Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1 Part 34

THE PENNY WHISTLE is the name for me.

Fool! this is all wrong, here is the true name:-

PENNY WHISTLES FOR SMALL WHISTLERS.

The second t.i.tle is queried, it is perhaps better, as simply PENNY WHISTLES.

Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge That I your instrument debase: By worse performers still we judge, And give that fife a second place!

Crossed penny whistles on the cover, or else a sheaf of 'em.

SUGGESTIONS.

IV. The procession - the child running behind it. The procession tailing off through the gates of a cloudy city.

IX. FOREIGN LANDS. - This will, I think, want two plates - the child climbing, his first glimpse over the garden wall, with what he sees - the tree shooting higher and higher like the beanstalk, and the view widening. The river slipping in. The road arriving in Fairyland.

X. WINDY NIGHTS. - The child in bed listening - the horseman galloping.

XII. The child helplessly watching his s.h.i.+p - then he gets smaller, and the doll joyfully comes alive - the pair landing on the island - the s.h.i.+p's deck with the doll steering and the child firing the penny canon. Query two plates? The doll should never come properly alive.

XV. Building of the s.h.i.+p - storing her - Navigation - Tom's accident, the other child paying no attention.

x.x.xI. THE WIND. - I sent you my notion of already.

x.x.xVII. FOREIGN CHILDREN. - The foreign types dancing in a jing-a- ring, with the English child pus.h.i.+ng in the middle. The foreign children looking at and showing each other marvels. The English child at the leeside of a roast of beef. The English child sitting thinking with his picture-books all round him, and the jing-a-ring of the foreign children in miniature dancing over the picture- books.

x.x.xIX. Dear artist, can you do me that?

XLII. The child being started off - the bed sailing, curtains and all, upon the sea - the child waking and finding himself at home; the corner of toilette might be worked in to look like the pier.

XLVII. The lighted part of the room, to be carefully distinguished from my child's dark hunting grounds. A shaded lamp.

R. L. S.

Letter: TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON

HOTEL DES ILES D'OR, HYERES, VAR, MARCH 2, [1883].

MY DEAR MOTHER, - It must be at least a fortnight since we have had a scratch of a pen from you; and if it had not been for c.u.mmy's letter, I should have feared you were worse again: as it is, I hope we shall hear from you to-day or to-morrow at latest.

HEALTH.

Our news is good: f.a.n.n.y never got so bad as we feared, and we hope now that this attack may pa.s.s off in threatenings. I am greatly better, have gained flesh, strength, spirits; eat well, walk a good deal, and do some work without fatigue. I am off the sick list.

LODGING.

We have found a house up the hill, close to the town, an excellent place though very, very little. If I can get the landlord to agree to let us take it by the month just now, and let our month's rent count for the year in case we take it on, you may expect to hear we are again installed, and to receive a letter dated thus:-

La Solitude, Hyeres-les-Palmiers, Var.

If the man won't agree to that, of course I must just give it up, as the house would be dear enough anyway at 2000 f. However, I hope we may get it, as it is healthy, cheerful, and close to shops, and society, and civilisation. The garden, which is above, is lovely, and will be cool in summer. There are two rooms below with a kitchen, and four rooms above, all told. - Ever your affectionate son,

R. L. STEVENSON.

Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON

HOTEL DES ILES D'OR, BUT MY ADDRESS WILL BE CHALET LA SOLITUDE, HYERES-LE-PALMIERS, VAR, FRANCE, MARCH 17, 1883.

DEAR SIR, - Your undated favour from Eastbourne came to hand in course of post, and I now hasten to acknowledge its receipt. We must ask you in future, for the convenience of our business arrangements, to struggle with and tread below your feet this most unsatisfactory and uncommercial habit. Our Mr. Ca.s.sandra is better; our Mr. Wogg expresses himself dissatisfied with our new place of business; when left alone in the front shop, he bawled like a parrot; it is supposed the offices are haunted.

To turn to the matter of your letter, your remarks on GREAT EXPECTATIONS are very good. We have both re-read it this winter, and I, in a manner, twice. The object being a play; the play, in its rough outline, I now see: and it is extraordinary how much of d.i.c.kens had to be discarded as unhuman, impossible, and ineffective: all that really remains is the loan of a file (but from a grown-up young man who knows what he was doing, and to a convict who, although he does not know it is his father - the father knows it is his son), and the fact of the convict-father's return and disclosure of himself to the son whom he has made rich.

Everything else has been thrown aside; and the position has had to be explained by a prologue which is pretty strong. I have great hopes of this piece, which is very amiable and, in places, very strong indeed: but it was curious how d.i.c.kens had to be rolled away; he had made his story turn on such improbabilities, such fantastic trifles, not on a good human basis, such as I recognised.

You are right about the casts, they were a capital idea; a good description of them at first, and then afterwards, say second, for the lawyer to have ill.u.s.trated points out of the history of the originals, dusting the particular bust - that was all the development the thing would bear. d.i.c.kens killed them. The only really well EXECUTED scenes are the riverside ones; the escape in particular is excellent; and I may add, the capture of the two convicts at the beginning. Miss Havisham is, probably, the worst thing in human fiction. But Wemmick I like; and I like Trabb's boy; and Mr. Wopsle as Hamlet is splendid.

The weather here is greatly improved, and I hope in three days to be in the chalet. That is, if I get some money to float me there.

I hope you are all right again, and will keep better. The month of March is past its mid career; it must soon begin to turn toward the lamb; here it has already begun to do so; and I hope milder weather will pick you up. Wogg has eaten a forpet of rice and milk, his beard is streaming, his eyes wild. I am besieged by demands of work from America.

The 50 pounds has just arrived; many thanks; I am now at ease. - Ever your affectionate son, PRO Ca.s.sandra, Wogg and Co.,

R. L. S.

Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL

CHALET LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, [APRIL 1883].

MY DEAR FRIEND, - I am one of the lowest of the - but that's understood. I received the copy, excellently written, with I think only one slip from first to last. I have struck out two, and added five or six; so they now number forty-five; when they are fifty, they shall out on the world. I have not written a letter for a cruel time; I have been, and am, so busy, drafting a long story (for me, I mean), about a hundred CORNHILL pages, or say about as long as the Donkey book: PRINCE OTTO it is called, and is, at the present hour, a sore burthen but a hopeful. If I had him all drafted, I should whistle and sing. But no: then I'll have to rewrite him; and then there will be the publishers, alas! But some time or other, I shall whistle and sing, I make no doubt.