Robert Louis Stevenson.
To Sidney Colvin
[Nov. 30, 1892.]
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well right.... This is a strange life I live, always on the brink of deportation, men’s lives in the scale—and, well, you know my character: if I were to pretend to you that I was not amused, you would justly scorn me. The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all which mercies, etc. I must have made close on £4,000 this year all told; but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them. I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the cards, all summer, and came very near to taking in sail, but I live here so entirely on credit, that I determined to hang on.
Dec. 1st.—I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and did not think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I was briefed to defend a political prisoner before the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of that for a vicissitude?
Dec. 3rd.—Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cassells had decided to print The Bottle Imp along with Falesá, I was too much disappointed to answer. The Bottle Imp was the pièce de résistance for my volume, Island Nights’ Entertainments. However, that volume might have never got done; and I send you two others in case they should be in time.
First have The Beach of Falesá.
Then a fresh false title: Island Nights’ Entertainments; and then
The Bottle Imp: a cue from an old melodrama.
The Isle of Voices.