In 1880, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a letter to his friend and editor in London, telling him about a slender gentleman who sauntered out from a house on Bush Street in San Francisco a couple of times a day.
“The gentleman is R.L.S.,” Stevenson said. The letter describes RLS as a character in a story that old editors called “a slice of life.”
RLS was pinching pennies. When he needed a break from writing, he went out on walks. He carried a book on Benjamin Franklin, hoping it would help him understand Americans. RLS sauntered out to the Sixth Street branch of the Original Pine Street Coffee Shop, where he got coffee, a roll and a pad of butter.
A while ago and R.L.S. used to find the supply of butter insufficient; but he has now learned the art of exactitude, and butter and roll expire at the same moment. For this reflection, he pays ten cents, or five pence sterling (£0. 0s. 5d.).
A lot of odd stuff goes into the education of a writer.
• Source: Robert Louis Stevenson’s letter to Sidney Colvin, Jan. 10, 1880, is in The Stevenson Companion, edited by John Hampden; New York: Medill McBride Company, 1950, p. 130-2.
No comments:
Post a Comment