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The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Vol. 25
THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SWANSTON EDITION
VOLUME XXV
_Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
Copies are for sale._
_This is No._ .......
[Illustration: Yours truly
Robert Louis Stevenson]
THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
VOLUME TWENTY-FIVE
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII
_For permission to use the_ LETTERS _in the_
SWANSTON EDITION OF STEVENSON'S WORKS
_the Publishers are indebted to the kindness of_
MESSRS. METHUEN & CO., LTD.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THE LETTERS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
EDITED BY
SIDNEY COLVIN
PARTS XI--XIV
CONTENTS
XI. LIFE IN SAMOA
FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 3
LETTERS--
To Sidney Colvin 9
To E. L. Burlingame 24
To Sidney Colvin 25
To E. L. Burlingame 32
To Sidney Colvin 34
To Henry James 43
To Rudyard Kipling 46
To Sidney Colvin 48
To Marcel Schwob 51
To Charles Baxter 53
To Sidney Colvin 54
To H. B. Baildon 56
To Sidney Colvin 58
To the Same 66
To W. Craibe Angus 69
To Edmund Gosse 71
To Miss Rawlinson 74
To Sidney Colvin 76
To Miss Adelaide Boodle 80
To Charles Baxter 82
To Sidney Colvin 83
To E. L. Burlingame 86
To W. Craibe Angus 87
To H. C. Ide 88
To Sidney Colvin 90
To the Same 94
To the Same 102
To Henry James 108
To E. L. Burlingame 110
To the Same 111
To Sidney Colvin 112
To W. Craibe Angus 118
To Miss Annie H. Ide 118
To Charles Baxter 120
To Sidney Colvin 121
To Fred Orr 127
To E. L. Burlingame 128
To Henry James 130
To Sidney Colvin 132
XII. LIFE IN SAMOA--_continued_
SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA
INTRODUCTORY 144
LETTERS--
To E. L. Burlingame 146
To Miss Adelaide Boodle 147
To Sidney Colvin 152
To J. M. Barrie 154
To Sidney Colvin 156
To William Morris 162
To Mrs. Charles Fairchild 163
To Sidney Colvin 166
To E. L. Burlingame 174
To the Rev. S. J. Whitmee 174
To Charles Baxter 177
To Sidney Colvin 178
To the Same 193
To T. W. Dover 209
To E. L. Burlingame 210
To Sidney Colvin 211
To Charles Baxter 213
To W. E. Henley 214
To E. L. Burlingame 215
To Andrew Lang 216
To Miss Adelaide Boodle 217
To Sidney Colvin 221
To the Countess of Jersey 228
To the Same 229
To Sidney Colvin 230
To Mrs. Charles Fairchild 240
To the Children in the Cellar 243
To Sidney Colvin 249
To Gordon Browne 252
To Miss Morse 253
To Miss Taylor 254
To E. L. Burlingame 257
To Sidney Colvin 258
To J. M. Barrie 264
To E. L. Burlingame 266
To Lieutenant Eeles 267
To Charles Baxter 270
To Sidney Colvin 271
To Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin 273
To Henry James 274
To J. M. Barrie 276
To Charles Baxter 278
XIII. LIFE IN SAMOA--_continued_
THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
INTRODUCTORY 280
LETTERS--
To Sidney Colvin 282
To Charles Baxter 288
To Sidney Colvin 289
To the Same 291
To Charles Baxter 292
To Sidney Colvin 294
To A. Conan Doyle 299
To Sidney Colvin 299
To S. R. Crockett 305
To Augustus St. Gaudens 308
To Sidney Colvin 310
To Edmund Gosse 317
To Henry James 320
To Sidney Colvin 324
To James S. Stevenson 334
To Henry James 335
To A. Conan Doyle 336
To Charles Baxter 337
To Sidney Colvin 338
To A. Conan Doyle 339
To Augustus St. Gaudens 341
To James S. Stevenson 342
To George Meredith 343
To Charles Baxter 345
To Sidney Colvin 347
To the Same 352
To J. Horne Stevenson 357
To John P----n 358
To Russell P----n 359
To Alison Cunningham 359
To Charles Baxter 360
To J. M. Barrie 362
To R. Le Gallienne 364
To Mrs. A. Baker 366
To Henry James 367
To Sidney Colvin 367
XIV. LIFESAMOA--_concluded_
FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END
INTRODUCTORY 373
LETTERS--
To Charles Baxter 376
To H. B. Baildon 377
To W. H. Low 378
To Sidney Colvin 380
To H. B. Baildon 381
To Sidney Colvin 382
To J. H. Bates 384
To William Archer 384
To Sidney Colvin 386
To W. B. Yeats 390
To George Meredith 390
To Charles Baxter 392
To Mrs. Sitwell 393
To Charles Baxter 394
To Sidney Colvin 396
To R. A. M. Stevenson 398
To Sidney Colvin 404
To Henry James 406
To Marcel Schwob 409
To A. St. Gaudens 410
To Miss Adelaide Boodle 410
To Mrs. A. Baker 413
To Sidney Colvin 414
To J. M. Barrie 416
To Sidney Colvin 422
To Dr. Bakewell 424
To James Payn 425
To Miss Middleton 428
To A. Conan Doyle 429
To Sidney Colvin 430
To Charles Baxter 433
To R. A. M. Stevenson 434
To Sir Herbert Maxwell 440
To Sidney Colvin 441
To Alison Cunningham 445
To James Payn 446
To Sidney Colvin 448
To Professor Meiklejohn 450
To Lieutenant Eeles 451
To Sir Herbert Maxwell 453
To Andrew Lang 453
To Edmund Gosse 454
APPENDIX I--Account of the Death and
Burial of R. L. Stevenson, by
Lloyd Osbourne 457
APPENDIX II--Address of R. L.
Stevenson to the Chiefs on the
Opening of the Road of Gratitude,
October 1894 462
INDEX TO THE LETTERS:
VOLUMES XXIII-XXV 469
INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII 509
THE LETTERS
OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
1890--1894
THE LETTERS
OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
XI
LIFE IN SAMOA
FIRST YEAR AT VAILIMA
NOVEMBER 1890-DECEMBER 1891
Returning from Sydney at the end of October 1890, Stevenson and his wife
at once took up their abode in the wooden four-roomed cottage, or "rough
barrack," as he calls it, which had been built for them in the clearing
at Vailima during the months of their absence at Sydney and on their
cruise in the _Equator_. Mr. Lloyd Osbourne in the meantime had started
for England to wind up the family affairs at Bournemouth. During the
first few months, as will be seen by the following letters, the
conditions of life at Vailima were rough to the point of hardship. But
matters soon mended; the work of clearing and planting went on under the
eye of the master and mistress diligently and in the main successfully,
though not of course without complications and misadventures. Ways and
means of catering were found, and abundance began to reign in place of
the makeshifts and privations of the first days. By April a better
house, fit to receive the elder Mrs. Stevenson, had been built; and
later in the year plans for further extension were considered, but for
the present held over. The attempt made at first to work the
establishment by means of white servants and head-men indoors and out
proved unsatisfactory, and was gradually superseded by the formation of
an efficient native staff, which in course of time developed itself into
something like a small, devoted feudal clan.
During the earlier months of 1891 Stevenson was not in continuous
residence on his new property, but went away on two excursions, the
first to Sydney to meet his mother; the second, in company of the
American Consul Mr. Sewall, to Tutuila, a neighbouring island of the
Samoan group. Of the latter, to him very interesting, trip, the
correspondence contains only the beginning of an account abruptly broken
off: more, will be found in the extracts from his diary given in Mr.
Graham Balfour's _Life_ (ed. 1906, pp. 312 f.). During part of the
spring he was fortunate in having the company of two distinguished
Americans, the painter Lafarge and the historian Henry Adams, in
addition to that of the local planters, traders, and officials, a
singular and singularly mixed community. After some half-year's
residence he began to realise that the arrangements made for the
government of Samoa by treaty between the three powers England, Germany,
and America were not working nor promising to work well. Stevenson was
no abstracted student or dreamer; the human interests and human duties
lying immediately about him were ever the first in his eyes; and he
found himself drawn deeply into the complications of local politics, as
so active a spirit could not fail to be drawn, however little taste he
might have for the work.
He kept in the meantime at a fair level of health, and among the
multitude of new interests was faithful in the main business of his
life--that is, to literature. He did not cease to toil uphill at the
heavy task of preparing for serial publication the letters, or more
properly chapters, on the South Seas. He planned and began delightedly
his happiest tale of South Sea life, _The High Woods of Ulufanua_,
afterwards changed to _The Beach of Falesá_; conceived the scheme, which
was never carried out, of working two of his old conceptions into one
long genealogical novel or fictitious family history to be called _The
Shovels of Newton French_; and in the latter part of the year worked
hard in continuation of _The Wrecker_. Having completed this during
November, he turned at once, from a sense of duty rather than from any
literary inspiration, to the _Footnote to History_, a laboriously
prepared and minutely conscientious account of recent events in Samoa.
From his earliest days at Vailima, determined that our intimacy should
suffer no diminution by absence, Stevenson began, to my great pleasure,
the practice of writing me a monthly budget containing a full account of
his doings and interests. At first the pursuits of the enthusiastic
farmer, planter, and overseer filled these letters delightfully, to the
exclusion of almost everything else except references to his books
projected or in hand. Later these interests began to give place in his
letters to those of the local politician, immersed in affairs which
seemed to me exasperatingly petty and obscure, however grave the
potential European complications which lay behind them. At any rate,
they were hard to follow intelligently from the other side of the globe;
and it was a relief whenever his correspondence turned to matters
literary or domestic, or humours of his own mind and character. These
letters, or so much of them as seemed suitable for publication, were
originally printed separately, in the year following the writer's
death, under the title _Vailima Letters_. They are here placed, with
some additions, in chronological order among those addressed to other
friends or acquaintances. During this first year at Vailima his general
correspondence was not nearly so large as it afterwards became; Mr.
Burlingame, as representative of the house of Scribner, receiving the
lion's share next to myself.
For the love of Stevenson I will ask readers to take the small amount of
pains necessary to grasp and remember the main facts of Samoan politics
in the ten years 1889-99. At the date when he settled in Vailima the
government of the islands had lately been re-ordered between the three
powers interested--namely, Germany, England, and the United States--at
the Convention of Berlin (July 14, 1889). The rivalries and jealousies
of these three powers, complicated with the conflicting claims of
various native kings or chiefs, had for some time kept the affairs of
the islands dangerously embroiled. Under the Berlin Convention, Malietoa
Laupepa, who had previously been deposed and deported by the Germans in
favour of a nominee of their own, was reinstated as king, to the
exclusion of his kinsman, the powerful and popular Mataafa, whose titles
were equally good and abilities certainly greater, but who was
especially obnoxious to the Germans owing to his resistance to them
during the troubles of the preceding years. In the course of that
resistance a small German force had been worsted in a petty skirmish at
Fagalii, and resentment at this affront to the national pride was for
several years one of the chief obstacles to the reconciliation of
contending interests. For a time the two kinsmen, Laupepa and Mataafa,
lived on amicable terms, but presently differences arose between them.
Mataafa had expected to occupy a position of influence in the
government: finding himself ignored, he withdrew to a camp (Malie) a
few miles outside the town of Apia, where he lived in semi-royal state
as a sort of passive rebel or rival to the recognised king. In the
meantime, in the course of the year 1891, the two white officials
appointed under the Berlin Convention--namely, the Chief Justice, a
Swedish gentleman named Cedercrantz, and the President of the Council,
Baron Senfft von Pilsach--had come out to the islands and entered on
their duties. These gentlemen soon proved themselves unfitted for their
task to a degree both disastrous and grotesque. Almost the entire white
community were soon against them; with the native population they had no
influence or credit; affairs both political and municipal went from bad
to worse; and the consuls of the three powers, acting as an official
board of advisers to the king, could do very little to mend them.
To the impropriety of some of the official proceedings Stevenson felt
compelled to call attention in a series of letters to the Times, the
first of which appeared in 1891, the remainder in 1892. He had formed
the conviction that for the cure of Samoan troubles two things were
necessary: first and above all, the reconciliation of Laupepa and
Mataafa; secondly, the supersession of the unlucky Chief Justice and
President by men better qualified for their tasks. To effect the former
purpose, he made his only practical intromission in local politics, and
made it unsuccessfully. The motive of his letters to the Times was the
hope to effect the second. In this matter, after undergoing the risk,
which was at one moment serious, of deportation, he in the end saw his
wishes fulfilled. The first Chief Justice and President were replaced by
better qualified persons in the course of 1893. But meantime the muddle
had grown to a head. In the autumn of that year war broke out between
the partisans of Laupepa and Mataafa: the latter were defeated, and
Mataafa exiled to a distant island. At the close of the following year
Stevenson died. Three years later followed the death of Laupepa: then
came more confused rivalries between various claimants to the kingly
title. The Germans, having by this time come round to Stevenson's
opinion, backed the claims of Mataafa, which they had before stubbornly
disallowed, while the English and Americans stood for another candidate.
In 1899 these differences resulted in a calamitous and unjustifiable
action, the bombardment of native villages for several successive days
by English and American war-ships. As a matter of urgent necessity, to
avert worse things, new negotiations were set on foot between the three
powers, with the result that England withdrew her claims in Samoa
altogether, America was satisfied with the small island of Tutuila with
its fine harbour of Pago-pago, while the two larger islands of Upolu and
Savaii were ceded to Germany. German officials have governed them well
and peacefully ever since, having allowed the restored Mataafa, as long
as he lived, a recognised position of headship among the native chiefs.
Stevenson during his lifetime was obnoxious to the German official
world. But his name and memory are now held in honour by them, his
policy to a large extent practically followed, and he would have been
the first to acknowledge the merits of the new order had he lived to
witness it.
These remarks, following the subject down to what remains for the
present its historic conclusion, will, I hope, be enough to clear it for
the present purpose out of the reader's way and enable him to understand
as much as is necessary of the political allusions in this and the
following sections of the correspondence.
It need only be added that in reading the following pages it must be
borne in mind that Mulinuu and Malie, the places respectively of
Laupepa's and Mataafa's residence, are also used to signify their
respective parties and followings.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
During the absence of the Stevensons at Sydney some eight acres of
the Vailima property had been cleared of jungle, a cottage roughly
built on the clearing, and something done towards making the track up
the hill from Apia into a practicable road. They occupied the cottage
at once, and the following letters narrate of the sequel.
_In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, Monday, November 2nd, 1890._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that
we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six
hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling
enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over
outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or
literature must have gone by the board. _Nothing_ is so interesting as
weeding, clearing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers becomes a
disease; it is quite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does
make you feel so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with
sweat and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take
a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange
thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my
labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds
me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails
over my neglect and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I did not go
beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work run out, and went down
for the night to Apia; put in Sunday afternoon with our consul, "a nice
young man," dined with my friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to
church--no less--at the white and half-white church--I had never been
before, and was much interested; the woman I sat next _looked_ a
full-blood native, and it was in the prettiest and readiest English that
she sang the hymns; back to Moors', where we yarned of the islands,
being both wide wanderers, till bedtime; bed, sleep, breakfast, horse
saddled; round to the mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter;
over with him to the King's, whom I have not called on since my return;
received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting talk with him
about Samoan superstitions and my land--the scene of a great battle in
his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth--the place which we have cleared the
platform of his fort--the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies--the
fight rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to the mission;
had a bit of lunch and consulted over a queer point of missionary policy
just arisen, about our new Town Hall and the balls there--too long to go
into, but a quaint example of the intricate questions which spring up
daily in the missionary path.[1]
Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on noon) staring
hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the ineffable green country
all round--gorgeous little birds (I think they are humming-birds, but
they say not) skirmishing in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up
I met a native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
"Talofa"--"Talofa, alii--You see that white man? He speak for you."
"White man he gone up here?"--"Ioe" (Yes)--"Tofa, alii"--"Tofa, soifua!"
I put on Jack up the steep path, till he is all as white as shaving
stick--Brown's euxesis, wish I had some--past Tanugamanono, a bush
village--see into the houses as I pass--they are open sheds scattered on
a green--see the brown folk sitting there, suckling kids, sleeping on
their stiff wooden pillows--then on through the wood path--and here I
find the mysterious white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years'
certificate of good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the
strikes in the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found,
big hotel bill, no ship to leave in--and come up to beg twenty dollars
because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to leave his portmanteau in
pledge. Settle this, and on again; and here my house comes in view, and
a war whoop fetches my wife and Henry (or Simelé), our Samoan boy, on
the front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I shall have
to go down again to Apia this day week. I could, and would, dwell here
unmoved, but there are things to be attended to.
Never say I don't give you details and news. That is a picture of a
letter.
I have been hard at work since I came; three chapters of _The Wrecker_,
and since that, eight of the South Sea book, and, along and about and in
between, a hatful of verses. Some day I'll send the verse to you, and
you'll say if any of it is any good. I have got in a better vein with
the South Sea book, as I think you will see; I think these chapters will
do for the volume without much change. Those that I did in the _Janet
Nicoll_, under the most ungodly circumstances, I fear will want a lot of
suppling and lightening, but I hope to have your remarks in a month or
two upon that point. It seems a long while since I have heard from you.
I do hope you are well. I am wonderful, but tired from so much work;
'tis really immense what I have done; in the South Sea book I have fifty
pages copied fair, some of which has been four times, and all twice
written; certainly fifty pages of solid scriving inside a fortnight, but
I was at it by seven a.m. till lunch, and from two till four or five
every day; between whiles, verse and blowing on the flageolet; never
outside. If you could see this place! but I don't want any one to see it
till my clearing is done, and my house built. It will be a home for
angels.
[Illustration:
* Point referred to in text.
........ Paths.
======== Our boundary.
_a. Garden._ _b. Present house._
_c. Banana Patch._ _d. Waterfall._
_e. Large waterfall into deep gorge where the heat of the fight was._]
So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some cold meat and bananas, on
arrival. Then out to see where Henry and some of the men were clearing
the garden; for it was plain there was to be no work to-day indoors, and
I must set in consequence to farmering. I stuck a good while on the way
up, for the path there is largely my own handiwork, and there were a lot
of sprouts and saplings and stones to be removed. Then I reached our
clearing just where the streams join in one; it had a fine autumn smell
of burning, the smoke blew in the woods, and the boys were pretty merry
and busy. Now I had a private design:--The Vaita'e I had explored
pretty far up; not yet the other stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng
in sing); and up that, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is here
quite dry; it went through endless woods; about as broad as a Devonshire
lane, here and there crossed by fallen trees; huge trees overhead in the
sun, dripping lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, ferns
depending with air roots from the steep banks, great arums--I had not
skill enough to say if any of them were the edible kind, one of our
staples here!--hundreds of bananas--another staple--and alas! I had
skill enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no fruit.
My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard it was that the bad
banana flourished wild, and the good must be weeded and tended; and I
had not the heart to tell him how fortunate they were here, and how
hungry were other lands by comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of
my dry stream filled me with delight. I could not but be reminded of old
Mayne Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the tropics;
and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I would have written to
tell him that, for me, _it had come true_; and I thought, forbye, that,
if the great powers go on as they are going, and the Chief Justice
delays, it would come truer still; and the war-conch will sound in the
hills, and my home will be inclosed in camps, before the year is ended.
And all at once--mark you, how Mayne Reid is on the spot--a strange
thing happened. I saw a liana stretch across the bed of the brook about
breast-high, swung up my knife to sever it, and--behold, it was a wire!
On either hand it plunged into thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where
it goes and get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I know no more
than--there it is. A little higher the brook began to trickle, then to
fill. At last, as I meant to do some work upon the homeward trail, it
was time to turn. I did not return by the stream; knife in hand, as long
as my endurance lasted, I was to cut a path in the congested bush.
At first it went ill with me; I got badly stung as high as the elbows by
the stinging plant; I was nearly hung in a tough liana--a rotten trunk
giving way under my feet; it was deplorable bad business. And an axe--if
I dared swing one--would have been more to the purpose than my cutlass.
Of a sudden things began to go strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing
out again; my body began to wonder, then my mind; I raised my eyes and
looked ahead; and, by George, I was no longer pioneering, I had struck
an old track overgrown, and was restoring an old path. So I laboured
till I was in such a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs[2] could
scarce have found a name for it. Thereon desisted; returned to the
stream; made my way down that stony track to the garden, where the smoke
was still hanging and the sun was still in the high tree-tops, and so
home. Here, fondly supposing my long day was over, I rubbed down;
exquisite agony; water spreads the poison of these weeds; I got it all
over my hands, on my chest, in my eyes, and presently, while eating an
orange, _à la_ Rarotonga, burned my lip and eye with orange juice. Now
all day, our three small pigs had been adrift, to the mortal peril of
our corn, lettuce, onions, etc., and as I stood smarting on the back
verandah, behold the three piglings issuing from the wood just opposite.
Instantly I got together as many boys as I could--three, and got the
pigs penned against the rampart of the sty, till the others joined;
whereupon we formed a cordon, closed, captured the deserters, and
dropped them, squeaking amain, into their strengthened barracks where,
please God, they may now stay!
Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you are not the head of a
plantation, my juvenile friend. Politics succeeded: Henry got adrift in
his English, Bene was too cowardly to tell me what he was after: result,
I have lost seven good labourers, and had to sit down and write to you
to keep my temper. Let me sketch my lads.--Henry--Henry has gone down to
town or I could not be writing to you--this were the hour of his English
lesson else, when he learns what he calls "long explessions" or "your
chief's language" for the matter of an hour and a half--Henry is a
chiefling from Savaii; I once loathed, I now like and--pending fresh
discoveries--have a kind of respect for Henry. He does good work for us;
goes among the labourers, bossing and watching; helps Fanny; is civil,
kindly, thoughtful; _O si sic semper!_ But will he be "his sometime self
throughout the year"? Anyway, he has deserved of us, and he must
disappoint me sharply ere I give him up.--Bene--or Peni--Ben, in plain
English--is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him! God made a
truckling coward, there is his full history. He cannot tell me what he
wants; he dares not tell me what is wrong; he dares not transmit my
orders or translate my censures. And with all this, honest, sober,
industrious, miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own
unmanliness.--Paul--a German--cook and steward--a glutton of work--a
splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (1) no cook; (2) an inveterate
bungler; a man with twenty thumbs, continually falling in the dishes,
throwing out the dinner, preserving the garbage; (3) a dr----, well,
don't let us say that--but we daren't let him go to town, and he--poor,
good soul--is afraid to be let go.--Lafaele (Raphael), a strong, dull,
deprecatory man; splendid with an axe, if watched; the better for a
rowing, when he calls me "Papa" in the most wheedling tones; desperately
afraid of ghosts, so that he dare not walk alone up in the banana
patch--see map. The rest are changing labourers; and to-night, owing to
the miserable cowardice of Peni, who did not venture to tell me what the
men wanted--and which was no more than fair--all are gone--and my
weeding in the article of being finished! Pity the sorrows of a planter.
I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you, The Planter,
R. L. S.
_Tuesday, 3rd._--I begin to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; you
sit down every day and pour out an equable stream of twaddle.
This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trouble had fallen to
the lot of Peni himself, who deserved it; my field was full of weeders;
and I am again able to justify the ways of God. All morning I worked at
the _South Seas_, and finished the chapter I had stuck upon on Saturday.
Fanny, awfully hove-to with rheumatics and injuries received upon the
field of sport and glory, chasing pigs, was unable to go up and down
stairs, so she sat upon the back verandah, and my work was chequered by
her cries. "Paul, you take a spade to do that--dig a hole first. If you
do that, you'll cut your foot off! Here, you boy, what you do there? You
no get work? You go find Simelé; he give you work. Peni, you tell this
boy he go find Simelé; suppose Simelé no give him work, you tell him go
'way. I no want him here. That boy no good."--_Peni_ (from the distance
in reassuring tones), "All right, sir!"--_Fanny_ (after a long pause),
"Peni, you tell that boy go find Simelé! I no want him stand here all
day. I no pay that boy. I see him all day. He no do nothing."--Luncheon,
beef, soda-scones, fried bananas, pine-apple in claret, coffee. Try to
write a poem; no go. Play the flageolet. Then sneakingly off to
farmering and pioneering. Four gangs at work on our place; a lively
scene; axes crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives are out. But I
rob the garden party of one without a stock, and you should see my
hand--cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my path up the Vaituliga
single-handed, and I want it to burst on the public complete. Hence,
with devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different places; so that if you
stumble on one section, you may not even then suspect the fulness of my
labours. Accordingly, I started in a new place, below the wire, and
hoping to work up to it. It was perhaps lucky I had so bad a cutlass,
and my smarting hand bid me stay before I had got up to the wire, but
just in season, so that I was only the better of my activity, not dead
beat as yesterday.
A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; away above, the sun
was in the high tree-tops; the lianas noosed and sought to hang me; the
saplings struggled, and came up with that sob of death that one gets to
know so well; great, soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of the cutlass,
little tough switches laughed at and dared my best endeavour. Soon,
toiling down in that pit of verdure, I heard blows on the far side, and
then laughter. I confess a chill settled on my heart. Being so dead
alone, in a place where by rights none should be beyond me, I was aware,
upon interrogation, if those blows had drawn nearer, I should (of course
quite unaffectedly) have executed a strategic movement to the rear; and
only the other day I was lamenting my insensibility to superstition! Am
I beginning to be sucked in? Shall I become a midnight twitterer like my
neighbours? At times I thought the blows were echoes; at times I thought
the laughter was from birds. For our birds are strangely human in their
calls. Vaea mountain about sundown sometimes rings with shrill cries,
like the hails of merry, scattered children. As a matter of fact, I
believe stealthy wood-cutters from Tanugamanono were above me in the
wood and answerable for the blows; as for the laughter, a woman and two
children had come and asked Fanny's leave to go up shrimp-fishing in the
burn; beyond doubt, it was these I heard. Just at the right time I
returned; to wash down, change, and begin this snatch of letter before
dinner was ready, and to finish it afterwards, before Henry has yet put
in an appearance for his lesson in "long explessions."
Dinner: stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas, new loaf-bread hot from
the oven, pine-apple in claret. These are great days; we have been low
in the past; but now are we as belly-gods, enjoying all things.
_Wednesday_, (_Hist. Vailima resumed._)--A gorgeous evening of
after-glow in the great tree-tops and behind the mountain, and full moon
over the lowlands and the sea, inaugurated a night of horrid cold. To
you effete denizens of the so-called temperate zone, it had seemed
nothing; neither of us could sleep; we were up seeking extra coverings,
I know not at what hour--it was as bright as day. The moon right over
Vaea--near due west, the birds strangely silent, and the wood of the
house tingling with cold; I believe it must have been 60°! Consequence:
Fanny has a headache and is wretched, and I could do no work. (I am
trying all round for a place to hold my pen; you will hear why later on;
this to explain penmanship.) I wrote two pages, very bad, no movement,
no life or interest; then I wrote a business letter; then took to
tootling on the flageolet, till glory should call me farmering.
I took up at the fit time Lafaele and Mauga--Mauga, accent on the first,
is a mountain, I don't know what Maugà means--mind what I told you of
the value of g--to the garden, and set them digging, then turned my
attention to the path. I could not go into my bush path for two reasons:
1st, sore hands; 2nd, had on my trousers and good shoes. Lucky it was.
Right in the wild lime hedge which cuts athwart us just homeward of the
garden, I found a great bed of kuikui--sensitive plant--our deadliest
enemy. A fool brought it to this island in a pot, and used to lecture
and sentimentalise over the tender thing. The tender thing has now taken
charge of this island, and men fight it, with torn hands, for bread and
life. A singular, insidious thing, shrinking and biting like a weasel;
clutching by its roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought him,
I bettered some verses in my poem, _The Woodman_;[3] the only thought I
gave to letters. Though the kuikui was thick, there was but a small
patch of it, and when I was done I attacked the wild lime, and had a
hand-to-hand skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this
time, close by, in the cleared space of the garden, Lafaele and Maugà
were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, "Somebody he sing out."--"Somebody
he sing out? All right. I go." And I went and found they had been
whistling and "singing out" for long, but the fold of the hill and the
uncleared bush shuts in the garden so that no one heard, and I was late
for dinner, and Fanny's headache was cross; and when the meal was over,
we had to cut up a pineapple which was going bad, to make jelly of; and
the next time you have a handful of broken blood-blisters, apply
pine-apple juice, and you will give me news of it, and I request a
specimen of your hand of write five minutes after--the historic moment
when I tackled this history. My day so far.
Fanny was to have rested. Blessed Paul began making a duck-house; she
let him be; the duck-house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it.
He was then to make a drinking-place for the pigs; she let him be
again--he made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this
evening, and she was near weeping. Impossible to blame the indefatigable
fellow; energy is too rare and goodwill too noble a thing to discourage;
but it's trying when she wants a rest. Then she had to cook the dinner;
then, of course--like a fool and a woman--must wait dinner for me, and
make a flurry of herself. Her day so far. _Cetera adhuc desunt._
_Friday_--_I think._--I have been too tired to add to this chronicle,
which will at any rate give you some guess of our employment. All goes
well; the kuikui--(think of this mispronunciation having actually
infected me to the extent of misspelling! tuitui is the word by
rights)--the tuitui is all out of the paddock--a fenced park between the
house and boundary; Peni's men start to-day on the road; the garden is
part burned, part dug; and Henry, at the head of a troop of underpaid
assistants, is hard at work clearing. The part clearing you will see
from the map; from the house run down to the stream side, up the stream
nearly as high as the garden; then back to the star which I have just
added to the map.
My long, silent contests in the forest have had a strange effect on me.
The unconcealed vitality of these vegetables, their exuberant number and
strength, the attempts--I can use no other word--of lianas to enwrap and
capture the intruder, the awful silence, the knowledge that all my
efforts are only like the performance of an actor, the thing of a
moment, and the wood will silently and swiftly heal them up with fresh
effervescence; the cunning sense of the tuitui, suffering itself to be
touched with wind-swayed grasses and not minding--but let the grass be
moved by a man, and it shuts up; the whole silent battle, murder, and
slow death of the contending forest; weigh upon the imagination. My poem
_The Woodman_ stands; but I have taken refuge in a new story, which just
shot through me like a bullet in one of my moments of awe, alone in that
tragic jungle:--
_The High Woods of Ulufanua_[4]
1. A South Sea Bridal.
2. Under the Ban.
3. Savao and Faavao.
4. Cries in the High Wood.
5. Rumour full of Tongues.
6. The Hour of Peril.
7. The Day of Vengeance.
It is very strange, very extravagant, I dare say; but it's varied, and
picturesque, and has a pretty love affair, and ends well. Ulufanua is a
lovely Samoan word, ulu = grove; fanua = land; grove-land--"the tops of
the high trees." Savao, "sacred to the wood," and Faavao, "wood-ways,"
are the names of two of the characters, Ulufanua the name of the
supposed island.
I am very tired, and rest off to-day from all but letters. Fanny is
quite done up; she could not sleep last night, something it seemed like
asthma--I trust not. I suppose Lloyd will be about, so you can give him
the benefit of this long scrawl.[5] Never say that I _can't_ write a
letter, say that I don't.--Yours ever, my dearest fellow,
R. L. S.
_Later on Friday._--The guidwife had bread to bake, and she baked it in
a pan, O! But between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive in
the paddock. The men have but now passed over it; I was round in that
very place to see the weeding was done thoroughly, and already the
reptile springs behind our heels. Tuitui is a truly strange beast, and
gives food for thought. I am nearly sure--I cannot yet be quite, I mean
to experiment, when I am less on the hot chase of the beast--that, even
at the instant he shrivels up his leaves, he strikes his prickles
downward so as to catch the uprooting finger; instinctive, say the
gabies; but so is man's impulse to strike out. One thing that takes and
holds me is to see the strange variation in the propagation of alarm
among these rooted beasts; at times it spreads to a radius (I speak by
the guess of the eye) of five or six inches; at times only one
individual plant appears frightened at a time. We tried how long it took
one to recover; 'tis a sanguine creature; it is all abroad again before
(I guess again) two minutes. It is odd how difficult in this world it is
to be armed. The double armour of this plant betrays it. In a thick
tuft, where the leaves disappear, I thrust In my hand, and the bite of
the thorns betrays the top-most stem. In the open again, and when I
hesitate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves, and its fine sense and
retractile action betrays its identity at once. Yet it has one gift
incomparable. Rome had virtue and knowledge; Rome perished. The
sensitive plant has indigestible seeds--so they say--and it will
flourish for ever. I give my advice thus to a young plant--have a strong
root, a weak stem, and an indigestible seed; so you will outlast the
eternal city, and your progeny will clothe mountains, and the irascible
planter will blaspheme in vain. The weak point of tuitui is that its
stem is strong.
_Supplementary Page._--Here beginneth the third lesson, which is not
from the planter but from a less estimable character, the writer of
books.
I want you to understand about this South Sea Book. The job is immense;
I stagger under material. I have seen the first big _tache_. It was
necessary to see the smaller ones; the letters were at my hand for the
purpose, but I was not going to lose this experience; and, instead of
writing mere letters, have poured out a lot of stuff for the book. How
this works and fits, time is to show. But I believe, in time, I shall
get the whole thing in form. Now, up to date, that is all my design, and
I beg to warn you till we have the whole (or much) of the stuff
together, you can hardly judge--and I can hardly judge. Such a mass of
stuff is to be handled, if possible without repetition--so much foreign
matter to be introduced--if possible with perspicuity--and, as much as
can be, a spirit of narrative to be preserved. You will find that come
stronger as I proceed, and get the explanations worked through. Problems
of style are (as yet) dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural,
creative--to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I will
trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it would be splendid;
well-engineered, the masses right, the blooming thing travelling--twig?
This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff sent home is, I
imagine, rot--and slovenly rot--and some of it pompous rot; and I want
you to understand it's a _lay-in_.
Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I'll send you a whole lot to
damn. You never said thank you for the handsome tribute addressed to
you from Apemama;[6] such is the gratitude of the world to the God-sent
poick. Well, well:--"Vex not thou the poick's mind, With thy coriaceous
ingratitude, The P. will be to your faults more than a little blind, And
yours is a far from handsome attitude." Having thus dropped into poetry
in a spirit of friendship, I have the honour to subscribe myself, Sir,
your obedient humble servant,
SILAS WEGG.
I suppose by this you will have seen the lad--and his feet will have
been in the Monument--and his eyes beheld the face of George.[7] Well!
There is much eloquence in a well!
I am, Sir,
Yours
The Epigrammatist
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
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FINIS--EXPLICIT
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
The opening sentences of the following refer of course to _The
Wrecker_, and particularly to a suggestion of mine concerning the
relation of the main narrative to the prologue:--
_Vailima, Apia, Samoa, Nov. 7, 1890._
I wish you to add to the words at the end of the prologue; they run, I
think, thus, "And this is the yarn of Loudon Dodd"; add, "not as he
told, but as he wrote it afterwards for his diversion." This becomes the
more needful, because, when all is done, I shall probably revert to
Tai-o-hae, and give final details about the characters in the way of a
conversation between Dodd and Havers. These little snippets of
information and _faits-divers_ have always a disjointed, broken-backed
appearance; yet, readers like them. In this book we have introduced so
many characters, that this kind of epilogue will be looked for; and I
rather hope, looking far ahead, that I can lighten it in dialogue.
We are well past the middle now. How does it strike you? and can you
guess my mystery? It will make a fattish volume!
I say, have you ever read the _Highland Widow_? I never had till
yesterday: I am half inclined, bar a trip or two, to think it Scott's
masterpiece; and it has the name of a failure! Strange things are
readers.
I expect proofs and revises in duplicate.
We have now got into a small barrack at our place. We see the sea six
hundred feet below filling the end of two vales of forest. On one hand
the mountain runs above us some thousand feet higher; great trees stand
round us in our clearing; there is an endless voice of birds; I have
never lived in such a heaven; just now, I have fever, which mitigates
but not destroys my gusto in my circumstances.--You may envy
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
... O, I don't know if I mentioned that having seen your new tail to the
magazine, I cried off interference, at least for this trip. Did I ask
you to send me my books and papers, and all the bound volumes of the
mag.? _quorum pars_. I might add that were there a good book or
so--new--I don't believe there is--such would be welcome.
I desire--I positively begin to awake--to be remembered to Scribner,
Low, St. Gaudens, Russell Sullivan. Well, well, you fellows have the
feast of reason and the flow of soul; I have a better-looking place and
climate: you should hear the birds on the hill now! The day has just
wound up with a shower; it is still light without, though I write within
here at the cheek of a lamp; my wife and an invaluable German are
wrestling about bread on the back verandah; and how the birds and the
frogs are rattling, and piping, and hailing from the woods! Here and
there a throaty chuckle; here and there, cries like those of jolly
children who have lost their way; here and there, the ringing
sleigh-bell of the tree frog. Out and away down below me on the sea it
is still raining; it will be wet under foot on schooners, and the house
will leak; how well I know that! Here the showers only patter on the
iron roof, and sometimes roar; and within, the lamp burns steady on the
tafa-covered walls, with their dusky tartan patterns, and the
book-shelves with their thin array of books; and no squall can rout my
house or bring my heart into my mouth.--The well-pleased South Sea
Islander,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima, Tuesday, November 25th,1890._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wanted to go out bright and early to go on with my
survey. You never heard of that. The world has turned, and much water
run under bridges, since I stopped my diary. I have written six more
chapters of the book, all good I potently believe, and given up, as a
deception of the devil's, the _High Woods_. I have been once down to
Apia, to a huge native feast at Seumanutafa's, the chief of Apia. There
was a vast mass of food, crowds of people, the police charging among
them with whips, the whole in high good humour on both sides; infinite
noise; and a historic event--Mr. Clarke, the missionary, and his wife,
assisted at a native dance. On my return from this function, I found
work had stopped; no more _South Seas_ in my belly. Well, Henry had
cleared a great deal of our bush on a contract, and it ought to be
measured. I set myself to the task with a tape-line; it seemed a dreary
business; then I borrowed a prismatic compass, and tackled the task
afresh. I have no books; I had not touched an instrument nor given a
thought to the business since the year of grace 1871; you can imagine
with what interest I sat down yesterday afternoon to reduce my
observations; five triangles I had taken; all five came right, to my
ineffable joy. Our dinner--the lowest we have ever been--consisted of
_one avocado pear_ between Fanny and me, a ship's biscuit for the
guidman, white bread for the Missis, and red wine for the twa. No salt
horse, even, in all Vailima! After dinner Henry came, and I began to
teach him decimals; you wouldn't think I knew them myself after so long
desuetude!
I could not but wonder how Henry stands his evenings here; the
Polynesian loves gaiety--I feed him with decimals, the mariner's
compass, derivations, grammar, and the like; delecting myself, after the
manner of my race, _moult tristement_. I suck my paws; I live for my
dexterities and by my accomplishments; even my clumsinesses are my
joy--my woodcuts, my stumbling on the pipe, this surveying even--and
even weeding sensitive; anything to do with the mind, with the eye, with
the hand--with a part of _me_; diversion flows in these ways for the
dreary man. But gaiety is what these children want; to sit in a crowd,
tell stories and pass jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with
the girls. It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R.L.S., _ætat._
40. Which I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the worse
that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board ship is reward
enough for me; give me the wages of going on--in a schooner! Only, if
ever I were gay, which I misremember, I am gay no more. And here is poor
Henry passing his evenings on my intellectual husks, which the
professors masticated; keeping the accounts of the estate--all wrong I
have no doubt--I keep no check, beyond a very rough one; marching in
with a cloudy brow, and the day-book under his arm; tackling decimals,
coming with cases of conscience--how would an English chief behave in
such a case? etc.; and, I am bound to say, on any glimmer of a jest,
lapsing into native hilarity as a tree straightens itself after the wind
is by. The other night I remembered my old friend--I believe yours
also--Scholastikos, and administered the crow and the anchor--they were
quite fresh to Samoan ears (this implies a very early severance)--and I
thought the anchor would have made away with my Simelé altogether.
Fanny's time, in this interval, has been largely occupied in contending
publicly with wild swine. We have a black sow; we call her Jack
Sheppard; impossible to confine her--impossible also for her to be
confined! To my sure knowledge she has been in an interesting condition
for longer than any other sow in story; else she had long died the
death; as soon as she is brought to bed, she shall count her days. I
suppose that sow has cost us in days' labour from thirty to fifty
dollars; as many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve
hours in chase of her. Now it is supposed that Fanny has outwitted her;
she grins behind broad planks in what was once the cook-house. She is a
wild pig; far handsomer than any tame; and when she found the cook-house
was too much for her methods of evasion, she lay down on the floor and
refused food and drink for a whole Sunday. On Monday morning she
relapsed, and now eats and drinks like a little man. I am reminded of an
incident. Two Sundays ago, the sad word was brought that the sow was out
again; this time she had carried another in her flight. Moors and I and
Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and there by the waterside we saw
the black sow, looking guilty. It seemed to me beyond words; but Fanny's
_cri du coeur_ was delicious: "G-r-r!" she cried; "nobody loves you!"
I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart and cart-horses;
the latter are dapple-grey, about sixteen hands, and of enormous
substance; the former was a kind of red and green shandrydan with a
driving bench; plainly unfit to carry lumber or to face our road.
(Remember that the last third of my road, about a mile, is all made out
of a bridle-track by my boys--and my dollars.) It was supposed a white
man had been found--an ex-German artilleryman--to drive this last; he
proved incapable and drunken; the gallant Henry, who had never driven
before, and knew nothing about horses--except the rats and weeds that
flourish on the islands--volunteered; Moors accepted, proposing to
follow and supervise: despatched his work and started after. No cart! he
hurried on up the road--no cart. Transfer the scene to Vailima, where on
a sudden, to Fanny and me, the cart appears, apparently at a hard
gallop, some two hours before it was expected; Henry radiantly ruling
chaos from the bench. It stopped: it was long before we had time to
remark that the axle was twisted like the letter L. Our first care was
the horses. There they stood, black with sweat, the sweat raining from
them--literally raining--their heads down, their feet apart--and blood
running thick from the nostrils of the mare. We got out Fanny's
under-clothes--couldn't find anything else but our blankets--to rub them
down, and in about half an hour we had the blessed satisfaction to see
one after the other take a bite or two of grass. But it was a toucher;
a little more and these steeds would have been foundered.
_Monday, 31st(?) November._--Near a week elapsed, and no journal. On
Monday afternoon, Moors rode up and I rode down with him, dined, and
went over in the evening to the American consulate; present,
Consul-General Sewall, Lieut. Parker and Mrs. Parker, Lafarge the
American decorator, Adams an American historian; we talked late, and it
was arranged I was to write up for Fanny, and we should both dine on the
morrow.
On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the mission house, lunched at the
German consulate, went on board the _Sperber_(German war-ship) in the
afternoon, called on my lawyer on my way out to American Consulate, and
talked till dinner time with Adams, whom I am supplying with
introductions and information for Tahiti and the Marquesas. Fanny
arrived a wreck, and had to lie down. The moon rose, one day past full,
and we dined in the verandah, a good dinner on the whole; talk with
Lafarge about art and the lovely dreams of art students.[8] Remark by
Adams, which took me briskly home to the Monument--"I only liked one
_young_ woman--and that was Mrs. Procter."[9] Henry James would like
that. Back by moonlight in the consulate boat--Fanny being too tired to
walk--to Moors's. Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was off early to
the Mission, where the politics are thrilling just now. The native
pastors (to every one's surprise) have moved of themselves in the
matter of the native dances, desiring the restrictions to be removed, or
rather to be made dependent on the character of the dance. Clarke, who
had feared censure and all kinds of trouble, is, of course, rejoicing
greatly. A characteristic feature: the argument of the pastors was
handed in in the form of a fictitious narrative of the voyage of one Mr.
Pye, an English traveller, and his conversation with a chief; there are
touches of satire in this educational romance. Mr. Pye, for instance,
admits that he knows nothing about the Bible. At the Mission I was
sought out by Henry in a devil of an agitation; he has been made the
victim of a forgery--a crime hitherto unknown in Samoa. I had to go to
Folau, the chief judge here, in the matter. Folau had never heard of the
offence, and begged to know what was the punishment; there may be lively
times in forgery ahead. It seems the sort of crime to tickle a
Polynesian. After lunch--you can see what a busy three days I am
describing--we set off to ride home. My Jack was full of the devil of
corn and too much grass, and no work. I had to ride ahead and leave
Fanny behind. He is a most gallant little rascal is my Jack, and takes
the whole way as hard as the rider pleases. Single incident: half-way
up, I find my boys upon the road and stop and talk with Henry in his
character of ganger, as long as Jack will suffer me. Fanny drones in
after; we make a show of eating--or I do--she goes to bed about
half-past six! I write some verses, read Irving's _Washington_, and
follow about half-past eight. O, one thing more I did, in a prophetic
spirit. I had made sure Fanny was not fit to be left alone, and wrote
before turning in a letter to Chalmers, telling him I could not meet him
in Auckland at this time. By eleven at night, Fanny got me wakened--she
had tried twice in vain--and I found her very bad. Thence till three, we
laboured with mustard poultices, laudanum, soda and ginger--Heavens!
wasn't it cold; the land breeze was as cold as a river; the moon was
glorious in the paddock, and the great boughs and the black shadows of
our trees were inconceivable. But it was a poor time.
Sunday morning found Fanny, of course, a complete wreck, and myself not
very brilliant. Paul had to go to Vailele _re_ cocoa-nuts; it was
doubtful if he could be back by dinner; never mind, said I, I'll take
dinner when you return. Off set Paul. I did an hour's work, and then
tackled the house work. I did it beautiful: the house was a picture, it
resplended of propriety. Presently Mr. Moors' Andrew rode up; I heard
the doctor was at the Forest House and sent a note to him; and when he
came, I heard my wife telling him she had been in bed all day, and that
was why the house was so dirty! Was it grateful? Was it politic? Was it
TRUE?--Enough! In the interval, up marched little L. S., one of my
neighbours, all in his Sunday white linens; made a fine salute, and
demanded the key of the kitchen in German and English. And he cooked
dinner for us, like a little man, and had it on the table and the coffee
ready by the hour. Paul had arranged me this surprise. Some time later,
Paul returned himself with a fresh surprise on hand; he was almost
sober; nothing but a hazy eye distinguished him from Paul of the week
days: _vivat!_
On the evening I cannot dwell. All the horses got out of the paddock,
went across, and smashed my neighbour's garden into a big hole. How
little the amateur conceives a farmer's troubles. I went out at once
with a lantern, staked up a gap in the hedge, was kicked at by a
chestnut mare, who straightway took to the bush; and came back. A little
after, they had found another gap, and the crowd were all abroad again.
What has happened to our own garden nobody yet knows.
Fanny had a fair night, and we are both tolerable this morning, only the
yoke of correspondence lies on me heavy. I beg you will let this go on
to my mother. I got such a good start in your letter, that I kept on at
it, and I have neither time nor energy for more.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
_Something new_.--I was called from my letters by the voice of Mr. ----,
who had just come up with a load of wood, roaring, "Henry! Henry! Bring
six boys!" I saw there was something wrong, and ran out. The cart, half
unloaded, had upset with the mare in the shafts; she was all cramped
together and all tangled up in harness and cargo, the off shaft pushing
her over, the carter holding her up by main strength, and right
along-side of her--where she must fall if she went down--a deadly stick
of a tree like a lance. I could not but admire the wisdom and faith of
this great brute; I never saw the riding-horse that would not have lost
its life in such a situation; but the cart-elephant patiently waited and
was saved. It was a stirring three minutes, I can tell you.
I forgot in talking of Saturday to tell of one incident which will
particularly interest my mother. I met Dr. Davis from Savaii, and had an
age-long talk about Edinburgh folk; it was very pleasant. He has been
studying in Edinburgh, along with his son; a pretty relation. He told me
he knew nobody but college people: "I was altogether a student," he said
with glee. He seems full of cheerfulness and thick-set energy. I feel as
if I could put him in a novel with effect; and ten to one, if I know
more of him, the image will be only blurred.
_Tuesday, Dec. 2nd._--I should have told you yesterday that all my boys
were got up for their work in moustaches and side-whiskers of some sort
of blacking--I suppose wood-ash. It was a sight of joy to see them
return at night, axe on shoulder, feigning to march like soldiers, a
choragus with a loud voice singing out, "March--step! March--step!" in
imperfect recollection of some drill.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
The intention here announced was only carried out to the extent of
finishing one paper, _My First Book_, and beginning a few
others--_Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae, Rosa Quo Locorum_,
etc.; see Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. The "long
experience of gambling places" is a phrase which must not be
misunderstood. Stevenson loved risk to life and limb, but hated
gambling for money, and had known the tables only as a looker-on
during holiday or invalid travels as a boy and young man. "Tamate" is
the native (Rarotongan) word for trader, used especially as a name
for the famous missionary pioneer, the Rev. James Chalmers, for whom
Stevenson had an unbounded respect.
[_Vailima, December 1890._]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--By some diabolical accident, I have mislaid your
last. What was in it? I know not, and here I am caught unexpectedly by
the American mail, a week earlier than by computation. The computation,
not the mail, is supposed to be in error. The vols. of Scribner's have
arrived, and present a noble appearance in my house, which is not a
noble structure at present. But by autumn we hope to be sprawling in our
verandah, twelve feet, sir, by eighty-eight in front, and seventy-two on
the flank; view of the sea and mountains, sunrise, moonrise, and the
German fleet at anchor three miles away in Apia harbour. I hope some day
to offer you a bowl of kava there, or a slice of a pine-apple, or some
lemonade from my own hedge. "I know a hedge where the lemons
grow"--_Shakespeare_. My house at this moment smells of them strong; and
the rain, which a while ago roared there, now rings in minute drops upon
the iron roof. I have no _Wrecker_ for you this mail, other things
having engaged me. I was on the whole rather relieved you did not vote
for regular papers, as I feared the traces. It is my design from time to
time to write a paper of a reminiscential (beastly word) description;
some of them I could scarce publish from different considerations; but
some of them--for instance, my long experience of gambling
places--Homburg, Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, old Monaco, and new Monte
Carlo--would make good magazine padding, if I got the stuff handled the
right way. I never could fathom why verse was put in magazines; it has
something to do with the making-up, has it not? I am scribbling a lot
just now; if you are taken badly that way, apply to the South Seas. I
could send you some, I believe, anyway, only none of it is thoroughly
ripe. If you have kept back the volume of ballads, I'll soon make it of
a respectable size if this fit continue. By the next mail you may expect
some more _Wrecker_, or I shall be displeased. Probably no more than a
chapter, however, for it is a hard one, and I am denuded of my proofs,
my collaborator having walked away with them to England; hence some
trouble in catching the just note.
I am a mere farmer: my talk, which would scarce interest you on
Broadway, is all of fuafua and tuitui and black boys, and planting and
weeding, and axes and cutlasses; my hands are covered with blisters and
full of thorns; letters are, doubtless, a fine thing, so are beer and
skittles, but give me farmering in the tropics for real interest. Life
goes in enchantment; I come home to find I am late for dinner; and when
I go to bed at night, I could cry for the weariness of my loins and
thighs. Do not speak to me of vexation, the life brims with it, but with
living interest fairly.
Christmas I go to Auckland, to meet Tamate, the New Guinea missionary, a
man I love. The rest of my life is a prospect of much rain, much weeding
and making of paths, a little letters, and devilish little to eat.--I
am, my dear Burlingame, with messages to all whom it may concern, very
sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] Monday, twenty-somethingth of December 1890._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I do not say my Jack is anything extraordinary; he is
only an island horse; and the profane might call him a Punch; and his
face is like a donkey's; and natives have ridden him, and he has no
mouth in consequence, and occasionally shies. But his merits are equally
surprising; and I don't think I should ever have known Jack's merits if
I had not been riding up of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a
dandy; he loves to misbehave in a gallant manner, above all on Apia
Street, and when I stop to speak to people, they say (Dr. Stuebel the
German consul said about three days ago), "O what a wild horse! it
cannot be safe to ride him." Such a remark is Jack's reward, and
represents his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia on a dark
night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast steady walk, with his
head down, and sometimes his nose to the ground--when he wants to do
that, he asks for his head with a little eloquent polite movement
indescribable--he climbs the long ascent and threads the darkest of the
wood. The first night I came it was starry; and it was singular to see
the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, and shine in the
open end of the road, as bright as moonlight at home; but the crypt
itself was proof, blackness lived in it. The next night it was raining.
We left the lights of Apia and passed into limbo. Jack finds a way for
himself, but he does not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I
am directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding my switch
upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting. In the forest, the
dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights the whole ground is strewn with
it, so that it seems like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is
one of the things that feed the night fears of the natives; and I am
free to confess that in a night of trackless darkness where all else is
void, these pallid _ignes suppositi_ have a fantastic appearance, rather
bogey even. One night, when it was very dark, a man had put out a little
lantern by the wayside to show the entrance to his ground. I saw the
light, as I thought, far ahead, and supposed it was a pedestrian coming
to meet me; I was quite taken by surprise when it struck in my face and
passed behind me. Jack saw it, and he was appalled; do you think he
thought of shying? No, sir, not in the dark; in the dark Jack knows he
is on duty; and he went past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he
went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only
passed one house--that where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these
are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on tap again, and
the roads lighted.
[Illustration:
1. _Three posts._ 5. _Sink of the Tuluiga._
2. _Leather Bottle._ 6. _Silent Falls._
3. _Old Walls._ 7. _Garden._
4. _Wreck Hill._]
I have been exploring up the Vaituluiga; see your map. It comes down a
wonderful fine glen; at least 200 feet of cliffs on either hand, winding
like a corkscrew, great forest trees filling it. At the top there ought
to be a fine double fall; but the stream evades it by a fault and
passes underground. Above the fall it runs (at this season) full and
very gaily in a shallow valley, some hundred yards before the head of
the glen. Its course is seen full of grasses, like a flooded meadow;
that is the sink! beyond the grave of the grasses, the bed lies dry.
Near this upper part there is a great show of ruinous pig-walls; a
village must have stood near by.
To walk from our house to Wreck Hill (when the path is buried in fallen
trees) takes one about half an hour, I think; to return, not more than
twenty minutes; I dare say fifteen. Hence I should guess it was
three-quarters of a mile. I had meant to join on my explorations passing
eastward by the sink; but, Lord! how it rains.
_Later._--I went out this morning with a pocket compass and walked in a
varying direction, perhaps on an average S. by W., 1754 paces. Then I
struck into the bush, N.W. by N., hoping to strike the Vaituluiga above
the falls. Now I have it plotted out I see I should have gone W. or even
W. by S.; but it is not easy to guess. For 600 weary paces I struggled
through the bush, and then came on the stream below the gorge, where it
was comparatively easy to get down to it. In the place where I struck
it, it made cascades about a little isle, and was running about N.E., 20
to 30 feet wide, as deep as to my knee, and piercing cold. I tried to
follow it down, and keep the run of its direction and my paces; but when
I was wading to the knees and the waist in mud, poison brush, and rotted
wood, bound hand and foot in lianas, shovelled unceremoniously off the
one shore and driven to try my luck upon the other--I saw I should have
hard enough work to get my body down, if my mind rested. It was a
damnable walk; certainly not half a mile as the crow flies, but a real
bucketer for hardship. Once I had to pass the stream where it flowed
between banks about three feet high. To get the easier down, I swung
myself by a wild-cocoanut--(so called, it bears bunches of scarlet
nutlets)--which grew upon the brink. As I so swung, I received a crack
on the head that knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what tree
had taken a shy at me. So many towered above, one over the other, and
the missile, whatever it was, dropped in the stream and was gone before
I had recovered my wits. (I scarce know what I write, so hideous a
Niagara of rain roars, shouts, and demonizes on the iron roof--it is
pitch dark too--the lamp lit at 5!) It was a blessed thing when I struck
my own road; and I got home, neat for lunch time, one of the most
wonderful mud statues ever witnessed. In the afternoon I tried again,
going up the other path by the garden, but was early drowned out; came
home, plotted out what I had done, and then wrote this truck to you.
Fanny has been quite ill with ear-ache. She won't go,[10] hating the sea
at this wild season; I don't like to leave her; so it drones on, steamer
after steamer, and I guess it'll end by no one going at all. She is in a
dreadful misfortune at this hour; a case of kerosene having burst in the
kitchen. A little while ago it was the carpenter's horse that trod in a
nest of fourteen eggs, and made an omelette of our hopes. The farmer's
lot is not a happy one. And it looks like some real uncompromising bad
weather too. I wish Fanny's ear were well. Think of parties in
Monuments! think of me in Skerryvore, and now of this. It don't look
like a part of the same universe to me. Work is quite laid aside; I have
worked myself right out.
_Christmas Eve._--Yesterday, who could write? My wife near crazy with
ear-ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing hell's
tattoo, like a _tutti_ of battering rams, on our sheet-iron roof; the
wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us
full, so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung
their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in the
shed like things stupid. The sea and the flagship lying on the jaws of
the bay vanished in sheer rain. All day it lasted; I locked up my papers
in the iron box, in case it was a hurricane, and the house might go. We
went to bed with mighty uncertain feelings; far more than on shipboard,
where you have only drowning ahead--whereas here you have a smash of
beams, a shower of sheet-iron, and a blind race in the dark and through
a whirlwind for the shelter of an unfinished stable--and my wife with
ear-ache! Well, well, this morning, we had word from Apia; a hurricane
was looked for, the ships were to leave the bay by 10 A.M.; it is now
3.30, and the flagship is still a fixture, and the wind round in the
blessed east, so I suppose the danger is over. But heaven is still
laden; the day dim, with frequent rattling bucketfuls of rain; and just
this moment (as I write) a squall went overhead, scarce striking us,
with that singular, solemn noise of its passage, which is to me
dreadful. I have always feared the sound of wind beyond everything. In
my hell it would always blow a gale.
I have been all day correcting proofs, and making out a new plan for our
house. The other was too dear to be built now, and it was a hard task to
make a smaller house that would suffice for the present, and not be a
mere waste of money in the future. I believe I have succeeded; I have
taken care of my study anyway.
Two favours I want to ask of you. First, I wish you to get _Pioneering
in New Guinea_, by J. Chalmers. It's a missionary book, and has less
pretensions to be literature than Spurgeon's sermons. Yet I think even
through that, you will see some of the traits of the hero that wrote it;
a man that took me fairly by storm for the most attractive, simple,
brave, and interesting man in the whole Pacific. He is away now to go up
the Fly River; a desperate venture, it is thought; he is quite a
Livingstone card.
Second, try and keep yourself free next winter; and if my means can be
stretched so far, I'll come to Egypt and we'll meet at Shepheard's
Hotel, and you'll put me in my place, which I stand in need of badly by
this time. Lord, what bully times! I suppose I'll come per British Asia,
or whatever you call it, and avoid all cold, and might be in Egypt about
November as ever was--eleven months from now or rather less. But do not
let us count our chickens.
Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our pig-pens. The
great Lafaele appeared to my wife uneasy, so she engaged him in
conversation on the subject, and played upon him the following engaging
trick. You advance your two forefingers towards the sitter's eyes; he
closes them, whereupon you substitute (on his eyelids) the fore and
middle fingers of the left hand; and with your right (which he supposes
engaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you let him open his
eyes, he sees you withdrawing the two forefingers. "What that?" asked
Lafaele. "My devil," says Fanny. "I wake um, my devil. All right now. He
go catch the man that catch my pig." About an hour afterwards, Lafaele
came for further particulars. "O, all right," my wife says. "By and by,
that man he sleep, devil go sleep same place. By and by, that man plenty
sick. I no care. What for he take my pig?" Lafaele cares plenty; I don't
think he is the man, though he may be; but he knows him, and most likely
will eat some of that pig to-night. He will not eat with relish.
_Saturday, 27th._--It cleared up suddenly after dinner, and my wife and
I saddled up and off to Apia, whence we did not return till yesterday
morning. Christmas Day I wish you could have seen our party at table. H.
J. Moors at one end with my wife, I at the other with Mrs. M., between
us two native women, Carruthers the lawyer, Moors's two
shop-boys--Walters and A. M. the quadroon--and the guests of the
evening, Shirley Baker, the defamed and much-accused man of Tonga, and
his son, with the artificial joint to his arm--where the assassins shot
him in shooting at his father. Baker's appearance is not unlike John
Bull on a cartoon; he is highly interesting to speak to, as I had
expected; I found he and I had many common interests, and were engaged
in puzzling over many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was
quite pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily pleased and
prettily behaved. In the morning I should say I had been to lunch at the
German consulate, where I had as usual a very pleasant time. I shall
miss Dr. Stuebel[11] much when he leaves, and when Adams and Lafarge go
also, it will be a great blow. I am getting spoiled with all this good
society.
On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs before seven; and
they kept me in Apia till past ten, disputing, and consulting about
brick and stone and native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and
all sorts of otiose details about the chimney--just what I fled from in
my father's office twenty years ago; I should have made a languid
engineer. Rode up with the carpenter. Ah, my wicked Jack! on Christmas
Eve, as I was taking the saddle bag off, he kicked at me, and fetched me
too, right on the shin. On Friday, being annoyed at the carpenter's
horse having a longer trot, he uttered a shrill cry and tried to bite
him! Alas, alas, these are like old days; my dear Jack is a Bogue,[12]
but I cannot strangle Jack into submission.
I have given up the big house for just now; we go ahead right away with
a small one, which should be ready in two months, and I suppose will
suffice for just now.
O I know I haven't told you about our _aitu_, have I? It is a lady,
_aitu fafine_: she lives on the mountain-side; her presence is heralded
by the sound of a gust of wind; a sound very common in the high woods;
when she catches you, I do not know what happens; but in practice she
is avoided, so I suppose she does more than pass the time of day. The
great _aitu Saumai-afe_ was once a living woman, and became an _aitu_,
no one understands how; she lives in a stream at the well-head, her hair
is red, she appears as a lovely young lady, her bust particularly
admired, to handsome young men; these die, her love being fatal;--as a
handsome youth she has been known to court damsels with the like result,
but this is very rare; as an old crone she goes about and asks for
water, and woe to them who are uncivil! _Saumai-afe_ means literally,
"Come here a thousand!" A good name for a lady of her manners. My _aitu
fafine_ does not seem to be in the same line of business. It is unsafe
to be a handsome youth in Samoa; a young man died from her favours last
month--so we said on this side of the island; on the other, where he
died, it was not so certain. I, for one, blame it on Madam _Saumai-afe_
without hesitation.
Example of the farmer's sorrows. I slipped out on the balcony a moment
ago. It is a lovely morning, cloudless, smoking hot, the breeze not yet
arisen. Looking west, in front of our new house, I saw two heads of
Indian corn wagging, and the rest and all nature stock still. As I
looked, one of the stalks subsided and disappeared. I dashed out to the
rescue; two small pigs were deep in the grass--quite hid till within a
few yards--gently but swiftly demolishing my harvest. Never be a farmer.
12.30 _p.m._--I while away the moments of digestion by drawing you a
faithful picture of my morning. When I had done writing as above it was
time to clean our house. When I am working, it falls on my wife alone,
but to-day we had it between us; she did the bedroom, I the
sitting-room, in fifty-seven minutes of really most unpalatable labour.
Then I changed every stitch, for I was wet through, and sat down and
played on my pipe till dinner was ready, mighty pleased to be in a
mildly habitable spot once more. The house had been neglected for near a
week, and was a hideous spot; my wife's ear and our visit to Apia being
the causes: our Paul we prefer not to see upon that theatre, and God
knows he has plenty to do elsewhere.
I am glad to look out of my back door and see the boys smoothing the
foundations of the new house; this is all very jolly, but six months of
it has satisfied me; we have too many things for such close quarters; to
work in the midst of all the myriad misfortunes of the planter's life,
seated in a Dyonisius' (can't spell him) ear, whence I catch every
complaint, mishap and contention, is besides the devil; and the hope of
a cave of my own inspires me with lust. O to be able to shut my own door
and make my own confusion! O to have the brown paper and the matches and
"make a hell of my own" once more!
I do not bother you with all my troubles in these outpourings; the
troubles of the farmer are inspiriting--they are like difficulties out
hunting--a fellow rages at the time and rejoices to recall and to
commemorate them. My troubles have been financial. It is hard to arrange
wisely interests so distributed. America, England, Samoa, Sydney,
everywhere I have an end of liability hanging out and some shelf of
credit hard by; and to juggle all these and build a dwelling-place here,
and check expense--a thing I am ill fitted for--you can conceive what a
nightmare it is at times. Then God knows I have not been idle. But since
_The Master_ nothing has come to raise any coins. I believe the springs
are dry at home, and now I am worked out, and can no more at all. A
holiday is required.
_Dec. 28th._--I have got unexpectedly to work again, and feel quite
dandy. Good-bye.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
Mr. Lafarge the artist and Mr. Henry Adams the historian have been
mentioned already. The pinch in the matter of eatables only lasted
for a little while, until Mrs. Stevenson had taken her bearings and
made her arrangements in the matter of marketing, etc.
_Vailima, Apia, Samoa, December 29th, 1890._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--It is terrible how little everybody writes, and
how much of that little disappears in the capacious maw of the Post
Office. Many letters, both from and to me, I now know to have been lost
in transit: my eye is on the Sydney Post Office, a large ungainly
structure with a tower, as being not a hundred miles from the scene of
disappearance; but then I have no proof. The _Tragic Muse_ you announced
to me as coming; I had already ordered it from a Sydney bookseller:
about two months ago he advised me that his copy was in the post; and I
am still tragically museless.
News, news, news. What do we know of yours? What do you care for ours?
We are in the midst of the rainy season, and dwell among alarms of
hurricanes, in a very unsafe little two-storied wooden box 650 feet
above and about three miles from the sea-beach. Behind us, till the
other slope of the island, desert forest, peaks, and loud torrents; in
front green slopes to the sea, some fifty miles of which we dominate. We
see the ships as they go out and in to the dangerous roadstead of Apia;
and if they lie far out, we can even see their topmasts while they are
at anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there
reach us, at very long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour,
the bell of the cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling
the labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday, which was
Sunday--the _quantième_ is most likely erroneous; you can now correct
it--we had a visitor--Baker of Tonga. Heard you ever of him? He is a
great man here: he is accused of theft, rape, judicial murder, private
poisoning, abortion, misappropriation of public moneys--oddly enough,
not forgery, nor arson; you would be amused if you knew how thick the
accusations fly in this South Sea world. I make no doubt my own
character is something illustrious; or if not yet, there is a good time
coming.
But all our resources have not of late been Pacific. We have had
enlightened society: Lafarge the painter, and your friend Henry Adams: a
great privilege--would it might endure. I would go oftener to see them,
but the place is awkward to reach on horseback. I had to swim my horse
the last time I went to dinner; and as I have not yet returned the
clothes I had to borrow, I dare not return in the same plight: it seems
inevitable--as soon as the wash comes in, I plump straight into the
American consul's shirt or trousers! They, I believe, would come oftener
to see me but for the horrid doubt that weighs upon our commissariat
department; we have _often_ almost nothing to eat; a guest would simply
break the bank; my wife and I have dined on one avocado pear; I have
several times dined on hard bread and onions. What would you do with a
guest at such narrow seasons?--eat him? or serve up a labour boy
fricasseed?
Work? work is now arrested, but I have written, I should think, about
thirty chapters of the South Sea book; they will all want rehandling, I
dare say. Gracious, what a strain is a long book! The time it took me to
design this volume, before I could dream of putting pen to paper, was
excessive; and then think of writing a book of travels on the spot, when
I am continually extending my information, revising my opinions, and
seeing the most finely finished portions of my work come part by part in
pieces. Very soon I shall have no opinions left. And without an opinion,
how to string artistically vast accumulations of fact? Darwin said no
one could observe without a theory; I suppose he was right; 'tis a fine
point of metaphysic; but I will take my oath, no man can write without
one--at least the way he would like to, and my theories melt, melt,
melt, and as they melt the thaw-waters wash down my writing, and leave
unideal tracts--wastes instead of cultivated farms.
Kipling is by far the most promising young man who has appeared
since--ahem--I appeared. He amazes me by his precocity and various
endowment. But he alarms me by his copiousness and haste. He should
shield his fire with both hands "and draw up all his strength and
sweetness in one ball." ("Draw all his strength and all His sweetness up
into one ball"? I cannot remember Marvell's words.) So the critics have
been saying to me: but I was never capable of--and surely never guilty
of--such a debauch of production. At this rate his works will soon fill
the habitable globe; and surely he was armed for better conflicts than
these succinct sketches and flying leaves of verse? I look on, I admire,
I rejoice for myself; but in a kind of ambition we all have for our
tongue and literature I am wounded. If I had this man's fertility and
courage, it seems to me I could heave a pyramid.
Well, we begin to be the old fogies now; and it was high time
_something_ rose to take our places. Certainly Kipling has the gifts;
the fairy godmothers were all tipsy at his christening: what will he do
with them?
Good-bye, my dear James; find an hour to write to us, and register your
letter.--Yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO RUDYARD KIPLING
In 1890, on first becoming acquainted with Mr. Kipling's _Soldiers
Three_, Stevenson had written off his congratulations red-hot. "Well
and indeed, Mr. Mulvaney," so ran the first sentences of his note,
"but it's as good as meat to meet in with you, sir. They tell me it
was a man of the name of Kipling made ye; but indeed and they can't
fool me; it was the Lord God Almighty that made you." Taking the cue
thus offered, Mr. Kipling had written back in the character of his
own Irishman, Thomas Mulvaney, addressing Stevenson's Highlander,
Alan Breck Stewart. In the following letter, which belongs to an
uncertain date in 1891, Alan Breck is made to reply. "The gentleman I
now serve with" means, of course, R. L. S. himself.
[_Vailima, 1891._]
SIR,--I cannot call to mind having written you, but I am so throng with
occupation this may have fallen aside. I never heard tell I had any
friends in Ireland, and I am led to understand you are come of no
considerable family. The gentleman I now serve with assures me, however,
you are a very pretty fellow and your letter deserves to be remarked.
It's true he is himself a man of a very low descent upon the one side;
though upon the other he counts cousinship with a gentleman, my very
good friend, the late Mr. Balfour of the Shaws, in the Lothian; which I
should be wanting in good fellowship to forget. He tells me besides you
are a man of your hands; I am not informed of your weapon; but if all be
true it sticks in my mind I would be ready to make exception in your
favour, and meet you like one gentleman with another. I suppose this'll
be your purpose in your favour, which I could very ill make out; it's
one I would be sweir to baulk you of. It seems, Mr. McIlvaine, which I
take to be your name, you are in the household of a gentleman of the
name of Coupling: for whom my friend is very much engaged. The distances
being very uncommodious, I think it will be maybe better if we leave it
to these two to settle all that's necessary to honour. I would have you
to take heed it's a very unusual condescension on my part, that bear a
King's name; and for the matter of that I think shame to be mingled with
a person of the name of Coupling, which is doubtless a very good house
but one I never heard tell of, any more than Stevenson. But your purpose
being laudable, I would be sorry (as the word goes) to cut off my nose
to spite my face.--I am, Sir, your humble servant,
A. STEWART,
_Chevalier de St. Louis_.
_To Mr. M'Ilvaine,
Gentleman Private in a foot regiment,
under cover to Mr. Coupling._
He has read me some of your Barrack Room Ballants, which are not of so
noble a strain as some of mine in the Gaelic, but I could set some of
them to the pipes if this rencounter goes as it's to be desired. Let's
first, as I understand you to move, do each other this rational
courtesy; and if either will survive, we may grow better acquaint. For
your tastes for what's martial and for poetry agree with mine.
A. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This is the first appearance in Stevenson's letters of the Swedish
Chief Justice of Samoa, Mr. Conrad Cedercrantz, of whom we shall hear
enough and more than enough in the sequel.
_S.S. Lübeck, between Apia and Sydney, Jan. 17th, 1891._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice, to speak your low
language, has arrived. I had ridden down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun
was down, the night was close at hand, so we rode fast; just as I came
to the corner of the road before Apia, I heard a gun fire; and lo, there
was a great crowd at the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a
chief or two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu coming in his
boat (the oarsmen all in uniform), bringing the Faamasino Sili sure
enough. It was lucky he was no longer; the natives would not have waited
many weeks. But think of it, as I sat in the saddle at the outside of
the crowd (looking, the English consul said, as if I were commanding the
manoeuvres), I was nearly knocked down by a stampede of the three
consuls; they had been waiting their guest at the Matafele end, and some
wretched intrigue among the whites had brought him to Apia, and the
consuls had to run all the length of the town and come too late.
The next day was a long one; I was at a marriage of Gurr the banker to
Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride and bridesmaids were all in the old
high dress; the ladies were all native; the men, with the exception of
Seumanu, all white.
