, couldn't get it off. Awfully nice man here to-night. Public servant--New Zealand. Telling us all about the South Sea Islands till I was sick with desire to go there: beautiful places, green for ever; perfect climate; perfect shapes of men and women, with red flowers in their hair; and nothing to do but to study oratory and etiquette, sit in the sun, and pick up the fruits as they fall. Navigator's Island is the place; absolute balm for the weary.--Ever your faithful friend,

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

The examination for the Bar at Edinburgh was approaching.
_Fontainebleau_ is the paper called _Forest Notes_, afterwards
printed in the Cornhill Magazine. The church is Glencorse Church in
the Pentlands, to the thoughts of which Stevenson reverted in his
last days with so much emotion (see _Weir of Hermiston_, chap. v.).

[_Swanston. End of June 1875._]

_Thursday._--This day fortnight I shall fall or conquer. Outside the rain still soaks; but now and again the hilltop looks through the mist vaguely. I am very comfortable, very sleepy, and very much satisfied with the arrangements of Providence.

_Saturday--no, Sunday_, 12.45.--Just been--not grinding, alas!--I couldn't--but doing a bit of _Fontainebleau_. I don't think I'll be plucked. I am not sure though--I am so busy, what with this d----d law, and this _Fontainebleau_ always at my elbow, and three plays (three, think of that!) and a story, all crying out to me, "Finish, finish, make an entire end, make us strong, shapely, viable creatures!" It's enough to put a man crazy. Moreover, I have my thesis given out now, which is a fifth (is it fifth? I can't count) incumbrance.

_Sunday._--I've been to church, and am not depressed--a great step. I was at that beautiful church my _petit poeme en prose_ was about. It is a little cruciform place, with heavy cornices and string course to match, and a steep slate roof. The small kirkyard is full of old gravestones. One of a Frenchman from Dunkerque--I suppose he died prisoner in the military prison hard by--and one, the most pathetic memorial I ever saw, a poor school-slate, in a wooden frame, with the inscription cut into it evidently by the father's own hand. In church, old Mr. Torrence preached--over eighty, and a relic of times forgotten, with his black thread gloves and mild old foolish face. One of the nicest parts of it was to see John Inglis, the greatest man in Scotland, our Justice-General, and the only born lawyer I ever heard, listening to the piping old body, as though it had all been a revelation, grave and respectful.--Ever your faithful

R. L. S.

TO MRS. SITWELL

[_Edinburgh, July 15, 1875._]

PASSED.

Ever your
R.
L.
S.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _L'Homme qui rit._

[14] This letter, accepting the first contribution of R. L. S., has
by an accident been preserved, and is so interesting, both for its
occasion and for the light it throws on the writer's care and
kindness as an editor, that by permission of his representatives I
here print it. '93 stands, of course, for the novel _Quatre-vingt
Treize_.

_15 Waterloo Place, S. W., 15/5/74_

DEAR SIR,--I have read with great interest your article on Victor
Hugo and also that which appeared in the last number of Macmillan. I
shall be happy to accept Hugo, and if I have been rather long in
answering you, it is only because I wished to give a second reading
to the article, and have lately been very much interrupted.

I will now venture to make a few remarks, and by way of preface I
must say that I do not criticise you because I take a low view of
your powers: but for the very contrary reason. I think very highly
of the promise shown in your writings and therefore think it worth
while to write more fully than I can often to contributors. Nor do I
set myself up as a judge--I am very sensible of my own failings in
the critical department and merely submit what has occurred to me
for your consideration.

I fully agree with the greatest portion of your opinions and think
them very favourably expressed. The following points struck me as
doubtful when I read and may perhaps be worth notice.

