A Letter Book

As, by the kindness of Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, I am enabled to give here an unpublished letter of Stevenson's to myself, it may require some explanation, not only of the commentatory and commendatory kind but of fact. Stevenson, coming to dine with me, had brought with him, and showed with much pride, a new umbrella (a seven-and-sixpenny one) which, to my surprise, he had bought. But when he went away that night he forgot it; and when I met him next day at the Savile and suggested that I should send it to him, there or somewhere, he said he was going abroad almost immediately and begged me to keep it for him. By this or that accident, but chiefly owing to his constant expatriations, no opportunity of restitution ever occurred: though I used to remind him of it as a standing joke, and treasured it religiously, stored and unused. This letter is partly in answer to a last reminder in which I said that I was going to present it to the nation, that it might be kept with King Koffee Kalcalli's, but as a memory of a "victor in romance" not of a vanquished enemy.

I of course told Mr. Kipling of the contents which concerned him: and he, equally of course, demanded delivery of the goods at once. But, half in joke, I demurred, saying that I was a bailee, and the gift was not formal enough, being undated and only a "suggestion"; he should have it without fail at my death, or Stevenson's.[130 - Of this moratorium I believe I duly advised R. L. S. and I don't think he objected. There was, if I remember rightly, a further reason for it – that I was living in two places at the time and the subject was not immediately at hand.]

When alas! this latter came, I prepared to act up to my promise; but, alas! again, the umbrella had vanished! Some prated of mislaying in house-removal, of illicit use by servants, etc.; but for my part I had and have no doubt that the thing had been enskyed and constellated – like Ariadne's Crown, Berenice's Locks, Cassiopeia's Chair, and a whole galaxy of other now celestial objects – to afford a special place to my dead friend then, and to my live one when (may the time still be far distant) he is ready for it.

As for the more serious subject of the letter, I must refer curious readers to an essay of mine on Lockhart, originally published in 1884 and reprinted in Essays in EnglishLiterature some years later. To this reprint I subjoined, before I got this letter from R. L. S., a reasoned defence of Lockhart from the charge of cowardice and "caddishness": but it is evident that Stevenson had not yet seen it. When he did see it, he wrote me another letter chiefly about my book itself, and so of no interest to the public, but touching again on this Lockhart question. He avowed himself still dissatisfied: but said he was sorry for his original remark which was "ungracious and unhandsome" if not untrue, adding, "for to whom do I owe more pleasure than to Lockhart?"

54.

My dear Saintsbury,

Thanks for yours. Why did I call Lockhart a cad? That calls for an answer, and I give it. "Scorpion"[131 - Lockhart's (self-given) name in the "Chaldee MS." was "the Scorpion that delighteth to sting the faces of men."] literature seems at the best no very fit employment for a man of genius, which Lockhart was – and none at all for a gentleman. But if a man goes in for such a trade, he must be ready for the consequences; and I do not conceive a gentleman as a coward; the white feather is not his crest, it almost excludes – and I put the "almost" with reluctance. Well, now about the duel? Even Bel-Ami[132 - Maupassant's ineffable hero and title-giver.] turned up on the terrain. But Lockhart? Et responsum est ab omnibus, Non est inventus.[133 - Hardly any school-boy of my or Stevenson's generation would have needed a reference to the Essay on Murder. But I am told that De Quincey has gone out of fashion, with school-boys and others.] I have often wondered how Scott took that episode.[134 - We know now: also what "The Duke" said when consulted. They did not agree with Stevenson, but then they knew all the facts and he did not.] I do not know how this view will strike you;[135 - I should have held it myself, if the facts had been what R. L. S. thought them.] it seems to me the "good old honest" fashion of our fathers, though I own it does not agree with the New Morality. "Cad" may be perhaps an expression too vivacious and not well chosen; it is, at least upon my view, substantially just.

Now if you mean to comb my wig, comb it from the right parting – I know you will comb it well.

