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Read Ebook: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 by Stevenson Robert Louis
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Ebook has 1184 lines and 118090 words, and 24 pages
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
I don't think I need translate that for you.
There is one thing that burthens me a good deal in my patriotic garrulage, and that is the black ignorance in which I grope about everything, as, for example, when I gave yesterday a full and, I fancy, a startlingly incorrect account of Scotch education to a very stolid German on a garden bench: he sat and perspired under it, however, with much composure. I am generally glad enough to fall back again, after these political interludes, upon Burns, toddy, and the Highlands.
I go every night to the theatre, except when there is no opera. I cannot stand a play yet; but I am already very much improved, and can understand a good deal of what goes on.
I am just going off to do some German with Simpson.--Your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO THOMAS STEVENSON
We have got settled down in Frankfurt, and like the place very much. Simpson and I seem to get on very well together. We suit each other capitally; and it is an awful joke to be living in this supremely mean abode.
The abode is, however, a great improvement on the hotel, and I think we shall grow quite fond of it.--Ever your affectionate son,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
Enough of the Gasse. The weather is here much colder. It rained a good deal yesterday; and though it is fair and sunshiny again to-day, and we can still sit, of course, with our windows open, yet there is no more excuse for the siesta; and the bathe in the river, except for cleanliness, is no longer a necessity of life. The Main is very swift. In one part of the baths it is next door to impossible to swim against it, and I suspect that, out in the open, it would be quite impossible.--Adieu, my dear mother, and believe me, ever your affectionate son,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON .
TO CHARLES BAXTER
On the way home with Sir Walter Simpson from Germany. The L.J.R. herein mentioned was a short-lived Essay Club of only six members; its meetings were held in a public-house in Advocate's Close; the meaning of its initials was Liberty, Justice, Reverence; no doubt understood by the members in some fresh and esoteric sense of their own.
Blame me not that this epistle Is the first you have from me. Idleness has held me fettered, But at last the times are bettered And once more I wet my whistle Here, in France beside the sea.
All the green and idle weather I have had in sun and shower, Such an easy warm subsistence, Such an indolent existence I should find it hard to sever Day from day and hour from hour.
But You at least, my friend, will see, That in sunny grassy meadows Trailed across by moving shadows To be actively receptive Is as much as man can be.
He that all the winter grapples Difficulties, thrust and ward-- Needs to cheer him thro' his duty Memories of sun and beauty Orchards with the russet apples Lying scattered on the sward.
Many such I keep in prison, Keep them here at heart unseen, Till my muse again rehearses Long years hence, and in my verses You shall meet them rearisen Ever comely, ever green.
You know how they never perish, How, in time of later art, Memories consecrate and sweeten These defaced and tempest-beaten Flowers of former years we cherish, Half a life, against our heart.
Most, those love-fruits withered greenly, Those frail, sickly amourettes, How they brighten with the distance Take new strength and new existence Till we see them sitting queenly Crowned and courted by regrets!
All that loveliest and best is, Aureole-fashion round their head, They that looked in life but plainly, How they stir our spirits vainly When they come to us Alcestis- like returning from the dead!
Not the old love but another, Bright she comes at Memory's call Our forgotten vows reviving To a newer, livelier living, As the dead child to the mother Seems the fairest child of all.
Thus our Goethe, sacred master, Travelling backward thro' his youth, Surely wandered wrong in trying To renew the old, undying Loves that cling in memory faster Than they ever lived in truth.
Simpson and I got on very well together, and made a very suitable pair. I like him much better than I did when I started which was almost more than I hoped for.
If you should chance to see Bob, give him my news or if you have the letter about you, let him see it.--Ever your Affct. friend,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Through the jesting tenor of this letter is to be discerned a vein of more than half serious thinking very characteristic of R. L. S. alike as youth and man.