It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were writing, we had a
bird's-eye view of the public reception of the Chief Justice. The best
part of it were some natives in war array; with blacked faces, turbans,
tapa kilts, and guns, they looked very manly and purposelike. No, the
best part was poor old drunken Joe, the Portuguese boatman, who seemed
to think himself specially charged with the reception, and ended by
falling on his knees before the Chief Justice on the end of the pier and
in full view of the whole town and bay. The natives pelted him with
rotten bananas; how the Chief Justice took it I was too far off to see;
but it was highly absurd.
I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regimen of the Faamasino
Sili in the following canine verses, which, if you at all guess how to
read them, are very pretty in movement, and (unless he be a mighty good
man) too true in sense.
We're quarrelling, the villages, we've beaten the wooden drums,
Sa femisai o nu'u, sa taia o pate,
Is confounded thereby the justice,
Ua atuatuvale a le faamasino e,
The chief justice, the terrified justice,
Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se,
Is on the point of running away the justice,
O le a solasola le faamasino e,
The justice denied any influence, the terrified justice,
O le faamasino le ai a, le faamasino se,
O le a solasola le faamasino e.
Well, after this excursion into tongues that have never been
alive--though I assure you we have one capital book in the language, a
book of fables by an old missionary of the unpromising name of Pratt,
which is simply the best and the most literary version of the fables
known to me. I suppose I should except La Fontaine, but L. F. takes a
long time; these are brief as the books of our childhood, and full of
wit and literary colour; and O, Colvin, what a tongue it would be to
write, if one only knew it--and there were only readers. Its curse in
common use is an incredible left-handed wordiness; but in the hands of a
man like Pratt it is succinct as Latin, compact of long rolling
polysyllables and little and often pithy particles, and for beauty of
sound a dream. Listen, I quote from Pratt--this is good Samoan, not
canine--
1 2 3 4 1
O le afa, ua taalili ai le ulu vao, ua pa mai le faititili.
\__ ___/ \_____ _____/ \____ ___/ \___ ___/ \_____ ____/
V V V V V
1 almost _wa_, 2 the two _a's_ just distinguished, 3 the _ai_ is
practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost _vow_. The excursion has
prolonged itself.
I started by the _Lübeck_ to meet Lloyd and my mother; there were many
reasons for and against; the main reason against was the leaving of
Fanny alone in her blessed cabin, which has been somewhat remedied by my
carter, Mr. ----, putting up in the stable and messing with her; but
perhaps desire of change decided me not well, though I do think I ought
to see an oculist, being very blind indeed, and sometimes unable to
read. Anyway I left, the only cabin passenger, four and a kid in the
second cabin, and a dear voyage it had like to have proved. Close to
Fiji (choose a worse place on the map) we broke our shaft early one
morning; and when or where we might expect to fetch land or meet with
any ship, I would like you to tell me. The Pacific is absolutely desert.
I have sailed there now some years; and scarce ever seen a ship except
in port or close by; I think twice. It was the hurricane season besides,
and hurricane waters. Well, our chief engineer got the shaft--it was the
middle crank shaft--mended; thrice it was mended, and twice broke down;
but now keeps up--only we dare not stop, for it is almost impossible to
start again. The captain in the meanwhile crowded her with sail;
fifteen sails in all, every stay being gratified with a stay-sail, a
boat-boom sent aloft for a maintop-gallant yard, and the derrick of a
crane brought in service as bowsprit. All the time we have had a fine,
fair wind and a smooth sea; to-day at noon our run was 203 miles (if you
please!), and we are within some 360 miles of Sydney. Probably there has
never been a more gallant success; and I can say honestly it was well
worked for. No flurry, no high words, no long faces; only hard work and
honest thought; a pleasant, manly business to be present at. All the
chances were we might have been six weeks--ay, or three months at
sea--or never turned up at all, and now it looks as though we should
reach our destination some five days too late.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
_Sydney, January 19th, 1891._
MY DEAR SIR,--_Sapristi, comme vous y allez!_ Richard III. and Dumas,
with all my heart: but not Hamlet. Hamlet is great literature; Richard
III. a big, black, gross, sprawling melodrama, writ with infinite spirit
but with no refinement or philosophy by a man who had the world,
himself, mankind, and his trade still to learn. I prefer the Vicomte de
Bragelonne to Richard III.; it is better done of its kind: I simply do
not mention the Vicomte in the same part of the building with Hamlet, or
Lear, or Othello, or any of those masterpieces that Shakespeare survived
to give us.
Also, _comme vous y allez_ in my commendation! I fear my _solide
éducation classique_ had best be described, like Shakespeare's, as
"little Latin and no Greek" and I was educated, let me inform you, for
an engineer. I shall tell my bookseller to send you a copy of _Memories
and Portraits_, where you will see something of my descent and
education, as it was, and hear me at length on my dear Vicomte. I give
you permission gladly to take your choice out of my works, and translate
what you shall prefer, too much honoured that so clever a young man
should think it worth the pains. My own choice would lie between
_Kidnapped_ and the _Master of Ballantrae_. Should you choose the
latter, pray do not let Mrs. Henry thrust the sword up to the hilt in
the frozen ground--one of my inconceivable blunders, an exaggeration to
stagger Hugo. Say "she sought to thrust it in the ground." In both these
works you should be prepared for Scotticisms used deliberately.
I fear my stepson will not have found time to get to Paris; he was
overwhelmed with occupation, and is already on his voyage back. We live
here in a beautiful land, amid a beautiful and interesting people. The
life is still very hard: my wife and I live in a two-roomed cottage,
about three miles and six hundred and fifty feet above the sea; we have
had to make the road to it; our supplies are very imperfect; in the wild
weather of this (the hurricane) season we have much discomfort: one
night the wind blew in our house so outrageously that we must sit in the
dark; and as the sound of the rain on the roof made speech inaudible,
you may imagine we found the evening long. All these things, however,
are pleasant to me. You say _l'artiste inconscient_ set off to travel:
you do not divide me right. 0.6 of me is artist; 0.4, adventurer. First,
I suppose, come letters; then adventure; and since I have indulged the
second part, I think the formula begins to change: 0.55 of an artist,
0.45 of the adventurer were nearer true. And if it had not been for my
small strength, I might have been a different man in all things.
Whatever you do, do not neglect to send me what you publish on Villon: I
look forward to that with lively interest. I have no photograph at hand,
but I will send one when I can. It would be kind if you would do the
like, for I do not see much chance of our meeting in the flesh: and a
name, and a handwriting, and an address, and even a style? I know about
as much of Tacitus, and more of Horace; it is not enough between
contemporaries, such as we still are. I have just remembered another of
my books, which I re-read the other day, and thought in places
good--_Prince Otto_. It is not as good as either of the others; but it
has one recommendation--it has female parts, so it might perhaps please
better in France.
I will ask Chatto to send you, then--_Prince Otto_, _Memories and
Portraits_, _Underwoods_, and _Ballads_, none of which you seem to have
seen. They will be too late for the New Year: let them be an Easter
present.
You must translate me soon; you will soon have better to do than to
transvase the work of others.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
With the worst pen in the South Pacific.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Stevenson had been indignant with an old friend at Edinburgh, who had
received much kindness from his mother, for neglecting to call on her
after her return from her wanderings in the Pacific.
_S.S. Lübeck, at sea [on the return voyage from Sydney, February
1891]._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Perhaps in my old days I do grow irascible; "the old
man virulent" has long been my pet name for myself. Well, the temper is
at least all gone now; time is good at lowering these distemperatures;
far better is a sharp sickness, and I am just (and scarce) afoot again
after a smoking hot little malady at Sydney. And the temper being gone,
I still think the same.... We have not our parents for ever; we are
never very good to them; when they go and we have lost our front-file
man we begin to feel all our neglects mighty sensibly. I propose a
proposal. My mother is here on board with me; to-day for once I mean to
make her as happy as I am able, and to do that which I know she likes.
You, on the other hand, go and see your father, and do ditto, and give
him a real good hour or two. We shall both be glad hereafter.--Yours
ever,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Stevenson had been sharply ailing as usual at Sydney, and was now on
his way back. Having received proofs of some of his _South Sea_
chapters, he had begun to realise that they were not what he had
hoped to make them.
[_On Board Ship between Sydney and Apia, February 1891._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--The _Janet Nicoll_ stuff was rather worse than I had
looked for; you have picked out all that is fit to stand, bar two others
(which I don't dislike)--the Port of Entry and the House of Temoana;
that is for a present opinion; I may condemn these also ere I have done.
By this time you should have another Marquesan letter, the worst of the
lot, I think; and seven Paumotu letters, which are not far out of the
vein, as I wish it; I am in hopes the Hawaiian stuff is better yet: time
will show, and time will make perfect. Is something of this sort
practicable for the dedication?
TERRA MARIQUE
PER PERICULA PER ARDUA
AMICAE COMITI
D.D.
AMANS VIATOR
'Tis a first shot concocted this morning in my berth: I had always
before been trying it in English, which insisted on being either
insignificant or fulsome: I cannot think of a better word than _comes_,
there being not the shadow of a Latin book on board; yet sure there is
some other. Then _viator_ (though it _sounds_ all right) is doubtful; it
has too much, perhaps, the sense of wayfarer? Last, will it mark
sufficiently that I mean my wife? And first, how about blunders? I
scarce wish it longer.
Have had a swingeing sharp attack in Sydney; beating the fields[13] for
two nights, Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday was brought on board, _tel
quel_, a wonderful wreck; and now, Wednesday week, am a good deal picked
up, but yet not quite a Samson, being still groggy afoot and vague in
the head. My chess, for instance, which is usually a pretty strong game,
and defies all rivalry aboard, is vacillating, devoid of resource and
observation, and hitherto not covered with customary laurels. As for
work, it is impossible. We shall be in the saddle before long, no doubt,
and the pen once more couched. You must not expect a letter under these
circumstances, but be very thankful for a note. Once at Samoa, I shall
try to resume my late excellent habits, and delight you with journals,
you unaccustomed, I unaccustomed; but it is never too late to mend.
It is vastly annoying that I cannot go even to Sydney without an attack;
and heaven knows my life was anodyne. I only once dined with anybody; at
the club with Wise; worked all morning--a terrible dead pull; a month
only produced the imperfect embryos of two chapters; lunched in the
boarding-house, played on my pipe; went out and did some of my messages;
dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts, whist, or
Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life after Samoa; but it
isn't what you call burning the candle at both ends, is it? (It appears
to me not one word of this letter will be legible by the time I am done
with it, this dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel
under construction; it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps I may
continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One, two, three, four,
five, six generations, perhaps seven, figure therein; two of my old
stories, "Delafield" and "Shovel," are incorporated; it is to be told in
the third person, with some of the brevity of history, some of the
detail of romance. _The Shovels of Newton French_ will be the name. The
idea is an old one; it was brought to birth by an accident; a friend in
the islands who picked up F. Jenkin,[14] read a part, and said: "Do you
know, that's a strange book? I like it; I don't believe the public will;
but I like it." He thought it was a novel! "Very well," said I, "we'll
see whether the public will like it or not; they shall have the
chance."--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO H. B. BAILDON
The late Mr. H. Bellyse Baildon, for some time Lecturer on English
Literature at the University of Vienna and afterwards at Dundee, had
been an old schoolmate and fellow-aspirant in literature with
Stevenson at Edinburgh. "Chalmers," of course, is the Rev. James
Chalmers of Rarotonga and New Guinea already referred to above, the
admirable missionary, explorer, and administrator, whom Stevenson
sometimes expressed a desire to survive, for the sake only of writing
his life.
_Vailima, Upolu [Spring 1891]._
MY DEAR BAILDON,--This is a real disappointment. It was so long since we
had met, I was anxious to see where time had carried and stranded us.
Last time we saw each other--it must have been all ten years ago, as we
were new to the thirties--it was only for a moment, and now we're in the
forties, and before very long we shall be in our graves. Sick and well,
I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very
little--and then only some little corners of misconduct for which I
deserve hanging, and must infallibly be damned--and, take it all over,
damnation and all, would hardly change with any man of my time, unless
perhaps it were Gordon or our friend Chalmers: a man I admire for his
virtues, love for his faults, and envy for the really A1 life he has,
with everything heart--my heart, I mean--could wish. It is curious to
think you will read this in the grey metropolis; go the first grey,
east-windy day into the Caledonian Station, if it looks at all as it did
of yore: I met Satan there. And then go and stand by the cross, and
remember the other one--him that went down--my brother, Robert
Fergusson. It is a pity you had not made me out, and seen me as
patriarch and planter. I shall look forward to some record of your time
with Chalmers: you can't weary me of that fellow, he is as big as a
house and far bigger than any church, where no man warms his hands. Do
you know anything of Thomson? Of A----, B----, C----, D----, E----,
F----, at all? As I write C.'s name mustard rises in my nose; I have
never forgiven that weak, amiable boy a little trick he played me when I
could ill afford it: I mean that whenever I think of it, some of the old
wrath kindles, not that I would hurt the poor soul, if I got the world
with it. And Old X----? Is he still afloat? Harmless bark! I gather you
ain't married yet, since your sister, to whom I ask to be remembered,
goes with you. Did you see a silly tale, _John Nicholson's
Predicament_,[15] or some such name, in which I made free with your home
at Murrayfield? There is precious little sense in it, but it might
amuse. Cassell's published it in a thing called _Yule-Tide_ years ago,
and nobody that ever I heard of read or has ever seen _Yule-Tide_. It is
addressed to a class we never met--readers of Cassell's series and that
class of conscientious chaff, and my tale was dull, though I don't
recall that it was conscientious. Only, there's the house at Murrayfield
and a dead body in it. Glad the _Ballads_ amused you. They failed to
entertain a coy public, at which I wondered; not that I set much
account by my verses, which are the verses of Prosator; but I do know
how to tell a yarn, and two of the yarns are great. _Rahero_ is for its
length a perfect folk-tale: savage and yet fine, full of tailforemost
morality, ancient as the granite rocks; if the historian, not to say the
politician, could get that yarn into his head, he would have learned
some of his ABC. But the average man at home cannot understand
antiquity; he is sunk over the ears in Roman civilisation; and a tale
like that of _Rahero_ falls on his ears inarticulate. The Spectator said
there was no psychology in it; that interested me much: my grandmother
(as I used to call that able paper, and an able paper it is, and a fair
one) cannot so much as observe the existence of savage psychology when
it is put before it. I am at bottom a psychologist and ashamed of it;
the tale seized me one-third because of its picturesque features,
two-thirds because of its astonishing psychology, and the Spectator says
there's none. I am going on with a lot of island work, exulting in the
knowledge of a new world, "a new created world" and new men; and I am
sure my income will DECLINE and FALL off; for the effort of
comprehension is death to the intelligent public, and sickness to the
dull.
I do not know why I pester you with all this trash, above all as you
deserve nothing. I give you my warm _talofa_ ("my love to you," Samoan
salutation). Write me again when the spirit moves you. And some day, if
I still live, make out the trip again and let us hob-a-nob with our grey
pows on my verandah.--Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The latter part of this letter was written in the course of an
expedition on which Stevenson had been invited by the American
Consul, Mr. Sewall, to the neighbouring island of Tutuila. Unluckily
the letter breaks off short, and the only record of this trip occurs
in the diary partly quoted in Mr. Balfour's _Life_, ch. xiv.
_Vailima, Friday, March 19th [1891]._
MY DEAR S. C.,--You probably expect that now I am back at Vailima I
shall resume the practice of the diary letter. A good deal is changed.
We are more; solitude does not attend me as before; the night is passed
playing Van John for shells; and, what is not less important, I have
just recovered from a severe illness, and am easily tired.
I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the lower rooms of the new
house, where my wife has recently joined me. We have two beds, an empty
case for a table, a chair, a tin basin, a bucket and a jug; next door in
the dining-room, the carpenters camp on the floor, which is covered with
their mosquito nets. Before the sun rises, at 5.45 or 5.50, Paul brings
me tea, bread, and a couple of eggs; and by about six I am at work. I
work in bed--my bed is of mats, no mattress, sheets, or filth--mats, a
pillow, and a blanket--and put in some three hours. It was 9.5 this
morning when I set off to the stream-side to my weeding; where I toiled,
manuring the ground with the best enricher, human sweat, till the
conch-shell was blown from our verandah at 10.30. At eleven we dine;
about half-past twelve I tried (by exception) to work again, could make
nothing on't, and by one was on my way to the weeding, where I wrought
till three. Half-past five is our next meal, and I read Flaubert's
Letters till the hour came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold,
and I being tired, came over to my den in the unfinished house, where I
now write to you, to the tune of the carpenters' voices, and by the
light--I crave your pardon--by the twilight of three vile candles
filtered through the medium of my mosquito bar. Bad ink being of the
party, I write quite blindfold, and can only hope you may be granted to
read that which I am unable to see while writing.
I said I was tired; it is a mild phrase; my back aches like toothache;
when I shut my eyes to sleep, I know I shall see before them--a
phenomenon to which both Fanny and I are quite accustomed--endless vivid
deeps of grass and weed, each plant particular and distinct, so that I
shall lie inert in body, and transact for hours the mental part of my
day business, choosing the noxious from the useful. And in my dreams I
shall be hauling on recalcitrants, and suffering stings from nettles,
stabs from citron thorns, fiery bites from ants, sickening resistances
of mud and slime, evasions of slimy roots, dead weight of heat, sudden
puffs of air, sudden starts from bird-calls in the contiguous
forest--some mimicking my name, some laughter, some the signal of a
whistle, and living over again at large the business of my day.
Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field-work in continual
converse and imaginary correspondence. I scarce pull up a weed, but I
invent a sentence on the matter to yourself; it does not get written;
_autant en emportent les vents_; but the intent is there, and for me (in
some sort) the companionship. To-day, for instance, we had a great talk.
I was toiling, the sweat dripping from my nose, in the hot fit after a
squall of rain: methought you asked me--frankly, was I happy. Happy
(said I); I was only happy once; that was at Hyères; it came to an end
from a variety of reasons, decline of health, change of place, increase
of money, age with his stealing steps; since then, as before then, I
know not what it means. But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a
thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues all broken, a
thousand hands, and all of them with scratching nails. High among these
I place this delight of weeding out here alone by the garrulous water,
under the silence of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of
birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and
upside down,--though I would very fain change myself--I would not change
my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here. And yet God knows
perhaps this intercourse of writing serves as well; and I wonder, were
you here indeed, would I commune so continually with the thought of you.
I say "I wonder" for a form; I know, and I know I should not.
So far, and much further, the conversation went, while I groped in slime
after viscous roots, nursing and sparing little spears of grass, and
retreating (even with outcry) from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder
if any one had ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and have held
for so long? This business fascinates me like a tune or a passion; yet
all the while I thrill with a strong distaste. The horror of the thing,
objective and subjective, is always present to my mind; the horror of
creeping things, a superstitious horror of the void and the powers about
me, the horror of my own devastation and continual murders. The life of
the plants comes through my finger-tips, their struggles go to my heart
like supplications. I feel myself blood-boltered; then I look back on my
cleared grass, and count myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make
stout my heart.
It is but a little while since I lay sick in Sydney, beating the fields
about the navy and Dean Swift and Dryden's Latin hymns; judge if I love
this reinvigorating climate, where I can already toil till my head swims
and every string in the poor jumping Jack (as he now lies in bed) aches
with a kind of yearning strain, difficult to suffer in quiescence.
As for my damned literature,[16] God knows what a business it is,
grinding along without a scrap of inspiration or a note of style. But it
has to be ground, and the mill grinds exceeding slowly though not
particularly small. The last two chapters have taken me considerably
over a month, and they are still beneath pity. This I cannot continue,
time not sufficing; and the next will just have to be worse. All the
good I can express is just this; some day, when style revisits me, they
will be excellent matter to rewrite. Of course, my old cure of a change
of work would probably answer, but I cannot take it now. The treadmill
turns; and, with a kind of desperate cheerfulness, I mount the idle
stair. I haven't the least anxiety about the book; unless I die, I shall
find the time to make it good; but the Lord deliver me from the thought
of the Letters! However, the Lord has other things on hand; and about
six to-morrow, I shall resume the consideration practically, and face
(as best I may) the fact of my incompetence and disaffection to the
task. Toil I do not spare; but fortune refuses me success. We can do
more, Whatever-his-name-was, we can deserve it. But my misdesert began
long since, by the acceptation of a bargain quite unsuitable to all my
methods.[17]
To-day I have had a queer experience. My carter has from the first been
using my horses for his own ends; when I left for Sydney, I put him on
his honour to cease, and my back was scarce turned ere he was forfeit. I
have only been waiting to discharge him; and to-day an occasion arose. I
am so much _the old man virulent_, so readily stumble into anger, that I
gave a deal of consideration to my bearing, and decided at last to
imitate that of the late ----. Whatever he might have to say, this
eminently effective controversialist maintained a frozen demeanour and a
jeering smile. The frozen demeanour is beyond my reach; but I could try
the jeering smile; did so, perceived its efficacy, kept in consequence
my temper, and got rid of my friend, myself composed and smiling still,
he white and shaking like an aspen. He could explain everything; I said
it did not interest me. He said he had enemies; I said nothing was more
likely. He said he was calumniated; with all my heart, said I, but there
are so many liars, that I find it safer to believe them. He said, in
justice to himself, he must explain: God forbid I should interfere with
you, said I, with the same factitious grin, but it can change nothing.
So I kept my temper, rid myself of an unfaithful servant, found a method
of conducting similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own
liking. One thing more: I learned a fresh tolerance for the dead ----;
he too had learned--perhaps had invented--the trick of this manner; God
knows what weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. _Ce que
c'est que de nous!_ poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust
this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective;
that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and
embitter a man's soul.
To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead from six till eleven,
from twelve till two; with the interruption of the interview aforesaid;
a damned Letter is written for the third time; I dread to read it, for I
dare not give it a fourth chance--unless it be very bad indeed. Now I
write you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes and
hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day of heavenly
brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye, through the open door,
commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs
against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the
door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak
March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open in an
undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito
bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few torn clouds--not white,
the sun has tinged them a warm pink--swim in heaven. In which blessed
and fair day, I have to make faces and speak bitter words to a man--who
has deceived me, it is true--but who is poor, and older than I, and a
kind of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the massacre of weeds.
_Sunday._--When I had done talking to you yesterday, I played on my
pipe till the conch sounded, then went over to the old house for dinner,
and had scarce risen from table ere I was submerged with visitors. The
first of these despatched, I spent the rest of the evening going over
the Samoan translation of my _Bottle Imp_[18] with Claxton the
missionary; then to bed, but being upset, I suppose, by these
interruptions, and having gone all day without my weeding, not to sleep.
For hours I lay awake and heard the rain fall, and saw faint, far-away
lightning over the sea, and wrote you long letters which I scorn to
reproduce. This morning Paul was unusually early; the dawn had scarce
begun when he appeared with the tray and lit my candle; and I had
breakfasted and read (with indescribable sinkings) the whole of
yesterday's work before the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and
sat and better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as
slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent stuff
misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps upon a camel. But
could I, in my present disposition, do much more with it? in my present
pressure for time, were I not better employed doing another one about as
ill, than making this some thousandth fraction better? Yes, I thought;
and tried the new one, and behold, I could do nothing: my head swims,
words do not come to me, nor phrases, and I accepted defeat, packed up
my traps, and turned to communicate the failure to my esteemed
correspondent. I think it possible I overworked yesterday. Well, we'll
see to-morrow--perhaps try again later. It is indeed the hope of trying
later that keeps me writing to you. If I take to my pipe, I know
myself--all is over for the morning. Hurray, I'll correct proofs!
_Pago-Pago, Wednesday._--After I finished on Sunday I passed a miserable
day; went out weeding, but could not find peace. I do not like to steal
my dinner, unless I have given myself a holiday in a canonical manner;
and weeding after all is only fun, the amount of its utility small, and
the thing capable of being done faster and nearly as well by a hired
boy. In the evening Sewall came up (American consul) and proposed to
take me on a malaga,[19] which I accepted. Monday I rode down to Apia,
was nearly all day fighting about drafts and money; the silver problem
does not touch you, but it is (in a strange and I hope passing phase)
making my situation difficult in Apia.
About eleven, the flags were all half-masted; it was old Captain
Hamilton (Samasoni the natives called him) who had passed away. In the
evening I walked round to the U.S. consulate; it was a lovely night with
a full moon; and as I got round to the hot corner of Matautu I heard
hymns in front. The balcony of the dead man's house was full of women
singing; Mary (the widow, a native) sat on a chair by the doorstep, and
I was set beside her on a bench, and next to Paul the carpenter; as I
sat down I had a glimpse of the old captain, who lay in a sheet on his
own table. After the hymn was over, a native pastor made a speech which
lasted a long while; the light poured out of the door and windows; the
girls were sitting clustered at my feet; it was choking hot. After the
speech was ended, Mary carried me within; the captain's hands were
folded on his bosom, his face and head were composed; he looked as if he
might speak at any moment; I have never seen this kind of waxwork so
express or more venerable; and when I went away, I was conscious of a
certain envy for the man who was out of the battle. All night it ran in
my head, and the next day when we sighted Tutuila, and ran into this
beautiful landlocked loch of Pago Pago (whence I write), Captain
Hamilton's folded hands and quiet face said a great deal more to me
than the scenery.
I am living here in a trader's house; we have a good table, Sewall doing
things in style; and I hope to benefit by the change, and possibly get
more stuff for Letters. In the meanwhile, I am seized quite
_mal-à-propos_ with desire to write a story, _The Bloody Wedding_,
founded on fact--very possibly true, being an attempt to read a murder
case--not yet months old, in this very place and house where I now
write. The indiscretion is what stops me; but if I keep on feeling as I
feel just now it will have to be written. Three Star Nettison, Kit
Nettison, Field the Sailor, these are the main characters: old Nettison,
and the captain of the man of war, the secondary. Possible scenario.
Chapter I....
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Saturday, April 18th [1891]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I got back on Monday night, after twenty-three hours in
an open boat; the keys were lost; the consul (who had promised us a
bottle of Burgundy) nobly broke open his storeroom, and we got to bed
about midnight. Next morning the blessed consul promised us horses for
the daybreak; forgot all about it, worthy man; set us off at last in the
heat of the day, and by a short cut which caused infinite trouble, and
we were not home till dinner. I was extenuated, and have had a high
fever since, or should have been writing before. To-day for the first
time, I risk it. Tuesday I was pretty bad; Wednesday had a fever to kill
a horse; Thursday I was better, but still out of ability to do aught but
read awful trash. This is the time one misses civilisation; I wished to
send out for some police novels; Montépin would have about suited my
frozen brain. It is a bother when all one's thought turns on one's work
in some sense or other; I could not even think yesterday; I took to
inventing dishes by way of entertainment. Yesterday, while I lay asleep
in the afternoon, a very lucky thing happened; the Chief Justice came to
call; met one of our employés on the road; and was shown what I had done
to the road.
"Is this the road across the island?" he asked.
"The only one," said Innes.
"And has one man done all this?"
"Three times," said the trusty Innes. "It has had to be made three
times, and when Mr. Stevenson came, it was a track like what you see
beyond."
"This must be put right," said the Chief Justice.
_Sunday._--The truth is, I broke down yesterday almost as soon as I
began, and have been surreptitiously finishing the entry to-day. For all
that I was much better, ate all the time, and had no fever. The day was
otherwise uneventful. I am reminded; I had another visitor on Friday;
and Fanny and Lloyd, as they returned from a forest raid, met in our
desert, untrodden road, first Father Didier, Keeper of the conscience of
Mataafa, the rising star; and next the Chief Justice, sole stay of
Laupepa, the present and unsteady star, and remember, a few days before
we were close to the sick bed and entertained by the amateur physician
of Tamasese, the late and sunken star. "That is the fun of this place,"
observed Lloyd; "everybody you meet is so important." Everybody is also
so gloomy. It will come to war again, is the opinion of all the well
informed--and before that to many bankruptcies; and after that, as
usual, to famine. Here, under the microscope, we can see history at
work.
_Wednesday._--I have been very neglectful. A return to work, perhaps
premature, but necessary, has used up all my possible energies, and made
me acquainted with the living headache. I just jot down some of the past
notabilia. Yesterday B., a carpenter, and K., my (unsuccessful) white
man, were absent all morning from their work; I was working myself,
where I hear every sound with morbid certainty, and I can testify that
not a hammer fell. Upon inquiry I found they had passed the morning
making ice with our ice machine and taking the horizon with a spirit
level! I had no sooner heard this than--a violent headache set in; I am
a real employer of labour now, and have much of the ship captain when
aroused; and if I had a headache, I believe both these gentlemen had
aching hearts. I promise you, the late ---- was to the front; and K.,
who was the most guilty, yet (in a sense) the least blameable, having
the brains and character of a canary-bird, fared none the better for
B.'s repartees. I hear them hard at work this morning, so the menace may
be blessed. It was just after my dinner, just before theirs, that I
administered my redoubtable tongue--it is really redoubtable--to these
skulkers. (Paul used to triumph over Mr. J. for weeks. "I am very sorry
for you," he would say; "you're going to have a talk with Mr. Stevenson
when he comes home: you don't know what that is!") In fact, none of them
do, till they get it. I have known K., for instance, for months; he has
never heard me complain, or take notice, unless it were to praise; I
have used him always as my guest, and there seems to be something in my
appearance which suggests endless, ovine long-suffering! We sat in the
upper verandah all evening, and discussed the price of iron roofing, and
the state of the draught-horses, with Innes, a new man we have taken,
and who seems to promise well.
One thing embarrasses me. No one ever seems to understand my attitude
about that book; the stuff sent was never meant for other than a first
state; I never meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I have
never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only
beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some
day to get a "spate of style" and burnish it--fine mixed metaphor. I am
now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more
written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by the
pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; I am sensible of having done worse
than I hoped, worse than I feared; all I can do now is to do the best I
can for the future, and clear the book, like a piece of bush, with axe
and cutlass. Even to produce the MS. of this will occupy me, at the most
favourable opinion, till the middle of next year; really five years were
wanting, when I could have made a book; but I have a family,
and--perhaps I could not make the book after all.
TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
The late Mr. Craibe Angus of Glasgow was one of the chief organisers
of the Burns Exhibition in that city, and had proposed to send out to
Samoa a precious copy of the _Jolly Beggars_ to receive the autograph
of R. L. S. and be returned for the purposes of that Exhibition. The
line quoted, "But still our hearts are true," etc., should, it
appears, run, "But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland."
The author of the _Canadian Boat Song_ which opens thus was Hugh,
twelfth Earl of Eglinton. The first quotation is of course from
Burns.
_Vailima, Samoa, April_ 1891.
DEAR MR. ANGUS,--Surely I remember you! It was W. C. Murray who made us
acquainted, and we had a pleasant crack. I see your poet is not yet
dead. I remember even our talk--or you would not think of trusting that
invaluable _Jolly Beggars_ to the treacherous posts, and the perils of
the sea, and the carelessness of authors. I love the idea, but I could
not bear the risk. However--
"Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle--"
it was kindly thought upon.
My interest in Burns is, as you suppose, perennial. I would I could be
present at the exhibition, with the purpose of which I heartily
sympathise; but the _Nancy_ has not waited in vain for me, I have
followed my chest, the anchor is weighed long ago, I have said my last
farewell to the hills and the heather and the lynns: like Leyden, I
have gone into far lands to die, not stayed like Burns to mingle in the
end with Scottish soil. I shall not even return like Scott for the last
scene. Burns Exhibitions are all over. 'Tis a far cry to Lochow from
tropical Vailima.
"But still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
When your hand is in, will you remember our poor Edinburgh Robin? Burns
alone has been just to his promise; follow Burns, he knew best, he knew
whence he drew fire--from the poor, white-faced, drunken, vicious boy
that raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse. Surely there is
more to be gleaned about Fergusson, and surely it is high time the task
was set about. I may tell you (because your poet is not dead) something
of how I feel: we are three Robins who have touched the Scots lyre this
last century. Well, the one is the world's; he did it, he came off, he
is for ever; but I and the other--ah! what bonds we have--born in the
same city; both sickly, both pestered, one nearly to madness, one to the
madhouse, with a damnatory creed; both seeing the stars and the dawn,
and wearing shoe-leather on the same ancient stones, under the same
pends, down the same closes, where our common ancestors clashed in their
armour, rusty or bright. And the old Robin, who was before Burns and the
flood, died in his acute, painful youth, and left the models of the
great things that were to come; and the new, who came after, outlived
his green-sickness, and has faintly tried to parody the finished work.
If you will collect the strays of Robin Fergusson, fish for material,
collect any last re-echoing of gossip, command me to do what you
prefer--to write the preface--to write the whole if you prefer:
anything, so that another monument (after Burns's) be set up to my
unhappy predecessor on the causey of Auld Reekie. You will never know,
nor will any man, how deep this feeling is: I believe Fergusson lives
in me. I do, but tell it not in Gath; every man has these fanciful
superstitions, coming, going, but yet enduring; only most men are so
wise (or the poet in them so dead) that they keep their follies for
themselves.--I am, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_Vailima, April 1891._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--I have to thank you and Mrs. Gosse for many mementoes,
chiefly for your _Life_ of your father. There is a very delicate task,
very delicately done. I noted one or two carelessnesses, which I meant
to point out to you for another edition; but I find I lack the time, and
you will remark them for yourself against a new edition. There were two,
or perhaps three, flabbinesses of style which (in your work) amazed me.
Am I right in thinking you were a shade bored over the last chapters? or
was it my own fault that made me think them susceptible of a more
athletic compression? (The flabbinesses were not there, I think, but in
the more admirable part, where they showed the bigger.) Take it all
together, the book struck me as if you had been hurried at the last, but
particularly hurried over the proofs, and could still spend a very
profitable fortnight in earnest revision and (towards the end) heroic
compression. The book, in design, subject, and general execution, is
well worth the extra trouble. And even if I were wrong in thinking it
specially wanted, it will not be lost; for do we not know, in Flaubert's
dread confession, that "prose is never done"? What a medium to work in,
for a man tired, perplexed among different aims and subjects, and
spurred by the immediate need of "siller"! However, it's mine for what
it's worth; and it's one of yours, the devil take it; and you know, as
well as Flaubert, and as well as me, that it is _never done_; in other
words, it is a torment of the pit, usually neglected by the bards who
(lucky beggars!) approached the Styx in measure. I speak bitterly at the
moment, having just detected in myself the last fatal symptom, three
blank verses in succession--and I believe, God help me, a hemistich at
the tail of them; hence I have deposed the labourer, come out of hell by
my private trap, and now write to you from my little place in purgatory.
But I prefer hell: would I could always dig in those red coals--or else
be at sea in a schooner, bound for isles unvisited: to be on shore and
not to work is emptiness--suicidal vacancy.
I was the more interested in your _Life_ of your father, because I
meditate one of mine, or rather of my family. I have no such materials
as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with
despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to
me--lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance
that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple
passages. I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do
of mine? I wonder if you think as ill of mine as I do of yours? I
wonder; I can tell you at least what is wrong with yours--they are
treated in the spirit of verse. The spirit--I don't mean the measure, I
don't mean you fall into bastard cadences; what I mean is that they seem
vacant and smoothed out, ironed, if you like. And in a style which (like
yours) aims more and more successfully at the academic, one purple word
is already much; three--a whole phrase--is inadmissible. Wed yourself to
a clean austerity: that is your force. Wear a linen ephod, splendidly
candid. Arrange its folds, but do not fasten it with any brooch. I swear
to you, in your talking robes, there should be no patch of adornment;
and where the subject forces, let it force you no further than it must;
and be ready with a twinkle of your pleasantry. Yours is a fine tool,
and I see so well how to hold it; I wonder if you see how to hold mine?
But then I am to the neck in prose, and just now in the "dark
_interstylar_ cave," all methods and effects wooing me, myself in the
midst impotent to follow any. I look for dawn presently, and a full
flowing river of expression, running whither it wills. But these useless
seasons, above all, when a man _must_ continue to spoil paper, are
infinitely weary.
We are in our house after a fashion; without furniture, 'tis true,
camping there, like the family after a sale. But the bailiff has not yet
appeared; he will probably come after. The place is beautiful beyond
dreams; some fifty miles of the Pacific spread in front; deep woods all
round; a mountain making in the sky a profile of huge trees upon our
left; about us, the little island of our clearing, studded with brave
old gentlemen (or ladies, or "the twa o' them") whom we have spared. It
is a good place to be in; night and morning, we have Theodore Rousseaus
(always a new one) hung to amuse us on the walls of the world; and the
moon--this is our good season, we have a moon just now--makes the night
a piece of heaven. It amazes me how people can live on in the dirty
north; yet if you saw our rainy season (which is really a caulker for
wind, wet, and darkness--howling showers, roaring winds, pit-blackness
at noon) you might marvel how we could endure that. And we can't. But
there's a winter everywhere; only ours is in the summer. Mark my words:
there will be a winter in heaven--and in hell. _Cela rentre dans les
procédés du bon Dieu; et vous verrez!_ There's another very good thing
about Vailima, I am away from the little bubble of the literary life. It
is not all beer and skittles, is it? By the by, my _Ballads_ seem to
have been dam bad; all the crickets sing so in their crickety papers;
and I have no ghost of an idea on the point myself: verse is always to
me the unknowable. You might tell me how it strikes a professional bard:
not that it really matters, for, of course, good or bad, I don't think I
shall get into _that_ galley any more. But I should like to know if you
join the shrill chorus of the crickets. The crickets are the devil in
all to you: 'tis a strange thing, they seem to rejoice like a strong
man in their injustice. I trust you got my letter about your Browning
book. In case it missed, I wish to say again that your publication of
Browning's kind letter, as an illustration of _his_ character, was
modest, proper, and in radiant good taste.--In Witness whereof, etc.
etc.,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS RAWLINSON
The next is written to a young friend and visitor of Bournemouth days
(see vol. xxiv. p. 227) on the news of her engagement to Mr. Alfred
Spender.
_Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 1891._
MY DEAR MAY,--I never think of you by any more ceremonial name, so I
will not pretend. There is not much chance that I shall forget you until
the time comes for me to forget all this little turmoil in a corner
(though indeed I have been in several corners) of an inconsiderable
planet. You remain in my mind for a good reason, having given me (in so
short a time) the most delightful pleasure. I shall remember, and you
must still be beautiful. The truth is, you must grow more so, or you
will soon be less. It is not so easy to be a flower, even when you bear
a flower's name. And if I admired you so much, and still remember you,
it is not because of your face, but because you were then worthy of it,
as you must still continue.
Will you give my heartiest congratulations to Mr. Spender? He has my
admiration; he is a brave man; when I was young, I should have run away
from the sight of you, pierced with the sense of my unfitness. He is
more wise and manly. What a good husband he will have to be! And
you--what a good wife! Carry your love tenderly. I will never forgive
him--or you--it is in both your hands--if the face that once gladdened
my heart should be changed into one sour or sorrowful.
What a person you are to give flowers! It was so I first heard of you;
and now you are giving the May flower!
Yes, Skerryvore has passed; it was, for us. But I wish you could see us
in our new home on the mountain, in the middle of great woods, and
looking far out over the Pacific. When Mr. Spender is very rich, he must
bring you round the world and let you see it, and see the old gentleman
and the old lady. I mean to live quite a long while yet, and my wife
must do the same, or else I couldn't manage it; so, you see, you will
have plenty of time; and it's a pity not to see the most beautiful
places, and the most beautiful people moving there, and the real stars
and moon overhead, instead of the tin imitations that preside over
London. I do not think my wife very well; but I am in hopes she will now
have a little rest. It has been a hard business, above all for her; we
lived four months in the hurricane season in a miserable house,
overborne with work, ill-fed, continually worried, drowned in perpetual
rain, beaten upon by wind, so that we must sit in the dark in the
evenings; and then I ran away, and she had a month of it alone. Things
go better now; the back of the work is broken; and we are still foolish
enough to look forward to a little peace. I am a very different person
from the prisoner of Skerryvore. The other day I was three-and-twenty
hours in an open boat; it made me pretty ill; but fancy its not killing
me half-way! It is like a fairy story that I should have recovered
liberty and strength, and should go round again among my fellow-men,
boating, riding, bathing, toiling hard with a wood-knife in the forest.
I can wish you nothing more delightful than my fortune in life; I wish
it you; and better, if the thing be possible.
Lloyd is tinkling below me on the typewriter; my wife has just left the
room; she asks me to say she would have written had she been well
enough, and hopes to do it still.--Accept the best wishes of your
admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter announces (1) the arrival of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson from
Sydney, to take up her abode in her son's island home now that the
conditions of life there had been made fairly comfortable; and (2)
the receipt of a letter from me expressing the disappointment felt by
Stevenson's friends at home at the impersonal and even tedious
character of some portions of the South Sea Letters that had reached
us. As a corrective of this opinion, I may perhaps mention here that
there is a certain many-voyaged master-mariner as well as
master-writer--no less a person than Mr. Joseph Conrad--who does not
at all share it, and prefers _In the South Seas_ to _Treasure
Island_.
_[Vailima] April 29th, '91._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I begin again. I was awake this morning about half-past
four. It was still night, but I made my fire, which is always a
delightful employment, and read Lockhart's _Scott_ until the day began
to peep. It was a beautiful and sober dawn, a dove-coloured dawn,
insensibly brightening to gold. I was looking at it some while over the
down-hill profile of our eastern road when I chanced to glance
northward, and saw with extraordinary pleasure the sea lying outspread.
It seemed as smooth as glass, and yet I knew the surf was roaring all
along the reef, and indeed, if I had listened, I could have heard
it--and saw the white sweep of it outside Matautu.
I am out of condition still, and can do nothing, and toil to be at my
pen, and see some ink behind me. I have taken up again _The High Woods
of Ulufanua_. I still think the fable too fantastic and far-fetched.
But, on a re-reading, fell in love with my first chapter, and for good
or evil I must finish it. It is really good, well fed with facts, true
to the manners, and (for once in my works) rendered pleasing by the
presence of a heroine who is pretty. Miss Uma is pretty; a fact. All my
other women have been as ugly as sin, and like Falconet's horse (I have
just been reading the anecdote in Lockhart), _mortes_ forbye.
News: our old house is now half demolished; it is to be rebuilt on a new
site; now we look down upon and through the open posts of it like a
bird-cage, to the woods beyond. My poor Paulo has lost his father and
succeeded to thirty thousand thalers (I think); he had to go down to the
consulate yesterday to send a legal paper; got drunk, of course, and is
still this morning in so bemused a condition that our breakfasts all went
wrong. Lafaele is absent at the deathbed of his fair spouse; fair she
was, but not in deed, acting as harlot to the wreckers at work on the
warships, to which society she probably owes her end, having fallen off a
cliff, or been thrust off it--_inter pocula_. Henry is the same, our
stand-by. In this transition stage he has been living in Apia; but the
other night he stayed up, and sat with us about the chimney in my room.
It was the first time he had seen a fire in a hearth; he could not look
at it without smiles, and was always anxious to put on another stick. We
entertained him with the fairy tales of civilisation--theatres, London,
blocks in the street, Universities, the Underground, newspapers, etc.,
and projected once more his visit to Sydney. If we can manage, it will be
next Christmas. (I see it will be impossible for me to afford a further
journey _this_ winter.) We have spent since we have been here about
£2,500, which is not much if you consider we have built on that three
houses, one of them of some size, and a considerable stable, made two
miles of road some three times, cleared many acres of bush, made some
miles of path, planted quantities of food, and enclosed a horse paddock
and some acres of pig run; but 'tis a good deal of money regarded simply
as money. K. is bosh; I have no use for him; but we must do what we can
with the fellow meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest, but
inefficient, idle himself, the cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a
self-excuser--all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty weeks'
service--the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry is almost the only
one of our employés who has a credit.
_May 17th._--Well, am I ashamed of myself? I do not think so. I have
been hammering letters ever since, and got three ready and a fourth
about half through; all four will go by the mail, which is what I wish,
for so I keep at least my start. Days and days of unprofitable stubbing
and digging, and the result still poor as literature, left-handed,
heavy, unillumined, but I believe readable and interesting as matter. It
has been no joke of a hard time, and when my task was done, I had little
taste for anything but blowing on the pipe. A few necessary letters
filled the bowl to overflowing.
My mother has arrived, young, well, and in good spirits. By desperate
exertions, which have wholly floored Fanny, her room was ready for her,
and the dining-room fit to eat in. It was a famous victory. Lloyd never
told me of your portrait till a few days ago; fortunately, I had no
pictures hung yet; and the space over my chimney waits your counterfeit
presentment. I have not often heard anything that pleased me more; your
severe head shall frown upon me and keep me to the mark. But why has it
not come? Have you been as forgetful as Lloyd?
_18th._--Miserable comforters are ye all! I read your esteemed pages
this morning by lamplight and the glimmer of the dawn, and as soon as
breakfast was over, I must turn to and tackle these despised labours!
Some courage was necessary, but not wanting. There is one thing at least
by which I can avenge myself for my drubbing, for on one point you seem
impenetrably stupid. Can I find no form of words which will at last
convey to your intelligence the fact that _these letters were never
meant, and are not now meant, to be other than a quarry of materials
from which the book may be drawn_? There seems something incommunicable
in this (to me) simple idea; I know Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I
doubt if he has grasped it now; and I despair, after all these efforts,
that you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading that
form of words once more, and see if a light does not break. You may be
sure, after the friendly freedoms of your criticism (necessary I am
sure, and wholesome I know, but untimely to the poor labourer in his
landslip) that mighty little of it will stand.
Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go home to the Hie
Germanie. This is a tile on our head, and if a shower, which is now
falling, lets up, I must go down to Apia, and see if I can find a
substitute of any kind. This is, from any point of view, disgusting;
above all, from that of work; for, whatever the result, the mill has to
be kept turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is the proceed. Well,
there is gold in the dust, which is a fine consolation, since--well, I
can't help it; night or morning, I do my darndest, and if I cannot
charge for merit, I must e'en charge for toil, of which I have plenty
and plenty more ahead before this cup is drained; sweat and hyssop are
the ingredients.
We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig fence, twenty-eight
powerful natives with Catholic medals about their necks, all swiping in
like Trojans; long may the sport continue!
The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your expressive,
but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive
expressions--'and a' to be a posy to your ain dear May!'--Fanny seems a
little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture
keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and
disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had
packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards--a thing to make a
bibliomaniac shed tears--are fished out of odd corners. But I am no
bibliomaniac, praise Heaven, and I bear up, and rejoice when I find
anything safe.
_19th._--However, I worked five hours on the brute, and finished my
Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last night by consequence.
Haven't had a bad night since I don't know when; dreamed a large
handsome man (a New Orleans planter) had insulted my wife, and, do what
I pleased, I could not make him fight me; and woke to find it was the
eleventh anniversary of my marriage. A letter usually takes me from a
week to three days; but I'm sometimes two days on a page--I was once
three--and then my friends kick me. _C'est-y-bête!_ I wish letters of
that charming quality could be so timed as to arrive when a fellow
wasn't working at the truck in question; but, of course, that can't be.
Did not go down last night. It showered all afternoon, and poured heavy
and loud all night.
You should have seen our twenty-five popés (the Samoan phrase for a
Catholic, lay or cleric) squatting when the day's work was done on the
ground outside the verandah, and pouring in the rays of forty-eight eyes
through the back and the front door of the dining-room, while Henry and
I and the boss pope signed the contract. The second boss (an old man)
wore a kilt (as usual) and a Balmoral bonnet with a little tartan edging
and the tails pulled off. I told him that hat belong to my
country--Sekotia; and he said, yes, that was the place that he belonged
to right enough. And then all the Papists laughed till the woods rang;
he was slashing away with a cutlass as he spoke.
The pictures[20] have decidedly not come; they may probably arrive
Sunday.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
The reference in the first paragraph is to a previous letter
concerning private matters, in which Stevenson had remonstrated with
his correspondent on what seemed to him her mistaken reasons for a
certain course of conduct.
[_Vailima, May 1891._]
MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--I will own you just did manage to tread on my gouty
toe; and I beg to assure you with most people I should simply have
turned away and said no more. My cudgelling was therefore in the nature
of a caress or testimonial.
God forbid, I should seem to judge for you on such a point; it was what
you seemed to set forth as your reasons that fluttered my old
Presbyterian spirit--for, mind you, I am a child of the
Covenanters--whom I do not love, but they are mine after all, my
father's and my mother's--and they had their merits too, and their ugly
beauties, and grotesque heroisms, that I love them for, the while I
laugh at them; but in their name and mine do what you think right, and
let the world fall. That is the privilege and the duty of private
persons; and I shall think the more of you at the greater distance,
because you keep a promise to your fellow-man, your helper and creditor
in life, by just so much as I was tempted to think the less of you (O
not much, or I would never have been angry) when I thought you were the
swallower of a (tinfoil) formula.
I must say I was uneasy about my letter, not because it was too strong
as an expression of my unregenerate sentiments, but because I knew full
well it should be followed by something kinder. And the mischief has
been in my health. I fell sharply sick in Sydney, was put aboard the
_Lübeck_ pretty bad, got to Vailima, hung on a month there, and didn't
pick up as well as my work needed; set off on a journey, gained a great
deal, lost it again; and am back at Vailima, still no good at my
necessary work. I tell you this for my imperfect excuse that I should
not have written you again sooner to remove the bad taste of my last.
A road has been called Adelaide Road; it leads from the back of our
house to the bridge, and thence to the garden, and by a bifurcation to
the pig pen. It is thus much traversed, particularly by Fanny. An
oleander, the only one of your seeds that prospered in this climate,
grows there; and the name is now some week or ten days applied and
published. ADELAIDE ROAD leads also into the bush, to the banana patch
and by a second bifurcation over the left branch of the stream to the
plateau and the right hand of the gorges. In short, it leads to all
sorts of good, and is, besides, in itself a pretty winding path, bound
downhill among big woods to the margin of the stream.
What a strange idea, to think me a Jew-hater! Isaiah and David and Heine
are good enough for me; and I leave more unsaid. Were I of Jew blood, I
do not think I could ever forgive the Christians; the ghettos would get
in my nostrils like mustard or lit gunpowder. Just so you, as being a
child of the Presbytery, I retain--I need not dwell on that. The
ascendant hand is what I feel most strongly; I am bound in and in with
my forbears; were he one of mine, I should not be struck at all by Mr.
Moss of Bevis Marks, I should still see behind him Moses of the Mount
and the Tables and the shining face. We are all nobly born; fortunate
those who know it; blessed those who remember.
I am, my dear Adelaide, most genuinely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Write by return to say you are better, and I will try to do the same.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following refers again to the project of a long genealogical novel
expanded from the original idea of _Henry Shovel_.
_[Vailima] Tuesday, 19th May '91._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I don't know what you think of me, not having written
to you at all during your illness. I find two sheets begun with your
name, but that is no excuse.... I am keeping bravely; getting about
better every day, and hope soon to be in my usual fettle. My books begin
to come; and I fell once more on the Old Bailey session papers. I have
1778, 1784, and 1786. Should you be able to lay hands on any other
volumes, above all a little later, I should be very glad you should buy
them for me. I particularly want _one_ or _two_ during the course of the
Peninsular War. Come to think, I ought rather to have communicated this
want to Bain. Would it bore you to communicate to that effect with the
great man? The sooner I have them, the better for me. 'Tis for _Henry
Shovel_. But _Henry Shovel_ has now turned into a work called _The
Shovels of Newton French: including Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private
in the Peninsular War_, which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage
of Skipper, afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry's
great-great-grandfather, and end about 1832 with his own second marriage
to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the public ever stand such an
opus? Gude kens, but it tickles me. Two or three historical personages
will just appear: Judge Jeffreys, Wellington, Colquhoun, Grant, and I
think Townsend the runner. I know the public won't like it; let 'em lump
it then; I mean to make it good; it will be more like a saga.
Adieu.--Yours ever affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] June 1891._
SIR,--To you, under your portrait, which is, in expression, your true,
breathing self, and up to now saddens me; in time, and soon, I shall be
glad to have it there; it is still only a reminder of your absence.
Fanny wept when we unpacked it, and you know how little she is given to
that mood; I was scarce Roman myself, but that does not count--I lift up
my voice so readily. These are good compliments to the artist.[21] I
write in the midst of a wreck of books, which have just come up, and
have for once defied my labours to get straight. The whole floor is
filled with them, and (what's worse) most of the shelves forbye; and
where they are to go to, and what is to become of the librarian, God
knows. It is hot to-night, and has been airless all day, and I am out of
sorts, and my work sticks, the devil fly away with it and me. We had an
alarm of war since last I wrote my screeds to you, and it blew over, and
is to blow on again, and the rumour goes they are to begin by killing
all the whites. I have no belief in this, and should be infinitely sorry
if it came to pass--I do not mean for us, that were otiose--but for the
poor, deluded schoolboys, who should hope to gain by such a step.
_Letter resumed, June 20th._--No diary this time. Why? you ask. I have
only sent out four Letters, and two chapters of _The Wrecker_. Yes, but
to get these I have written 132 pp., 66,000 words in thirty days; 2200
words a day; the labours of an elephant. God knows what it's like, and
don't ask me, but nobody shall say I have spared pains. I thought for
some time it wouldn't come at all. I was days and days over the first
letter of the lot--days and days writing and deleting and making no
headway whatever, till I thought I should have gone bust; but it came at
last after a fashion, and the rest went a thought more easily, though I
am not so fond as to fancy any better.
Your opinion as to the Letters as a whole is so damnatory that I put
them by. But there is a "hell of a want of" money this year. And these
Gilbert Island papers, being the most interesting in matter, and forming
a compact whole, and being well illustrated, I did think of as a
possible resource.
It would be called
_Six Months in Melanesia,
Two Island Kings,
---- Monarchies,
Gilbert Island Kings,
---- Monarchies_,
and I dare say I'll think of a better yet--and would divide thus:--
_Butaritari_
I. A Town Asleep.
II. The Three Brothers.
III. Around our House.
IV. A Tale of a Tapu.
V. The Five Days' Festival.
VI. Domestic Life--(which might be omitted, but not well, better be
recast).
_The King of Apemama_
VII. The Royal Traders.
VIII. Foundation of Equator Town.
IX. The Palace of Mary Warren.
X. Equator Town and the Palace.
XI. King and Commons.
XII. The Devil Work Box.
XIII. The Three Corslets.
XIV. Tail piece; the Court upon a Journey.
I wish you to watch these closely, judging them as a whole, and treating
them as I have asked you, and favour me with your damnatory advice. I
look up at your portrait, and it frowns upon me. You seem to view me
with reproach. The expression is excellent; Fanny wept when she saw it,
and you know she is not given to the melting mood. She seems really
better; I have a touch of fever again, I fancy overwork, and to-day,
when I have overtaken my letters, I shall blow on my pipe. Tell Mrs.
Sitwell I have been playing _Le Chant d'Amour_ lately, and have arranged
it, after awful trouble, rather prettily for two pipes; and it brought
her before me with an effect scarce short of hallucination. I could hear
her voice in every note; yet I had forgot the air entirely, and began to
pipe it from notes as something new, when I was brought up with a round
turn by this reminiscence. We are now very much installed; the
dining-room is done, and looks lovely. Soon we shall begin to photograph
and send you our circumstances. My room is still a howling wilderness. I
sleep on a platform in a window, and strike my mosquito bar and roll up
my bedclothes every morning, so that the bed becomes by day a divan. A
great part of the floor is knee-deep in books, yet nearly all the
shelves are filled, alas! It is a place to make a pig recoil, yet here
are my interminable labours begun daily by lamp-light, and sometimes not
yet done when the lamp has once more to be lighted. The effect of
pictures in this place is surprising. They give great pleasure.
_June 21st._--A word more. I had my breakfast this morning at 4.30! My
new cook has beaten me and (as Lloyd says) revenged all the cooks in the
world. I have been hunting them to give me breakfast early since I was
twenty; and now here comes Mr. Ratke, and I have to plead for mercy. I
cannot stand 4.30; I am a mere fevered wreck; it is now half-past eight,
and I can no more, and four hours divide me from lunch, the devil take
the man! Yesterday it was about 5.30, which I can stand; day before 5,
which is bad enough; to-day, I give out. It is like a London season, and
as I do not take a siesta once in a month, and then only five minutes, I
am being worn to the bones, and look aged and anxious.
We have Rider Haggard's brother here as a Land Commissioner; a nice kind
of a fellow; indeed, all the three Land Commissioners are very
agreeable.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
For the result of the suggestion made in the following, see
Scribner's Magazine, October 1893, p. 494.
_Vailima [Summer 1891]._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I find among my grandfather's papers his own
reminiscences of his voyage round the north with Sir Walter, eighty
years ago, _labuntur anni!_ They are not remarkably good, but he was not
a bad observer, and several touches seem to me speaking. It has occurred
to me you might like them to appear in the Magazine. If you would,
kindly let me know, and tell me how you would like it handled. My
grandad's MS. runs to between six and seven thousand words, which I
could abbreviate of anecdotes that scarce touch Sir W. Would you like
this done? Would you like me to introduce the old gentleman? I had
something of the sort in my mind, and could fill a few columns rather _à
propos_. I give you the first offer of this, according to your request;
for though it may forestall one of the interests of my biography, the
thing seems to me particularly suited for prior appearance in a
magazine.
I see the first number of _The Wrecker_; I thought it went lively
enough; and by a singular accident, the picture is not unlike Tai-o-hae!
Thus we see the age of miracles, etc.--Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
Proofs for next mail.
TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
Referring again to the Burns Exhibition and to his correspondent's
request for an autograph in a special copy of _The Jolly Beggars_.
_[Summer 1891.]_
DEAR MR. ANGUS,--You can use my letter as you will. The parcel has not
come; pray Heaven the next post bring it safe. Is it possible for me to
write a preface here? I will try if you like, if you think I must:
though surely there are Rivers in Assyria. Of course you will send me
sheets of the catalogue; I suppose it (the preface) need not be long;
perhaps it should be rather very short? Be sure you give me your views
upon these points. Also tell me what names to mention among those of
your helpers, and do remember to register everything, else it is not
safe.
The true place (in my view) for a monument to Fergusson were the
churchyard of Haddington. But as that would perhaps not carry many
votes, I should say one of the two following sites:--First, either as
near the site of the old Bedlam as we could get, or, second, beside the
Cross, the heart of his city. Upon this I would have a fluttering
butterfly, and, I suggest, the citation,
Poor butterfly, thy case I mourn.
For the case of Fergusson is not one to pretend about. A more miserable
tragedy the sun never shone upon, or (in consideration of our climate) I
should rather say refused to brighten.--Yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Where Burns goes will not matter. He is no local poet, like your Robin
the First; he is general as the casing air. Glasgow, as the chief city
of Scottish men, would do well; but for God's sake, don't let it be like
the Glasgow memorial to Knox; I remember, when I first saw this,
laughing for an hour by Shrewsbury clock.
R. L. S.
TO H. C. IDE
The following is written to the American Land Commissioner (later
Chief Justice for a term) in Samoa, whose elder daughter, then at
home in the States, had been born on a Christmas Day, and
consequently regarded herself as defrauded of her natural rights to a
private anniversary of her own.
_[Vailima, June 19, 1891.]_
DEAR MR. IDE,--Herewith please find the DOCUMENT, which I trust will
prove sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in its
eclecticism; Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all indifferently
introduced, and a quotation from the works of Haynes Bayly can hardly
fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of _The
Master of Ballantrae_ and _Moral Emblems_, stuck civil engineer, sole
owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the
island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and
pretty well, I thank you, in body;
In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H. C. Ide, in the
town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the state of
Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all reason, upon
Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice denied the
consolation and profit of a proper birthday;
And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have attained
an age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no further use
for a birthday of any description;
And in consideration that I have met H. C. Ide, the father of the said
Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner as I
require;
_Have transferred_, and _do hereby transfer_, to the said Annie H. Ide,
_all and whole_ my rights and privileges in the thirteenth day of
November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the
birthday of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy
the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment,
eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of
verse, according to the manner of our ancestors;
_And I direct_ the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie H.
Ide the name Louisa--at least in private; and I charge her to use my
said birthday with moderation and humanity, _et tamquam bona filia
familiæ_, the said birthday not being so young as it once was, and
having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I can remember;
And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or contravene either of
the above conditions, I hereby revoke the donation and transfer my
rights in the said birthday to the President of the United States of
America for the time being;
In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this nineteenth
day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-one.
[Illustration: SEAL]
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_Witness_, LLOYD OSBOURNE,
_Witness_, HAROLD WATTS.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The misgivings herein expressed about the imminence of a native war
were not realised until two years later, and the plans of defence
into which Stevenson here enters with characteristic gusto were not
put to the test.
[_Vailima, June and July 1891._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am so hideously in arrears that I know not where to
begin. However, here I am a prisoner in my room, unfit for work,
incapable of reading with interest, and trying to catch up a bit. We
have a guest here: a welcome guest: my Sydney music master, whose health
broke down, and who came with his remarkable simplicity, to ask a
month's lodging. He is newly married, his wife in the family way:
beastly time to fall sick. I have found, by good luck, a job for him
here which will pay some of his way: and in the meantime he is a
pleasant guest, for he plays the flute with little sentiment but great
perfection, and endears himself by his simplicity. To me, especially; I
am so weary of finding people approach me with precaution, pick their
words, flatter, and twitter; but the muttons of the good God are not at
all afraid of the lion. They take him as he comes, and he does not
bite--at least not hard. This makes us a party of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, at table; deftly waited on by Mary Carter, a very nice Sydney girl,
who served us at a boarding-house and has since come on--how long she
will endure this exile is another story; and gauchely waited on by
Faauma, the new left-handed wife of the famed Lafaele, a little creature
in native dress of course and as beautiful as a bronze candlestick, so
fine, clean and dainty in every limb; her arms and her little hips in
particular masterpieces. The rest of the crew may be stated briefly: the
great Henry Simelé, still to the front; King, of the yellow beard,
rather a disappointment--I am inclined on this point to republican
opinions: Ratke, a German cook, good--and Germanly bad, he don't make
_my_ kitchen; Paul, now working out his debts outdoor; Emma, a strange
weird creature--I suspect (from her colour) a quarter white--widow of a
white man, ugly, capable, a really good laundress; Java--yes, that is
the name--they spell it Siava, but pronounce it, and explain it
Java--her assistant, a creature I adore from her plain, wholesome,
bread-and-butter beauty. An honest, almost ugly, bright, good-natured
face; the rest (to my sense) merely exquisite. She comes steering into
my room of a morning, like Mrs. Nickleby, with elaborate precaution;
unlike her, noiseless. If I look up from my work, she is ready with an
explosive smile. I generally don't, and wait to look at her as she
stoops for the bellows, and trips tiptoe off again, a miracle of
successful womanhood in every line. I am amused to find plain, healthy
Java pass in my fancy so far before pretty young Faauma. I observed
Lloyd the other day to say that Java must have been lovely "when she was
young"; and I thought it an odd word, of a woman in the height of
health, not yet touched with fat, though (to be just) a little slack of
bust.
Our party you know: Fanny, Lloyd, my mother, Belle, and "the babe"--as
we call him--Austin. We have now three instruments; Boehm flageolet,
flute, and Bb clarinet; and we expect in a few days our piano. This is a
great pleasure to me; the band-mastering, the playing and all. As soon
as I am done with this stage of a letter, I shall return, not being
allowed to play, to band-master, being engaged in an attempt to arrange
an air with effect for the three pipes. And I'll go now, by jabers.
[Illustration]
_July 3rd._--A long pause: occasioned, first by some days of hard work:
next by a vile quinsey--if that be the way to spell it. But to-day I
must write. For we have all kinds of larks on hand. The wars and rumours
of wars begin to take consistency, insomuch that we have landed the
weapons this morning, and inspected the premises with a view to defence.
Of course it will come to nothing; but as in all stories of massacres,
the one you don't prepare for is the one that comes off. All our natives
think ill of the business; none of the whites do. According to our
natives the demonstration threatened for to-day or to-morrow is one of
vengeance on the whites--small wonder--and if that begins--where will it
stop? Anyway I don't mean to go down for nothing, if I can help it; and
to amuse you I will tell you our plans.
There is the house, upper story. Our weak point is of course the sides
AB, AH; so we propose to place half our garrison in the space HGFD and
half in the opposite corner, BB'CD. We shall communicate through the
interior, there is a water-tank in the angle C, my mother and Austin are
to go in the loft. The holding of only these two corners and deserting
the corner C' is for economy and communication, two doors being in the
sides GF and CD; so that any one in the corner C' could only communicate
or be reinforced by exposure. Besides we are short of mattresses.
Garrison: R. L. S., Lloyd, Fanny, King, Ratke--doubtful, he may
go--Emma, Mary, Belle; weapons: eight revolvers and a shot gun, and
swords galore; but we're pretty far gone when we come to the swords. It
has been rather a lark arranging; but I find it a bore to write, and I
doubt it will be cruel stale to read about, when all's over and done, as
it will be ere this goes, I fancy: far more ere it reaches you.
_Date unknown._--Well, nothing as yet, though I don't swear by it yet.
There has been a lot of trouble, and there still is a lot of doubt as to
the future; and those who sit in the chief seats, who are all excellent,
pleasant creatures, are not, perhaps, the most wise of mankind. They
actually proposed to kidnap and deport Mataafa; a scheme which would
have loosed the avalanche at once. But some human being interfered and
choked off this pleasing scheme. You ask me in yours just received, what
will become of us if it comes to a war? Well, if it is a war of the old
sort, nothing. It will mean a little bother, and a great deal of theft,
and more amusement. But if it comes to the massacre lark, I can only
answer with the Bell of Old Bow. You are to understand that, in my
reading of the native character, every day that passes is a solid gain.
They put in the time public speaking; so wear out their energy, develop
points of difference and exacerbate internal ill-feeling. Consequently,
I feel less apprehension of difficulty now, by about a hundredfold. All
that I stick to, is that if war begins, there are ten chances to one we
shall have it bad. The natives have been scurvily used by all the white
powers without exception; and they labour under the belief, of which
they can't be cured, that they defeated Germany. This makes an awkward
complication.
I was extremely vexed to hear you were ill again. I hope you are better.
'Tis a long time we have known each other now, to be sure. Well, well!
you say you are sure to catch fever in the bush; so we do continually;
but you are to conceive Samoa fever as the least formidable malady under
heaven: implying only a day or so of slight headache and languor and ill
humour, easily reduced by quinine or antipyrine. The hot fever I had was
from over-exertion and blood poisoning, no doubt, and irritation of the
bladder; it went of its own accord and with rest. I have had since a bad
quinsey which knocked me rather useless for about a week, but I stuck to
my work, with great difficulty and small success.
_Date unknown._--But it's fast day and July, and the rude inclement
depth of winter, and the thermometer was 68 this morning and a few days
ago it was 63, and we have all been perishing with cold. All still seems
quiet. Your counterfeit presentments are all round us: the pastel over
my bed, the Dew-Smith photograph over my door, and the "celebrity" on
Fanny's table. My room is now done, and looks very gay, and chromatic
with its blue walls and my coloured lines of books.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This is the first letter in which Stevenson expresses the opinion
which had been forcing itself upon him, and which he felt it his duty
in the following year to express publicly in letters to the Times, of
the unwisdom of the government established under the treaty between
the Three Powers and the incompetence of the officials appointed to
carry it out.
_[Vailima] Sunday, Sept. 5(?), 1891._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yours from Lochinver has just come. You ask me if I am
ever homesick for the Highlands and the Isles. Conceive that for the
last month I have been living there between 1786 and 1850, in my
grandfather's diaries and letters. I _had_ to take a rest; no use
talking; so I put in a month over my _Lives of the Stevensons_ with
great pleasure and profit and some advance; one chapter and a part
drafted. The whole promises well. Chapter I. Domestic Annals. Chapter
II. The Northern Lights. Chapter III. The Bell Rock. Chapter IV. A
Family of Boys. Chap. V. The Grandfather. VI. Alan Stevenson. VII.
Thomas Stevenson. My materials for my great-grandfather are almost null;
for my grandfather copious and excellent. Name, a puzzle. _A Scottish
Family_, _A Family of Engineers_, _Northern Lights_, _The Engineers of
the Northern Lights: A Family History_. Advise; but it will take long.
Now, imagine if I have been homesick for Barrahead and Island Glass, and
Kirkwall, and Cape Wrath, and the Wells of the Pentland Firth; I could
have wept.
Now for politics. I am much less alarmed; I believe the _malo_ (= _raj_,
government) will collapse and cease like an overlain infant, without a
shot fired. They have now been months here on their big salaries--and
Cedercrantz, whom I specially like as a man, has done nearly nothing,
and the Baron, who is well-meaning, has done worse. They have these
large salaries, and they have all the taxes; they have made scarce a
foot of road; they have not given a single native a position--all to
white men; they have scarce laid out a penny on Apia, and scarce a penny
on the King; they have forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing
as Samoans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief
Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have
an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has
none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent
subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their _malo_. It is
damned, and I'm damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last "_Wainiu_,"
when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief
Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve his mind. I showed
my way of thought to his guest, Count Wachtmeister, whom I have sent to
you with a letter--he will tell you all the news. Well, the Chief
Justice stayed, but they said he was to leave yesterday. I had intended
to go down, and see and warn him! But the President's house had come up
in the meanwhile, and I let them go to their doom, which I am only
anxious to see swiftly and (if it may be) bloodlessly fall.
Thus I have in a way withdrawn my unrewarded loyalty. Lloyd is down
to-day with Moors to call on Mataafa; the news of the excursion made a
considerable row in Apia, and both the German and the English consuls
besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his purpose, and with my
approval. It's a poor thing if people are to give up a pleasure party
for a _malo_ that has never done anything for us but draw taxes, and is
going to go pop, and leave us at the mercy of the identical Mataafa,
whom I have not visited for more than a year, and who is probably
furious.
The sense of my helplessness here has been rather bitter; I feel it
wretched to see this dance of folly and injustice and unconscious
rapacity go forward from day to day, and to be impotent. I was not
consulted--or only by one man, and that on particular points; I did not
choose to volunteer advice till some pressing occasion; I have not even
a vote, for I am not a member of the municipality.
What ails you, miserable man, to talk of saving material? I have a whole
world in my head, a whole new society to work, but I am in no hurry; you
will shortly make the acquaintance of the Island of Ulufanua, on which
I mean to lay several stories; the _Bloody Wedding_, possibly the _High
Woods_--(O, it's so good, the _High Woods_, but the story is craziness;
that's the trouble)--a political story, the _Labour Slave_, etc.
Ulufanua is an imaginary island; the name is a beautiful Samoan word for
the _top_ of a forest; ulu=leaves or hair, fanua=land. The ground or
country of the leaves. "Ulufanua the isle of the sea," read that verse
dactylically and you get the beat; the u's are like our double oo; did
ever you hear a prettier word?
I do not feel inclined to make a volume of Essays,[22] but if I did, and
perhaps the idea is good--and any idea is better than the _South
Seas_--here would be my choice of the Scribner articles: _Dreams_,
_Beggars_, _Lantern-Bearers_, _Random Memories_. There was a paper
called the _Old Pacific Capital_ in Fraser, in Tulloch's time, which had
merit; there were two on Fontainebleau in the Magazine of Art in
Henley's time. I have no idea if they're any good; then there's the
_Emigrant Train_. _Pulvis et Umbra_ is in a different key, and wouldn't
hang on with the rest.
I have just interrupted my letter and read through the chapter of the
_High Woods_ that is written, a chapter and a bit, some sixteen pages,
really very fetching, but what do you wish? the story is so wilful, so
steep, so silly--it's a hallucination I have outlived, and yet I never
did a better piece of work, horrid, and pleasing, and extraordinarily
_true_; it's sixteen pages of the South Seas; their essence. What am I
to do? Lose this little gem--for I'll be bold, and that's what I think
it--or go on with the rest, which I don't believe in, and don't like,
and which can never make aught but a silly yarn? Make another end to it?
Ah, yes, but that's not the way I write; the whole tale is implied; I
never use an effect, when I can help it, unless it prepares the effects
that are to follow; that's what a story consists in. To make another
end, that is to make the beginning all wrong. The dénouement of a long
story is nothing; it is just a "full close," which you may approach and
accompany as you please--it is a coda, not an essential member in the
rhythm; but the body and end of a short story is bone of the bone and
blood of the blood of the beginning. Well, I shall end by finishing it
against my judgment; that fragment is my Delilah. Golly, it's good. I am
not shining by modesty; but I do just love the colour and movement of
that piece so far as it goes.
