"I have been meaning each day to write to you again and tell you how much, in these days, I am with you in thought. I can't sufficiently rejoice that you are out of town in this fearful heat, which the air of London, as thick as the wit of some of its inhabitants, must now render peculiarly damnable. I rejoice, too, that you have, like myself, an old house in a pretty old town and an old garden with pleasant old flowers. Further, I jubilate that you are within decent distance of dear old George Meredith, whom I tenderly love and venerate. But after that, I fear my jubilation ceases. I deeply regret the turn your mother's health has taken has not been, as it so utterly ought to be, the right one. But if it has determined the prospect of the operation, which is to afford her relief, I hope with all my heart that it will end by presenting itself to you as 'a blessing in disguise.' No doubt she would have preferred a good deal less disguise, but, after all, we have to take things as they come, and I throw myself into the deep comfort of gratitude that her situation has overtaken her in this country, where every perfect ministration will surround her, rather than in your far-off insular abyss of mere—so to speak—picturesqueness. I should have been, in that case, at the present writing, in a fidget too fierce for endurance, whereas I now can prattle to you quite balmily; for which you are all, no doubt, deeply grateful. Give her, please, my tender love, and say to her that if London were actually at all accessible to me, I should dash down to her thence without delay, and thrust myself as far as would be good for any of you into your innermost concerns. This would be more possible to me later on if you should still be remaining awhile at Dorking—and, at any rate, please be sure that I shall manage to see you the first moment I am able to break with the complications that, for the time, forbid me even a day's absence from this place. I repeat that it eases my spirit immensely that you have exchanged the planet Saturn—or whichever it is that's the furthest—for this terrestrial globe. In short, between this and October, many things may happen, and among them my finding the right moment to drop on you. I hope all the rest of you thrive and rusticate, and I feel awfully set up with your being, after your tropic isle, at all tolerant of the hollyhocks and other garden produce of my adopted home. I am extremely busy trying to get on with a belated serial—an effort in which each hour has its hideous value. That is really all my present history—but to you all it will mean much, for you too have lived in Arcadia! I embrace you fondly, if you will kindly permit it—every one; beginning with the Babe, so as to give me proper presumption, and working my way steadily up. Good-bye till soon again.
"Yours, my dear Teuila, very constantly,
"Henry James."
Except for this unfortunate illness the family spent a pleasant summer in England, in a little cottage surrounded by an old-fashioned garden near Burford.
From a photograph by Hollinger, London.
Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson.
One of the purposes of this visit to England was Mrs. Stevenson's desire to carry out one of her husband's last requests. In a letter not to be opened until after his death he asked that, if the arrangements already made for the writing and publication of his biography by Sidney Colvin should not have been carried out within four years, it should be placed in the hands of some other person. As the four years had elapsed and nothing had been done in the matter, it was decided that Graham Balfour, Stevenson's cousin and devoted friend, should undertake the task; and when Mrs. Stevenson had partially recovered from her illness she removed to the Balfour residence and gave her assistance for some time in laying out the plans for the book.
Her convalescence was very slow, and, finding the damp climate of England unfavourable, she finally decided to move to the island of Madeira for rest and recuperation. Accompanied by her son and his family, her daughter having left for New York City to join her son, Austin Strong, she travelled by slow stages through France, Spain, and Portugal, reaching Madeira in the early part of December, 1898. From Lisbon they sailed in a filthy little Portuguese steamer, freighted with hay and kerosene, and the passengers, in utter disregard of the inflammable nature of the cargo, scattered cigarette ends and lighted matches all over the ship. However, a kind Providence carried them to port without accident.
After a most uncomfortable voyage of two days and nights they drew into the beautiful bay of Funchal, with its curving shore and background of lofty mountains. The quintas, or country-houses, each surrounded by a terraced garden and vineyard, which dotted the slopes, gave a cheerful air to the landscape. Mrs. Stevenson speaks of it as the "most picturesque place" she ever saw, and she had seen many of the beauty spots of the world.
In a letter to her daughter written from here she says: "My plans are vague. The years ahead of me seem like large empty rooms, with high ceilings and echoes. Not gay, say you, but I was never one for gaiety much—and I may discover a certain grandeur in the emptiness."