Again thanking you very heartily for your coals of fire I remain yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, JUNE 24, 1881.
MY DEAR GOSSE, - I wonder if I misdirected my last to you. I begin to fear it. I hope, however, this will go right. I am in act to do a mad thing - to stand for the Edinburgh Chair of History; it is elected for by the advocates, QUORUM PARS; I am told that I am too late this year; but advised on all hands to go on, as it is likely soon to be once more vacant; and I shall have done myself good for the next time. Now, if I got the thing (which I cannot, it appears), I believe, in spite of all my imperfections, I could be decently effectual. If you can think so also, do put it in a testimonial.
Heavens! JE ME SAUVE, I have something else to say to you, but after that (which is not a joke) I shall keep it for another shoot.
- Yours testimonially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I surely need not add, dear lad, that if you don"t feel like it, you will only have to pacify me by a long letter on general subjects, when I shall hasten to respond in recompense for my a.s.sault upon the postal highway.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY [JULY 1881].
MY DEAR WEG, - Many thanks for the testimonial; many thanks for your blind, wondering letter; many wishes, lastly, for your swift recovery. Insomnia is the opposite pole from my complaint; which brings with it a nervous lethargy, an unkind, unwholesome, and ungentle somnolence, fruitful in heavy heads and heavy eyes at morning. You cannot sleep; well, I can best explain my state thus: I cannot wake. Sleep, like the lees of a posset, lingers all day, lead-heavy, in my knees and ankles. Weight on the shoulders, torpor on the brain. And there is more than too much of that from an ungrateful hound who is now enjoying his first decently competent and peaceful weeks for close upon two years; happy in a big brown moor behind him, and an incomparable burn by his side; happy, above all, in some work - for at last I am at work with that appet.i.te and confidence that alone makes work supportable.
I told you I had something else to say. I am very tedious - it is another request. In August and a good part of September we shall be in Braemar, in a house with some accommodation. Now Braemar is a place patronised by the royalty of the Sister Kingdoms - Victoria and the Cairngorms, sir, honouring that countryside by their conjunct presence. This seems to me the spot for A Bard. Now can you come to see us for a little while? I can promise you, you must like my father, because you are a human being; you ought to like Braemar, because of your avocation; and you ought to like me, because I like you; and again, you must like my wife, because she likes cats; and as for my mother - well, come and see, what do you think? that is best. Mrs. Gosse, my wife tells me, will have other fish to fry; and to be plain, I should not like to ask her till I had seen the house. But a lone man I know we shall be equal to.
QU"EN DIS TU? VIENS. - Yours,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO P. G. HAMERTON
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY [JULY 1881].
MY DEAR MR. HAMMERTON, - (There goes the second M.; it is a certainty.) Thank you for your prompt and kind answer, little as I deserved it, though I hope to show you I was less undeserving than I seemed. But just might I delete two words in your testimonial?
The two words "and legal" were unfortunately winged by chance against my weakest spot, and would go far to d.a.m.n me.
It was not my bliss that I was interested in when I was married; it was a sort of marriage IN EXTREMIS; and if I am where I am, it is thanks to the care of that lady who married me when I was a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom.
I had a fair experience of that kind of illness when all the women (G.o.d bless them!) turn round upon the streets and look after you with a look that is only too kind not to be cruel. I have had nearly two years of more or less prostration. I have done no work whatever since the February before last until quite of late. To be precise, until the beginning of last month, exactly two essays.
All last winter I was at Davos; and indeed I am home here just now against the doctor"s orders, and must soon be back again to that unkindly haunt "upon the mountains visitant" - there goes no angel there but the angel of death. The deaths of last winter are still sore spots to me. . . . So, you see, I am not very likely to go on a "wild expedition," cis-Stygian at least. The truth is, I am scarce justified in standing for the chair, though I hope you will not mention this; and yet my health is one of my reasons, for the cla.s.s is in summer.
I hope this statement of my case will make my long neglect appear less unkind. It was certainly not because I ever forgot you, or your unwonted kindness; and it was not because I was in any sense rioting in pleasures.
I am glad to hear the catamaran is on her legs again; you have my warmest wishes for a good cruise down the Saone; and yet there comes some envy to that wish, for when shall I go cruising? Here a sheer hulk, alas! lies R. L. S. But I will continue to hope for a better time, canoes that will sail better to the wind, and a river grander than the Saone.
I heard, by the way, in a letter of counsel from a well-wisher, one reason of my town"s absurdity about the chair of Art: I fear it is characteristic of her manners. It was because you did not call upon the electors!
Will you remember me to Mrs. Hamerton and your son? - And believe me, etc., etc.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, [JULY 1881].
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I do believe I am better, mind and body; I am tired just now, for I have just been up the burn with Wogg, daily growing better and boo"f"ler; so do not judge my state by my style in this. I am working steady, four Cornhill pages scrolled every day, besides the correspondence about this chair, which is heavy in itself. My first story, "Thrawn Janet," all in Scotch, is accepted by Stephen; my second, "The Body s.n.a.t.c.hers," is laid aside in a justifiable disgust, the tale being horrid; my third, "The Merry Men," I am more than half through, and think real well of. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks; and I like it much above all my other attempts at story-telling; I think it is strange; if ever I shall make a hit, I have the line now, as I believe.
f.a.n.n.y has finished one of hers, "The Shadow on the Bed," and is now hammering at a second, for which we have "no name" as yet - not by Wilkie Collins.
TALES FOR WINTER NIGHTS. Yes, that, I think, we will call the lot of them when republished.
Why have you not sent me a testimonial? Everybody else but you has responded, and Symonds, but I"m afraid he"s ill. Do think, too, if anybody else would write me a testimonial. I am told quant.i.ty goes far. I have good ones from Rev. Professor Campbell, Professor Meiklejohn, Leslie Stephen, Lang, Gosse, and a very shaky one from Hamerton.
Grant is an elector, so can"t, but has written me kindly. From Tulloch I have not yet heard. Do help me with suggestions. This old chair, with its 250 pounds and its light work, would make me.
It looks as if we should take Cater"s chalet after all; but O! to go back to that place, it seems cruel. I have not yet received the Landor; but it may be at home, detained by my mother, who returns to-morrow.
Believe me, dear Colvin, ever yours,
R. L. S.
Yours came; the cla.s.s is in summer; many thanks for the testimonial, it is bully; arrived along with it another from Symonds, also bully; he is ill, but not lungs, thank G.o.d - fever got in Italy. We HAVE taken Cater"s chalet; so we are now the aristo."s of the valley. There is no hope for me, but if there were, you would hear sweetness and light streaming from my lips.
"The Merry Men"
Chap. I. Eilean Aros. } II. What the Wreck had brought to Aros. } Tip III. Past and Present in Sandag Bay. } Top IV. The Gale. } Tale.
V. A Man out of the Sea. }
Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY
KINNAIRD COTTAGE, PITLOCHRY, JULY 1881.