I was surprised to hear of your fishing. And you saw the _Pharos_,[23]
thrice fortunate man; I wish I dared go home, I would ask the
Commissioners to take me round for old sake's sake, and see all my
family pictures once more from the Mull of Galloway to Unst. However,
all is arranged for our meeting in Ceylon, except the date and the
blooming pounds. I have heard of an exquisite hotel in the country,
airy, large rooms, good cookery, not dear; we shall have a couple of
months there, if we can make it out, and converse or--as my grandfather
always said--"commune." "Communings with Mr. Kennedy as to Lighthouse
Repairs." He was a fine old fellow, but a droll.
_Evening._--Lloyd has returned. Peace and war were played before his
eyes at heads or tails. A German was stopped with levelled guns; he
raised his whip; had it fallen, we might have been now in war. Excuses
were made by Mataafa himself. Doubtless the thing was done--I mean the
stopping of the German--a little to show off before Lloyd. Meanwhile
---- was up here, telling how the Chief Justice was really gone for five
or eight weeks, and begging me to write to the Times and denounce the
state of affairs; many strong reasons he advanced; and Lloyd and I have
been since his arrival and ----'s departure, near half an hour, debating
what should be done. Cedercrantz is gone; it is not my fault; he knows
my views on that point--alone of all points;--he leaves me with my mouth
sealed. Yet this is a nice thing that because he is guilty of a fresh
offence--his flight--the mouth of the only possible influential witness
should be closed? I do not like this argument. I look like a cad, if I
do in the man's absence what I could have done in a more manly manner in
his presence. True; but why did he go? It is his last sin. And I, who
like the man extremely--that is the word--I love his society--he is
intelligent, pleasant, even witty, a gentleman--and you know how that
attaches--I loathe to seem to play a base part; but the poor
natives--who are like other folk, false enough, lazy enough, not heroes,
not saints--ordinary men damnably misused--are they to suffer because I
like Cedercrantz, and Cedercrantz has cut his lucky? This is a little
tragedy, observe well--a tragedy! I may be right, I may be wrong in my
judgment, but I am in treaty with my honour. I know not how it will seem
to-morrow. Lloyd thought the barrier of honour insurmountable, and it is
an ugly obstacle. He (Cedercrantz) will likely meet my wife three days
from now, may travel back with her, will be charming if he does; suppose
this, and suppose him to arrive and find that I have sprung a mine--or
the nearest approach to it I could find--behind his back? My position is
pretty. Yes, I am an aristocrat. I have the old petty, personal view of
honour? I should blush till I die if I do this; yet it is on the cards
that I may do it. So much I have written you in bed, as a man writes or
talks, in a _bittre Wahl_. Now I shall sleep, and see if I am more
clear. I will consult the missionaries at least--I place some reliance
in M. also--or I should if he were not a partisan; but a partisan he is.
There's a pity. To sleep! A fund of wisdom in the prostrate body and the
fed brain. Kindly observe R. L. S. in the talons of politics! 'Tis
funny--'tis sad. Nobody but these cursed idiots could have so driven me;
I cannot bear idiots.
My dear Colvin, I must go to sleep; it is long past ten--a dreadful hour
for me. And here am I lingering (so I feel) in the dining-room at the
Monument, talking to you across the table, both on our feet, and only
the two stairs to mount, and get to bed, and sleep, and be waked by dear
old George--to whom I wish my kindest remembrances--next morning. I look
round, and there is my blue room, and my long lines of shelves, and the
door gaping on a moonless night, and no word of S. C. but his twa
portraits on the wall. Good-bye, my dear fellow, and good-night. Queer
place the world!
_Monday._--No clearness of mind with the morning; I have no guess what I
should do. 'Tis easy to say that the public duty should brush aside
these little considerations of personal dignity; so it is that
politicians begin, and in a month you find them rat and flatter and
intrigue with brows of brass. I am rather of the old view, that a man's
first duty is to these little laws; the big he does not, he never will,
understand; I may be wrong about the Chief Justice and the Baron and the
state of Samoa; I cannot be wrong about the vile attitude I put myself
in if I blow the gaff on Cedercrantz behind his back.
_Tuesday._--One more word about the _South Seas_, in answer to a
question I observed I have forgotten to answer. The Tahiti part has
never turned up, because it has never been written. As for telling you
where I went or when, or anything about Honolulu, I would rather die;
that is fair and plain. How can anybody care when or how I left
Honolulu? A man of upwards of forty cannot waste his time in
communicating matter of that indifference. The letters, it appears, are
tedious; they would be more tedious still if I wasted my time upon such
infantile and sucking-bottle details. If ever I put in any such detail,
it is because it leads into something or serves as a transition. To
tell it for its own sake, never! The mistake is all through that I have
told too much; I had not sufficient confidence in the reader, and have
overfed him; and here are you anxious to learn how I--O Colvin! Suppose
it had made a book, all such information is given to one glance of an
eye by a map with a little dotted line upon it. But let us forget this
unfortunate affair.
_Wednesday._--Yesterday I went down to consult Clarke, who took the view
of delay. Has he changed his mind already? I wonder: here at least is
the news. Some little while back some men of Manono--what is Manono?--a
Samoan rotten borough, a small isle of huge political importance, heaven
knows why, where a handful of chiefs make half the trouble in the
country. Some men of Manono (which is strong Mataafa) burned down the
houses and destroyed the crops of some Malietoa neighbours. The
President went there the other day and landed alone on the island, which
(to give him his due) was plucky. Moreover, he succeeded in persuading
the folks to come up and be judged on a particular day in Apia. That day
they did not come; but did come the next, and, to their vast surprise,
were given six months' imprisonment and clapped in gaol. Those who had
accompanied them cried to them on the streets as they were marched to
prison, "Shall we rescue you?" The condemned, marching in the hands of
thirty men with loaded rifles, cried out "No"! And the trick was done.
But it was ardently believed a rescue would be attempted; the gaol was
laid about with armed men day and night; but there was some question of
their loyalty, and the commandant of the forces, a very nice young
beardless Swede, became nervous, and conceived a plan. How if he should
put dynamite under the gaol, and in case of an attempted rescue blow up
prison and all? He went to the President, who agreed; he went to the
American man-of-war for the dynamite and machine, was refused, and got
it at last from the Wreckers. The thing began to leak out, and there
arose a muttering in town. People had no fancy for amateur explosions,
for one thing. For another, it did not clearly appear that it was legal;
the men had been condemned to six months' prison, which they were
peaceably undergoing; they had not been condemned to death. And lastly,
it seemed a somewhat advanced example of civilisation to set before
barbarians. The mutter in short became a storm, and yesterday, while I
was down, a cutter was chartered, and the prisoners were suddenly
banished to the Tokelaus. Who has changed the sentence? We are going to
stir in the dynamite matter; we do not want the natives to fancy us
consenting to such an outrage.
Fanny has returned from her trip, and on the whole looks better. The
_High Woods_ are under way, and their name is now the _Beach of Falesá_,
and the yarn is cured. I have about thirty pages of it done; it will be
fifty to seventy I suppose. No supernatural trick at all; and escaped
out of it quite easily; can't think why I was so stupid for so long.
Mighty glad to have Fanny back to this "Hell of the South Seas," as the
German Captain called it. What will Cedercrantz think when he comes
back? To do him justice, had he been here, this Manono hash would not
have been.
Here is a pretty thing. When Fanny was in Fiji all the Samoa and Tokelau
folks were agog about our "flash" house; but the whites had never heard
of it.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
Author of _The Beach of Falesá_.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima], Sept. 28, 1891._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Since I last laid down my pen, I have written and
rewritten _The Beach of Falesá_; something like sixty thousand words of
sterling domestic fiction (the story, you will understand, is only half
that length); and now I don't want to write any more again for ever, or
feel so; and I've got to overhaul it once again to my sorrow. I was all
yesterday revising, and found a lot of slacknesses and (what is worse in
this kind of thing) some literaryisms. One of the puzzles is this: It is
a first person story--a trader telling his own adventure in an island.
When I began I allowed myself a few liberties, because I was afraid of
the end; now the end proved quite easy, and could be done in the pace;
so the beginning remains about a quarter tone out (in places); but I
have rather decided to let it stay so. The problem is always delicate;
it is the only thing that worries me in first person tales, which
otherwise (quo' Alan) "set better wi' my genius." There is a vast deal
of fact in the story, and some pretty good comedy. It is the first
realistic South Sea story; I mean with real South Sea character and
details of life. Everybody else who has tried, that I have seen, got
carried away by the romance, and ended in a kind of sugar candy sham
epic, and the whole effect was lost--there was no etching, no human
grin, consequently no conviction. Now I have got the smell and look of
the thing a good deal. You will know more about the South Seas after you
have read my little tale than if you had read a library. As to whether
any one else will read it, I have no guess. I am in an off time, but
there is just the possibility it might make a hit; for the yarn is good
and melodramatic, and there is quite a love affair--for me; and Mr.
Wiltshire (the narrator) is a huge lark, though I say it. But there is
always the exotic question, and everything, the life, the place, the
dialects--trader's talk, which is a strange conglomerate of literary
expressions and English and American slang, and Beach de Mar, or native
English,--the very trades and hopes and fears of the characters, are all
novel, and may be found unwelcome to that great, hulking, bullering
whale, the public.
Since I wrote, I have been likewise drawing up a document to send in to
the President; it has been dreadfully delayed, not by me, but to-day
they swear it will be sent in. A list of questions about the dynamite
report are herein laid before him, and considerations suggested why he
should answer.
_October 5th._--Ever since my last snatch I have been much chivied about
over the President business; his answer has come, and is an evasion
accompanied with schoolboy insolence, and we are going to try to answer
it. I drew my answer and took it down yesterday; but one of the
signatories wants another paragraph added, which I have not yet been
able to draw, and as to the wisdom of which I am not yet convinced.
_Next day, Oct. 7th the right day._--We are all in rather a muddled
state with our President affair. I do loathe politics, but at the same
time, I cannot stand by and have the natives blown in the air
treacherously with dynamite. They are still quiet; how long this may
continue I do not know, though of course by mere prescription the
Government is strengthened, and is probably insured till the next taxes
fall due. But the unpopularity of the whites is growing. My native
overseer, the great Henry Simelé, announced to-day that he was "weary of
whites upon the beach. All too proud," said this veracious witness. One
of the proud ones had threatened yesterday to cut off his head with a
bush knife! These are "native outrages"; honour bright, and setting
theft aside, in which the natives are active, this is the main stream of
irritation. The natives are generally courtly, far from always civil,
but really gentle, and with a strong sense of honour of their own, and
certainly quite as much civilised as our dynamiting President.
We shall be delighted to see Kipling.[24] I go to bed usually about
half-past eight, and my lamp is out before ten; I breakfast at six. We
may say roughly we have no soda water on the island, and just now
truthfully no whisky. I _have_ heard the chimes at midnight; now no
more, I guess. _But_--Fanny and I, as soon as we can get coins for it,
are coming to Europe, not to England: I am thinking of Royat. Bar wars.
If not, perhaps the Apennines might give us a mountain refuge for two
months or three in summer. How is that for high? But the money must be
all in hand first.
_October 13th._--How am I to describe my life these last few days? I
have been wholly swallowed up in politics, a wretched business, with
fine elements of farce in it too, which repay a man in passing,
involving many dark and many moonlight rides, secret counsels which are
at once divulged, sealed letters which are read aloud in confidence to
the neighbours, and a mass of fudge and fun, which would have driven me
crazy ten years ago, and now makes me smile.
On Friday, Henry came and told us he must leave and go to "my poor old
family in Savaii"; why? I do not quite know--but, I suspect, to be
tattooed--if so, then probably to be married, and we shall see him no
more. I told him he must do what he thought his duty; we had him to
lunch, drank his health, and he and I rode down about twelve. When I got
down, I sent my horse back to help bring down the family later. My own
afternoon was cut out for me; my last draft for the President had been
objected to by some of the signatories. I stood out, and one of our
small number accordingly refused to sign. Him I had to go and persuade,
which went off very well after the first hottish moments; you have no
idea how stolid my temper is now. By about five the thing was done; and
we sat down to dinner at the Chinaman's--the Verrey or Doyen of
Apia--Gurr and I at each end as hosts; Gurr's wife--Fanua, late maid of
the village; her (adopted) father and mother, Seumanu and Faatulia,
Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, Austin, and Henry Simelé, his last appearance.
Henry was in a kilt of grey shawl, with a blue jacket, white shirt, and
black necktie, and looked like a dark genteel guest in a Highland
shooting-box. Seumanu (opposite Fanny, next G.) is chief of Apia, a
rather big gun in this place, looking like a large, fatted, military
Englishman, bar the colour. Faatulia, next me, is a bigger chief than
her husband. Henry is a chief too--his chief name, Iiga (Ee-eeng-a), he
has not yet "taken" because of his youth. We were in fine society, and
had a pleasant meal-time, with lots of fun. Then to the Opera--I beg
your pardon, I mean the Circus. We occupied the first row in the
reserved seats, and there in the row behind were all our
friends--Captain Foss and his Captain-Lieutenant, three of the American
officers, very nice fellows, the Dr., etc., so we made a fine show of
what an embittered correspondent of the local paper called "the shoddy
aristocracy of Apia"; and you should have seen how we carried on, and
how I clapped, and Captain Foss hollered "_wunderschön!_" and threw
himself forward in his seat, and how we all in fact enjoyed ourselves
like school-children, Austin not a shade more than his neighbours. Then
the Circus broke up, and the party went home, but I stayed down, having
business on the morrow.
Yesterday, October 12th, great news reaches me, and Lloyd and I, with
the mail just coming in, must leave all, saddle, and ride down. True
enough, the President had resigned! Sought to resign his presidency of
the council, and keep his advisership to the King; given way to the
consuls' objections and resigned all--then fell out with them about the
disposition of the funds, and was now trying to resign from his
resignation! Sad little President, so trim to look at, and I believe so
kind to his little wife! Not only so, but I meet Dunnet on the beach.
Dunnet calls me in consultation, and we make with infinite difficulty a
draft of a petition to the King.... Then to dinner at Moors's, a very
merry meal, interrupted before it was over by the arrival of the
committee. Slight sketch of procedure agreed upon, self appointed
spokesman, and the deputation sets off. Walk all through Matafele, all
along Mulinuu, come to the King's house; he has verbally refused to see
us in answer to our letter, swearing he is gasegase (chief sickness, not
common man's) and indeed we see him inside in bed. It is a miserable low
house, better houses by the dozen in the little hamlet (Tanugamanono) of
bushmen on our way to Vailima; and the President's house in process of
erection just opposite! We are told to return to-morrow; I refuse; and
at last we are very sourly received, sit on the mats, and I open out,
through a very poor interpreter, and sometimes hampered by unacceptable
counsels from my backers. I can speak fairly well in a plain way now. C.
asked me to write out my harangue for him this morning; I have done so,
and couldn't get it near as good. I suppose (talking and interpreting) I
was twenty minutes or half an hour on the deck; then his majesty replied
in the dying whisper of a big chief; a few words of rejoinder
(approving), and the deputation withdrew, rather well satisfied.
A few days ago this intervention would have been a deportable offence;
not now, I bet; I would like them to try. A little way back along
Mulinuu, Mrs. Gurr met us with her husband's horse; and he and she and
Lloyd and I rode back in a heavenly moonlight. Here ends a chapter in
the life of an island politician! Catch me at it again; 'tis easy to go
in, but it is not a pleasant trade. I have had a good team, as good as I
could get on the beach; but what trouble even so, and what fresh
troubles shaping. But I have on the whole carried all my points; I
believe all but one, and on that (which did not concern me) I had no
right to interfere. I am sure you would be amazed if you knew what a
good hand I am at keeping my temper, talking people over, and giving
reasons which are not my reasons, but calculated for the meridian of
the particular objection; so soon does falsehood await the politician
in his whirling path.
TO HENRY JAMES
Stevenson had again been reading Mr. James's _Lesson of the Master_;
Adela Chart is the heroine of the second story in that collection,
called _The Marriages_.
[_Vailima, October 1891._]
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--From this perturbed and hunted being expect but a
line, and that line shall be but a whoop for Adela. O she's delicious,
delicious; I could live and die with Adela--die, rather the better of
the two; you never did a straighter thing, and never will.
_David Balfour_, second part of _Kidnapped_, is on the stocks at last;
and is not bad, I think. As for _The Wrecker_, it's a machine, you
know--don't expect aught else--a machine, and a police machine; but I
believe the end is one of the most genuine butcheries in literature; and
we point to our machine with a modest pride, as the only police machine
without a villain. Our criminals are a most pleasing crew, and leave the
dock with scarce a stain upon their character.
What a different line of country to be trying to draw Adela, and trying
to write the last four chapters of _The Wrecker_! Heavens, it's like two
centuries; and ours is such rude, transpontine business, aiming only at
a certain fervour of conviction and sense of energy and violence in the
men; and yours is so neat and bright and of so exquisite a surface!
Seems dreadful to send such a book to such an author; but your name is
on the list. And we do modestly ask you to consider the chapters on the
_Norah Creina_ with the study of Captain Nares, and the forementioned
last four, with their brutality of substance and the curious (and
perhaps unsound) technical manoeuvre of running the story together to
a point as we go along, the narrative becoming more succinct and the
details fining off with every page.--Sworn affidavit of
R. L. S.
_No person now alive has beaten Adela: I adore Adela and her maker. Sic
subscrib._
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
A Sublime Poem to follow.
Adela, Adela, Adela Chart,
What have you done to my elderly heart?
Of all the ladies of paper and ink
I count you the paragon, call you the pink.
The word of your brother depicts you in part:
"You raving maniac!" Adela Chart;
But in all the asylums that cumber the ground,
So delightful a maniac was ne'er to be found.
I pore on you, dote on you, clasp you to heart,
I laud, love, and laugh at you, Adela Chart,
And thank my dear maker the while I admire
That I can be neither your husband nor sire.
Your husband's, your sire's were a difficult part;
You're a byway to suicide, Adela Chart;
But to read of, depicted by exquisite James,
O, sure you're the flower and quintessence of dames.
R. L. S.
_Eructavit cor meum_
My heart was inditing a goodly matter about Adela Chart.
Though oft I've been touched by the volatile dart,
To none have I grovelled but Adela Chart,
There are passable ladies, no question, in art--
But where is the marrow of Adela Chart?
I dreamed that to Tyburn I passed in the cart--
I dreamed I was married to Adela Chart:
From the first I awoke with a palpable start,
The second dumbfoundered me, Adela Chart!
Another verse bursts from me, you see; no end to the violence of the
Muse.
To E. L. BURLINGAME
_[Vailima], October 8th, 1891._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--All right, you shall have the _Tales of my
Grandfather_ soon, but I guess we'll try and finish off _The Wrecker_
first. _A propos_ of whom, please send some advanced sheets to
Cassell's--away ahead of you--so that they may get a dummy out.
Do you wish to illustrate _My Grandfather_? He mentions as excellent a
portrait of Scott by Basil Hall's brother. I don't think I ever saw this
engraved; would it not, if you could get track of it, prove a taking
embellishment? I suggest this for your consideration and inquiry. A new
portrait of Scott strikes me as good. There is a hard, tough,
constipated old portrait of my grandfather hanging in my aunt's house,
Mrs. Alan Stevenson, 16 St. Leonard's Terrace, Chelsea, which has never
been engraved--the better portrait, Joseph's bust, has been reproduced,
I believe, twice--and which, I am sure, my aunt would let you have a
copy of. The plate could be of use for the book when we get so far, and
thus to place it in the Magazine might be an actual saving.
I am swallowed up in politics for the first, I hope for the last, time
in my sublunary career. It is a painful, thankless trade; but one thing
that came up I could not pass in silence. Much drafting, addressing,
deputationising has eaten up all my time, and again (to my contrition)
I leave you Wreckerless. As soon as the mail leaves I tackle it
straight.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Vailima, October 1891._]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The time draws nigh, the mail is near due, and I
snatch a moment of collapse so that you may have at least some sort of a
scratch of note along with the
\ end
\ of
\ _The_
\ _Wrecker_. Hurray!
which I mean to go herewith. It has taken me a devil of a pull, but I
think it's going to be ready. If I did not know you were on the stretch
waiting for it and trembling for your illustrations, I would keep it for
another finish; but things being as they are, I will let it go the best
way I can get it. I am now within two pages of the end of Chapter XXV.,
which is the last chapter, the end with its gathering up of loose
threads, being the dedication to Low, and addressed to him; this is my
last and best expedient for the knotting up of these loose cards. 'Tis
possible I may not get that finished in time, in which case you'll
receive only Chapters XXII. to XXV. by this mail, which is all that can
be required for illustration.
I wish you would send me _Memoirs of Baron Marbot_ (French);
_Introduction to the Study of the History of Language_, Strong, Logeman
& Wheeler; _Principles of Psychology_, William James; Morris &
Magnusson's _Saga Library_, any volumes that are out; George Meredith's
_One of our Conquerors_; _Là Bas_, by Huysmans (French); O'Connor
Morris's _Great Commanders of Modern Times_; _Life's Handicap_, by
Kipling; of Taine's _Origines de la France Contemporaine_, I have only
as far as _la Révolution_, vol. iii.; if another volume is out, please
add that. There is for a book-box.
I hope you will like the end; I think it is rather strong meat. I have
got into such a deliberate, dilatory, expansive turn, that the effort to
compress this last yarn was unwelcome; but the longest yarn has to come
to an end some time. Please look it over for carelessnesses, and tell me
if it had any effect upon your jaded editorial mind. I'll see if ever I
have time to add more.
I add to my book-box list Adams' _Historical Essays_; the Plays of A. W.
Pinero--all that have appeared, and send me the rest in course as they
do appear; _Noughts and Crosses_ by Q.; Robertson's _Scotland under her
Early Kings_.
_Sunday._--The deed is done, didst thou not hear a noise? "The end" has
been written to this endless yarn, and I am once more a free man. What
will he do with it?
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] Monday, October 24th._
MY DEAR CARTHEW,[25]--See what I have written, but it's Colvin I'm
after--I have written two chapters, about thirty pages of _Wrecker_
since the mail left, which must be my excuse, and the bother I've had
with it is not to be imagined; you might have seen me the day before
yesterday weighing British sov.'s and Chili dollars to arrange my
treasure chest. And there was such a calculation, not for that only, but
for the ship's position and distances when--but I am not going to tell
you the yarn--and then, as my arithmetic is particularly lax, Lloyd had
to go over all my calculations; and then, as I had changed the amount
of money, he had to go over all _his_ as to the amount of the lay; and
altogether, a bank could be run with less effusion of figures than it
took to shore up a single chapter of a measly yarn. However, it's done,
and I have but one more, or at the outside two, to do, and I am Free!
and can do any damn thing I like.
Before falling on politics, I shall give you my day. Awoke somewhere
about the first peep of day, came gradually to, and had a turn on the
verandah before 5.55, when "the child" (an enormous Wallis Islander)
brings me an orange; at 6, breakfast; 6.10, to work; which lasts till,
at 10.30, Austin comes for his history lecture; this is rather
dispiriting, but education must be gone about in faith--and charity,
both of which pretty nigh failed me to-day about (of all things)
Carthage; 11, luncheon; after luncheon in my mother's room, I read
Chapter XXIII. of _The Wrecker_, then Belle, Lloyd, and I go up and make
music furiously till about 2 (I suppose), when I turn into work again
till 4; fool from 4 to half-past, tired out and waiting for the bath
hour; 4.30, bath; 4.40, eat two heavenly mangoes on the verandah, and
see the boys arrive with the pack-horses; 5, dinner; smoke, chat on
verandah, then hand of cards, and at last at 8 come up to my room with a
pint of beer and a hard biscuit, which I am now consuming, and as soon
as they are consumed I shall turn in.
Such are the innocent days of this ancient and outworn sportsman; to-day
there was no weeding, usually there is however, edged in somewhere. My
books for the moment are a crib to Phædo, and the second book of
Montaigne; and a little while back I was reading Frederic Harrison,
_Choice of Books_, etc.--very good indeed, a great deal of sense and
knowledge in the volume, and some very true stuff, _contra_ Carlyle,
about the eighteenth century. A hideous idea came over me that perhaps
Harrison is now getting _old_. Perhaps you are. Perhaps I am. Oh, this
infidelity must be stared firmly down. I am about twenty-three--say
twenty-eight; you about thirty, or, by'r lady, thirty-four; and as
Harrison belongs to the same generation, there is no good bothering
about him.
Here has just been a fine alert; I gave my wife a dose of chlorodyne.
"Something wrong," says she. "Nonsense," said I. "Embrocation," said
she. I smelt it, and--it smelt very funny. "I think it's just gone bad,
and to-morrow will tell." Proved to be so.
_Wednesday._--History of Tuesday.--Woke at usual time, very little work,
for I was tired, and had a job for the evening--to write parts for a new
instrument, a violin. Lunch, chat, and up to my place to practise; but
there was no practising for me--my flageolet was gone wrong, and I had
to take it all to pieces, clean it, and put it up again. As this is a
most intricate job--the thing dissolves into seventeen separate members,
most of these have to be fitted on their individual springs as fine as
needles, and sometimes two at once with the springs shoving different
ways--it took me till two. Then Lloyd and I rode forth on our errands;
first to Motootua, where we had a really instructive conversation on
weeds and grasses. Thence down to Apia, where we bought a fresh bottle
of chlorodyne and conversed on politics.
My visit to the King, which I thought at the time a particularly
nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had
held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce
of a row--new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet
without consuls' permission, two days' notice, and an approved
interpreter--read (I suppose) spy. Then back; I should have said I was
trying the new horse; a tallish piebald, bought from the circus; he
proved steady and safe, but in very bad condition, and not so much the
wild Arab steed of the desert as had been supposed. The height of his
back, after commodious Jack, astonished me, and I had a great
consciousness of exercise and florid action, as I posted to his long,
emphatic trot. We had to ride back easy; even so he was hot and blown;
and when we set a boy to lead him to and fro, our last character for
sanity perished. We returned just neat for dinner; and in the evening
our violinist arrived, a young lady, no great virtuoso truly, but
plucky, industrious, and a good reader; and we played five pieces with
huge amusement, and broke up at nine. This morning I have read a
splendid piece of Montaigne, written this page of letter, and now turn
to _The Wrecker_.
_Wednesday._--November 16th or 17th--and I am ashamed to say mail day.
_The Wrecker_ is finished, that is the best of my news; it goes by this
mail to Scribner's; and I honestly think it a good yarn on the whole and
of its measly kind. The part that is genuinely good is Nares, the
American sailor; that is a genuine figure; had there been more Nares it
would have been a better book; but of course it didn't set up to be a
book, only a long tough yarn with some pictures of the manners of to-day
in the greater world--not the shoddy sham world of cities, clubs, and
colleges, but the world where men still live a man's life. The worst of
my news is the influenza; Apia is devastate; the shops closed, a ball
put off, etc. As yet we have not had it at Vailima, and, who knows? we
may escape. None of us go down, but of course the boys come and go.
Your letter had the most wonderful "I told you so" I ever heard in the
course of my life. Why, you madman, I wouldn't change my present
installation for any post, dignity, honour, or advantage conceivable to
me. It fills the bill; I have the loveliest time. And as for wars and
rumours of wars, you surely know enough of me to be aware that I like
that also a thousand times better than decrepit peace in Middlesex? I do
not quite like politics; I am too aristocratic, I fear, for that. God
knows I don't care who I chum with; perhaps like sailors best; but to go
round and sue and sneak to keep a crowd together--never. My
imagination, which is not the least damped by the idea of having my head
cut off in the bush, recoils aghast from the idea of a life like
Gladstone's, and the shadow of the newspaper chills me to the bone.
Hence my late eruption was interesting, but not what I like. All else
suits me in this (killed a mosquito) A1 abode.
About politics. A determination was come to by the President that he had
been an idiot; emissaries came to Gurr and me to kiss and be friends. My
man proposed I should have a personal interview; I said it was quite
useless, I had nothing to say; I had offered him the chance to inform
me, had pressed it on him, and had been very unpleasantly received, and
now "Time was." Then it was decided that I was to be made a culprit
against Germany; the German Captain--a delightful fellow and our
constant visitor--wrote to say that as "a German officer" he could not
come even to say farewell. We all wrote back in the most friendly
spirit, telling him (politely) that some of these days he would be
sorry, and we should be delighted to see our friend again. Since then I
have seen no German shadow.
Mataafa has been proclaimed a rebel; the President did this act, and
then resigned. By singular good fortune, Mataafa has not yet moved; no
thanks to our idiot governors. They have shot their bolt; they have made
a rebel of the only man (_to their own knowledge, on the report of their
own spy_) who held the rebel party in check; and having thus called on
war to fall, they can do no more, sit equally "expertes" of _vis_ and
counsel, regarding their handiwork. It is always a cry with these folks
that he (Mataafa) had no ammunition. I always said it would be found;
and we know of five boat-loads that have found their way to Malie
already. Where there are traders, there will be ammunition; aphorism by
R. L. S.
Now what am I to do next?
Lives of the Stevensons? _Historia Samoae_? A History for Children?
Fiction? I have had two hard months at fiction; I want a change.
Stevensons? I am expecting some more material; perhaps better wait.
Samoa? rather tempting; might be useful to the islands--and to me; for
it will be written in admirable temper; I have never agreed with any
party, and see merits and excuses in all; should do it (if I did) very
slackly and easily, as if half in conversation. History for Children?
This flows from my lessons to Austin; no book is any good. The best I
have seen is Freeman's _Old English History_; but his style is so
rasping, and a child can learn more, if he's clever. I found my sketch
of general Aryan history, given in conversation, to have been
practically correct--at least what I mean is, Freeman had very much the
same stuff in his early chapters, only not so much, and I thought not so
well placed; and the child remembered some of it. Now the difficulty is
to give this general idea of main place, growth, and movement; it is
needful to tack it on a yarn. Now Scotch is the only history I know; it
is the only history reasonably represented in my library; it is a very
good one for my purpose, owing to two civilisations having been face to
face throughout--or rather Roman civilisation face to face with our
ancient barbaric life and government, down to yesterday, to 1750 anyway.
But the _Tales of a Grandfather_ stand in my way; I am teaching them to
Austin now, and they have all Scott's defects and all Scott's hopeless
merit. I cannot compete with that; and yet, so far as regards teaching
History, how he has missed his chances! I think I'll try; I really have
some historic sense, I feel that in my bones. Then there's another
thing. Scott never knew the Highlands; he was always a Borderer. He has
missed that whole, long, strange, pathetic story of our savages, and,
besides, his style is not very perspicuous to childhood. Gad, I think
I'll have a flutter. Buridan's Ass! Whither to go, what to attack. Must
go to other letters; shall add to this, if I have time.
TO W. CRAIBE ANGUS
_Vailima, Samoa, November 1891._
MY DEAR MR. ANGUS,--Herewith the invaluable sheets. They came months
after your letter, and I trembled; but here they are, and I have
scrawled my vile name on them, and "thocht shame" as I did it. I am
expecting the sheets of your catalogue, so that I may attack the
preface. Please give me all the time you can. The sooner the better; you
might even send me early proofs as they are sent out, to give me more
incubation. I used to write as slow as judgment; now I write rather
fast; but I am still "a slow study," and sit a long while silent on my
eggs. Unconscious thought, there is the only method: macerate your
subject, let it boil slow, then take the lid off and look in--and there
your stuff is, good or bad. But the journalist's method is the way to
manufacture lies; it is will-worship--if you know the luminous quaker
phrase; and the will is only to be brought in the field for study and
again for revision. The essential part of work is not an act, it is a
state.
I do not know why I write you this trash.
Many thanks for your handsome dedication. I have not yet had time to do
more than glance at Mrs. Begg; it looks interesting.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ANNIE H. IDE
_Vailima, Samoa [November 1891]._
MY DEAR LOUISA,--Your picture of the church, the photograph of yourself
and your sister, and your very witty and pleasing letter, came all in a
bundle, and made me feel I had my money's worth for that birthday. I am
now, I must be, one of your nearest relatives; exactly what we are to
each other, I do not know, I doubt if the case has ever happened
before--your papa ought to know, and I don't believe he does; but I
think I ought to call you in the meanwhile, and until we get the advice
of counsel learned in the law, my name-daughter. Well, I was extremely
pleased to see by the church that my name-daughter could draw; by the
letter, that she was no fool; and by the photograph, that she was a
pretty girl, which hurts nothing. See how virtues are rewarded! My first
idea of adopting you was entirely charitable; and here I find that I am
quite proud of it, and of you, and that I chose just the kind of
name-daughter I wanted. For I can draw too, or rather I mean to say I
could before I forgot how; and I am very far from being a fool myself,
however much I may look it; and I am as beautiful as the day, or at
least I once hoped that perhaps I might be going to be. And so I might.
So that you see we are well met, and peers on these important points. I
am very glad also that you are older than your sister. So should I have
been, if I had had one. So that the number of points and virtues which
you have inherited from your name-father is already quite surprising.
I wish you would tell your father--not that I like to encourage my
rival--that we have had a wonderful time here of late, and that they are
having a cold day on Mulinuu, and the consuls are writing reports, and I
am writing to the Times, and if we don't get rid of our friends this
time I shall begin to despair of everything but my name-daughter.
You are quite wrong as to the effect of the birthday on your age. From
the moment the deed was registered (as it was in the public press with
every solemnity), the 13th of November became your own _and only_
birthday, and you ceased to have been born on Christmas Day. Ask your
father: I am sure he will tell you this is sound law. You are thus
become a month and twelve days younger than you were, but will go on
growing older for the future in the regular and human manner from one
13th November to the next. The effect on me is more doubtful; I may, as
you suggest, live for ever; I might, on the other hand, come to pieces
like the one-horse shay at a moment's notice; doubtless the step was
risky, but I do not the least regret that which enables me to sign
myself your revered and delighted name-father,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Vailima, November 1891._]
DEAR CHARLES,--[After dealing with some matters of business] I believe
that's a'. By this time, I suppose you will have heard from McClure, and
the _Beach of Falesá_ will be decided on for better for worse. The end
of _The Wrecker_ goes by this mail, an awfae relief. I am now free and
can do what I please. What do I please? I kenna. I'll bide a wee.
There's a child's history in the wind; and there's my grandfather's life
begun; and there's a hist^{ry} of Samoa in the last four or five years
begun--there's a kind of sense to this book; it may help the Samoans, it
may help me, for I am bound on the altar here for anti-Germanism. Then
there's _The Pearl Fisher_ about a quarter done; and there's various
short stories in various degrees of incompleteness. De'il, there's
plenty grist; but the mill's unco slaw! To-morrow or next day, when the
mail's through, I'll attack one or other, or maybe something else. All
these schemes begin to laugh at me, for the day's far through, and I
believe the pen grows heavy. However, I believe _The Wrecker_ is a good
yarn of its poor sort, and it is certainly well nourished with facts; no
realist can touch me there; for by this time I do begin to know
something of life in the XIXth century, which no novelist either in
France or England seems to know much of. You must have great larks over
masonry. You're away up in the ranks now and (according to works that I
have read) doubtless design assassinations. But I am an outsider; and I
have a certain liking for a light unto my path which would deter me from
joining the rank and file of so vast and dim a confraternity. At your
altitude it becomes (of course) amusing and perhaps useful. Yes, I
remember the L.J.R.,[26] and the constitution, and my homily on Liberty,
and yours on Reverence, which was never written--so I never knew what
reverence was. I remember I wanted to write Justice also; but I forget
who had the billet. My dear papa was in a devil of a taking; and I had
to go and lunch at Ferrier's in a strangely begrutten state, which was
_infra dig_. for a homilist on liberty. It was about four, I suppose,
that we met in the Lothian Road,--had we the price of two bitters
between us? questionable!
Your bookseller (I have lost his letter, I mean the maid has, arranging
my room, and so have to send by you) wrote me a letter about Old Bailey
Papers. Gosh, I near swarfed; dam'd, man, I near had dee'd o't. It's
only yin or twa volumes I want; say 500 or 1000 pages of the stuff; and
the worthy man (much doubting) proposed to bury me in volumes. Please
allay his rage, and apologise that I have not written him direct. His
note was civil and purposelike. And please send me a copy of Henley's
_Book of Verses_; mine has disappeared.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Nov. 25th, 1891._
MY DEAR COLVIN, MY DEAR COLVIN,--I wonder how often I'm going to write
it. In spite of the loss of three days, as I have to tell, and a lot of
weeding and cacao planting, I have finished since the mail left four
chapters, forty-eight pages of my Samoa history. It is true that the
first three had been a good deal drafted two years ago, but they had all
to be written and re-written, and the fourth chapter is all new. Chapter
I. Elements of Discord--Native. II. Elements of Discord--Foreign. III.
The Success of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. Will probably be called "The
Rise of Mataafa." VI. _Furor Consularis_--a devil of a long chapter.
VII. Stuebel the Pacificator. VIII. Government under the Treaty of
Berlin. IX. Practical Suggestions. Say three-sixths of it are done,
maybe more; by this mail five chapters should go, and that should be a
good half of it; say sixty pages. And if you consider that I sent by
last mail the end of _The Wrecker_, coming on for seventy or eighty
pages, and the mail before that the entire tale of the _Beach of Falesá,
_ I do not think I can be accused of idleness. This is my season; I
often work six and seven, and sometimes eight hours; and the same day I
am perhaps weeding or planting for an hour or two more--and I dare say
you know what hard work weeding is--and it all agrees with me at this
time of the year--like--like idleness, if a man of my years could be
idle.
My first visit to Apia was a shock to me; every second person the ghost
of himself, and the place reeking with infection. But I have not got the
thing yet, and hope to escape. This shows how much stronger I am; think
of me flitting through a town of influenza patients seemingly unscathed.
We are all on the cacao planting.
The next day my wife and I rode over to the German plantation, Vailele,
whose manager is almost the only German left to speak to us. Seventy
labourers down with influenza! It is a lovely ride, half-way down our
mountain towards Apia, then turn to the right, ford the river, and three
miles of solitary grass and cocoa palms, to where the sea beats and the
wild wind blows unceasingly about the plantation house. On the way down
Fanny said, "Now what would you do if you saw Colvin coming up?"
Next day we rode down to Apia to make calls.
Yesterday the mail came, and the fat was in the fire.
_Nov. 29th_ (?).--Book.[27] All right. I must say I like your order. And
the papers are some of them up to dick, and no mistake. I agree with you
the lights seem a little turned down. The truth is, I was far through
(if you understand Scots), and came none too soon to the South Seas,
where I was to recover peace of body and mind. No man but myself knew
all my bitterness in those days. Remember that, the next time you think
I regret my exile. And however low the lights are, the stuff is true,
and I believe the more effective; after all, what I wish to fight is the
best fought by a rather cheerless presentation of the truth. The world
must return some day to the word duty, and be done with the word reward.
There are no rewards, and plenty duties. And the sooner a man sees that
and acts upon it like a gentleman or a fine old barbarian, the better
for himself.
There is my usual puzzle about publishers. Chatto ought to have it, as
he has all the other essays; these all belong to me, and Chatto
publishes on terms. Longman has forgotten the terms we are on; let him
look up our first correspondence, and he will see I reserved explicitly,
as was my habit, the right to republish as I choose. Had the same
arrangement with Henley, Magazine of Art, and with Tulloch,
Fraser's.--For any necessary note or preface, it would be a real service
if you would undertake the duty yourself. I should love a preface by
you, as short or as long as you choose, three sentences, thirty pages,
the thing I should like is your name. And the excuse of my great
distance seems sufficient. I shall return with this the sheets corrected
as far as I have them; the rest I will leave, if you will, to you
entirely; let it be your book, and disclaim what you dislike in the
preface. You can say it was at my eager prayer. I should say I am the
less willing to pass Chatto over, because he behaved the other day in a
very handsome manner. He asked leave to reprint _Damien_; I gave it to
him as a present, explaining I could receive no emolument for a personal
attack. And he took out my share of profits, and sent them in my name to
the Leper Fund. I could not bear after that to take from him any of that
class of books which I have always given him. Tell him the same terms
will do. Clark to print, uniform with the others.
I have lost all the days since this letter began rehandling Chapter IV.
of the Samoa racket. I do not go in for literature; address myself to
sensible people rather than to sensitive. And, indeed, it is a kind of
journalism, I have no right to dally; if it is to help, it must come
soon. In two months from now it shall be done, and should be published
in the course of March. I propose Cassell gets it. I am going to call it
_A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa_, I believe. I
recoil from serious names; they seem so much too pretentious for a
pamphlet. It will be about the size of _Treasure Island_, I believe. Of
course, as you now know, my case of conscience cleared itself off, and I
began my intervention directly to one of the parties. The other, the
Chief Justice, I am to inform of my book the first occasion. God knows
if the book will do any good--or harm; but I judge it right to try.
There is one man's life certainly involved; and it may be all our lives.
I must not stand and slouch, but do my best as best I can. But you may
conceive the difficulty of a history extending to the present week, at
least, and where almost all the actors upon all sides are of my personal
acquaintance. The only way is to judge slowly, and write boldly, and
leave the issue to fate.... I am far indeed from wishing to confine
myself to creative work; that is a loss, the other repairs; the one
chance for a man, and, above all, for one who grows elderly, ahem, is to
vary drainage and repair. That is the one thing I understand--the
cultivation of the shallow solum of my brain. But I would rather, from
soon on, be released from the obligation to write. In five or six years
this plantation--suppose it and us still to exist--should pretty well
support us and pay wages; not before, and already the six years seem
long to me. If literature were but a pastime!
I have interrupted myself to write the necessary notification to the
Chief Justice.
I see in looking up Longman's letter that it was as usual the letter of
an obliging gentleman; so do not trouble him with my reminder. I wish
all my publishers were not so nice. And I have a fourth and a fifth
baying at my heels; but for these, of course, they must go wanting.
_Dec. 2nd._--No answer from the Chief Justice, which is like him, but
surely very wrong in such a case. The lunch bell! I have been off work,
playing patience and weeding all morning. Yesterday and the day before I
drafted eleven and revised nine pages of Chapter V., and the truth is, I
was extinct by lunch-time, and played patience sourly the rest of the
day. To-morrow or next day I hope to go in again and win. Lunch 2nd
Bell.
_Dec. 2nd, afternoon._--I have kept up the idleness; blew on the pipe to
Belle's piano; then had a ride in the forest all by my nainsel; back and
piped again, and now dinner nearing. Take up this sheet with nothing to
say. The weird figure of Faauma is in the room washing my windows, in a
black lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging from round her
neck between her breasts; not another stitch; her hair close cropped and
oiled; when she first came here she was an angelic little stripling, but
she is now in full flower--or half-flower--and grows buxom. As I write,
I hear her wet cloth moving and grunting with some industry; for I had a
word this day with her husband on the matter of work and meal-time, when
she is always late. And she has a vague reverence for Papa, as she and
her enormous husband address me when anything is wrong. Her husband is
Lafaele, sometimes called the archangel, of whom I have writ you often.
Rest of our household, Talolo, cook; Pulu, kitchen boy, good, steady,
industrious lads; Henry, back again from Savaii, where his love affair
seems not to have prospered, with what looks like a spear-wound in the
back of his head, of which Mr. Reticence says nothing; Simi, Manuele,
and two other labourers outdoors. Lafaele is provost of the live-stock,
whereof now, three milk-cows, one bull-calf, one heifer, Jack,
Macfarlane, the mare, Harold, Tifaga Jack, Donald and Edinburgh--seven
horses--O, and the stallion--eight horses; five cattle; total, if my
arithmetic be correct, thirteen head of beasts; I don't know how the
pigs stand, or the ducks, or the chickens; but we get a good many eggs,
and now and again a duckling or a chickling for the table; the pigs are
more solemn, and appear only on birthdays and sich.
_Monday, Dec. 7._--On Friday morning about eleven 1500 cacao seeds
arrived, and we set to and toiled from twelve that day to six, and went
to bed pretty tired. Next day I got about an hour and a half at my
History, and was at it again by 8.10, and except an hour for lunch kept
at it till four P.M. Yesterday, I did some History in the morning, and
slept most of the afternoon; and to-day, being still averse from
physical labour, and the mail drawing nigh, drew out of the squad, and
finished for press the fifth chapter of my History; fifty-nine pages in
one month; which (you will allow me to say) is a devil of a large order;
it means at least 177 pages of writing; 89,000 words! and hours going to
and fro among my notes. However, this is the way it has to be done; the
job must be done fast, or it is of no use. And it is a curious yarn.
Honestly, I think people should be amused and convinced, if they could
be at the pains to look at such a damned outlandish piece of machinery,
which of course they won't. And much I care.
When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull mulish way, perhaps
the slowest worker there, surely the most particular, and the only one
that never looked up or knocked off, I could not but think I should have
been sent on exhibition as an example to young literary men. Here is how
to learn to write, might be the motto. You should have seen us; the
verandah was like an Irish bog; our hands and faces were bedaubed with
soil; and Faauma was supposed to have struck the right note when she
remarked (_à propos_ of nothing), "Too much _eleele_ (soil) for me!" The
cacao (you must understand) has to be planted at first in baskets of
plaited cocoa-leaf. From four to ten natives were plaiting these in the
wood-shed. Four boys were digging up soil and bringing it by the boxful
to the verandah. Lloyd and I and Belle, and sometimes S. (who came to
bear a hand), were filling the baskets, removing stones and lumps of
clay; Austin and Faauma carried them when full to Fanny, who planted a
seed in each, and then set them, packed close, in the corners of the
verandah. From twelve on Friday till five P.M. on Saturday we planted
the first 1500, and more than 700 of a second lot. You cannot dream how
filthy we were, and we were all properly tired. They are all at it again
to-day, bar Belle and me, not required, and glad to be out of it. The
Chief Justice has not yet replied, and I have news that he received my
letter. What a man!
I have gone crazy over Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_; hence the
enclosed dedication,[28] a mere cry of gratitude for the best fun I've
had over a new book this ever so!
TO FRED ORR
The following is in answer to an application for an autograph from a
young gentleman in the United States:--
_Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, November 28th, 1891._
DEAR SIR,--Your obliging communication is to hand. I am glad to find
that you have read some of my books, and to see that you spell my name
right. This is a point (for some reason) of great difficulty; and I
believe that a gentleman who can spell Stevenson with a v at sixteen,
should have a show for the Presidency before fifty. By that time
I, nearer to the wayside inn,
predict that you will have outgrown your taste for autographs, but
perhaps your son may have inherited the collection, and on the morning
of the great day will recall my prophecy to your mind. And in the papers
of 1921 (say) this letter may arouse a smile.
Whatever you do, read something else besides novels and newspapers; the
first are good enough when they are good; the second, at their best, are
worth nothing. Read great books of literature and history; try to
understand the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages; be sure you do not
understand when you dislike them; condemnation is non-comprehension. And
if you know something of these two periods, you will know a little more
about to-day, and may be a good President.
I send you my best wishes, and am yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,
_Author of a vast quantity of little books_.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
The next letter announces to his New York publishers the beginning of
his volume on the troubles of Samoa, _A Footnote to History_.
[_Vailima, December 1891._]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--The end of _The Wrecker_ having but just come in,
you will, I dare say, be appalled to receive three (possibly four)
chapters of a new book of the least attractive sort: a history of
nowhere in a corner, or no time to mention, running to a volume! Well,
it may very likely be an illusion; it is very likely no one could
possibly wish to read it, but I wish to publish it. If you don't cotton
to the idea, kindly set it up at my expense, and let me know your terms
for publishing. The great affair to me is to have per return (if it
might be) four or five--better say half a dozen--sets of the roughest
proofs that can be drawn. There are a good many men here whom I want to
read the blessed thing, and not one would have the energy to read MS. At
the same time, if you care to glance at it, and have the time, I should
be very glad of your opinion as to whether I have made any step at all
towards possibly inducing folk at home to read matter so extraneous and
outlandish. I become heavy and owlish; years sit upon me; it begins to
seem to me to be a man's business to leave off his damnable faces and
say his say. Else I could have made it pungent and light and lively. In
considering, kindly forget that I am R. L. S.; think of the four
chapters as a book you are reading, by an inhabitant of our "lovely but
fatil" islands; and see if it could possibly amuse the hebetated public.
I have to publish anyway, you understand; I have a purpose beyond; I am
concerned for some of the parties to this quarrel. What I want to hear
is from curiosity; what I want you to judge of is what we are to do with
the book in a business sense. To me it is not business at all; I had
meant originally to lay all the profits to the credit of Samoa; when it
comes to the pinch of writing, I judge this unfair--I give too much--and
I mean to keep (if there be any profit at all) one-half for the artisan;
the rest I shall hold over to give to the Samoans _for that which I
choose and against work done_. I think I have never heard of greater
insolence than to attempt such a subject; yet the tale is so strange and
mixed, and the people so oddly charactered--above all, the whites--and
the high note of the hurricane and the warships is so well prepared to
take popular interest, and the latter part is so directly in the day's
movement, that I am not without hope that some may read it; and if they
don't, a murrain on them! Here is, for the first time, a tale of
Greeks--Homeric Greeks--mingled with moderns, and all true; Odysseus
along-side of Rajah Brooke, _proportion gardée_; and all true. Here is
for the first time since the Greeks (that I remember) the history of a
handful of men, where all know each other in the eyes, and live close in
a few acres, narrated at length, and with the seriousness of history.
Talk of the modern novel; here is a modern history. And if I had the
misfortune to found a school, the legitimate historian might lie down
and die, for he could never overtake his material. Here is a little tale
that has not "caret"-ed its "vates"; "sacer" is another point.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
Mr. Henry James was in the habit of sending out for Stevenson's
reading books that seemed likely to interest him, and among the last
had been M. Paul Bourget's _Sensations d'Italie_.
_December 7th, 1891._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Thanks for yours; your former letter was lost; so
it appears was my long and masterly treatise on the _Tragic Muse_. I
remember sending it very well, and there went by the same mail a long
and masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy's life, for which I have
been long expecting an acknowledgment, and which is plainly gone to the
bottom with the other. If you see Gosse, please mention it. These gems
of criticism are now lost literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I
could not do 'em again. And I must ask you to be content with a dull
head, a weary hand, and short commons, for to-day, as I am physically
tired with hard work of every kind, the labours of the planter and the
author both piled upon me mountain deep. I am delighted beyond
expression by Bourget's book: he has phrases which affect me almost like
Montaigne; I had read ere this a masterly essay of his on Pascal; this
book does it; I write for all his essays by this mail, and shall try to
meet him when I come to Europe. The proposal is to pass a summer in
France, I think in Royat, where the faithful could come and visit me;
they are now not many. I expect Henry James to come and break a crust or
two with us. I believe it will be only my wife and myself; and she will
go over to England, but not I, or possibly incog. to Southampton, and
then to Boscombe to see poor Lady Shelley. I am writing--trying to write
in a Babel fit for the bottomless pit; my wife, her daughter, her
grandson and my mother, all shrieking at each other round the house--not
in war, thank God! but the din is ultra martial, and the note of Lloyd
joins in occasionally, and the cause of this to-do is simply cacao,
whereof chocolate comes. You may drink of our chocolate perhaps in five
or six years from now, and not know it. It makes a fine bustle, and
gives us some hard work, out of which I have slunk for to-day.
I have a story coming out: God knows when or how; it answers to the name
of the _Beach of Falesá_, and I think well of it. I was delighted with
the _Tragic Muse_; I thought the Muse herself one of your best works; I
was delighted also to hear of the success of your piece, as you know I
am a dam failure,[29] and might have dined with the dinner club that
Daudet and these parties frequented.
_Next day._--I have just been breakfasting at Baiae and Brindisi, and
the charm of Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite fellow,
all made of fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear any of
my bald prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a copy of
these last essays of mine when they appear; and tell Bourget they go to
him from a South Sea Island as literal homage. I have read no new book
for years that gave me the same literary thrill as his _Sensations
d'Italie_. If (as I imagine) my cut-and-dry literature would be death to
him, and worse than death--journalism--be silent on the point. For I
have a great curiosity to know him, and if he doesn't know my work, I
shall have the better chance of making his acquaintance. I read _The
Pupil_ the other day with great joy; your little boy is admirable; why
is there no little boy like that unless he hails from the Great
Republic?
Here I broke off, and wrote Bourget a dedication; no use resisting; it's
a love affair. O, he's exquisite, I bless you for the gift of him. I
have really enjoyed this book as I--almost as I--used to enjoy books
when I was going twenty-twenty-three; and these are the years for
reading!
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] Tuesday, Dec. 1891._
SIR,--I have the honour to report further explorations of the course of
the river Vaea, with accompanying sketch plan. The party under my
command consisted of one horse, and was extremely insubordinate and
mutinous, owing to not being used to go into the bush, and being
half-broken anyway--and that the wrong half. The route indicated for my
party was up the bed of the so-called river Vaea, which I accordingly
followed to a distance of perhaps two or three furlongs eastward from
the house of Vailima, where the stream being quite dry, the bush thick,
and the ground very difficult, I decided to leave the main body of the
force under my command tied to a tree, and push on myself with the point
of the advance guard, consisting of one man. The valley had become very
narrow and airless; foliage close shut above; dry bed of the stream much
excavated, so that I passed under fallen trees without stooping.
Suddenly it turned sharply to the north, at right angles to its former
direction; I heard living water, and came in view of a tall face of rock
and the stream spraying down it; it might have been climbed, but it
would have been dangerous, and I had to make my way up the steep earth
banks, where there is nowhere any looting for man, only for trees, which
made the rounds of my ladder. I was near the top of this climb, which
was very hot and steep, and the pulses were buzzing all over my body,
when I made sure there was one external sound in my ears, and paused to
listen. No mistake; a sound of a mill-wheel thundering, I thought, close
by, yet below me, a huge mill-wheel, yet not going steadily, but with a
_schottische_ movement, and at each fresh impetus shaking the mountain.
There, where I was, I just put down the sound to the mystery of the
bush; where no sound now surprises me--and any sound alarms; I only
thought it would give Jack a fine fright, down where he stood tied to a
tree by himself, and he was badly enough scared when I left him. The
good folks at home identified it; it was a sharp earthquake.
[Illustration:
1. _Mepi tree._ 4, 4. _Banana patches_
2. _Carruthers' Road._ 5. _Waterfall._
3. _Vailima Plantation House._ 6. _Banyan tree._]
At the top of the climb I made my way again to the watercourse; it is
here running steady and pretty full; strange these intermittencies--and
just a little below the main stream is quite dry, and all the original
brook has gone down some lava gallery of the mountain--and just a little
further below, it begins picking up from the left hand in little boggy
tributaries, and in the inside of a hundred yards has grown a brook
again.[30] The general course of the brook was, I guess, S.E.; the
valley still very deep and whelmed in wood. It seemed a swindle to have
made so sheer a climb and still find yourself at the bottom of a well.
But gradually the thing seemed to shallow, the trees to seem poorer and
smaller; I could see more and more of the silver sprinkles of sky among
the foliage, instead of the sombre piling up of tree behind tree. And
here I had two scares--first, away up on my right hand I heard a bull
low; I think it was a bull from the quality of the low, which was
singularly songful and beautiful; the bulls belong to me, but how did I
know that the bull was aware of that? and my advance guard not being at
all properly armed, we advanced with great precaution until I was
satisfied that I was passing eastward of the enemy. It was during this
period that a pool of the river suddenly boiled up in my face in a
little fountain. It was in a very dreary, marshy part among dilapidated
trees that you see through holes in the trunks of; and if any kind of
beast or elf or devil had come out of that sudden silver ebullition, I
declare I do not think I should have been surprised. It was perhaps a
thing as curious--a fish, with which these head waters of the stream
are alive. They are some of them as long as my finger, should be easily
caught in these shallows, and some day I'll have a dish of them.
Very soon after I came to where the stream collects in another banana
swamp, with the bananas bearing well. Beyond, the course is again quite
dry; it mounts with a sharp turn a very steep face of the mountain, and
then stops abruptly at the lip of a plateau, I suppose the top of Vaea
mountain: plainly no more springs here--there was no smallest furrow of
a watercourse beyond--and my task might be said to be accomplished. But
such is the animated spirit in the service that the whole advance guard
expressed a sentiment of disappointment that an exploration, so far
successfully conducted, should come to a stop in the most promising view
of fresh successes. And though unprovided either with compass or
cutlass, it was determined to push some way along the plateau, marking
our direction by the laborious process of bending down, sitting upon,
and thus breaking the wild cocoanut trees. This was the less regretted
by all from a delightful discovery made of a huge banyan growing here in
the bush, with flying-buttressed flying buttresses, and huge arcs of
trunk hanging high overhead and trailing down new complications of root.
I climbed some way up what seemed the original beginning; it was easier
to climb than a ship's rigging, even rattled; everywhere there was
foot-hold and hand-hold. It was judged wise to return and rally the main
body, who had now been left alone for perhaps forty minutes in the bush.
The return was effected in good order, but unhappily I only arrived
(like so many other explorers) to find my main body or rear-guard in a
condition of mutiny; the work, it is to be supposed, of terror. It is
right I should tell you the Vaea has a bad name, an _aitu
fafine_--female devil of the woods--succubus--haunting it, and doubtless
Jack had heard of her; perhaps, during my absence, saw her; lucky Jack!
Anyway, he was neither to hold nor to bind, and finally, after nearly
smashing me by accident, and from mere scare and insubordination several
times, deliberately set in to kill me; but poor Jack! the tree he
selected for that purpose was a banana! I jumped off and gave him the
heavy end of my whip over the buttocks! Then I took and talked in his
ear in various voices; you should have heard my alto--it was a dreadful,
devilish note--I _knew_ Jack _knew_ it was an _aitu_. Then I mounted him
again, and he carried me fairly steadily. He'll learn yet. He has to
learn to trust absolutely to his rider; till he does, the risk is always
great in thick bush, where a fellow must try different passages, and put
back and forward, and pick his way by hair's-breadths.
The expedition returned to Vailima in time to receive the visit of the
R. C. Bishop. He is a superior man, much above the average of priests.
_Thursday._--Yesterday the same expedition set forth to the southward by
what is known as Carruthers' Road. At a fallen tree which completely
blocks the way, the main body was as before left behind, and the advance
guard of one now proceeded with the exploration. At the great tree known
as _Mepi Tree_, after Maben the surveyor, the expedition struck forty
yards due west till it struck the top of a steep bank which it
descended. The whole bottom of the ravine is filled with sharp lava
blocks quite unrolled and very difficult and dangerous to walk among; no
water in the course, scarce any sign of water. And yet surely water must
have made this bold cutting in the plateau. And if so, why is the lava
sharp? My science gave out; but I could not but think it ominous and
volcanic. The course of the stream was tortuous, but with a resultant
direction a little by west of north; the sides the whole way exceeding
steep, the expedition buried under fathoms of foliage. Presently water
appeared in the bottom, a good quantity; perhaps thirty or forty cubic
feet, with pools and waterfalls. A tree that stands all along the banks
here must be very fond of water; its roots lie close-packed down the
stream, like hanks of guts, so as to make often a corrugated walk, each
root ending in a blunt tuft of filaments, plainly to drink water. Twice
there came in small tributaries from the left or western side--the whole
plateau having a smartish inclination to the east; one of the
tributaries in a handsome little web of silver hanging in the forest.
Twice I was startled by birds; one that barked like a dog; another that
whistled loud ploughman's signals, so that I vow I was thrilled, and
thought I had fallen among runaway blacks, and regretted my cutlass
which I had lost and left behind while taking bearings. A good many
fishes in the brook, and many crayfish; one of the last with a queer
glow-worm head. Like all our brooks, the water is pure as air, and runs
over red stones like rubies. The foliage along both banks very thick and
high, the place close, the walking exceedingly laborious. By the time
the expedition reached the fork, it was felt exceedingly questionable
whether the _moral_ of the force were sufficiently good to undertake
more extended operations. A halt was called, the men refreshed with
water and a bath, and it was decided at a drumhead council of war to
continue the descent of the Embassy Water straight for Vailima, whither
the expedition returned, in rather poor condition, and wet to the waist,
about 4 P.M.
Thus in two days the two main watercourses of this country have been
pretty thoroughly explored, and I conceive my instructions fully carried
out. The main body of the second expedition was brought back by another
officer despatched for that purpose from Vailima. Casualties: one horse
wounded; one man bruised; no deaths--as yet, but the bruised man feels
to-day as if his case was mighty serious.
_Dec. 25, '91._--Your note with a very despicable bulletin of health
arrived only yesterday, the mail being a day behind. It contained also
the excellent Times article, which was a sight for sore eyes. I am
still _taboo_; the blessed Germans will have none of me; and I only hope
they may enjoy the Times article. 'Tis my revenge! I wish you had sent
the letter too, as I have no copy, and do not even know what I wrote the
last day, with a bad headache, and the mail going out. However, it must
have been about right, for the Times article was in the spirit I wished
to arouse. I hope we can get rid of the man before it is too late. He
has set the natives to war; but the natives, by God's blessing, do not
want to fight, and I think it will fizzle out--no thanks to the man who
tried to start it. But I did not mean to drift into these politics;
rather to tell you what I have done since I last wrote.
Well, I worked away at my _History_ for a while, and only got one
chapter done; no doubt this spate of work is pretty low now, and will be
soon dry; but, God bless you, what a lot I have accomplished; _Wrecker_
done, _Beach of Falesá_ done, half the _History: c'est étonnant_. (I
hear from Burlingame, by the way, that he likes the end of the
_Wrecker_; 'tis certainly a violent, dark yarn with interesting, plain
turns of human nature), then Lloyd and I went down to live in Haggard's
rooms, where Fanny presently joined us. Haggard's rooms are in a strange
old building--old for Samoa, and has the effect of the antique like some
strange monastery; I would tell you more of it, but I think I'm going to
use it in a tale. The annexe close by had its door sealed; poor Dowdney
lost at sea in a schooner. The place is haunted. The vast empty sheds,
the empty store, the airless, hot, long, low rooms, the claps of wind
that set everything flying--a strange uncanny house to spend Christmas
in.
_Jan. 1st,'92._--For a day or two I have sat close and wrought hard at
the _History_, and two more chapters are all but done. About thirty
pages should go by this mail, which is not what should be, but all I
could overtake. Will any one ever read it? I fancy not; people don't
read history for reading, but for education and display--and who
desires education in the history of Samoa, with no population, no past,
no future, or the exploits of Mataafa, Malietoa, and Consul Knappe?
Colkitto and Galasp are a trifle to it. Well, it can't be helped, and it
must be done, and, better or worse, it's capital fun. There are two to
whom I have not been kind--German Consul Becker and the English Captain
Hand, R.N.
On Dec. 30th I rode down with Belle to go to (if you please) the Fancy
Ball. When I got to the beach, I found the barometer was below 29°, the
wind still in the east and steady, but a huge offensive continent of
clouds and vapours forming to leeward. It might be a hurricane; I dared
not risk getting caught away from my work, and, leaving Belle, returned
at once to Vailima. Next day--yesterday--it was a tearer; we had storm
shutters up; I sat in my room and wrote by lamplight--ten pages, if you
please, seven of them draft, and some of these compiled authorities, so
that was a brave day's work. About two a huge tree fell within sixty
paces of our house; a little after, a second went; and we sent out boys
with axes and cut down a third, which was too near the house, and
buckling like a fishing rod. At dinner we had the front door closed and
shuttered, the back door open, the lamp lit. The boys in the cook-house
were all out at the cook-house door, where we could see them looking in
and smiling. Lauilo and Faauma waited on us with smiles. The excitement
was delightful. Some very violent squalls came as we sat there, and
every one rejoiced; it was impossible to help it; a soul of putty had to
sing. All night it blew; the roof was continually sounding under
missiles; in the morning the verandahs were half full of branches torn
from the forest. There was a last very wild squall about six; the rain,
like a thick white smoke, flying past the house in volleys, and as
swift, it seemed, as rifle balls; all with a strange, strident hiss,
such as I have only heard before at sea, and, indeed, thought to be a
marine phenomenon. Since then the wind has been falling with a few
squalls, mostly rain. But our road is impassable for horses; we hear a
schooner has been wrecked and some native houses blown down in Apia,
where Belle is still and must remain a prisoner. Lucky I returned while
I could! But the great good is this; much bread-fruit and bananas have
been destroyed; if this be general through the islands, famine will be
imminent; and _whoever blows the coals, there can be no war_. Do I then
prefer a famine to a war? you ask. Not always, but just now. I am sure
the natives do not want a war; I am sure a war would benefit no one but
the white officials, and I believe we can easily meet the famine--or at
least that it can be met. That would give our officials a legitimate
opportunity to cover their past errors.
_Jan. 2nd._--I woke this morning to find the blow quite ended. The
heaven was all a mottled grey; even the east quite colourless; the
downward slope of the island veiled in wafts of vapour, blue like smoke;
not a leaf stirred on the tallest tree; only, three miles away below me
on the barrier reef, I could see the individual breakers curl and fall,
and hear their conjunct roaring rise, as it still rises at 1 P.M., like
the roar of a thoroughfare close by. I did a good morning's work,
correcting and clarifying my draft, and have now finished for press
eight chapters, ninety-one pages, of this piece of journalism. Four more
chapters, say fifty pages, remain to be done; I should gain my wager and
finish this volume in three months, that is to say, the end should leave
me per February mail; I cannot receive it back till the mail of April.
Yes, it can be out in time; pray God that it be in time to help.
How do journalists fetch up their drivel? I aim only at clearness and
the most obvious finish, positively at no higher degree of merit, not
even at brevity--I am sure it could have been all done, with double the
time, in two-thirds of the space. And yet it has taken me two months to
write 45,500 words; and, be damned to my wicked prowess, I am proud of
the exploit! The real journalist must be a man not of brass only, but
bronze. Chapter IX. gapes for me, but I shrink on the margin, and go on
chattering to you. This last part will be much less offensive (strange
to say) to the Germans. It is Becker they will never forgive me for;
Knappe I pity and do not dislike; Becker I scorn and abominate. Here is
the tableau. I. Elements of Discord: Native. II. Elements of Discord:
Foreign. III. The Sorrows of Laupepa. IV. Brandeis. V. The Battle of
Matautu. VI. Last Exploits of Becker. VII. The Samoan Camps. VIII.
Affairs of Lautii and Fangalii. IX. "_Furor Consularis_." X. The
Hurricane. XI. Stuebel Recluse. XII. The Present Government. I estimate
the whole roughly at 70,000 words. Should anybody ever dream of reading
it, it would be found amusing. 70000/300 = 233 printed pages; a
respectable little five-bob volume, to bloom unread in shop windows.
After that, I'll have a spank at fiction. And rest? I shall rest in the
grave, or when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue to
support me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems blooming little fear
of it now. I worked close on five hours this morning; the day before,
close on nine; and unless I finish myself off with this letter, I'll
have another hour and a half, or _aiblins twa_, before dinner. Poor man,
how you must envy me, as you hear of these orgies of work, and you
scarce able for a letter. But Lord, Colvin, how lucky the situations are
not reversed, for I have no situation, nor am fit for any. Life is a
steigh brae. Here, have at Knappe, and no more clavers!
_Jan. 3rd._--There was never any man had so many irons in the fire,
except Jim Pinkerton.[31] I forgot to mention I have the most gallant
suggestion from Lang, with an offer of MS. authorities, which turns my
brain. It's all about the throne of Poland and buried treasure in the
Mackay country, and Alan Breck can figure there in glory.
Yesterday, J. and I set off to Blacklock's (American Consul) who lives
not far from that little village I have so often mentioned as lying
between us and Apia. I had some questions to ask him for my _History_;
thence we must proceed to Vailele, where I had also to cross-examine the
plantation manager about the battle there. We went by a track I had
never before followed down the hill to Vaisigano, which flows here in a
deep valley, and was unusually full, so that the horses trembled in the
ford. The whole bottom of the valley is full of various streams posting
between strips of forest with a brave sound of waters. In one place we
had a glimpse of a fall some way higher up, and then sparkling in
sunlight in the midst of the green valley. Then up by a winding path
scarce accessible to a horse for steepness, to the other side, and the
open cocoanut glades of the plantation. Here we rode fast, did a mighty
satisfactory afternoon's work at the plantation house, and still faster
back. On the return Jack fell with me, but got up again; when I felt him
recovering I gave him his head, and he shoved his foot through the rein;
I got him by the bit however, and all was well; he had mud over all his
face, but his knees were not broken. We were scarce home when the rain
began again; that was luck. It is pouring now in torrents; we are in the
height of the bad season. Lloyd leaves along with this letter on a
change to San Francisco; he had much need of it, but I think this will
brace him up. I am, as you see, a tower of strength. I can remember
riding not so far and not near so fast when I first came to Samoa, and
being shattered next day with fatigue; now I could not tell I have done
anything; have re-handled my battle of Fangalii according to yesterday's
information--four pages rewritten; and written already some half-dozen
pages of letters.
I observe with disgust that while of yore, when I own I was guilty, you
never spared me abuse--but now, when I am so virtuous, where is the
praise? Do admit that I have become an excellent letter-writer--at least
to you, and that your ingratitude is imbecile.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "In the missionary work which is being done among the Samoans,
Mr. Stevenson was especially interested. He was an observant,
shrewd, yet ever generous critic of all our religious and
educational organisations. His knowledge of native character and
life enabled him to understand missionary difficulties, while his
genial contact with all sorts and conditions of men made him keen to
detect deficiencies in men and methods, and apt in useful
suggestion." The above is the testimony of the Mr. Clarke here
mentioned (Rev. W. E. Clarke of the London Missionary Society). This
gentleman was from the first one of the most valued friends of Mr.
Stevenson and his family in Samoa, and, when the end came, read the
funeral service beside his grave on Mount Vaea.
[2] The lady in the _Vicar of Wakefield_ who declares herself "all
in a muck of sweat."
[3] First published in the New Review, January 1895.
[4] Afterwards changed into _The Beach of Falesá_.
[5] Mr. Lloyd Osbourne had come to England to pack and wind up affairs
at Skerryvore.
[6] The lines beginning "I heard the pulse of the besieging sea"; see
Vol. xxiv., p. 366.
[7] "The Monument" was his name for my house at the British Museum,
and George was my old faithful servant, George Went.
[8] The late Mr. John Lafarge, long an honoured _doyen_ among New
York artists, whose record of his holiday in the South Seas, in the
shape of a series of water-colour sketches of the scenery and people
(with a catalogue full of interesting notes and observations), was
one of the features of the Champ de Mars Salon in 1895.
[9] Mrs. B. W. Procter, the stepdaughter of Basil Montagu and widow
of Barry Cornwall. The death of this spirited veteran in 1888
snapped one of the last links with the days and memories of Keats
and Coleridge. A shrewd and not too indulgent judge of character,
she took R. L. S. into warm favour at first sight, and never spoke of
or inquired after him but with unwonted tenderness.
[10] On a projected expedition to Sydney.
[11] See _A Footnote to History_ for more in praise of Dr. Stuebel,
and of his exceptional deserts among white officials in Samoa.
[12] One of the many aliases of the wicked Skye-terrier of Hyères,
Davos, and Bournemouth days, celebrated in the essay _On the
Character of Dogs_.
[13] _Battre les champs_, to wander in mind.
[14] _Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin_, by R. L. S., prefixed to _Papers
Literary, Scientific, etc., by the late Fleeming Jenkin, F.R.S.,
LL.D._; 2 vols. London, Longmans, 1887. The first chapters consist
of a genealogical history of the family. This, to my mind one of the
best works of R. L. S., has lately been separately reprinted, having
long been accessible only in the Edinburgh and Pentland editions. Of
_Delafleld_ I never heard; the plan of _Shovel_, which was to be in
great part a story of the Peninsular War, had been sketched out and
a few chapters written as long ago as the seventies.
[15] _The Misadventures of John Nicholson._
[16] The South Sea Letters.
[17] The price advanced for these Letters was among the considerations
which originally induced the writer to set out on his Pacific voyage.
[18] The first serial tale, says Mr. Clarke, ever read by Samoans in
their own language was the story of the _Bottle Imp_, "which found
its way into print at Samoa, and was read with wonder and delight in
many a thatched Samoan hut before it won the admiration of readers
at home." In the English form the story was published first in Black
and White, and afterwards in the volume called _Island Nights'
Entertainments_.
[19] Boating expedition: pronounce _malanga_.
[20] Portraits of myself for which he had asked.
[21] Miss Fanny Macpherson, now Lady Holroyd.
[22] In reply to a suggestion which ultimately took effect in the
shape of the volume called _Across the Plains_ (Chatto & Windus,
1892).
[23] The steam-yacht of the Commissioners of Northern Lights, on
which he had been accustomed as a lad to accompany his father on the
official trips of inspection round the coast.
[24] Mr. Rudyard Kipling was at this time planning a trip to Samoa,
but the plan was unfortunately not carried out, and he and Stevenson
never met.
[25] Readers of _The Wrecker_ will not need to be reminded that this
is the name of the personage on whom the mystery in that story
hinges.