First, you seem to make the distinction between dramatic and
novelistic art coincide with the distinction between romantic and
18th century. This strikes me as doubtful, as at least to require
qualification. To my mind Hugo is far more dramatic in spirit than
Fielding, though his method involves (as you show exceedingly well)
a use of scenery and background which would hardly be admissible in
drama. I am not able--I fairly confess--to define the dramatic
element in Hugo or to say why I think it absent from Fielding and
Richardson. Yet surely Hugo's own dramas are a sufficient proof that
a drama may be romantic as well as a novel: though, of course, the
pressure of the great moral forces, etc., must be indicated by
different means. The question is rather a curious one and too wide
to discuss in a letter. I merely suggest what seems to me to be an
obvious criticism on your argument.

Secondly, you speak very sensibly of the melodramatic and clap-trap
element in Hugo. I confess that it seems to me to go deeper into his
work than you would apparently allow. I think it, for example, very
palpable even in _Notre Dame_, and I doubt the historical fidelity
though my ignorance of mediaeval history prevents me from putting my
finger on many faults. The consequence is that in my opinion you are
scarcely just to Scott or Fielding as compared with Hugo. Granting
fully his amazing force and fire, he seems to me to be deficient
often in that kind of healthy realism which is so admirable in
Scott's best work. For example, though my Scotch blood (for I can
boast of some) may prejudice me I am profoundly convinced that
Balfour of Burley would have knocked M. Lantenac into a cocked hat
and stormed la Tourgue if it had been garrisoned by 19 x 19 French
spouters of platitude in half the time that Gauvain and Cimourdain
took about it. In fact, Balfour seems to me to be flesh and blood
and Gauvain & Co. to be too often mere personified bombast: and
therefore I fancy that _Old Mortality_ will outlast '93, though
_Notre Dame_ is far better than _Quentin Durward_, and _Les
Miserables_, perhaps, better than any. This is, of course, fair
matter of opinion.

Thirdly, I don't think that you quite bring out your meaning in
saying that '93 is a decisive symptom. I confess that I don't quite
see in what sense it decides precisely what question. A sentence or
so would clear this up.

Fourthly, as a matter of form, I think (but I am very doubtful) that
it might possibly have been better not to go into each novel in
succession; but to group the substance of your remarks a little
differently. Of course I don't want you to alter the form, I merely
notice the point as suggesting a point in regard to any future
article.

Many of your criticisms in detail strike me as very good. I was much
pleased by your remarks on the storm in the _Travailleurs_. There
was another very odd storm, as it struck me on a hasty reading in
'93, where there is mention of a beautiful summer evening and yet
the wind is so high that you can't hear the tocsin. You do justice
also and more than justice to Hugo's tenderness about children.
That, I think, points to one great source of his power.

It would be curious to compare Hugo to a much smaller man, Chas.
Reade, who is often a kind of provincial or Daily Telegraph Hugo.
However that would hardly do in the Cornhill. I shall send your
article to the press and hope to use it in July. Any alterations can
be made when the article is in type, if any are desirable. I cannot
promise definitely in advance; but at any rate it shall appear as
soon as may be.

Excuse this long rigmarole and believe me to be, yours very truly,

LESLIE STEPHEN.

I shall hope to hear from you again. If ever you come to town you
will find me at 8 Southwell Gardens (close to the Gloucester Road
Station of the Underground). I am generally at home, except from 3
to 5.

[15] Portfolio.

[16] Richmond Seeley.

[17] The essay _Notes on the Movements of Young Children_.

[18] I remember nothing of either the title or the tenor of this story.

[19] Printed by Mr. Leslie Stephen in the Cornhill.

