Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Vol 2 | Page 5

a kind of image of things
that I pursue and cannot reach, and that you seem - no, not to have

reached - but to have come a thought nearer to than I. This is the life we
have chosen: well, the choice was mad, but I should make it again.
What occurs to me is this: perhaps they might be printed in (say) the
CENTURY for the sake of my name; and if that were possible, they
might advertise your book. It might be headed as sent in
acknowledgment of your LAMIA. Or perhaps it might be introduced
by the phrases I have marked above. I dare say they would stick it in: I
want no payment, being well paid by LAMIA. If they are not, keep
them to yourself.
TO WILL H. LOW
DAMNED BAD LINES IN RETURN FOR A BEAUTIFUL BOOK
Youth now flees on feathered foot. Faint and fainter sounds the flute;
Rarer songs of Gods. And still, Somewhere on the sunny hill, Or along
the winding stream, Through the willows, flits a dream; Flits, but
shows a smiling face, Flees, but with so quaint a grace, None can
choose to stay at home, All must follow - all must roam. This is unborn
beauty: she Now in air floats high and free, Takes the sun, and breaks
the blue; - Late, with stooping pinion flew Raking hedgerow trees, and
wet Her wing in silver streams, and set Shining foot on temple roof.
Now again she flies aloof, Coasting mountain clouds, and kissed By the
evening's amethyst. In wet wood and miry lane Still we pound and pant
in vain; Still with earthy foot we chase Waning pinion, fainting face;
Still, with grey hair, we stumble on Till - behold! - the vision gone!
Where has fleeting beauty led? To the doorway of the dead! qy. omit?
[Life is gone, but life was gay: We have come the primrose way!]
R. L. S.

Letter: TO EDMUND GOSSE

SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH, JAN. 2ND, 1886.

MY DEAR GOSSE, - Thank you for your letter, so interesting to my
vanity. There is a review in the St. James's, which, as it seems to hold
somewhat of your opinions, and is besides written with a pen and not a
poker, we think may possibly be yours. The PRINCE has done fairly
well in spite of the reviews, which have been bad: he was, as you
doubtless saw, well slated in the SATURDAY; one paper received it as
a child's story; another (picture my agony) described it as a 'Gilbert
comedy.' It was amusing to see the race between me and Justin
M'Carthy: the Milesian has won by a length.
That is the hard part of literature. You aim high, and you take longer
over your work, and it will not be so successful as if you had aimed low
and rushed it. What the public likes is work (of any kind) a little
loosely executed; so long as it is a little wordy, a little slack, a little dim
and knotless, the dear public likes it; it should (if possible) be a little
dull into the bargain. I know that good work sometimes hits; but, with
my hand on my heart, I think it is by an accident. And I know also that
good work must succeed at last; but that is not the doing of the public;
they are only shamed into silence or affectation. I do not write for the
public; I do write for money, a nobler deity; and most of all for myself,
not perhaps any more noble, but both more intelligent and nearer home.
Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast whom we
feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press is the mouth
of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an university chair, and
everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its abode
and pulpit. I do not like mankind; but men, and not all of these - and
fewer women. As for respecting the race, and, above all, that fatuous
rabble of burgesses called 'the public,' God save me from such
irreligion! - that way lies disgrace and dishonour. There must be
something wrong in me, or I would not be popular.
This is perhaps a trifle stronger than my sedate and permanent opinion.
Not much, I think. As for the art that we practise, I have never been
able to see why its professors should be respected. They chose the
primrose path; when they found it was not all primroses, but some of it
brambly, and much of it uphill, they began to think and to speak of

themselves as holy martyrs. But a man is never martyred in any honest