Friday 22 July 2011

Robert Louis Stevenson

I've been dipping into the collected letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, he makes me smile: Yesterday I had toothache, and today I have a crick in my neck. These are details, but eloquent to me. I like his lack of self-pity (he was ill with TB for most of his life).

I also came across his description of John Sargents' painting of him and his wife Fanny: Sargent was down again and painted a portrait of me walking about in my own dining room, in my own velveteen jacket and twisting, as I go my own moustache; at one corner a glimpse of my wife in an Indian dress and seated in a chair that was once my grandfather's, but since some months goes by the name of Henry James's for it was where the novelist loved to sit...

We did Weir of Hermiston in my final year at school, I really should re-read it. He died before it was finished, he was only forty-four. When I read the book, I had no sense of how tragically early his death was. I was sixteen.

6 comments:

Penal-Colony said...

It's truly amazing how much he wrote, really one of the very few instances were quantity was consistenly matched by quality. Have you read his essays? His <a href="http://www.oldandsold.com/articles33n/essays-studies-13.shtml>'Aes Triplex'</a> is a symphonic achievement.

John

Mim said...

A pleasure to see the painting. Thank you for the link. I don't know much about his work--have read the poems for children. I'll follow your lead--the letters.

Hello from Boston

nmj said...

Hey PC, I couldn't follow your link...

Hey Mim, The letters are a joy to dip into. His family - Stevensons - also famous for building the lighthouses round Scotland.

Penal-Colony said...

Here, sorry.

'Aes Triplex'

Will said...

I got the collected RLS poems for my birthday this year and find the children's verse to be particularly moving. Have you read any of Thomas Hardy's poems btw?

nmj said...

Hey Will, We did Hardy at uni and I remember one poem called The Darkling Thrush, but that is all! His novels are more familiar to me.