IV

ADVOCATE AND AUTHOR

EDINBURGH--PARIS--FONTAINEBLEAU

JULY 1875-JULY 1879

Having on the 14th of July 1875 passed with credit his examination for the Bar at Edinburgh, Stevenson thenceforth enjoyed whatever status and consideration attaches to the title of Advocate. But he made no serious attempt to practise, and by the 25th of the same month had started with Sir Walter Simpson for France. Here he lived and tramped for several weeks among the artist haunts of Fontainebleau and the neighbourhood, occupying himself chiefly with studies of the French poets and poetry of the fifteenth century, which afterwards bore fruit in his papers on Charles of Orleans and Francois Villon. Thence he travelled to join his parents at Wiesbaden and Homburg. Returning in the autumn to Scotland, he made, to please them, an effort to live the ordinary life of an Edinburgh advocate--attending trials and spending his mornings in wig and gown at the Parliament House. But this attempt was before long abandoned as tending to waste of time and being incompatible with his real occupation of literature. Through the next winter and spring he remained in Edinburgh, except for a short winter walking tour in Ayrshire and Galloway, and a month spent among his friends in London. In the late summer of 1876, after a visit to the West Highlands, he made the canoe trip with Sir Walter Simpson which furnished the subject of the _Inland Voyage_, followed by a prolonged autumn stay at Grez and Barbizon. The life, atmosphere, and scenery of these forest haunts had charmed and soothed him, as we have seen, since he was first introduced to them by his cousin, Mr. R. A. M. Stevenson, in the spring of 1875. An unfettered, unconventional, open-air existence, passed face to face with nature and in the company of congenial people engaged, like himself, in grappling with the problems and difficulties of an art, had been what he had longed for most consistently through all the agitations of his youth. And now he had found just such an existence, and with it, as he thought, peace of mind, health, and the spirit of unimpeded work.

But peace of mind was not to be his for long. What indeed awaited him in the forest was something different and more momentous: it was his fate: the romance which decided his life, and the companion whom he resolved to make his own at all hazards. But of this hereafter. To continue briefly the annals of the time: the year 1877 was again spent between Edinburgh, London, the Fontainebleau region, and several different temporary abodes in the artists' and other quarters of Paris; with an excursion in the company of his parents to the Land's End in August. In 1878 a similar general mode of life was varied by a visit with his parents in March to Burford Bridge, where he made warm friends with a senior to whom he had long looked up from a distance, Mr. George Meredith; by a spell of secretarial work under Professor Fleeming Jenkin, who was serving as a juror on the Paris Exhibition; and lastly, by the autumn tramp through the Cevennes, afterwards recounted with so much charm in _Travels with a Donkey_. The first half of 1879 was again spent between London, Scotland, and France.

During these four years, it should be added, Stevenson's health was very passable. It often, indeed, threatened to give way after any prolonged residence in Edinburgh, but was generally soon restored by open-air excursions (during which he was capable of fairly vigorous and sustained daily exercise), or by a spell of life among the woods of Fontainebleau. They were also the years in which he settled for good into his chosen profession of letters. He worked rather desultorily for the first twelve months after his call to the Bar, but afterwards with ever-growing industry and success, winning from the critical a full measure of recognition, though relatively little, so far, from the general public. In 1875 and 1876 he contributed as a journalist, though not frequently, to the Academy and Vanity Fair, and in 1877 more abundantly to London, a weekly review founded by Mr. Glasgow Brown, an acquaintance of Edinburgh Speculative days, and carried on, after the failure of that gentleman's health, by Mr. Henley. But he had no great gift or liking for journalism, or for any work not calling for the best literary form and finish he could give. Where he found special scope for such work was in the Cornhill Magazine under the editorship of Mr. Leslie Stephen. Here he continued his critical papers on men and books, already begun in 1874 with _Victor Hugo_, and began in 1876 the series of papers afterwards collected in _Virginibus Puerisque_. They were continued in 1877, and in greater number throughout 1878. His first published stories appeared as follows:--_A Lodging for the Night_, Temple Bar, October 1877; _The Sire de Maletroit's Door_, Temple Bar, January 1878; and _Will o' the Mill_, Cornhill Magazine, January 1878. In May 1878 followed his first travel book, _The Inland Voyage_, containing the account of his canoe trip from Antwerp to Grez. This was to Stevenson a year of great and various productiveness. Besides six or eight characteristic essays of the _Virginibus Puerisque_ series, there appeared in London the set of fantastic modern tales called the _New Arabian Nights_, conceived and written in an entirely different key from any of his previous work, as well as the kindly, sentimental comedy of French artist life, _Providence and the Guitar_; and in the Portfolio the _Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh_, republished at the end of the year in book form. During the autumn and winter of this year he wrote _Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes_, and was much and eagerly engaged in the planning of plays in collaboration with Mr. Henley; of which one, _Deacon Brodie_, was finished in the spring of 1879. In the same spring he drafted in Edinburgh, but afterwards laid by, four chapters on ethics, a study of which he once spoke as being always his "veiled mistress," under the name of _Lay Morals_.