An infinitely small jest occurs to me in connection with the historic umbrella: and perhaps its infinite smallness attracts me. Would you mind handing it to Rudyard Kipling with the enclosed note?[136 - Which of course is Mr. Kipling's property, not mine. But he has most kindly joined in, authorising its publication, and that of the rest of the letter as far as he is concerned.] It seems to me fitly to consecrate and commemorate this most absurd episode.

    Yours very sincerely,
    Robert Louis Stevenson.

[Enclosure]

This Umbrella

purchased in the year 1878 by

Robert Louis Stevenson

(and faithfully stabled for more than twelve years in the

halls of George Saintsbury)

is now handed on at the suggestion of the first and

by the loyal hands of the second,

to

Rudyard Kipling

notes

1

It may of course be "illustrated" in the other sense by a second use of the pen; and we shall have instances of this kind to notice.

2

As has often been pointed out Ben Jonson's exquisite "Drink to me only with thine eyes" is a verse-paraphrase or mosaic from this writer's prose.

3

Pliny, if he did not always "write for publication," deliberately "published," as we should say, his letters. Indeed, he is one of the first to use the word in this sense, even if he uses it immediately of an oration not a letter. Some think Cicero meant publication; and he was very likely to do so.

4

The Latin statesman, like the Greek bishop, condescends to write about wine and even more fully. One of the most interesting and informing things on the subject is his discourse on vinum acinaticium, a sort of Roman Imperial Tokay made from grapes kept till the frost had touched them.

5

Genuine letters of Sappho would have been of the first interest to compare with those of Heloise, and the "Portuguese Nun" and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Diotima's might have been as disappointing as George Eliot's: but by no means must necessarily have been so. Aspasia's, sometimes counterfeited, ought to have been good.

6

It is part of the plan to give, as a sort of Appendix to the Introduction, and extension of it towards the main body of text, some specimens of Greek, Roman (classical and post-classical) and Early Mediaeval letter-writing, translated for the purpose by the present writer. The continuity of literary history is a thing which deserves to be attended to, especially when there is an ever-growing tendency to confine attention to things modern – albeit so soon to be antiquated! I owe the last of these specimens, in the Latin from which I translate it, to the kindness of my friend the Rev. W. Hunt, D.Litt., to whom I had recourse as not myself having access to a large library at the moment, and who has assisted me in other parts of this book.

7

Yet others, as to authenticity, have, I believe, been rejected by all competent scholarship.

8

Benjamin Constant and Madame de Charrière.

9

Some of us think Blake a great poet; but this is scarcely a general opinion, and he does not appear till the century was three parts over. Burns (whose own letters by the way do him little justice) hardly comes in.

10

Especially the most popular and voluminous if not the most important of all – the periodical and the novel.

11

The danger being of many sorts – usually in the direction of various kinds of excess. A quietly tragic letter may be a masterpiece: perhaps there is no finer example than one to be again referred to, of Mrs. Carlyle's.

12

Mr. Paul thinks that "the baby language" is terribly out of character, and that there is "too much of it"; that Swift "would try to make love though he did not know what love meant"; and that the whole rings hollow and insincere. Others, women as well as men, have held that the "little language" is only less pathetic than it is charming; that Swift was one of the greatest, if one of the unhappiest lovers of the world; and that the thing is as sincere as if it had been written in the Palace of Truth and only hollow as is the space between Heaven and Hell.

13

It should never be, but perhaps sometimes is, forgotten that "Stella" was a lady of unusual wits, and of what Swift's greatest decrier called in his own protegée Mrs. Williams "universal curiosity," that is to say not "inquisitiveness" but "intelligent interest." The politics etc. are not mere selfish attention to what interests the writer only.

14

It must not be forgotten that she was Fielding's cousin. And after the remark above on Swift it is pleasant and may be fair to say that Mr. Paul is a hearty "Marian."

15