The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 24Stevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 24
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Authors, Scottish -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 -- Correspondence
I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if not,
in some equally compact and portable shape--Seaside Library, for
instance--the Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can get 'em,
and the following of Marryat: _Phantom Ship_, _Peter Simple_, _Percival
Keene_, _Privateersman_, _Children of the New Forest_, _Frank Mildmay_,
_Newton Forster_, _Dog Fiend (Snarleyyow)_. Also _Midshipman Easy_,
_Kingsburn_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Motley's _Dutch Republic_,
Lang's _Letters on Literature_, a complete set of my works, _Jenkin_, in
duplicate; also _Familiar Studies_, ditto.
I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory indeed, and
for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have come and gone before
I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite
worked out, and this cursed end of _The Master_ hangs over me like the
arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before dawn, and no doubt
the clouds will soon rise; but it is a difficult thing to write, above
all in Mackellarese; and I cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this
off, _The Master_ will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived;
and even if I don't pull if off, it'll still have some stuff in it.
We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother
leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to come
here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address, which will
probably be Sydney. If we get on the _Morning Star_, I propose at
present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of getting a
passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons mighty vague, and
the cruise is risky; but I shall know something of the South Seas when
it is done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. It
should give me a fine book of travels, anyway.
Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him have
them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my books should go
to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht _Casco_, Oakland,
Cal.--In haste,
R. L. S.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Honolulu, April 6th, 1889._
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--Nobody writes a better letter than my Gamekeeper:
so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular, answering (by some
delicate instinct) all the questions she suggests. It is a shame you
should get such a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially and
originally incapable of the art epistolary. I would let the
paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden
seaman did after the manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies.
The place he seems to have stayed at--seems, for his absence was not
observed till we were near the Equator--was Tautira, and, I assure you,
he displayed good taste, Tautira being as "nigh hand heaven" as a
paper-cutter or anybody has a right to expect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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