But abounding in good work as this period was, and momentous as it was in regard to Stevenson's future life, it is a period which figures but meagrely in his correspondence, and in this book must fill disproportionately little space. Without the least breach of friendship, or even of intimate confidence on occasion, Stevenson had begun, as was natural and necessary, to wean himself from his entire dependence on his friend and counsellor of the last two years; to take his life more into his own hands; and to intermit the regularity of his correspondence with her. A few new correspondents appear; but to none of us in these days did he write more than scantily. Partly his growing absorption by the complications of his life and the interests of his work left him little time or inclination for letter-writing; partly his greater freedom of movement made it unnecessary. On his way backwards and forwards between Scotland and France, his friends in London had the chance of seeing him much more frequently than of yore. He avoided formal and dress-coated society; but in the company of congenial friends, whether men or women, and in places like the Savile Club (his favourite haunt), he was as brilliant and stimulating as ever, and however acute his inward preoccupations, his visits were always a delight.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

[_Edinburgh, end of July 1875._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Herewith you receive the rest of Henley's hospital work. He was much pleased by what you said of him, and asked me to forward these to you for your opinion. One poem, the _Spring Sorrow_, seems to me the most beautiful. I thank God for this _petit bout de consolation_, that by Henley's own account, this one more lovely thing in the world is not altogether without some trace of my influence: let me say that I have been something sympathetic which the mother found and contemplated while she yet carried it in her womb. This, in my profound discouragement, is a great thing for me; if I cannot do good with myself, at least, it seems, I can help others better inspired; I am at least a skilful accoucheur. My discouragement is from many causes: among others the re-reading of my Italian story. Forgive me, Colvin, but I cannot agree with you; it seems green fruit to me, if not really unwholesome; it is profoundly feeble, damn its weakness! Moreover I stick over my _Fontainebleau_, it presents difficulties to me that I surmount slowly.

I am very busy with Beranger for the Britannica. Shall be up in town on Friday or Saturday.--Ever yours,

R. L. S., _Advocate_.

TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

[_Chez Siron, Barbizon, Seine et Marne, August 1875._]

MY DEAR MOTHER,--I have been three days at a place called Grez, a pretty and very melancholy village on the plain. A low bridge of many arches choked with sedge; great fields of white and yellow water-lilies; poplars and willows innumerable; and about it all such an atmosphere of sadness and slackness, one could do nothing but get into the boat and out of it again, and yawn for bedtime.

Yesterday Bob and I walked home; it came on a very creditable thunderstorm; we were soon wet through; sometimes the rain was so heavy that one could only see by holding the hand over the eyes; and to crown all, we lost our way and wandered all over the place, and into the artillery range, among broken trees, with big shot lying about among the rocks. It was near dinner-time when we got to Barbizon; and it is supposed that we walked from twenty-three to twenty-five miles, which is not bad for the Advocate, who is not tired this morning. I was very glad to be back again in this dear place, and smell the wet forest in the morning.

Simpson and the rest drove back in a carriage, and got about as wet as we did.

Why don't you write? I have no more to say.--Ever your affectionate son,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL

At this time Stevenson was much occupied, as were several young
writers his contemporaries, with imitating the artificial forms of
early French verse. Only one of his attempts, I believe, has been
preserved, besides the two contained in this letter. The second is a
variation on a theme of Banville's.

