Again and again, I take the book down, and read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in youth. ANDANTE CON MOTO in the VOLUNTARIES, and the thing about the trees at night (No. XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not guess you were so great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an undertone of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are poetry - inventions, creations, in language. I thank you for the joy you have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened scrivener's cramp.
For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation. Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read -
'But life in act? How should the grave Be victor over these, Mother, a mother of men?'
The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you insist on the longer line, equip 'grave' with an epithet.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
VAILIMA, UPOLU, AUGUST 1st, '92.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - Herewith MY GRANDFATHER. I have had rather a bad time suppressing the old gentleman, who was really in a very garrulous stage; as for getting him IN ORDER, I could do but little towards that; however, there are one or two points of interest which may justify us in printing. The swinging of his stick and not knowing the sailor of Coruiskin, in particular, and the account of how he wrote the lives in the Bell Book particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was that old gentleman's blood that brought me to Samoa.
By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams's HISTORY have never come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.
Please send me STONEHENGE ON HORSE, STORIES AND INTERLUDES by Barry Pain, and EDINBURGH SKETCHES AND MEMOIRS by David Masson. THE WRECKER has turned up. So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory, but on pp. 548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The two Latin quotations instead of following each other being separated (doubtless for printing considerations) by a line of prose. My compliments to the printers; there is doubtless such a thing as good printing, but there is such a thing as good sense.
The sequel to KIDNAPPED, DAVID BALFOUR by name, is about three- quarters done and gone to press for serial publication. By what I can find out it ought to be through hand with that and ready for volume form early next spring. - Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO ANDREW LANG
[VAILIMA, AUGUST 1892.]
MY DEAR LANG, - I knew you would prove a trusty purveyor. The books you have sent are admirable. I got the name of my hero out of Brown - Blair of Balmyle - Francie Blair. But whether to call the story BLAIR OF BALMYLE, or whether to call it THE YOUNG CHEVALIER, I have not yet decided. The admirable Cameronian tract - perhaps you will think this a cheat - is to be boned into DAVID BALFOUR, where it will fit better, and really furnishes me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.
LATER; no, it won't go in, and I fear I must give up 'the idolatrous occupant upon the throne,' a phrase that overjoyed me beyond expression. I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at such an exhibition as our government. 'Taint decent; no gent can hold a candle to it. But it's a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed) and petitions (which ain't petited) and letters to the TIMES, which it makes my jaws yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with David Balfour: he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh, James More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than the Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either - he got the news of James More's escape from the Lord Advocate, and started off straight to comfort Catriona.