As for coin, you see I don’t spend much, only you and Henley both seem to think my work rather bosh nowadays, and I do want to make as much as I was making, that is £200; if I can do that, I can swim: last year with my ill health I touched only £109; that would not do, I could not fight it through on that; but on £200, as I say, I am good for the world, and can even in this quiet way save a little, and that I must do. The worst is my health; it is suspected I had an ague chill yesterday; I shall know by to-morrow, and you know if I am to be laid down with ague the game is pretty well lost. But I don’t know; I managed to write a good deal down in Monterey, when I was pretty sickly most of the time, and, by God, I’ll try, ague and all. I have to ask you frankly, when you write, to give me any good news you can, and chat a little, but just in the meantime, give me no bad. If I could get Thoreau, Emigrant and Vendetta all finished and out of my hand, I should feel like a man who had made half a year’s income in a half year; but until the two last are finished, you see, they don’t fairly count.
I am afraid I bore you sadly with this perpetual talk about my affairs; I will try and stow it; but you see, it touches me nearly. I’m the miser in earnest now: last night, when I felt so ill, the supposed ague chill, it seemed strange not to be able to afford a drink. I would have walked half a mile, tired as I felt, for a brandy and soda.—Ever yours,
R. L. S.
To W. E. Henley
608 Bush Street, San Francisco, January 1880.
MY DEAR HENLEY,—You have got a letter ahead of me, owing to the Alpine accumulation of ill news I had to stagger under. I will stand no complaints of my correspondence from England, I having written near half as many letters again as I have received.
Do not damp me about my work; qu’elle soit bonne ou mauvaise, it has to be done. You know the wolf is at the door, and I have been seriously ill. I am now at Thoreau. I almost blame myself for persevering in anything so difficult under the circumstances: but it may set me up again in style, which is the great point. I have now £80 in the world and two houses to keep up for an indefinite period. It is odd to be on so strict a regimen; it is a week for instance since I have bought myself a drink, and unless times change, I do not suppose I shall ever buy myself another. The health improves. The Pied Piper is an idea; it shall have my thoughts, and so shall you. The character of the P. P. would be highly comic, I seem to see. Had you looked at the Pavilion, I do not think you would have sent it to Stephen; ’tis a mere story, and has no higher pretension: Dibbs is its name, I wish it was its nature also. The Vendetta, at which you ignorantly puff out your lips, is a real novel, though not a good one. As soon as I have found strength to finish the Emigrant, I shall also finish the Vend. and draw a breath—I wish I could say, “and draw a cheque.” My spirits have risen contra fortunam; I will fight this out, and conquer. You are all anxious to have me home in a hurry. There are two or three objections to that; but I shall instruct you more at large when I have time, for to-day I am hunted, having a pile of letters before me. Yet it is already drawing into dusk.—Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
To W. E. Henley
The Dook de Karneel (= Cornhill) and Marky de Stephen is of course Mr. Leslie Stephen. The “blood and thunder” is The Pavilion on the Links. Hester Noble and Don Juan were the titles of two plays planned and begun with W. E. Henley the previous winter. They were never finished. The French novels mentioned are by Joseph Méry. The Dialogue on Character and Destiny still exists in a fragmentary condition. George the Pieman is a character in Deacon Brodie.