Robert Louis Stevenson

“ 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. ”

“ When once I have made up my mind, let me tell you, sir, there lives no pock-pudding who can change it. Your anger I defy. Your unmanly reference to a well-known statesman I puff from me, sir, like so much vapour. Weg is your name; Weg. W E G.
My enthusiasm has kind of dropped from me. I envy you your wife, your home, your child - I was going to say your cat. There would be cats in my home too if I could but get it. I may seem to you 'the impersonation of life,' but my life is the impersonation of waiting, and that's a poor creature. God help us all, and the deil be kind to the hindmost! ”

“ There is one masterpiece fewer in the world. The world can ill spare it, but I, sir, I (and here I strike my hollow boson, so that it resounds) I am full of this sort of bauble; I am made of it; it comes to me, sir, as the desire to sneeze comes upon poor ordinary devils on cold days, when they should be getting out of bed and into their horrid cold tubs by the light of a seven o'clock candle, with the dismal seven o'clock frost-flowers all over the window.
Show Stephen what you please ”

“ Do you know, my dear sir, what I like best in your letter? The egotism for which you thought necessary to apologise. I am a rogue at egotism myself; and to be plain, I have rarely or never liked any man who was not. The first step to discovering the beauties of God's universe is usually a (perhaps partial) apprehension of such of them as adorn our own characters. When I see a man who does not think pretty well of himself, I always suspect him of being in the right. ”

“ I pray God I may be in one at the end, if I am to make a mucker. The best way to make a mucker is to have your back set against a wall and a few lead pellets whiffed into you in a moment, while yet you are all in a heat and a fury of combat, with drums sounding on all sides, and people crying, and a general smash like the infernal orchestration at the end of the HUGUENOTS. . . .
Please pardon me for having been so long of writing, and show your pardon by writing soon to me; it will be a kindness, for I am sometimes very dull. Edinburgh is much changed for the worse by the absence of Bob ”

“ TO MRS. SITWELL
17 HERIOT ROW, EDINBURGH, MAY 1877.
. . . A PERFECT chorus of repudiation is sounding in my ears; and although you say nothing, I know you must be repudiating me, all the same. Write I cannot - there's no good mincing matters, a letter frightens me worse than the devil; and I am just as unfit for correspondence as if I had never learned the three R.'s.
Let me give my news quickly before I relapse into my usual idleness. I have a terror lest I should relapse before I get this finished. Courage, R. L. S.! On Leslie Stephen's advice, I gave up the idea of a book of essays. ”

“ DEAR SIR, - It would not be very easy for me to give you any idea of the pleasure I found in your present. People who write for the magazines (probably from a guilty conscience) are apt to suppose their works practically unpublished. It seems unlikely that any one would take the trouble to read a little paper buried among so many others; and reading it, read it with any attention or pleasure. And so, I can assure you, your little book, coming from so far, gave me all the pleasure and encouragement in the world.
I suppose you know and remember Charles Lamb's essay on distant correspondents? ”

“ I am such a dull person I cannot keep off my own immortal works. Indeed, they are scarcely ever out of my head. And yet I value them less and less every day. But occupation is the great thing; so that a man should have his life in his own pocket, and never be thrown out of work by anything. ”

“ And you yourself have been a poet! G-r-r-r-r-r! I'll never be a poet any more. Men are so d-d ungrateful and captious, I declare I could weep.
O Henley, in my hours of ease You may say anything you please, But when I join the Muse's revel, Begad, I wish you at the devil! In vain my verse I plane and bevel, Like Banville's rhyming devotees; In vain by many an artful swivel Lug in my meaning by degrees; I'm sure to hear my Henley cavil; And grovelling prostrate on my knees, Devote his body to the seas, His correspondence to the devil! ”

“ However, it's an amusement for the moment, and work, work is your only ally against the 'bearded people' that squat upon their hams in the dark places of life and embrace people horribly as they go by. God save us from the bearded people! to think that the sun is still shining in some happy places!
R. L S.
Letter: TO MRS SITWELL
[EDINBURGH, JANUARY 1876.]
. . . OUR weather continues as it was, bitterly cold, and raining often. There is not much pleasure in life certainly as it stands at present. ”

“ I could weep when I think of him; for surely to be virtuous and incompetent is a hard lot. I should prefer to be a bold pirate, the gay sailor-boy of immorality, and a publisher at once. My mind is extinct ”

“ Man, you are out of the trouble when this is through. A first child is a rival, but a second is only a rival to the first; and the husband stands his ground and may keep married all his life - a consummation heartily to be desired. ”

“ YOU will do well to stick to your burn, that is a delightful life you sketch, and a very fountain of health. I wish I could live like that but, alas! it is just as well I got my 'Idlers' written and done with, for I have quite lost all power of resting. I have a goad in my flesh continually, pushing me to work, work, work. I have an essay pretty well through for Stephen; a story, 'The Sire de Maletroit's Mousetrap,' with which I shall try TEMPLE BAR; another story, in the clouds, 'The Stepfather's Story,' most pathetic work of a high morality or immorality, according to point of view ”

“ MY DEAR HENLEY, - Here I am living like a fighting-cock, and have not spoken to a real person for about sixty hours. Those who wait on me are not real. The man I know to be a myth, because I have seen him acting so often in the Palais Royal. ”

“ Sir, I shall shave my head, if this goes on. All men take a pleasure to gird at me. The laws of nature are in open war with me. The wheel of a dog-cart took the toes off my new boots. Gout has set in with extreme rigour, and cut me out of the cheap refreshment of beer. ”

“ Upon my word, we are a brave, cheery crew, we human beings, and my admiration increases daily - primarily for myself, but by a roundabout process for the whole crowd; for I dare say they have all their poor little secrets and anxieties. ”

“ A young person would get sickened by the dead level of meanness and cowardliness; you require to be a little spoiled and cynical before you can enjoy it. I have just finished the WAY OF THE WORLD; there is only one person in it - no, there are three - who are nice: the wild American woman, and two of the dissipated young men, Dolly and Lord Nidderdale. All the heroes and heroines are just ghastly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has a flavour of its own, though, which I may try and catch, if I find the space, in the proposed article. 'Will o' the Mill' I sent, red hot, to Stephen in a fit of haste, and have not yet had an answer. I am quite prepared for a refusal. But I begin to have more hope in the story line, and that should improve my income anyway. I am glad you liked 'Villon'; some of it was not as good as it ought to be, but on the whole it seems pretty vivid, and the features strongly marked. Vividness and not style is now my line; style is all very well, but vividness is the real line of country ”

“ I certainly ate more than ever I ate before in my life - a big slice of melon, some ham and jelly, A FILET, a helping of gudgeons, the breast and leg of a partridge, some green peas, eight crayfish, some Mont d'Or cheese, a peach, and a handful of biscuits, macaroons, and things. ”

“ I'll tell you what - you may go to the devil; that's what I think. 'Be eloquent' is another of your pregnant suggestions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for that one. Portrait of a person about to be eloquent at the request of a literary friend. You seem to forget sir, that rhyme is rhyme, sir, and - go to the devil.
I'll try to improve it, but I shan't be able to - O go to the devil.
Seriously, you're a cool hand. And then you have the brass to ask me WHY 'my steps went one by one'? Why? Powers of man! ”

“ But, mind you, Bummkopf is not human; he is Dagon the fish god, and down he will come, sprawling on his belly or his behind, with his hands broken from his helpless carcase, and his head rolling off into a corner. Up will rise on the other side, sane, pleasurable, human knowledge: a thing of beauty and a joy, etc. ”

“ Modestine is my anesse; a darling, mouse-colour, about the size of a Newfoundland dog (bigger, between you and me) , the colour of a mouse, costing 65 francs and a glass of brandy. Glad you sent on all the coin; was half afraid I might come to a stick in the mountains, donkey and all, which would have been the devil. Have finished ARABIAN NIGHTS and Edinburgh book, and am a free man. Next address, Poste Restante, Alais, Gard. Give my servilities to the family. Health bad; spirits, I think, looking up. - Ever yours,
R. L S.
Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON ”

“ Please, if you have not, and I don't suppose you have, already read it, institute a search in all Melbourne for one of the rarest and certainly one of the best of books - CLARISSA HARLOWE. For any man who takes an interest in the problems of the two sexes, that book is a perfect mine of documents. And it is written, sir, with the pen of an angel. Miss Howe and Lovelace, words cannot tell how good they are! And the scene where Clarissa beards her family, with her fan going all the while; and some of the quarrel scenes between her and Lovelace; and the scene where Colonel Marden goes to Mr. ”