[26] See vol. xxiii. pp. 46, 48.
[27] _Across the Plains._ The papers specially referred to in the
next lines are those written at Saranac Lake in the winter of
1887-88, including _A Letter to a Young Gentleman_, _Pulvis et
Umbra_, _A Christmas Sermon_.
[28] For the volume _Across the Plains_.
[29] _i.e._ on the stage.
[30] As to this peculiar intermittency of the Samoan streams, full
in their upper course, but below in many places dry or lost, compare
the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, p. 212:--"One odd
thing connected with these ravines is the fact that the higher you
go the more water you find. Unlike the Thames, which begins, I
believe, in half a mile of dusty lane, and expands in its brimming
breadth as it approaches the sea, a Samoan stream begins in bubbling
plenty and ends in utter drought a mile or two from the salt water.
Gradually as you ascend you become more and more hopeful; moist
patches of sand appear here and there, then tiny pools that a fallen
leaf might cover, then larger ones with little thread-like runs of
water between them; larger and larger, till at last you reach some
hard ledge of trap, over which a glorious stream gurgles and
splashes into a pool ample enough for the bath of an elephant."
[31] In _The Wrecker_. As to the story thus suggested by Mr. Andrew
Lang, see below, pp. 171, 187, etc.
XII
LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
SECOND YEAR AT VAILIMA
JANUARY-DECEMBER 1892
The New Year found Stevenson down with his first attack of the influenza
epidemic, then virulent all over the world. But the illness was not
sufficient to stop his work, and in the first two months of the year he
was busy continuing his conscientious labours on _The Footnote to
History_, seeing _The Wrecker_ and _The Beach of Falesá_ through the
press, planning the South Sea plantation novel _Sophia Scarlet_, which
never got beyond that inchoate stage, and writing the continuation to
_Kidnapped_, first intended to bear the name of the hero, David Balfour,
and afterwards changed to _Catriona_. With this he proceeded swimmingly,
completing it between February and September, in a shorter time than any
other of his sustained narratives; and on publication its success was
great. By May he had finished the _Footnote_, and then had a dash at the
first chapters of _The Young Chevalier_, which stand in their truncated
state a piece of work as vivid and telling as he had ever done. Early in
the autumn he struck a still fuller note in the draft of the first
chapters of _Weir of Hermiston_.
During this year the household at Vailima received a new temporary
inmate in the person of Mr. Graham Balfour, a cousin whom Stevenson had
not previously known, but with whom he soon formed the closest and most
confidential friendship of his later life. In the summer and early
autumn he was much taken up both with politics and with hospitalities.
As hereinafter narrated, he made, and was thwarted in, a serious attempt
to effect a reconciliation between the two rival chiefs; and continued
his series of letters to the Times showing up the incompetence, and
worse, of the responsible Treaty officials. In August he took lively
pleasure in a visit paid to the islands by Lady Jersey and some members
of her family from Australia. During the course of their stay he
conducted the visitors to the rebel camp under aliases, as the needs of
the time required, and in a manner that seemed like the realisation of a
chapter of a Waverley novel. A month or two later he became aware, with
more amusement than alarm, of measures for his deportation set on foot
but not carried through by the Treaty officials. For a man of his
temper, the political muddle and mismanagement of which the Samoan
Islands were the scene--and not only these, however much he might lament
them for the sake of the inhabitants, but even the risks he ran of
serious personal consequences from his own action,--added to life at
least as much of zest and excitement as of annoyance.
In October he determined, not without serious financial misgivings and
chiefly in deference to his mother's urgency, to enlarge his house at
Vailima by putting up a new block adjoining and communicating with that
which he had hitherto inhabited. The work was promptly and efficiently
carried out by the German Firm and completed by the end of the year.
Quite towards the close of December, copies of _The Footnote to
History_ reached Samoa, and the book, so far from being a cause of
offence to his friends the managers of that firm, as both he and they
had feared, was found acceptable and devoid of offence by them: a result
celebrated in the convivial manner described in the last letter of this
section. On the whole the year had been a prosperous one, full of
successful work and eager interests, although darkened in its later
months by disquietude on account of his wife's health. He had himself
well maintained the improved strength and the renewed capacity both for
literary work and outdoor activity which life in the South Seas had
brought him from the first.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_[Vailima] Jan, 2nd, '92._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Overjoyed you were pleased with _The Wrecker_, and
shall consider your protests. There is perhaps more art than you think
for in the peccant chapter, where I have succeeded in packing into one a
dedication, an explanation, and a termination. Surely you had not
recognised the phrase about boodle? It was a quotation from Jim
Pinkerton, and seemed to me agreeably skittish. However, all shall be
prayerfully considered.
To come to a more painful subject. Herewith go three more chapters of
the wretched History; as you see, I approach the climax. I expect the
book to be some 70,000 words, of which you have now 45. Can I finish it
for next mail? I am going to try! 'Tis a long piece of journalism, and
full of difficulties here and there, of this kind and that, and will
make me a power of friends to be sure. There is one Becker who will
probably put up a window to me in the church where he was baptized; and
I expect a testimonial from Captain Hand.
Sorry to let the mail go without the Scott; this has been a bad month
with me, and I have been below myself. I shall find a way to have it
come by next, or know the reason why. The mail after, anyway.
A bit of a sketch map appears to me necessary for my History; perhaps
two. If I do not have any, 'tis impossible any one should follow; and I,
even when not at all interested, demand that I shall be able to follow;
even a tourist book without a map is a cross to me; and there must be
others of my way of thinking. I inclose the very artless one that I
think needful. Vailima, in case you are curious, is about as far again
behind Tanugamanono as that is from the sea.
M'Clure is publishing a short story of mine, some 50,000 words, I think,
_The Beach of Falesá_; when he's done with it, I want you and Cassell to
bring it out in a little volume; I shall send you a dedication for it; I
believe it good; indeed, to be honest, very good. Good gear that pleases
the merchant.
The other map that I half threaten is a chart for the hurricane. Get me
Kimberley's report of the hurricane: not to be found here. It is of most
importance; I _must_ have it with my proofs of that part, if I cannot
have it earlier, which now seems impossible.--Yours in hot haste,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
At the news that his correspondent was occupied teaching and
entertaining a class of children in a Kilburn basement, Stevenson
bethinks himself of helping her by writing an account of Samoa and
Samoan life for children.
_Vailima, January 4th, 1892._
MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--We were much pleased with your letter and the news of
your employment. Admirable, your method. But will you not run dry of
fairy stories? Please salute your pupils, and tell them that a long,
lean, elderly man who lives right through on the under side of the
world, so that down in your cellar you are nearer him than the people in
the street, desires his compliments. This man lives in an island which
is not very long, and extremely narrow. The sea beats round it very
hard, so that it is difficult to get to shore. There is only one harbour
where ships come, even that is very wild and dangerous; four ships of
war were broken there a little while ago, and one of them is still lying
on its side on a rock clean above water, where the sea threw it as you
might throw your fiddle bow on the table. All round the harbour the town
is strung out, it is nothing but wooden houses, only there are some
churches built of stone, not very large, but the people have never seen
such fine buildings. Almost all the houses are of one story. Away at one
end lives the king of the whole country. His palace has a thatched roof
which stands upon posts; it has no walls, but when it blows and rains,
they have Venetian blinds which they let down between the posts and make
it very snug. There is no furniture, and the king and queen and the
courtiers sit and eat on the floor, which is of gravel: the lamp stands
there too, and every now and then it is upset. These good folks wear
nothing but a kilt about their waists, unless to go to church or for a
dance, or the New Year, or some great occasion. The children play
marbles all along the street; and though they are generally very jolly,
yet they get awfully cross over their marbles, and cry and fight like
boys and girls at home. Another amusement in country places is to shoot
fish with a bow and arrow. All round the beach there is bright shallow
water where fishes can be seen darting or lying in shoals. The child
trots round the shore, and wherever he sees a fish, lets fly an arrow
and misses, and then wades in after his arrow. It is great fun (I have
tried it) for the child, and I never heard of it doing any harm to the
fishes: so what could be more jolly? The road up to this lean man's
house is uphill all the way and through forests; the forests are of
great trees, not so much unlike the trees at home, only here and there
are some very queer ones mixed with them, cocoa-nut palms, and great
forest trees that are covered with blossom like red hawthorn, but not
near so bright; and from all the trees thick creepers hang down like
ropes, and nasty-looking weeds that they call orchids grow in the forks
of the branches; and on the ground many prickly things are dotted which
they call pine-apples: I suppose every one has eaten pineapple drops.
On the way up to the lean man's house you pass a little village, all of
houses like the king's house, so that as you ride through you can see
everybody sitting at dinner, or if it be night, lying in their beds by
lamplight; for all these people are terribly afraid of ghosts, and would
not lie in the dark for any favour. After the village, there is only one
more house, and that is the lean man's. For the people are not very
many, and live all by the sea, and the whole inside of the island is
desert woods and mountains. When the lean man goes into this forest, he
is very much ashamed to say it, but he is always in a terrible fright.
The wood is so great and empty and hot, and it is always filled with
curious noises; birds cry like children and bark like dogs, and he can
hear people laughing and felling trees; and the other day (when he was
far in the woods) he heard a great sound like the biggest mill-wheel
possible going with a kind of dot-and-carry-one movement like a dance.
That was the noise of an earthquake away down below him in the bowels of
the earth, and that is the same thing as to say away up towards you in
your cellar in Kilburn. All these noises make him feel lonely and
scared, and he doesn't quite know what he is scared of. Once when he was
just about to cross a river, a blow struck him on the top of his head
and knocked him head-foremost down the bank and splash into the water.
It was a nut, I fancy, that had fallen from a tree, by which accidents
people are sometimes killed. But at the time he thought it was a black
boy.
Aha, say you, and what is a black boy? Well, there are here a lot of
poor people who are brought here from distant islands to labour as
slaves for the Germans. They are not at all like the king or his people,
who are brown and very pretty; but these are black as negroes and as
ugly as sin, poor souls, and in their own lands they live all the time
at war and cook and eat men's flesh. The Germans thrash them with whips
to make them work, and every now and then some run away into the Bush,
as the forest is called, and build little sheds of leaves, and eat nuts
and roots and fruit, and dwell there by themselves in the great desert.
Sometimes they are bad and wild and come down in the villages and steal
and kill; and people whisper to each other that some of them have gone
back to their horrid old habits, and catch men and women in order to eat
them. But it is very likely not true; and the most of them are only
poor, stupid, trembling, half-starved, pitiful creatures like frightened
dogs. Their life is all very well when the sun shines, as it does eight
or nine months in the year. But it is very different the rest of the
time. The wind rages here most violently. The great trees thrash about
like whips; the air is filled with leaves and great branches flying
about like birds; and the sound of the trees falling shakes the earth.
It rains too as it never rains at home. You can hear a shower while it
is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath in the forest; and
when it comes to you, the water blinds your eyes, and the cold drenching
takes your breath away as though some one had struck you. In that kind
of weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the woods, one man
alone by himself. And you must know that, if the lean man feels afraid
to be in the forest, the people of the island and the black boys are
much more afraid than he. For they believe the woods to be quite filled
with spirits; some are like pigs, and some are like flying things; but
others (and these are thought the most dangerous) come in the shape of
beautiful young women and young men, beautifully dressed in the island
manner, with fine kilts and fine necklaces and crowns of scarlet seeds
and flowers. Woe betide he or she who gets to speak with one of these!
They will be charmed out of their wits, and come home again quite silly,
and go mad and die. So that the poor black boy must be always trembling
and looking about for the coming of the women-devils.
Sometimes the women-devils go down out of the woods into the villages,
and here is a tale the lean man heard last year. One of the islanders
was sitting in his house, and he had cooked fish. There came along the
road two beautiful young women, dressed as I told you, who came into his
house and asked for some of his fish. It is the fashion in the islands
always to give what is asked, and never to ask folk's names. So the man
gave them fish and talked to them in the island jesting way. And
presently he asked one of the women for her red necklace, which is good
manners and their way; he had given the fish, and he had a right to ask
for something back. "I will give it you by and by," said the woman, and
she and her companion went away; but he thought they were gone very
suddenly, and the truth is they had vanished. The night was nearly come,
when the man heard the voice of the woman crying that he should come to
her and she would give the necklace. And he looked out, and behold she
was standing calling him from the top of the sea, on which she stood as
you might on the table. At that, fear came on the man; he fell on his
knees and prayed, and the woman disappeared. It was known afterwards
that this was once a woman indeed, but should have died a thousand years
ago, and has lived all that while as a devil in the woods beside the
spring of a river. Saumai-afe (Sow-my-affy) is her name, in case you
want to write to her.--Ever your friend Tusitala (tale-writer),
_alias_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The South Sea novel here mentioned, _Sophia Scarlet_, never got
beyond the rough draft of an opening chapter or two.
_[Vailima] Jan. 31st, '92._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--No letter at all from you, and this scratch from me!
Here is a year that opens ill. Lloyd is off to "the coast" sick--_the
coast_ means California over most of the Pacific--I have been down all
month with influenza, and am just recovering--I am overlaid with proofs,
which I am just about half fit to attend to. One of my horses died this
morning, and another is now dying on the front lawn--Lloyd's horse and
Fanny's. Such is my quarrel with destiny. But I am mending famously,
come and go on the balcony, have perfectly good nights, and though I
still cough, have no oppression and no hemorrhage and no fever. So if I
can find time and courage to add no more, you will know my news is not
altogether of the worst; a year or two ago, and what a state I should
have been in now! Your silence, I own, rather alarms me. But I tell
myself you have just miscarried; had you been too ill to write, some one
would have written me. Understand, I send this brief scratch not because
I am unfit to write more, but because I have 58 galleys of _The Wrecker_
and 102 of _The Beach of Falesá_ to get overhauled somehow or other in
time for the mail, and for three weeks I have not touched a pen with my
finger.
_Feb. 1st._--The second horse is still alive, but I still think dying.
The first was buried this morning. My proofs are done; it was a rough
two days of it, but done. _Consummatum est; ua uma_. I believe _The
Wrecker_ ends well; if I know what a good yarn is, the last four
chapters make a good yarn--but pretty horrible. _The Beach of Falesá_ I
still think well of, but it seems it's immoral and there's a to-do, and
financially it may prove a heavy disappointment. The plaintive request
sent to me, to make the young folks married properly before "that
night," I refused; you will see what would be left of the yarn, had I
consented.[32] This is a poison bad world for the romancer, this
Anglo-Saxon world; I usually get out of it by not having any women in it
at all; but when I remember I had _The Treasure of Franchard_ refused as
unfit for a family magazine, I feel despair weigh upon my wrists.
As I know you are always interested in novels, I must tell you that a
new one is now entirely planned. It is to be called _Sophia Scarlet_,
and is in two parts. Part I. The Vanilla Planter. Part II. The
Overseers. No chapters, I think; just two dense blocks of narrative, the
first of which is purely sentimental, but the second has some rows and
quarrels, and winds up with an explosion, if you please! I am just
burning to get at _Sophia_, but I _must_ do this Samoan
journalism--that's a cursed duty. The first part of _Sophia_, bar the
first twenty or thirty pages, writes itself; the second is more
difficult, involving a good many characters--about ten, I think--who
have to be kept all moving, and give the effect of a society. I have
three women to handle, out and well-away! but only Sophia is in full
tone. Sophia and two men, Windermere, the Vanilla Planter, who dies at
the end of Part I., and Rainsforth, who only appears in the beginning of
Part II. The fact is, I blush to own it, but Sophia is a _regular
novel_; heroine and hero, and false accusation, and love, and marriage,
and all the rest of it--all planted in a big South Sea plantation run by
ex-English officers--_à la_ Stewart's plantation in Tahiti.[33] There is
a strong undercurrent of labour trade which gives it a kind of Uncle Tom
flavour, _absit omen!_
The first start is hard; it is hard to avoid a little tedium here, but I
think by beginning with the arrival of the three Miss Scarlets hot from
school and society in England, I may manage to slide in the information.
The problem is exactly a Balzac one, and I wish I had his fist--for I
have already a better method--the kinetic, whereas he continually
allowed himself to be led into the static. But then he had the fist, and
the most I can hope is to get out of it with a modicum of grace and
energy, but for sure without the strong impression, the full, dark
brush. Three people have had it, the real creator's brush: Scott, see
much of _The Antiquary_ and _The Heart of Midlothian_ (especially all
round the trial, before, during, and after)--Balzac--and Thackeray in
_Vanity Fair_. Everybody else either paints _thin_, or has to stop to
paint, or paints excitedly, so that you see the author skipping before
his canvas. Here is a long way from poor Sophia Scarlet!
This day is published
_Sophia Scarlet_
By
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
To J. M. BARRIE
The following is the first of several letters to Mr. J. M. Barrie,
for whose work Stevenson had a warm admiration, and with whom he soon
established by correspondence a cordial friendship.
_Vailima, Samoa, February 1892._
DEAR MR. BARRIE,--This is at least the third letter I have written you,
but my correspondence has a bad habit of not getting so far as the post.
That which I possess of manhood turns pale before the business of the
address and envelope. But I hope to be more fortunate with this: for,
besides the usual and often recurrent desire to thank you for your
work--you are one of four that have come to the front since I was
watching and had a corner of my own to watch, and there is no reason,
unless it be in these mysterious tides that ebb and flow, and make and
mar and murder the works of poor scribblers, why you should not do work
of the best order. The tides have borne away my sentence, of which I was
weary at any rate, and between authors I may allow myself so much
freedom as to leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I suspect
both rather Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness tends to intermittency, but
is at times erisypelitous--if that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I have
gathered we had both made our stages in the metropolis of the winds: our
Virgil's "grey metropolis," and I count that a lasting bond. No place so
brands a man.
Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress. This may be
an error, but I believed I detected your hand in an article--it may be
an illusion, it may have been by one of those industrious insects who
catch up and reproduce the handling of each emergent man--but I'll still
hope it was yours--and hope it may please you to hear that the
continuation of _Kidnapped_ is under way. I have not yet got to Alan, so
I do not know if he is still alive, but David seems to have a kick or
two in his shanks. I was pleased to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell
into the trap: I gave my Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even commented on
the fact in the text; yet almost all critics recognised in David and
Alan a Saxon and a Celt. I know not about England; in Scotland at least,
where Gaelic was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in
Galloway not much earlier, I deny that there exists such a thing as a
pure Saxon, and I think it more than questionable if there be such a
thing as a pure Celt.
But what have you to do with this? and what have I? Let us continue to
inscribe our little bits of tales, and let the heathen rage!--Yours,
with sincere interest in your career,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] Feb. 1892._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This has been a busyish month for a sick man. First,
Faauma--the bronze candlestick, whom otherwise I called my
butler--bolted from the bed and bosom of Lafaele, the Archangel
Hercules, prefect of the cattle. There was a deuce to pay, and Hercules
was inconsolable, and immediately started out after a new wife, and has
had one up on a visit, but says she has "no conversation"; and I think
he will take back the erring and possibly repentant candlestick; whom we
all devoutly prefer, as she is not only highly decorative, but
good-natured, and if she does little work makes no rows. I tell this
lightly, but it really was a heavy business; many were accused of
complicity, and Rafael was really very sorry. I had to hold beds of
justice--literally--seated in my bed and surrounded by lying Samoans
seated on the floor; and there were many picturesque and still
inexplicable passages. It is hard to reach the truth in these islands.
The next incident overlapped with this. S. and Fanny found three strange
horses in the paddock: for long now the boys have been forbidden to
leave their horses here one hour because our grass is over-grazed. S.
came up with the news, and I saw I must now strike a blow. "To the pound
with the lot," said I. He proposed taking the three himself, but I
thought that too dangerous an experiment, said I should go too, and
hurried into my boots so as to show decision taken, in the necessary
interviews. They came of course--the interviews--and I explained what I
was going to do at huge length, and stuck to my guns. I am glad to say
the natives, with their usual (purely speculative) sense of justice,
highly approved the step after reflection. Meanwhile off went S. and I
with the three _corpora delicti_; and a good job I went! Once, when our
circus began to kick, we thought all was up; but we got them down all
sound in wind and limb. I judged I was much fallen off from my Elliot
forefathers, who managed this class of business with neatness and
despatch.
As we got down to town, we met the mother and daughter of my friend
----, bathed in tears; they had left the house over a row, which I have
not time or spirits to describe. This matter dashed me a good deal, and
the first decent-looking day I mounted and set off to see if I could not
patch things up. Half-way down it came on to rain tropic style, and I
came back from my second outing drenched like a drowned man--I was
literally blinded as I came back among these sheets of water; and the
consequence was I was laid down with diarrhoea and threatenings of
Samoa colic for the inside of another week. Meanwhile up came
Laulii,[34] in whose house Mrs. and Miss ---- have taken refuge. One of
Mrs. ----'s grievances is that her son has married one of these
"pork-eaters and cannibals." (As a matter of fact there is no memory of
cannibalism in Samoa.) And a strange thing it was to hear the "cannibal"
Laulii describe her sorrows. She is singularly pretty and sweet, her
training reflects wonderful credit on her husband; and when she began to
describe to us--to act to us, in the tone of an actress walking through
a rehearsal--the whole bearing of her angry guests; indicating the
really tragic notes when they came in, so that Fanny and I were ashamed
to laugh, and touching off the merely ludicrous with infinite tact and
sly humour; showing, in fact, in her whole picture of a couple of irate
barbarian women, the whole play and sympathy of what we call the
civilised mind; the contrast was seizing. I speak with feeling. To-day
again, being the first day humanly possible for me, I went down to Apia
with Fanny, and between two and three hours did I argue with that old
woman--not immovable, would she had been! but with a mechanical mind
like a piece of a musical snuff-box, that returned always to the same
starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me
and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense) to her son, and
showed here and there moments of genuine and not undignified emotion;
but O! on the other side, what lapses--what a mechanical movement of the
brain, what occasional trap-door devils of meanness, what a wooden front
of pride! I came out damped and saddened and (to say truth) a trifle
sick. My wife had better luck with the daughter; but O, it was a weary
business!
To add to my grief--but that's politics. Before I sleep to-night I have
a confession to make. When I was sick I tried to get to work to finish
that Samoa thing; wouldn't go; and at last, in the colic time, I slid
off into _David Balfour_,[35] some 50 pages of which are drafted, and
like me well. Really I think it is spirited; and there's a heroine that
(up to now) seems to have attractions: _absit omen!_ David, on the
whole, seems excellent. Alan does not come in till the tenth chapter,
and I am only at the eighth, so I don't know if I can find him again;
but David is on his feet, and doing well, and very much in love, and
mixed up with the Lord Advocate and the (untitled) Lord Lovat, and all
manner of great folk. And the tale interferes with my eating and
sleeping. The join is bad; I have not thought to strain too much for
continuity; so this part be alive, I shall be content. But there's no
doubt David seems to have changed his style, de'il ha'e him! And much I
care, if the tale travel!
_Friday, Feb.?? 19th?_--Two incidents to-day which I must narrate. After
lunch, it was raining pitilessly; we were sitting in my mother's
bedroom, and I was reading aloud Kinglake's Charge of the Light Brigade,
and we had just been all seized by the horses aligning with Lord George
Paget, when a figure appeared on the verandah; a little, slim, small
figure of a lad, with blond (_i.e._ limed) hair, a propitiatory smile,
and a nose that alone of all his features grew pale with anxiety. "I
come here stop," was about the outside of his English; and I began at
once to guess that he was a runaway labourer,[36] and that the
bush-knife in his hand was stolen. It proved he had a mate, who had
lacked his courage, and was hidden down the road; they had both made up
their minds to run away, and had "come here stop." I could not turn out
the poor rogues, one of whom showed me marks on his back, into the
drenching forest; I could not reason with them, for they had not enough
English, and not one of our boys spoke their tongue; so I bade them feed
and sleep here to-night, and to-morrow I must do what the Lord shall bid
me.
Near dinner time, I was told that a friend of Lafaele's had found human
remains in my bush. After dinner, a figure was seen skulking across
towards the waterfall, which produced from the verandah a shout, in my
most stentorian tones: "_O ai le ingoa?_" literally "Who the name?"
which serves here for "What's your business?" as well. It proved to be
Lafaele's friend; I bade a kitchen boy, Lauilo, go with him to see the
spot, for though it had ceased raining, the whole island ran and
dripped. Lauilo was willing enough, but the friend of the archangel
demurred; he had too much business; he had no time. "All right," I said,
"you too much frightened, I go along," which of course produced the
usual shout of delight from all those who did not require to go. I got
into my Saranac snow boots; Lauilo got a cutlass; Mary Carter, our
Sydney maid, joined the party for a lark, and off we set. I tell you our
guide kept us moving; for the dusk fell swift. Our woods have an
infamous reputation at the best, and our errand (to say the least of it)
was grisly. At last they found the remains; they were old, which was
all I cared to be sure of; it seemed a strangely small "pickle-banes" to
stand for a big, flourishing, buck-islander, and their situation in the
darkening and dripping bush was melancholy. All at once, I found there
was a second skull, with a bullet-hole I could have stuck my two thumbs
in--say anybody else's one thumb. My Samoans said it could not be, there
were not enough bones; I put the two pieces of skull together, and at
last convinced them. Whereupon, in a flash, they found the not
unromantic explanation. This poor brave had succeeded in the height of a
Samoan warrior's ambition; he had taken a head, which he was never
destined to show to his applauding camp. Wounded himself, he had crept
here into the bush to die with his useless trophy by his side. His date
would be about fifteen years ago, in the great battle between Laupepa
and Talavou, which took place on My Land, Sir. To-morrow we shall bury
the bones and fire a salute in honour of unfortunate courage.
Do you think I have an empty life? or that a man jogging to his club has
so much to interest and amuse him?--touch and try him too, but that goes
along with the others: no pain, no pleasure, is the iron law. So here I
stop again, and leave, as I left yesterday, my political business
untouched. And lo! here comes my pupil, I believe, so I stop in time.
_March 2nd._--Since I last wrote, fifteen chapters of _David Balfour_
have been drafted, and five _tirés au clair_. I think it pretty good;
there's a blooming maiden that costs anxiety--she is as virginal as
billy; but David seems there and alive, and the Lord Advocate is good,
and so I think is an episodic appearance of the Master of Lovat. In
Chapter XVII. I shall get David abroad--Alan went already in Chapter
XII. The book should be about the length of _Kidnapped_; this early part
of it, about D.'s evidence in the Appin case, is more of a story than
anything in _Kidnapped_, but there is no doubt there comes a break in
the middle, and the tale is practically in two divisions. In the first
James More and the M'Gregors, and Catriona, only show; in the second,
the Appin case being disposed of, and James Stewart hung, they rule the
roast and usurp the interest--should there be any left. Why did I take
up _David Balfour_? I don't know. A sudden passion.
Monday, I went down in the rain with a colic to take the chair at a
public meeting; dined with Haggard; sailed off to my meeting, and fought
with wild beasts for three anxious hours. All was lost that any sensible
man cared for, but the meeting did not break up--thanks a good deal to
R. L. S.--and the man who opposed my election, and with whom I was all
the time wrangling, proposed the vote of thanks to me with a certain
handsomeness; I assure you I had earned it.... Haggard and the great
Abdul, his high-caste Indian servant, imported by my wife, were sitting
up for me with supper, and I suppose it was twelve before I got to bed.
Tuesday raining, my mother rode down, and we went to the Consulate to
sign a Factory and Commission. Thence, I to the lawyers, to the printing
office, and to the mission. It was dinner time when I returned home.
This morning, our cook-boy having suddenly left--injured feelings--the
archangel was to cook breakfast. I found him lighting the fire before
dawn; his eyes blazed, he had no word of any language left to use, and I
saw in him (to my wonder) the strongest workings of gratified ambition.
Napoleon was no more pleased to sign his first treaty with Austria than
was Lafaele to cook that breakfast. All morning, when I had hoped to be
at this letter, I slept like one drugged, and you must take this (which
is all I can give you) for what it is worth--
D. B.
_Memoirs of his Adventures at Home and Abroad. The Second Part;
wherein are set forth the misfortunes in which he was involved upon
the Appin Murder; his troubles with Lord Advocate Prestongrange;
captivity on the Bass Rock; journey into France and Holland; and
singular relations with James More Drummond or Macgregor, a son of
the notorious Rob Roy._
Chapters.--I. A Beggar on Horseback. II. The Highland Writer. III. I go
to Pilrig. IV. Lord Advocate Prestongrange. V. Butter and Thunder. VI. I
make a fault in honour. VII. The Bravo. VIII. The Heather on Fire. IX. I
begin to be haunted with a red-headed man. X. The Wood by Silvermills.
XI. On the march again with Alan. XII. Gillane Sands. XIII. The Bass
Rock. XIV. Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik. XV. I go to Inveraray.
That is it, as far as drafted. Chapters IV. V. VII. IX. and XIV. I am
specially pleased with; the last being an episodical bogie story about
the Bass Rock told there by the Keeper.
TO WILLIAM MORRIS
The following draft letter addressed to Mr. William Morris was found
among Stevenson's papers after his death. It has touches of
affectation and constraint not usual with him, and it is no doubt on
that account that he did not send it; but though not in his best
manner, it seems worth printing as illustrating the variety of his
interests and admirations in literature.
_Vailima, Samoa, Feb. 1892._
MASTER,--A plea from a place so distant should have some weight, and
from a heart so grateful should have some address. I have been long in
your debt, Master, and I did not think it could be so much increased as
you have now increased it. I was long in your debt and deep in your debt
for many poems that I shall never forget, and for _Sigurd_ before all,
and now you have plunged me beyond payment by the Saga Library. And so
now, true to human nature, being plunged beyond payment, I come and bark
at your heels.
For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that you have
illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws, and is
our mother, our queen, and our instrument. Now in that living tongue
_where_ has one sense, _whereas_ another. In the _Heathslayings Story_,
p. 241, line 13, it bears one of its ordinary senses. Elsewhere and
usually through the two volumes, which is all that has yet reached me of
this entrancing publication, _whereas_ is made to figure for _where_.
For the love of God, my dear and honoured Morris, use _where_, and let
us know _whereas_ we are, wherefore our gratitude shall grow, whereby
you shall be the more honoured wherever men love clear language, whereas
now, although we honour, we are troubled.
Whereunder, please find inscribed to this very impudent but yet very
anxious document, the name of one of the most distant but not the
youngest or the coldest of those who honour you
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
The projected visit of Mr. Kipling, with his wife and brother-in-law,
to Samoa, which is mentioned towards the close of this letter, never
took place, much to the regret of both authors.
[_Vailima, March 1892._]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--I am guilty in your sight, but my affairs
besiege me. The chief-justiceship of a family of nineteen persons is in
itself no sinecure, and sometimes occupies me for days: two weeks ago
for four days almost entirely, and for two days entirely. Besides which,
I have in the last few months written all but one chapter of a _History
of Samoa_ for the last eight or nine years; and while I was unavoidably
delayed in the writing of this, awaiting material, put in one-half of
_David Balfour_, the sequel to _Kidnapped_. Add the ordinary impediments
of life, and admire my busyness. I am now an old, but healthy skeleton,
and degenerate much towards the machine. By six at work: stopped at
half-past ten to give a history lesson to a step-grandson; eleven,
lunch; after lunch we have a musical performance till two; then to work
again; bath, 4.40; dinner, five; cards in the evening till eight; and
then to bed--only I have no bed, only a chest with a mat and
blankets--and read myself to sleep. This is the routine, but often sadly
interrupted. Then you may see me sitting on the floor of my verandah
haranguing and being harangued by squatting chiefs on a question of a
road; or more privately holding an inquiry into some dispute among our
familiars, myself on my bed, the boys on the floor--for when it comes to
the judicial I play dignity--or else going down to Apia on some more or
less unsatisfactory errand. Altogether it is a life that suits me, but
it absorbs me like an ocean. That is what I have always envied and
admired in Scott; with all that immensity of work and study, his mind
kept flexible, glancing to all points of natural interest. But the lean
hot spirits, such as mine, become hypnotised with their bit
occupations--if I may use Scotch to you--it is so far more scornful than
any English idiom. Well, I can't help being a skeleton, and you are to
take this devious passage for an apology.
I thought _Aladdin_[37] capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend
it was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, _où va-t-il
se nicher?_ 'Tis a trifle, but Pyle would do well to knock the passage
out, and leave his boguey tale a boguey tale, and a good one at that.
The arrival of your box was altogether a great success to the castaways.
You have no idea where we live. Do you know, in all these islands there
are not five hundred whites, and no postal delivery, and only one
village--it is no more--and would be a mean enough village in Europe? We
were asked the other day if Vailima were the name of our post town, and
we laughed. Do you know, though we are but three miles from the village
metropolis, we have no road to it, and our goods are brought on the
pack-saddle? And do you know--or I should rather say, can you
believe--or (in the famous old Tichborne trial phrase) would you be
surprised to learn, that all you have read of Vailima--or Subpriorsford,
as I call it--is entirely false, and we have no ice-machine, and no
electric light, and no water supply but the cistern of the heavens, and
but one public room, and scarce a bedroom apiece? But, of course, it is
well known that I have made enormous sums by my evanescent literature,
and you will smile at my false humility. The point, however, is much on
our minds just now. We are expecting an invasion of Kiplings; very glad
we shall be to see them; but two of the party are ladies, and I tell you
we had to hold a council of war to stow them. You European ladies are so
particular; with all of mine, sleeping has long become a public
function, as with natives and those who go down much into the sea in
ships.
Dear Mrs. Fairchild, I must go to my work. I have but two words to say
in conclusion.
First, civilisation is rot.
Second, console a savage with more of the milk of that over-civilised
being, your adorable schoolboy.
As I wrote these remarkable words, I was called down to eight o'clock
prayers, and have just worked through a chapter of Joshua and five
verses, with five treble choruses, of a Samoan hymn; but the music was
good, our boys and precentress ('tis always a woman that leads) did
better than I ever heard them, and to my great pleasure I understood it
all except one verse. This gave me the more time to try and identify
what the parts were doing, and further convict my dull ear. Beyond the
fact that the soprano rose to the tonic above, on one occasion I could
recognise nothing. This is sickening, but I mean to teach my ear better
before I am done with it or this vile carcase.
I think it will amuse you (for a last word) to hear that our
precentress--she is the washerwoman--is our shame. She is a good,
healthy, comely, strapping young wench, full of energy and seriousness,
a splendid workwoman, delighting to train our chorus, delighting in the
poetry of the hymns, which she reads aloud (on the least provocation)
with a great sentiment of rhythm. Well, then, what is curious? Ah, we
did not know! but it was told us in a whisper from the cook-house--she
is not of good family. Don't let it get out, please; everybody knows it,
of course, here; there is no reason why Europe and the States should
have the advantage of me also. And the rest of my house-folk are all
chief-people, I assure you. And my late overseer (far the best of his
race) is a really serious chief with a good "name." Tina is the name; it
is not in the Almanach de Gotha, it must have got dropped at press. The
odd thing is, we rather share the prejudice. I have almost
always--though not quite always--found the higher the chief the better
the man through all the islands; or, at least, that the best man came
always from a highish rank. I hope Helen will continue to prove a bright
exception.
With love to Fairchild and the Huge Schoolboy, I am, my dear Mrs.
Fairchild, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] March 9th [1892]._
MY DEAR S. C.,--Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am
eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business
impediment--I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the
road--and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a
_faipule_--parliament man--come begging. All the time _David Balfour_ is
skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; I have now 12
chapters, 79 pages ready for press, or within an ace, and, by the time
the month is out, one-half should be completed, and I'll be back at
drafting the second half. What makes me sick is to think of Scott
turning out _Guy Mannering_ in three weeks! What a pull of work:
heavens, what thews and sinews! And here am I, my head spinning from
having only re-written seven not very difficult pages--and not very good
when done. Weakling generation. It makes me sick of myself, to make such
a fash and bobbery over a rotten end of an old nursery yarn, not worth
spitting on when done. Still, there is no doubt I turn out my work more
easily than of yore; and I suppose I should be singly glad of that. And
if I got my book done in six weeks, seeing it will be about half as long
as a Scott, and I have to write everything twice, it would be about the
same rate of industry. It is my fair intention to be done with it in
three months, which would make me about one-half the man Sir Walter was
for application and driving the dull pen. Of the merit we shall not
talk; but I don't think Davie is _without_ merit.
_March 12th._--And I have this day triumphantly finished 15 chapters,
100 pages--being exactly one-half (as near as anybody can guess) of
_David Balfour_; the book to be about a fifth as long again (altogether)
as _Treasure Island:_ could I but do the second half in another month!
But I can't, I fear; I shall have some belated material arriving by next
mail, and must go again at the History. Is it not characteristic of my
broken tenacity of mind, that I should have left Davie Balfour some five
years in the British Linen Company's Office, and then follow him at last
with such vivacity? But I leave you again; the last (15th) chapter ought
to be re-wrote, or part of it, and I want the half completed in the
month, and the month is out by midnight; though, to be sure, last month
was February, and I might take grace. These notes are only to show I
hold you in mind, though I know they can have no interest for man or God
or animal.
I should have told you about the Club. We have been asked to try and
start a sort of weekly ball for the half-castes and natives, ourselves
to be the only whites; and we consented, from a very heavy sense of
duty, and with not much hope. Two nights ago we had twenty people up,
received them in the front verandah, entertained them on cake and
lemonade, and I made a speech--embodying our proposals, or conditions,
if you like--for I suppose thirty minutes. No joke to speak to such an
audience, but it is believed I was thoroughly intelligible. I took the
plan of saying everything at least twice in a different form of words,
so that if the one escaped my hearers, the other might be seized. One
white man came with his wife, and was kept rigorously on the front
verandah below! You see what a sea of troubles this is like to prove;
but it is the only chance--and when it blows up, it must blow up! I have
no more hope in anything than a dead frog; I go into everything with a
composed despair, and don't mind--just as I always go to sea with the
conviction I am to be drowned, and like it before all other pleasures.
But you should have seen the return voyage, when nineteen horses had to
be found in the dark, and nineteen bridles, all in a drench of rain, and
the club, just constituted as such, sailed away in the wet, under a
cloudy moon like a bad shilling, and to descend a road through the
forest that was at that moment the image of a respectable mountain
brook. My wife, who is president _with power to expel_, had to begin her
functions....
_25th March._--Heaven knows what day it is, but I am ashamed, all the
more as your letter from Bournemouth of all places--poor old
Bournemouth!--is to hand, and contains a statement of pleasure in my
letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has
gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive,
desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and
little transacted or at least peracted.
Let me give you a review of the present state of our live stock.--Six
boys in the bush; six souls about the house. Talolo, the cook, returns
again to-day, after an absence which has cost me about twelve hours of
riding, and I suppose eight hours' solemn sitting in council. "I am
sorry indeed for the Chief Justice of Samoa," I said; "it is more than I
am fit for to be Chief Justice of Vailima."--Lauilo is steward. Both
these are excellent servants; we gave a luncheon party when we buried
the Samoan bones, and I assure you all was in good style, yet we never
interfered. The food was good, the wine and dishes went round as by
mechanism.--Steward's assistant and washman, Arrick, a New Hebridee
black boy, hired from the German firm; not so ugly as most, but not
pretty neither; not so dull as his sort are, but not quite a Crichton.
When he came first, he ate so much of our good food that he got a
prominent belly. Kitchen assistant, Tomas (Thomas in English), a Fiji
man, very tall and handsome, moving like a marionette with sudden
bounds, and rolling his eyes with sudden effort.--Washerwoman and
precentor, Helen, Tomas's wife. This is our weak point; we are ashamed
of Helen; the cook-house blushes for her; they murmur there at her
presence. She seems all right; she is not a bad-looking, strapping
wench, seems chaste, is industrious, has an excellent taste in
hymns--you should have heard her read one aloud the other day, she
marked the rhythm with so much gloating, dissenter sentiment. What is
wrong, then? says you. Low in your ear--and don't let the papers get
hold of it--she is of no family. None, they say; literally a common
woman. Of course, we have out-islanders, who _may_ be villeins; but we
give them the benefit of the doubt, which is impossible with Helen of
Vailima; our blot, our pitted speck. The pitted speck I have said is our
precentor. It is always a woman who starts Samoan song; the men who sing
second do not enter for a bar or two. Poor, dear Faauma, the unchaste,
the extruded Eve of our Paradise, knew only two hymns; but Helen seems
to know the whole repertory, and the morning prayers go far more lively
in consequence.--Lafaele, provost of the cattle. The cattle are Jack, my
horse, quite converted, my wife rides him now, and he is as steady as a
doctor's cob; Tifaga Jack, a circus horse, my mother's piebald, bought
from a passing circus; Belle's mare, now in childbed or next door,
confound the slut! Musu--amusingly translated the other day "don't want
to," literally cross, but always in the sense of stubbornness and
resistance--my wife's little dark-brown mare, with a white star on her
forehead, whom I have been riding of late to steady her--she has no
vices, but is unused, skittish and uneasy, and wants a lot of attention
and humouring; lastly (of saddle horses) Luna--not the Latin _moon_, the
Hawaiian _overseer_, but it's pronounced the same--a pretty little mare
too, but scarce at all broken, a bad bucker, and has to be ridden with a
stock-whip and be brought back with her rump criss-crossed like a clan
tartan; the two cart horses, now only used with pack-saddles; two cows,
one in the straw (I trust) to-morrow, a third cow, the Jersey--whose
milk and temper are alike subjects of admiration--she gives good
exercise to the farming saunterer, and refreshes him on his return with
cream; two calves, a bull, and a cow; God knows how many ducks and
chickens, and for a wager not even God knows how many cats; twelve
horses, seven horses, five kine: is not this Babylon the Great which I
have builded? Call it _Subpriorsford_.
Two nights ago the club had its first meeting; only twelve were present,
but it went very well. I was not there, I had ridden down the night
before after dinner on my endless business, took a cup of tea in the
mission like an ass, then took a cup of coffee like a fool at Haggard's,
then fell into a discussion with the American Consul.... I went to bed
at Haggard's, came suddenly broad awake, and lay sleepless the live
night. It felt chill, I had only a sheet, and had to make a light and
range the house for a cover--I found one in the hall, a macintosh. So
back to my sleepless bed, and to lie there till dawn. In the morning I
had a longish ride to take in a day of a blinding, staggering sun, and
got home by eleven, our luncheon hour, with my head rather swimmy; the
only time I have _feared_ the sun since I was in Samoa. However, I got
no harm, but did not go to the club, lay off, lazied, played the pipe,
and read a novel by James Payn--sometimes quite interesting, and in one
place really very funny with the quaint humour of the man. Much
interested the other day. As I rode past a house, I saw where a Samoan
had written a word on a board, and there was an [inverted A], perfectly
formed, but upside down. You never saw such a thing in Europe; but it is
as common as dirt in Polynesia. Men's names are tattooed on the forearm;
it is common to find a subverted letter tattooed there. Here is a
tempting problem for psychologists.
I am now on terms again with the German consulate, I know not for how
long; not, of course, with the President, which I find a relief; still,
with the Chief Justice and the English consul. For Haggard, I have a
genuine affection; he is a loveable man.
Wearyful man! "Here is the yarn of Loudon Dodd, _not as he told it, but
as it was afterwards written_."[38] These words were left out by some
carelessness, and I think I have been thrice tackled about them. Grave
them in your mind and wear them on your forehead.
The Lang story will have very little about the treasure; the Master[39]
will appear; and it is to a great extent a tale of Prince Charlie
_after_ the '45, and a love story forbye: the hero is a melancholy
exile, and marries a young woman who interests the prince, and there is
the devil to pay. I think the Master kills him in a duel, but don't know
yet, not having yet seen my second heroine. No--the Master doesn't kill
him, they fight, he is wounded, and the Master plays _deus ex machina_.
_I think_ just now of calling it _The Tail of the Race_; no--heavens! I
never saw till this moment--but of course nobody but myself would ever
understand Mill-Race, they would think of a quarter-mile. So--I am
nameless again. My melancholy young man is to be quite a Romeo. Yes,
I'll name the book from him: _Dyce of Ythan_--pronounce Eethan.
Dyce of Ythan
by R. L. S.
O, Shovel--Shovel waits his turn, he and his ancestors. I would have
tackled him before, but my _State Trials_ have never come. So that I
have now quite planned:--
Dyce of Ythan. (Historical, 1750.)
Sophia Scarlet. (To-day.)
The Shovels of Newton French. (Historical, 1650 to 1830.)
And quite planned and part written:--
The Pearl Fisher. (To-day.) (With Lloyd: a machine.)[40]
David Balfour. (Historical, 1751.)
And, by a strange exception for R. L. S., all in the third person except
D. B.
I don't know what day this is now (the 29th), but I have finished my two
chapters, ninth and tenth, of _Samoa_ in time for the mail, and feel
almost at peace. The tenth was the hurricane, a difficult problem; it so
tempted one to be literary; and I feel sure the less of that there is in
my little handbook, the more chance it has of some utility. Then the
events are complicated, seven ships to tell of, and sometimes three of
them together; O, it was quite a job. But I think I have my facts pretty
correct, and for once, in my sickening yarn, they are handsome facts:
creditable to all concerned; not to be written of--and I should think,
scarce to be read--without a thrill. I doubt I have got no hurricane
into it, the intricacies of the yarn absorbing me too much. But
there--it's done somehow, and time presses hard on my heels. The book,
with my best expedition, may come just too late to be of use. In which
case I shall have made a handsome present of some months of my life for
nothing and to nobody. Well, through Her the most ancient heavens are
fresh and strong.[41]
_30th._--After I had written you, I re-read my hurricane, which is very
poor; the life of the journalist is hard, another couple of writings and
I could make a good thing, I believe, and it must go as it is! But, of
course, this book is not written for honour and glory, and the few who
will read it may not know the difference. Very little time. I go down
with the mail shortly, dine at the Chinese restaurant, and go to the
club to dance with islandresses. Think of my going out once a week to
dance.
Politics are on the full job again, and we don't know what is to come
next. I think the whole treaty _raj_ seems quite played out! They have
taken to bribing the _faipule_ men (parliament men) to stay in Mulinuu,
we hear; but I have not yet sifted the rumour. I must say I shall be
scarce surprised if it prove true; these rumours have the knack of being
right.--Our weather this last month has been tremendously hot, not by
the thermometer, which sticks at 86°, but to the sensation: no rain, no
wind, and this the storm month. It looks ominous, and is certainly
disagreeable.
No time to finish.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
The first sentences of the following refer to _A Footnote to
History_, Chapter x. of which, relating to the hurricane of 1889, was
first published in the Scots Observer, edited by Mr. Henley.
[_Vailima, March 1892._]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith Chapters IX. and X., and I am left face to
face with the horrors and dilemmas of the present regimen: pray for
those that go down to the sea in ships. I have promised Henley shall
have a chance to publish the hurricane chapter if he like, so please let
the slips be sent _quam primum_ to C. Baxter, W.S., 11 S. Charlotte
Street, Edinburgh. I got on mighty quick with that chapter--about five
days of the toughest kind of work. God forbid I should ever have such
another pirn to wind! When I invent a language, there shall be a direct
and an indirect pronoun differently declined--then writing would be some
fun.
DIRECT INDIRECT
He Tu
Him Tum
His Tus
Ex.: _He_ seized _tum_ by _tus_ throat; but _tu_ at the same moment
caught _him_ by his hair. A fellow could write hurricanes with an
inflection like that! Yet there would be difficulties too.
Please add to my former orders--
_Le Chevalier Des Touches_ } by Barbey d'Aurevilly.
_Les Diabohques_ }
_Correspondence de Henri Beyle_ (Stendahl).
Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO THE REV. S. J. WHITMEE
In this letter the essential points of Stevenson's policy for Samoa
are defined more clearly than anywhere else. His correspondent, an
experienced missionary who had been absent from the islands and
lately returned, and whom Stevenson describes as being of a nature
essentially "childlike and candid," had been induced to support the
idea of a one-man power as necessary for putting an end to the
existing confusion, and to suggest the Chief Justice, Mr.
Cedercrantz, as the person to wield such power. In the present letter
and a subsequent conversation Stevenson was able to persuade his
correspondent to abandon at least that part of his proposal which
concerned the Chief Justice.
_[Vailima] Sunday. Better Day, Better Deed. April 24th, 1892._
Private and confidential.
DEAR MR. WHITMEE,--I have reflected long and fully on your paper, and at
your kind request give you the benefit of my last thoughts.
I. I cannot bring myself to welcome your idea of one man. I fear we are
too far away from any moderative influence; and suppose it to be true
that the paper is bought, we should not even have a voice. Could we be
sure to get a Gordon or a Lawrence, ah! very well. But in this
out-of-the-way place, are these extreme experiments wise? Remember
Baker; with much that he has done, I am in full sympathy; and the man,
though wholly insincere, is a thousand miles from ill-meaning; and see
to what excesses he was forced or led.
II. But I willingly admit the idea is possible with the right man, and
this brings me with greater conviction to my next point. I cannot
endorse, and I would rather beg of you to reconsider, your
recommendation of the Chief Justice. I told you the man has always
attracted me, yet as I have earnestly reconsidered the points against
him, I find objection growing....
But there is yet another argument I have to lay before you. We are both
to write upon this subject. Many of our opinions coincide, and, as I
said the other day, on these we may reasonably suppose that we are not
far wrong. Now here is a point on which we shall directly counter. No
doubt but this will lessen the combined weight of our arguments where
they coincide. And to avoid this effect, it might seem worth while to
you to modify or cancel the last paragraph of your article.
III. But I now approach what seems to me by far the most important.
White man here, white man there, Samoa is to stand or fall (bar actual
seizure) on the Samoan question. And upon this my mind is now really
made up. I do not believe in Laupepa alone; I do not believe in Mataafa
alone. I know that their conjunction implies peace; I am persuaded that
their separation means either war or paralysis. It is the result of the
past, which we cannot change, but which we must accept and use or suffer
by. I have now made up my mind to do all that I may be able--little as
it is--to effect a reconciliation between these two men Laupepa and
Mataafa; persuaded as I am that there is the one door of hope. And it is
my intention before long to approach both in this sense. Now, from the
course of our interview, I was pleased to see that you were, if not
equally strong with myself, at least inclined to much the same opinion.
And in a carefully weighed paper, such as that you read me, I own I
should be pleased to have this cardinal matter touched upon. At home it
is not, it cannot be, understood: Mataafa is thought a rebel; the
Germans profit by the thought to pursue their career of vengeance for
Fagalii; the two men are perpetually offered as alternatives--they are
no such thing--they are complementary; authority, supposing them to
survive, will be impossible without both. They were once friends, fools
and meddlers set them at odds, they must be friends again or have so
much wisdom and public virtue as to pretend a friendship. There is my
policy for Samoa. And I wish you would at least touch upon that point, I
care not how; because, although I am far from supposing you feel it to
be necessary in the same sense or to the same degree as I do, I am well
aware that no man knows Samoa but must see its huge advantages. Excuse
this long and tedious lecture, which I see I have to mark private and
confidential, or I might get into deep water, and believe me, yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The maps herein bespoken do not adorn the ordinary editions of
_Catriona_, only the Edinburgh edition, for which they were executed
by Messrs. Bartholomew in a manner that would have rejoiced the
writer's heart.
_[Vailima] April 28, 1892._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have just written the dedication of _David Balfour_
to you, and haste to put a job in your hands. This is a map of the
environs of Edinburgh _circa_ 1750. It must contain Hope Park, Hunter's
Bog, Calton Hill, the Mouter Hill, Lang Dykes, Nor' Loch, West Kirk,
Village of Dean, pass down the water to Stockbridge, Silver Mills, the
two mill lakes there, with a wood on the south side of the south one
which I saw marked on a plan in the British Museum, Broughton, Picardy,
Leith Walk, Leith, Pilrig, Lochend, Figgate Whins. And I would like a
piece in a corner, giving for the same period Figgate Whins,
Musselburgh, Inveresk, Prestonpans, battlefield of Gladsmuir, Cockenzie,
Gullane--which I spell Gillane--Fidra, Dirleton, North Berwick Law,
Whitekirk, Tantallon Castle and Castleton, Scougal and Auldhame, the
Bass, the Glenteithy rocks, Satan's Bush, Wildfire rocks, and, if
possible, the May. If need were, I would not stick at two maps. If there
is but one, say, _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's adventures in the
Lothians_. If two, call the first _Plan to illustrate David Balfour's
adventures about the city of Edinburgh_, and the second, _Plan to
illustrate David Balfour's adventures in East Lothian_. I suppose there
must be a map-maker of some taste in Edinburgh; I wish few other names
in, but what I have given, as far as possible. As soon as may be I will
let you have the text, when you might even find some amusement in
seeing that the maps fill the bill. If your map-maker be a poor
creature, plainness is best; if he were a fellow of some genuine go, he
might give it a little of the bird's-eye quality. I leave this to your
good taste. If I have time I will copy the dedication to go herewith; I
am pleased with it. The first map (suppose we take two) would go in at
the beginning, the second at Chapter XI. The topography is very much
worked into the story, and I have alluded in the dedication to our
common fancy for exploring Auld Reekie.
The list of books came duly, for which many thanks. I am plunged to the
nostrils in various business.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] May 1st, 1892._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--As I rode down last night about six, I saw a sight I
must try to tell you of. In front of me, right over the top of the
forest into which I was descending, was a vast cloud. The front of it
accurately represented the somewhat rugged, long-nosed, and
beetle-browed profile of a man, crowned by a huge Kalmuck cap; the flesh
part was of a heavenly pink, the cap, the moustache, the eyebrows were
of a bluish grey; to see this with its childish exactitude of design and
colour, and hugeness of scale--it covered at least 25°--held me
spell-bound. As I continued to gaze, the expression began to change; he
had the exact air of closing one eye, dropping his jaw, and drawing down
his nose; had the thing not been so imposing, I could have smiled; and
then almost in a moment, a shoulder of leaden-coloured bank drove in
front and blotted it. My attention spread to the rest of the cloud, and
it was a thing to worship. It rose from the horizon, and its top was
within thirty degrees of the zenith; the lower parts were like a glacier
in shadow, varying from dark indigo to a clouded white in exquisite
gradations. The sky behind, so far as I could see, was all of a blue
already enriched and darkened by the night, for the hill had what
lingered of the sunset. But the top of my Titanic cloud flamed in broad
sunlight, with the most excellent softness and brightness of fire and
jewels, enlightening all the world. It must have been far higher than
Mount Everest, and its glory, as I gazed up at it out of the night, was
beyond wonder. Close by rode the little crescent moon; and right over
its western horn, a great planet of about equal lustre with itself. The
dark woods below were shrill with that noisy business of the birds'
evening worship. When I returned, after eight, the moon was near down;
she seemed little brighter than before, but now that the cloud no longer
played its part of a nocturnal sun, we could see that sight, so rare
with us at home that it was counted a portent, so customary in the
tropics, of the dark sphere with its little gilt band upon the belly.
The planet had been setting faster, and was now below the crescent. They
were still of an equal brightness.
I could not resist trying to reproduce this in words, as a specimen of
these incredibly beautiful and imposing meteors of the tropic sky that
make so much of my pleasure here; though a ship's deck is the place to
enjoy them. O what _awful_ scenery, from a ship's deck, in the tropics!
People talk about the Alps, but the clouds of the trade wind are alone
for sublimity.
Now to try and tell you what has been happening. The state of these
islands, and of Mataafa and Laupepa (Malietoas _ambo_), had been much on
my mind. I went to the priests and sent a message to Mataafa, at a time
when it was supposed he was about to act. He did not act, delaying in
true native style, and I determined I should go to visit him. I have
been very good not to go sooner; to live within a few miles of a rebel
camp, to be a novelist, to have all my family forcing me to go, and to
refrain all these months, counts for virtue. But hearing that several
people had gone and the government done nothing to punish them, and
having an errand there which was enough to justify myself in my own
eyes, I half determined to go, and spoke of it with the half-caste
priest. And here (confound it) up came Laupepa and his guards to call on
me; we kept him to lunch, and the old gentleman was very good and
amiable. He asked me why I had not been to see him? I reminded him a law
had been made, and told him I was not a small boy to go and ask leave of
the consuls, and perhaps be refused. He told me to pay no attention to
the law but come when I would, and begged me to name a day to lunch. The
next day (I think it was) early in the morning, a man appeared; he had
metal buttons like a policeman--but he was none of our Apia force; he
was a rebel policeman, and had been all night coming round inland
through the forest from Malie. He brought a letter addressed
_I lana susuga_ To his Excellency
_Misi Mea_. Mr. Thingumbob.
(So as not to compromise me.) I can read Samoan now, though not speak
it. It was to ask me for last Wednesday. My difficulty was great; I had
no man here who was fit, or who would have cared, to write for me; and I
had to postpone the visit. So I gave up half-a-day with a groan, went
down to the priests, arranged for Monday week to go to Malie, and named
Thursday as my day to lunch with Laupepa. I was sharply ill on
Wednesday, mail day. But on Thursday I had to trail down and go through
the dreary business of a feast, in the King's wretched shanty, full in
view of the President's fine new house; it made my heart burn.
This gave me my chance to arrange a private interview with the king, and
I decided to ask Mr. Whitmee to be my interpreter. On Friday, being too
much exhausted to go down, I begged him to come up. He did. I told him
the heads of what I meant to say; and he not only consented, but said,
if we got on well with the king, he would even proceed with me to Malie.
Yesterday, in consequence, I rode down to W.'s house by eight in the
morning; waited till ten; received a message that the king was stopped
by a meeting with the president and _faipule_; made another engagement
for seven at night; came up; went down; waited till eight, and came away
again, _bredouille_, and a dead body. The poor, weak, enslaved king had
not dared to come to me even in secret. Now I have to-day for a rest,
and to-morrow to Malie. Shall I be suffered to embark? It is very
doubtful; they are on the trail. On Thursday, a policeman came up to me
and began that a boy had been to see him, and said I was going to see
Mataafa.--"And what did you say?" said I.--"I told him I did not know
about where you were going," said he.--"A very good answer," said I, and
turned away. It is lashing rain to-day, but to-morrow, rain or shine, I
must at least make the attempt; and I am so weary, and the weather looks
so bad. I could half wish they would arrest me on the beach. All this
bother and pother to try and bring a little chance of peace; all this
opposition and obstinacy in people who remain here by the mere
forbearance of Mataafa, who has a great force within six miles of their
government buildings, which are indeed only the residences of white
officials. To understand how I have been occupied, you must know that
"Misi Mea" has had another letter, and this time had to answer himself;
think of doing so in a language so obscure to me, with the aid of a
Bible, concordance, and dictionary! What a wonderful Baboo compilation
it must have been! I positively expected to hear news of its arrival in
Malie by the sound of laughter. I doubt if you will be able to read this
scrawl, but I have managed to scramble somehow up to date; and
to-morrow, one way or another, should be interesting. But as for me, I
am a wreck, as I have no doubt style and handwriting both testify.
8 P.M.--Wonderfully rested; feel almost fit for to-morrow's dreary
excursion--not that it will be dreary if the weather favour, but
otherwise it will be death; and a native feast, and I fear I am in for a
big one, is a thing I loathe. I wonder if you can really conceive me as
a politician in this extra-mundane sphere--presiding at public meetings,
drafting proclamations, receiving mis-addressed letters that have been
carried all night through tropical forests? It seems strange indeed, and
to you, who know me really, must seem stranger. I do not say I am free
from the itch of meddling, but God knows this is no tempting job to
meddle in; I smile at picturesque circumstances like the Misi Mea
(_Monsieur Chose_ is the exact equivalent) correspondence, but the
business as a whole bores and revolts me. I do nothing and say nothing;
and then a day comes, and I say "this can go on no longer."
9.30 P.M.--The wretched native dilatoriness finds me out. News has just
come that we must embark at six to-morrow; I have divided the night in
watches, and hope to be called to-morrow at four and get under way by
five. It is a great chance if it be managed; but I have given directions
and lent my own clock to the boys, and hope the best. If I get called at
four we shall do it nicely. Good-night; I must turn in.
_May 3rd._--Well, we did get off by about 5.30, or, by'r lady! quarter
to six; myself on Donald, the huge grey cart-horse, with a ship-bag
across my saddle bow, Fanny on Musu and Belle on Jack. We were all
feeling pretty tired and sick, and I looked like heaven knows what on
the cart-horse: "death on the pale horse," I suggested--and young Hunt
the missionary, who met me to-day on the same charger, squinted up at my
perch and remarked, "There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft."
The boat was ready and we set off down the lagoon about seven, four
oars, and Talolo, my cook, steering.
_May 9th_ (_Monday anyway_).--And see what good resolutions came to!
Here is all this time past, and no speed made. Well, we got to Malie and
were received with the most friendly consideration by the rebel chief.
Belle and Fanny were obviously thought to be my two wives; they were
served their kava together, as were Mataafa and myself. Talolo utterly
broke down as interpreter; long speeches were made to me by Mataafa and
his orators, of which he could make nothing but they were "very much
surprised"--his way of pronouncing obliged--and as he could understand
nothing that fell from me except the same form of words, the dialogue
languished and all business had to be laid aside. We had kava,[42] and
then a dish of arrowroot; one end of the house was screened off for us
with a fine tapa, and we lay and slept, the three of us, heads and
tails, upon the mats till dinner. After dinner his illegitimate majesty
and myself had a walk, and talked as well as my twopenny Samoan would
admit. Then there was a dance to amuse the ladies before the house, and
we came back by moonlight, the sky piled full of high faint clouds that
long preserved some of the radiance of the sunset. The lagoon was very
shallow; we continually struck, for the moon was young and the light
baffling; and for a long time we were accompanied by, and passed and
repassed, a huge whale-boat from Savaii, pulling perhaps twelve oars,
and containing perhaps forty people who sang in time as they went. So
to the hotel, where we slept, and returned the next Tuesday morning on
the three same steeds.
Meanwhile my business was still untransacted. And on Saturday morning, I
sent down and arranged with Charlie Taylor to go down that afternoon. I
had scarce got the saddle-bags fixed and had not yet mounted, when the
rain began. But it was no use delaying now; off I went in a wild
waterspout to Apia; found Charlie (Salé) Taylor--a sesquipedalian young
half-caste--not yet ready, had a snack of bread and cheese at the hotel
while waiting him, and then off to Malie. It rained all the way, seven
miles; the road, which begins in triumph, dwindles down to a nasty,
boggy, rocky footpath with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there are
eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps--the next morning we found
one all messed with blood where a horse had come to grief--but my Jack
is a clever fencer; and altogether we made good time, and got to Malie
about dark. It is a village of very fine native houses, high, domed,
oval buildings, open at the sides, or only closed with slatted
Venetians. To be sure, Mataafa's is not the worst. It was already quite
dark within, only a little fire of cocoa-shell blazed in the midst and
showed us four servants; the chief was in his chapel, whence we heard
the sound of chaunting. Presently he returned; Taylor and I had our
soaking clothes changed, family worship was held, kava brewed, I was
exhibited to the chiefs as a man who had ridden through all that rain
and risked deportation to serve their master; they were bidden learn my
face, and remember upon all occasions to help and serve me. Then dinner,
and politics, and fine speeches until twelve at night--O, and some more
kava--when I could sit up no longer; my usual bed-time is eight, you
must remember. Then one end of the house was screened off for me alone,
and a bed made--you never saw such a couch--I believe of nearly fifty
(half at least) fine mats, by Mataafa's daughter, Kalala. Here I
reposed alone; and on the other side of the tapa, Majesty and his
household. Armed guards and a drummer patrolled about the house all
night; they had no shift, poor devils; but stood to arms from sun-down
to sun-up.
About four in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a whistle pipe
blown outside on the dark, very softly and to a pleasing simple air; I
really think I have hit the first phrase:
[Illustration: Andante tranquillo]
It sounded very peaceful, sweet and strange in the dark; and I found
this was a part of the routine of my rebel's night, and it was done (he
said) to give good dreams. By a little before six, Taylor and I were in
the saddle again fasting. My riding boots were so wet I could not get
them on, so I must ride barefoot. The morning was fair but the roads
very muddy, the weeds soaked us nearly to the waist, Salé was twice
spilt at the fences, and we got to Apia a bedraggled enough pair. All
the way along the coast, the paté (small wooden drum) was beating in the
villages and the people crowding to the churches in their fine clothes.
Thence through the mangrove swamp, among the black mud and the green
mangroves, and the black and scarlet crabs, to Mulinuu, to the doctor's,
where I had an errand, and so to the inn to breakfast about nine. After
breakfast I rode home. Conceive such an outing, remember the pallid
brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit, and receive
the intelligence that I was rather the better for my journey. Twenty
miles' ride, sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain,
seven of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six stricken hours'
political discussions by an interpreter; to say nothing of sleeping in
a native house, at which many of our excellent literati would look
askance of itself.
You are to understand: if I take all this bother, it is not only from a
sense of duty, or a love of meddling--damn the phrase, take your
choice--but from a great affection for Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet
old fellow, and he and I grew quite fulsome on Saturday night about our
sentiments. I had a messenger from him to-day with a flannel undershirt
which I had left behind like a gibbering idiot; and perpetrated in reply
another Baboo letter. It rains again to-day without mercy; blessed,
welcome rains, making up for the paucity of the late wet season; and
when the showers slacken, I can hear my stream roaring in the hollow,
and tell myself that the cacaos are drinking deep. I am desperately
hunted to finish my Samoa book before the mail goes; this last chapter
is equally delicate and necessary. The prayers of the congregation are
requested. Eheu! and it will be ended before this letter leaves and
printed in the States ere you can read this scribble. The first dinner
gong has sounded; _je vous salue, monsieur et cher confrère. Tofa,
soifua!_ Sleep! long life! as our Samoan salutation of farewell runs.
_Friday, May_ 13_th._--Well, the last chapter, by far the most difficult
and ungrateful, is well under way, I have been from six to seven hours
upon it daily since I last wrote; and that is all I have done forbye
working at Samoan rather hard, and going down on Wednesday evening to
the club. I make some progress now at the language; I am teaching Belle,
which clears and exercises myself. I am particularly taken with the
_finesse_ of the pronouns. The pronouns are all dual and plural, and the
first person, both in the dual and plural, has a special exclusive and
inclusive form. You can conceive what fine effects of precision and
distinction can be reached in certain cases. Take Ruth, i. _vv._ 8 to
13, and imagine how those pronouns come in; it is exquisitely elegant,
and makes the mouth of the _littérateur_ to water. I am going to
exercitate my pupil over those verses to-day for pronoun practice.
_Tuesday._--Yesterday came yours. Well, well, if the dears prefer a
week, why, I'll give them ten days, but the real document, from which I
have scarcely varied, ran for one night.[43] I think you seem scarcely
fair to Wiltshire, who had surely, under his beast-ignorant ways, right
noble qualities. And I think perhaps you scarce do justice to the fact
that this is a place of realism _à outrance_; nothing extenuated or
coloured. Looked at so, is it not, with all its tragic features,
wonderfully idyllic, with great beauty of scene and circumstance? And
will you please to observe that almost all that is ugly is in the
whites? I'll apologise for Papa Randal if you like; but if I told you
the whole truth--for I did extenuate there!--and he seemed to me
essential as a figure, and essential as a pawn in the game, Wiltshire's
disgust for him being one of the small, efficient motives in the story.
Now it would have taken a fairish dose to disgust Wiltshire.--Again, the
idea of publishing the _Beach_ substantively is dropped--at once, both
on account of expostulation, and because it measured shorter than I had
expected. And it was only taken up, when the proposed volume, _Beach de
Mar_, petered out. It petered out thus: the chief of the short stories
got sucked into _Sophia Scarlet_--and _Sophia_ is a book I am much taken
with, and mean to get to, as soon as--but not before--I have done _David
Balfour_ and _The Young Chevalier_. So you see you are like to hear no
more of the Pacific or the nineteenth century for a while. _The Young
Chevalier_ is a story of sentiment and passion, which I mean to write a
little differently from what I have been doing--if I can hit the key;
rather more of a sentimental tremolo to it. It may thus help to prepare
me for _Sophia_, which is to contain three ladies, and a kind of a love
affair between the heroine and a dying planter who is a poet! large
orders for R. L. S.
O the German taboo is quite over; no soul attempts to support the C. J.
or the President, they are past hope; the whites have just refused their
taxes--I mean the council has refused to call for them, and if the
council consented, nobody would pay; 'tis a farce, and the curtain is
going to fall briefly. Consequently in my History, I say as little as
may be of the two dwindling stars. Poor devils! I liked the one, and the
other has a little wife, now lying in! There was no man born with so
little animosity as I. When I heard the C. J. was in low spirits and
never left his house, I could scarce refrain from going to him.
It was a fine feeling to have finished the History; there ought to be a
future state to reward that grind! It's not literature, you know; only
journalism, and pedantic journalism. I had but the one desire, to get
the thing as right as might be, and avoid false concords--even if that!
And it was more than there was time for. However, there it is: done. And
if Samoa turns up again, my book has to be counted with, being the only
narrative extant. Milton and I--if you kindly excuse the
juxtaposition--harnessed ourselves to strange waggons, and I at least
will be found to have plodded very soberly with my load. There is not
even a good sentence in it, but perhaps--I don't know--it may be found
an honest, clear volume.
_Wednesday._--Never got a word set down, and continues on Thursday, 19th
May, his own marriage day as ever was. News; yes. The C. J. came up to
call on us! After five months' cessation on my side, and a decidedly
painful interchange of letters, I could not go down--_could_ not--to see
him. My three ladies received him, however; he was very agreeable as
usual, but refused wine, beer, water, lemonade, chocolate, and at last a
cigarette. Then my wife asked him, "So you refuse to break bread?" and
he waved his hands amiably in answer. All my three ladies received the
same impression that he had serious matters in his mind: now we hear he
is quite cock-a-hoop since the mail came, and going about as before his
troubles darkened. But what did he want with me? 'Tis thought he had
received a despatch--and that he misreads it (so we fully believe) to
the effect that they are to have war ships at command and can make their
little war after all. If it be so, and they do it, it will be the
meanest wanton slaughter of poor men for the salaries of two white
failures. But what was his errand with me? Perhaps to warn me that
unless I behave he now hopes to be able to pack me off in the _Curaçoa_
when she comes.
I have celebrated my holiday from _Samoa_ by a plunge at the beginning
of _The Young Chevalier_. I am afraid my touch is a little broad in a
love story; I can't mean one thing and write another. As for women, I am
no more in any fear of them; I can do a sort all right; age makes me
less afraid of a petticoat, but I am a little in fear of grossness.
However, this David Balfour's love affair, that's all right--might be
read out to a mother's meeting--or a daughters' meeting. The difficulty
in a love yarn, which dwells at all on love, is the dwelling on one
string; it is manifold, I grant, but the root fact is there unchanged,
and the sentiment being very intense, and already very much handled in
letters, positively calls for a little pawing and gracing. With a writer
of my prosaic literalness and pertinency of point of view, this all
shoves toward grossness--positively even toward the far more damnable
_closeness_. This has kept me off the sentiment hitherto, and now I am
to try: Lord! Of course Meredith can do it, and so could Shakespeare;
but with all my romance, I am a realist and a prosaist, and a most
fanatical lover of plain physical sensations plainly and expressly
rendered; hence my perils. To do love in the same spirit as I did (for
instance) D. Balfour's fatigue in the heather; my dear sir, there were
grossness--ready made! And hence, how to sugar? However, I have nearly
done with Marie-Madeleine, and am in good hopes of Marie-Salomé, the
real heroine; the other is only a prologuial heroine to introduce the
hero.
_Friday._--Anyway, the first prologuial episode is done, and Fanny likes
it. There are only four characters: Francis Blair of Balmile (Jacobite
Lord Gladsmuir) my hero; the Master of Ballantrae; Paradou, a
wine-seller of Avignon; Marie-Madeleine his wife. These two last I am
now done with, and I think they are successful, and I hope I have
Balmile on his feet; and the style seems to be found. It is a little
charged and violent; sins on the side of violence; but I think will
carry the tale. I think it is a good idea so to introduce my hero, being
made love to by an episodic woman. This queer tale--I mean queer for
me--has taken a great hold upon me. Where the devil shall I go next?
This is simply the tale of a _coup de tête_ of a young man and a young
woman; with a nearly, perhaps a wholly, tragic sequel, which I desire to
make thinkable right through, and sensible; to make the reader, as far
as I shall be able, eat and drink and breathe it. Marie-Salomé des
Saintes-Maries is, I think, the heroine's name; she has got to _be_ yet:
_sursum corda_! So has the young Chevalier, whom I have not yet touched,
and who comes next in order. Characters: Balmile, or Lord Gladsmuir,
_comme vous voulez_; Prince Charlie; Earl Marischal; Master of
Ballantrae; and a spy, and Dr. Archie Campbell, and a few nondescripts;
then, of women, Marie-Salomé and Flora Blair; seven at the outside;
really four full lengths, and I suppose a half-dozen episodic profiles.
How I must bore you with these ineptitudes! Have patience. I am going to
bed; it is (of all hours) eleven. I have been forced in (since I began
to write to you) to blatter to Fanny on the subject of my heroine, there
being two _cruces_ as to her life and history: how came she alone? and
how far did she go with the Chevalier? The second must answer itself
when I get near enough to see. The first is a back-breaker. Yet I know
there are many reasons why a _fille de famille_, romantic, adventurous,
ambitious, innocent of the world, might run from her home in these days;
might she not have been threatened with a convent? might there not be
some Huguenot business mixed in? Here am I, far from books; if you can
help me with a suggestion, I shall say God bless you. She has to be new
run away from a strict family, well-justified in her own wild but honest
eyes, and meeting these three men, Charles Edward, Marischal, and
Balmile, through the accident of a fire at an inn. She must not run from
a marriage, I think; it would bring her in the wrong frame of mind. Once
I can get her, _sola_, on the highway, all were well with my narrative.
Perpend. And help if you can.
Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day received the visit
of his _son_ from Tonga; and the _son_ proves to be a very pretty,
attractive young daughter! I gave all the boys kava in honour of her
arrival; along with a lean, side-whiskered Tongan, dimly supposed to be
Lafaele's step-father; and they have been having a good time; in the end
of my verandah, I hear Simi, my present incapable steward, talking
Tongan with the nondescript papa. Simi, our out-door boy, burst a
succession of blood-vessels over our work, and I had to make a position
for the wreck of one of the noblest figures of a man I ever saw. I
believe I may have mentioned the other day how I had to put my horse to
the trot, the canter and (at last) the gallop to run him down. In a
photograph I hope to send you (perhaps with this) you will see Simi
standing in the verandah in profile. As a steward, one of his chief
points is to break crystal; he is great on fracture--what do I
say?--explosion! He cleans a glass, and the shards scatter like a
comet's bowels.
_N.B._--If I should by any chance be deported, the first of the rules
hung up for that occasion is to communicate with you by
telegraph.--Mind, I do not fear it, but it _is_ possible.
_Monday, 25th._--We have had a devil of a morning of upset and bustle;
the bronze candlestick Faauma has returned to the family, in time to
take her position of step-mamma, and it is pretty to see how the child
is at once at home, and all her terrors ended.
_27th. Mail day._--And I don't know that I have much to report. I may
have to leave for Malie as soon as these mail packets are made up. 'Tis
a necessity (if it be one) I rather deplore. I think I should have liked
to lazy; but I dare say all it means is the delay of a day or so in
harking back to David Balfour; that respectable youth chides at being
left (where he is now) in Glasgow with the Lord Advocate, and after five
years in the British Linen, who shall blame him? I was all forenoon
yesterday down in Apia, dictating, and Lloyd typewriting, the conclusion
of _Samoa_; and then at home correcting till the dinner bell; and in the
evening again till eleven of the clock. This morning I have made up most
of my packets, and I think my mail is all ready but two more, and the
tag of this. I would never deny (as D. B. might say) that I was rather
tired of it. But I have a damned good dose of the devil in my pipe-stem
atomy; I have had my little holiday outing in my kick at _The Young
Chevalier_, and I guess I can settle to _David Balfour_ to-morrow or
Friday like a little man. I wonder if any one had ever more energy upon
so little strength?--I know there is a frost; the Samoa book can only
increase that--I can't help it, that book is not written for me but for
Miss Manners; but I mean to break that frost inside two years, and pull
off a big success, and Vanity whispers in my ear that I have the
strength. If I haven't, whistle ower the lave o't! I can do without
glory and perhaps the time is not far off when I can do without coin. It
is a time coming soon enough, anyway; and I have endured some two and
forty years without public shame, and had a good time as I did it. If
only I could secure a violent death, what a fine success! I wish to die
in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be
shot, to be thrown from a horse--ay, to be hanged, rather than pass
again through that slow dissolution.
I fancy this gloomy ramble is caused by a twinge of age; I put on an
under-shirt yesterday (it was the only one I could find) that barely
came under my trousers; and just below it, a fine healthy rheumatism has
now settled like a fire in my hip. From such small causes do these
valuable considerations flow!
I shall now say adieu, dear Sir, having ten rugged miles before me and
the horrors of a native feast and parliament without an interpreter, for
to-day I go alone.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Describing a family expedition to visit Mataafa at Malie.
_[Vailima] Sunday, 29th May [1892]._
How am I to overtake events? On Wednesday, as soon as my mail was
finished, I had a wild whirl to look forward to. Immediately after
dinner, Belle, Lloyd, and I set out on horseback, they to the club, I to
Haggard's, thence to the hotel, where I had supper ready for them. All
next day we hung round Apia with our whole house-crowd in Sunday array,
hoping for the mail steamer with a menagerie on board. No such luck; the
ship delayed; and at last, about three, I had to send them home again, a
failure of a day's pleasuring that does not bear to be discussed. Lloyd
was so sickened that he returned the same night to Vailima, Belle and I
held on, sat most of the evening on the hotel verandah stricken silly
with fatigue and disappointment, and genuine sorrow for our poor boys
and girls, and got to bed with rather dismal appreciations of the
morrow.
These were more than justified, and yet I never had a jollier day than
Friday 27th. By 7.30 Belle and I had breakfast; we had scarce done
before my mother was at the door on horseback, and a boy at her heels to
take her not very dashing charger home again. By 8.10 we were all on the
landing pier, and it was 9.20 before we had got away in a boat with two
inches of green wood on the keel of her, no rudder, no mast, no sail, no
boat flag, two defective rowlocks, two wretched apologies for oars, and
two boys--one a Tongan half-caste, one a white lad, son of the Tonga
schoolmaster, and a sailor lad--to pull us. All this was our first taste
of the tender mercies of Taylor (the sesquipedalian half-caste
introduced two letters back, I believe). We had scarce got round Mulinuu
when Salé Taylor's heart misgave him; he thought we had missed the tide;
called a halt, and set off ashore to find canoes. Two were found; in one
my mother and I were embarked with the two biscuit tins (my present to
the feast), and the bag with our dry clothes, on which my mother was
perched--and her cap was on the top of it--feminine hearts please
sympathise; all under the guidance of Salé. In the other Belle and our
guest; Tauilo, a chief-woman, the mother of my cook, were to have
followed. And the boys were to have been left with the boat. But Tauilo
refused. And the four, Belle, Tauilo, Frank the sailor-boy, and Jimmie
the Tongan half-caste, set off in the boat across that rapidly shoaling
bay of the lagoon.
How long the next scene lasted, I could never tell. Salé was always
trying to steal away with our canoe and leave the other four, probably
for six hours, in an empty, leaky boat, without so much as an orange or
a cocoanut on board, and under the direct rays of the sun. I had at last
to stop him by taking the spare paddle off the outrigger and sticking it
in the ground--depth, perhaps two feet--width of the bay, say three
miles. At last I bid him land me and my mother and go back for the other
ladies. "The coast is so rugged," said Salé.--"What?" I said, "all
these villages and no landing-place?"--"Such is the nature of Samoans,"
said he. Well, I'll find a landing-place, I thought; and presently I
said, "Now we are going to land there."--"We can but try," said the
bland Salé, with resignation. Never saw a better landing-place in my
life. Here the boat joined us. My mother and Salé continued in the canoe
alone, and Belle and I and Tauilo set off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was
about the size of both of us put together and a piece over; she used us
like a nurse with children. I had started barefoot; Belle had soon to
pull off her gala shoes and stockings; the mud was as deep as to our
knees, and so slippery that (moving, as we did, in Indian file, between
dense scratching tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to
support each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from the rear. You
can conceive we were got up to kill, Belle in an embroidered white dress
and white hat, I in a suit of Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors;
and conceive us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhesive clay, and
above, streaming with heat. I suppose it was better than three miles,
but at last we made the end of Malie. I asked if we could find no water
to wash our feet; and our nursemaid guided us to a pool. We sat down on
the pool side, and our nursemaid washed our feet and legs for us--ladies
first, I suppose out of a sudden respect to the insane European fancies:
such a luxury as you can scarce imagine. I felt a new man after it. But
before we got to the King's house we were sadly muddied once more. It
was 1 P.M. when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about five
minutes, so we made fair time over our bog-holes.
But the war dances were over, and we came in time to see only the tail
end (some two hours) of the food presentation. In Mataafa's house three
chairs were set for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house
without the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green in front was
surrounded with sheds, some of flapping canvas, some of green palm
boughs, where (in three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by
villages in a fine glow of many-hued array. There were folks in tapa,
and folks in patchwork; there was every colour of the rainbow in a spot
or a cluster; there were men with their heads gilded with powdered
sandal-wood, others with heads all purple, stuck full of the petals of a
flower. In the midst there was a growing field of outspread food,
gradually covering acres; the gifts were brought in, now by chanting
deputations, now by carriers in a file; they were brandished aloft and
reclaimed over, with polite sacramental exaggerations, by the official
receiver. He, a stalwart, well-oiled quadragenarian, shone with sweat
from his exertions, brandishing cooked pigs. At intervals, from one of
the squatted villages, an orator would arise. The field was almost
beyond the reach of any human speaking voice; the proceedings besides
continued in the midst; yet it was possible to catch snatches of this
elaborate and cut-and-dry oratory--it was possible for me, for instance,
to catch the description of my gift and myself as the _alii Tusitala, O
le alii o malo tetele_--the chief Write Information, the chief of the
great Governments. Gay designation? In the house, in our three curule
chairs, we sat and looked on. On our left a little group of the family.
In front of us, at our feet, an ancient Talking-man, crowned with green
leaves, his profile almost exactly Dante's; Popo his name. He had
worshipped idols in his youth; he had been full grown before the first
missionary came hither from Tahiti; this makes him over eighty. Near by
him sat his son and colleague. In the group on our left, his little
grandchild sat with her legs crossed and her hands turned, the model
already (at some three years old) of Samoan etiquette. Still further off
to our right, Mataafa sat on the ground through all the business; and
still I saw his lips moving, and the beads of his rosary slip stealthily
through his hand. We had kava, and the King's drinking was hailed by the
Popos (father and son) with a singular ululation, perfectly new to my
ears; it means, to the expert, "Long live Tuiatua"; to the inexpert, is
a mere voice of barbarous wolves. We had dinner, retired a bit behind
the central pillar of the house; and, when the King was done eating, the
ululation was repeated. I had my eyes on Mataafa's face, and I saw pride
and gratified ambition spring to life there and be instantly sucked in
again. It was the first time, since the difference with Laupepa, that
Popo and his son had openly joined him, and given him the due cry as
Tuiatua--one of the eight royal names of the islands, as I hope you will
know before this reaches you.
Not long after we had dined, the food-bringing was over. The gifts
(carefully noted and tallied as they came in) were now announced by a
humorous orator, who convulsed the audience, introducing singing notes,
now on the name of the article, now on the number; six thousand odd
heads of taro, three hundred and nineteen cooked pigs; and one thing
that particularly caught me (by good luck), a single turtle "for the
king"--_le tasi mo le tupu_. Then came one of the strangest sights I
have yet witnessed. The two most important persons there (bar Mataafa)
were Popo and his son. They rose, holding their long shod rods of
talking men, passed forth from the house, broke into a strange dance,
the father capering with outstretched arms and rod, the son crouching
and gambolling beside him in a manner indescribable, and presently began
to extend the circle of this dance among the acres of cooked food.
_Whatever they leaped over, whatever they called for, became theirs._ To
see mediæval Dante thus demean himself struck a kind of a chill of
incongruity into our Philistine souls; but even in a great part of the
Samoan concourse, these antique and (I understand) quite local manners
awoke laughter. One of my biscuit tins and a live calf were among the
spoils he claimed, but the large majority of the cooked food (having
once proved his dignity) he re-presented to the king.
Then came the turn of _le alii Tusitala_. He would not dance, but he
was given--five live hens, four gourds of oil, four fine tapas, a
hundred heads of taro, two cooked pigs, a cooked shark, two or three
cocoanut branches strung with kava, and the turtle, who soon after
breathed his last, I believe, from sunstroke. It was a royal present for
"the chief of the great powers." I should say the gifts were, on the
proper signal, dragged out of the field of food by a troop of young men,
all with their lava-lavas kilted almost into a loin-cloth. The art is to
swoop on the food-field, pick up with unerring swiftness the right
things and quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and separate,
leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of birds in a
corn-field. This reminds me of a very inhumane but beautiful passage I
had forgotten in its place. The gift-giving was still in full swing,
when there came a troop of some ninety men all in tapa lava-lavas of a
purplish colour; they paused, and of a sudden there went up from them
high into the air a flight of live chickens, which, as they came down
again, were sent again into the air, for perhaps a minute, from the
midst of a singular turmoil of flying arms and shouting voices; I assure
you, it was very beautiful to see, but how many chickens were killed?
No sooner was my food set out than I was to be going. I had a little
serious talk with Mataafa on the floor, and we went down to the boat,
where we got our food aboard, such a cargo--like the Swiss Family
Robinson, we said. However, a squall began, Tauilo refused to let us go,
and we came back to the house for half an hour or so, when my ladies
distinguished themselves by walking through a Fono (council), my mother
actually taking up a position between Mataafa and Popo! It was about
five when we started--turtle, pigs, taro, etc., my mother, Belle,
myself, Tauilo, a portly friend of hers with the voice of an angel, and
a pronunciation so delicate and true that you could follow Samoan as she
sang, and the two tired boys Frank and Jimmie, with the two bad oars and
the two slippery rowlocks to impel the whole. Salé Taylor took the
canoe and a strong Samoan to paddle him. Presently after he went
inshore, and passed us a little after, with his arms folded, and _two_
strong Samoans impelling him Apia-ward. This was too much for Belle, who
hailed, taunted him, and made him return to the boat with one of the
Samoans, setting Jimmie instead in the canoe. Then began our torment,
Salé and the Samoan took the oars, sat on the same thwart (where they
could get no swing on the boat had they tried), and deliberately ladled
at the lagoon. We lay enchanted. Night fell; there was a light visible
on shore; it did not move. The two women sang, Belle joining them in the
hymns she has learned at family worship. Then a squall came up; we sat a
while in roaring midnight under rivers of rain, and, when it blew by,
there was the light again, immovable. A second squall followed, one of
the worst I was ever out in; we could scarce catch our breath in the
cold, dashing deluge. When it went, we were so cold that the water in
the bottom of the boat (which I was then baling) seemed like a warm
footbath in comparison, and Belle and I, who were still barefoot, were
quite restored by laving in it.
All this time I had kept my temper, and refrained as far as might be
from any interference, for I saw (in our friend's mulish humour) he
always contrived to twist it to our disadvantage. But now came the acute
point. Young Frank now took an oar. He was a little fellow, near as
frail as myself, and very short; if he weighed nine stone, it was the
outside; but his blood was up. He took stroke, moved the big Samoan
forward to bow, and set to work to pull him round in fine style.
Instantly, a kind of race competition--almost race hatred--sprang up. We
jeered the Samoan. Salé declared it was the trim of the boat; "if this
lady was aft" (Tauilo's portly friend) "he would row round Frank." We
insisted on her coming aft, and Frank still rowed round the Samoan. When
the Samoan caught a crab (the thing was continual with these wretched
oars and rowlocks), _we_ shouted and jeered; when Frank caught one, Salé
and the Samoan jeered and yelled. But anyway the boat moved, and
presently we got up with Mulinuu, where I finally lost my temper, when I
found that Salé proposed to go ashore and make a visit--in fact, we all
three did. It is not worth while going into, but I must give you one
snatch of the subsequent conversation as we pulled round Apia bay. "This
Samoan," said Salé, "received seven German bullets in the field of
Fangalii." "I am delighted to hear it," said Belle. "His brother was
killed there," pursued Salé; and Belle, prompt as an echo, "Then there
are no more of the family? how delightful!" Salé was sufficiently
surprised to change the subject; he began to praise Frank's rowing with
insufferable condescension: "But it is after all not to be wondered at,"
said he, "because he has been for some time a sailor. My good man, is it
three or five years that you have been to sea?" And Frank, in a defiant
shout: "Two!" Whereupon, so high did the ill-feeling run, that we three
clapped and applauded and shouted, so that the President (whose house we
were then passing) doubtless started at the sounds. It was nine when we
got to the hotel; at first no food was to be found, but we skirmished up
some bread and cheese and beer and brandy; and (having changed our wet
clothes for the rather less wet in our bags) supped on the verandah.
On Saturday, 28th, I was wakened about 6.30, long past my usual hour, by
a benevolent passer-by. My turtle lay on the verandah at my door, and
the man woke me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when we put it on
board the day before. All morning I ran the gauntlet of men and women
coming up to me: "Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead." I gave half of it
to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; and we got a
damaged shell, and two splendid meals, beefsteak one day and soup the
next. The horses came for us about 9.30. It was waterspouting; we were
drenched before we got out of the town; the road was a fine going
Highland trout stream; it thundered deep and frequent, and my mother's
horse would not better on a walk. At last she took pity on us, and very
nobly proposed that Belle and I should ride ahead. We were mighty glad
to do so, for we were cold. Presently, I said I should ride back for my
mother, but it thundered again; Belle is afraid of thunder, and I
decided to see her through the forest before I returned for my other
hen--I may say, my other wet hen. About the middle of the wood, where it
is roughest and steepest, we met three pack-horses with barrels of
lime-juice. I piloted Belle past these--it is not very easy in such a
road--and then passed them again myself, to pilot my mother. This
effected, it began to thunder again, so I rode on hard after Belle. When
I caught up with her, she was singing Samoan hymns to support her
terrors! We were all back, changed, and at table by lunch time, 11 A.M.
Nor have any of us been the worse for it sin-syne. That is pretty good
for a woman of my mother's age and an invalid of my standing; above all,
as Tauilo was laid up with a bad cold, probably increased by rage.
_Friday, 3rd June._--On Wednesday the club could not be held, and I must
ride down town and to and fro all afternoon delivering messages, then
dined and rode up by the young moon. I had plenty news when I got back;
there is great talk in town of my deportation: it is thought they have
written home to Downing Street requesting my removal, which leaves me
not much alarmed; what I do rather expect is that H. J. Moors and I may
be haled up before the C. J. to stand a trial for _lèse_-majesty. Well,
we'll try and live it through.
The rest of my history since Monday has been unadulterated _David
Balfour_. In season and out of season, night and day, David and his
innocent harem--let me be just, he never has more than the two--are on
my mind. Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies--very nice
ones too--hanging round him. I really believe David is as good a
character as anybody has a right to ask for in a novel. I have finished
drafting Chapter XX. to-day, and feel it all ready to froth when the
spigot is turned.
O, I forgot--and do forget. What did I mean? A waft of cloud has fallen
on my mind, and I will write no more.
_Wednesday, I believe, 8th June._--Lots of David, and lots of David, and
the devil any other news. Yesterday we were startled by great guns
firing a salute, and to-day Whitmee (missionary) rode up to lunch, and
we learned it was the _Curaçoa_ come in, the ship (according to rumour)
in which I was to be deported. I went down to meet my fate, and the
captain is to dine with me Saturday, so I guess I am not going this
voyage. Even with the particularity with which I write to you, how much
of my life goes unexpressed; my troubles with a madman by the name of
----, a genuine living lunatic, I believe, and jolly dangerous; my
troubles about poor ----, all these have dropped out; yet for moments
they were very instant, and one of them is always present with me.
I have finished copying Chapter XXI. of David--"_solus cum sola_; we
travel together." Chapter XXII., "_Solus cum sola_; we keep house
together," is already drafted. To the end of XXI. makes more than 150
pages of my manuscript--damn this hair--and I only designed the book to
run to about 200; but when you introduce the female sect, a book does
run away with you. I am very curious to see what you will think of my
two girls. My own opinion is quite clear; I am in love with both. I
foresee a few pleasant years of spiritual flirtations. The creator (if I
may name myself, for the sake of argument, by such a name) is
essentially unfaithful. For the duration of the two chapters in which I
dealt with Miss Grant, I totally forgot my heroine, and even--but this
is a flat secret--tried to win away David. I think I must try some day
to marry Miss Grant. I'm blest if I don't think I've got that hair out!
which seems triumph enough; so I conclude.
_Tuesday._--Your infinitesimal correspondence has reached me, and I have
the honour to refer to it with scorn. It contains only one statement of
conceivable interest, that your health is better; the rest is null, and
so far as disquisitory unsound. I am all right, but David Balfour is
ailing; this came from my visit to the man-of-war, where I had a cup of
tea, and the most of that night walked the verandah with extraordinary
convictions of guilt and ruin, many of which (but not all) proved to
have fled with the day, taking David along with them; he R.I.P. in
Chapter XXII.
On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched up Captain Gibson to
dinner; Sunday I was all day at Samoa, and had a pile of visitors.
Yesterday got my mail, including your despicable sheet; was fooled with
a visit from the high chief Asi, went down at 4 P.M. to my Samoan lesson
from Whitmee--I think I shall learn from him, he does not fool me with
cockshot rules that are demolished next day, but professes ignorance
like a man; the truth is, the grammar has still to be expiscated--dined
with Haggard, and got home about nine.
_Wednesday._--The excellent Clarke up here almost all day yesterday, a
man I esteem and like to the soles of his boots; I prefer him to any one
in Samoa, and to most people in the world; a real good missionary, with
the inestimable advantage of having grown up a layman. Pity they all
can't get that! It recalls my old proposal, which delighted Lady Taylor
so much, that every divinity student should be thirty years old at least
before he was admitted. Boys switched out of college into a pulpit, what
chance have they? That any should do well amazes me, and the most are
just what was to be expected.
_Saturday._--I must tell you of our feast. It was long promised to the
boys, and came off yesterday in one of their new houses. My good Simelé
arrived from Savaii that morning asking for political advice; then we
had Tauilo; Elena's father, a talking man of Tauilo's family; Talolo's
cousin; and a boy of Simelé's family, who attended on his dignity; then
Metu, the meat-man--you have never heard of him, but he is a great
person in our household--brought a lady and a boy--and there was another
infant--eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty strong. You should
have seen our procession, going (about two o'clock), all in our best
clothes, to the hall of feasting! All in our Sunday's best. The new
house had been hurriedly finished; the rafters decorated with flowers;
the floor spread, native style, with green leaves; we had given a big
porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh beef, a tin of biscuit, cocoanuts,
etc. Our places were all arranged with much care; the native ladies of
the house facing our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests,
please observe: the two chief people, male and female, were placed with
our family, the rest between S. and the native ladies. After the feast
was over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a very elaborate
affair, and I thought had like to have made Simelé very angry; he is
really a considerable chief, but he and Tauilo were not called till
after all our family, _and the guests_, I suppose the principle being
that he was still regarded as one of the household. I forgot to say that
our black boy did not turn up when the feast was ready. Off went the two
cooks, found him, decorated him with huge red hibiscus flowers--he was
in a very dirty undershirt--brought him back between them like a
reluctant maid, and thrust him into a place between Faauma and Elena,
where he was petted and ministered to. When his turn came in the kava
drinking--and you may be sure, in their contemptuous, affectionate
kindness for him, as for a good dog, it came rather earlier than it
ought--he was cried under a new name. _Aleki_ is what they make of his
own name Arrick; but instead of {the cup of / "le ipu a} Aleki!" it was
called "le ipu a _Vailima_," and it was explained that he had "taken his
chief-name"! a jest at which the plantation still laughs. Kava done, I
made a little speech, Henry translating. If I had been well, I should
have alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to
my guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas, and to Simelé, partly for
the jest of making him translate compliments to himself. The talking man
replied with many handsome compliments to me, in the usual flood of
Samoan fluent neatness; and we left them to an afternoon of singing and
dancing. Must stop now, as my right hand is very bad again. I am trying
to write with my left.
_Sunday._--About half-past eight last night, I had gone to my own room,
Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny's, every one else in bed, only two boys on
the premises--the two little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I
suppose 11 or 12, and the new steward, a Wallis islander, speaking no
English and about fifty words of Samoan, recently promoted from the bush
work, and a most good, anxious, timid lad of 15 or 16--looks like 17 or
18, of course--they grow fast here. In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told
some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and
see his family in the bush.--"But he has no family in the bush," said
Lloyd. "No," said Mitaiele. They went to the boy's bed (they sleep in
the walled-in compartment of the verandah, once my dressing-room) and
called at once for me. He lay like one asleep, talking in drowsy tones
but without excitement, and at times "cheeping" like a frightened mouse;
he was quite cool to the touch, and his pulse not fast; his breathing
seemed wholly ventral; the bust still, the belly moving strongly.
Presently he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with his head down
not three feet from the floor and his body all on a stretch forward,
like a striking snake: I say "ran," but this strange movement was not
swift. Lloyd and I mastered him and got him back in bed. Soon there was
another and more desperate attempt to escape, in which Lloyd had his
ring broken. Then we bound him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes,
boards, and pillows. He lay there and sometimes talked, sometimes
whispered, sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal word was
"Faamolemole"--"Please"--and he kept telling us at intervals that his
family were calling him. During this interval, by the special grace of
God, my boys came home; we had already called in Arrick, the black boy;
now we had that Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who comes from
Paatalise's own island and can alone communicate with him freely. Lloyd
went to bed, I took the first watch, and sat in my room reading, while
Lafaele and Arrick watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I ran
into the verandah; there was Paatalise free of all his bonds and Lafaele
holding him. To tell what followed is impossible. We were five people at
him--Lafaele and Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the
struggle lasted until 1 A.M. before we had him bound. One detail for a
specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one leg, we were both sitting on it
and lo! we were both tossed into the air--I, I dare say, a couple of
feet. At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, by his
wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business, but what
could we do? it was all we could do to manage it even so. The strength
of the paroxysms had been steadily increasing, and we trembled for the
next. And now I come to pure Rider Haggard. Lafaele announced that the
boy was very bad, and he would get "some medicine" which was a family
secret of his own. Some leaves were brought mysteriously in; chewed,
placed on the boy's eyes, dropped in his ears (see _Hamlet_) and stuck
up his nostrils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered the
patient with his hand; and by about 2 A.M. he was in a deep sleep, and
from that time he showed no symptom of dementia whatever. The medicine
(says Lafaele) is principally used for the wholesale slaughter of
families; he himself feared last night that his dose was fatal; only one
other person, on this island, knows the secret; and she, Lafaele darkly
whispers, has abused it. This remarkable tree we must try to identify.
The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a strait-waistcoat, taught
us to bandage, examined the boy and saw he was apparently well--he
insisted on doing his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first came
down kissed all the family at breakfast! The doctor was greatly excited,
as may be supposed, about Lafaele's medicine.
_Tuesday._--All yesterday writing my mail by the hand of Belle, to save
my wrist. This is a great invention, to which I shall stick, if it can
be managed. We had some alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all
night for a benediction. This lunatic asylum exercise has no attractions
for any of us.
I don't know if I remembered to say how much pleased I was with _Across
the Plains_ in every way, inside and out, and you and me. The critics
seem to taste it, too, as well as could be hoped, and I believe it will
continue to bring me in a few shillings a year for a while. But such
books pay only indirectly.
To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and how well my boys
behaved, remember that they _believed P.'s ravings_, they _knew_ that
his dead family, thirty strong, crowded the front verandah and called on
him to come to the other world. They _knew_ that his dead brother had
met him that afternoon in the bush and struck him on both temples. And
remember! we are fighting the dead, and they had to go out again in the
black night, which is the dead man's empire. Yet last evening, when I
thought P. was going to repeat the performance, I sent down for Lafaele,
who had leave of absence, and he and his wife came up about eight
o'clock with a lighted brand. These are the things for which I have to
forgive my old cattle-man his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic--so
are the shortcomings, to be sure.
It came over me the other day suddenly that this diary of mine to you
would make good pickings after I am dead, and a man could make some kind
of a book out of it without much trouble. So, for God's sake, don't lose
them, and they will prove a piece of provision for my "poor old family,"
as Simelé calls it.
About my coming to Europe, I get more and more doubtful, and rather
incline to Ceylon again as place of meeting. I am so absurdly well here
in the tropics, that it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have
never once stood Sydney. Anyway, I shall have the money for it all
ahead, before I think of such a thing.
We had a bowl of punch on your birthday, which my incredible mother
somehow knew and remembered.
By the time you receive this, my Samoan book will I suppose be out and
the worst known. If I am burned in effigy for it no more need be said;
if on the other hand I get off cheap with the authorities, this is to
say that, supposing a vacancy to occur, I would condescend to accept the
office of H.B.M.'s consul with parts, pendicles and appurtenances. There
is a very little work to do except some little entertaining, to which I
am bound to say my family and in particular the amanuensis who now
guides the pen look forward with delight; I with manly resignation. The
real reasons for the step would be three: 1st, possibility of being able
to do some good, or at least certainty of not being obliged to stand
always looking on helplessly at what is bad: 2nd, larks for the family:
3rd, and perhaps not altogether least, a house in town and a boat and a
boat's crew.[44]
But I find I have left out another reason: 4th, growing desire on the
part of the old man virulent for anything in the nature of a
salary--years seem to invest that idea with new beauty.
I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature of an income that
would come in--mine has all got to be gone and fished for with the
immortal mind of man. What I want is the income that really comes in of
itself while all you have to do is just to blossom and exist and sit on
chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to have to mind the critics,
and not even the darkest of the crowd--Sidney Colvin. I should probably
amuse myself with works that would make your hair curl, if you had any
left.
R. L. S.
TO T. W. DOVER
Stevenson's correspondent in this case is an artisan, who had been
struck by the truth of a remark in his essay on _Beggars_ that it is
only or mainly the poor who habitually give to the poor; and who
wrote to ask whether it was from experience that Stevenson knew this.
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, June 20th, 1892._
SIR,--In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot fairly say that
I have ever been poor, or known what it was to want a meal. I have been
reduced, however, to a very small sum of money, with no apparent
prospect of increasing it; and at that time I reduced myself to
practically one meal a day, with the most disgusting consequences to my
health. At this time I lodged in the house of a working-man, and
associated much with others. At the same time, from my youth up, I have
always been a good deal and rather intimately thrown among the
working-classes, partly as a civil engineer in out-of-the-way places,
partly from a strong and, I hope, not ill-favoured sentiment of
curiosity. But the place where, perhaps, I was most struck with the fact
upon which you comment was the house of a friend, who was exceedingly
poor, in fact, I may say destitute, and who lived in the attic of a very
tall house entirely inhabited by persons in varying stages of poverty.
As he was also in ill-health, I made a habit of passing my afternoon
with him, and when there it was my part to answer the door. The steady
procession of people begging, and the expectant and confident manner in
which they presented themselves, struck me more and more daily; and I
could not but remember with surprise that though my father lived but a
few streets away in a fine house, beggars scarce came to the door once a
fortnight or a month. From that time forward I made it my business to
inquire, and in the stories which I am very fond of hearing from all
sorts and conditions of men, learned that in the time of their distress
it was always from the poor they sought assistance, and almost always
from the poor they got it.
Trusting I have now satisfactorily answered your question, which I thank
you for asking, I remain, with sincere compliments,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima, Summer 1892._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--First of all, _you have all the corrections on The
Wrecker_. I found I had made what I meant and forgotten it, and was so
careless as not to tell you.
Second, of course, and by all means, charge corrections on the Samoa
book to me; but there are not near so many as I feared. The Lord hath
dealt bountifully with me, and I believe all my advisers were amazed to
see how nearly correct I had got the truck, at least I was. With this
you will receive the whole revise and a type-written copy of the last
chapter. And the thing now is Speed, to catch a possible revision of the
treaty. I believe Cassells are to bring it out, but Baxter knows, and
the thing has to be crammed through _prestissimo, à la chasseur_.
You mention the belated Barbeys; what about the equally belated Pineros?
And I hope you will keep your bookshop alive to supplying me
continuously with the _Saga Library_. I cannot get enough of _Sagas_; I
wish there were nine thousand; talk about realism!
All seems to flourish with you; I also prosper; none the less for being
quit of that abhorred task, Samoa. I could give a supper party here were
there any one to sup. Never was such a disagreeable task, but the thing
had to be told....
There, I trust I am done with this cursed chapter of my career, bar the
rotten eggs and broken bottles that may follow, of course. Pray
remember, speed is now all that can be asked, hoped, or wished. I give
up all hope of proofs, revises, proof of the map, or sic like; and you
on your side will try to get it out as reasonably seemly as may be.
Whole Samoa book herewith. Glory be to God.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The following consists of scraps merely, taken from a letter almost
entirely occupied with private family affairs.
_[Vailima] Saturday, 2nd July 1892._
The character of my handwriting is explained, alas! by scrivener's
cramp. This also explains how long I have let the paper lie plain.
1 P.M.--I was busy copying _David Balfour_ with my left hand--a most
laborious task--Fanny was down at the native house superintending the
floor, Lloyd down in Apia, and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I
heard the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah; and
there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe in his hand and
dressed out in green ferns, dancing. I ran downstairs and found all my
house boys on the back verandah, watching him through the dining-room. I
asked what it meant?--"Dance belong his place," they said.--"I think
this no time to dance," said I. "Has he done his work?"--"No," they told
me, "away bush all morning." But there they all stayed on the back
verandah. I went on alone through the dining-room, and bade him stop. He
did so, shouldered the axe, and began to walk away; but I called him
back, walked up to him, and took the axe out of his unresisting hands.
The boy is in all things so good, that I can scarce say I was afraid;
only I felt it had to be stopped ere he could work himself up by dancing
to some craziness. Our house boys protested they were not afraid; all I
know is they were all watching him round the back door and did not
follow me till I had the axe. As for the out boys, who were working with
Fanny in the native house, they thought it a very bad business, and made
no secret of their fears.
_Wednesday, 6th._--I have no account to give of my stewardship these
days, and there's a day more to account for than mere arithmetic would
tell you. For we have had two Monday Fourths, to bring us at last on the
right side of the meridian, having hitherto been an exception in the
world and kept our private date. Business has filled my hours sans
intermission.
_Tuesday, 12th._--I am doing no work and my mind is in abeyance. Fanny
and Belle are sewing-machining in the next room; I have been pulling
down their hair, and Fanny has been kicking me, and now I am driven out.
Austin I have been chasing about the verandah; now he has gone to his
lessons, and I make believe to write to you in despair. But there is
nothing in my mind; I swim in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten
nut; I shall soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry away some
part of the machinery. I have got your insufficient letter, for which I
scorn to thank you. I have had no review by Gosse, none by Birrell;
another time, if I have a letter in the Times, you might send me the
text as well; also please send me a cricket bat and a cake, and when I
come home for the holidays, I should like to have a pony.--I am, sir,
your obedient servant,
JACOB TONSON.
_P.S._--I am quite well; I hope you are quite well. The world is too
much with us, and my mother bids me bind my hair and lace my bodice
blue.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, 18th July 1892._
MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... I have been now for some time contending with
powers and principalities, and I have never once seen one of my own
letters to the Times. So when you see something in the papers that you
think might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice, out with
your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima. Of what you say of the
past, eh, man, it was a queer time, and awful miserable, but there's no
sense in denying it was awful fun. Do you mind the youth in highland
garb and the tableful of coppers? Do you mind the SIGNAL of Waterloo
Place?--Hey, how the blood stands to the heart at such a memory!--Hae ye
the notes o't? Gie's them.--Gude's sake, man, gie's the notes o't; I
mind ye made a tüne o't an' played it on your pinanny; gie's the notes.
Dear Lord, that past.
Glad to hear Henley's prospects are fair: his new volume is the work of
a real poet. He is one of those who can make a noise of his own with
words, and in whom experience strikes an individual note. There is
perhaps no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns. In case I cannot
overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this mail, please let him hear
of my pleasure and admiration. How poorly Kipling compares! He is all
smart journalism and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and
limpid, like a business paper--a good one, _s'entend_; but there is no
blot of heart's blood and the Old Night: there are no harmonics, there
is scarce harmony to his music; and in Henley--all of these; a touch, a
sense within sense, a sound outside the sound, the shadow of the
inscrutable, eloquent beyond all definition. The First London Voluntary
knocked me wholly.--Ever yours affectionately, my dear Charles,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Kind memories to your father and all friends.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, August 1st, 1892._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--It is impossible to let your new volume pass in
silence. I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s
_Joy of Earth_ volume and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that
even that was so intimate and deep. Again and again, I take the book
down, and read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in youth.
_Andante con moto_ in the _Voluntaries_, and the thing about the trees
at night (No. XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not
guess you were so great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an
undertone of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are
poetry--inventions, creations, in language. I thank you for the joy you
have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened
scrivener's cramp.
For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation.
Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read--
"But life in act? How should the grave
Be victor over these,
Mother, a mother of men?"
The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you
insist on the longer line, equip "grave" with an epithet.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
Accompanying the MS. of the article giving extracts from the record
kept by Robert Stevenson the elder of the trip on which Sir Walter
Scott sailed in his company on board the Northern Lights yacht:
printed in Scribner's Magazine, 1893.
_Vailima, Upolu, August 1st, '92._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith _My Grandfather_. I have had rather a bad
time suppressing the old gentleman, who was really in a very garrulous
stage; as for getting him _in order_, I could do but little towards
that; however, there are one or two points of interest which may justify
us in printing. The swinging of his stick and not knowing the sailor of
Coruiskin, in particular, and the account of how he wrote the lives in
the Bell Book particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction
is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was that old
gentleman's blood that brought me to Samoa.
By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams's _History_ have never
come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.
Please send me _Stonehenge on the Horse_, _Stories and Interludes_ by
Barry Pain, and _Edinburgh Sketches and Memoirs_ by David Masson. _The
Wrecker_ has turned up. So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory,
but on pp. 548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The two
Latin quotations instead of following each other being separated
(doubtless for printing considerations) by a line of prose. My
compliments to the printers; there is doubtless such a thing as good
printing, but there is such a thing as good sense.
The sequel to _Kidnapped_, _David Balfour_ by name, is about
three-quarters done and gone to press for serial publication. By what I
can find out it ought to be through hand with that and ready for volume
form early next spring.--Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
TO ANDREW LANG
Mr. Andrew Lang had been supplying Stevenson with some books and
historical references for his proposed novel _The Young Chevalier_.
[_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. 'Tain't 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 jaw 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.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
Samoa and the Samoans for children, continued after an eight months'
pause.
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, August 14th, 1892._
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--The lean man is exceedingly ashamed of himself,
and offers his apologies to the little girls in the cellar just above.
If they will be so good as to knock three times upon the floor, he will
hear it on the other side of his floor, and will understand that he is
forgiven. I believe I got you and the children--or rather left you and
the children--still on the road to the lean man's house. When you get up
there a great part of the forest has been cleared away. It comes back
again pretty quick, though not quite so high; but everywhere, except
where the weeders have been kept busy, young trees have sprouted up, and
the cattle and the horses cannot be seen as they feed. In this clearing
there are two or three houses scattered about, and between the two
biggest I think the little girls in the cellar would first notice a sort
of thing like a gridiron on legs made of logs and wood. Sometimes it
has a flag flying on it made of rags of old clothes. It is a fort (so I
am told) built by the person here who would be much the most interesting
to the girls in the cellar. This is a young gentleman of eleven years of
age answering to the name of Austin. It was after reading a book about
the Red Indians that he thought it more prudent to create this place of
strength. As the Red Indians are in North America, and this fort seems
to me a very useless kind of building, I am anxious to hope that the two
may never be brought together. When Austin is not engaged in building
forts, nor on his lessons, which are just as annoying to him as other
children's lessons are to them, he walks sometimes in the bush, and if
anybody is with him, talks all the time. When he is alone I don't think
he says anything, and I dare say he feels very lonely and frightened,
just as the lean man does, at the queer noises and the endless lines of
the trees. He finds the strangest kinds of seeds, some of them bright
coloured like lollipops, or really like precious stones; some of them in
odd cases like tobacco-pouches. He finds and collects all kinds of
little shells with which the whole ground is scattered, and which,
though they are the shells of land animals like our snails, are nearly
of as many shapes and colours as the shells on our sea-beaches. In the
streams that come running down out of the mountains, and which are all
as clear and bright as mirror glass, he sees eels and little bright fish
that sometimes jump together out of the surface of the brook in a little
knot of silver, and fresh-water prawns which lie close under the stones,
and can be seen looking up at him with eyes of the colour of a jewel. He
sees all kinds of beautiful birds, some of them blue and white, some of
them blue and white and red, and some of them coloured like our pigeons
at home, and these last the little girls in the cellar may like to know
live almost entirely on nutmegs as they fall ripe off the trees. Another
little bird he may sometimes see, as the lean man saw him only this
morning, a little fellow not so big as a man's hand, exquisitely neat,
of a pretty bronze black like ladies' shoes, and who sticks up behind
him (much as a peacock does) his little tail shaped and fluted like a
scallop shell.
Here are a lot of curious and interesting things that Austin sees round
him every day; and when I was a child at home in the old country I used
to play and pretend to myself that I saw things of the same kind. That
the rooms were full of orange and nutmeg trees, and the cold town
gardens outside the windows were alive with parrots and with lions. What
do the little girls in the cellar think that Austin does? He makes
believe just the other way: he pretends that the strange great trees
with their broad leaves and slab-sided roots are European oaks; and the
places on the road up (where you and I and the little girls in the
cellar have already gone) he calls by old-fashioned, far-away European
names, just as if you were to call the cellar stair and the corner of
the next street--if you could only manage to pronounce the names--Upolu
and Savaii. And so it is with all of us, with Austin and the lean man
and the little girls in the cellar; wherever we are it is but a stage on
the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it
is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.
But you must not suppose that Austin does nothing but build forts and
walk among the woods and swim in the rivers. On the contrary, he is
sometimes a very busy and useful fellow; and I think the little girls in
the cellar would have admired him very nearly as much as he admired
himself if they had seen him setting off on horseback with his hand on
his hip and his pockets full of letters and orders, at the head of quite
a procession of huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big brown
native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. Mighty well he managed all
his commissions; and those who saw him ordering and eating his
single-handed luncheon in the queer little Chinese restaurant on the
beach declare he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole
archipelago belonged to him. But I am not going to let you suppose that
this great gentleman at the head of all his horses and his men, like the
King of France in the old rhyme, would be thought much of a dandy on the
streets of London. On the contrary, if he could be seen there with his
dirty white cap, and his faded purple shirt, and his little brown breeks
that do not reach his knees, and the bare shanks below, and the bare
feet stuck in the stirrup leathers, for he is not quite long enough to
reach the irons, I am afraid the little boys and girls in your part of
the town might feel very much inclined to give him a penny in charity.
So you see that a very, very big man in one place might seem very small
potatoes in another, just as the king's palace here (of which I told you
in my last) would be thought rather a poor place of residence by a
Surrey gipsy. And if you come to that, even the lean man himself, who is
no end of an important person, if he were picked up from the chair where
he is now sitting, and slung down, feet foremost, in the neighbourhood
of Charing Cross, would probably have to escape into the nearest shop,
or take the consequences of being mobbed. And the ladies of his family,
who are very pretty ladies, and think themselves uncommonly well-dressed
for Samoa, would (if the same thing were done to them) be extremely glad
to get into a cab.
I write to you by the hands of another, because I am threatened again
with scrivener's cramp. My health is beyond reproach; I wish I could say
as much for my wife's, which is far from the thing. Give us some news of
yours, and even when none of us write, do not suppose for a moment that
we are forgetful of our old gamekeeper. Our prettiest walk, an alley of
really beautiful green sward which leads through Fanny's garden to the
river and the bridge and the beginning of the high woods on the
mountain-side, where the Tapu a fafine (or spirit of the land) has her
dwelling, and the work-boys fear to go alone, is called by a name that I
think our gamekeeper has heard before--Adelaide Road.
With much love from all of us to yourself, and all good wishes for your
future, and the future of the children in the cellar, believe me your
affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima [August 1892]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will have no letter at all this month and it is
really not my fault. I have been saving my hand as much as possible for
Davy Balfour; only this morning I was getting on first rate with him,
when about half-past nine there came a prick in the middle of the ball
of my thumb, and I had to take to the left hand and two words a minute.
I fear I slightly exaggerate the speed of my left hand; about a word and
a half in the minute--which is dispiriting to the last degree. Your last
letter with the four excellent reviews and the good news about _The
Wrecker_ was particularly welcome. I have already written to Charles
Baxter about the volume form appearance of _The Beach of Falesá_. In
spite of bad thumbs and other interruptions I hope to send to Baxter by
this mail the whole first part (a good deal more than half) of David
Balfour ready for press. This is pretty satisfactory, and I think ought
to put us beyond the reach of financial catastrophe for the year.
A cousin of mine, Graham Balfour, arrived along with your last. It was
rather a lark. Fanny, Belle and I stayed down at the hotel two nights
expecting the steamer, and we had seven horses down daily for the party
and the baggage. These were on one occasion bossed by Austin, age
eleven. "I'm afraid I cannot do that now," said he in answer to some
communication, "as I am taking charge of the men here." In the course of
the forenoon he took "his" men to get their lunch, and had his own by
himself at the Chinese restaurant. What a day for a boy. The steamer
came in at last on Saturday morning after breakfast. We three were out
at the place of anchorage in the hotel boat as she came up, spotting
rather anxiously for our guest, whom none of us had ever seen. We chose
out some rather awful cads and tried to make up our mind to them; they
were the least offensive yet observed among an awful crew of cabin
passengers; but when the Simon Pure appeared at last upon the scene he
was as nice a young fellow as you would want. Followed a time of giddy
glory--one crowded hour of glorious life--when I figured about the deck
with attendant shemales in the character of _the_ local celebrity, was
introduced to the least unpresentable of the ruffians on board, dogged
about the deck by a diminutive Hebrew with a Kodak, the click of which
kept time to my progress like a pair of castanets, and filled up in the
Captain's room on iced champagne at 8.30 of God's morning. The Captain
in question, Cap. Morse, is a great South Sea character, like the side
of a house and the green-room of a music-hall, but with all the saving
qualities of the seaman. The celebrity was a great success with this
untutored observer. He was kind enough to announce that he expected
(rather with awe) a much more "thoughtful" person; and I think I pleased
him much with my parting salutation, "Well, Captain, I suppose you and I
are the two most notorious men in the Pacific." I think it will enable
you to see the Captain if I tell you that he recited to us in cold blood
the _words_ of a new comic song; doubtless a tribute to my literary
character. I had often heard of Captain Morse and always had detested
all that I was told, and detested the man in confidence, just as you are
doing; but really he has a wonderful charm of strength, loyalty, and
simplicity. The whole celebrity business was particularly
characteristic; the Captain has certainly never read a word of mine; and
as for the Jew with the Kodak, he had never heard of me till he came on
board. There was a third admirer who sent messages in to the Captain's
cabin asking if the Lion would accept a gift of Webster's _Unabridged_.
I went out to him and signified a manly willingness to accept a gift of
anything. He stood and bowed before me, his eyes danced with excitement.
"Mr. Stevenson," he said and his voice trembled, "your name is very well
known to me. I have been in the publishing line in Canada and I have
handled many of your works for the trade." "Come," I said, "here's
genuine appreciation."
From this gaudy scene we descended into the hotel boat with our new
second cousin, got to horse and returned to Vailima, passing shot of
Kodak once more on the Nulivae bridge, where the little Jew was posted
with his little Jew wife, each about three feet six in stature and as
vulgar as a lodging house clock.
We were just writing this when another passenger from the ship arrived
up here at Vailima. This is a nice quiet simple blue-eyed little boy of
Pennsylvania Quaker folk. Threatened with consumption of my sort, he has
been sent here by his doctor on the strength of my case. I am sure if
the case be really parallel he could not have been better done by. As we
had a roast pig for dinner we kept him for that meal; and the rain
coming on just when the moon should have risen kept him again for the
night. So you see it is now to-morrow.
Graham Balfour the new cousin and Lloyd are away with Clark the
Missionary on a school inspecting _malaga_, really perhaps the prettiest
little bit of opera in real life that can be seen, and made all the
prettier by the actors being children. I have come to a collapse this
morning on D.B.: wrote a chapter one way, half re-copied it in another,
and now stand halting between the two like Buridan's donkey. These sorts
of cruces always are to me the most insoluble, and I should not wonder
if D.B. stuck there for a week or two. This is a bother, for I
understand McClure talks of beginning serial publication in December. If
this could be managed, what with D.B., the apparent success of _The
Wrecker_, _Falesá_, and some little pickings from _Across the
Plains_--not to mention, as quite hopeless, _The History of Samoa_--this
should be rather a profitable year, as it must be owned it has been
rather a busy one. The trouble is, if I miss the December publication,
it may take the devil and all of a time to start another syndicate. I am
really tempted to curse my conscientiousness. If I hadn't recopied Davie
he would now be done and dead and buried; and here I am stuck about the
middle, with an immediate publication threatened and the fear before me
of having after all to scamp the essential business of the end. At the
same time, though I love my Davy, I am a little anxious to get on again
on _The Young Chevalier_. I have in nearly all my works been trying one
racket: to get out the facts of life as clean and naked and sharp as I
could manage it. In this other book I want to try and megilp them
together in an atmosphere of sentiment, and I wonder whether twenty-five
years of life spent in trying this one thing will not make it impossible
for me to succeed in the other. However it is the only way to attempt a
love story. You can't tell any of the facts, and the only chance is to
paint an atmosphere.
It is a very warm morning--the parrot is asleep on the door (she heard
her name, and immediately awakened)--and my brains are completely addled
by having come to grief over Davy.
Hurray! a subject discovered! The parrot is a little white cockatoo of
the small variety. It belongs to Belle, whom it guards like a watch dog.
It chanced that when she was sick some months ago I came over and
administered some medicine. Unnecessary to say Belle bleated, whereupon
the parrot bounded upon me and buried his neb in my backside. From that
day on the little wretch attacked me on every possible occasion, usually
from the rear, though she would also follow me along the verandah and as
I went downstairs attack my face. This was far from funny. I am a person
of average courage, but I don't think I was ever more cordially afraid
of anything than of this miserable atomy, and the deuce of it was that I
could not but admire her appalling courage and there was no means of
punishing such a thread-paper creature without destroying it entirely.
Act II. On Graham's arrival I gave him my room and came out to Lloyd's
in the lower floor of Belle's--I beg your pardon--the _parrot's_--house.
The first morning I was to wake Belle early so that breakfast should be
seen to for our guest. It was a mighty pretty dawn, the birds were
singing extraordinary strong, all was peace, and there was the damned
parrot hanging to the knob of Belle's door. Courage, my heart! On I went
and Cockie buried her bill in the joint of my thumb. I believe that Job
would have killed that bird; but I was more happily inspired--I caught
it up and flung it over the verandah as far as I could throw. I must say
it was violently done, and I looked with some anxiety to see in what
state of preservation it would alight. Down it came however on its two
feet, uttered a few oaths in a very modified tone of voice, and set
forth on the return journey to its mansion. Its wings being cut and its
gait in walking having been a circumstance apparently not thoroughly
calculated by its maker, it took about twenty-five minutes to get home
again. Now here is this remarkable point--that bird has never bitten me
since. When I have early breakfast she and the cat come down and join
me, and she sits on the back of my chair. When I am at work with the
door shut she sits outside and demolishes the door with that same beak
which was so recently reddened with my heart's blood--and in the evening
she does her business all over my clothes in the most friendly manner
in the world. I ought to add a word about the parrot and the cat. Three
cats were brought by Belle from Sydney. This one alone remains faithful
and domestic. One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Polly and
Maud over a piece of bacon. Polly stood on one leg, held the bacon in
the other, regarded Maudie with a secret and sinister look and very
slowly and quietly--far too quietly for the word I have to use--gnashed
her bill at her. Maudie came up quite close; there she stuck--she was
afraid to come nearer, to go away she was ashamed; and she assisted at
the final and very deliberate consumption of the bacon, making about as
poor a figure as a cat can make.
_Next day._--Date totally unknown, or rather it is now known but is
reserved because it would certainly prove inconsistent with dates
previously given. I went down about two o'clock in company with a couple
of chance visitors to Apia. It was smoking hot, not a sign of any wind
and the sun scorching your face. I found the great Haggard in hourly
expectation of Lady Jersey, surrounded by crowds of very indifferent
assistants, and I must honestly say--the only time I ever saw him
so--cross. He directed my attention to all the new paint, his own
handiwork he said, and made me visit the bathroom which he has just
fixed up. I think I never saw a man more miserable and happy at the same
time. Had some hock and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle,
and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of prawns and an eel cooked
in oil, both from our own river.
This morning the overseer--the new overseer Mr. Austin Strong--went down
in charge of the pack-horses and a squad of men, himself riding a white
horse with extreme dignity and what seemed to onlookers a perhaps
somewhat theatrical air of command. He returned triumphantly, all his
commissions apparently executed with success, bringing us a mail--not
your mail, Colonial ways--and the news of Lady Jersey's arrival and
reception among flying flags and banging guns.
As soon as I had concluded my flattering description of Polly she bit
one of my toes to the blood. But put not your trust in shemales, though
to say the truth she looks more like a Russian colonel.
_Aug. 15th._--On the Saturday night Fanny and I went down to Haggard's
to dine and be introduced to Lady Jersey. She is there with her daughter
Lady Margaret and her brother Captain Leigh, a very nice kind of
glass-in-his-eye kind of fellow. It is to be presumed I made a good
impression; for the meeting has had a most extraordinary sequel. Fanny
and I slept in Haggard's billiard room, which happens to be Lloyd's
bungalow. In the morning she and I breakfasted in the back parts with
Haggard and Captain Leigh, and it was then arranged that the Captain
should go with us to Malie on the Tuesday under a false name; so that
Government House at Sydney might by no possibility be connected with a
rebel camp. On Sunday afternoon up comes Haggard in a state of huge
excitement: Lady J. insists on going too, in the character of my cousin;
I write her a letter under the name of Miss Amelia Balfour, proposing
the excursion; and this morning up comes a copy of verses from Amelia. I
wrote to Mataafa announcing that I should bring two cousins instead of
one, that the second was a lady, unused to Samoan manners, and it would
be a good thing if she could sleep in another house with Ralala. Sent a
copy of this to Amelia, and at the same time made all arrangements,
dating my letter 1745. We shall go on ahead on the Malie Road; she is to
follow with Haggard and Captain Leigh, and overtake us at the ford of
the Gasi-gasi, whence Haggard will return and the rest of us pursue our
way to the rebeldom.
This lark is certainly huge. It is all nonsense that it can be
concealed; Miss Amelia Balfour will be at once identified with the Queen
of Sydney, as they call her; and I would not in the least wonder if the
visit proved the signal of war. With this I have no concern, and the
thing wholly suits my book and fits my predilections for Samoa. What a
pity the mail leaves, and I must leave this adventure to be continued in
our next! But I need scarcely say that all this is deadly private--I
expect it all to come out, not without explosion; only it must not be
through me or you. We had a visit yesterday from a person by the name of
Count Nerli, who is said to be a good painter. Altogether the
aristocracy clusters thick about us. In which radiant light, as the mail
must now be really put up, I leave myself until next month,--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
Following up the last letter, Stevenson here tells the story of the
visit paid to Apia by the Countess of Jersey, who had come over from
Sydney with her brother Captain Leigh and her young daughter Lady
Margaret Villiers. "A warm friendship," writes Lady Jersey, "was the
immediate result; we constantly met, either in the hospitable abode
of our host Mr. Bazett Haggard, or in Mr. Stevenson's delightful
mountain home, and passed many happy hours in riding, walking, and
conversation." The previous letter has shown how it was arranged that
the party should pay a visit of curiosity to the "rebel king," or
more properly the rival claimant to the kingly power, Mataafa, in his
camp at Malie, and how Stevenson at once treated the adventure as a
chapter out of a Waverley novel. "The wife of the new Governor of New
South Wales," writes Lady Jersey on her part, "could not pay such a
visit in her own name, so Mr. Stevenson adopted me as his cousin,
'Amelia Balfour.' This transparent disguise was congenial to his
romantic instincts, and he writes concerning the arrangements made
for the expedition, carefully dating his letter 'Aug. 14, 1745.'"
_August 14, 1745._
To MISS AMELIA BALFOUR--MY DEAR COUSIN,--We are going an expedition to
leeward on Tuesday morning. If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on
horseback--say, towards the Gasi-gasi river--about six A.M., I think we
should have an episode somewhat after the style of the '45. What a
misfortune, my dear cousin, that you should have arrived while your
cousin Graham was occupying my only guest-chamber--for Osterley Park is
not so large in Samoa as it was at home--but happily our friend Haggard
has found a corner for you!
The King over the Water--the Gasi-gasi water--will be pleased to see the
clan of Balfour mustering so thick around his standard.
I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a really secret
interpreter, so all is for the best in our little adventure into the
Waverley Novels.--I am, your affectionate cousin,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my signature, but we must
be political _à outrance_.
TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
MY DEAR COUSIN,--I send for your information a copy of my last letter to
the gentleman in question. 'Tis thought more wise, in consideration of
the difficulty and peril of the enterprise, that we should leave the
town in the afternoon, and by several detachments. If you would start
for a ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart of Lee, say
at three o'clock of the afternoon, you would make some rencounters by
the wayside which might be agreeable to your political opinions. All
present will be staunch.
The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little, and return through
the marsh and by the nuns' house (I trust that has the proper flavour),
so as a little to diminish the effect of separation.--I remain your
affectionate cousin to command,
O TUSITALA.
_P.S._--It is to be thought this present year of grace will be
historical.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter tells without preface the story of the expedition planned
in the preceding.
[_Vailima, August 1892._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is Friday night, the (I believe) 18th or 20th
August or September. I shall probably regret to-morrow having written
you with my own hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in
the workman's house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin are pigging;
the rest are at cards in the main residence. I have not joined them
because "belly belong me" has been kicking up, and I have just taken 15
drops of laudanum.
On Tuesday, the party set out--self in white cap, velvet coat, cords and
yellow half boots, Belle in a white kind of suit and white cap to match
mine, Lloyd in white clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat,
Graham in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old overseer) in blue coat and
black kilt, and the great Lafaele with a big ship-bag on his saddle-bow.
We left the mail at the P.O., had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 set
out westward to the place of tryst. This was by a little shrunken brook
in a deep channel of mud, on the far side of which, in a thicket of low
trees, all full of moths of shadow and butterflies of sun, we lay down
to await her ladyship. Whisky and water, then a sketch of the encampment
for which we all posed to Belle, passed off the time until 3.30. Then I
could hold on no longer. 30 minutes late. Had the secret oozed out? Were
they arrested? I got my horse, crossed the brook again, and rode hard
back to the Vaea cross roads, whence I was aware of white clothes
glancing in the other long straight radius of the quadrant. I turned at
once to return to the place of tryst; but D. overtook me, and almost
bore me down, shouting "Ride, ride!" like a hero in a ballad. Lady
Margaret and he were only come to shew the place; they returned, and the
rest of our party, reinforced by Captain Leigh and Lady Jersey, set on
for Malie. The delay was due to D.'s infinite precautions, leading them
up lanes, by back ways, and then down again to the beach road a hundred
yards further on.
It was agreed that Lady Jersey existed no more; she was now my cousin
Amelia Balfour. That relative and I headed the march; she is a charming
woman, all of us like her extremely after trial on this somewhat rude
and absurd excursion. And we Amelia'd or Miss Balfour'd her with great
but intermittent fidelity. When we came to the last village, I sent
Henry on ahead to warn the King of our approach and amend his
discretion, if that might be. As he left I heard the villagers asking
_which was the great lady_? And a little further, at the borders of
Malie itself, we found the guard making a music of bugles and conches.
Then I knew the game was up and the secret out. A considerable guard of
honour, mostly children, accompanied us; but, for our good fortune, we
had been looked for earlier, and the crowd was gone.
Dinner at the king's; he asked me to say grace, I could think of
none--never could; Graham suggested _Benedictus Benedicat_, at which I
leaped. We were nearly done, when old Popo inflicted the Atua howl (of
which you have heard already) right at Lady Jersey's shoulder. She
started in fine style.--"There," I said, "we have been giving you a
chapter of Scott, but this goes beyond the Waverley Novels." After
dinner, kava. Lady J. was served before me, and the king _drank last_;
it was the least formal kava I ever saw in that house,--no names called,
no show of ceremony. All my ladies are well trained, and when Belle
drained her bowl, the King was pleased to clap his hands. Then he and I
must retire for our private interview, to another house. He gave me his
own staff and made me pass before him; and in the interview, which was
long and delicate, he twice called me _afioga_. Ah, that leaves you
cold, but I am Samoan enough to have been moved. _Susuga_ is my
accepted rank; to be called _afioga_--Heavens! what an advance--and it
leaves Europe cold. But it staggered my Henry. The first time it was
complicated "lana susuga _ma_ lana afioga--his excellency _and_ his
majesty" the next time plain Majesty. Henry then begged to interrupt the
interview and tell who he was--he is a small family chief in Savaii, not
very small--"I do not wish the king," says he, "to think me a boy from
Apia." On our return to the palace, we separated. I had asked for the
ladies to sleep alone--that was understood; but that Tusitala--his
afioga Tusitala--should go out with the other young men, and not sleep
with the highborn females of his family--was a doctrine received with
difficulty. Lloyd and I had one screen, Graham and Leigh another, and we
slept well.
In the morning I was first abroad before dawn; not very long, already
there was a stir of birds. A little after, I heard singing from the
King's chapel--exceeding good--and went across in the hour when the east
is yellow and the morning bank is breaking up, to hear it nearer. All
about the chapel, the guards were posted, and all saluted Tusitala. I
could not refrain from smiling: "So there is a place too," I thought,
"where sentinels salute me." Mine has been a queer life.
[Illustration]
Breakfast was rather a protracted business. And that was scarce over
when we were called to the great house (now finished--recall your
earlier letters) to see a royal kava. This function is of rare use; I
know grown Samoans who have never witnessed it. It is, besides, as you
are to hear, a piece of prehistoric history, crystallised in figures,
and the facts largely forgotten; an acted hieroglyph. The house is
really splendid; in the rafters in the midst, two carved and coloured
model birds are posted; the only thing of the sort I have ever remarked
in Samoa, the Samoans being literal observers of the second commandment.
At one side of the egg our party sat. a=Mataafa, b = Lady J., c =
Belle, d = Tusitala, e =Graham, f = Lloyd, g = Captain Leigh, h = Henry,
i = Popo. The x's round are the high chiefs, each man in his historical
position. One side of the house is set apart for the king alone; we were
allowed there as his guests and Henry as our interpreter. It was a huge
trial to the lad, when a speech was made to me which he must translate,
and I made a speech in answer which he had to orate, full-breathed, to
that big circle; he blushed through his dark skin, but looked and acted
like a gentleman and a young fellow of sense; then the kava came to the
king; he poured one drop in libation, drank another, and flung the
remainder outside the house behind him. Next came the turn of the old
shapeless stone marked T. It stands for one of the king's titles,
Tamasoalii; Mataafa is Tamasoalii this day, but cannot drink for it; and
the stone must first be washed with water, and then have the bowl
emptied on it. Then--the order I cannot recall--came the turn of y and
z, two orators of the name of Malietoa; the first took his kava down
plain, like an ordinary man; the second must be packed to bed under a
big sheet of tapa, and be massaged by anxious assistants and rise on his
elbow groaning to drink his cup. W., a great hereditary war man, came
next; five times the cup-bearers marched up and down the house and
passed the cup on, five times it was filled and the general's name and
titles heralded at the bowl, and five times he refused it (after
examination) as too small. It is said this commemorates a time when
Malietoa at the head of his army suffered much for want of supplies.
Then this same military gentleman must _drink_ five cups, one from each
of the great names: all which took a precious long time. He acted very
well, haughtily and in a society tone _outlining_ the part. The
difference was marked when he subsequently made a speech in his own
character as a plain God-fearing chief. A few more high chiefs, then
Tusitala; one more, and then Lady Jersey; one more, and then Captain
Leigh, and so on with the rest of our party--Henry of course excepted.
You see in public, Lady Jersey followed me--just so far was the secret
kept.
Then we came home; Belle, Graham, and Lloyd to the Chinaman's, I with
Lady Jersey, to lunch; so, severally home. Thursday I have forgotten:
Saturday, I began again on Davie; on Sunday, the Jersey party came up to
call and carried me to dinner. As I came out, to ride home, the
search-lights of the _Curaçoa_ were lightening on the horizon from many
miles away, and next morning she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a
reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in the
absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp and host for
about twenty minutes, and I presented the population of Apia at random
but (luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to
lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor--very,
very nice fellows--simple, good and not the least dull) to dinner.
Saturday, Graham and I lunched on board; Graham, Belle, Lloyd dined at
the G.'s; and Austin and the _whole_ of our servants went with them to
an evening entertainment; the more bold returning by lantern-light.
Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were off by about half past eight, left
our horses at a public house, and went on board the _Curaçoa_, in the
wardroom skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck to the
service, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a harmonium and
excellent choir, and the great ship's company joining: on shore in
Haggard's big boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together to
Vailima, where we read aloud a Ouida Romance we have been secretly
writing; in which Haggard was the hero, and each one of the authors had
to draw a portrait of him or herself in a Ouida light. Leigh, Lady J.,
Fanny, R. L. S., Belle and Graham were the authors.
In the midst of this gay life, I have finally recopied two chapters, and
drafted for the first time three of Davie Balfour. But it is not a life
that would continue to suit me, and if I have not continued to write to
you, you will scarce wonder. And to-day we all go down again to dinner,
and to-morrow they all come up to lunch! The world is too much with us.
But it now nears an end, to-day already the _Curaçoa_ has sailed; and on
Saturday or Sunday Lady Jersey will follow them in the mail steamer. I
am sending you a wire by her hands as far as Sydney, that is to say
either you or Cassell, about _Falesá_: I will not allow it to be called
_Uma_ in book form, that is not the logical name of the story. Nor can I
have the marriage contract omitted; and the thing is full of misprints
abominable. In the picture, Uma is rot; so is the old man and the negro;
but Wiltshire is splendid, and Case will do. It seems badly illuminated,
but this may be printing. How have I seen this first number? Not through
your attention, guilty one! Lady Jersey had it, and only mentioned it
yesterday.[45]
I ought to say how much we all like the Jersey party. Leigh is very
amusing in his way. Lady Margaret is a charming girl. And Lady Jersey is
in all ways admirable, so unfussy, so plucky, so very kind and gracious.
My boy Henry was enraptured with the manners of the _Tamaitai Sili_
(chief lady). Among our other occupations, I did a bit of a supposed
epic describing our tryst at the ford of the Gasegase; and Belle and I
made a little book of caricatures and verses about incidents on the
visit.
_Tuesday._--The wild round of gaiety continues. After I had written to
you yesterday, the brain being wholly extinct, I played piquet all
morning with Graham. After lunch down to call on the U.S. consul, hurt
in a steeplechase; thence back to the new girls' school which Lady J.
was to open, and where my ladies met me. Lady J. is really an orator,
with a voice of gold; the rest of us played our unremarked parts;
missionaries, Haggard, myself, a Samoan chief, holding forth in turn;
myself with (at least) a golden brevity. Thence, Fanny, Belle, and I to
town, to our billiard room in Haggard's back garden, where we found
Lloyd and where Graham joined us. The three men first dressed, with the
ladies in a corner; and then, to leave them a free field, we went off to
Haggard and Leigh's quarters, whereafter all to dinner, where our two
parties, a brother of Colonel Kitchener's, a passing globe-trotter, and
Clarke the missionary. A very gay evening, with all sorts of chaff and
mirth, and a moonlit ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day,
we have the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass the morning
dressing ship.
_Thursday, Sept. 1st._--I sit to write to you now, 7.15, all the world
in bed except myself, accounted for, and Belle and Graham, down at
Haggard's at dinner. Not a leaf is stirring here; but the moon overhead
(now of a good bigness) is obscured and partly revealed in a whirling
covey of thin storm-clouds. By Jove, it blows above.
From 8 till 11.15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in particular cleaned
crystal, my specialty. About 11.30 the guests began to arrive before I
was dressed, and between while I had written a parody for Lloyd to sing.
Yesterday, Wednesday, I had to start out about 3 for town, had a long
interview with the head of the German Firm about some work in my new
house, got over to Lloyd's billiard-room about six, on the way whither I
met Fanny and Belle coming down with one Kitchener, a brother of the
Colonel's. Dined in the billiard-room, discovered we had forgot to order
oatmeal; whereupon in the moonlit evening, I set forth in my tropical
array, mess jacket and such, to get the oatmeal, and meet a young fellow
C.--and not a bad young fellow either, only an idiot--as drunk as
Croesus. He wept with me, he wept for me; he talked like a bad
character in an impudently bad farce; I could have laughed aloud to
hear, and could make you laugh by repeating, but laughter was not
uppermost.
This morning at about seven, I set off after the lost sheep. I could
have no horse; all that could be mounted--we have one girth-sore and one
dead-lame in the establishment--were due at a picnic about 10.30. The
morning was very wet, and I set off barefoot, with my trousers over my
knees, and a macintosh. Presently I had to take a side path in the bush;
missed it; came forth in a great oblong patch of taro solemnly
surrounded by forest--no soul, no sign, no sound--and as I stood there
at a loss, suddenly between the showers out broke the note of a
harmonium and a woman's voice singing an air that I know very well, but
have (as usual) forgot the name of. 'Twas from a great way off, but
seemed to fill the world. It was strongly romantic, and gave me a point
which brought me, by all sorts of forest wading, to an open space of
palms. These were of all ages, but mostly at that age when the branches
arch from the ground level, range themselves, with leaves exquisitely
green. The whole interspace was overgrown with convolvulus, purple,
yellow and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I floundered
aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible from here. The rain came and
went; now in sunlit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle
of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man, except
the voice which was now silent, and a damned pig-fence that headed me
off at every corner. Do you know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on
rotten posts, and you barefoot. But I crossed it at last with my heart
in my mouth and no harm done. Thence at last to C.'s.: no C. Next place
I came to was in the zone of woods. They offered me a buggy and set a
black boy to wash my legs and feet. "Washum legs belong that fellow
whiteman" was the command. So at last I ran down my son of a gun in the
hotel, sober, and with no story to tell; penitent, I think. As I sat and
looked at him, I knew from my inside the biggest truth in life: there is
only one thing that we cannot forgive, and that is ugliness--_our_
ugliness. There is no ugliness, no beauty; only that which makes me
(_ipse_) sicken or rejoice. And poor C. makes me sicken. Yet, according
to canons, he is not amiss. Home, by buggy and my poor feet, up three
miles of root, boulder, gravel, and liquid mud, slipping back at every
step.
_Sunday, Sept. 4th._--Hope you will be able to read a word of the last,
no joke writing by a bad lantern with a groggy hand and your glasses
mislaid. Not that the hand is not better, as you see by the absence of
the amanuensis hitherto. Mail came Friday, and a communication from
yourself much more decent than usual, for which I thank you. Glad the
_Wrecker_ should so hum; but Lord, what fools these mortals be!
So far yesterday, the citation being wrung from me by remembrance of
many reviews. I have now received all _Falesá_, and my admiration for
that tale rises; I believe it is in some ways my best work; I am pretty
sure, at least, I have never done anything better than Wiltshire.
_Monday, 13th September 1892._--On Wednesday the Spinsters of Apia gave
a ball to a select crowd. Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, and I rode down, met
Haggard by the way and joined company with him. Dinner with Haggard, and
thence to the ball. The Chief Justice appeared; it was immediately
remarked, and whispered from one to another, that he and I had the only
red sashes in the room,--and they were both of the hue of blood, sir,
blood. He shook hands with myself and all the members of my family. Then
the cream came, and I found myself in the same set of a quadrille with
his honour. We dance here in Apia a most fearful and wonderful
quadrille, I don't know where the devil they fished it from; but it is
rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words; perhaps it is best
defined in Haggard's expression of a gambado. When I and my great enemy
found ourselves involved in this gambol, and crossing hands, and kicking
up, and being embraced almost in common by large and quite respectable
females, we--or I--tried to preserve some rags of dignity, but not for
long. The deuce of it is that, personally, I love this man; his eye
speaks to me, I am pleased in his society. We exchanged a glance, and
then a grin; the man took me in his confidence; and through the
remainder of that prance we pranced for each other. Hard to imagine any
position more ridiculous; a week before he had been trying to rake up
evidence against me by brow-beating and threatening a half-white
interpreter; that very morning I had been writing most villainous
attacks upon him for the Times; and we meet and smile, and--damn
it!--like each other. I do my best to damn the man and drive him from
these islands; but the weakness endures--I love him. This is a thing I
would despise in anybody else; but he is so jolly insidious and
ingratiating! No, sir, I can't dislike him; but if I don't make hay of
him, it shall not be for want of trying.
Yesterday, we had two Germans and a young American boy at lunch; and in
the afternoon, Vailima was in a state of siege; ten white people on the
front verandah, at least as many brown in the cook-house, and countless
blacks to see the black boy Arrick.
Which reminds me, Arrick was sent Friday was a week to the German Firm
with a note, and was not home on time. Lloyd and I were going bedward,
it was late with a bright moon--ah, poor dog, you know no such moons as
these!--when home came Arrick with his head in a white bandage and his
eyes shining. He had had a fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; many
against one, and one with a knife: "I KNICKED 'EM DOWN, three four!" he
cried; and had himself to be taken to the doctor's and bandaged. Next
day, he could not work, glory of battle swelled too high in his
threadpaper breast; he had made a one-stringed harp for Austin, borrowed
it, came to Fanny's room, and sang war-songs and danced a war dance in
honour of his victory. And it appears, by subsequent advices, that it
was a serious victory enough; four of his assailants went to hospital,
and one is thought in danger. All Vailima rejoiced at this news.
Five more chapters of David, 22 to 27, go to Baxter. All love affair;
seems pretty good to me. Will it do for the young person? I don't know:
since the Beach, I know nothing, except that men are fools and
hypocrites, and I know less of them than I was fond enough to fancy.
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
[_Vailima, August 1892._]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--Thank you a thousand times for your letter. You
are the Angel of (the sort of) Information (that I care about): I
appoint you successor to the newspaper press; and I beg of you,
whenever you wish to gird at the age, or think the bugs out of
proportion to the roses, or despair, or enjoy any cosmic or epochal
emotion, to sit down again and write to the Hermit of Samoa. What do I
think of it all? Well, I love the romantic solemnity of youth; and even
in this form, although not without laughter, I have to love it still.
They are such ducks! But what are they made of? We were just as solemn
as that about atheism and the stars and humanity; but we were all for
belief anyway--we held atheism and sociology (of which none of us, nor
indeed anybody, knew anything) for a gospel and an iron rule of life;
and it was lucky enough, or there would have been more windows broken.
What is apt to puzzle one at first sight in the New Youth is that, with
such rickety and risky problems always at heart, they should not plunge
down a Niagara of Dissolution. But let us remember the high practical
timidity of youth. I was a particularly brave boy--this I think of
myself, looking back--and plunged into adventures and experiments, and
ran risks that it still surprises me to recall. But, dear me, what a
fear I was in of that strange blind machinery in the midst of which I
stood; and with what a compressed heart and what empty lungs I would
touch a new crank and await developments! I do not mean to say I do not
fear life still; I do; and that terror (for an adventurer like myself)
is still one of the chief joys of living.
But it was different indeed while I was yet girt with the priceless
robes of inexperience; then the fear was exquisite and infinite. And so,
when you see all these little Ibsens, who seem at once so dry and so
excitable, and faint in swathes over a play (I suppose--for a wager)
that would seem to me merely tedious, smile behind your hand, and
remember the little dears are all in a blue funk. It must be very funny,
and to a spectator like yourself I almost envy it. But never get
desperate; human nature is human nature; and the Roman Empire, since the
Romans founded it and made our European human nature what it is, bids
fair to go on and to be true to itself. These little bodies will all
grow up and become men and women, and have heaps of fun; nay, and are
having it now; and whatever happens to the fashion of the age, it makes
no difference--there are always high and brave and amusing lives to be
lived; and a change of key, however exotic, does not exclude melody.
Even Chinamen, hard as we find it to believe, enjoy being Chinese. And
the Chinaman stands alone to be unthinkable; natural enough, as the
representative of the only other great civilisation. Take my people here
at my doors; their life is a very good one; it is quite thinkable, quite
acceptable to us. And the little dears will be soon skating on the other
foot; sooner or later, in each generation, the one-half of them at least
begin to remember all the material they had rejected when first they
made and nailed up their little theory of life; and these become
reactionaries or conservatives, and the ship of man begins to fill upon
the other tack.
Here is a sermon, by your leave! It is your own fault, you have amused
and interested me so much by your breath of the New Youth, which comes
to me from so far away, where I live up here in my mountain, and secret
messengers bring me letters from rebels, and the government sometimes
seizes them, and generally grumbles in its beard that Stevenson should
really be deported. O my life is the more lively, never fear!
It has recently been most amusingly varied by a visit from Lady Jersey.
I took her over mysteriously (under the pseudonym of my cousin, Miss
Amelia Balfour) to visit Mataafa, our rebel; and we had great fun, and
wrote a Ouida novel on our life here, in which every author had to
describe himself in the Ouida glamour, and of which--for the Jerseys
intend printing it--I must let you have a copy. My wife's chapter, and
my description of myself, should, I think, amuse you. But there were
finer touches still; as when Belle and Lady Jersey came out to brush
their teeth in front of the rebel King's palace, and the night guard
squatted opposite on the grass and watched the process; or when I and my
interpreter, and the King with his secretary, mysteriously disappeared
to conspire.--Ever yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO THE CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR
This time the children in the Kilburn cellar are addressed direct,
with only a brief word at the end to their instructress.
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, September 4th, 1892._
DEAR CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR,--I told you before something of the black
boys who come here for work on the plantations, and some of whom run
away and live a wild life in the forests of the islands. Now I want to
tell you of one who lived in the house of the lean man. Like the rest of
them here, he is a little fellow, and when he goes about in old,
battered, cheap European clothes, looks very small and shabby. When
first he came he was as lean as a tobacco-pipe, and his smile (like that
of almost all the others) was the sort that makes you half wish to smile
yourself, and half wish to cry. However, the boys in the kitchen took
him in hand and fed him up. They would set him down alone to table and
wait upon him till he had his fill, which was a good long time to wait;
and the first thing we noticed was that his little stomach began to
stick out like a pigeon's breast; and then the food got a little wider
spread and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all he
began to get quite saucy and impudent, so that we could know what sort
of a fellow he really was when he was no longer afraid of being
thrashed. He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I
suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and, as
far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little
child with a good deal of sense. When Austin built his fort against the
Indians, Arick (for that is the black boy's name) liked nothing so much
as to help him. And this is very funny, when you think that of all the
dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the most dangerous. The
other day, besides, he made Austin a musical instrument of the sort they
use in his own country, a harp with only one string. He took a stick
about three feet long, and perhaps four inches round. The under side he
hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding box; the two ends of
the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and
between these he stretched the single string. He plays upon it with a
match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it songs of his own
country, of which no person here can understand a single word, and which
are very likely all about fighting with his enemies in battle, and
killing them, and I am sorry to say cooking them in a ground oven and
eating them for supper when the fight is over.
For Arick is really what you might call a savage, though a savage is a
very different person in reality, and a very much nicer, from what he is
made to appear in little books. He is the sort of person that everybody
smiles to, or makes faces at, or gives a smack to as he goes by; the
sort of person that all the girls on the plantation give the best seat
to, and help first, and love to decorate with flowers and ribbons, and
yet all the while are laughing at him; the sort of person who likes best
to play with Austin, and whom Austin perhaps (when he is allowed) likes
best to play with. He is all grins and giggles, and little steps out of
dances, and little droll ways, to attract people's attention and set
them laughing. And yet when you come to look at him closer, you will
find that his body is all covered with scars. This was when he was a
child. There was a war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his
village and the next, much as if there were war in London between one
street and another; and all the children ran about playing in the
middle of the trouble, and I dare say took no more notice of the war
than you children in London do of a general election. But sometimes, at
general elections, English children may get run over by processions in
the street; and it chanced that as little Arick was running about in the
bush, and very busy about his playing, he ran into the midst of the
warriors on the other side. These speared him with a poisoned spear; and
his own people, when they had found him lying for dead, and in order to
cure him of the poison, cut him up with knives that were probably made
of fish-bones.
This is a very savage piece of child-life, and Arick, for all his
good-nature, is still a very savage person. I have told you how the
black boys sometimes run away from the plantations, and live behind
alone in the forest, building little sheds to protect them from the
rain, and sometimes planting little gardens of food, but for the most
part living the best they can upon the nuts of the trees and yams that
they dig with their hands out of the earth. I do not think there can be
anywhere in the world people more wretched than these runaways. They
cannot return, for they would only return to be punished. They can never
hope to see again their own land or their own people--indeed, I do not
know what they can hope, but just to find enough yams every day to keep
them from starvation. And in the wet season of the year, which is our
summer and your winter, and the rain falls day after day far harder and
louder than the loudest thunder-plump that ever fell in England, and the
noon is sometimes so dark that the lean man is glad to light his lamp to
write by, I can think of nothing so dreary as the state of these poor
runaway slaves in the houseless bush. You are to remember, besides, that
the people of this island hate and fear them because they are cannibals,
sit and tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own
comfortable houses, and are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if
they think there is a lurking black boy in the neighbourhood. Well now,
Arick is of their own race and language, only he is a little more lucky
because he has not run away; and how do you think that he proposed to
help them? He asked if he might not have a gun. "What do you want with a
gun, Arick?" was asked. And he said quite simply, and with his nice
good-natured smile, that if he had a gun he would go up into the high
bush and shoot black boys as men shoot pigeons. He said nothing about
eating them, nor do I think he really meant to. I think all he wanted
was to clear the property of vermin as gamekeepers at home kill weasels,
or housewives mice.
The other day he was sent down on an errand to the German Firm where
many of the black boys live. It was very late when he came home on a
bright moonlight night. He had a white bandage round his head, his eyes
shone, and he could scarcely speak for excitement. It seems some of the
black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him, and one with a
knife. By his own account he had fought very well, but the odds were
heavy; the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and back, he
had been struck down, and if some of the black boys of his own side had
not come to the rescue, he must certainly have been killed. I am sure no
Christmas-box could make any of you children so happy as this fight made
Arick. A great part of the next day he neglected his work to play upon
the one-stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory. And
to-day, when he is gone upon his holiday, he has announced that he is
going back to the German Firm to have another battle and another
triumph. I do not think he will go all the same, or I should be more
uneasy, for I do not want to have my Arick killed; and there is no doubt
that if he begins to fight again, he will be likely to go on with it
very far. For I have seen him once when he saw, or thought he saw, an
enemy. It was one of our dreadful days of rain, the sound of it like a
great waterfall or like a tempest of wind blowing in the forest; and
there came to our door two runaway black boys seeking work. In such
weather as that my enemy's dog (as Shakespeare says) should have had a
right to shelter. But when Arick saw these two poor rogues coming with
their empty bellies and drenched clothes, and one of them with a stolen
cutlass in his hand, through that world of falling water, he had no
thought of pity in his heart. Crouching behind one of the pillars of the
verandah, which he held in his two hands, his mouth drew back into a
strange sort of smile, his eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his whole
face was just like the one word Murder in big capitals.
Now I have told you a great deal too much about poor Arick's savage
nature, and now I must tell you about a great amusement he had the other
day. There came an English ship of war in the harbour, and the officers
very good naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances and a
magic-lantern, to which Arick and Austin were allowed to go. At the door
of the hall there were crowds of black boys waiting and trying to peep
in, the way children at home lie about and peep under the tent of a
circus; and you may be sure Arick was a very proud person when he passed
them all by and entered the hall with his ticket. I wish I knew what he
thought of the whole performance; but the housekeeper of the lean man,
who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to startle him the
most. The first thing was when two of the officers came out with
blackened faces like Christy minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was
sure that they were really black and his own people, and he was
wonderfully surprised to see them dance this new European style of
dance. But the great affair was the magic-lantern. The hall was made
quite dark, which was very little to Arick's taste. He sat there behind
the housekeeper, nothing to be seen of him but eyes and teeth, and his
heart beating finely in his little scarred breast. And presently there
came out on the white sheet that great bright eye of light that I am
sure all you children must have often seen. It was quite new to Arick,
he had no idea what would happen next; and in his fear and excitement,
he laid hold with his little slim black fingers like a bird's claws on
the neck of the housekeeper in front of him. All through the rest of the
show, as one picture followed another on the white sheet, he sat there
gasping and clutching at the housekeeper's neck, and goodness knows
whether he were more pleased or frightened. Doubtless it was a very fine
thing to see all these bright pictures coming out and dying away again
one after another; but doubtless it was rather alarming also, for how
was it done? And at last, when there appeared upon the screen the head
of a black woman (as it might be his own mother or sister), and the
black woman of a sudden began to roll her eyes, the fear or the
excitement, whichever it was, wrung out of him a loud shuddering sob.
And I think we all ought to admire his courage when, after an evening
spent in looking on at such wonderful miracles, he and Austin set out
alone through the forest to the lean man's house. It was late at night
and pitch dark when some of the party overtook the little white boy and
the big black boy marching among the trees with their lantern. I have
told you the wood has an ill name, and all the people of the island
believe it to be full of devils; but even if you do not believe in the
devils, it is a pretty dreadful place to walk in by the moving light of
a lantern, with nothing about you but a curious whirl of shadows and the
black night above and beyond. But Arick kept his courage up, and I dare
say Austin's too, with a perpetual chatter, so that the people coming
after heard his voice long before they saw the shining of the lantern.
My dear Miss Boodle,--will I be asking too much that you should send me
back my letters to the Children, or copies, if you prefer; I have an
idea that they may perhaps help in time to make up a book on the South
Seas for children. I have addressed the Cellar so long this time that
you must take this note for yourself and excuse, yours most sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Thursday, 15th September [1892]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--On Tuesday, we had our young adventurer[46] ready, and
Fanny, Belle, he and I set out about three of a dark, deadly hot, and
deeply unwholesome afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a pint
of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my hands, and as Jack had a
girth sore and I rode without a girth, I might be said to occupy a very
unstrategic position. On the way down, a little dreary, beastly drizzle
beginning to come out of the darkness, Fanny put up an umbrella, her
horse bounded, reared, cannoned into me, cannoned into Belle and the
lad, and bolted for home. It really might and ought to have been an A1
catastrophe; but nothing happened beyond Fanny's nerves being a good
deal shattered; of course, she could not tell what had happened to us
until she got her horse mastered.
Next day, Haggard went off to the Commission and left us in charge of
his house; all our people came down in wreaths of flowers; we had a boat
for them; Haggard had a flag in the Commission boat for us; and when at
last the steamer turned up, the young adventurer was carried on board in
great style, with a new watch and chain, and about three pound ten of
tips, and five big baskets of fruit as free-will offerings to the
captain. Captain Morse had us all to lunch; champagne flowed, so did
compliments; and I did the affable celebrity life-sized. It made a great
send-off for the young adventurer. As the boat drew off, he was standing
at the head of the gangway, supported by three handsome ladies--one of
them a real full-blown beauty, Madame Green, the singer--and looking
very engaging himself, between smiles and tears. Not that he cried in
public. My, but we were a tired crowd! However, it is always a blessing
to get home, and this time it was a sort of wonder to ourselves that we
got back alive. Casualties: Fanny's back jarred, horse incident; Belle,
bad headache, tears, and champagne; self, idiocy, champagne, fatigue;
Lloyd, ditto, ditto. As for the adventurer, I believe he will have a
delightful voyage for his little start in life. But there is always
something touching in a mite's first launch.
_Date unknown._--I am now well on with the third part of the
_Débâcle_.[47] The two first I liked much; the second completely
knocking me; so far as it has gone, this third part appears the
ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten what he has to say--he reminds
me of an M.P. But Sedan was really great, and I will pick no holes. The
batteries under fire, the red-cross folk, the county charge--perhaps,
above all, Major Bouroche and the operations, all beyond discussion; and
every word about the Emperor splendid.
_September 30th._--_David Balfour_ done, and its author along with it,
or nearly so. Strange to think of even our doctor here repeating his
nonsense about debilitating climate. Why, the work I have been doing the
last twelve months, in one continuous spate, mostly with annoying
interruptions and without any collapse to mention, would be incredible
in Norway. But I _have_ broken down now, and will do nothing as long as
I possibly can. With _David Balfour_ I am very well pleased; in fact
these labours of the last year--I mean _Falesá_ and _D. B._, not Samoa,
of course--seem to me to be nearer what I mean than anything I have ever
done; nearer what I mean by fiction; the nearest thing before was
_Kidnapped_. I am not forgetting the _Master of Ballantrae_, but that
lacked all pleasurableness, and hence was imperfect in essence. So you
see, if I am a little tired, I do not repent.
The third part of the _Débâcle_ may be all very fine; but I cannot read
it. It suffers from _impaired vitality_, and _uncertain aim_; two deadly
sicknesses. Vital--that's what I am at, first: wholly vital, with a
buoyancy of life. Then lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque, always
with an epic value of scenes, so that the figures remain in the mind's
eye for ever.
_October 8th._--Suppose you sent us some of the catalogues of the
parties what vends statutes? I don't want colossal Herculeses, but about
quarter size and less. If the catalogues were illustrated it would
probably be found a help to weak memories. These may be found to
alleviate spare moments, when we sometimes amuse ourselves by thinking
how fine we shall make the palace if we do not go pop. Perhaps in the
same way it might amuse you to send us any pattern of wall paper that
might strike you as cheap, pretty, and suitable for a room in a hot and
extremely bright climate. It should be borne in mind that our climate
can be extremely dark too. Our sitting-room is to be in varnished wood.
The room I have particularly in mind is a sort of bed and sitting-room,
pretty large, lit on three sides, and the colour in favour of its
proprietor at present is a topazy yellow. But then with what colour to
relieve it? For a little work-room of my own at the back, I should
rather like to see some patterns of unglossy--well, I'll be hanged if I
can describe this red--it's not Turkish and it's not Roman and it's not
Indian, but it seems to partake of the two last, and yet it can't be
either of them, because it ought to be able to go with vermillion. Ah,
what a tangled web we weave--anyway, with what brains you have left
choose me and send me some--many--patterns of this exact shade.
A few days ago it was Haggard's birthday and we had him and his cousin
to dinner--bless me if I ever told you of his cousin!--he is here
anyway, and a fine, pleasing specimen, so that we have concluded (after
our own happy experience) that the climate of Samoa must be favourable
to cousins.[48] Then we went out on the verandah in a lovely moonlight,
drinking port, hearing the cousin play and sing, till presently we were
informed that our boys had got up a siva in Lafaele's house to which we
were invited. It was entirely their own idea. The house, you must
understand, is one-half floored, and one-half bare earth, and the daïs
stands a little over knee high above the level of the soil. The daïs was
the stage, with three footlights. We audience sat on mats on the floor,
and the cook and three of our work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two
ladies, took their places behind the footlights and began a topical
Vailima song. The burden was of course that of a Samoan popular song
about a white man who objects to all that he sees in Samoa. And there
was of course a special verse for each one of the party--Lloyd was
called the dancing man (practically the Chief's handsome son) of
Vailima; he was also, in his character I suppose of overseer, compared
to a policeman--Belle had that day been the almoner in a semi-comic
distribution of wedding rings and thimbles (bought cheap at an auction)
to the whole plantation company, fitting a ring on every man's finger,
and a ring and a thimble on both the women's. This was very much in
character with her native name _Teuila_, the adorner of the ugly--so of
course this was the point of her verse and at a given moment all the
performers displayed the rings upon their fingers. Pelema (the
cousin--our cousin) was described as watching from the house and
whenever he saw any boy not doing anything, running and doing it
himself. Fanny's verse was less intelligible, but it was accompanied in
the dance with a pantomime of terror well-fitted to call up her
haunting, indefatigable and diminutive presence in a blue gown.
TO GORDON BROWNE
_Vailima, Samoa [Autumn 1892]._
_To the Artist who did the illustrations to "Uma."_
DEAR SIR,--I only know you under the initials G. B., but you have done
some exceedingly spirited and satisfactory illustrations to my story
_The Beach of Falesá_, and I wish to write and thank you expressly for
the care and talent shown. Such numbers of people can do good black and
whites! So few can illustrate a story, or apparently read it. You have
shown that you can do both, and your creation of Wiltshire is a real
illumination of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and
looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an
inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in
his last appearance. It is a singular fact--which seems to point still
more directly to inspiration in your case--that your missionary actually
resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was drawn.
The general effect of the islands is all that could be wished; indeed I
have but one criticism to make, that in the background of Case taking
the dollar from Mr. Tarleton's head--head--not hand, as the fools have
printed it--the natives have a little too much the look of Africans.
But the great affair is that you have been to the pains to illustrate my
story instead of making conscientious black and whites of people sitting
talking. I doubt if you have left unrepresented a single pictorial
incident. I am writing by this mail to the editor in the hopes that I
may buy from him the originals, and I am, dear sir, your very much
obliged,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MORSE
The next is an answer to an acknowledgment from a lady in the United
States, one of many similar which he from time to time received, of
help and encouragement derived from his writings.
_Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
DEAR MADAM,--I have a great diffidence in answering your valued letter.
It would be difficult for me to express the feelings with which I read
it--and am now trying to re-read it as I dictate this.
You ask me to forgive what you say "must seem a liberty," and I find
that I cannot thank you sufficiently or even find a word with which to
qualify your letter. Dear Madam, such a communication even the vainest
man would think a sufficient reward for a lifetime of labour. That I
should have been able to give so much help and pleasure to your sister
is the subject of my grateful wonder.
That she, being dead, and speaking with your pen, should be able to
repay the debt with such a liberal interest, is one of those things that
reconcile us with the world and make us take hope again. I do not know
what I have done to deserve so beautiful and touching a compliment; and
I feel there is but one thing fit for me to say here, that I will try
with renewed courage to go on in the same path, and to deserve, if not
to receive, a similar return from others.
You apologise for speaking so much about yourselves. Dear Madam, I
thought you did so too little. I should have wished to have known more
of those who were so sympathetic as to find a consolation in my work,
and so graceful and so tactful as to acknowledge it in such a letter as
was yours.
Will you offer to your mother the expression of a sympathy which (coming
from a stranger) must seem very airy, but which yet is genuine; and
accept for yourself my gratitude for the thought which inspired you to
write to me and the words which you found to express it.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS TAYLOR
Lady Taylor had died soon after the settlement of the Stevenson
family at Vailima. The second paragraph refers to a test which had
been set before an expert in the reading of character by handwriting.
_Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
MY DEAR IDA,--I feel very much the implied reproof in yours just
received; but I assure you there is no fear of our forgetting either
Una or yourself, or your dear mother, who was one of the women I have
most admired and loved in the whole of my way through life. The truth is
that Fanny writes to nobody and that I am on the whole rather
overworked. I compose lots of letters to lots of unforgotten friends,
but when it comes to taking the pen between my fingers there are many
impediments. Hence it comes that I am now writing to you by an
amanuensis, at which I know you will be very angry. Well, it was
Hobson's choice. A little while ago I had very bad threatenings of
scrivener's cramp; and if Belle (Fanny's daughter, of whom you remember
to have heard) had not taken up the pen for my correspondence, I doubt
you would never have heard from me again except in the way of books. I
wish you and Una would be so good as to write to us now and then even
without encouragement. An unsolicited letter would be almost certain
(sooner or later, depending on the activity of the conscience) to
produce some sort of an apology for an answer.
All this upon one condition: that you send me your friend's description
of my looks, age and character. The character of my work I am not so
careful about. But did you ever hear of anything so tantalizing as for
you to tell me the story and not send me your notes? I expect it was a
device to extract an answer; and, as you see, it has succeeded. Let me
suggest (if your friend be handy) that the present letter would be a
very delicate test. It is in one person's handwriting, it expresses the
ideas of another, of the writer herself you know nothing. I should be
very curious to know what the sibyl will make of such a problem.
If you carry out your design of settling in London you must be sure and
let us have the new address. I swear we shall write some time--and if
the interval be long you must just take it on your own head for
prophesying horrors. You remember how you always said we were but an
encampment of Bedouins, and that you would awake some morning to find
us fled for ever. Nothing unsettled me more than these ill-judged
remarks. I was doing my best to be a sedentary semi-respectable man in a
suburban villa; and you were always shaking your head at me and assuring
me (what I knew to be partly true) that it was all a farce. Even here,
when I have sunk practically all that I possess, and have good health
and my fill of congenial fighting, and could not possibly get away if I
wanted ever so--even here and now the recollection of these infidel
prophesies rings in my ears like an invitation to the sea. _Tu l'as
voulu!_
I know you want some of our news, and it is all so far away that I know
not when to begin. We have a big house and we are building another--pray
God that we can pay for it. I am just reminded that we have no less than
eight several places of habitation in this place, which was a piece of
uncleared forest some three years ago. I think there are on my pay rolls
at the present moment thirteen human souls, not counting two washerwomen
who come and go. In addition to this I am at daggers drawn with the
Government, have had my correspondence stopped and opened by the Chief
Justice--it was correspondence with the so-called Rebel King,--and have
had boys examined and threatened with deportation to betray the secrets
of my relations with the same person. In addition to this I might direct
attention to those trifling exercises of the fancy, my literary works,
and I hope you won't think that I am likely to suffer from ennui. Nor is
Fanny any less active. Ill or well, rain or shine, a little blue
indefatigable figure is to be observed howking about certain patches of
garden. She comes in heated and bemired up to the eyebrows, late for
every meal. She has reached a sort of tragic placidity. Whenever she
plants anything new the boys weed it up. Whenever she tries to keep
anything for seed the house-boys throw it away. And she has reached that
pitch of a kind of noble dejection that she would almost say she did not
mind. Anyway, her cabbages have succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and
a very good one too) likened them the other day to the head of a German;
and even this hyperbolical image was grudging. I remember all the
trouble you had with servants at the Roost. The most of them were
nothing to the trances that we have to go through here at times, when I
have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence which is never twice
the same, and decide, practically blindfold, and after I have decided
have the accuser take back the accusation in block and beg for mercy for
the culprit. Conceive the annoyance of all this when you are very fond
of both.--Your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, Oct. 10th, 1892._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--It is now, as you see, the 10th of October, and
there has not reached the Island of Upolu one single copy, or rag of a
copy, of the Samoa book. I lie; there has come one, and that in the
pocket of a missionary man who is at daggers drawn with me, who lends it
to all my enemies, conceals it from all my friends, and is bringing a
lawsuit against me on the strength of expressions in the same which I
have forgotten, and now cannot see. This is pretty tragic, I think you
will allow; and I was inclined to fancy it was the fault of the Post
Office. But I hear from my sister-in-law Mrs. Sanchez that she is in the
same case, and has received no _Footnote_. I have also to consider that
I had no letter from you last mail, although you ought to have received
by that time "My Grandfather and Scott," and "Me and my Grandfather."
Taking one consideration with another, therefore, I prefer to conceive
that No. 743 Broadway has fallen upon gentle and continuous slumber, and
is become an enchanted palace among publishing houses. If it be not so,
if the _Footnotes_ were really sent, I hope you will fall upon the Post
Office with all the vigour you possess. How does _The Wrecker_ go in the
States? It seems to be doing exceptionally well in England.--Yours
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter contains the first announcement of the scheme of _Weir of
Hermiston_.
_Vailima, October 28th, 1892._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is very late to begin the monthly budget, but I
have a good excuse this time, for I have had a very annoying fever with
symptoms of sore arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece of
business which suffered no delay or idleness....
The consequence of all this was that my fever got very much worse and
your letter has not been hitherto written. But, my dear fellow, do
compare these little larky fevers with the fine, healthy, prostrating
colds of the dear old dead days at home. Here was I, in the middle of a
pretty bad one, and I was able to put it in my pocket, and go down day
after day, and attend to and put my strength into this beastly business.
Do you see me doing that with a catarrh? And if I had done so, what
would have been the result?
Last night, about four o'clock, Belle and I set off to Apia, whither my
mother had preceded us. She was at the Mission; we went to Haggard's.
There we had to wait the most unconscionable time for dinner. I do not
wish to speak lightly of the Amanuensis, who is unavoidably present, but
I may at least say for myself that I was as cross as two sticks. Dinner
came at last, we had the tinned soup which is usually the _pièce de
resistance_ in the halls of Haggard, and we pitched into it. Followed an
excellent salad of tomatoes and crayfish, a good Indian curry, a tender
joint of beef, a dish of pigeons, a pudding, cheese and coffee. I was so
over-eaten after this "hunger and burst" that I could scarcely move; and
it was my sad fate that night in the character of the local author to
eloquute before the public--"Mr. Stevenson will read a selection from
his own works"--a degrading picture. I had determined to read them the
account of the hurricane; I do not know if I told you that my book has
never turned up here, or rather only one copy has, and that in the
unfriendly hands of ----. It has therefore only been seen by enemies;
and this combination of mystery and evil report has been greatly
envenomed by some ill-judged newspaper articles from the States.
Altogether this specimen was listened to with a good deal of
uncomfortable expectation on the part of the Germans, and when it was
over was applauded with unmistakable relief. The public hall where these
revels came off seems to be unlucky for me; I never go there but to some
stone-breaking job. Last time it was the public meeting of which I must
have written you; this time it was this uneasy but not on the whole
unsuccessful experiment. Belle, my mother, and I rode home about
midnight in a fine display of lightning and witch-fires. My mother is
absent, so that I may dare to say that she struck me as voluble. The
Amanuensis did not strike me the same way; she was probably thinking,
but it was really rather a weird business, and I saw what I have never
seen before, the witch-fires gathered into little bright blue points
almost as bright as a night-light.
_Saturday._--This is the day that should bring your letter; it is gray
and cloudy and windless; thunder rolls in the mountain; it is a quarter
past six, and I am alone, sir, alone in this workman's house, Belle and
Lloyd having been down all yesterday to meet the steamer; they were
scarce gone with most of the horses and all the saddles, than there
began a perfect picnic of the sick and maim; Iopu with a bad foot,
Faauma with a bad shoulder, Fanny with yellow spots. It was at first
proposed to carry all these to the doctor, particularly Faauma, whose
shoulder bore an appearance of erysipelas, that sent the amateur below.
No horses, no saddle. Now I had my horse and I could borrow Lafaele's
saddle; and if I went alone I could do a job that had long been waiting;
and that was to interview the doctor on another matter. Off I set in a
hazy moonlight night; windless, like to-day; the thunder rolling in the
mountain, as to-day; in the still groves, these little mushroom lamps
glowing blue and steady, singly or in pairs. Well, I had my interview,
said everything as I had meant, and with just the result I hoped for.
The doctor and I drank beer together and discussed German literature
until nine, and we parted the best of friends. I got home to a silent
house of sleepers, only Fanny awaiting me; we talked awhile, in
whispers, on the interview; then, I got a lantern and went across to the
workman's house, now empty and silent, myself sole occupant. So to bed,
prodigious tired but mighty content with my night's work, and to-day,
with a headache and a chill, have written you this page, while my new
novel waits. Of this I will tell you nothing, except the various names
under consideration. First, it ought to be called--but of course that is
impossible--
_Braxfield._[49]
Then it _is_ to be called either
_Weir of Hermiston,
The Lord-Justice Clerk,
The Two Kirsties of the Cauldstaneslap_,
or
_The Four Black Brothers_.
Characters:
Adam Weir, Lord-Justice Clerk, called Lord Hermiston.
Archie, his son.
Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston.
Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother.
Kirstie Elliott, his daughter.
Jim, \
Gib, |
Hob > his sons.
& |
Dandie, /
Patrick Innes, a young advocate.
The Lord-Justice General.
Scene, about Hermiston in the Lammermuirs and in Edinburgh. Temp. 1812.
So you see you are to have another holiday from copra! The rain begins
softly on the iron roof, and I will do the reverse and--dry up.
_Sunday._--Yours with the diplomatic private opinion received. It is
just what I should have supposed. _Ça m'est bien égal._--The name is to
be
_The Lord-Justice Clerk._
None others are genuine. Unless it be
_Lord-Justice Clerk Hermiston._
_Nov. 2nd._--On Saturday we expected Captain Morse of the _Alameda_ to
come up to lunch, and on Friday with genuine South Sea hospitality had a
pig killed. On the Saturday morning no pig. Some of the boys seemed to
give a doubtful account of themselves; our next neighbour below in the
wood is a bad fellow and very intimate with some of our boys, for whom
his confounded house is like a fly-paper for flies. To add to all this,
there was on the Saturday a great public presentation of food to the
king and parliament men, an occasion on which it is almost dignified for
a Samoan to steal anything, and entirely dignified for him to steal a
pig.
(The Amanuensis went to the _talolo_, as it is called, and saw something
so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the letter to tell it. The
different villagers came in in bands--led by the maid of the village,
followed by the young warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some three
thousand people are said to have assembled. The men wore nothing but
magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of leaves, and were oiled and
glistening in the sunlight. One band had no maid but was led by a tiny
child of about five--a serious little creature clad in a ribbon of grass
and a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps in front of the
warriors, like a little kid leading a band of lions. A.M.)
The A.M. being done, I go on again. All this made it very possible that
even if none of our boys had stolen the pig, some of them might know the
thief. Besides, the theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a
guest, had something of the nature of an insult, and "my face," in
native phrase, "was ashamed." Accordingly, we determined to hold a bed
of justice. It was done last night after dinner. I sat at the head of
the table, Graham on my right hand, Henry Simelé at my left, Lloyd
behind him. The house company sat on the floor around the walls--twelve
all told. I am described as looking as like Braxfield as I could manage
with my appearance; Graham, who is of a severe countenance, looked like
Rhadamanthus; Lloyd was hideous to the view; and Simelé had all the fine
solemnity of a Samoan chief. The proceedings opened by my delivering a
Samoan prayer, which may be translated thus--"Our God, look down upon us
and shine into our hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that each
one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity."--Then, beginning
with Simelé, every one came up to the table, laid his hand on the Bible,
and repeated clause by clause after me the following oath--I fear it may
sound even comic in English, but it is a very pretty piece of Samoan,
and struck direct at the most lively superstitions of the race. "This is
the Holy Bible here that I am touching. Behold me, O God! If I know who
it was that took away the pig, or the place to which it was taken, or
have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare the same--be
made an end of by God this life of mine!" They all took it with so much
seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if they were not innocent
they would make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by their
bearing that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely solemn
scene came to an end.
_Sunday, Nov. 6th._--Here is a long story to go back upon, and I wonder
if I have either time or patience for the task?
Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and proposed to Henry that
Faalé would make a good wife for him. I wish I had put this down when it
was fresher in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. My gentleman
would not tell if I were on or not. "I do not know yet; I will tell you
next week. May I tell the sister of my father? No, better not, tell her
when it is done."--"But will not your family be angry if you marry
without asking them?"--"My village? What does my village want? Mats!" I
said I thought the girl would grow up to have a great deal of sense, and
my gentleman flew out upon me; she had sense now, he said.
Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and presently after
heard it was an English warship. Graham and I set off at once, and as
soon as we met any towns-folk they began crying to me that I was to be
arrested. It was the _Vossische Zeitung_ article which had been quoted
in a paper. Went on board and saw Captain Bourke; he did not even
know--not even guess--why he was here; having been sent off by cablegram
from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards
may bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be? Heads or
tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I should
prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a German officialdom, and
should probably have to leave _sponte mea_, which is only less
picturesque and more expensive.
_8th._--Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever may be in
store for me. No time even to sign this lame letter.
To J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, November 1st, 1892._
DEAR MR. BARRIE,--I can scarce thank you sufficiently for your extremely
amusing letter. No, _The Auld Licht Idyls_ never reached me--I wish it
had, and I wonder extremely whether it would not be good for me to have
a pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular thing that I
should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new and so
striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit that cold old
huddle of grey hills from which we come. I have just finished _David
Balfour_; I have another book on the stocks, _The Young Chevalier_,
which is to be part in France and part in Scotland, and to deal with
Prince Charlie about the year 1749; and now what have I done but begun a
third which is to be all moorland together, and is to have for a
centre-piece a figure that I think you will appreciate--that of the
immortal Braxfield--Braxfield himself is my _grand premier_, or, since
you are so much involved in the British drama, let me say my heavy
lead....
Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfully
unconscientious. You should never write about anybody until you persuade
yourself at least for the moment that you love him, above all anybody on
whom your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the book; and, if
he has anything to do with the mechanism, prove a stick in your
machinery. But you know all this better than I do, and it is one of your
most promising traits that you do not take your powers too seriously.
_The Little Minister_ ought to have ended badly; we all know it did; and
we are infinitely grateful to you for the grace and good feeling with
which you lied about it. If you had told the truth, I for one could
never have forgiven you. As you had conceived and written the earlier
parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably true to fact, would
have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord in art. If you are going to
make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning. Now your
book began to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and fondle,
and smile at your puppets. Once you had done that, your honour was
committed--at the cost of truth to life you were bound to save them. It
is the blot on _Richard Feverel_, for instance, that it begins to end
well; and then tricks you and ends ill. But in that case there is worse
behind, for the ill-ending does not inherently issue from the plot--the
story _had_, in fact, _ended well_ after the great last interview
between Richard and Lucy--and the blind, illogical bullet which smashes
all has no more to do between the boards than a fly has to do with the
room into whose open window it comes buzzing. It _might_ have so
happened; it needed not; and unless needs must, we have no right to pain
our readers. I have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind
about my Braxfield story. Braxfield--only his name is Hermiston--has a
son who is condemned to death; plainly, there is a fine tempting fitness
about this; and I meant he was to hang. But now on considering my minor
characters, I saw there were five people who would--in a sense who
must--break prison and attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy
folks, too, who might very well succeed. Why should they not then? Why
should not young Hermiston escape clear out of the country? and be
happy, if he could, with his----. But soft! I will not betray my secret
or my heroine. Suffice it to breathe in your ear that she was what
Hardy calls (and others in their plain way don't) a Pure Woman.[50] Much
virtue in a capital letter, such as yours was.
Write to me again in my infinite distance. Tell me about your new book.
No harm in telling _me_; I am too far off to be indiscreet; there are
too few near me who would care to hear. I am rushes by the riverside,
and the stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly; and
if the Trade Wind caught and carried them away, there are none to catch
them nearer than Australia, unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the
unavoidable absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner, I
have thus concluded my dispatch, like St. Paul, with my own hand.
And in the inimitable words of Lord Kames, Faur ye weel, ye
bitch.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima Plantation, Nov. 2nd, 1892._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--In the first place, I have to acknowledge receipt
of your munificent cheque for three hundred and fifty dollars. Glad you
liked the Scott voyage; rather more than I did upon the whole. As the
proofs have not turned up at all, there can be no question of returning
them, and I am therefore very much pleased to think you have arranged
not to wait. The volumes of Adams arrived along with yours of October
6th. One of the dictionaries has also blundered home, apparently from
the Colonies; the other is still to seek. I note and sympathise with
your bewilderment as to _Falesá_. My own direct correspondence with Mr.
Baxter is now about three months in abeyance. Altogether you see how
well it would be if you could do anything to wake up the Post Office.
Not a single copy of the _Footnote_ has yet reached Samoa, but I hear of
one having come to its address in Hawaii. Glad to hear good news of
Stoddard.--Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Since the above was written an aftermath of post matter came in,
among which were the proofs of _My Grandfather_. I shall correct and
return them, but as I have lost all confidence in the Post Office, I
shall mention here: first galley, 4th line from the bottom, for "AS"
read "OR."
Should I ever again have to use my work without waiting for proofs, bear
in mind this golden principle. From a congenital defect, I must suppose,
I am unable to write the word OR--wherever I write it the printer
unerringly puts AS--and those who read for me had better, wherever it is
possible, substitute _or_ for _as_. This the more so since many writers
have a habit of using as which is death to my temper and confusion to my
face.
R. L. S.
TO LIEUTENANT EELES
The following is addressed to one of Stevenson's best friends among
the officers of H.M.S. the Curaçoa, which had been for some time on
the South Pacific station.
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, November 15th, 1892._
DEAR EELES,--In the first place, excuse me writing to you by another
hand, as that is the way in which alone all my correspondence gets
effected. Before I took to this method, or rather before I found a
victim, it simply didn't get effected.
Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought of writing to me,
and second for your extremely amusing and interesting letter. You can
have no guess how immediately interesting it was to our family. First of
all, the poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we have
actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to the island. I don't
know if Hoskin would approve of our treatment; it consisted, I believe,
mostly in a present of stout and a recommendation to put nails in his
watertank. We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to leave
the island; and I remember very well how wise and kind we thought his
answer. He had half-caste children (he said) who would suffer and
perhaps be despised if he carried them elsewhere; if he left them there
alone, they would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing was that
he should stay and die with them. But the cream of the fun was your
meeting with Buckland. We not only know him, but (as the French say) we
don't know anybody else; he is our intimate and adored original;
and--prepare your mind--he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON![51]
As I don't believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
Tommy is really "a good chap," though about as comic as they make them.
I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
in your capital account of the _Curaçoa's_ misadventure. Alas! we have
nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
mis-government, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the _Ringarooma_ instead
of the _Curaçoa_. The former ship burst upon us by the run--she had been
sent off by despatch and without orders--and to make me a little more
easy in my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration.
Since then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he
had read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must
regard it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the
same time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for
them here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
being on the way--I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
is pretty sure--_if_ that issue prove to be a German protectorate, I
shall have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of
energy? We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill
the bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
hundred black boys and about a score draught oxen perished, or at least
barely escaped with their lives, from the mud holes on our road,
bringing up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.'s
protectorate, and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country
house.[51] The Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked
Stansfield particularly.
Our middy[53] has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit of the phantom
Education. We have good word of him, and I hope he will not be in
disgrace again, as he was when the hope of the British Navy--need I say
that I refer to Admiral Burney?--honoured us last. The next time you
come, as the new house will be finished, we shall be able to offer you a
bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may like to hear that our new room is to be
big enough to dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
_Curaçoa_ in port again and at least a proper contingent of her officers
"skipping in my 'all."
We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the
Ringaroomas, and I wish they had been three Curaçoas--say yourself,
Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our
boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows--O,
brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab--four smaller
pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat
down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the
kitchen that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was
blue. Then we had about half an hour's holiday with some beer and sherry
and brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to
the old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed
off in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted
for the _Curaçoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not
know the draught of the _Curaçoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be
particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward,
as I do myself, in the hope of your return.--Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
And let me hear from you again!
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following extract gives a hint of Stevenson's intended management
of one of the most difficult points in the plot of _Weir of
Hermiston_.
_1st Dec. '92._
... I have a novel on the stocks to be called _The Justice-Clerk_. It is
pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is taken from Braxfield--(Oh, by the
by, send me Cockburn's _Memorials_)--and some of the story
is--well--queer. The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally
disappears with the other man who shot him.... Mind you, I expect _The
Justice-Clerk_ to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of
beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as he has gone _far_ my best
character.
[_Later._]--Second thought. I wish Pitcairn's _Criminal Trials quam
primum_. Also, an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath.
Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a
report as possible of a Scotch murder trial between 1790-1820.
Understand, _the fullest possible_.
Is there any book which would guide me as to the following facts?
The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain
evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the J.-C.'s own son.
Of course, in the next trial the J.-C. is excluded, and the case is
called before the Lord-Justice General.
Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not
suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Nov. 30, 1892._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which
you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well
right.... This is a strange life I live, always on the brink of
deportation, men's lives in the scale--and, well, you know my character:
if I were to pretend to you that I was not amused, you would justly
scorn me. The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is
better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all
which mercies, etc. I must have made close on £4,000 this year all told;
but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them.
I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the cards, all
summer, and came very near to taking in sail, but I live here so
entirely on credit, that I determined to hang on.
_Dec. 1st._--I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and did not
think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I was briefed to defend a
political prisoner before the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of
that for a vicissitude?
_Dec. 3rd._--Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cassells had
decided to print _The Bottle Imp_ along with _Falesá_, I was too much
disappointed to answer. _The Bottle Imp_ was the _pièce de résistance_
for my volume, _Island Nights' Entertainments_. However, that volume
might have never got done; and I send you two others in case they should
be in time.
First have _The Beach of Falesá_.
Then a fresh false title: ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS; and then
_The Bottle Imp_: a cue from an old melodrama.
_The Isle of Voices._
_The Waif Woman_; a cue from a _saga_.
Of course these two others are not up to the mark of _The Bottle Imp_;
but they each have a certain merit, and they fit in style. By saying "a
cue from an old melodrama" after the _B. I._, you can get rid of my
note. If this is in time, it will be splendid, and will make quite a
volume.
Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the whole volume _I. N.
E._--though the _Beach of Falesá_ is the child of a quite different
inspiration. They all have a queer realism, even the most extravagant,
even the _Isle of Voices_; the manners are exact.
Should they come too late, have them type-written and return to me here
the type-written copies.
_Sunday, Dec 4th._--3rd start,--But now more humbly and with the aid of
an Amanuensis. First one word about page 2. My wife protests against
_The Waif Woman_ and I am instructed to report the same to you.[54]...
_Dec. 5th._--A horrid alarm rises that our October mail was burned
crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful long letter--I am sure
it was beautiful though I remember nothing about it--and I must say I
think it serves you properly well. That I should continue writing to you
at such length is simply a vicious habit for which I blush. At the same
time, please communicate at once with Charles Baxter whether you have or
have not received a letter posted here Oct. 12th, as he is going to
cable me the fate of my mail.
Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have taken my book like angels,
and the result is that Lloyd and I were down there at dinner on
Saturday, where we partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct
forms of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, I must say there
was not a shadow of a headache the next morning. I seem to have done as
well as my neighbours, for I hear one of the clerks expressed the next
morning a gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson stood his drink so well.
It is a strange thing that any race can still find joy in such athletic
exercises. I may remark in passing that the mail is due and you have had
far more than you deserve.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
_December 5th, 1892._
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--... So much said, I come with guilty speed to
what more immediately concerns myself. Spare us a month or two for old
sake's sake, and make my wife and me happy and proud. We are only
fourteen days from San Francisco, just about a month from Liverpool; we
have our new house almost finished. The thing _can_ be done; I believe
we can make you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the
world, our political troubles seem near an end. It can be done, _it
must_! Do, please, make a virtuous effort, come and take a glimpse of a
new world I am sure you do not dream of, and some old friends who do
often dream of your arrival.
Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there goes the lunch
bell, and after lunch I must make up the mail.
Do come. You must not come in February or March--bad months. From April
on it is delightful.--Your sincere friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_December 5th, 1892._
MY DEAR JAMES,--How comes it so great a silence has fallen? The still
small voice of self-approval whispers me it is not from me. I have
looked up my register, and find I have neither written to you nor heard
from you since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable work
began. This is not as it should be. How to get back? I remember
acknowledging with rapture _The Lesson of the Master_, and I remember
receiving _Marbot_: was that our last relation?
Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered from the papers, I
have been in devilish hot water, and (what may be new to you) devilish
hard at work. In twelve calendar months I finished _The Wrecker_, wrote
all of _Falesá_ but the first chapter, (well, much of) _The History of
Samoa_, did something here and there to my Life of my Grandfather, and
began And Finished _David Balfour_. What do you think of it for a year?
Since then I may say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
another novel, _The Justice-Clerk_, which ought to be a snorter and a
blower--at least if it don't make a spoon, it will spoil the horn of an
Aurochs (if that's how it should be spelt).
On the hot water side it may entertain you to know that I have been
actually sentenced to deportation by my friends on Mulinuu, C.J.
Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach. The awful doom, however,
declined to fall, owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had walked among
rumours. The whole tale will be some day put into my hand, and I shall
share it with humorous friends.
It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in
Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat
no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask
ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a
disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow over the
stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it has been a deeply
interesting time. You don't know what news is, nor what politics, nor
what the life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with your
own liberty on the board for stake. I would not have missed it for much.
And anxious friends beg me to stay at home and study human nature in
Brompton drawing-rooms! _Farceurs!_ And anyway you know that such is not
my talent. I could never be induced to take the faintest interest in
Brompton _qua_ Brompton or a drawing-room _qua_ a drawing-room. I am an
Epick Writer with a k to it, but without the necessary genius.
Hurry up with another book of stories. I am now reduced to two of my
contemporaries, you and Barrie--O, and Kipling--you and Barrie and
Kipling are now my Muses Three. And with Kipling, as you know, there are
reservations to be made. And you and Barrie don't write enough. I should
say I also read Anstey when he is serious, and can almost always get a
happy day out of Marion Crawford--_ce n'est pas toujours la guerre_, but
it's got life to it and guts, and it moves. Did you read the _Witch of
Prague_? Nobody could read it twice, of course; and the first time even
it was necessary to skip. _E pur si muove._ But Barrie is a beauty, the
_Little Minister_ and the _Window in Thrums_, eh? Stuff in that young
man; but he must see and not be too funny. Genius in him, but there's a
journalist at his elbow--there's the risk. Look, what a page is the
glove business in the _Window_! knocks a man flat; that's guts, if you
please.
Why have I wasted the little time that is left with a sort of naked
review article? I don't know, I'm sure. I suppose a mere ebullition of
congested literary talk. I am beginning to think a visit from friends
would be due. Wish you could come!
Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly stale
effusion.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
To J. M. BARRIE
[_Vailima, December 1892._]
DEAR J. M. BARRIE,--You will be sick of me soon; I cannot help it. I
have been off my work for some time, and re-read the _Edinburgh Eleven_,
and had a great mind to write a parody and give you all your sauce back
again, and see how you would like it yourself. And then I read (for the
first time--I know not how) the _Window in Thrums_; I don't say that it
is better than the _Minister_; it's less of a tale--and there is a
beauty, a material beauty, of the tale _ipse_, which clever critics
nowadays long and love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it
is--well, I read it last anyway, and it's by Barrie. And he's the man
for my money. The glove is a great page; it is startlingly original, and
as true as death and judgment. Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but
I think it was a journalist that got in the word "official." The same
character plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard. Thomas affects me
as a lie--I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew; that
leads people so far astray. The actual is not the true.
I am proud to think you are a Scotchman--though to be sure I know
nothing of that country, being only an English tourist, quo' Gavin
Ogilvy. I commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie,
whose work is to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national
pride. There are two of us now that the Shirra might have patted on the
head. And please do not think when I thus seem to bracket myself with
you, that I am wholly blinded with vanity. Jess is beyond my frontier
line; I could not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of twilight on
my pen. I am a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you
were a man of genius. Take care of yourself for my sake. It's a devilish
hard thing for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should
get so few to read. And I can read yours, and I love them.
A pity for you that my amanuensis is not on stock to-day, and my own
hand perceptibly worse than usual.--Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_December 5th, 1892._
_P.S._--They tell me your health is not strong. Man, come out here and
try the Prophet's chamber. There's only one bad point to us--we do rise
early. The Amanuensis states that you are a lover of silence--and that
ours is a noisy house--and she is a chatterbox--I am not answerable for
these statements, though I do think there is a touch of garrulity about
my premises. We have so little to talk about, you see. The house is
three miles from town, in the midst of great silent forests. There is a
burn close by, and when we are not talking you can hear the burn, and
the birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six
hundred feet below us, and about three times a month a bell--I don't
know where the bell is, nor who rings it; it may be the bell in Hans
Andersen's story for all I know. It is never hot here--86 in the shade
is about our hottest--and it is never cold except just in the early
mornings. Take it for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by
far the healthiest in the world--even the influenza entirely lost its
sting. Only two patients died, and one was a man nearly eighty, and the
other a child below four months. I won't tell you if it is beautiful,
for I want you to come here and see for yourself. Everybody on the
premises except my wife has some Scotch blood in their veins--I beg your
pardon--except the natives--and then my wife is a Dutchwoman--and the
natives are the next thing conceivable to Highlanders before the
forty-five. We would have some grand cracks!
R. L. S.
Come, it will broaden your mind, and be the making of me.
To CHARLES BAXTER
This correspondent had lately been on a tour in Sweden.
_[Vailima] December 28th, 1892._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Your really decent letter to hand. And here I am
answering it, to the merry note of the carpenter's hammer, in an upper
room of the New House. This upper floor is almost done now, but the
Grrrrrreat 'All below is still unlined; it is all to be varnished
redwood. I paid a big figure but do not repent; the trouble has been so
minimised, the work has been so workmanlike, and all the parties have
been so obliging. What a pity when you met the Buried Majesty of
Sweden--the sovereign of my Cedercrantz--you did not breathe in his ear
a word of Samoa!
O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
Conceive how his plump carcase pants
To leave the spot he now is tree'd in,
And skip with all the dibbs to Sweden.
O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
The lowly plea I now advantz;
Remove this man of light and leadin'
From us to more congenial Sweden.
This kind of thing might be kept up a Lapland night. "Let us bury the
great joke"--Shade of Tennyson, forgive!
I am glad to say, you can scarce receive the second bill for the house
until next mail, which gives more room to turn round in. Yes, my rate of
expenditure is hellish. It is funny, it crept up and up; and when we sat
upon one vent another exploded. Lloyd and I grew grey over the monthly
returns; but every damned month, there is a new extra. However, we
always hope the next will prove less recalcitrant; in which faith we
advance trembling.
The desiderated advertisement, I think I have told you, was mighty near
supplied: that is, if deportation would suit your view: the ship was
actually sought to be hired. Yes, it would have been an advertisement,
and rather a lark, and yet a blooming nuisance. For my part, I shall try
to do without.
No one has thought fit to send me Atalanta[55]; and I have no proof at
all of _D. Balfour_, which is far more serious. How about the _D. B._
map? As soon as there is a proof it were well I should see it to accord
the text thereto--or t'other way about if needs must. Remember I had to
go much on memory in writing that work. Did you observe the dedication?
and how did you like it? If it don't suit you, I am to try my hand
again.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Editors and publishers (since those days we have been _déniaisés_
with a vengeance) had actually been inclined to shy at the terms of
the fraudulent marriage contract, which is the pivot of the whole
story; see below, p. 187.
[33] For a lively account of this plantation and its history, see
Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, chap. i.
[34] The native wife of a carpenter in Apia.
[35] The sequel to _Kidnapped_, published in the following year under
the title _Catriona_.
[36] Most of the work on the plantations in Samoa is done by "black
boys," _i.e._ imported labourers from other (Melanesian) islands.
[37] By Howard Pyle.
[38] In answer to the obvious remark that the length and style of
_The Wrecker_, then running in Scribner's Magazine, were out of
keeping with what professed at the outset to be a spoken yarn.
[39] Of Ballantrae: the story is the unfinished _Young Chevalier_.
[40] Afterwards changed into _The Ebb Tide_.
[41] Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_, a shade misquoted.
[42] "Kava, properly Ava, is a drink more or less intoxicating, made
from the root of the _Piper Methysticum_, a Pepper plant. The root
is grated: formerly it was chewed by fair damsels. The root thus
broken up is rubbed about in a great pail, with water slowly added.
A strainer of bark cloth is plunged into it at times, and wrung out
so as to carry away the small fragments of root. The drink is made
and used in ceremony. Every detail is regulated by rules, and the
manner of the mixture of the water, the straining, the handling of
the cup, the drinking out of it and returning, should all be done
according to a well-established manner and in certain cadences." I
borrow this explanation from the late Mr. Lafarge's notes to his
catalogue of South Sea Drawings. It may serve to make clearer
several passages in later letters of the present collection. Readers
of the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_ will remember the
account of this beverage and its preparation in Chap. viii. of that
volume.
[43] Referring to the marriage contract in the _Beach of Falesá:_ see
above, p. 152.
[44] This about the consulship was only a passing notion on the part
of R. L. S. No vacancy occurred, and in his correspondence he does
not recur to the subject.
[45] I had not cared to send him the story as thus docked and
rechristened in its serial shape.
[46] Austin Strong, on his way to school in California.
[47] By Émile Zola.
[48] The reference is to the writer's maternal cousin, Mr. Graham
Balfour (_Samoicè_, "Pelema"), who during these months and again
later was an inmate of the home at Vailima: see above, p. 223.
[49] Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the "Hanging Judge,"
(1722-1799). This historical personage furnished the conception of
the chief character, but by no means the details or incidents of the
story, which is indeed dated some years after his death.
[50] The allusion is to _Tess_: a book R. L. S. did not like.
[51] A character in _The Wrecker_.
[52] Exactly what in the end actually happened.
[53] Austin Strong.
[54] This tale was withheld from the volume accordingly.
[55] The magazine in which _Catriona_ first appeared in this
country, under the title _David Balfour_.
XIII
LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
JANUARY-DECEMBER 1893
By the New Year of 1893 the fine addition to the house at Vailima was
finished, and its pleasantness and comfort went far to console Stevenson
for the cost. But the year was on the whole a less fortunate one for the
inmates than the last. A proclamation concerning penalties for sedition
in the Samoan Islands, which from its tenor could have been aimed at no
one else but Stevenson, had been issued at the close of 1892 by the High
Commissioner at Fiji; and with its modification and practical
withdrawal, by order of the Foreign Office at home, the last threat of
unpleasant consequences in connection with his political action
disappeared. But a sharp second attack of influenza in January lowered
his vitality, and from a trip which the family took for the sake of
change to Sydney, in the month of February, they returned with health
unimproved. In April the illness of Mrs. Stevenson caused her husband
some weeks of acute distress and anxiety. In August he suffered the
chagrin of witnessing the outbreak of the war which he had vainly
striven to prevent between the two rival kings, and the defeat and
banishment of Mataafa, whom he knew to be the one man of governing
capacity among the native chiefs, and whom, in the interest alike of
whites and natives, he had desired to see the Powers not crush, but
conciliate. On the other hand, he had the satisfaction of seeing the
Chief Justice and President removed from the posts they had so
incompetently filled, and superseded by new and better men. The task
imposed by the three Powers upon these officials was in truth an
impossible one; but their characters and endeavours earned respect, and
with the American Chief Justice in particular, Mr. C. J. Ide (whom he
had already known as one of the Land Commissioners), and with his family
the Vailima household lived on terms of cordial friendship. In September
Stevenson took a health-trip to Honolulu, which again turned out
unsuccessful. For some weeks he was down with a renewed attack of fever
and prostration, and his wife had to come from Samoa to nurse and fetch
him home. Later in the autumn he mended again.
During no part of the year were Stevenson's working powers up to the
mark. In the early summer he finished _The Ebb Tide_, but on a plan much
abridged from its original intention, and with an unusual degree of
strain and effort. With _St. Ives_ and his own family history he made
fair progress, but both of these he regarded as in a manner holiday
tasks, not calling for any very serious exercise of his powers. In
connection with the latter, he took an eager interest, as his
correspondence will show, in the researches which friends and kinsmen
undertook for him in Scotland. He fell into arrears in regard to one or
two magazine stories for which he had contracted; and with none of his
more ambitious schemes of romance, _Sophia Scarlet_, _The Young
Chevalier_, _Heathercat_, and _Weir of Hermiston_, did he feel himself
well able to cope. This falling-off of his power of production brought
with it no small degree of inward strain and anxiety. He had not yet
put by any provision for his wife and step-family (the income from the
moderate fortune left by his father naturally going to his mother during
her life). His earnings had since 1887 been considerable, at the rate of
£4,000 a year or thereabouts; but his building expenses and large mode
of life at Vailima, together with his habitual generosity, which scarce
knew check or limit, towards the less fortunate of his friends and
acquaintances in various parts of the world, made his expenditure about
equal to his income. The idea originally entertained of turning part of
the Vailima estate into a profitable plantation turned out chimerical.
The thought began to haunt him, What if his power of earning were soon
to cease? And occasional signs of inward depression and life-weariness
began to appear in his correspondence. But it was only in writing, and
then but rarely, that he let such signs appear: to those about him he
retained the old affectionate charm and inspiring gaiety undiminished,
fulfilling without failure the words of his own prayer, "Give us to
awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling; as the sun lightens the
world, so let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our
habitation."
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] January 1893._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are properly paid at last, and it is like you will
have but a shadow of a letter. I have been pretty thoroughly out of
kilter; first a fever that would neither come on nor go off, then acute
dyspepsia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between the
waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil does no one send me
Atalanta? And why are there no proofs of _D. Balfour_? Sure I should
have had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and it would be
all for the advantage of the Atalantans. I have written to Cassell & Co.
(matter of _Falesá_) "you will please arrange with him" (meaning you).
"What he may decide I shall abide." So consider your hand free, and act
for me without fear or favour. I am greatly pleased with the
illustrations. It is very strange to a South-Seayer to see Hawaiian
women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that's all one to you in
Middlesex. It's about the same as if London city men were shown going to
the Stock Exchange as _pifferari_; but no matter, none will sleep worse
for it. I have accepted Cassell's proposal as an amendment to one of
mine; that _D. B._ is to be brought out first under the title _Catriona_
without pictures; and, when the hour strikes, _Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_
are to form vols. I. and II. of the heavily illustrated _Adventures of
David Balfour_ at 7s. 6d. each, sold separately.
----'s letter was vastly sly and dry and shy.[56] I am not afraid now.
Two attempts have been made, both have failed, and I imagine these
failures strengthen me. Above all this is true of the last, where my
weak point was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only force can
dislodge me, for public opinion is wholly on my side. All races and
degrees are united in heartfelt opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The
news of the fighting was of no concern to mortal man; it was made much
of because men love talk of battles, and because the Government pray God
daily for some scandal not their own; but it was only a brisk episode in
a clan fight which has grown apparently endemic in the west of Tutuila.
At the best it was a twopenny affair, and never occupied my mind five
minutes.
I am so weary of reports that are without foundation and threats that go
without fulfilment, and so much occupied besides by the raging troubles
of my own wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been
in literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the First
Chapter of the _Justice-Clerk_; it took me about ten days, and requires
another athletic dressing after all. And that is my story for the month.
The rest is grunting and grutching.
Consideranda for _The Beach_:--
I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you?
II. Whether to call the whole volume _Island Nights' Entertainments_?
III. Whether, having waited so long, it would not be better to give me
another mail, in case I could add another member to the volume and a
little better justify the name?
If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What annoyed me about
the use of _The Bottle Imp_ was that I had always meant it for the
centre-piece of a volume of _Märchen_ which I was slowly to elaborate.
You always had an idea that I depreciated the _B. I._; I can't think
wherefore; I always particularly liked it--one of my best works, and ill
to equal; and that was why I loved to keep it in portfolio till I had
time to grow up to some other fruit of the same _venue_. However, that
is disposed of now, and we must just do the best we can.
I am not aware that there is anything to add; the weather is hellish,
waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul fiend's own weather, following on a
week of expurgated heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. I
write in the upper floor of my new house, of which I will send you some
day a plan to measure. 'Tis an elegant structure, surely, and the proid
of me oi. Was asked to pay for it just now, and genteelly refused, and
then agreed, in view of general good-will, to pay a half of what is
still due.
_24th January 1893._--This ought to have gone last mail and was
forgotten. My best excuse is that I was engaged in starting an
influenza, to which class of exploit our household has been since then
entirely dedicated. We had eight cases, one of them very bad, and
one--mine--complicated with my old friend Bluidy Jack.[57] Luckily
neither Fanny, Lloyd, or Belle took the confounded thing, and they were
able to run the household and nurse the sick to admiration.
Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps the prettiest
performance was that of our excellent Henry Simelé, or, as we sometimes
call him, Davy Balfour. Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest
Samoan recoils from emptying slops as you would from cheating at cards;
now the last nights of our bad time, when we had seven down together, it
was enough to have made anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going the
rounds with a slop-bucket and going inside the mosquito net of each of
the sick, Protestant and Catholic alike, to pray with them.
I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alleviation and began a
new story. This I am writing by dictation, and really think it is an art
I can manage to acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just
like a school-treat to me, and the amanuensis bears up extraordinar'.
The story is to be called _St. Ives_; I give you your choice whether or
not it should bear the sub-title, "Experiences of a French prisoner in
England." We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this cursed
mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It looks to me very like as
if _St. Ives_ would be ready before any of the others, but you know me
and how impossible it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her head
quite turned and believes herself to be the author of this novel (and is
to some extent)--and as the creature (!) has not been wholly useless in
the matter (I told you so! A.M.) I propose to foster her vanity by a
little commemoration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves--he
Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is my idea to get a
ring made which shall either represent _Anne_ or A. S. Y. A., of course,
would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway
and was my father's before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do
about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he
meet the case, the two N.'s? These things are beyond my knowledge, which
it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the
matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to hear your
views. I shall tell you on some other occasion and when the A.M. is out
of hearing how _very_ much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but
I may as well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir,
damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by praise, not pudding,
flattery and not coins! I shall send you when the time is ripe a ring to
measure by.
To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were almost wholly
recovered Henry lay down to influenza on his own account. He is but just
better and it looks as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As
for me, I am all right, though I _was_ reduced to dictating _Anne_ in
the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, which I think you will admit is a _comble_.
Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so much of my
purpose has come off, and Cedercrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest
of it has all gone to water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his
plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the
Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose
it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and
unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject
and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field
appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of
character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true
phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and
my hot water with a dose of good Glenlivat.
Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our
new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the
hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent
visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get
the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more
decorative, the picture frames, will look sublime.
_Jan. 30th._--I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson's _Syntax_
and _Dance of Death_ out of our house, and begging for anything about
fashions and manners (fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help?
Both the Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I
got into St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for the other.
There is a kind of fancy list of Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in
Edin^b Castle.) I. Story of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made,
and given to a girl visitor). II. Story of a pair of scissors. III. St.
Ives receives a bundle of money. IV. St. Ives is shown a house. V. The
Escape. VI. The Cottage (Swanston Cottage). VII. The Hen-house. VIII.
Three is company and four none. IX. The Drovers. X. The Great North
Road. XI. Burchell Fenn. XII. The covered cart. XIII. The doctor. XIV.
The Luddites. XV. Set a thief to catch a thief. XVI. M. le Comte de
Kérouaille (his uncle, the rich _émigré_, whom he finds murdered). XVII.
The cousins. XVIII. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. XIX. A meeting at the Ship,
Dover. XX. Diane. XXI. The Duke's Prejudices. XXII. The False Messenger.
XXIII. The gardener's ladder. XXIV. The officers. XXV. Trouble with the
Duke. XXVI. Fouquet again. XXVII. The Aeronaut. XXVIII. The True-Blooded
Yankee. XXIX. In France. I don't know where to stop. Apropos, I want a
book about Paris, and the _first return_ of the _émigrés_ and all up to
the _Cent Jours_: d'ye ken anything in my way? I want in particular to
know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries and officers, and to
get the colour and some vital details of the business of exchange of
departments from one side to the other.[58] Ten chapters are drafted,
and VIII. re-copied by me, but will want another dressing for luck. It
is merely a story of adventure, rambling along; but that is perhaps the
guard that "sets my genius best," as Alan might have said. I wish I
could feel as easy about the other! But there, all novels are a heavy
burthen while they are doing, and a sensible disappointment when they
are done.
For God's sake, let me have a copy of the new German Samoa White Book.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Telling how the projected tale, _The Pearl Fisher_, had been cut down
and in its new form was to be called _The Schooner Farallone_
(afterwards changed to _The Ebb Tide_).
[_Vailima, February 1893._]
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have had the influenza, as I believe you know: this
has been followed by two goes of my old friend Bloodie Jacke, and I have
had fefe--the island complaint--for the second time in two months. All
this, and the fact that both my womenkind require to see a doctor: and
some wish to see Lord Jersey before he goes home: all send me off on a
month's holiday to Sydney. I may get my mail: or I may not: depends on
freight, weather, and the captain's good-nature--he is one of those who
most religiously fear Apia harbour: it is quite a superstition with
American captains. (Odd note: American sailors, who make British hair
grey by the way they carry canvas, appear to be actually _more_ nervous
when it comes to coast and harbour work.) This is the only holiday I
have had for more than 2 years; I dare say it will be as long again
before I take another. And I am going to spend a lot of money. Ahem!
On the other hand, you can prepare to dispose of the serial rights of
the _Schooner Farallone:_ a most grim and gloomy tale. It will run to
something between _Jekyll and Hyde_ and _Treasure Island_. I will not
commit myself beyond this, but I anticipate from 65 to 70,000 words,
could almost pledge myself not shorter than 65,000, but won't. The tale
can be sent as soon as you have made arrangements; I hope to finish it
in a month; six weeks, bar the worst accidents, for certain. I should
say this is the butt end of what was once _The Pearl Fisher_. There is a
peculiarity about this tale in its new form: it ends with a conversion!
We have been tempted rather to call it _The Schooner Farallone: a tract
by R. L. S._ and _L. O._ It would make a boss tract; the three main
characters--and there are only four--are barats, insurance frauds,
thieves and would-be murderers; so the company's good. Devil a woman
there, by good luck; so it's "pure." 'Tis a most--what's the
expression?--unconventional work.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_At Sea, s.s._ Mariposa, _Feb. 19th, '93_.
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet
nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is
indeed one reason why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month's
lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we
get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though
we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a
whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle
and I floored another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no
sooner done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put myself
outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying of
consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. In the matter of
_David_, I have never yet received my proofs at all, but shall certainly
wait for your suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and
I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. This is doubtless
what you complain of. Indeed, I placed my single reliance on Miss Grant.
If she couldn't ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there.
About _Island Nights' Entertainments_ all you say is highly
satisfactory. Go in and win.
The extracts from the Times I really cannot trust myself to comment
upon. They were infernally satisfactory; so, and perhaps still more so,
was a letter I had at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time
as I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George Grey.
Now I really think that's all the business. I have been rather sick and
have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been
accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However,
you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appetite,
peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During
the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up,
pitched into, and about one half demolished another tale, once intended
to be called _The Pearl Fisher_, but now razeed and called _The Schooner
Farallone_.[59] We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at
sunrise, and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed
again. The manager of the German Firm (O strange, changed days!) danced
attendance upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and from the
steamer.
_Feb. 21st._--All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a day, but
afoot again and jolly; Fanny enormously bettered by the voyage; I have
been as jolly as a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits
opposite to me writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have just
supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and so left her in good
hands. You should hear me at table with the Ulster purser and a little
punning microscopist called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse
Boswell-ising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests
that would pay here, I observed, "Boswell is Barred during this cruise."
_23rd._--We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. All goes well
with the trio. Both the ladies are hanging round a beau--the same--that
I unearthed for them: I am general provider, and especially great in the
beaux business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny yesterday afternoon,
fell asleep over them in the saloon--and the whole ship seems to have
been down beholding me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whisky punch
and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; a
recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and had to go to the
saloon clock for the hour--no sign of dawn--all heaven grey rainy fog.
Have just had breakfast, written up one letter, register and close this.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Bad pen, bad ink, _S.S._ Mariposa, _at Sea_.
bad light, bad _Apia due by daybreak to-morrow,
blotting-paper. 9 p.m._ [_March 1st, 1893._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we
return in disarray. Fanny quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily
mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem
calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at
last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in
a perfectly airless state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy.
Poor Fanny had very little fun of her visit, having been most of the
time on a diet of maltine and slops--and this while the rest of us were
rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle's only devil in the hedge was
the dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches
at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like Saint Paul, all
things to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which I meant
to have enclosed in this.... Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a
medallion by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far
as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George Grey; what a
wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling
ancient events and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent
to which he approved what I had done--or rather have tried to
do--encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at least, he knows these
races: he is not a small employé with an ink-pot and a Whitaker.
Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even Fanny had some lively
sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through. We got Fanny a dress on
the sly, gaudy black velvet and Duchesse lace. And alas! she was only
able to wear it once. But we'll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it
really is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings,
etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am
now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I should change. Slovenly
youth, all right--not slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce;
always a white shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk socks, O a great
sight!--No more possible.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Of the books mentioned below, _Dr. Syntax's Tour_ and Rowlandson's
_Dance of Death_ had been for use in furnishing customs and manners
in the English part of _St. Ives_; _Pitcairn_ is Pitcairn's _Criminal
Trials of Scotland from 1488 to 1624_. As to the name of Stevenson
and its adoption by some members of the proscribed clan of Macgregor,
Stevenson had been greatly interested by the facts laid before him by
his correspondent here mentioned, Mr. Macgregor Stevenson of New
York, and had at first delightedly welcomed the idea that his own
ancestors might have been fellow-clansmen of Rob Roy. But further
correspondence on the subject of his own descent held with a trained
genealogist, his namesake Mr. J. Horne Stevenson of Edinburgh,
convinced him that the notion must be abandoned.
[_April 1893._]
... About _The Justice-Clerk_, I long to go at it, but will first try to
get a short story done. Since January I have had two severe illnesses,
my boy, and some heartbreaking anxiety over Fanny; and am only now
convalescing. I came down to dinner last night for the first time, and
that only because the service had broken down, and to relieve an
inexperienced servant. Nearly four months now I have rested my brains;
and if it be true that rest is good for brains, I ought to be able to
pitch in like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn, I hope to send you
some _Justice-Clerk_, or _Weir of Hermiston_, as Colvin seems to prefer;
I own to indecision. Received _Syntax_, _Dance of Death_, and
_Pitcairn_, which last I have read from end to end since its arrival,
with vast improvement. What a pity it stops so soon! I wonder is there
nothing that seems to prolong the series? Why doesn't some young man
take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall's _Decisions?_ I
remember as a boy that there was some good reading there. Perhaps you
could borrow me that, and send it on loan; and perhaps Laing's
_Memorials_ therewith; and a work I'm ashamed to say I have never read,
_Balfour's Letters_.... I have come by accident, through a
correspondent, on one very curious and interesting fact--namely, that
Stevenson was one of the names adopted by the Macgregors at the
proscription. The details supplied by my correspondent are both
convincing and amusing; but it would be highly interesting to find out
more of this.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
These notes are in reply to a set of queries and suggestions as to
points that seemed to need clearing in the tale of _Catriona_, as
first published in Atalanta under the title _David Balfour_.
_[Vailima] April 1893._
1. _Slip_ 3. Davie would be _attracted_ into a similar dialect, as he is
later--_e.g._ with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish.
4, _to lightly_; correct; "to lightly" is a good regular Scots verb.
15. See Allan Ramsay's works.
15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to
draw the character of Prestongrange. 'Tis a most curious thing to render
that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my
effect. And till the day he died, Davie was never sure of what P. was
after. Not only so; very often P. didn't know himself. There was an
element of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being
determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his
Barbara would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable.
That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot
_know_; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method condemns me to
give only the outside both of Prestongrange and his policy.
- -I'll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me they seem a part
of the story, which is historical, after all.
- -I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or where to say so? I
will try.
- -20, _Dean_. I'll try and make that plainer.
_Chap._ XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I could get the
pair--No, can't be.
- -XIV. All right, will abridge.
- -XV. I'd have to put a note to every word; and he who can't read Scots
can _never_ enjoy Tod Lapraik.
- -XVII. Quite right. I _can_ make this plainer, and will.
- -XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the broken back of
my story; some business briefly transacted, I am leaping for Barbara's
apron-strings.
_Slip_ 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.
_Chap._ XX. I shall make all these points clear. About Lady
Prestongrange (not _Lady_ Grant, only _Miss_ Grant, my dear, though
_Lady_ Prestongrange, quoth the dominie) I am taken with your idea of
her death, and have a good mind to substitute a featureless aunt.
_Slip_ 78. I don't see how to lessen this effect. There is really not
much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But I'll try.
- -89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.'s dialect is not
wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try for
another expression.
_The end._ I shall try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering
post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions
aroused by the letter, and careless gentleman, I told you so--or she did
at least.--Yes, the blood money.--I am bothered about the portmanteau;
it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape of the
pockmantie is historic....
To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece of workmanship.
David himself I refuse to discuss; he _is_. The Lord Advocate I think a
strong sketch of a very difficult character, James More, sufficient; and
the two girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came near losing
my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so constant as David, and even
he--well, he didn't know it, anyway! _Tod Lapraik_ is a piece of living
Scots: if I had never writ anything but that and _Thrawn Janet_, still
I'd have been a writer. The defects of _D. B._ are inherent, I fear. But
on the whole, I am far indeed from being displeased with the tailie. One
thing is sure, there has been no such drawing of Scots character since
Scott; and even he never drew a full length like Davie, with his
shrewdness and simplicity, and stockishness and charm. Yet, you'll see,
the public won't want it; they want more Alan! Well, they can't get it.
And readers of _Tess_ can have no use for my David, and his innocent but
real love affairs.
I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation. _Digito
monstrari_ is a new experience; people all looked at me in the streets
in Sydney; and it was very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white
chief in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an
ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters. If I lived in an
atmosphere of adulation, I should end by kicking against the pricks. O
my beautiful forest, O my beautiful shining, windy house, what a joy it
was to behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.
The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be attended to, and
the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan's danger of
arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.
_Easter Sunday._--I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the
chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of
the essence of the story, which is the story of a _cause célèbre_;
moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went
so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much
further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to
carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with
cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left
all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what
I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked
you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a
chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also
would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in
doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.
_Thursday, April 5th._--Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not
well, and we are miserably anxious....
_Friday, 7th._--I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at
once. A crape has been removed from the day for all of us. To make
things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen;
heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of
unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by
the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird.
You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has
such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am
as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank
God it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only
lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd:
Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and
bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad
leg. Eh, what a faim'ly!
_Sunday._--Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and
lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the
mend. The rain roars like the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange
and ominous suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless and
measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me cold, and yet is welcome.
I lie quiet in bed to-day, and think of the universe with a good deal of
equanimity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the
_fracas_ with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my
grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has
ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing
barefoot. No cars or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes
among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain
takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.
_April 16th._--Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn;
the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither you nor I can
take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I believe all right now; I too
am mending, though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is not
good for the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel to-night a baseless
anxiety to write a lovely poem _à propos des bottes de ma grand'mère,
qui etaient à revers_. I see I am idiotic. I'll try the poem.
_17th._--The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still,
however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage
her--but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox.
It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the
God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the
Antipodes. There is here some odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of
politics; we wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide
won't take the C. J. ship, unless the islands are disarmed; and that
England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly corroborated
by Sir George, I am writing no more letters. But I have put as many
irons in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. It did
not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an
expense to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the treachery of
it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used
to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!
_Thursday._--A general, steady advance; Fanny really quite chipper and
jolly--self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on _forests_ that are to
fall--and my finger on the axe, which wants stoning.
_Saturday_, 22.--Still all for the best; but I am having a heartbreaking
time over _David_. I have nearly all corrected. But have to consider
_The Heather on Fire_, _The Wood by Silvermills_, and the last chapter.
They all seem to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No
proof has been sent of the title, contents, or dedication.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
The reference in the postscript here is, I believe, to the Journals
of the Society for Psychical Research.
_Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 5th, 1893._
DEAR SIR,--You have taken many occasions to make yourself very agreeable
to me, for which I might in decency have thanked you earlier. It is now
my turn; and I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on
your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
That is the class of literature that I like when I have the toothache.
As a matter of fact, it was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the
volume up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know that the
cure was for the moment effectual. Only the one thing troubles me; can
this be my old friend Joe Bell?--I am, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--And lo, here is your address supplied me here in Samoa! But do
not take mine, O frolic fellow Spookist, from the same source; mine is
wrong.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The outbreak of hostilities was at this date imminent between Mulinuu
(the party of Laupepa, recognised and supported by the Three Powers)
and Malie (the party of Mataafa).
_[Vailima] 25th April [1893]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State)
an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring
them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have
a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir
George Grey put me on my mettle; "Never despair," was his word; and "I
am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that
is." Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great harm,
but yet I do not think so--for I think jealousy will prevent the trial
being made. And at any rate it is another chance for this distracted
archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique of fools. If, by the gift
of God, I can do--I am allowed to try to do--and succeed: but no, the
prospect is too bright to be entertained.
To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then by the new wood
paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing, with four native houses;
taro, yams, and the like, excellently planted, and old Folau--"the
Samoan Jew"--sitting and whistling there in his new-found and
well-deserved well-being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan thus
before the world. Further up, on our way home, we saw the world clear,
and the wide die of the shadow lying broad; we came but a little
further, and found in the borders of the bush a banyan. It must have
been 150 feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great
space; above that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns
and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread of the boughs
rose against the bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the
eastward. I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this vast
vegetable.
_Sunday._--A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when,
from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the
little wooden drum that beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now
and again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and is
gone.--The king of Samoa has refused my intercession between him and
Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a good riddance to me of a difficult
business, in which I might very well have failed. What else is to be
done for these silly folks?
_May 12th._--And this is where I had got to, before the mail arrives
with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter from yourself. Sir, that is
the sort of letter I want! Now, I'll make my little proposal.[60] I will
accept _Child's Play_ and _Pan's Pipes_. Then I want _Pastoral_, _The
Manse_, _The Islet_, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter
and beginning at I. Then the portrait of Robert Hunter, beginning
"Whether he was originally big or little," and ending "fearless and
gentle." So much for _Mem. and Portraits_. _Beggars_, sections I. and
II., _Random Memories_ II., and _Lantern Bearers_; I'm agreeable. These
are my selections. I don't know about _Pulvis et Umbra_ either, but must
leave that to you. But just what you please.
About _Davie_ I elaborately wrote last time, but still _Davie_ is not
done; I am grinding singly at _The Ebb Tide_, as we now call the
_Farallone_; the most of it will go this mail. About the following, let
there be no mistake: I will not write the abstract of _Kidnapped_; write
it who will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a clever fellow to
write both argument and story; I am not, _et je me récuse_.
We call it _The Ebb Tide: a Trio and Quartette_; but that secondary name
you may strike out if it seems dull to you. The book, however, falls in
two halves, when the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want
to know, and expect to finish on I suppose 110 or so; but it goes
slowly, as you may judge from the fact that this three weeks past, I
have only struggled from p. 58 to p. 82: twenty-four pages, _et encore_
sure to be re-written, in twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; not
much Waverley Novels about this!
_May 16th._--I believe it will be ten chapters of _The Ebb Tide_ that go
to you; the whole thing should be completed in I fancy twelve; and the
end will follow punctually next mail. It is my great wish that this
might get into The Illustrated London News for Gordon Browne to
illustrate. For whom, in case he should get the job, I give you a few
notes. A purao is a tree giving something like a fig with flowers. He
will find some photographs of an old marine curiosity shop in my
collection, which may help him. Attwater's settlement is to be entirely
overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see photographs of Fakarava: the
verandahs of the house are 12 ft. wide. Don't let him forget the Figure
Head, for which I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands just
clear of the palms on the crest of the beach at the head of the pier;
the flag-staff not far off; the pier he will understand is perhaps three
feet above high water, not more at any price. The sailors of the
_Farallone_ are to be dressed like white sailors of course. For other
things, I remit this excellent artist to my photographs.
I can't think what to say about the tale, but it seems to me to go off
with a considerable bang; in fact, to be an extraordinary work: but
whether popular! Attwater is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think
you will admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island ain't
a thing of beauty, I'll be damned. Please observe Wiseman and Wishart;
for incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe
the Captain and _Adar_; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see,
I'm a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil
himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And
indeed I'm only bragging for a change before I return to the darned
thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down. I break
down at every paragraph, I may observe; and lie here and sweat, till I
can get one sentence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after having
worked so easily for so long! Did ever anybody see such a story of four
characters?
_Later, 2.30._--It may interest you to know that I am entirely _tapu_,
and live apart in my chambers like a caged beast. Lloyd has a bad cold,
and Graham and Belle are getting it. Accordingly, I dwell here without
the light of any human countenance or voice, and strap away at _The Ebb
Tide_ until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can still come, but is gone to
glory now, or to her garden. Page 88 is done, and must be done over
again to-morrow, and I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can't
work on along when he has nothing else on earth to do! But I have
ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the bush presently to refresh
the machine; then back to a lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce
in this hand of fate; for I think another cold just now would just about
do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two last.
_May 18th._--My progress is crabwise, and I fear only IX. chapters will
be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88 again, and with half an idea of
going back again to 85. We shall see when we come to read: I used to
regard reading as a pleasure in my old light days. All the house are
down with the iffluenza in a body, except Fanny and me. The Iffluenza
appears to become endemic here, but it has always been a scourge in the
islands. Witness the beginning of _The Ebb Tide_, which was observed
long before the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by such
Napoleonic conquests. I am now of course "quite a recluse," and it is
very stale, and there is no amanuensis to carry me over my mail, to
which I shall have to devote many hours that would have been more
usefully devoted to _The Ebb Tide_. For you know you can dictate at all
hours of the day and at any odd moment; but to sit down and write with
your red right hand is a very different matter.
_May 20th._--Well, I believe I've about finished the thing, I mean as
far as the mail is to take it. Chapter X. is now in Lloyd's hands for
remarks, and extends in its present form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of
May, I see by looking back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time; so
that I have made 11 pages in nine livelong days. Well! up a high hill he
heaved a huge round stone. But this Flaubert business must be resisted
in the premises. Or is it the result of iffluenza God forbid. Fanny is
down now, and the last link that bound me to my fellow men is severed. I
sit up here, and write, and read Renan's _Origines_, which is certainly
devilish interesting; I read his Nero yesterday, it is very good, O,
very good! But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a
piece of character painting, excellent; but his method sheer lunacy. You
can see him take up the block which he had just rejected, and make of it
the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and the
result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wasting
time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus is always good, and the
blur that remains on the mind is probably just enough. I have been
enchanted with the unveiling of Revelations. Grigsby! what a lark! And
how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The Apostle John is
rather discredited. And to think how one had read the thing so often,
and never understood the attacks upon St. Paul! I remember when I was a
child, and we came to the Four Beasts that were all over eyes, the
sickening terror with which I was filled. If that was Heaven, what, in
the name of Davy Jones and the aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be?
Take it for all in all, _L'Antéchrist_ is worth reading. The _Histoire
d' Israël_ did not surprise me much; I had read those Hebrew sources
with more intelligence than the New Testament, and was quite prepared to
admire Ahab and Jezebel, etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been rather a hero
of mine; I mean since the years of discretion.
_May 21st._--And here I am back again on p. 85! the last chapter
demanding an entire revision, which accordingly it is to get. And where
my mail is to come in, God knows! This forced, violent, alembicated
style is most abhorrent to me; it can't be helped; the note was struck
years ago on the _Janet Nicoll_, and has to be maintained somehow; and
I can only hope the intrinsic horror and pathos, and a kind of fierce
glow of colour there is to it, and the surely remarkable wealth of
striking incident, may guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon
Browne is to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs of Papeete.
But mind, the three waifs were never in the town; only on the beach and
in the calaboose. By George, but it's a good thing to illustrate for a
man like that! Fanny is all right again. False alarm! I was down
yesterday afternoon at Papauta, and heard much growling of war, and the
delightful news that the C. J. and the President are going to run away
from Mulinuu and take refuge in the Tivoli hotel.
_23rd. Mail day._--_The Ebb Tide_, all but (I take it) fifteen pages, is
now in your hands--possibly only about eleven pp. It is hard to say. But
there it is, and you can do your best with it. Personally, I believe I
would in this case make even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne and
copious illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have finished with it;
then I go next to _D. Balfour_, and get the proofs ready: a nasty job
for me, as you know. And then? Well, perhaps I'll take a go at the
family history. I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And
then, I suppose, _Weir of Hermiston_, but it may be anything. I am
discontented with _The Ebb Tide_, naturally; there seems such a veil of
words over it; and I like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes
one has a longing for full colour and there comes the veil again. _The
Young Chevalier_ is in very full colour, and I fear it for that
reason.--Ever,
R. L. S.
TO S. R. CROCKETT
Glencorse Church in the Pentlands, mentioned by Stevenson with so
much emotion in the course of this letter, served him for the scene
of Chapter VI. in _Weir of Hermiston_, where his old associations and
feelings in connection with the place have so admirably inspired him.
_Vailima, Samoa, May 17th, 1893._
DEAR MR. CROCKETT,--I do not owe you two letters, nor yet nearly one,
sir! The last time I heard of you, you wrote about an accident, and I
sent you a letter to my lawyer, Charles Baxter, which does not seem to
have been presented, as I see nothing of it in his accounts. Query, was
that lost? I should not like you to think I had been so unmannerly and
so inhuman. If you have written since, your letter also has miscarried,
as is much the rule in this part of the world, unless you register.
Your book is not yet to hand, but will probably follow next month. I
detected you early in the Bookman, which I usually see, and noted you in
particular as displaying a monstrous ingratitude about the footnote.
Well, mankind is ungrateful; "Man's ingratitude to man makes countless
thousands mourn," quo' Rab--or words to that effect. By the way, an
anecdote of a cautious sailor: "Bill, Bill," says I to him, "_or words
to that effect_."
I shall never take that walk by the Fisher's Tryst and Glencorse. I
shall never see Auld Reekie. I shall never set my foot again upon the
heather. Here I am until I die, and here will I be buried. The word is
out and the doom written. Or, if I do come, it will be a voyage to a
further goal, and in fact a suicide; which, however, if I could get my
family all fixed up in the money way, I might, perhaps, perform, or
attempt. But there is a plaguey risk of breaking down by the way; and I
believe I shall stay here until the end comes like a good boy, as I am.
If I did it, I should put upon my trunks: "Passenger to--Hades."
How strangely wrong your information is! In the first place, I should
never carry a novel to Sydney; I should post it from here. In the second
place, _Weir of Hermiston_ is as yet scarce begun. It's going to be
excellent, no doubt; but it consists of about twenty pages. I have a
tale, a shortish tale in length, but it has proved long to do, _The Ebb
Tide_, some part of which goes home this mail. It is by me and Mr.
Osbourne, and is really a singular work. There are only four characters,
and three of them are bandits--well, two of them are, and the third is
their comrade and accomplice. It sounds cheering, doesn't it? Barratry,
and drunkenness, and vitriol, and I cannot tell you all what, are the
beams of the roof. And yet--I don't know--I sort of think there's
something in it. You'll see (which is more than I ever can) whether
Davis and Attwater come off or not.
_Weir of Hermiston_ is a much greater undertaking, and the plot is not
good, I fear; but Lord Justice-Clerk Hermiston ought to be a plum. Of
other schemes, more or less executed, it skills not to speak.
I am glad to hear so good an account of your activity and interests, and
shall always hear from you with pleasure; though I am, and must
continue, a mere sprite of the inkbottle, unseen in the flesh. Please
remember me to your wife and to the four-year-old sweetheart, if she be
not too engrossed with higher matters. Do you know where the road
crosses the burn under Glencorse Church? Go there, and say a prayer for
me: _moriturus salutat_. See that it's a sunny day; I would like it to
be a Sunday, but that's not possible in the premises; and stand on the
right-hand bank just where the road goes down into the water, and shut
your eyes, and if I don't appear to you! well, it can't be helped, and
will be extremely funny.
I have no concern here but to work and to keep an eye on this distracted
people. I live just now wholly alone in an upper room of my house,
because the whole family are down with influenza, bar my wife and
myself. I get my horse up sometimes in the afternoon and have a ride in
the woods; and I sit here and smoke and write, and rewrite, and destroy,
and rage at my own impotence, from six in the morning till eight at
night, with trifling and not always agreeable intervals for meals.
I am sure you chose wisely to keep your country charge. There a minister
can be something, not in a town. In a town, the most of them are empty
houses--and public speakers. Why should you suppose your book will be
slated because you have no friends? A new writer, if he is any good,
will be acclaimed generally with more noise than he deserves. But by
this time you will know for certain.--I am, yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Be it known to this fluent generation that I, R. L. S., in the
forty-third of my age and the twentieth of my professional life, wrote
twenty-four pages in twenty-one days, working from six to eleven, and
again in the afternoon from two to four or so, without fail or
interruption. Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us withal: such
was the facility of this prolific writer!
R. L. S.
TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
_Vailima, Samoa, May 29th, 1893._
MY DEAR GOD-LIKE SCULPTOR,--I wish in the most delicate manner in the
world to insinuate a few commissions:--
No. 1. Is for a couple of copies of my medallion, as gilt-edged and
high-toned as it is possible to make them. One is for our house here,
and should be addressed as above. The other is for my friend Sidney
Colvin, and should be addressed--Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the
Print Room, British Museum, London.
No. 2. This is a rather large order, and demands some explanation. Our
house is lined with varnished wood of a dark ruddy colour, very
beautiful to see; at the same time, it calls very much for gold; there
is a limit to picture frames, and really you know there has to be a
limit to the pictures you put inside of them. Accordingly, we have had
an idea of a certain kind of decoration, which, I think, you might help
us to make practical. What we want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very
much such as people play with), and all mounted on spikes like
drawing-pins; say two spikes to each letter, one at top, and I one at
bottom. Say that they were this height, I I and that you chose a model
of some really exquisitely fine, clear type from some Roman monument,
and that they were made either of metal or some composition gilt--the
point is, could not you, in your land of wooden houses, get a
manufacturer to take the idea and manufacture them at a venture, so that
I could get two or three hundred pieces or so at a moderate figure? You
see, suppose you entertain an honoured guest, when he goes he leaves his
name in gilt letters on your walls; an infinity of fun and decoration
can be got out of hospitable and festive mottoes; and the doors of every
room can be beautified by the legend of their names. I really think
there is something in the idea, and you might be able to push it with
the brutal and licentious manufacturer, using my name if necessary,
though I should think the name of the god-like sculptor would be more
germane. In case you should get it started, I should tell you that we
should require commas in order to write the Samoan language, which is
full of words written thus: la'u, ti'e ti'e. As the Samoan language uses
but a very small proportion of the consonants, we should require a
double or treble stock of all vowels, and of F, G, L, U, N, P, S, T, and
V.
The other day in Sydney, I think you might be interested to hear, I was
sculpt a second time by a man called ----, as well as I can remember and
read. I mustn't criticise a present, and he had very little time to do
it in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness of Mark
Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met with the devil of an accident. A
model of a statue which he had just finished with a desperate effort was
smashed to smithereens on its way to exhibition.
Please be sure and let me know if anything is likely to come of this
letter business, and the exact cost of each letter, so that I may count
the cost before ordering.--Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Relating the toilsome completion of _The Ebb Tide_, and beginning
of the account of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, in _History of a
Family of Engineers_.
_[Vailima] 29th May [1893]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still grinding at Chap. XI. I began many days ago on p.
93, and am still on p. 93, which is exhilarating, but the thing takes
shape all the same and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of
it. For XIII. is only a footnote _ad explicandum_.
_June the 1st._--Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it over
and condemned it.
_10 a.m._--I have worked up again to 97, but how? The deuce fly away
with literature, for the basest sport in creation. But it's got to come
straight! and if possible, so that I may finish _D. Balfour_ in time for
the same mail. What a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert out-done.
Belle, Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga down the coast; to be
absent a week or so: this leaves Fanny, me, and ----, who seems a nice,
kindly fellow.
_June 2nd._--I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, over-smoking, and
unremunerative overwork. Last night, I went to bed by seven; woke up
again about ten for a minute to find myself light-headed and altogether
off my legs; went to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly fit. I
have crippled on to p. 101, but I haven't read it yet, so do not boast.
What kills me is the frame of mind of one of the characters; I cannot
get it through. Of course that does not interfere with my total
inability to write; so that yesterday I was a living half-hour upon a
single clause and have a gallery of variants that would surprise you.
And this sort of trouble (which I cannot avoid) unfortunately produces
nothing when done but alembication and the far-fetched. Well, read it
with mercy!
_8 a.m._--Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the chapter
practically done at last. But Lord! it has been a business.
_June 3rd_, 8.15.--The draft is finished, the end of Chapter XII. and
the tale, and I have only eight pages _wiederzuarbeiten_. This is just a
cry of joy in passing.
10.30.--Knocked out of time. Did 101 and 102. Alas, no more to-day, as I
have to go down town to a meeting. Just as well though, as my thumb is
about done up.
_Sunday, June 4th._--Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday,
12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse and set
off. A boy opens my gate for me. "Sleep and long life! A blessing on
your journey," says he. And I reply "Sleep, long life! A blessing on the
house!" Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, narrow, winding way, that
seems almost as if it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see
the head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the road
I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic interview with him;
he wants me to pay taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not
till next year; and we part, _re infecta_, he promising to bring me
decisions, I assuring him that, if I find any favouritism, he will find
me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the island. Then I have a talk
with an old servant by the wayside. A little further I pass two children
coming up. "Love!" say I; "are you two chiefly-proceeding inland?" and
they say, "Love! yes!" and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to
the post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the
White Book, just arrived per _Upolu_, having gone the wrong way round,
by Australia; also six copies of _Island Nights' Entertainments_. Some
of Weatherall's illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! I
did say it was "shallow," but, O dear, not so shallow as that a man
could stand up in it! I had still an hour to wait for my meeting, so
Postmaster Davis let me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer
in, and read _A Gentleman of France_. Have you seen it coming out in
Longman's? My dear Colvin! 'tis the most exquisite pleasure; a real
chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas' and yet unlike. Thereafter to the
meeting of the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I have
to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.
_Monday, 5th._--Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Brown, secretary to the
Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made the war in the Western Islands
and was tried for his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long,
important talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home men! But
what would it matter? none of them know, none of them care. If we could
only have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more
troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the
natives, _qui paye de sa personne_, and is not afraid of hanging when
necessary. We don't want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, footering
German barons. That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be in it.
I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong, and shall have
to rewrite them. This tale is devilish, and Chapter XI. the worst of the
lot. The truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; but it's nearly
done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go against all my
gods, and say it is _not worth while_ to massacre yourself over the last
few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to
bits. As for _D. B._, no hope, I fear, this mail, but we'll see what the
afternoon does for me.
4.15.--Well, it's done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last finished, and I
have put away thirty-two pages of chips, and have spent thirteen days
about as nearly in Hell as a man could expect to live through. It's
done, and of course it ain't worth while, and who cares? There it is,
and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as grimy, and as
hateful.
_______________________________________
| |
| SACRED |
| |
| TO THE MEMORY |
| |
| OF |
| |
| J. L. HUISH, |
| |
| BORN 1856, AT HACKNEY, LONDON |
| |
| Accidentally killed upon this Island, |
| |
| 10th September 1889. |
|_______________________________________|
_Tuesday, 6th._--I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from
the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was standing out on the
little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through
me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I
literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew I had
found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and
particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these
identities of sensation, and the world of connotations implied;
highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet
clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable
bite of the whole thing at a man's heart, which is--or rather lies at
the bottom of--a story.
I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurévilly-an. I am. I have a great
delight in his Norman stories. Do you know the _Chevalier des Touches_
and _L'Ensorcelée_? They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the
past. But I was rather thinking just now of _Le Rideau Cramoisi_, and
its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the
home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without
doubt, _there_ was an identity of sensation; one of those conjunctions
in life that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent
his memory.
I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all good; and who can
tell me? and why should I wish to know? In so little a while, I, and the
English language, and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to
be a memory! And yet--and yet--one would like to leave an image for a
few years upon men's minds--for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind,
consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the excruciating _Ebb
Tide_. Adieu.
What do you suppose should be done with _The Ebb Tide_? It would make a
volume of 200 pp.; on the other hand, I might likely have some more
stories soon: _The Owl_, _Death in the Pot_, _The Sleeper Awakened_; all
these are possible. _The Owl_ might be half as long; _The Sleeper
Awakened_, ditto; _Death in the Pot_ a deal shorter, I believe. Then
there's the _Go-Between_, which is not impossible altogether. _The Owl_,
_The Sleeper Awakened_, and the _Go-Between_ end reasonably well; _Death
in the Pot_ is an ungodly massacre. O, well, _The Owl_ only ends well in
so far as some lovers come together, and nobody is killed at the
moment, but you know they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.[61]
_Friday, 9th._--Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book, depressing letter
from C.; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast masses of Romeike;
they _are_ going to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has
driven them to it but the persistent misconduct of these two officials?
I know I ought to rewrite the end of this bloody _Ebb Tide_: well, I
can't. _C'est plus fort que moi_; it has to go the way it is, and be
jowned to it! From what I make out of the reviews,[62] I think it would
be better not to republish _The Ebb Tide_: but keep it for other tales,
if they should turn up. Very amusing how the reviews pick out one story
and damn the rest! and it is always a different one. Be sure you send me
the article from Le Temps. Talking of which, ain't it manners in France
to acknowledge a dedication? I have never heard a word from Le Sieur
Bourget.
_Saturday, 17th._--Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole
chapter of my Grandfather, and read it to-night; it was on the whole
much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain't bad myself. 'Tis a third
writing, but it wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send you
3 chapters. That is to say _Family Annals_, _The Service of the Northern
Lights_, and _The Building of the Bell Rock._ Possibly even 4--_A
Houseful of Boys_. I could finish my Grandfather very easy now; my
father and Uncle Alan stop the way. I propose to call the book:
_Northern Lights: Memoirs of a Family of Engineers_. I tell you, it is
going to be a good book. My idea in sending MS. would be to get it set
up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan, Ardchapel,
Helensburgh--mark it private and confidential--one to yourself; and
come on with criticisms! But I'll have to see. The total plan of the
book is this--
I. Domestic Annals.
II. The Service of the Northern Lights.
III. The Building of the Bell Rock.
IV. A Houseful of Boys (or the Family in Baxter's Place).
V. Education of an Engineer.
VI. The Grandfather.
VII. Alan Stevenson.
VIII. Thomas Stevenson.
There will be an Introduction 'The Surname of Stevenson' which has
proved a mighty queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among
libraries.
_Sunday, 18th._--I shall put in this envelope the end of the
ever-to-be-execrated _Ebb Tide_, or Stevenson's Blooming Error. Also, a
paper apart for _David Balfour_. The slips must go in another enclosure,
I suspect, owing to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of
work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little more
of _David_, yet it was plainly to be seen it was impossible. All the
points indicated by you have been brought out; but to rewrite the end,
in my present state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would have
been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather is good enough
for me, these days. I do not work any less; on the whole, if anything, a
little more. But it is different.
The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what they should
be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of discontent with fiction in
all its form--or _my_ forms--that prevents me being able to be even
interested. I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop
also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take a glass of claret, I
have a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of your
trifles.
Well, sir, here's to you, and farewell.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
_June 10th, 1893._
MY DEAR GOSSE,--My mother tells me you never received the very long and
careful letter that I sent you more than a year ago; or is it two years?
I was indeed so much surprised at your silence that I wrote to Henry
James and begged him to inquire if you had received it; his reply was an
(if possible) higher power of the same silence; whereupon I bowed my
head and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was written and
sent; and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained, among other things,
an irrecoverable criticism of your father's _Life_, with a number of
suggestions for another edition, which struck me at the time as
excellent.
Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as before? It is
fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the
day. But, alas! when I see "works of the late J. A. S.,"[63] I can see
no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think,
three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it,
waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a
humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the
strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night,
and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I
am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light
lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I
thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write
an _In Memoriam_, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to
do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only
academician.
So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw it
announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not order
it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes,
honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to _carry_
your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according the
narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third person) is extreme.
That is one reason out of half a dozen why I so often prefer the first.
It is much in my mind just now, because of my last work, just off the
stocks three days ago, _The Ebb Tide_: a dreadful, grimy business in the
third person, where the strain between a vilely realistic dialogue and a
narrative style pitched about (in phrase) 'four notes higher' than it
should have been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe so--if
my head escaped, my heart has them.
The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand bemused at the
cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have dozens; I have at least four novels
begun, they are none good enough; and the mill waits, and I'll have to
take second best. _The Ebb Tide_ I make the world a present of; I
expect, and, I suppose, deserve to be torn to pieces; but there was all
that good work lying useless, and I had to finish it!
All your news of your family is pleasant to hear. My wife has been very
ill, but is now better; I may say I am ditto, _The Ebb Tide_ having left
me high and dry, which is a good example of the mixed metaphor. Our
home, and estate, and our boys, and the politics of the island, keep us
perpetually amused and busy; and I grind away with an odd, dogged, down
sensation--and an idea _in petto_ that the game is about played out. I
have got too realistic, and I must break the trammels--I mean I would if
I could; but the yoke is heavy. I saw with amusement that Zola says the
same thing; and truly the _Débâcle_ was a mighty big book, I have no
need for a bigger, though the last part is a mere mistake in my opinion.
But the Emperor, and Sedan, and the doctor at the ambulance, and the
horses in the field of battle, Lord, how gripped it is! What an epical
performance! According to my usual opinion, I believe I could go over
that book and leave a masterpiece by blotting and no ulterior art. But
that is an old story, ever new with me. Taine gone, and Renan, and
Symonds, and Tennyson, and Browning; the suns go swiftly out, and I see
no suns to follow, nothing but a universal twilight of the
demi-divinities, with parties like you and me and Lang beating on toy
drums and playing on penny whistles about glow-worms. But Zola is big
anyway; he has plenty in his belly; too much, that is all; he wrote the
_Débâcle_ and he wrote _La Bête humaine_, perhaps the most
excruciatingly silly book that I ever read to an end. And why did I read
it to an end, W. E. G.? Because the animal in me was interested in the
lewdness. Not sincerely, of course, my mind refusing to partake in it;
but the flesh was slightly pleased. And when it was done, I cast it from
me with a peal of laughter, and forgot it, as I would forget a Montépin.
Taine is to me perhaps the chief of these losses; I did luxuriate in his
_Origines_; it was something beyond literature, not quite so good, if
you please, but so much more systematic, and the pages that had to be
"written" always so adequate. Robespierre, Napoleon, were both excellent
good.
_June 18th, '93._--Well, I have left fiction wholly, and gone to my
Grandfather, and on the whole found peace. By next month my Grandfather
will begin to be quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as
good as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till further
notice or the next discovery. I like biography far better than fiction
myself: fiction is too free. In biography you have your little handful
of facts, little bits of a puzzle, and you sit and think, and fit 'em
together this way and that, and get up and throw 'em down, and say damn,
and go out for a walk. And it's real soothing; and when done, gives an
idea of finish to the writer that is very peaceful. Of course, it's not
really so finished as quite a rotten novel; it always has and always
must have the incurable illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of
slack and the miles of tedium. Still, that's where the fun comes in; and
when you have at last managed to shut up the castle spectre (dulness),
the very outside of his door looks beautiful by contrast. There are
pages in these books that may seem nothing to the reader; but you
_remember what they were, you know what they might have been_, and they
seem to you witty beyond comparison. In my Grandfather I've had (for
instance) to give up the temporal order almost entirely; doubtless the
temporal order is the great foe of the biographer; it is so tempting, so
easy, and lo! there you are in the bog!--Ever yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
With all kind messages from self and wife to you and yours. My wife is
very much better, having been the early part of this year alarmingly
ill. She is now all right, only complaining of trifles, annoying to her,
but happily not interesting to her friends. I am in a hideous state,
having stopped drink and smoking; yes, both. No wine, no tobacco; and
the dreadful part of it is that--looking forward--I have--what shall I
say?--nauseating intimations that it ought to be for ever.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, June 17th, 1893._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I believe I have neglected a mail in answering
yours. You will be very sorry to hear that my wife was exceedingly ill,
and very glad to hear that she is better. I cannot say that I feel any
more anxiety about her. We shall send you a photograph of her taken in
Sydney in her customary island habit as she walks and gardens and
shrilly drills her brown assistants. She was very ill when she sat for
it, which may a little explain the appearance of the photograph. It
reminds me of a friend of my grandmother's who used to say when talking
to younger women, "Aweel, when I was young, I wasnae just exactly what
ye wad call _bonny_, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'." I
would not venture to hint that Fanny is "no bonny," but there is no
doubt but that in this presentment she is "pale, penetratin', and
interestin'."
As you are aware, I have been wading deep waters and contending with the
great ones of the earth, not wholly without success. It is, you may be
interested to hear, a dreary and infuriating business. If you can get
the fools to admit one thing, they will always save their face by
denying another. If you can induce them to take a step to the right
hand, they generally indemnify themselves by cutting a caper to the
left. I always held (upon no evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or
intuition) that politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the
most random of human employments. I always held, but now I know it!
Fortunately, you have nothing to do with anything of the kind, and I may
spare you the horror of further details.
I received from you a book by a man by the name of Anatole France. Why
should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. He writes very
prettily, and then afterwards? Baron Marbot was a different pair of
shoes. So likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I am now perusing
with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best pages I remember
anywhere to have read. But Marbot and Vitrolles are dead, and what has
become of the living? It seems as if literature were coming to a stand.
I am sure it is with me; and I am sure everybody will say so when they
have the privilege of reading _The Ebb Tide_. My dear man, the grimness
of that story is not to be depicted in words. There are only four
characters, to be sure, but they are such a troop of swine! And their
behaviour is really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on a
retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them myself until the
yarn was finished. Well, there is always one thing; it will serve as a
touchstone. If the admirers of Zola admire him for his pertinent
ugliness and pessimism, I think they should admire this; but if, as I
have long suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man's art,
and only wallow in his rancidness like a hound in offal, then they will
certainly be disappointed in _The Ebb Tide_. Alas! poor little tale, it
is not _even_ rancid.
By way of an antidote or febrifuge, I am going on at a great rate with
my History of the Stevensons, which I hope may prove rather amusing, in
some parts at least. The excess of materials weighs upon me. My
grandfather is a delightful comedy part; and I have to treat him besides
as a serious and (in his way) a heroic figure, and at times I lose my
way, and I fear in the end will blur the effect. However, _à la grâce de
Dieu!_ I'll make a spoon or spoil a horn. You see, I have to do the
Building of the Bell Rock by cutting down and packing my grand-sire's
book, which I rather hope I have done, but do not know. And it makes a
huge chunk of a very different style and quality between Chapters II.
and IV. And it can't be helped! It is just a delightful and exasperating
necessity. You know, the stuff is really excellent narrative: only,
perhaps there's too much of it! There is the rub. Well, well, it will be
plain to you that my mind is affected; it might be with less. _The Ebb
Tide_ and _Northern Lights_ are a full meal for any plain man.
I have written and ordered your last book, _The Real Thing_, so be sure
and don't send it. What else are you doing or thinking of doing? News I
have none, and don't want any. I have had to stop all strong drink and
all tobacco, and am now in a transition state between the two, which
seems to be near madness. You never smoked, I think, so you can never
taste the joys of stopping it. But at least you have drunk, and you can
enter perhaps into my annoyance when I suddenly find a glass of claret
or a brandy-and-water give me a splitting headache the next morning. No
mistake about it; drink anything, and there's your headache. Tobacco
just as bad for me. If I live through this breach of habit, I shall be a
white-livered puppy indeed. Actually I am so made, or so twisted, that I
do not like to think of a life without the red wine on the table and the
tobacco with its lovely little coal of fire. It doesn't amuse me from a
distance. I may find it the Garden of Eden when I go in, but I don't
like the colour of the gate-posts. Suppose somebody said to you, you are
to leave your home, and your books, and your clubs, and go out and camp
in mid-Africa, and command an expedition, you would howl, and kick, and
flee. I think the same of a life without wine and tobacco; and if this
goes on, I've got to go and do it, sir, in the living flesh!
I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought the French were a
polite race? He has taken my dedication with a stately silence that has
surprised me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate my book[64] to the
nasty alien, and the 'norrid Frenchman, and the Bloody Furrineer? Well,
I wouldn't do it again; and unless his case is susceptible of
explanation, you might perhaps tell him so over the walnuts and the
wine, by way of speeding the gay hours. Sincerely, I thought my
dedication worth a letter.
If anything be worth anything here below! Do you know the story of the
man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter? "What do you
call that?" says he. "Well," said the waiter, "what d'you expect? Expect
to find a gold watch and chain?" Heavenly apologue, is it not? I
expected (rather) to find a gold watch and chain; I expected to be able
to smoke to excess and drink to comfort all the days of my life; and I
am still indignantly staring on this button! It's not even a button;
it's a teetotal badge!--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Saturday, 24th (?) June [1893]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yesterday morning, after a day of absolute temperance,
I awoke to the worst headache I had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was
said farewell to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to
be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for war to be
declared, or to blow finally off, living in the meanwhile in a kind of
children's hour of firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king
seen at night galloping up our road upon unknown errands and covering
his face as he passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded (when he
awakes) with fresh "white man's boxes" (query, ammunition?) and
professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of
bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the
coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and
rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind.
_Wednesday, 28 June._--Yesterday it rained with but little intermission,
but I was jealous of news. Graham and I got into the saddle about 1
o'clock and off down to town. In town, there was nothing but rumours
going; in the night drums had been beat, the men had run to arms on
Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm proved false. There were no
signs of any gathering in Apia proper, and the Secretary of State had no
news to give. I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then the
temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford and see the Mataafa
villages, where we heard there was more afoot. Off we rode. When we came
to Vaimusu, the houses were very full of men, but all seemingly unarmed.
Immediately beyond is that river over which we passed in our scamper
with Lady Jersey; it was all solitary. Three hundred yards beyond is a
second ford; and there--I came face to face with war. Under the trees on
the further bank sat a picket of seven men with Winchesters; their faces
bright, their eyes ardent. As we came up, they did not speak or move;
only their eyes followed us. The horses drank, and we passed the ford.
"Talofa!" I said, and the commandant of the picket said "Talofa"; and
then, when we were almost by, remembered himself and asked where we were
going. "To Faamuiná," I said, and we rode on. Every house by the wayside
was crowded with armed men. There was the European house of a Chinaman
on the right-hand side: a flag of truce flying over the gate--indeed we
saw three of these in what little way we penetrated into Mataafa's
lines--all the foreigners trying to protect their goods; and the
Chinaman's verandah overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. By
the way we met a party of about ten or a dozen marching with their guns
and cartridge-belts, and the cheerful alacrity and brightness of their
looks set my head turning with envy and sympathy. Arrived at Vaiusu, the
houses about the _malae_ (village green) were thronged with men, all
armed. On the outside of the council-house (which was all full within)
there stood an orator; he had his back turned to his audience, and
seemed to address the world at large; all the time we were there his
strong voice continued unabated, and I heard snatches of political
wisdom rising and falling.
The house of Faamuiná stands on a knoll in the _malae_. Thither we
mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, and we went in. Faamuiná was
there himself, his wife Palepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants;
and here again was this exulting spectacle as of people on their
marriage day. Faamuiná (when I last saw him) was an elderly, limping
gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright-eyed boy
that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts.
We stayed but a little while to smoke a selui; I would not have kava
made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous (perhaps even
blameworthy) enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, and on
coming to the ford, the commandant came and asked me if there were many
on the other side. "Very many," said I; not that I knew, but I would not
lead them on the ice. "That is well!" said he, and the little picket
laughed aloud as we splashed into the river. We returned to Apia,
through Apia, and out to windward as far as Vaiala, where the word went
that the men of the Vaimauga had assembled. We met two boys carrying
pigs, and saw six young men busy cooking in a cook-house; but no sign of
an assembly; no arms, no blackened faces. (I forgot! As we turned to
leave Faamuiná's, there ran forward a man with his face blackened, and
the back of his lava-lava girded up so as to show his tattooed hips
naked; he leaped before us, cut a wonderful caper, and flung his knife
high in the air, and caught it. It was strangely savage and fantastic
and high-spirited. I have seen a child doing the same antics long before
in a dance, so that it is plainly an _accepted solemnity_. I should say
that for weeks the children have been playing with spears.) Up by the
plantation I took a short cut, which shall never be repeated, through
grass and weeds over the horses' heads and among rolling stones; I
thought we should have left a horse there, but fortune favoured us. So
home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a bowl of
kava and dinner. But the impression on our minds was extraordinary; the
sight of that picket at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls
in my head; the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered like a
stallion.
It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and do nothing; I do
not know if I can stand it out. But you see, I may be of use to these
poor people, if I keep quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a
bad job of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you; and it
is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about one hour up; can I
go back to my old grandpapa, and men sitting with Winchesters in my
mind's eye? No; war is a huge _entraînement_; there is no other
temptation to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had been
about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home
like schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a
brightness of eye, as you could have lit a candle at!
Do you appreciate the height and depth of my temptation? that I have
about nine miles to ride, and I can become a general officer? and
to-night I might seize Mulinuu and have the C. J. under arrest? And yet
I stay here! It seems incredible, so huge is the empire of prudence and
the second thought.
_Thursday, 29th._--I had two priests to luncheon yesterday: the Bishop
and Père Rémy. They were very pleasant, and quite clean too, which has
been known sometimes not to be--even with bishops. Monseigneur is not
unimposing; with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks
splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads came up one after
another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it
did me good for a piece of pageantry. Rémy is very engaging; he is a
little, nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful of laughter
and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and our luncheon party went
off merrily--far more merrily than many a German spread, though with so
much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance of
the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined, he related to us (as
news) little stories from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His
comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought irreverent. "_Ah! il
connaissait son monde, allez!_" "_Il était fin, notre Seigneur!_" etc.
_Friday._--Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the International.
Heard there about the huge folly of the hour, all the Mulinuu
ammunition having been yesterday marched openly to vaults in Matafele;
and this morning, on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and
humiliatingly disinterred and marched back again. People spoke of it
with a kind of shrill note that did not quite satisfy me. They seemed
not quite well at ease. Luncheon over, we rode out on the Malie road.
All was quiet in Vaiusu, and when we got to the second ford, alas! there
was no picket--which was just what Belle had come to sketch. On through
quite empty roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to be seen; and at
last a drum and a penny whistle playing in Vaiusu, and a cricket match
on the _malae_! Went up to Faamuiná's; he is a trifle uneasy, though he
gives us kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that he has
an engagement with the Chief Justice at half-past two to sell a piece of
land. Is this the reason why war has disappeared? We ride back, stopping
to sketch here and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I ride on to
Public Hall Committee and pass an hour with my committees very heavily.
To the hotel to dinner, then to the ball, and home by eleven, very
tired. At the ball I heard some news, of how the chief of Letonu said
that I was the source of all this trouble, and should be punished, and
my family as well. This, and the rudeness of the man at the ford of the
Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that Faamuiná, as he
approached the first ford, was spoken to by a girl, and immediately said
good-bye and plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there was a
war party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we stopped to
sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums and the sound of a bugle
from that direction startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe
Mulinuu is (at least at present) incapable of any act of offence. One
good job, these threats to my home and family take away all my childish
temptation to go out and fight. Our force must be here, to protect
ourselves. I see panic rising among the whites; I hear the shrill note
of it in their voices, and they talk already about a refuge on the war
ships. There are two here, both German; and the _Orlando_ is expected
presently.
_Sunday, 9th July._--Well, the war has at last begun. For four or five
days, Apia has been filled by these poor children with their faces
blacked, and the red handkerchief about their brows, that makes the
Malietoa uniform, and the boats have been coming in from the windward,
some of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board--the bugle
always ill-played--and a sort of jester leaping and capering on the
sparred nose of the boat, and the whole crew uttering from time to time
a kind of menacing ululation. Friday they marched out to the bush; and
yesterday morning we heard that some had returned to their houses for
the night, as they found it "so uncomfortable." After dinner a messenger
came up to me with a note, that the wounded were arriving at the Mission
House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and rode off with a lantern; it was a
fine starry night, though pretty cold. We left the lantern at
Tanugamanono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, and myself,
in a strange state of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I
may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some sullen. The best
place in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame-house it was,
with a big table in the middle for operations, and ten Samoans, each
with an average of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke
was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled angel, showed
herself a real trump; the nice, clean, German orderlies in their white
uniforms looked and meant business. (I hear a fine story of Miss
Large--a cast-iron teetotaller--going to the public-house for a bottle
of brandy.)
The doctors were not there when I arrived; but presently it was observed
that one of the men was going cold. He was a magnificent Samoan, very
dark, with a noble aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, and
was surrounded by seven people, fondling his limbs as he lay: he was
shot through both lungs. And an orderly was sent to the town for the
(German naval) doctors, who were dining there. Meantime I found an
errand of my own. Both Clarke and Miss Large expressed a wish to have
the public hall, of which I am chairman, and I set off down town, and
woke people out of their beds, and got a committee together, and (with a
great deal of difficulty from one man, whom we finally overwhelmed) got
the public hall for them. Bar the one man, the committee was splendid,
and agreed in a moment to share the expense if the shareholders object.
Back to the hospital about 11.30; found the German doctors there. Two
men were going now, one that was shot in the bowels--he was dying rather
hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum, silent, with contorted
face. The chief, shot through the lungs, was lying on one side, awaiting
the last angel; his family held his hands and legs: they were all
speechless, only one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and "keened" for
the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went home, and to bed
about two A.M. What actually passed seems undiscoverable; but the
Mataafas were surely driven back out of Vaitele; that is a blow to them,
and the resistance was far greater than had been anticipated--which is a
blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indicate a long and bloody war.
Frank's house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with wounded; many dead
bodies were brought in; I hear with certainty of five, wrapped in mats;
and a pastor goes to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Laupepas
brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the great horror and
consternation of the native mind, one proved to be a girl, and was
identified as that of a Taupou--or Maid of the Village--from Savaii. I
hear this morning, with great relief, that it has been returned to
Malie, wrapped in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, and with an
apologetic embassy. This could easily happen. The girl was of course
attending on her father with ammunition, and got shot; her hair was cut
short to make her father's war head-dress--even as our own Sina's is at
this moment; and the decollator was probably, in his red flurry of
fight, wholly unconscious of her sex. I am sorry for him in the future;
he must make up his mind to many bitter jests--perhaps to vengeance. But
what an end to one chosen for her beauty and, in the time of peace,
watched over by trusty crones and hunchbacks!
_Evening._--Can I write or not? I played lawn tennis in the morning, and
after lunch down with Graham to Apia. Ulu, he that was shot in the
lungs, still lives; he that was shot in the bowels is gone to his
fathers, poor, fierce child! I was able to be of some very small help,
and in the way of helping myself to information, to prove myself a mere
gazer at meteors. But there seems no doubt the Mataafas for the time are
scattered; the most of our friends are involved in this disaster, and
Mataafa himself--who might have swept the islands a few months ago--for
him to fall so poorly, doubles my regret. They say the Taupou had a gun
and fired; probably an excuse manufactured _ex post facto_. I go down
to-morrow at 12, to stay the afternoon, and help Miss Large. In the
hospital to-day, when I first entered it, there were no attendants; only
the wounded and their friends, all equally sleeping and their heads
poised upon the wooden pillows. There is a pretty enough boy there,
slightly wounded, whose fate is to be envied: two girls, and one of the
most beautiful, with beaming eyes, tend him and sleep upon his pillow.
In the other corner, another young man, very patient and brave, lies
wholly deserted. Yet he seems to me far the better of the two; but not
so pretty! Heavens, what a difference that makes; in our not very well
proportioned bodies and our finely hideous faces, the 1-32nd--rather the
1-64th--this way or that! Sixteen heads in all at Mulinuu. I am so stiff
I can scarce move without a howl.
_Monday, 10th._--Some news that Mataafa is gone to Savaii by way of
Manono: this may mean a great deal more warfaring, and no great issue.
(When Sosimo came in this morning with my breakfast he had to lift me
up. It is no joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right arm in a
sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust business this is! On the 28th,
if Mataafa had moved, he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and
I fear he is now only the stick of a rocket.
_Wednesday, 12th._--No more political news; but many rumours. The
government troops are off to Manono; no word of Mataafa. O, there is a
passage in my mother's letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next
Christmas you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most
important, and must be understood at once. If it is next Christmas, I
could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold, and you would have to adopt
one of the following alternatives: 1st, either come straight on here and
pass a month with us; 'tis the rainy season, but we have often lovely
weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will meet you there. Hawaii is
only a week's sail from S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on
the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you
could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States--a
fortnight even--and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further
excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon
and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at
once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to
come on here. I'll tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet
you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea-sickness, I could
just come on board and we could return together to Samoa, and you could
have a month of our life here, which I believe you could not help
liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and some
of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright--the passage in my
mother's letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much
the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan.
I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we
could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and
you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life,
native foods, native houses--and perhaps be in time to see the German
flag raised, who knows?--and we could generally yarn for all we were
worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious to know
how the climate affected you. It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it
suits Graham, it suits all our family; others it does not suit at all.
It is either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is
at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to roost
early.
A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory; they washed the black
paint off, and behold! it was his brother. When I last heard he was
sitting in his house, with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous
war is an ugly business; but I believe the civilised is fully uglier;
but Lord! what fun!
I should say we now have definite news that there are _three_ women's
heads; it was difficult to get it out of the natives, who are all
ashamed, and the women all in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done
to punish or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false report
that the head had been returned.
_Thursday, 13th._--Maatafa driven away from Savaii. I cannot write about
this, and do not know what should be the end of it.
_Monday, 17th._--Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk) to lunch yesterday.
There is no real certain news yet: I must say, no man could _swear_ to
any result; but the sky looks horribly black for Mataafa and so many of
our friends along with him. The thing has an abominable, a beastly,
nightmare interest. But it's wonderful generally how little one cares
about the wounded; hospital sights, etc.; things that used to murder me.
I was far more struck with the excellent way in which things were
managed; as if it had been a peep-show; I held some of the things at an
operation, and did not care a dump.
_Tuesday, 18th._--Sunday came the _Katoomba_, Captain Bickford, C.M.G.
Yesterday, Graham and I went down to call, and find he has orders to
suppress Mataafa at once, and has to go down to-day before daybreak to
Manono. He is a very capable, energetic man; if he had only come ten
days ago, all this would have gone by; but now the questions are thick
and difficult. (1) Will Mataafa surrender? (2) Will his people allow
themselves to be disarmed? (3) What will happen to them if they do? (4)
What will any of them believe after former deceptions? The three consuls
were scampering on horseback to Leulumoega to the king; no Cusack-Smith,
without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up
here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the
able-bodied help of Lloyd--and dined. Then down in continual showers and
pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; not returned. Back to the inn
for my horse, and to C.-S.'s, when I find him just returned and he
accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And
to-day have been in a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my
wretched mail together. It is a hateful business, waiting for the news;
it may come to a fearful massacre yet.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO JAMES S. STEVENSON
This is addressed to a very remote cousin in quest of information
about the origins of the family.
_Vailima, Samoa, June 19th, 1893._
DEAR MR. STEVENSON,--I am reminded by coming across some record of
relations between my grandfather, Robert Stevenson, C.E., Edinburgh,
and Robert Stevenson, Esq., Secretary to the Royal Exchange, Glasgow,
and I presume a son of Hugh Stevenson who died in Tobago 16th April
1774, that I have not yet consulted my cousins in Glasgow.
I am engaged in writing a Life of my grandfather, my uncle Alan, and my
father, Thomas, and I find almost inconceivable difficulty in placing
and understanding their (and my) descent.
Might I ask if you have any material to go upon? The smallest notes
would be like found gold to me; and an old letter invaluable.
I have not got beyond James Stevenson and Jean Keir his spouse, to whom
Robert the First (?) was born in 1675. Could you get me further back?
Have you any old notes of the trouble in the West Indian business which
took Hugh and Alan to their deaths? How had they acquired so
considerable a business at an age so early? You see how the queries pour
from me; but I will ask nothing more in words. Suffice it to say that
any information, however insignificant, as to our common forbears, will
be very gratefully received. In case you should have any original
documents, it would be better to have copies sent to me in this
outlandish place, for the expense of which I will account to you as soon
as you let me know the amount, and it will be wise to register your
letter.--Believe me, in the old, honoured Scottish phrase, your
affectionate cousin,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Apia, July 1893._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Yes. _Les Trophées_ is, on the whole, a book.[65]
It is excellent; but is it a life's work? I always suspect _you_ of a
volume of sonnets up your sleeve; when is it coming down? I am in one of
my moods of wholesale impatience with all fiction and all verging on it,
reading instead, with rapture, _Fountainhall's Decisions_. You never
read it: well, it hasn't much form, and is inexpressibly dreary, I
should suppose, to others--and even to me for pages. It's like walking
in a mine underground, and with a damned bad lantern, and picking out
pieces of ore. This, and war, will be my excuse for not having read your
(doubtless) charming work of fiction. The revolving year will bring me
round to it; and I know, when fiction shall begin to feel a little
_solid_ to me again, that I shall love it, because it's James. Do you
know, when I am in this mood, I would rather try to read a bad book?
It's not so disappointing, anyway. And _Fountainhall_ is prime, two big
folio volumes, and all dreary, and all true, and all as terse as an
obituary; and about one interesting fact on an average in twenty pages,
and ten of them unintelligible for technicalities. There's literature,
if you like! It feeds; it falls about you genuine like rain. Rain:
nobody has done justice to rain in literature yet: surely a subject for
a Scot. But then you can't do rain in that ledger-book style that I am
trying for--or between a ledger-book and an old ballad. How to get over,
how to escape from, the besotting _particularity_ of fiction. "Roland
approached the house; it had green doors and window blinds; and there
was a scraper on the upper step." To hell with Roland and the
scraper!--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
_Vailima, July 12, 1893._
MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--The _White Company_ has not yet turned up; but
when it does--which I suppose will be next mail--you shall hear news of
me. I have a great talent for compliment, accompanied by a hateful,
even a diabolic frankness.
Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and Mrs. Doyle; Mrs.
Stevenson bids me say (what is too true) that our rations are often
spare. Are you Great Eaters? Please reply.
As to ways and means, here is what you will have to do. Leave San
Francisco by the down mail, get off at Samoa, and twelve days or a
fortnight later, you can continue your journey to Auckland per Upolu,
which will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the way. Make
this a _first part of your plans_. A fortnight, even of Vailima diet,
could kill nobody.
We are in the midst of war here; rather a nasty business, with the
head-taking; and there seems signs of other trouble. But I believe you
need make no change in your design to visit us. All should be well over;
and if it were not, why! you need not leave the steamer.--Yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_19th July '93._
... We are in the thick of war--see Illustrated London News--we have
only two outside boys left to us. Nothing is doing, and _per contra_
little paying.... My life here is dear; but I can live within my income
for a time at least--so long as my prices keep up--and it seems a clear
duty to waste none of it on gadding about. ... My Life of my family
fills up intervals, and should be an excellent book when it is done, but
big, damnably big.
My dear old man, I perceive by a thousand signs that we grow old, and
are soon to pass away; I hope with dignity; if not, with courage at
least. I am myself very ready; or would be--will be--when I have made a
little money for my folks. The blows that have fallen upon you are
truly terrifying; I wish you strength to bear them. It is strange, I
must seem to you to blaze in a Birmingham prosperity and happiness; and
to myself I seem a failure. The truth is, I have never got over the last
influenza yet, and am miserably out of heart and out of kilter. Lungs
pretty right, stomach nowhere, spirits a good deal overshadowed; but
we'll come through it yet, and cock our bonnets. (I confess with sorrow
that I am not yet quite sure about the _intellects_; but I hope it is
only one of my usual periods of non-work. They are more unbearable now,
because I cannot rest. _No rest but the grave for Sir Walter!_ O the
words ring in a man's head.)
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] August 1893._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Quite impossible to write. Your letter is due to-day; a
nasty, rainy-like morning with huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo
shadow on the sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly
give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or the only, powerful
member of the family; for some days she has been the Flower of the
Flock. Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been
down with "belly belong him" (Black Boy speech). As for me, I have to
lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be expected) had a smart but
eminently brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I have been
re-casting the beginning of the _Hanging Judge_ or _Weir of Hermiston_;
then I have been cobbling on my Grandfather, whose last chapter (there
are only to be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter of
inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) which one learns at
this trade, that somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and
glowering and re-writing, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope;
there is one piece for instance that I want in--I cannot put it one
place for a good reason--I cannot put it another for a better--and every
time I look at it, I turn sick and put the MS. away.
Well, your letter hasn't come, and a number of others are missing. It
looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so I'll blame nobody, and proceed to
business.
It looks as if I was going to send you the first three chapters of my
Grandfather.... If they were set up, it would be that much anxiety off
my mind. I have a strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my
ancestors' _souls_ in my charge, and might miscarry with them.
There's a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is needed. Still
Chapter I. seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III.
I know nothing of, as I told you. And Chapter IV. is at present all ends
and beginnings; but it can be pulled together.
This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this month, and I
may add that it is not only more than you deserve, but just about more
than I was equal to. I have been and am entirely useless; just able to
tinker at my Grandfather. The three chapters--perhaps also a little of
the fourth--will come home to you next mail by the hand of my cousin
Graham Balfour, a very nice fellow whom I recommend to you warmly--and
whom I think you will like. This will give you time to consider my
various and distracted schemes.
All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again as soon as the
war-ships leave. Adieu.
R. L. S.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
_Vailima, August 23rd, 1893._
MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--I am reposing after a somewhat severe
experience upon which I think it my duty to report to you. Immediately
after dinner this evening it occurred to me to re-narrate to my native
overseer Simelé your story of _The Engineer's Thumb_. And, sir, I have
done it. It was necessary, I need hardly say, to go somewhat farther
afield than you have done. To explain (for instance) what a railway is,
what a steam hammer, what a coach and horse, what coining, what a
criminal, and what the police. I pass over other and no less necessary
explanations. But I did actually succeed; and if you could have seen the
drawn, anxious features and the bright, feverish eyes of Simelé, you
would have (for the moment at least) tasted glory. You might perhaps
think that, were you to come to Samoa, you might be introduced as the
Author of _The Engineer's Thumb_. Disabuse yourself. They do not know
what it is to make up a story. _The Engineer's Thumb_ (God forgive me)
was narrated as a piece of actual and factual history. Nay, and more, I
who write to you have had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling
piece of fiction entitled _The Bottle Imp_. Parties who come up to visit
my unpretentious mansion, after having admired the ceilings by
Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a
certain uneasiness which proves them to be fellows of an infinite
delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a
speaking eye, and at last secret burst from them: "Where is the bottle?"
Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you will find it by the
Engineer's Thumb! Talofa-soifua.
O a'u, o lau uo moni, O Tusitala. More commonly known as
R. L. STEVENSON.
Have read the _Refugees_; Condé and old P. Murat very good; Louis xiv.
and Louvois with the letter bag very rich. You have reached a trifle
wide perhaps; too _many_ celebrities? Though I was delighted to
re-encounter my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your
high-water mark; 'tis excellently human, cheerful and real. Do it
again. Madame de Maintenon struck me as quite good. Have you any
document for the decapitation? It sounds steepish. The devil of all that
first part is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis XIV. is _distinctly
good_. I am much interested with this book, which fulfils a good deal,
and promises more. Question: How far a Historical Novel should be wholly
episodic? I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands with you
on old Murat.
R. L. S.
TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
Mr. St. Gaudens' large medallion portrait in bronze, executed from
sittings given in 1887, had at last found its way to Apia, but not
yet to Vailima.
_Vailima, September 1893._
MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--I had determined not to write to you till I had
seen the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends
or the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is
ours that halts--the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little
road on boys' backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this
work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the
horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to
say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and
the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the
well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So
you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the
medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days
longer; and hear me meanwhile on the golden letters.
Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is prohibitive. I
cannot do it. It is another day-dream burst. Another gable of Abbotsford
has gone down, fortunately before it was builded, so there's nobody
injured--except me. I had a strong conviction that I was a great hand
at writing inscriptions, and meant to exhibit and test my genius on the
walls of my house; and now I see I can't. It is generally thus. The
Battle of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making
preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself face to face
with invincible difficulties, in which the rapacity of a mercenary
soldiery and the complaints of an impoverished treasury played an equal
part.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I enclose a bill for the medallion; have been trying to find your
letter, quite in vain, and therefore must request you to pay for the
bronze letters yourself and let me know the damage.
R. L. S.
TO JAMES S. STEVENSON
_Vailima Plantation, Island of Upolu, Samoa, Sept. 4th, 1893._
MY DEAR COUSIN,--I thank you cordially for your kinsmanlike reply to my
appeal. Already the notes from the family Bible have spared me one
blunder, which I had from some notes in my grandfather's own hand; and
now, like the daughters of the horseleech, my voice is raised again to
put you to more trouble. "Nether Carsewell, Neilston," I read. My
knowledge of Scotland is fairly wide, but it does not include Neilston.
However, I find by the (original) Statistical Account, it is a parish in
Renfrew. Do you know anything of it? Have you identified Nether
Carsewell? Have the Neilston parish registers been searched? I see whole
vistas of questions arising, and here am I in Samoa!
I shall write by this mail to my lawyer to have the records searched,
and to my mother to go and inquire in the parish itself. But perhaps you
may have some further information, and if so I should be glad of it. If
you have not, pray do not trouble to answer. As to your father's blunder
of "Stevenson of Cauldwell," it is now explained: _Carse_well may have
been confounded with _Cauldwell_: and it seems likely our man may have
been a tenant or retainer of Mure of Cauldwell, a very ancient and
honourable family, who seems to have been at least a neighbouring laird
to the parish of Neilston. I was just about to close this, when I
observed again your obliging offer of service, and I take you promptly
at your word.
Do you think that you or your son could find a day to visit Neilston and
try to identify Nether Carsewell, find what size of a farm it is, to
whom it belonged, etc.? I shall be very much obliged. I am pleased
indeed to learn some of my books have given pleasure to your family; and
with all good wishes, I remain, your affectionate cousin,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The registers I shall have seen to, through my lawyer.
TO GEORGE MEREDITH
_Sept. 5th,1893, Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa._
MY DEAR MEREDITH,--I have again and again taken up the pen to write to
you, and many beginnings have gone into the waste paper basket (I have
one now--for the second time in my life--and feel a big man on the
strength of it). And no doubt it requires some decision to break so long
a silence. My health is vastly restored, and I am now living
patriarchally in this place six hundred feet above the sea on the
shoulder of a mountain of 1500. Behind me, the unbroken bush slopes up
to the backbone of the island (3 to 4000) without a house, with no
inhabitants save a few runaway black boys, wild pigs and cattle, and
wild doves and flying foxes, and many parti-coloured birds, and many
black, and many white: a very eerie, dim, strange place and hard to
travel. I am the head of a household of five whites, and of twelve
Samoans, to all of whom I am the chief and father: my cook comes to me
and asks leave to marry--and his mother, a fine old chief woman, who has
never lived here, does the same. You may be sure I granted the petition.
It is a life of great interest, complicated by the Tower of Babel, that
old enemy. And I have all the time on my hands for literary work.
My house is a great place; we have a hall fifty feet long with a great
redwood stair ascending from it, where we dine in state--myself usually
dressed in a singlet and a pair of trousers--and attended on by servants
in a single garment, a kind of kilt--also flowers and leaves--and their
hair often powdered with lime. The European who came upon it suddenly
would think it was a dream. We have prayers on Sunday night--I am a
perfect pariah in the island not to have them oftener, but the spirit is
unwilling and the flesh proud, and I cannot go it more. It is strange to
see the long line of the brown folk crouched along the wall with
lanterns at intervals before them in the big shadowy hall, with an oak
cabinet at one end of it and a group of Rodin's (which native taste
regards as _prodigieusement leste_) presiding over all from the top--and
to hear the long rambling Samoan hymn rolling up (God bless me, what
style)! But I am off business to-day, and this is not meant to be
literature.
I have asked Colvin to send you a copy of _Catriona_, which I am
sometimes tempted to think is about my best work. I hear word
occasionally of the _Amazing Marriage_. It will be a brave day for me
when I get hold of it. Gower Woodseer is now an ancient, lean, grim,
exiled Scot, living and labouring as for a wager in the tropics; still
active, still with lots of fire in him, but the youth--ah, the youth
where is it? For years after I came here, the critics (those genial
gentlemen) used to deplore the relaxation of my fibre and the idleness
to which I had succumbed. I hear less of this now; the next thing is
they will tell me I am writing myself out! and that my unconscientious
conduct is bringing their grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. I do not
know--I mean I do know one thing. For fourteen years I have not had a
day's real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have
done my work unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of
it, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by
coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it
seems to me I have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now,
have been rightly speaking since first I came to the Pacific; and still,
few are the days when I am not in some physical distress. And the battle
goes on--ill or well, is a trifle; so as it goes. I was made for a
contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be
this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I
have not failed, but I would have preferred a place of trumpetings and
the open air over my head.
This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to imitate me in that
if the spirit ever moves you to reply? And meantime be sure that away in
the midst of the Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the
name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory (since it must be
no more) is continually honoured.--Ever your friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my wife sends her most kind
remembrances to yourself.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which turned out
unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and other
correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully
giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his
forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell
in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken his
_Footnote to History_ much less kindly than his German neighbours on
the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and
destroyed and its publisher fined.
[_Vailima, and s.s. Mariposa, September 1893._]
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here is a job for you. It appears that about 1665, or
earlier, James Stevenson {in / of} Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston,
flourished. Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse the
parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back as far? Also
could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell? I expect it to have
belonged to Mure of Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell
charter chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry?
Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied reader on the
spot. Can I really have found the tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at
last? Souls of my fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have
drawn on you for £400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz announcing I
should bear one-half part of his fines and expenses, amounting to £62,
10s. The £400 includes £160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu
Manutagi--the vale of crying birds (the wild dove)--is now mine: it was
Fanny's wish and she is to buy it from me again when she has made that
much money.
Will you please order for me through your bookseller the _Mabinogion_ of
Lady Charlotte Guest--if that be her name--and the original of Cook's
voyages lately published? Also, I see announced a map of the Great North
Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly detailed, or has
any posting information, I should like it.
This is being finished on board the _Mariposa_ going north. I am making
the run to Honolulu and back for health's sake. No inclination to write
more.--As ever,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of _The Ebb Tide_, without
its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the
three detestable--or rather two detestable and one
contemptible--chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative
force and vividness of the treatment.
_[Vailima] 23rd August._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your pleasing letter _re The Ebb Tide_, to hand. I
propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd's name. He has nothing
to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning
of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather
unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work.
Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me
the most ugly and cynical of all.
You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not
because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that
surround me and that I choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer
and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white
to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on.
Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an
ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still
believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the
missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy
devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is....
Well, _il faut cultiver son jardin_. That last expression of poor,
unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to _St. Ives_.
_24th Aug._--And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep
ultimately and "a' the clouds has blawn away." "Be sure we'll have some
pleisand weather, When a' the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away."
Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe
had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a
most excellent humour.
I am deep in _St. Ives_ which, I believe, will be the next novel done.
But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw
in your face the very last thing you expect--or I expect. _St. Ives_
will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny
style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to
some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. _St. Ives_ is
unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the
adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story.
Speed his wings!
_Sunday night._--_De coeur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher
confrère, je me remets à vous écrire._ _St. Ives_ is now in the 5th
chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not
believe I shall end by disliking it.
_Monday._--Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is _very well_
indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits, but not _very_ well;
Lloyd is in good spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever
which has put her pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes
with him three chapters of _The Family_, and is to go to you as soon as
he can. He cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him
when you can and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six
months with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is
not--and not the dreams of dear old Ross.[66] He is a good fellow, is he
not?
Since you rather revise your views of _The Ebb Tide_, I think Lloyd's
name might stick, but I'll leave it to you. I'll tell you just how it
stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned
between us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to
do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the
projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My
impression--(I beg your pardon--this is a local joke--a firm here had on
its beer labels, "sole importers")--is that it will never be popular,
but might make a little _succès de scandale_. However, I'm done with it
now, and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what
I care.
Hole essential.[67] I am sorry about the maps; but I want 'em for next
edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the
bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not
write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work
of _falsification_ which a play demands is of all tasks the most
ungrateful? And I have done it a long while--and nothing ever came of
it.
Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic
and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less
sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I _would_ like you
to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it's a
wrench not to be planted in Scotland--that I can never deny--if I could
only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone
like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a
man who wrote the _Stickit Minister_,[68] and dedicated it to me, in
words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them.
"Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. _His_
heart remembers how." Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil
the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my
head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!
And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers,
I believe, my letters and Fanny's when we were first installed, and were
really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes,
asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape
gooseberries--galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a
week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the
gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful--for no one who has
not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As
for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a
month without leaving the verandah--for my sins, be it said! Doubtless,
when I go about and, as the Doctor says, "expose myself to malaria," I
am in far better health; and I would do so more too--for I do not mean
to be silly--but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much
the dear Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does
not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really
bothers us a little is the mosquito affair--the so-called
elephantiasis--ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural history,
_quoi_!
Hi! stop! you say _The Ebb Tide_ is the "working out of an artistic
problem of a kind." Well, I should just bet it was! You don't like
Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they're all there, I'll go bail.
Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a
weakness, that are gone through and lived out.
Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and
angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot
bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in
Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips--and the
women's heads taken--all under white auspices. And for upshot and result
of so much shame to the white powers--Tamasese already conspiring! as I
knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to
meddle in politics!
I suppose you're right about Simon.[69] But it is Symon throughout in
that blessed little volume my father bought for me in Inverness in the
year of grace '81, I believe--the trial of James Stewart, with the
Jacobite pamphlet and the dying speech appended--out of which the whole
of _Davie_ has already been begotten, and which I felt it a kind of
loyalty to follow. I really ought to have it bound in velvet and gold,
if I had any gratitude! and the best of the lark is, that the name of
David Balfour is not anywhere within the bounds of it. A pretty curious
instance of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at your good word for
_David_; I believe the two together make up much the best of my work and
perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of them, at least. There is
one hitch; instead of three hours between the two parts, I fear there
have passed three years over Davie's character; but do not tell anybody;
see if they can find it out for themselves; and no doubt his experiences
in _Kidnapped_ would go far to form him. I would like a copy to go to G.
Meredith.
_Wednesday._--Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start with
Graham next week and go to Honolulu to meet the other steamer and
return: I do believe a fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not
yet certain. The crowded _up_-steamer sticks in my throat.
_Tuesday, 12th Sept._--Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals
of Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the
_Katoomba_ come up, and they came, fourteen of 'em, with drum, fife,
cymbals and bugles, blue jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The
house was all decorated with scented greenery above and below. We had
not only our own nine out-door workers, but a contract party that we
took on in charity to pay their war-fine; the band besides, as it came
up the mountain, had collected a following of children by the way, and
we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive them. Chicken, ham, cake
and fruits were served out with coffee and lemonade, and all the
afternoon we had rounds of claret negus flavoured with rum and limes.
They played to us, they danced, they sang, they tumbled. Our boys came
in the end of the verandah and gave _them_ a dance for a while. It was
anxious work getting this stopped once it had begun, but I knew the band
was going on a programme. Finally they gave three cheers for Mr. and
Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched off playing--till a
kicking horse in the paddock put their pipes out something of the
suddenest--we thought the big drum was gone, but Simelé flew to the
rescue. And so they wound away down the hill with ever another call of
the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps the most
contented hosts that ever watched the departure of successful guests.
Simply impossible to tell how well these blue-jackets behaved; a most
interesting lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is making a
class, wholly apart--how shall I call them?--a kind of lower-class
public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent, sentimental as a
sailor. What is more shall be writ on board ship if anywhere.
Please send _Catriona_ to G. Meredith.
_S.S. Mariposa._--To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to your
honour.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had been
down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu, and Mrs.
Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him home.
_Waikiki, Honolulu, H. I., Oct. 23rd, 1893._
DEAR COLVIN,--My wife came up on the steamer and we go home together in
2 days. I am practically all right, only sleepy and tired easily, slept
yesterday from 11 to 11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 P.M., and
with an hour's interval slept till 6 A.M., close upon 14 hours out of
the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, though this has
been an interesting visit, and politics have been curious indeed to
study. We go to P.P.C. on the "Queen" this morning; poor, recluse lady,
_abreuvée d'injures qu'elle est_. Had a rather annoying lunch on board
the American man-of-war, with a member of the P.G. (provisional
government); and a good deal of anti-royalist talk, which I had to sit
out--not only for my host's sake, but my fellow guests. At last, I took
the lead and changed the conversation.
R. L. S.
I am being busted here by party named Hutchinson.[70] Seems good.
[_Vailima--November._]--Home again, and found all well, thank God. I am
perfectly well again and ruddier than the cherry. Please note that 8000
is not bad for a volume of short stories;[71] the _Merry Men_ did a good
deal worse; the short story never sells. I hope _Catriona_ will do; that
is the important. The reviews seem mixed and perplexed, and one had the
peculiar virtue to make me angry. I am in a fair way to expiscate my
family history. Fanny and I had a lovely voyage down, with our new C.J.
and the American Land Commissioner, and on the whole, and for these
disgusting steamers, a pleasant ship's company. I cannot understand why
you don't take to the Hawaii scheme. Do you understand? You cross the
Atlantic in six days, and go from 'Frisco to Honolulu in seven. Thirteen
days at sea _in all_.--I have no wish to publish _The Ebb Tide_ as a
book, let it wait. It will look well in the portfolio. I would like a
copy, of course, for that end; and to "look upon't again"--which I
scarce dare.
[_Later._]--This is disgraceful. I have done nothing; neither work nor
letters. On the Mé (May) day, we had a great triumph; our Protestant
boys, instead of going with their own villages and families, went of
their own accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for them on
purpose to complete the uniform, they having bought the stuff; and they
were hailed as they marched in as the Tama-ona--the rich man's children.
This is really a score; it means that Vailima is publicly taken as a
family. Then we had my birthday feast a week late, owing to diarrhoea
on the proper occasion. The feast was laid in the Hall, and was a
singular mass of food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef, 100 lbs. pork, and the
fruit and filigree in a proportion. We had sixty horse-posts driven in
the gate paddock; how many guests I cannot guess, perhaps 150. They came
between three and four and left about seven. Seumanu gave me one of his
names; and when my name was called at the ava drinking, behold, it was
_Au mai taua ma manu-vao!_ You would scarce recognise me, if you heard
me thus referred to!
Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I,
and drove in great style, with a native outrider, to the prison; a huge
gift of ava and tobacco under the seats. The prison is now under the
_pule_ of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in Servia
and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature, who is adored "by _his_
chiefs" (as he calls them) meaning _our_ political prisoners. And we
came into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank ava with
the prisoners and the captain. It may amuse you to hear how it is proper
to drink ava. When the cup is handed you, you reach your arm out
somewhat behind you, and slowly pour a libation, saying with somewhat
the manner of prayer, "_Ia taumafa e le atua. Ua matagofie le fesilafaga
nei._" "Be it (high-chief) partaken of by the God. How (high chief)
beautiful to view is this (high chief) gathering." This pagan practice
is very queer. I should say that the prison ava was of that not very
welcome form that we elegantly call spit-ava, but of course there was no
escape, and it had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I moralised
by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again? did she appreciate that if
we were in London, we should be _actually jostled_ in the street? and
there was nobody in the whole of Britain who knew how to take ava like a
gentleman? 'Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations--or, if you like,
of one civilisation and one barbarism. And, as usual, the barbarism is
the more engaging.
Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our {native / mortal} spot.
I just don't seem to be able to make up my mind to your not coming. By
this time, you will have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to
tell you something about us, and something reliable. I shall feel for
the first time as if you knew a little about Samoa after that. Fanny
seems to be in the right way now. I must say she is very, very well for
her, and complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down _sola_(at
least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I went a
walk up the mountain road--the great public highway of the island, where
you have to go single file. The object was to show Belle that gaudy
valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. If the road is to be
made and opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one of
the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point is this: I forgot I
had been three months in civilisation, wearing shoes and stockings, and
I tell you I suffered on my soft feet; coming home, down hill, on that
stairway of loose stones, I could have cried. O yes, another story, I
knew I had. The house boys had not been behaving well, so the other
night I announced a _fono_, and Lloyd and I went into the boys'
quarters, and I talked to them I suppose for half an hour, and Talolo
translated; Lloyd was there principally to keep another ear on the
interpreter; else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed all
their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; and one man's wages
I announced I had cut down by one half. Imagine his taking this smiling!
Ever since, he has been specially attentive and greets me with a face of
really heavenly brightness. This is another good sign of their really
and fairly accepting me as a chief. When I first came here, if I had
fined a man a sixpence, he would have quit work that hour, and now I
remove half his income, and he is glad to stay on--nay, does not seem to
entertain the possibility of leaving. And this in the face of one
particular difficulty--I mean our house in the bush, and no society, and
no women society within decent reach.
I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form.
HOUSE KITCHEN OUTSIDE
+ o _Sosimo_, provost + o _Talolo_, provost + o _Henry Simelé_,
and butler, and my and chief cook. provost and overseer
valet. of outside
+ o _Iopu_, second cook. boys.
o _Misifolo_, who
is Fanny and _Tali_, his wife, no _L[=u]_.
Belle's chamberlain. wages.
_Tasi Sele_.
_Ti'a_, Samoan cook.
_Maiele_.
_Feiloa'i_, his child,
no wages, likewise no _Pulu_, who is also
work--Belle's pet. our talking man
and cries the ava.
+ o _Leuelu_, Fanny's
boy, gardener, odd jobs.
IN APIA
+ _Eliga_, washman and
daily errand man.
The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti'a is the man who has
just been fined 1/2 his wages; he is a beautiful old man, the living
image of "Fighting Gladiator," my favourite statue--but a dreadful
humbug. I think we keep him on a little on account of his looks. This
sign o marks those who have been two years or upwards in the family. I
note all my old boys have the cross of honour, except Misifolo; well,
poor dog, he does his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. It is a
remark that has often been made by visitors: you never see a Samoan run,
except at Vailima. Do you not suppose that makes me proud?
I am pleased to see what a success _The Wrecker_ was, having already in
little more than a year outstripped _The Master of Ballantrae_.
About _David Balfour_ in two volumes, do see that they make it a
decent-looking book, and tell me, do you think a little historical
appendix would be of service? Lang bleats for one, and I thought I might
address it to him as a kind of open letter.
_Dec. 4th._--No time after all. Good-bye.
R. L. S.
TO J. HORNE STEVENSON
The following refers again to the introduction to the history of his
own family which Stevenson was then preparing under the title _A
Family of Engineers_. The correspondent was a specialist in
genealogical research. I give this letter as a sample of many which
passed between these two namesakes on this subject; omitting the
remainder as too technical to be of general interest.
_Vailima, Samoa, November 5th, 1893._
MY DEAR STEVENSON,--A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful
collections. Baxter--so soon as it is ready--will let you see a proof of
my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And
you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a
perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to an exile. My uncle's
pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course,
but they were tenants of the Mures; the farm held by them is in my
introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a
search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the
inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to
your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but
what you and we and old John Stevenson, "land labourer in the parish of
Dailly," came all of the same stock. Ayrshire--and probably
Cunningham--seems to be the home of the race--our part of it. From the
distribution of the name--which your collections have so much extended
without essentially changing my knowledge of--we seem rather pointed to
a British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must
be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to
walk about!--as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after
all, I am writing _this_ for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you
and other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!--Yours very
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--I have a different version of my grandfather's arms--or my
father had if I could find it.
R. L. S.
TO JOHN P----N
The next two numbers are in answer to letters of appreciation
received from two small boys in England, whose mother desires that
they should remain nameless.
_Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._
DEAR JOHNNIE,--Well, I must say you seem to be a tremendous fellow!
Before I was eight I used to write stories--or dictate them at
least--and I had produced an excellent history of Moses, for which I got
£1 from an uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you
have beaten me fairly on my own ground. I hope you may continue to do
so, and thanking you heartily for your nice letter, I shall beg you to
believe me yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO RUSSELL P----N
_Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._
DEAR RUSSELL,--I have to thank you very much for your capital letter,
which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother's. When you
"grow up and write stories like me," you will be able to understand that
there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen;
he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at
the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write
much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to
another--though I was not born in Ceylon--you're ahead of me
there).--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
_Vailima, December 5, 1893._
MY DEAREST CUMMY,--This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you
about _Noor's Day_. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you
remember when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry
me to the back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me
"A' the hills are covered wi' snaw,
An' winter's noo come fairly"?
There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how my mother is going
to stand the winter. It she can, it will be a very good thing for her.
We are in that part of the year which I like the best--the Rainy or
Hurricane Season. "When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it
is bad, it is horrid," and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven;
such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the
hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a
baby's breath, and yet not hot!
The mail is on the move, and I must let up.--With much love, I am, your
laddie,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall's "Decisions of
the Lords of Council, etc.," which suggested to Stevenson the romance
of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which, under the title
of _Heathercat_, he only lived to write the first few introductory
chapters (see vol. xxi. p. 177, of this edition).
_6th December 1893._
"_October 25, 1685._--At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the
King's Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a
clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet
Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the
way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle,
to produce her.... But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle's
son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen
years old." But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no
further.--FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.
"_May 6, 1685._--Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all,
and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving
security for 7000 marks."--i. 372.
No, it seems to have been _her_ brother who had succeeded.
MY DEAR CHARLES.--The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can
be thrown on it. I prefer the girl's father dead; and the question is,
How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to
"apprehend" and his power to "sell" her in marriage?
Or--might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles,
and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?
A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it
will be the corner-stone of my novel.
This is for--I am quite wrong to tell you--for you will tell others--and
nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish
and reappear again like shapes in the clouds--it is for _Heathercat_:
whereof the first volume will be called _The Killing Time_, and I
believe I have authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to
be called (I believe) _Darien_, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal
of truck:--
_Darien Papers_,
_Carstairs Papers_,
_Marchmont Papers_,
_Jerviswoode Correspondence_,
I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if
there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to
have--the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure
to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690-1700--a deuce of a want
of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of
Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also--I
am the daughter of the horseleech truly--"Black's new large map of
Scotland," sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can
get the
_Caldwell Papers_,
they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work--but no,
I must call a halt....
I fear the song looks doubtful, but I'll consider of it, and I can
promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether
or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it's an unco
business to supply deid-heid coapy.
TO J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima, Samoa, December 7th, 1893._
MY DEAR BARRIE,--I have received duly the _magnum opus_, and it really
is a _magnum opus_.[72] It is a beautiful specimen of Clark's printing,
paper sufficient, and the illustrations all my fancy painted. But the
particular flower of the flock to whom I have hopelessly lost my heart
is Tibby Birse. I must have known Tibby Birse when she was a servant's
mantua-maker in Edinburgh and answered to the name of Miss _Broddie_.
She used to come and sew with my nurse, sitting with her legs crossed in
a masculine manner; and swinging her foot emphatically, she used to pour
forth a perfectly unbroken stream of gossip. I didn't hear it, I was
immersed in far more important business with a box of bricks, but the
recollection of that thin, perpetual, shrill sound of a voice has echoed
in my ears sinsyne. I am bound to say she was younger than Tibbie, but
there is no mistaking that and the indescribable and eminently Scottish
expression.
I have been very much prevented of late, having carried out thoroughly
to my own satisfaction two considerable illnesses, had a birthday, and
visited Honolulu, where politics are (if possible) a shade more
exasperating than they are with us. I am told that it was just when I
was on the point of leaving that I received your superlative epistle
about the cricket eleven. In that case it is impossible I should have
answered it, which is inconsistent with my own recollection of the
fact. What _I_ remember is, that I sat down under your immediate
inspiration and wrote an answer in every way worthy. If I didn't, as it
seems proved that I couldn't, it will never be done now. However, I did
the next best thing, I equipped my cousin Graham Balfour with a letter
of introduction, and from him, if you know how--for he is rather of the
Scottish character--you may elicit all the information you can possibly
wish to have as to us and ours. Do not be bluffed off by the somewhat
stern and monumental first impression that he may make upon you. He is
one of the best fellows in the world, and the same sort of fool that we
are, only better-looking, with all the faults of Vailimans and some of
his own--I say nothing about virtues.
I have lately been returning to my wallowing in the mire. When I was a
child, and indeed until I was nearly a man, I consistently read
Covenanting books. Now that I am a grey-beard--or would be, if I could
raise the beard--I have returned, and for weeks back have read little
else but Wodrow, Walker, Shields, etc. Of course this is with an idea of
a novel, but in the course of it I made a very curious discovery. I have
been accustomed to hear refined and intelligent critics--those who know
so much better what we are than we do ourselves,--trace down my literary
descent from all sorts of people, including Addison, of whom I could
never read a word. Well, laigh i' your lug, sir--the clue was found. My
style is from the Covenanting writers. Take a particular case--the
fondness for rhymes. I don't know of any English prose-writer who rhymes
except by accident, and then a stone had better be tied around his neck
and himself cast into the sea. But my Covenanting buckies rhyme all the
time--a beautiful example of the unconscious rhyme above referred to.
Do you know, and have you really tasted, these delightful works? If not,
it should be remedied; there is enough of the Auld Licht in you to be
ravished.
I suppose you know that success has so far attended my banners--my
political banners I mean, and not my literary. In conjunction with the
Three Great Powers I have succeeded in getting rid of My President and
My Chief-Justice. They've gone home, the one to Germany, the other to
Souwegia. I hear little echoes of footfalls of their departing footsteps
through the medium of the newspapers....
Whereupon I make you my salute with the firm remark that it is time to
be done with trifling and give us a great book, and my ladies fall into
line with me to pay you a most respectful courtesy, and we all join in
the cry, "Come to Vailima!"
My dear sir, your soul's health is in it--you will never do the great
book, you will never cease to work in L., etc., till you come to
Vailima.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO R. LE GALLIENNE
_Vailima, Samoa, December 28th, 1893._
DEAR MR. LE GALLIENNE,--I have received some time ago, through our
friend Miss Taylor, a book of yours. But that was by no means my first
introduction to your name. The same book had stood already on my
shelves; I had read articles of yours in the Academy; and by a piece of
constructive criticism (which I trust was sound) had arrived at the
conclusion that you were "Log-roller." Since then I have seen your
beautiful verses to your wife. You are to conceive me, then, as only
too ready to make the acquaintance of a man who loved good literature
and could make it. I had to thank you, besides, for a triumphant
exposure of a paradox of my own: the literary-prostitute disappeared
from view at a phrase of yours--"The essence is not in the pleasure but
the sale." True you are right, I was wrong; the author is not the whore
but the libertine; and yet I shall let the passage stand. It is an
error, but it illustrated the truth for which I was contending, that
literature--painting--all art , are no other than pleasures, which we
turn into trades.
And more than all this, I had, and I have to thank you for the intimate
loyalty you have shown to myself; for the eager welcome you give to what
is good--for the courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects.
I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy;--and I have
written too many books. The world begins to be weary of the old booth;
and if not weary, familiar with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I
do not know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I am
sensitive indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read such criticism as
yours, I am emboldened to go on and praise God.
You are still young, and you may live to do much. The little artificial
popularity of style in England tends, I think, to die out; the British
pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the
shapeless, of the slapdash and the disorderly. There is trouble coming,
I think; and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil days.
Lastly, let me apologise for the crucifixion that I am inflicting on you
(_bien à contre-coeur_) by my bad writing. I was once the best of
writers; landladies, puzzled as to my "trade," used to have their honest
bosoms set at rest by a sight of a page of manuscript.--"Ah," they would
say, "no wonder they pay you for that";--and when I sent it in to the
printers, it was given to the boys! I was about thirty-nine, I think,
when I had a turn of scrivener's palsy; my hand got worse; and for the
first time, I received clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now. I
know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to correspondents; and
you would not believe the care with which this has been
written.--Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. A. BAKER
The next is in answer to a request for permission to print some of
the writings of R. L. S. in Braille type for the use of the blind.
_December 1893._
DEAR MADAM,--There is no trouble, and I wish I could help instead. As it
is, I fear I am only going to put you to trouble and vexation. This
Braille writing is a kind of consecration, and I would like if I could
to have your copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as Vols.
I. and II. of _The Adventures of David Balfour_. 1st, _Kidnapped_; 2nd,
_Catriona_. I am just sending home a corrected _Kidnapped_ for this
purpose to Messrs. Cassell, and in order that I may if possible be in
time, I send it to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted
the changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle Sauvage Yard,
Ludgate Hill.
I am writing to them by this mail to send you _Catriona_.
You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it is "a keen pleasure"
to you to bring my book within the reach of the blind.
Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me, sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
I was a barren tree before,
I blew a quenchèd coal,
I could not, on their midnight shore,
The lonely blind console.
A moment, lend your hand, I bring
My sheaf for you to bind,
And you can teach my words to sing
In the darkness of the blind.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Apia, December, 1893._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--The mail has come upon me like an armed man three
days earlier than was expected; and the Lord help me! It is impossible I
should answer anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over
_Catriona_ did me good, and still more the subtlety and truth of your
remark on the starving of the visual sense in that book. 'Tis true, and
unless I make the greater effort--and am, as a step to that, convinced
of its necessity--it will be more true I fear in the future. I _hear_
people talking, and I _feel_ them acting, and that seems to me to be
fiction. My two aims may be described as--
_1st._ War to the adjective.
_2nd._ Death to the optic nerve.
Admitted we live in an age of the optic nerve in literature. For how
many centuries did literature get along without a sign of it? However,
I'll consider your letter.
How exquisite is your character of the critic in _Essays in London_! I
doubt if you have done any single thing so satisfying as a piece of
style and of insight--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Recounting a scene of gratitude for bounty shown by him to the
prisoners in Apia gaol.
[_Vailima, December 1893._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--One page out of my picture book I must give you. Fine
burning day; 1/2 past two P.M. We four begin to rouse up from reparatory
slumbers, yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress: we
have had a party the day before, X'mas Day, with all the boys absent
but one, and latterly two; we had cooked all day long, a cold dinner,
and lo! at two our guests began to arrive, though dinner was not till
six; they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted.
Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on our horses and start off in
the hottest part of the afternoon to ride 4 1/2 miles, attend a native
feast in the gaol, and ride four and a half miles back. But there is no
help for it. I am a sort of father of the political prisoners, and have
_charge d'âmes_ in that riotously absurd establishment, Apia Gaol. The
twenty-three (I think it is) chiefs act as under gaolers. The other day
they told the Captain of an attempt to escape. One of the lesser
political prisoners the other day effected a swift capture, while the
Captain was trailing about with the warrant; the man came to see what
was wanted; came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my prisoner offers
to show him the dark cell, shoves him in, and locks the door. "Why do
you do that?" cries the former gaoler. "A warrant," says he. Finally,
the chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them!
The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a little room, and
three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a
fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable
end with the inscription _O le Fale Puipui_. It is on the edge of the
mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we
drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd
outside--I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people.
The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there seemed
to be a continuous circulation inside and out. The captain came to meet
us; our boy, who had been sent ahead was there to take the horses; and
we passed inside the court which was full of food, and rang continuously
to the voice of the caller of gifts; I had to blush a little later when
my own present came, and I heard my one pig and eight miserable
pine-apples being counted out like guineas. In the four corners of the
yard and along one wall, there are make-shift, dwarfish, Samoan houses
or huts, which have been run up since Captain Wurmbrand came to
accommodate the chiefs. Before that they were all crammed into the six
cells, and locked in for the night, some of them with dysentery. They
are wretched constructions enough, but sanctified by the presence of
chiefs. We heard a man corrected loudly to-day for saying "_Fale_" of
one of them; "_Maota_," roared the highest chief present--"palace."
About eighteen chiefs, gorgeously arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led
us into one of these _maotas_, where you may be sure we had to crouch,
almost to kneel, to enter, and where a row of pretty girls occupied one
side to make the ava (kava). The highest chief present was a magnificent
man, as high chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his face
is full of shrewdness and authority; his figure like Ajax; his name
Auilua. He took the head of the building and put Belle on his right
hand. Fanny was called first for the ava (kava). Our names were called
in English style, the high-chief wife of Mr. St--(an unpronounceable
something); Mrs. Straw, and the like. And when we went into the other
house to eat, we found we were seated alternately with chiefs about
the--table, I was about to say, but rather floor. Everything was to be
done European style with a vengeance! We were the only whites present,
except Wurmbrand, and still I had no suspicion of the truth. They began
to take off their ulas (necklaces of scarlet seeds) and hang them about
our necks; we politely resisted, and were told that the king (who had
stopped off their _siva_) had sent down to the prison a message to the
effect that he was to give a dinner to-morrow, and wished their
second-hand ulas for it. Some of them were content; others not. There
was a ring of anger in the boy's voice, as he told us we were to wear
them past the king's house. Dinner over, I must say they are moderate
eaters at a feast, we returned to the ava house; and then the curtain
drew suddenly up upon the set scene. We took our seats, and Auilua began
to give me a present, recapitulating each article as he gave it out,
with some appropriate comment. He called me several times "their only
friend," said they were all in slavery, had no money, and these things
were all made by the hands of their families--nothing bought; he had one
phrase, in which I heard his voice rise up to a note of triumph: "This
is a present from the poor prisoners to the rich man." Thirteen pieces
of tapa, some of them surprisingly fine, one I think unique; thirty fans
of every shape and colour; a kava cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua
conducted the business with weighty gravity; but before the end of the
thirty fans, his comments began to be humorous. When it came to a little
basket, he said: "Here was a little basket for Tusitala to put sixpence
in, when he could get hold of one"--with a delicious grimace. I answered
as best as I was able through a miserable interpreter; and all the
while, as I went on, I heard the crier outside in the court calling my
gift of food, which I perceived was to be Gargantuan. I had brought but
three boys with me. It was plain that they were wholly overpowered. We
proposed to send for our gifts on the morrow; but no, said the
interpreter, that would never do; they must go away to-day, Mulinuu must
see my porters taking away the gifts,--"make 'em jella," quoth the
interpreter. And I began to see the reason of this really splendid gift;
one half, gratitude to me--one half, a wipe at the king.
And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know this visit of mine
to the gaol was just a little bit risky; we had several causes for
anxiety; it _might_ have been put up, to connect with a Tamasese rising.
Tusitala and his family would be good hostages. On the other hand, there
were the Mulinuu people all about. We could see the anxiety of Captain
Wurmbrand, no less anxious to have us go, than he had been to see us
come; he was deadly white and plainly had a bad headache, in the noisy
scene. Presently, the noise grew uproarious; there was a rush at the
gate--a rush _in_, not a rush _out_--where the two sentries still stood
passive; Auilua leaped from his place (it was then that I got the name
of Ajax for him) and the next moment we heard his voice roaring and saw
his mighty figure swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the deuce
would have it, we could not understand a word of what was going on. It
might be nothing more than the ordinary "grab racket" with which a feast
commonly concludes; it might be something worse. We made what
arrangements we could for my tapa, fans, etc., as well as for my five
pigs, my masses of fish, taro, etc., and with great dignity, and
ourselves laden with ulas and other decorations, passed between the
sentries among the howling mob to our horses. All's well that ends well.
Owing to Fanny and Belle, we had to walk; and, as Lloyd said, "he had at
last ridden in a circus." The whole length of Apia we paced our
triumphal progress, past the king's palace, past the German firm at
Sogi--you can follow it on the map--amidst admiring exclamations of
"_Mawaia_"--beautiful--it may be rendered "O my! ain't they
dandy"--until we turned up at last into our road as the dusk deepened
into night. It was really exciting. And there is one thing sure: no such
feast was ever made for a single family, and no such present ever given
to a single white man. It is something to have been the hero of it. And
whatever other ingredients there were, undoubtedly gratitude was
present. As money value I have actually gained on the transaction!
Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott has already put his
nose in, in _St. Ives_, sir; but his appearance is not yet complete;
nothing is in that romance, except the story. I have to announce that I
am off work, probably for six months. I must own that I have overworked
bitterly--overworked--there, that's legible. My hand is a thing that
was, and in the meanwhile so are my brains. And here, in the very midst,
comes a plausible scheme to make Vailima pay, which will perhaps let me
into considerable expense just when I don't want it. You know the vast
cynicism of my view of affairs, and how readily and (as some people say)
with how much gusto I take the darker view?
Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome's paper, and let me see _The Ebb
Tide_ as a serial? It is always very important to see a thing in
different presentments. I want every number. Politically we begin the
new year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust which
may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to Baxter about his
proposal.[73]
FOOTNOTES:
[56] The correspondent whose letter I had sent on was a high official
at the Foreign Office: the subject, Stevenson and Samoa.
[57] Hemorrhage from the lungs.
[58] Vitrolle's _Mémoires_ and the "1814" and "1815" of M. Henri
Houssaye were sent accordingly.
[59] Ultimately _The Ebb Tide_.
[60] For a volume of selected _Essays_, containing the pick of
_Virginibus Puerisque_, _Memories and Portraits_, and _Across the
Plains_.
[61] _The Owl_ was to be a Breton story of the Revolution; _Death in
the Pot_, a tale of the Sta. Lucia mountains in California; the
scene of _The Go-Between_ was laid in the Pacific Islands; of _The
Sleeper Awakened_ I know nothing.
[62] Of _Island Nights' Entertainments_.
[63] John Addington Symonds.
[64] _Across the Plains._
[65] Volume of sonnets by José Maria de Hérédia.
[66] Dr. Fairfax Ross, a distinguished physician of Sydney, and
friend of the Stevenson family, who during a visit to England this
summer had conveyed to me no very reassuring impression as to the
healthfulness of the island life and climate.
[67] W. Hole, R.S.A.: essential for the projected illustrations to
_Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_.
[68] Mr. S. R. Crockett. The words quoted from this gentleman's
dedication were worked by Stevenson into a very moving and
metrically original set of verses, addressed to him in
acknowledgment (_Songs of Travel_, xlii.).
[69] Simon Fraser, the Master of Lovat, in _Catriona_: the spelling
of his name.
[70] The bust was exhibited in the New Gallery Summer Exhibition, 1895.
[71] _Island Nights' Entertainments._
[72] _The Window in Thrums_, with illustrations by W. Hole, R.S.A.
Hodder and Stoughton. 1892.
[73] The scheme of the Edinburgh Edition.
XIV
LIFE IN SAMOA--_Concluded_
FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END
JANUARY-DECEMBER 1894
This new year began for Stevenson with an illness which seemed to leave
none of the usual lowering consequences, and for Samoa with fresh
rumours of war, which were not realised until the autumn, and then--at
least in the shape of serious hostilities--in the district of Atua only
and not in his own. On the whole Stevenson's bodily health and vigour
kept at a higher level than during the previous year. But for serious
imaginative writing he found himself still unfit, and the sense that his
old facility had for the time being failed him caused him much inward
misgiving. In his correspondence the misgiving mood was allowed to
appear pretty freely; but in personal intercourse his high spirits
seemed to his family and visitors as unfailing as ever. Several things
happened during the year to give him peculiar pleasure: first, at the
beginning of the year, the news of Mr. Baxter's carefully prepared
scheme of the Edinburgh Edition, and of its acceptance by the publishers
concerned. On this subject much correspondence naturally passed between
him and Mr. Baxter and myself, over and above that which is here
published; and finally he resolved to leave all the details of the
execution to us. By the early autumn the financial success of the scheme
was fully assured and made known to him by cable; but he did not seem
altogether to realise the full measure of relief from money anxieties
which the assurance was meant to convey to him. Other pleasurable
circumstances were the return of Mr. Graham Balfour after a prolonged
absence; the visit of a spirited and accomplished young English man of
business and of letters, Mr. Sidney Lysaght (see below, pp. 385, 388,
etc.); and the frequent society of the officers of H.M.S. _Curaçoa_,
with whom he was on terms of particular regard and cordiality. Lastly,
he was very deeply touched and gratified by the action of the native
political prisoners, towards whom he had shown much thoughtful kindness
during their months of detention, in volunteering as a testimony of
gratitude after their release to re-make with their own hands the branch
road leading to his house: "the Road of Loving Hearts," as it came to be
christened. Soon afterwards, the anniversaries of his own birthday and
of the American Thanks-giving feast brought evidences hardly less
welcome, after so much contention and annoyance as the island affairs
and politics had involved him in, of the honour and affection in which
he was held by all that was best in the white community. By each
succeeding mail came stronger proofs from home of the manner in which
men of letters of the younger generation had come to regard him as a
master, an example, and a friend.
But in spite of all these causes of pleasure, his letters showed that
his old invincible spirit of inward cheerfulness was beginning not
infrequently to give way to moods of depression and overstrained
feeling. The importunity of these moods was no doubt due to some
physical premonition that his vital powers, so frail from the cradle and
always with so cheerful a courage overtaxed, were near exhaustion.
During the first months of the year he attempted little writing; in the
late spring and early summer his work was chiefly on the annals of his
family and on the tale _St. Ives_. The latter he found uphill work:
after the first ten or twelve chapters, which are in his happiest vein,
the narrative, as he himself was painfully aware, began to flag. Towards
the end of October he gave it up for the time being and turned to a more
arduous task, the tragic _Weir of Hermiston_. On this theme he felt his
inspiration return, and during the month of November and the first days
of December wrought once more at the full pitch of his powers and in the
conscious delight of their exercise. On the third of December, after a
morning of happy work and pleasant correspondence, he was seen gazing
long and wistfully toward the forest-clad mountain, on a ledge of which
he had desired that he should be buried. In the afternoon he brought his
morning's work to his wife, the most exacting of his critics; asked her
whether it was not well done; and in her glow of admiring assent found
his confirmation and his reward. Nevertheless she could not throw off an
oppressive sense of coming calamity. He was reassuring her with gay and
laughing talk when the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain
laid him almost in a moment unconscious at her feet; and before two
hours were over he had passed away. All the world knows how his body was
carried by the loving hands of his native servants to the burial-place
of his choice, and rests there with the words of his own requiem
engraved on his tomb--the words which we have seen him putting on paper
when he was at grips with death fifteen years before in California--
"Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Mr. Baxter, after much preliminary consideration and inquiry, had
matured and submitted to Stevenson the scheme of the Edinburgh
edition, to which this letter is his reply. The paper on _Treasure
Island_ appeared in the Idler for August 1889, and was afterwards
reprinted in the miscellany _My First Book_ (Chatto and Windus,
1894). See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. p. 285.
_1st January '94._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am delighted with your idea, and first, I will here
give an amended plan and afterwards give you a note of some of the
difficulties.
[Plan of the Edinburgh edition--14 vols.]
... It may be a question whether my Times letters might not be appended
to the _Footnote_ with a note of the dates of discharge of Cedercrantz
and Pilsach.
I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to
a dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any
rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am
well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I'm heard of
again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the
text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know
how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on
_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_--I
have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with
the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David
Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don't think I could say
anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don't want to. But it is probable I
could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I
can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend
_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _À propos_, if I were to
get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the
public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools
might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay
expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply
photographs of the illustrations--and the poems are of Vailima and the
family--I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.
R. L. S.
TO H. B. BAILDON
_Vailima, January 15th, 1894._
MY DEAR BAILDON,--Last mail brought your book and its Dedication.
"Frederick Street and the gardens, and the short-lived Jack o' Lantern,"
are again with me--and the note of the east wind, and Froebel's voice,
and the smell of soup in Thomson's stair. Truly, you had no need to put
yourself under the protection of any other saint, were that saint our
Tamate himself! Yourself were enough, and yourself coming with so rich a
sheaf.
For what is this that you say about the Muses? They have certainly never
better inspired you than in "Jael and Sisera," and "Herodias and John
the Baptist," good stout poems, fiery and sound. "'Tis but a mask and
behind it chuckles the God of the Garden," I shall never forget. By the
by, an error of the press, page 49, line 4, "No infant's lesson are the
ways of God." _The_ is dropped.
And this reminds me you have a bad habit which is to be comminated in my
theory of letters. Same page, two lines lower: "But the vulture's track"
is surely as fine to the ear as "But vulture's track," and this latter
version has a dreadful baldness. The reader goes on with a sense of
impoverishment, of unnecessary sacrifice; he has been robbed by
footpads, and goes scouting for his lost article! Again, in the second
Epode, these fine verses would surely sound much finer if they began,
"As a hardy climber who has set his heart," than with the jejune "As
hardy climber." I do not know why you permit yourself this licence with
grammar; you show, in so many pages, that you are superior to the paltry
sense of rhythm which usually dictates it--as though some poetaster had
been suffered to correct the poet's text. By the way, I confess to a
heartfelt weakness for _Auriculas_.--Believe me the very grateful and
characteristic pick-thank, but still sincere and affectionate,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. H. LOW
_Vailima, January 15th, 1894._
MY DEAR LOW,-- ... Pray you, stoop your proud head, and sell yourself to
some Jew magazine, and make the visit out. I assure you, this is the
spot for a sculptor or painter. This, and no other--I don't say to stay
there, but to come once and get the living colour into them. I am used
to it; I do not notice it; rather prefer my grey, freezing recollections
of Scotland; but there it is, and every morning is a thing to give
thanks for, and every night another--bar when it rains, of course.
About _The Wrecker_--rather late days, and I still suspect I had somehow
offended you; however, all's well that ends well, and I am glad I am
forgiven--did you not fail to appreciate the attitude of Dodd? He was a
fizzle and a stick, he knew it, he knew nothing else, and there is an
undercurrent of bitterness in him. And then the problem that Pinkerton
laid down: why the artist can _do nothing else_? is one that continually
exercises myself. He cannot: granted. But Scott could. And Montaigne.
And Julius Caesar. And many more. And why can't R. L. S.? Does it not
amaze you? It does me. I think of the Renaissance fellows, and their
all-round human sufficiency, and compare it with the ineffable smallness
of the field in which we labour and in which we do so little. I think
_David Balfour_ a nice little book, and very artistic, and just the
thing to occupy the leisure of a busy man; but for the top flower of a
man's life it seems to me inadequate. Small is the word; it is a small
age, and I am of it. I could have wished to be otherwise busy in this
world. I ought to have been able to build lighthouses and write _David
Balfours_ too. _Hinc illae lacrymae._ I take my own case as most handy,
but it is as illustrative of my quarrel with the age. We take all these
pains, and we don't do as well as Michael Angelo or Leonardo, or even
Fielding, who was an active magistrate, or Richardson, who was a busy
bookseller. _J'ai honte pour nous_; my ears burn.
I am amazed at the effect which this Chicago exhibition has produced
upon you and others. It set Mrs. Fairchild literally mad--to judge by
her letters. And I wish I had seen anything so influential. I suppose
there was an aura, a halo, some sort of effulgency about the place; for
here I find you louder than the rest. Well, it may be there is a time
coming; and I wonder, when it comes, whether it will be a time of
little, exclusive, one-eyed rascals like you and me, or parties of the
old stamp who can paint and fight, and write and keep books of double
entry, and sculp, and scalp. It might be. You have a lot of stuff in the
kettle, and a great deal of it Celtic. I have changed my mind
progressively about England: practically the whole of Scotland is
Celtic, and the western half of England, and all Ireland, and the Celtic
blood makes a rare blend for art. If it is stiffened up with Latin
blood, you get the French. We were less lucky: we had only
Scandinavians, themselves decidedly artistic, and the Low-German lot.
However, that is a good starting-point, and with all the other elements
in your crucible, it may come to something great very easily. I wish you
would hurry up and let me see it. Here is a long while I have been
waiting for something _good_ in art; and what have I seen? Zola's
_Débâcle_ and a few of Kipling's tales. Are you a reader of Barbey
d'Aurévilly? He is a never-failing source of pleasure to me, for my
sins, I suppose. What a work is the _Rideau Cramoisi!_ and
_L'Ensorcelée!_ and _Le Chevalier Des Touches!_
This is degenerating into mere twaddle. So please remember us all most
kindly to Mrs. Low, and believe me ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Were all your privateers voiceless in the war of 1812? Did _no
one_ of them write memoirs? I shall have to do my privateer from chic,
if you can't help me.[74] My application to Scribner has been quite in
vain. See if you can get hold of some historic sharp in the club, and
tap him; they must some of them have written memoirs or notes of some
sort; perhaps still unprinted; if that be so, get them copied for me.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima, Jan. 29th, 1894._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I had fully intended for your education and moral
health to fob you off with the meanest possible letter this month, and
unfortunately I find I will have to treat you to a good long account of
matters here. I believe I have told you before about Tui-ma-le-alii-fano
and my taking him down to introduce him to the Chief Justice. Well, Tui
came back to Vailima one day in the blackest sort of spirits, saying the
war was decided, that he also must join in the fight, and that there was
no hope whatever of success. He must fight as a point of honour for his
family and country; and in his case, even if he escaped on the field of
battle, deportation was the least to be looked for. He said he had a
letter of complaint from the Great Council of A'ana which he wished to
lay before the Chief Justice; and he asked me to accompany him as if I
were his nurse. We went down about dinner time; and by the way received
from a lurking native the famous letter in an official blue envelope
gummed up to the edges. It proved to be a declaration of war, quite
formal, but with some variations that really made you bounce. White
residents were directly threatened, bidden to have nothing to do with
the King's party, not to receive their goods in their houses, etc.,
under pain of an accident. However, the Chief Justice took it very
wisely and mildly, and between us, he and I and Tui made up a plan which
has proved successful--so far. The war is over--fifteen chiefs are this
morning undergoing a curious double process of law, comparable to a
court martial; in which their complaints are to be considered, and if
possible righted, while their conduct is to be criticised, perhaps
punished. Up to now, therefore, it has been a most successful policy;
but the danger is before us. My own feeling would decidedly be that all
would be spoiled by a single execution. The great hope after all lies in
the knotless, rather flaccid character of the people. These are no
Maoris. All the powers that Cedercrantz let go by disuse the new C. J.
is stealthily and boldly taking back again; perhaps some others also. He
has shamed the chiefs in Mulinuu into a law against taking heads, with a
punishment of six years' imprisonment and, for a chief, degradation. To
him has been left the sole conduct of this anxious and decisive inquiry.
If the natives stand it, why, well! But I am nervous.
TO H. B. BAILDON
_Vailima, January 30th, 1894._
MY DEAR BAILDON,--"Call not blessed."--Yes, if I could die just now, or
say in half a year, I should have had a splendid time of it on the
whole. But it gets a little stale, and my work will begin to senesce;
and parties to shy bricks at me; and now it begins to look as if I
should survive to see myself impotent and forgotten. It's a pity suicide
is not thought the ticket in the best circles.
But your letter goes on to congratulate me on having done the one thing
I am a little sorry for; a little--not much--for my father himself lived
to think that I had been wiser than he. But the cream of the jest is
that I have lived to change my mind; and think that he was wiser than I.
Had I been an engineer, and literature my amusement, it would have been
better perhaps. I pulled it off, of course, I won the wager, and it is
pleasant while it lasts; but how long will it last? I don't know, say
the Bells of Old Bow.
All of which goes to show that nobody is quite sane in judging himself.
Truly, had I given way and gone in for engineering, I should be dead by
now. Well, the gods know best.
... I hope you got my letter about the _Rescue_.--Adieu.
R. L. S.
True for you about the benefit: except by kisses, jests, song, _et hoc
genus omne_, man _cannot_ convey benefit to another. The universal
benefactor has been there before him.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Feb. 1894._
DEAR COLVIN,--By a reaction, when your letter is a little decent, mine
is to be naked and unashamed. We have been much exercised. No one can
prophesy here, of course, and the balance still hangs trembling, but I
_think_ it will go for peace.
The mail was very late this time: hence the paltriness of this note.
When it came and I had read it, I retired with _The Ebb Tide_ and read
it all before I slept. I did not dream it was near as good; I am afraid
I think it excellent. A little indecision about Attwater, not much. It
gives me great hope, as I see I _can_ work in that constipated, mosaic
manner, which is what I have to do just now with _Weir of Hermiston_.
We have given a ball; I send you a paper describing the event. We have
two guests in the house, Captain-Count Wurmbrand and Monsieur Albert de
Lautreppe. Lautreppe is awfully nice--a quiet, gentlemanly fellow,
_gonflé de rêves_, as he describes himself--once a sculptor in the
atelier of Henry Crosse, he knows something of art, and is really a
resource to me.
Letter from Meredith very kind. Have you seen no more of Graham?
What about my Grandfather? The family history will grow to be quite a
chapter.
I suppose I am growing sensitive; perhaps, by living among barbarians, I
expect more civility. Look at this from the author of a very interesting
and laudatory critique. He gives quite a false description of something
of mine, and talks about my "insolence." Frankly, I supposed "insolence"
to be a tapu word. I do not use it to a gentleman, I would not write it
of a gentleman: I may be wrong, but I believe we did not write it of a
gentleman in old days, and in my view he (clever fellow as he is) wants
to be kicked for applying it to me. By writing a novel--even a bad
one--I do not make myself a criminal for anybody to insult. This may
amuse you. But either there is a change in journalism, too gradual for
you to remark it on the spot, or there is a change in me. I cannot bear
these phrases; I long to resent them. My forbears, the tenant farmers of
the Mures, would not have suffered such expressions unless it had been
from Cauldwell, or Rowallan, or maybe Auchendrane. My Family Pride
bristles. I am like the negro, "I just heard last night" who my great,
great, great, great grandfather was.--Ever yours,
R. L. S.
TO J. H. BATES
The next is to a correspondent in Cincinnati, who had been the
founder of an R. L. S. Society in that city, "originally," he writes
me, under date April 7, 1895, "the outcome of a boyish fancy, but it
has now grown into something more substantial."
_Vailima, Samoa, March 25th, 1894._
MY DEAR MR. JOE H. BATES,--I shall have the greatest pleasure in
acceding to your complimentary request. I shall think it an honour to be
associated with your chapter, and I need not remind you (for you have
said it yourself) how much depends upon your own exertions whether to
make it to me a real honour or only a derision. This is to let you know
that I accept the position that you have seriously offered to me in a
quite serious spirit. I need scarce tell you that I shall always be
pleased to receive reports of your proceedings; and if I do not always
acknowledge them, you are to remember that I am a man very much occupied
otherwise, and not at all to suppose that I have lost interest in my
chapter.
In this world, which (as you justly say) is so full of sorrow and
suffering, it will always please me to remember that my name is
connected with some efforts after alleviation, nor less so with purposes
of innocent recreation which, after all, are the only certain means at
our disposal for bettering human life.
With kind regards, to yourself, to Mr. L. C. Congdon, to E. M. G. Bates,
and to Mr. Edward Hugh Higlee Bates, and the heartiest wishes for the
future success of the chapter, believe me, yours cordially.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO WILLIAM ARCHER
_Vailima, Samoa, March 27th, 1894._
MY DEAR ARCHER,--Many thanks for your _Theatrical World_. Do you know,
it strikes me as being really very good? I have not yet read much of
it, but so far as I have looked, there is not a dull and not an empty
page in it. Hazlitt, whom you must often have thought of, would have
been pleased. Come to think of it, I shall put this book upon the
Hazlitt shelf. You have acquired a manner that I can only call august;
otherwise, I should have to call it such amazing impudence. The _Bauble
Shop_ and _Becket_ are examples of what I mean. But it "sets you weel."
Marjorie Fleming I have known, as you surmise, for long. She was
possibly--no, I take back possibly--she was one of the greatest works of
God. Your note about the resemblance of her verses to mine gave me great
joy, though it only proved me a plagiarist. By the by, was it not over
_The Child's Garden of Verses_ that we first scraped acquaintance? I am
sorry indeed to hear that my esteemed correspondent Tomarcher has such
poor taste in literature.[75] I fear he cannot have inherited this trait
from his dear papa. Indeed, I may say I know it, for I remember the
energy of papa's disapproval when the work passed through his hands on
its way to a second birth, which none regrets more than myself. It is an
odd fact, or perhaps a very natural one; I find few greater pleasures
than reading my own works, but I never, O I never read _The Black
Arrow_. In that country Tomarcher reigns supreme. Well, and after all,
if Tomarcher likes it, it has not been written in vain.
We have just now a curious breath from Europe. A young fellow just
beginning letters, and no fool, turned up here with a letter of
introduction in the well-known blue ink and decorative hieroglyphs of
George Meredith. His name may be known to you. It is Sidney Lysaght. He
is staying with us but a day or two, and it is strange to me and not
unpleasant to hear all the names, old and new, come up again. But oddly
the new are so much more in number. If I revisited the glimpses of the
moon on your side of the ocean, I should know comparatively few of
them.
My amanuensis deserts me--I should have said you, for yours is the loss,
my script having lost all bond with humanity. One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin: that nobody can read my hand. It is a humiliating
circumstance that thus evens us with printers!
You must sometimes think it strange--or perhaps it is only I that should
so think it--to be following the old round, in the gas lamps and the
crowded theatres, when I am away here in the tropical forest and the
vast silences!
My dear Archer, my wife joins me in the best wishes to yourself and Mrs.
Archer, not forgetting Tom; and I am yours very cordially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Partly concerning a fresh rising, this time of the partisans of
Tamasese from the district of Atua, which had occurred and was after
some time suppressed; partly in reference to the visit of Mr. Sidney
Lysaght; partly in reply to a petition that his letters might be less
entirely taken up with native affairs, of relatively little meaning
to his correspondent.
[_Vailima, April 1894._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is the very day the mail goes, and I have as yet
written you nothing. But it was just as well--as it was all about my
"blacks and chocolates," and what of it had relation to whites you will
read some of in the Times. It means, as you will see, that I have at one
blow quarrelled with _all_ the officials of Samoa, the Foreign Office,
and I suppose her Majesty the Queen with milk and honey blest. But
you'll see in the Times. I am very well indeed, but just about dead and
mighty glad the mail is near here, and I can just give up all hope of
contending with my letters, and lie down for the rest of the day. These
Times letters are not easy to write. And I dare say the consuls say,
"Why, then, does he write them?"
I had miserable luck with _St. Ives_; being already half-way through it,
a book I had ordered six months ago arrives at last, and I have to
change the first half of it from top to bottom! How could I have dreamed
the French prisoners were watched over like a female charity school,
kept in a grotesque livery, and shaved twice a week? And I had made all
my points on the idea that they were unshaved and clothed anyhow.
However, this last is better business; if only the book had come when I
ordered it! _À propos_, many of the books you announce don't come as a
matter of fact. When they are of any value, it is best to register them.
Your letter, alas! is not here; I sent it down to the cottage, with all
my mail, for Fanny; on Sunday night a boy comes up with a lantern and a
note from Fanny, to say the woods are full of Atuas and I must bring a
horse down that instant, as the posts are established beyond her on the
road, and she does not want to have the fight going on between us.
Impossible to get a horse; so I started in the dark on foot, with a
revolver, and my spurs on my bare feet, leaving directions that the boy
should mount after me with the horse. Try such an experience on Our Road
once, and do it, if you please, after you have been down town from nine
o'clock till six, on board the ship-of-war lunching, teaching Sunday
School (I actually do) and making necessary visits; and the Saturday
before, having sat all day from 1/2-past six to 1/2-past four, scriving
at my Times letter. About half-way up, just in fact at "point" of the
outposts, I met Fanny coming up. Then all night long I was being wakened
with scares that really should be looked into, though I _knew_ there was
nothing in them and no bottom to the whole story; and the drums and
shouts and cries from Tanugamanono and the town keeping up an all-night
corybantic chorus in the moonlight--the moon rose late--and the
search-light of the war-ship in the harbour making a jewel of brightness
as it lit up the bay of Apia in the distance. And then next morning,
about eight o'clock, a drum coming out of the woods and a party of
patrols who had been in the woods on our left front (which is our true
rear) coming up to the house, and meeting there another party who had
been in the woods on our right {front / rear} which is Vaea Mountain,
and 43 of them being entertained to ava and biscuits on the verandah,
and marching off at last in single file for Apia. Briefly, it is not
much wonder if your letter and my whole mail was left at the cottage,
and I have no means of seeing or answering particulars.
The whole thing was nothing but a bottomless scare; it was _obviously_
so; you couldn't make a child believe it was anything else, but it has
made the consuls sit up. My own private scares were really abominably
annoying; as for instance after I had got to sleep for the ninth time
perhaps--and that was no easy matter either, for I had a crick in my
neck so agonising that I had to sleep sitting up--I heard noises as of a
man being murdered in the boys' house. To be sure, said I, this is
nothing again, but if a man's head was being taken, the noises would be
the same! So I had to get up, stifle my cries of agony from the crick,
get my revolver, and creep out stealthily to the boys' house. And there
were two of them sitting up, keeping watch of their own accord like good
boys, and whiling the time over a game of Sweepi (Cascino--the whist of
our islanders)--and one of them was our champion idiot, Misifolo, and I
suppose he was holding bad cards, and losing all the time--and these
noises were his humorous protests against Fortune!
Well, excuse this excursion into my "blacks and chocolates." It is the
last. You will have heard from Lysaght how I failed to write last mail.
The said Lysaght seems to me a very nice fellow. We were only sorry he
could not stay with us longer. Austin came back from school last week,
which made a great time for the Amanuensis, you may be sure. Then on
Saturday, the _Curaçoa_ came in--same commission, with all our old
friends; and on Sunday, as already mentioned, Austin and I went down to
service and had lunch afterwards in the wardroom. The officers were
awfully nice to Austin; they are the most amiable ship in the world; and
after lunch we had a paper handed round on which we were to guess, and
sign our guess, of the number of leaves on the pine-apple; I never saw
this game before, but it seems it is much practised in the Queen's
Navee. When all have betted, one of the party begins to strip the
pine-apple head, and the person whose guess is furthest out has to pay
for the sherry. My equanimity was disturbed by shouts of _The American
Commodore_, and I found that Austin had entered and lost about a bottle
of sherry! He turned with great composure and addressed me. "I am afraid
I must look to you, Uncle Louis." The Sunday School racket is only an
experiment which I took up at the request of the late American Land
Commissioner; I am trying it for a month, and if I do as ill as I
believe, and the boys find it only half as tedious as I do, I think it
will end in a month. I have _carte blanche_, and say what I like; but
does any single soul understand me?
Fanny is on the whole very much better. Lloyd has been under the
weather, and goes for a month to the South Island of New Zealand for
some skating, save the mark! I get all the skating I want among
officials.
Dear Colvin, please remember that my life passes among my "blacks or
chocolates." If I were to do as you propose, in a bit of a tiff, it
would cut you off entirely from my life. You must try to exercise a
trifle of imagination, and put yourself, perhaps with an effort, into
some sort of sympathy with these people, or how am I to write to you? I
think you are truly a little too Cockney with me.--Ever yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO W. B. YEATS
_Vailima, Samoa, April 14, 1894._
DEAR SIR,--Long since when I was a boy I remember the emotions with
which I repeated Swinburne's poems and ballads. Some ten years ago, a
similar spell was cast upon me by Meredith's _Love in the Valley_; the
stanzas beginning "When her mother tends her" haunted me and made me
drunk like wine; and I remember waking with them all the echoes of the
hills about Hyères. It may interest you to hear that I have a third time
fallen in slavery: this is to your poem called the _Lake Isle of
Innisfree_. It is so quaint and airy, simple, artful, and eloquent to
the heart--but I seek words in vain. Enough that "always night and day I
hear lake water lapping with low sounds on the shore," and am, yours
gratefully,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO GEORGE MEREDITH
The young lady referred to in the following is Mr. Meredith's
daughter, now Mrs. H. Sturgis; the bearer of the introduction, Mr.
Sidney Lysaght, author of _The Marplot_ and _One of the Grenvilles._
It is only in the first few chapters of Mr. Meredith's _Amazing
Marriage_ that the character of Gower Woodseer has been allowed to
retain any likeness to that of R. L. S.
_Vailima, Samoa, April 17th, 1894._
MY DEAR MEREDITH,--Many good things have the gods sent to me of late.
First of all there was a letter from you by the kind hand of Mariette,
if she is not too great a lady to be remembered in such a style; and
then there came one Lysaght with a charming note of introduction in the
well-known hand itself. We had but a few days of him, and liked him
well. There was a sort of geniality and inward fire about him at which I
warmed my hands. It is long since I have seen a young man who has left
in me such a favourable impression; and I find myself telling myself,
"O, I must tell this to Lysaght," or, "This will interest him," in a
manner very unusual after so brief an acquaintance. The whole of my
family shared in this favourable impression, and my halls have re-echoed
ever since, I am sure he will be amused to know, with _Widdicombe Fair_.
He will have told you doubtless more of my news than I could tell you
myself; he has your European perspective, a thing long lost to me. I
heard with a great deal of interest the news of Box Hill. And so I
understand it is to be enclosed! Allow me to remark, that seems a far
more barbaric trait of manners than the most barbarous of ours. We
content ourselves with cutting off an occasional head.
I hear we may soon expect _The Amazing Marriage_. You know how long, and
with how much curiosity, I have looked forward to the book. Now, in so
far as you have adhered to your intention, Gower Woodseer will be a
family portrait, age twenty-five, of the highly respectable and slightly
influential and fairly aged _Tusitala_. You have not known that
gentleman; console yourself, he is not worth knowing. At the same time,
my dear Meredith, he is very sincerely yours--for what he is worth, for
the memories of old times, and in the expectation of many pleasures
still to come. I suppose we shall never see each other again; flitting
youths of the Lysaght species may occasionally cover these
unconscionable leagues and bear greetings to and fro. But we ourselves
must be content to converse on an occasional sheet of notepaper, and I
shall never see whether you have grown older, and you shall never
deplore that Gower Woodseer should have declined into the pantaloon
_Tusitala_. It is perhaps better so. Let us continue to see each other
as we were, and accept, my dear Meredith, my love and respect.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--My wife joins me in the kindest messages to yourself and
Mariette.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_[Vailima], April 17, '94._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--_St. Ives_ is now well on its way into the second
volume. There remains no mortal doubt that it will reach the
three-volume standard.
I am very anxious that you should send me--
1st. _Tom and Jerry_, a cheap edition.
2nd. The book by Ashton--the _Dawn of the Century_, I think it was
called--which Colvin sent me, and which has miscarried, and
3rd. If it is possible, a file of the Edinburgh Courant for the years
1811, 1812, 1813, or 1814. I should not care for a whole year. If it
were possible to find me three months, winter months by preference, it
would do my business not only for _St. Ives_, but for the
_Justice-Clerk_ as well. Suppose this to be impossible, perhaps I could
get the loan of it from somebody; or perhaps it would be possible to
have some one read a file for me and make notes. This would be extremely
bad, as unhappily one man's food is another man's poison, and the reader
would probably leave out everything I should choose. But if you are
reduced to that, you might mention to the man who is to read for me that
balloon ascensions are in the order of the day.
4th. It might be as well to get a book on balloon ascension,
particularly in the early part of the century.
* * * * *
III. At last this book has come from Scribner, and, alas! I have the
first six or seven chapters of _St. Ives_ to recast entirely. Who could
foresee that they clothed the French prisoners in yellow? But that one
fatal fact--and also that they shaved them twice a week--damns the whole
beginning. If it had been sent in time, it would have saved me a deal of
trouble....
I have had a long letter from Dr. Scott Dalgleish, 25 Mayfield Terrace,
asking me to put my name down to the Ballantyne Memorial Committee. I
have sent him a pretty sharp answer in favour of cutting down the
memorial and giving more to the widow and children. If there is to be
any foolery in the way of statues or other trash, please send them a
guinea; but if they are going to take my advice and put up a simple
tablet with a few heartfelt words, and really devote the bulk of the
subscriptions to the wife and family, I will go to the length of twenty
pounds, if you will allow me (and if the case of the family be at all
urgent), and at least I direct you to send ten pounds. I suppose you had
better see Scott Dalgleish himself on the matter. I take the opportunity
here to warn you that my head is simply spinning with a multitude of
affairs, and I shall probably forget a half of my business at last.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. SITWELL
[_Vailima, April 1894._]
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have at last got some photographs, and hasten to send
you, as you asked, a portrait of Tusitala. He is a strange person; not
so lean, say experts, but infinitely battered; mighty active again on
the whole; going up and down our break-neck road at all hours of the day
and night on horseback; holding meetings with all manner of chiefs;
quite a political personage--God save the mark!--in a small way, but at
heart very conscious of the inevitable flat failure that awaits every
one. I shall never do a better book than _Catriona_, that is my
high-water mark, and the trouble of production increases on me at a
great rate--and mighty anxious about how I am to leave my family: an
elderly man, with elderly preoccupations, whom I should be ashamed to
show you for your old friend; but not a hope of my dying soon and
cleanly, and "winning off the stage." Rather I am daily better in
physical health. I shall have to see this business out, after all; and I
think, in that case, they should have--they might have--spared me all my
ill-health this decade past, if it were not to unbar the doors. I have
no taste for old age, and my nose is to be rubbed in it in spite of my
face. I was meant to die young, and the gods do not love me.
This is very like an epitaph, bar the handwriting, which is anything but
monumental, and I dare say I had better stop. Fanny is down at her own
cottage planting or deplanting or replanting, I know not which, and she
will not be home till dinner, by which time the mail will be all closed,
else she would join me in all good messages and remembrances of love. I
hope you will congratulate Burne Jones from me on his baronetcy. I
cannot make out to be anything but raspingly, harrowingly sad; so I will
close, and not affect levity which I cannot feel. Do not altogether
forget me; keep a corner of your memory for the exile
LOUIS.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
[_Vailima, May 1894._]
MY DEAR CHARLES,--My dear fellow, I wish to assure you of the greatness
of the pleasure that this Edinburgh Edition gives me. I suppose it was
your idea to give it that name. No other would have affected me in the
same manner. Do you remember, how many years ago--I would be afraid to
hazard a guess--one night when I communicated to you certain intimations
of early death and aspiration after fame? I was particularly maudlin;
and my remorse the next morning on a review of my folly has written the
matter very deeply in my mind; from yours it may easily have fled. If
any one at that moment could have shown me the Edinburgh Edition, I
suppose I should have died. It is with gratitude and wonder that I
consider "the way in which I have been led." Could a more preposterous
idea have occurred to us in those days when we used to search our
pockets for coppers, too often in vain, and combine forces to produce
the threepence necessary for two glasses of beer, or wander down the
Lothian Road without any, than that I should be strong and well at the
age of forty-three in the island of Upolu, and that you should be at
home bringing out the Edinburgh Edition? If it had been possible, I
should almost have preferred the Lothian Road Edition, say, with a
picture of the old Dutch smuggler on the covers. I have now something
heavy on my mind. I had always a great sense of kinship with poor Robert
Fergusson--so clever a boy, so wild, of such a mixed strain, so
unfortunate, born in the same town with me, and, as I always felt,
rather by express intimation than from evidence, so like myself. Now the
injustice with which the one Robert is rewarded and the other left out
in the cold sits heavy on me, and I wish you could think of some way in
which I could do honour to my unfortunate namesake. Do you think it
would look like affectation to dedicate the whole edition to his memory?
I think it would. The sentiment which would dictate it to me is too
abstruse; and besides, I think my wife is the proper person to receive
the dedication of my life's work. At the same time, it is very odd--it
really looks like the transmigration of souls--I feel that I must do
something for Fergusson; Burns has been before me with the gravestone.
It occurs to me you might take a walk down the Canongate and see in what
condition the stone is. If it be at all uncared for, we might repair it,
and perhaps add a few words of inscription.
I must tell you, what I just remembered in a flash as I was walking
about dictating this letter--there was in the original plan of the
_Master of Ballantrae_ a sort of introduction describing my arrival in
Edinburgh on a visit to yourself and your placing in my hands the papers
of the story. I actually wrote it, and then condemned the idea--as being
a little too like Scott, I suppose. Now I must really find the MS. and
try to finish it for the E.E. It will give you, what I should so much
like you to have, another corner of your own in that lofty monument.
Suppose we do what I have proposed about Fergusson's monument, I wonder
if an inscription like this would look arrogant--
This stone originally erected
by Robert Burns has been
repaired at the
charges of Robert Louis Stevenson,
and is by him re-dedicated to
the memory of Robert Fergusson,
as the gift of one Edinburgh
lad to another.
In spacing this inscription I would detach the names of Fergusson and
Burns, but leave mine in the text.
Or would that look like sham modesty, and is it better to bring out the
three Roberts?
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima, May 18th, 1894._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your proposals for the Edinburgh Edition are entirely
to my mind. About the _Amateur Emigrant_, it shall go to you by this
mail well slashed. If you like to slash some more on your own account, I
give you permission. 'Tis not a great work; but since it goes to make up
the two first volumes as proposed, I presume it has not been written in
vain.[76]--_Miscellanies_. I see with some alarm the proposal to print
_Juvenilia_; does it not seem to you taking myself a little too much as
Grandfather William? I am certainly not so young as I once was--a lady
took occasion to remind me of the fact no later agone than last night.
"Why don't you leave that to the young men, Mr. Stevenson?" said
she--but when I remember that I felt indignant at even John Ruskin when
he did something of the kind I really feel myself blush from head to
heel. If you want to make up the first volume, there are a good many
works which I took the trouble to prepare for publication and which have
never been republished. In addition to _Roads_ and _Dancing Children_,
referred to by you, there is _An Autumn Effect_ in the Portfolio, and a
paper on Fontainebleau--_Forest Notes_ is the name of it--in Cornhill. I
have no objection to any of these being edited, say with a scythe, and
reproduced. But I heartily abominate and reject the idea of reprinting
_The Pentland Rising_. For God's sake let me get buried first.
_Tales and Fantasies._ Vols. I. and II. have my hearty approval. But I
think III. and IV. had better be crammed into one as you suggest. I will
reprint none of the stories mentioned. They are below the mark. Well, I
dare say the beastly _Body-Snatcher_ has merit, and I am unjust to it
from my recollections of the Pall Mall. But the other two won't do. For
vols. V. and VI., now changed into IV. and V., I propose the common
title of _South Sea Yarns_. There! These are all my differences of
opinion. I agree with every detail of your arrangement, and, as you see,
my objections have turned principally on the question of hawking unripe
fruit. I dare say it is all pretty green, but that is no reason for us
to fill the barrow with trash. Think of having a new set of type cast,
paper especially made, etc., in order to set up rubbish that is not fit
for the Saturday Scotsman. It would be the climax of shame.
I am sending you a lot of verses, which had best, I think, be called
_Underwoods_ Book III., but in what order are they to go? Also, I am
going on every day a little, till I get sick of it, with the attempt to
get _The Emigrant_ compressed into life; I know I can--or you can after
me--do it. It is only a question of time and prayer and ink, and should
leave something, no, not good, but not all bad--a very genuine
appreciation of these folks. You are to remember besides there is that
paper of mine on Bunyan in the Magazine of Art. O, and then there's
another thing in Seeley called some spewsome name, I cannot recall it.
Well--come, here goes for _Juvenilia_. _Dancing Infants_, _Roads_, _An
Autumn Effect_, _Forest Notes_ (but this should come at the end of them,
as it's really rather riper), the t'other thing from Seeley, and I'll
tell you, you may put in my letter to the Church of Scotland--it's not
written amiss, and I dare say _The Philosophy of Umbrellas_ might go in,
but there I stick--and remember _that_ was a collaboration with James
Walter Ferrier. O, and there was a little skit called _The Charity
Bazaar_, which you might see; I don't think it would do. Now, I do not
think there are two other words that should be printed.--By the way,
there is an article of mine called _The Day after To-morrow_ in the
Contemporary which you might find room for somewhere; it's no' bad.
Very busy with all these affairs and some native ones also.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
[_Vailima, June 17th, 1894._]
MY DEAR BOB,--I must make out a letter this mail or perish in the
attempt. All the same, I am deeply stupid, in bed with a cold, deprived
of my amanuensis, and conscious of the wish but not the furnished will.
You may be interested to hear how the family inquiries go. It is now
quite certain that we are a second-rate lot, and came out of Cunningham
or Clydesdale, therefore _British_ folk; so that you are Cymry on both
sides, and I Cymry and Pict. We may have fought with King Arthur and
known Merlin. The first of the family, Stevenson of Stevenson, was quite
a great party, and dates back to the wars of Edward First. The last male
heir of Stevenson of Stevenson died 1670, £220, 10s. to the bad, from
drink. About the same time the Stevensons, who were mostly in Cunningham
before, crop up suddenly in the parish of Neilston, over the border in
Renfrewshire. Of course, they may have been there before, but there is
no word of them in that parish till 1675 in any extracts I have. Our
first traceable ancestor was a tenant farmer of Mure of
Cauldwell's--James in Nether Carsewell. Presently two families of
maltmen are found in Glasgow, both, by re-duplicated proofs, related to
James (the son of James) in Nether Carsewell. We descend by his second
marriage from Robert; one of these died 1733. It is not very romantic up
to now, but has interested me surprisingly to fish out, always hoping
for more--and occasionally getting at least a little clearness and
confirmation. But the earliest date, 1655, apparently the marriage of
James in Nether Carsewell, cannot as yet be pushed back. From which of
any number of dozen little families in Cunningham we should derive, God
knows! Of course, it doesn't matter a hundred years hence, an argument
fatal to all human enterprise, industry, or pleasure. And to me it will
be a deadly disappointment if I cannot roll this stone away! One
generation further might be nothing, but it is my present object of
desire, and we are so near it! There is a man in the same parish called
Constantine; if I could only trace to him, I could take you far afield
by that one talisman of the strange Christian name of Constantine. But
no such luck! And I kind of fear we shall stick at James.
I. JAMES, a tenant of the Mures, in Nether-Carsewell,
|| Neilston, married (1665?) Jean Keir.
|| |
----------------------------------------------
|
II. ROBERT (Maltman in Glasgow), died 1733,
| married 1st; married second,
| Elizabeth Cumming.
| ||
| ------------------------------
| |
WILLIAM (Maltman in Glasgow). III. ROBERT (Maltman in
| Glasgow), married
-------------------- Margaret Fulton (had
| | | a large family).
| | | ||
ROBERT, MARION, ELIZABETH. IV. ALAN, West India
merchant, married
Jean Lillie.
||
V. ROBERT, married
Jean Smith.
|
-------
|
VI. ALAN.--Margaret Jones.
|
VII. R. A. M. S.
NOTE.--Between 1730-1766 flourished in Glasgow Alan the Coppersmith,
who acts as a kind of a pin to the whole Stevenson system there. He
was caution to Robert the Second's will, and to William's will, and to
the will of a John, another maltman.
So much, though all inchoate, I trouble you with, knowing that you, at
least, must take an interest in it. So much is certain of that strange
Celtic descent, that the past has an interest for it apparently
gratuitous, but fiercely strong. I wish to trace my ancestors a thousand
years, if I trace them by gallowses. It is not love, not pride, not
admiration; it is an expansion of the identity, intimately pleasing, and
wholly uncritical; I can expend myself in the person of an inglorious
ancestor with perfect comfort; or a disgraced, if I could find one. I
suppose, perhaps, it is more to me who am childless, and refrain with a
certain shock from looking forwards. But, I am sure, in the solid
grounds of race, that you have it also in some degree.
Enough genealogy. I do not know if you will be able to read my hand.
Unhappily, Belle, who is my amanuensis, is out of the way on other
affairs, and I have to make the unwelcome effort. (O this is beautiful,
I am quite pleased with myself.) Graham has just arrived last night (my
mother is coming by the other steamer in three days), and has told me of
your meeting, and he said you looked a little older than I did; so that
I suppose we keep step fairly on the downward side of the hill. He
thought you looked harassed, and I could imagine that too. I sometimes
feel harassed. I have a great family here about me, a great anxiety. The
loss (to use my grandfather's expression), the "loss" of our family is
that we are disbelievers in the morrow--perhaps I should say, rather, in
next year. The future is _always_ black to us; it was to Robert
Stevenson; to Thomas; I suspect to Alan; to R. A. M. S. it was so almost
to his ruin in youth; to R. L. S., who had a hard hopeful strain in him
from his mother, it was not so much so once, but becomes daily more so.
Daily so much more so, that I have a painful difficulty in believing I
can ever finish another book, or that the public will ever read it.
I have so huge a desire to know exactly what you are doing, that I
suppose I should tell you what I am doing by way of an example. I have a
room now, a part of the twelve-foot verandah sparred in, at the most
inaccessible end of the house. Daily I see the sunrise out of my bed,
which I still value as a tonic, a perpetual tuning fork, a look of God's
face once in the day. At six my breakfast comes up to me here, and I
work till eleven. If I am quite well, I sometimes go out and bathe in
the river before lunch, twelve. In the afternoon I generally work again,
now alone drafting, now with Belle dictating. Dinner is at six, and I am
often in bed by eight. This is supposing me to stay at home. But I must
often be away, sometimes all day long, sometimes till twelve, one, or
two at night, when you might see me coming home to the sleeping house,
sometimes in a trackless darkness, sometimes with a glorious tropic
moon, everything drenched with dew--unsaddling and creeping to bed; and
you would no longer be surprised that I live out in this country, and
not in Bournemouth--in bed.
My great recent interruptions have (as you know) come from politics; not
much in my line, you will say. But it is impossible to live here and not
feel very sorely the consequences of the horrid white mismanagement. I
tried standing by and looking on, and it became too much for me. They
are such illogical fools; a logical fool in an office, with a lot of red
tape, is conceivable. Furthermore, he is as much as we have any reason
to expect of officials--a thoroughly common-place, unintellectual lot.
But these people are wholly on wires; laying their ears down, skimming
away, pausing as though shot, and presto! full spread on the other tack.
I observe in the official class mostly an insane jealousy of the
smallest kind, as compared to which the artist's is of a grave, modest
character--the actor's, even; a desire to extend his little authority,
and to relish it like a glass of wine, that is _impayable_. Sometimes,
when I see one of these little kings strutting over one of his
victories--wholly illegal, perhaps, and certain to be reversed to his
shame if his superiors ever heard of it--I could weep. The strange thing
is that they _have nothing else_. I auscultate them in vain; no real
sense of duty, no real comprehension, no real attempt to comprehend, no
wish for information--you cannot offend one of them more bitterly than
by offering information, though it is certain that you have _more_, and
obvious that you have _other_, information than they have; and talking
of policy, they could not play a better stroke than by listening to you,
and it need by no means influence their action. _Tenez_, you know what a
French post office or railway official is? That is the diplomatic card
to the life. Dickens is not in it; caricature fails.
All this keeps me from my work, and gives me the unpleasant side of the
world. When your letters are disbelieved it makes you angry, and that
is rot; and I wish I could keep out of it with all my soul. But I have
just got into it again, and farewell peace!
My work goes along but slowly. I have got to a crossing place, I
suppose; the present book, _St. Ives_, is nothing; it is in no style in
particular, a tissue of adventures, the central character not very well
done, no philosophic pith under the yarn; and, in short, if people will
read it, that's all I ask; and if they won't, damn them! I like doing it
though; and if you ask me why! After that I am on _Weir of Hermiston_
and _Heathercat_, two Scotch stories, which will either be something
different, or I shall have failed. The first is generally designed, and
is a private story of two or three characters in a very grim vein. The
second--alas! the thought--is an attempt at a real historical novel, to
present a whole field of time; the race--our own race--the west land and
Clydesdale blue bonnets, under the influence of their last trial, when
they got to a pitch of organisation in madness that no other peasantry
has ever made an offer at. I was going to call it _The Killing Time_,
but this man Crockett has forestalled me in that. