Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been down with 'belly belong him' (Black Boy speech). As for me, I have to lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be expected) had a smart but eminently brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I have been re-casting the beginning of the HANGING JUDGE or WEIR OF HERMISTON; then I have been cobbling on my grandfather, whose last chapter (there are only to be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter of inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) which one learns at this trade, that somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and glowering and rewriting, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope; there is one piece for instance that I want in - I cannot put it one place for a good reason - I cannot put it another for a better - and every time I look at it, I turn sick and put the Ms. away.
Well, your letter hasn't come, and a number of others are missing. It looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so I'll blame nobody, and proceed to business.
It looks as if I was going to send you the first three chapters of my Grandfather. . . . If they were set up, it would be that much anxiety off my mind. I have a strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my ancestors' SOULS in my charge, and might miscarry with them.
There's a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is needed. Still Chapter I. seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III. I know nothing of, as I told you. And Chapter IV. is at present all ends and beginnings; but it can be pulled together.
This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this month, and I may add that it is not only more than you deserve, but just about more than I was equal to. I have been and am entirely useless; just able to tinker at my Grandfather. The three chapters - perhaps also a little of the fourth - will come home to you next mail by the hand of my cousin Graham Balfour, a very nice fellow whom I recommend to you warmly - and whom I think you will like. This will give you time to consider my various and distracted schemes.
All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again as soon as the war-ships leave. Adieu.
R. L. S.
CHAPTER XXXIII
23RD AUGUST.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - Your pleasing letter RE THE EBB TIDE, to hand. I propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd's name. He has nothing to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work. Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me the most ugly and cynical of all.
You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that surround me and that I choose to say nothing of. Life is not all Beer and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is. . . .
Well, IL FAUT CULTIVER SON JARDIN. That last expression of poor, unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to ST. IVES.
24th AUG.
And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep ultimately and 'a' the clouds has blawn away.' 'Be sure we'll have some pleisand weather, When a' the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away.' Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a most excellent humour.
I am deep in ST. IVES which, I believe, will be the next novel done. But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw in your face the very last thing you expect - or I expect.