_Chateau Renard, Loiret, August 1875._

I have been walking these last days from place to place; and it does make it hot for walking with a sack in this weather. I am burned in horrid patches of red; my nose, I fear, is going to take the lead in colour; Simpson is all flushed, as if he were seen by a sunset. I send you here two rondeaux; I don't suppose they will amuse anybody but me; but this measure, short and yet intricate, is just what I desire; and I have had some good times walking along the glaring roads, or down the poplar alley of the great canal, pitting my own humour to this old verse.

Far have you come, my lady, from the town,
And far from all your sorrows, if you please,
To smell the good sea-winds and hear the seas,
And in green meadows lay your body down.

To find your pale face grow from pale to brown,
Your sad eyes growing brighter by degrees;
Far have you come, my lady, from the town,
And far from all your sorrows, if you please.

Here in this seaboard land of old renown,
In meadow grass go wading to the knees;
Bathe your whole soul a while in simple ease;
There is no sorrow but the sea can drown;
Far have you come, my lady, from the town.

_Nous n'irons plus au bois_

We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire,
To weep for old desire
And things that are no more.
The woods are spoiled and hoar,
The ways are full of mire;
We'll walk the woods no more,
But stay beside the fire.
We loved, in days of yore,
Love, laughter, and the lyre.
Ah God, but death is dire,
And death is at the door--
We'll walk the woods no more.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. SITWELL

The special mood or occasion of unaccustomed bitterness which
prompted this rhapsody has passed from memory beyond recall. The date
must be after his return from his second excursion to Fontainebleau.

_[Swanston, late Summer 1875] Thursday._

I have been staying in town, and could not write a word. It is a fine strong night, full of wind; the trees are all crying out in the darkness; funny to think of the birds asleep outside, on the tossing branches, the little bright eyes closed, the brave wings folded, the little hearts that beat so hard and thick (so much harder and thicker than ever human heart) all stilled and quieted in deep slumber, in the midst of this noise and turmoil. Why, it will be as much as I can do to sleep in here in my walled room; so loud and jolly the wind sounds through the open window. The unknown places of the night invite the travelling fancy; I like to think of the sleeping towns and sleeping farm-houses and cottages, all the world over, here by the white road poplar-lined, there by the clamorous surf. Isn't that a good dormitive?

_Saturday._--I cannot tell how I feel, who can ever? I feel like a person in a novel of George Sand's; I feel I desire to go out of the house, and begin life anew in the cool blue night; never to come back here; never, never. Only to go on for ever by sunny day and grey day, by bright night and foul, by high-way and by-way, town and hamlet, until somewhere by a road-side or in some clean inn clean death opened his arms to me and took me to his quiet heart for ever. If soon, good; if late, well then, late--there would be many a long bright mile behind me, many a goodly, many a serious sight; I should die ripe and perfect, and take my garnered experience with me into the cool, sweet earth. For I have died already and survived a death; I have seen the grass grow rankly on my grave; I have heard the train of mourners come weeping and go laughing away again. And when I was alone there in the kirk-yard, and the birds began to grow familiar with the grave-stone, I have begun to laugh also, and laughed and laughed until night-flowers came out above me. I have survived myself, and somehow live on, a curious changeling, a merry ghost; and do not mind living on, finding it not unpleasant; only had rather, a thousandfold, died and been done with the whole damned show for ever. It is a strange feeling at first to survive yourself, but one gets used to that as to most things. _Et puis_, is it not one's own fault? Why did not one lie still in the grave? Why rise again among men's troubles and toils, where the wicked wag their shock beards and hound the weary out to labour? When I was safe in prison, and stone walls and iron bars were an hermitage about me, who told me to burst the mild constraint and go forth where the sun dazzles, and the wind pierces, and the loud world sounds and jangles all through the weary day? I mind an old print of a hermit coming out of a great wood towards evening and shading his bleared eyes to see all the kingdoms of the earth before his feet, where towered cities and castled hills, and stately rivers, and good corn lands made one great chorus of temptation for his weak spirit, and I think I am the hermit, and would to God I had dwelt ever in the wood of penitence[20]----

