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The Art of Writing-Part9_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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chapter a day, I finished TREASURE ISLAND. It had to be

transcribed almost exactly; my wife was ill; the schoolboy



remained alone of the faithful; and John Addington Symonds

(to whom I timidly mentioned what I was engaged on) looked on



me askance. He was at that time very eager I should write on

the characters of Theophrastus: so far out may be the



judgments of the wisest men. But Symonds (to be sure) was

scarce the confidant to go to for sympathy on a boy's story.



He was large-minded; 'a full man,' if there was one; but the

very name of my enterprise would suggest to him only



capitulations of sincerity and solecisms of style. Well! he

was not far wrong.



TREASURE ISLAND - it was Mr. Henderson who deleted the first

title, THE SEA COOK - appeared duly in the story paper, where



it figured in the ignoble midst, without woodcuts, and

attracted not the least attention. I did not care. I liked



the tale myself, for much the same reason as my father liked

the beginning: it was my kind of picturesque. I was not a



little proud of John Silver, also; and to this day rather

admire that smooth and formidableventurer" target="_blank" title="n.冒险者">adventurer. What was



infinitely more exhilarating, I had passed a landmark; I had

finished a tale, and written 'The End' upon my manuscript, as



I had not done since 'The Pentland Rising,' when I was a boy

of sixteen not yet at college. In truth it was so by a set



of lucky accidents; had not Dr. Japp come on his visit, had

not the tale flowed from me with singular case, it must have



been laid aside like its predecessors, and found a circuitous

and unlamented way to the fire. Purists may suggest it would



have been better so. I am not of that mind. The tale seems

to have given much pleasure, and it brought (or, was the



means of bringing) fire and food and wine to a deserving

family in which I took an interest. I need scarcely say I



mean my own.

But the adventures of TREASURE ISLAND are not yet quite at an



end. I had written it up to the map. The map was the chief

part of my plot. For instance, I had called an islet



'Skeleton Island,' not knowing what I meant, seeking only for

the immediate picturesque, and it was to justify this name



that I broke into the gallery of Mr. Poe and stole Flint's

pointer. And in the same way, it was because I had made two



harbours that the HISPANIOLA was sent on her wanderings with

Israel Hands. The time came when it was decided to



republish, and I sent in my manuscript, and the map along

with it, to Messrs. Cassell. The proofs came, they were



corrected, but I heard nothing of the map. I wrote and

asked; was told it had never been received, and sat aghast.



It is one thing to draw a map at random, set a scale in one

corner of it at a venture, and write up a story to the



measurements. It is quite another to have to examine a whole

book, make an inventory of all the allusions contained in it,



and with a pair of compasses, painfully design a map to suit

the data. I did it; and the map was drawn again in my



father's office, with embellishments of blowing whales and

sailing ships, and my father himself brought into service a



knack he had of various writing, and elaborately FORGED the

signature of Captain Flint, and the sailing directions of



Billy Bones. But somehow it was never TREASURE ISLAND to me.

I have said the map was the most of the plot. I might almost



say it was the whole. A few reminiscences of Poe, Defoe, and

Washington Irving, a copy of Johnson's BUCCANEERS, the name



of the Dead Man's Chest from Kingsley's AT LAST, some

recollections of canoeing on the high seas, and the map



itself, with its infinite, eloquentsuggestion, made up the

whole of my materials. It is, perhaps, not often that a map



figures so largely in a tale, yet it is always important.

The author must know his countryside, whether real or



imaginary, like his hand; the distances, the points of the

compass, the place of the sun's rising, the behaviour of the



moon, should all be beyond cavil. And how troublesome the

moon is! I have come to grief over the moon in PRINCE OTTO,



and so soon as that was pointed out to me, adopted a

precaution which I recommend to other men - I never write now






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