to Andrew Lang

[Vailima, August 1892.]

MY DEAR LANG,—I knew you would prove a trusty purveyor.  The books you have sent are admirable.  I got the name of my hero out of Brown—Blair of Balmyle—Francie Blair.  But whether to call the story Blair of Balmyle, or whether to call it The Young Chevalier, I have not yet decided.  The admirable Cameronian tract—perhaps you will think this a cheat—is to be boned into David Balfour, where it will fit better, and really furnishes me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.

Later; no, it won’t go in, and I fear I must give up ‘the idolatrous occupant upon the throne,’ a phrase that overjoyed me beyond expression.  I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at such an exhibition as our government.  ’Taint decent; no gent can hold a candle to it.  But it’s a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed) and petitions (which ain’t petited) and letters to the Times, which it makes my jaws yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with David Balfour: he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh, James More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than the Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either—he got the news of James More’s escape from the Lord Advocate, and started off straight to comfort Catriona.  You don’t know her; she’s James More’s daughter, and a respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so—the Lord Advocate’s daughters—so there can’t be anything really wrong.  Pretty soon we all go to Holland, and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned; and the tale concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted.  This is the last authentic news.  You are not a real hard-working novelist; not a practical novelist; so you don’t know the temptation to let your characters maunder.  Dumas did it, and lived.  But it is not war; it ain’t sportsmanlike, and I have to be stopping their chatter all the time.  Brown’s appendix is great reading.

My only grief is that I can’t
Use the idolatrous occupant.

Yours ever,

R. L. S.

Blessing and praising you for a useful (though idolatrous) occupant of Kensington.