And when you come to see us, you will probably have to bed at the hotel, which is hard by. But it is Eden, madam, Eden and Beulah and the Delectable Mountains and Eldorado and the Hesperidean Isles and Bimini.
We both look forward, my dear friend, with the greatest eagerness to have you here. It seems it is not to be this season; but I appoint you with an appointment for next season. You cannot see us else: remember that. Till my health has grown solid like an oak- tree, till my fortune begins really to spread its boughs like the same monarch of the woods (and the acorn, ay de mi! is not yet planted), I expect to be a prisoner among the palms.
Yes, it is like old times to be writing you from the Riviera, and after all that has come and gone who can predict anything? How fortune tumbles men about! Yet I have not found that they change their friends, thank God.
Both of our loves to your sister and yourself. As for me, if I am here and happy, I know to whom I owe it; I know who made my way for me in life, if that were all, and I remain, with love, your faithful friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE
CHALET LA SOLITUDE, HYERES, [APRIL 1883].
MY DEAR GOSSE, - I am very guilty; I should have written to you long ago; and now, though it must be done, I am so stupid that I can only boldly recapitulate. A phrase of three members is the outside of my syntax.
First, I liked the ROVER better than any of your other verse. I believe you are right, and can make stories in verse. The last two stanzas and one or two in the beginning - but the two last above all - I thought excellent. I suggest a pursuit of the vein. If you want a good story to treat, get the MEMOIRS OF THE CHEVALIER JOHNSTONE, and do his passage of the Tay; it would be excellent: the dinner in the field, the woman he has to follow, the dragoons, the timid boatmen, the brave lasses. It would go like a charm; look at it, and you will say you owe me one.
Second, Gilder asking me for fiction, I suddenly took a great resolve, and have packed off to him my new work, THE SILVERADO SQUATTERS. I do not for a moment suppose he will take it; but pray say all the good words you can for it. I should be awfully glad to get it taken. But if it does not mean dibbs at once, I shall be ruined for life. Pray write soon and beg Gilder your prettiest for a poor gentleman in pecuniary sloughs.
Fourth, next time I am supposed to be at death's door, write to me like a Christian, and let not your correspondence attend on business. - Yours ever,
R. L. S.
P.S. - I see I have led you to conceive the SQUATTERS are fiction. They are not, alas!
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
CHALET SOLITUDE, MAY 5, [1883].
MY DEAREST PEOPLE, - I have had a great piece of news. There has been offered for TREASURE ISLAND - how much do you suppose? I believe it would be an excellent jest to keep the answer till my next letter. For two cents I would do so. Shall I? Anyway, I'll turn the page first. No - well - A hundred pounds, all alive, O! A hundred jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid. Is not this wonderful? Add that I have now finished, in draft, the fifteenth chapter of my novel, and have only five before me, and you will see what cause of gratitude I have.
The weather, to look at the per contra sheet, continues vomitable; and Fanny is quite out of sorts. But, really, with such cause of gladness, I have not the heart to be dispirited by anything. My child's verse book is finished, dedication and all, and out of my hands - you may tell Cummy; SILVERADO is done, too, and cast upon the waters; and this novel so near completion, it does look as if I should support myself without trouble in the future. If I have only health, I can, I thank God. It is dreadful to be a great, big man, and not be able to buy bread.
O that this may last!
I have to-day paid my rent for the half year, till the middle of September, and got my lease: why they have been so long, I know not.