The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson — Volume 1

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.

Letter: TO P. G. HAMERTON

CHALET AM STEIN, DAVOS, AUTUMN [1881]

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 CONFRERES 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.

Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER

[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 blight 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 sky
Johnson — nor Thomson — ne'er shall die!

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

    R. L. S.

Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

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 Prattigau. 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 rheumatic; 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.

Letter: 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.

Letter: 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 sometime 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.

Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY

[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.