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The _Burns_ herein mentioned is an article undertaken in the early
summer of the same year for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In the end
Stevenson's work was thought to convey a view of the poet too frankly
critical, and too little in accordance with the accepted Scotch
tradition; and the publishers, duly paying him for his labours,
transferred the task to Professor Shairp. The volume here announced
on the three Scottish eighteenth-century poets unfortunately never
came into being. The _Charles of Orleans_ essay appeared in the
Cornhill Magazine for December of the following year; that on Villon
(with the story on the same theme, _A Lodging for the Night_) not
until the autumn of 1877. The essay on Beranger referred to at the
end of the letter was one commissioned and used by the editor of the
Encyclopaedia; _Spring_ was a prose poem, of which the manuscript,
sent to me at Cambridge, was unluckily lost in the confusion of a
change of rooms.

[_Edinburgh, Autumn 1875._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thanks for your letter and news. No--my _Burns_ is not done yet, it has led me so far afield that I cannot finish it; every time I think I see my way to an end, some new game (or perhaps wild goose) starts up, and away I go. And then, again, to be plain, I shirk the work of the critical part, shirk it as a man shirks a long jump. It is awful to have to express and differentiate _Burns_ in a column or two. O golly, I say, you know, it _can't_ be done at the money. All the more as I'm going to write a book about it. _Ramsay, Fergusson, and Burns: an Essay_ (or _a critical essay?_ but then I'm going to give lives of the three gentlemen, only the gist of the book is the criticism) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate. How's that for cut and dry? And I _could_ write this book. Unless I deceive myself, I could even write it pretty adequately. I feel as if I was really in it, and knew the game thoroughly. You see what comes of trying to write an essay on Burns in ten columns.

Meantime, when I have done Burns, I shall finish Charles of Orleans (who is in a good way, about the fifth month, I should think, and promises to be a fine healthy child, better than any of his elder brothers for a while); and then perhaps a Villon, for Villon is a very essential part of my _Ramsay-Fergusson-Burns_; I mean, is a note in it, and will recur again and again for comparison and illustration; then, perhaps, I may try Fontainebleau, by the way. But so soon as Charles of Orleans is polished off, and immortalised for ever, he and his pipings, in a solid imperishable shrine of R. L. S., my true aim and end will be this little book. Suppose I could jerk you out 100 Cornhill pages; that would easy make 200 pages of decent form; and then thickish paper--eh? would that do? I dare say it could be made bigger; but I know what 100 pages of copy, bright consummate copy, imply behind the scenes of weary manuscribing; I think if I put another nothing to it, I should not be outside the mark; and 100 Cornhill pages of 500 words means, I fancy (but I never was good at figures), means 50,000 words. There's a prospect for an idle young gentleman who lives at home at ease! The future is thick with inky fingers. And then perhaps nobody would publish. _Ah nom de dieu!_ What do you think of all this? will it paddle, think you?

I hope this pen will write; it is the third I have tried.

About coming up, no, that's impossible; for I am worse than a bankrupt. I have at the present six shillings and a penny; I have a sounding lot of bills for Christmas; new dress suit, for instance, the old one having gone for Parliament House; and new white shirts to live up to my new profession; I'm as gay and swell and gummy as can be; only all my boots leak; one pair water, and the other two simple black mud; so that my rig is more for the eye than a very solid comfort to myself. That is my budget. Dismal enough, and no prospect of any coin coming in; at least for months. So that here I am, I almost fear, for the winter; certainly till after Christmas, and then it depends on how my bills "turn out" whether it shall not be till spring. So, meantime, I must whistle in my cage. My cage is better by one thing; I am an Advocate now. If you ask me why that makes it better, I would remind you that in the most distressing circumstances a little consequence goes a long way, and even bereaved relatives stand on precedence round the coffin. I idle finely. I read Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, Martin's _History of France_, _Allan Ramsay_, _Olivier Basselin_, all sorts of rubbish _apropos_ of _Burns_, _Commines_, _Juvenal des Ursins_, etc. I walk about the Parliament House five forenoons a week, in wig and gown; I have either a five or six mile walk, or an hour or two hard skating on the rink, every afternoon, without fail.

