Received James's HAWTHORNE, on which I meditate a blast, Miss Bird, Dixon's PENN, a WRONG CORNHILL (like my luck) and COQUELIN: for all which, and especially the last, I tender my best thanks. I have opened only James; it is very clever, very well written, and out of sight the most inside-out thing in the world; I have dug up the hatchet; a scalp shall flutter at my belt ere long. I think my new book should be good; it will contain our adventures for the summer, so far as these are worth narrating; and I have already a few pages of diary which should make up bright. I am going to repeat my old experiment, after buckling-to a while to write more correctly, lie down and have a wallow. Whether I shall get any of my novels done this summer I do not know; I wish to finish the VENDETTA first, for it really could not come after PRINCE OTTO. Lewis Campbell has made some noble work in that Agamemnon; it surprised me. We hope to get a house at Silverado, a deserted mining-camp eight miles up the mountain, now solely inhabited by a mighty hunter answering to the name of Rufe Hansome, who slew last year a hundred and fifty deer. This is the motto I propose for the new volume: 'VIXERUNT NONNULLI IN AGRIS, DELECTATI RE SUA FAMILIARI. HIS IDEM PROPOSITUM FUIT QUOD REGIBUS, UT NE QUA RE EGERENT, NE CUI PARERENT, LIBERTATE UTERENTUR; CUJUS PROPRIUM EST SIC VIVERE UT VELIS.' I always have a terror lest the wish should have been father to the translation, when I come to quote; but that seems too plain sailing. I should put REGIBUS in capitals for the pleasantry's sake. We are in the Coast Range, that being so much cheaper to reach; the family, I hope, will soon follow. - Love to all, ever yours,
R. L. S.
CHAPTER V - ALPINE WINTERS AND HIGHLAND SUMMERS, AUGUST 1880- OCTOBER 1882
Letter: TO A. G. DEW-SMITH
[HOTEL BELVEDERE, DAVOS, NOVEMBER 1880.]
Figure me to yourself, I pray - A man of my peculiar cut - Apart from dancing and deray, Into an Alpine valley shut;
Shut in a kind of damned Hotel, Discountenanced by God and man; The food? - Sir, you would do as well To cram your belly full of bran.
The company? Alas, the day That I should dwell with such a crew, With devil anything to say, Nor any one to say it to!
The place? Although they call it Platz, I will be bold and state my view; It's not a place at all - and that's The bottom verity, my Dew.
There are, as I will not deny, Innumerable inns; a road; Several Alps indifferent high; The snow's inviolable abode;
Eleven English parsons, all Entirely inoffensive; four True human beings - what I call Human - the deuce a cipher more;
A climate of surprising worth; Innumerable dogs that bark; Some air, some weather, and some earth; A native race - God save the mark! -
A race that works, yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk, I vow that I could wholly smite.
A river that from morn to night Down all the valley plays the fool; Not once she pauses in her flight, Nor knows the comfort of a pool;
But still keeps up, by straight or bend, The selfsame pace she hath begun - Still hurry, hurry, to the end - Good God, is that the way to run?
If I a river were, I hope That I should better realise The opportunities and scope Of that romantic enterprise.
I should not ape the merely strange, But aim besides at the divine; And continuity and change I still should labour to combine.
Here should I gallop down the race, Here charge the sterling like a bull; There, as a man might wipe his face, Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.
But what, my Dew, in idle mood, What prate I, minding not my debt? What do I talk of bad or good? The best is still a cigarette.
Me whether evil fate assault, Or smiling providences crown - Whether on high the eternal vault Be blue, or crash with thunder down -
I judge the best, whate'er befall, Is still to sit on one's behind, And, having duly moistened all, Smoke with an unperturbed mind.