To Trevor Haddon
17 Heriot Row, Edinburgh [June 1882].
MY DEAR SIR,—I see nothing “cheekie” in anything you have done. Your letters have naturally given me much pleasure, for it seems to me you are a pretty good young fellow, as young fellows go; and if I add that you remind me of myself, you need not accuse me of retrospective vanity.
You now know an address which will always find me; you might let me have your address in London; I do not promise anything—for I am always overworked in London—but I shall, if I can arrange it, try to see you.
I am afraid I am not so rigid on chastity: you are probably right in your view; but this seems to me a dilemma with two horns, the real curse of a man’s life in our state of society—and a woman’s too, although, for many reasons, it appears somewhat differently with the enslaved sex. By your “fate” I believe I meant your marriage, or that love at least which may befall any one of us at the shortest notice and overthrow the most settled habits and opinions. I call that your fate, because then, if not before, you can no longer hang back, but must stride out into life and act.—Believe me, yours sincerely,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
To Edmund Gosse
Mr. Gosse had mistaken the name of the Peeblesshire manse, and is reproached accordingly. “Gray” is Mr. Gosse’s volume on that poet in Mr. Morley’s series of English Men of Letters.
Stobo Manse, Peeblesshire [July 1882].