Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1 Part 33

R. L. STEVENSON.

Our servant is a Muckle Hash of a Weedy!

Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

CAMPAGNE DEFLI, ST. MARCEL, BANLIEUE DE Ma.r.s.eILLE, NOVEMBER 13, 1882.

MY DEAR MOTHER, - Your delightful letters duly arrived this morning. They were the only good feature of the day, which was not a success. f.a.n.n.y was in bed - she begged I would not split upon her, she felt so guilty; but as I believe she is better this evening, and has a good chance to be right again in a day or two, I will disregard her orders. I do not go back, but do not go forward - or not much. It is, in one way, miserable - for I can do no work; a very little wood-cutting, the newspapers, and a note about every two days to write, completely exhausts my surplus energy; even Patience I have to cultivate with parsimony. I see, if I could only get to work, that we could live here with comfort, almost with luxury. Even as it is, we should be able to get through a considerable time of idleness. I like the place immensely, though I have seen so little of it - I have only been once outside the gate since I was here! It puts me in mind of a summer at Prestonpans and a sickly child you once told me of.

Thirty-two years now finished! My twenty-ninth was in San Francisco, I remember - rather a bleak birthday. The twenty-eighth was not much better; but the rest have been usually pleasant days in pleasant circ.u.mstances.

Love to you and to my father and to c.u.mmy.

From me and f.a.n.n.y and Wogg.

R. L. S.

Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER

GRAND HOTEL, NICE, 12TH JANUARY '83.

DEAR CHARLES, - Thanks for your good letter. It is true, man, G.o.d's truth, what ye say about the body Stevison. The deil himsel, it's my belief, couldnae get the soul harled oot o' the creature's wame, or he had seen the hinder end o' they proofs. Ye crack o'

Maecenas, he's naebody by you! He gied the lad Horace a rax forrit by all accounts; but he never gied him proofs like yon. Horace may hae been a better hand at the clink than Stevison - mind, I'm no sayin' 't - but onyway he was never sae weel prent.i.t. d.a.m.ned, but it's bonny! Hoo mony pages will there be, think ye? Stevison maun hae sent ye the f.e.c.k o' twenty sangs - fifteen I'se warrant. Weel, that'll can make thretty pages, gin ye were to prent on ae side only, whilk wad be perhaps what a man o' your GREAT idees would be ettlin' at, man Johnson. Then there wad be the Pre-face, an' prose ye ken prents oot langer than po'try at the hinder end, for ye hae to say things in't. An' then there'll be a t.i.tle-page and a dedication and an index wi' the first lines like, and the deil an'

a'. Man, it'll be grand. Nae copies to be given to the Liberys.

I am alane myself, in Nice, they ca't, but d.a.m.ned, I think they micht as well ca't Nesty. The Pile-on, 's they ca't, 's aboot as big as the river Tay at Perth; and it's rainin' maist like Greenock. Dod, I've seen 's had mair o' what they ca' the I-talian at Muttonhole. I-talian! I haenae seen the sun for eicht and forty hours. Thomson's better, I believe. But the body's fair attenyated. He's doon to seeven stane eleeven, an' he sooks awa'

at cod liver ile, till it's a fair disgrace. Ye see he tak's it on a drap brandy; and it's my belief, it's just an excuse for a dram.

He an' Stevison gang aboot their lane, maistly; they're company to either, like, an' whiles they'll speak o'Johnson. But HE'S far awa', losh me! Stevison's last book's in a third edeetion; an'

it's bein' translated (like the psaulms o' David, nae less) into French; and an eediot they ca' Asher - a kind o' rival of Tauchnitz - is bringin' him oot in a paper book for the Frenchies and the German folk in twa volumes. Sae he's in luck, ye see. - Yours,

THOMSON.

Letter: TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

[NICE FEBRUARY 1883.]

MY DEAR c.u.mMY, - You must think, and quite justly, that I am one of the meanest rogues in creation. But though I do not write (which is a thing I hate), it by no means follows that people are out of my mind. It is natural that I should always think more or less about you, and still more natural that I should think of you when I went back to Nice. But the real reason why you have been more in my mind than usual is because of some little verses that I have been writing, and that I mean to make a book of; and the real reason of this letter (although I ought to have written to you anyway) is that I have just seen that the book in question must be dedicated to

ALISON CUNNINGHAM,

the only person who will really understand it. I don't know when it may be ready, for it has to be ill.u.s.trated, but I hope in the meantime you may like the idea of what is to be; and when the time comes, I shall try to make the dedication as pretty as I can make it. Of course, this is only a flourish, like taking off one's hat; but still, a person who has taken the trouble to write things does not dedicate them to any one without meaning it; and you must just try to take this dedication in place of a great many things that I might have said, and that I ought to have done, to prove that I am not altogether unconscious of the great debt of grat.i.tude I owe you. This little book, which is all about my childhood, should indeed go to no other person but you, who did so much to make that childhood happy.

Do you know, we came very near sending for you this winter. If we had not had news that you were ill too, I almost believe we should have done so, we were so much in trouble.

I am now very well; but my wife has had a very, very bad spell, through overwork and anxiety, when I was LOST! I suppose you heard of that. She sends you her love, and hopes you will write to her, though she no more than I deserves it. She would add a word herself, but she is too played out. - I am, ever your old boy,

R. L. S.

Letter: TO W. E. HENLEY

[NICE, MARCH 1883.]

MY DEAR LAD, - This is to announce to you the MS. of Nursery Verses, now numbering XLVIII. pieces or 599 verses, which, of course, one might augment AD INFINITUM.

But here is my notion to make all clear.

I do not want a big ugly quarto; my soul sickens at the look of a quarto. I want a refined octavo, not large - not LARGER than the DONKEY BOOK, at any price.

I think the full page might hold four verses of four lines, that is to say, counting their blanks at two, of twenty-two lines in height. The first page of each number would only hold two verses or ten lines, the t.i.tle being low down. At this rate, we should have seventy-eight or eighty pages of letterpress.

The designs should not be in the text, but facing the poem; so that if the artist liked, he might give two pages of design to every poem that turned the leaf, I.E. longer than eight lines, I.E. to twenty-eight out of the forty-six. I should say he would not use this privilege (?) above five times, and some he might scorn to ill.u.s.trate at all, so we may say fifty drawings. I shall come to the drawings next.

But now you see my book of the thickness, since the drawings count two pages, of 180 pages; and since the paper will perhaps be thicker, of near two hundred by bulk. It is bound in a quiet green with the words in thin gilt. Its shape is a slender, tall octavo.

And it sells for the publisher's fancy, and it will be a darling to look at; in short, it would be like one of the original Heine books in type and s.p.a.cing.

Now for the pictures. I take another sheet and begin to jot notes for them when my imagination serves: I will run through the book, writing when I have an idea. There, I have jotted enough to give the artist a notion. Of course, I don't do more than contribute ideas, but I will be happy to help in any and every way. I may as well add another idea; when the artist finds nothing much to ill.u.s.trate, a good drawing of any OBJECT mentioned in the text, were it only a loaf of bread or a candlestick, is a most delightful thing to a young child. I remember this keenly.

Of course, if the artist insists on a larger form, I must I suppose, bow my head. But my idea I am convinced is the best, and would make the book truly, not fas.h.i.+onably pretty.

I forgot to mention that I shall have a dedication; I am going to dedicate 'em to c.u.mmy; it will please her, and lighten a little my burthen of ingrat.i.tude. A low affair is the Muse business.

I will add no more to this lest you should want to communicate with the artist; try another sheet. I wonder how many I'll keep wandering to.

O I forgot. As for the t.i.tle, I think 'Nursery Verses' the best.

Poetry is not the strong point of the text, and I shrink from any t.i.tle that might seem to claim that quality; otherwise we might have 'Nursery Muses' or 'New Songs of Innocence' (but that were a blasphemy), or 'Rimes of Innocence': the last not bad, or - an idea - 'The Jews' Harp,' or - now I have it - 'The Penny Whistle.'

THE PENNY WHISTLE: NURSERY VERSES BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

ILl.u.s.tRATED BY - - -

And here we have an excellent frontispiece, of a party playing on a P. W. to a little ring of dancing children.