Читать книгу The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 24 - Robert Louis Stevenson - Страница 46

La Solitude, Hyères [November 1883].

MY DEAR COLVIN, – I have been bad, but as you were worse, I feel no shame. I raise a blooming countenance, not the evidence of a self-righteous spirit.

I continue my uphill fight with the twin spirits of bankruptcy and indigestion. Duns rage about my portal, at least to fancy’s ear.

I suppose you heard of Ferrier’s death: my oldest friend, except Bob. It has much upset me. I did not fancy how much. I am strangely concerned about it.

My house is the loveliest spot in the universe; the moonlight nights we have are incredible; love, poetry and music, and the Arabian Nights, inhabit just my corner of the world – nest there like mavises.

Here lies

The carcase of

Robert Louis Stevenson,

An active, austere, and not inelegant

writer,

who,

at the termination of a long career,

wealthy, wise, benevolent, and honoured by

the attention of two hemispheres,

yet owned it to have been his crowning favour

TO INHABIT

LA SOLITUDE

(with the consent of the intelligent edility of Hyères, he has been interred, below this frugal stone, in the garden which he honoured for so long with his poetic presence.)

I must write more solemn letters. Adieu. Write.

R. L. S.