The best of the present French novelists seems to me, incomparably, Daudet. LES ROIS EN EXIL comes very near being a masterpiece. For Zola I have no toleration, though the curious, eminently bourgeois, and eminently French creature has power of a kind. But I would he were deleted. I would not give a chapter of old Dumas (meaning himself, not his collaborators) for the whole boiling of the Zolas. Romance with the smallpox - as the great one: diseased anyway and blackhearted and fundamentally at enmity with joy.
I trust that Mrs. Ireland does not object to smoking; and if you are a teetotaller, I beg you to mention it before I come - I have all the vices; some of the virtues also, let us hope - that, at least, of being a Scotchman, and yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
P.S. - My father was in the old High School the last year, and walked in the procession to the new. I blush to own I am an Academy boy; it seems modern, and smacks not of the soil.
P.P.S. - I enclose a good joke - at least, I think so - my first efforts at wood engraving printed by my stepson, a boy of thirteen. I will put in also one of my later attempts. I have been nine days at the art - observe my progress.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE.
DAVOS, MARCH 23, 1882.
MY DEAR WEG, - And I had just written the best note to Mrs. Gosse that was in my power. Most blameable.
I now send (for Mrs. Gosse).
BLACK CANYON.
Also an advertisement of my new appearance as poet (bard, rather) and hartis on wood. The cut represents the Hero and the Eagle, and is emblematic of Cortez first viewing the Pacific Ocean, which (according to the bard Keats) it took place in Darien. The cut is much admired for the sentiment of discovery, the manly proportions of the voyager, and the fine impression of tropical scenes and the untrodden WASTE, so aptly rendered by the hartis.
I would send you the book; but I declare I'm ruined. I got a penny a cut and a halfpenny a set of verses from the flint-hearted publisher, and only one specimen copy, as I'm a sinner. - was apostolic alongside of Osbourne.
I hope you will be able to decipher this, written at steam speed with a breaking pen, the hotfast postman at my heels. No excuse, says you. None, sir, says I, and touches my 'at most civil (extraordinary evolution of pen, now quite doomed - to resume - ) I have not put pen to the Bloody Murder yet. But it is early on my list; and when once I get to it, three weeks should see the last bloodstain - maybe a fortnight. For I am beginning to combine an extraordinary laborious slowness while at work, with the most surprisingly quick results in the way of finished manuscripts. How goes Gray? Colvin is to do Keats. My wife is still not well. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
[CHALET AM STEIN, DAVOS, MARCH 1882.]
MY DEAR DR. JAPP, - You must think me a forgetful rogue, as indeed I am; for I have but now told my publisher to send you a copy of the FAMILIAR STUDIES. However, I own I have delayed this letter till I could send you the enclosed. Remembering the nights at Braemar when we visited the Picture Gallery, I hoped they might amuse you. You see, we do some publishing hereaway. I shall hope to see you in town in May. - Always yours faithfully,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO DR. ALEXANDER JAPP
CHALET BUOL, DAVOS, APRIL 1, 1882.
MY DEAR DR. JAPP, - A good day to date this letter, which is in fact a confession of incapacity. During my wife's illness I somewhat lost my head, and entirely lost a great quire of corrected proofs. This is one of the results; I hope there are none more serious. I was never so sick of any volume as I was of that; was continually receiving fresh proofs with fresh infinitesimal difficulties. I was ill - I did really fear my wife was worse than ill. Well, it's out now; and though I have observed several carelessnesses myself, and now here's another of your finding - of which, indeed, I ought to be ashamed - it will only justify the sweeping humility of the Preface.