Then I thought of the MANHATTAN, towards whom I have guilty and compunctious feelings. Last, I had the best thought of all - to send them to you in case you might think them suitable for illustration. It seemed to me quite in your vein. If so, good; if not, hand them on to MANHATTAN, CENTURY, or LIPPINCOTT, at your pleasure, as all three desire my work or pretend to. But I trust the lines will not go unattended. Some riverside will haunt you; and O! be tender to my bathing girls. The lines are copied in my wife's hand, as I cannot see to write otherwise than with the pen of Cormoran, Gargantua, or Nimrod. Love to your wife. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Copied it myself.
Letter: TO THOMAS STEVENSON
LA SOLITUDE, APRIL 19, 1884.
MY DEAR FATHER, - Yesterday I very powerfully stated the HERESIS STEVENSONIANA, or the complete body of divinity of the family theologian, to Miss Ferrier. She was much impressed; so was I. You are a great heresiarch; and I know no better. Whaur the devil did ye get thon about the soap? Is it altogether your own? I never heard it elsewhere; and yet I suspect it must have been held at some time or other, and if you were to look up you would probably find yourself condemned by some Council.
I am glad to hear you are so well. The hear is excellent. The CORNHILLS came; I made Miss Ferrier read us 'Thrawn Janet,' and was quite bowled over by my own works. The 'Merry Men' I mean to make much longer, with a whole new denouement, not yet quite clear to me. 'The Story of a Lie,' I must rewrite entirely also, as it is too weak and ragged, yet is worth saving for the Admiral. Did I ever tell you that the Admiral was recognised in America?
When they are all on their legs this will make an excellent collection.
Has Davie never read GUY MANNERING, ROB ROY, or THE ANTIQUARY? All of which are worth three WAVERLEYS. I think KENILWORTH better than WAVERLEY; NIGEL, too; and QUENTIN DURWARD about as good. But it shows a true piece of insight to prefer WAVERLEY, for it IS different; and though not quite coherent, better worked in parts than almost any other: surely more carefully. It is undeniable that the love of the slap-dash and the shoddy grew upon Scott with success. Perhaps it does on many of us, which may be the granite on which D.'s opinion stands. However, I hold it, in Patrick Walker's phrase, for an 'old, condemned, damnable error.' Dr. Simson was condemned by P. W. as being 'a bagful of' such. One of Patrick's amenities!
Another ground there may be to D.'s opinion; those who avoid (or seek to avoid) Scott's facility are apt to be continually straining and torturing their style to get in more of life. And to many the extra significance does not redeem the strain.
DOCTOR STEVENSON.
Letter: TO COSMO MONKHOUSE
LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, [APRIL 24, 1884].
DEAR MONKHOUSE, - If you are in love with repose, here is your occasion: change with me. I am too blind to read, hence no reading; I am too weak to walk, hence no walking; I am not allowed to speak, hence no talking; but the great simplification has yet to be named; for, if this goes on, I shall soon have nothing to eat - and hence, O Hallelujah! hence no eating. The offer is a fair one: I have not sold myself to the devil, for I could never find him. I am married, but so are you. I sometimes write verses, but so do you. Come! HIC QUIES! As for the commandments, I have broken them so small that they are the dust of my chambers; you walk upon them, triturate and toothless; and with the Golosh of Philosophy, they shall not bite your heel. True, the tenement is falling. Ay, friend, but yours also. Take a larger view; what is a year or two? dust in the balance! 'Tis done, behold you Cosmo Stevenson, and me R. L. Monkhouse; you at Hyeres, I in London; you rejoicing in the clammiest repose, me proceeding to tear your tabernacle into rags, as I have already so admirably torn my own.
My place to which I now introduce you - it is yours - is like a London house, high and very narrow; upon the lungs I will not linger; the heart is large enough for a ballroom; the belly greedy and inefficient; the brain stocked with the most damnable explosives, like a dynamiter's den.