[Bournemouth, March 1885.]
DEAR LAD,—Much better, but rather unequal to do what I ought, a common complaint. The change of weather much helped me, not too soon.
I have thought as well as I could of what you said; and I come unhesitatingly to the opinion that the stage is only a lottery, must not be regarded as a trade, and must never be preferred to drudgery. If money comes from any play, let us regard it as a legacy, but never count upon it in our income for the year. In other words, I must go on and drudge at Kidnapped, which I hate, and am unfit to do; and you will have to get some journalism somehow. These are my cold and blighting sentiments. It is bad enough to have to live by an art—but to think to live by an art combined with commercial speculation—that way madness lies.
Time is our only friend. The Admiral, pulled simply in pieces and about half deleted, will act some day: such is my opinion. I can no more.—Yours ever,
R. L. S.
To William Archer
An anonymous review of the Child’s Garden, appearing in March, gave R. L. S. so much pleasure that he wrote (in the four words, “Now who are you?”) to inquire the name of its writer, and learned that it was Mr. Archer; with whom he had hitherto had no acquaintance. He thereupon entered into friendly correspondence with his critic.
Bournemouth, March 29, 1885.
DEAR MR. ARCHER,—Yes, I have heard of you and read some of your work; but I am bound in particular to thank you for the notice of my verses. “There,” I said, throwing it over to the friend who was staying with me, “it’s worth writing a book to draw an article like that.” Had you been as hard upon me as you were amiable, I try to tell myself I should have been no blinder to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an enviable touch; the marks of a reader, such as one imagines for one’s self in dreams, thoughtful, critical, and kind; and to put the top on this memorial column, a greater readiness to describe the author criticised than to display the talents of his censor.
I am a man blasé to injudicious praise (though I hope some of it may be judicious too), but I have to thank you for the best criticism I ever had; and am therefore, dear Mr. Archer, the most grateful critickee now extant.