THE UNITED STATES AGAIN

WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS

AUGUST 1887--JUNE 1888

The letters printed in the following section are selected from those
which tell of Stevenson's voyage to New York and reception there at the
beginning of September 1887; of his winter's life and work at Saranac
Lake, and of his decision taken in May 1888 to venture on a yachting
cruise in the South Seas.

The moment of his arrival at New York was that when his reputation had
first reached its height in the United States, owing to the popularity
both of _Treasure Island_ and _Kidnapped_, but more especially to the
immense impression made by the _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde_. He experienced consequently for the first time the pleasures,
such as they were, of celebrity, and also its inconveniences; found the
most hospitable of refuges in the house of his kind friends, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Fairchild, at Newport; and quickly made many other friends,
including the late Augustus St. Gaudens, the famous sculptor, with Mr.
C. Scribner and Mr. E. L. Burlingame, the owner and the editor of
Scribner's Magazine, from whom he immediately received and accepted very
advantageous offers of work. Having been dissuaded from braving for the
present the fatigue of the long journey to Colorado and the extreme
rigour of its winter climate, he determined to try instead a season at
Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, New York State, which had
lately been coming into reputation as a place of cure. There, under the
care of the well-known resident physician, Dr. Trudeau, he spent nearly
seven months, from the end of September 1887 to the end of April 1888,
with results on the whole favourable to his own health, though not to
that of his wife, which could never support these winter mountain cures.
On the 16th of April, he and his party left Saranac. After spending a
fortnight in New York, where, as always in cities, his health quickly
flagged again, he went for the month of May into seaside quarters at
Union House, Manasquan, on the New Jersey coast, for the sake of fresh
air and boating. Here he enjoyed the occasional society of some of his
New York friends, including Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. W. H. Low, and was
initiated in the congenial craft of cat-boat sailing. In the meantime,
Mrs. Stevenson had gone to San Francisco to see her relatives; and
holding that the climate of the Pacific was likely to be better for the
projected cruise than that of the