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
In the winter of 1872-73 Stevenson was out of health again; and by the beginning of spring there began the trouble which for the next twelve months clouded his home life. The following shows exactly in what spirit he took it:--
MY DEAR BAXTER,--The thunderbolt has fallen with a vengeance now. On Friday night after leaving you, in the course of conversation, my father put me one or two questions as to beliefs, which I candidly answered. I really hate all lying so much now--a new found honesty that has somehow come out of my late illness--that I could not so much as hesitate at the time; but if I had foreseen the real hell of everything since, I think I should have lied, as I have done so often before. I so far thought of my father, but I had forgotten my mother. And now! they are both ill, both silent, both as down in the mouth as if--I can find no simile. You may fancy how happy it is for me. If it were not too late, I think I could almost find it in my heart to retract, but it is too late; and again, am I to live my whole life as one falsehood? Of course, it is rougher than hell upon my father, but can I help it? They don't see either that my game is not the light-hearted scoffer; that I am not a careless infidel. I believe as much as they do, only generally in the inverse ratio: I am, I think, as honest as they can be in what I hold. I have not come hastily to my views. I reserve many points until I acquire fuller information, and do not think I am thus justly to be called "horrible atheist."
Here is a good heavy cross with a vengeance, and all rough with rusty nails that tear your fingers, only it is not I that have to carry it alone; I hold the light end, but the heavy burden falls on these two.
Don't--I don't know what I was going to say. I am an abject idiot, which, all things considered, is not remarkable.--Ever your affectionate and horrible atheist,
R. L. STEVENSON.
FOOTNOTES:
It was the father who, from dislike of a certain Edinburgh Lewis, changed the sound and spelling of his son's second name to Louis , and it was the son himself who about his eighteenth year dropped the use of his third name and initial altogether.
Thomas Stevenson.
NEW FRIENDSHIPS--ORDERED SOUTH
JULY 1873-MAY 1874
The year 1873 was a critical one in Stevenson's life. Late in July he went for the second time to pay a visit to Cockfield Rectory, the pleasant Suffolk home of his cousin Mrs. Churchill Babington and her husband. Another guest at the same time was Mrs. Sitwell--now my wife--an intimate friend and connection by marriage of the hostess. I was shortly due to join the party, when Mrs. Sitwell wrote telling me of the "fine young spirit" she had found under her friend's roof, and suggesting that I should hasten my visit so as to make his acquaintance before he left. I came accordingly, and from that time on the fine young spirit became a leading interest both in her life and mine. He had thrown himself on her sympathies, in that troubled hour of his youth, with entire dependence almost from the first, and clung to her devotedly for the next two years as to an inspirer, consoler, and guide. Under her influence he began for the first time to see his way in life, and to believe hopefully and manfully in his own powers and future. To encourage such hopes further, and to lend what hand one could towards their fulfilment, became quickly one of the first of cares and pleasures. It was impossible not to recognise, in this very un-academical type of Scottish youth, a spirit the most interesting and full of promise. His social charm was already at its height, and quite irresistible; but inwardly he was full of trouble and self-doubt. If he could steer himself or be steered safely through the difficulties of youth, and if he could learn to write with half the charm and genius that shone from his presence and conversation, there seemed room to hope for the highest from him. He went back to Edinburgh in the beginning of September full of new hope and heart. It had been agreed that while still reading, as his parents desired, for the bar, he should try seriously to get ready for publication some essays which he had already on hand--one on Walt Whitman, one on John Knox, one on Roads and the Spirit of the Road--and should so far as possible avoid topics of dispute in the home circle.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am too happy to be much of a correspondent. Yesterday we were away to Melford and Lavenham, both exceptionally placid, beautiful old English towns. Melford scattered all round a big green, with an Elizabethan Hall and Park, great screens of trees that seem twice as high as trees should seem, and everything else like what ought to be in a novel, and what one never expects to see in reality, made me cry out how good we were to live in Scotland, for the many hundredth time. I cannot get over my astonishment--indeed, it increases every day--at the hopeless gulf that there is between England and Scotland, and English and Scotch. Nothing is the same; and I feel as strange and outlandish here as I do in France or Germany. Everything by the wayside, in the houses, or about the people, strikes me with an unexpected unfamiliarity: I walk among surprises, for just where you think you have them, something wrong turns up.
I got a little Law read yesterday, and some German this morning, but on the whole there are too many amusements going for much work; as for correspondence, I have neither heart nor time for it to-day.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
Bob was not at the station when I arrived; but a friend of his brought me a letter; and he is to be in the first thing to-morrow. Do you know, I think yesterday and the day before were the two happiest days of my life? I would not have missed last month for eternity.--Ever yours,
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