I have not written much; but, like the seaman's parrot in the tale, I have thought a deal. You have never, by the way, returned me either _Spring_ or _Beranger_, which is certainly a d----d shame. I always comforted myself with that when my conscience pricked me about a letter to you. "Thus conscience"--O no, that's not appropriate in this connection.--Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

I say, is there any chance of your coming north this year? Mind you that promise is now more respectable for age than is becoming.

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

The following epistle in verse, with its mixed flavour of Burns and
Horace, gives a lively picture of winter forenoons spent in the
Parliament House:--

[_Edinburgh, October 1875._]

Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green,
Red are the bonny woods o' Dean,
An' here we're back in Embro, freen',
To pass the winter.
Whilk noo, wi' frosts afore, draws in,
An' snaws ahint her.

I've seen's hae days to fricht us a',
The Pentlands poothered weel wi' snaw,
The ways half-smoored wi' liquid thaw,
An' half-congealin',
The snell an' scowtherin' norther blaw
Frae blae Brunteelan'.

I've seen's been unco sweir to sally,
And at the door-cheeks daff an' dally,
Seen's daidle thus an' shilly-shally
For near a minute--
Sae cauld the wind blew up the valley,
The deil was in it!--

Syne spread the silk an' tak the gate
In blast an' blaudin' rain, deil hae't!
The hale toon glintin', stane an' slate,
Wi' cauld an' weet,
An' to the Court, gin we'se be late,
Bicker oor feet.

And at the Court, tae, aft I saw
Whaur Advocates by twa an' twa
Gang gesterin' end to end the ha'
In weeg an' goon,
To crack o' what ye wull but Law
The hale forenoon.

That muckle ha', maist like a kirk,
I've kent at braid mid-day sae mirk
Ye'd seen white weegs an' faces lurk
Like ghaists frae Hell,
But whether Christian ghaists or Turk
Deil ane could tell.

The three fires lunted in the gloom,
The wind blew like the blast o' doom,
The rain upo' the roof abune
Played Peter Dick----
Ye wad nae'd licht enough i' the room
Your teeth to pick!

But, freend, ye ken how me an' you,
The ling-lang lanely winter through,
Keep'd a guid speerit up, an' true
To lore Horatian,
We aye the ither bottle drew
To inclination.

Sae let us in the comin' days
Stand sicker on our auncient ways--
The strauchtest road in a' the maze
Since Eve ate apples;
An' let the winter weet our cla'es--
We'll weet our thrapples.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

The two following letters refer to the essay on the Spirit of Spring
which I was careless enough to lose in the process of a change of
rooms at Cambridge. _The Petits Poemes en Prose_ were attempts, not
altogether successful, in the form though not in the spirit of
Baudelaire.

_Swanston [Autumn 1875]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Thanks. Only why don't you tell me if I can get my _Spring_ printed? I want to print it; because it's nice, and genuine to boot, and has got less side on than my other game. Besides I want coin badly.

I am writing _Petits Poemes en Prose_. Their principal resemblance to Baudelaire's is that they are rather longer and not quite so good. They are ve-ry cle-ver (words of two syllables), O so aw-ful-ly cle-ver (words of three), O so dam-na-bly cle-ver (words of a devil of a number of syllables). I have written fifteen in a fortnight. I have also written some beautiful poetry. I would like a cake and a cricket-bat; and a pass-key to Heaven if you please, and as much money as my friend the Baron Rothschild can spare. I used to look across to Rothschild of a morning when we were brushing our hair, and say--(this is quite true, only we were on the opposite side of the street, and though I used to look over I cannot say I ever detected the beggar, he feared to meet my eagle eye)--well, I used to say to him, "Rothschild, old man, lend us five hundred francs," and it is characteristic of Rothy's dry humour that he used never to reply when it was a question of money. He was a very humorous dog indeed, was Rothy. Heigh-ho! those happy old days. Funny, funny fellow, the dear old Baron.