I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, who has always a place in my heart, as I hope I have a little in his. His kindness helped me infinitely when you and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and affection in this town of convicts at the world’s end. There are very few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a retrospect of life, the day’s flash and colour, one day with another, flames, dazzles, and puts to sleep; and when the days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope, they make but a single pattern. Only a few things stand out; and among these—most plainly to me—Rutland Square.—Ever, my dear Charles, your affectionate friend,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
P.S.—Just returned from trying on the dress clo’. Lord, you should see the coat! It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross in front, the sleeves are like bags.
To E. L. Burlingame
Proceeding from New Caledonia to Sydney, Stevenson again made a stay there of about a month, before going to settle in his new island home and superintend the operations of planting and building. The next letter is in acknowledgment of proofs received from Messrs. Scribner of a proposed volume of verse to contain, besides Ticonderoga and the two ballads on Marquesan and Tahitian legends, a number of the other miscellaneous verses which he had written in the course of his travels. In the end, the ballads only stood for publication at this time; the other verses were reserved, and have been posthumously published under the title Songs of Travel.
Union Club, Sydney [August 1890].
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—
Ballads.
The deuce is in this volume. It has cost me more botheration and dubiety than any other I ever took in hand. On one thing my mind is made up: the verses at the end have no business there, and throw them down. Many of them are bad, many of the rest want nine years’ keeping, and the remainder are not relevant—throw them down; some I never want to hear of more, others will grow in time towards decent items in a second Underwoods—and in the meanwhile, down with them! At the same time, I have a sneaking idea the ballads are not altogether without merit—I don’t know if they’re poetry, but they’re good narrative, or I’m deceived. (You’ve never said one word about them, from which I astutely gather you are dead set against: “he was a diplomatic man”—extract from epitaph of E. L. B.—“and remained on good terms with Minor Poets.”) You will have to judge: one of the Gladstonian trinity of paths must be chosen. (1st) Either publish the five ballads, such as they are, in a volume called Ballads; in which case pray send sheets at once to Chatto and Windus. Or (2nd) write and tell me you think the book too small, and I’ll try and get into the mood to do some more. Or (3rd) write and tell me the whole thing is a blooming illusion; in which case draw off some twenty copies for my private entertainment, and charge me with the expense of the whole dream.
In the matter of rhyme no man can judge himself; I am at the world’s end, have no one to consult, and my publisher holds his tongue. I call it unfair and almost unmanly. I do indeed begin to be filled with animosity; Lord, wait till you see the continuation of The Wrecker, when I introduce some New York publishers.... It’s a good scene; the quantities you drink and the really hideous language you are represented as employing may perhaps cause you one tithe of the pain you have inflicted by your silence on, sir, The Poetaster,