Robert Louis Stevenson [18]
spell of weakness at Bournemouth, Stevenson had gone West in search of health among the bleak hill summits - 'on the Canadian border of New York State, very unsettled and primitive and cold.' He had made the voyage in an ocean tramp, the LUDGATE HILL, the sort of craft which any person not a born child of the sea would shun in horror. Stevenson, however, had 'the finest time conceivable on board the "strange floating menagerie."'" Thus he describes it in a letter to Mr Henry James:
"Stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent of these incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking through the port at our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; and the little monkeys stared at each other in their cages, and were thrown overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound unexpected notes and the fittings shall break loose in our stateroom, and you have the voyage of the LUDGATE HILL. She arrived in the port of New York without beer, porter, soda-water, curacoa, fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet we lived, and we regret her."
He discovered this that there is no joy in the Universe comparable to life on a villainous ocean tramp, rolling through a horrible sea in company with a cargo of cattle.
"I have got one good thing of my sea voyage; it is proved the sea agrees heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in the summer. Good Lord! what fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these I hold that 700 pounds a year is as much as anybody can possibly want; and I have had more, so I know, for the extra coins were of no use, excepting for illness, which damns everything. I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it possible; we had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the mere fact of its being a tramp ship gave us many comforts. We could cut about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And truly there is nothing else. I had literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full mind - full of external and physical things, not full of cares and labours, and rot about a fellow's behaviour. My heart literally sang; I truly care for nothing so much as for that.
"To go ashore for your letters and hang about the pier among the holiday yachtsmen - that's fame, that's glory - and nobody can take it away."
At Saranac Lake the Stevensons lived in a "wind-beleaguered hill- top hat-box of a house," which suited the invalid, but, on the other hand, invalided his wife. Soon after getting there he plunged into THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.
"No thought have I now apart from it, and I have got along up to page ninety-two of the draught with great interest. It is to me a most seizing tale: there are some fantastic elements, the most is a dead genuine human problem - human tragedy, I should say rather. It will be about as long, I imagine, as KIDNAPPED. . . . I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the brothers, and the announcement of the death to Clementina and my Lord - Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil; I have known hints of him, in the world, but always cowards: he is as bold as a lion, but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so much surprise in my two cowards.
"Stallions and monkeys and matches made our cargo; and the vast continent of these incongruities rolled the while like a haystack; and the stallions stood hypnotised by the motion, looking through the port at our dinner-table, and winked when the crockery was broken; and the little monkeys stared at each other in their cages, and were thrown overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound unexpected notes and the fittings shall break loose in our stateroom, and you have the voyage of the LUDGATE HILL. She arrived in the port of New York without beer, porter, soda-water, curacoa, fresh meat, or fresh water; and yet we lived, and we regret her."
He discovered this that there is no joy in the Universe comparable to life on a villainous ocean tramp, rolling through a horrible sea in company with a cargo of cattle.
"I have got one good thing of my sea voyage; it is proved the sea agrees heartily with me, and my mother likes it; so if I get any better, or no worse, my mother will likely hire a yacht for a month or so in the summer. Good Lord! what fun! Wealth is only useful for two things: a yacht and a string quartette. For these two I will sell my soul. Except for these I hold that 700 pounds a year is as much as anybody can possibly want; and I have had more, so I know, for the extra coins were of no use, excepting for illness, which damns everything. I was so happy on board that ship, I could not have believed it possible; we had the beastliest weather, and many discomforts; but the mere fact of its being a tramp ship gave us many comforts. We could cut about with the men and officers, stay in the wheel-house, discuss all manner of things, and really be a little at sea. And truly there is nothing else. I had literally forgotten what happiness was, and the full mind - full of external and physical things, not full of cares and labours, and rot about a fellow's behaviour. My heart literally sang; I truly care for nothing so much as for that.
"To go ashore for your letters and hang about the pier among the holiday yachtsmen - that's fame, that's glory - and nobody can take it away."
At Saranac Lake the Stevensons lived in a "wind-beleaguered hill- top hat-box of a house," which suited the invalid, but, on the other hand, invalided his wife. Soon after getting there he plunged into THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE.
"No thought have I now apart from it, and I have got along up to page ninety-two of the draught with great interest. It is to me a most seizing tale: there are some fantastic elements, the most is a dead genuine human problem - human tragedy, I should say rather. It will be about as long, I imagine, as KIDNAPPED. . . . I have done most of the big work, the quarrel, duel between the brothers, and the announcement of the death to Clementina and my Lord - Clementina, Henry, and Mackellar (nicknamed Squaretoes) are really very fine fellows; the Master is all I know of the devil; I have known hints of him, in the world, but always cowards: he is as bold as a lion, but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so much surprise in my two cowards.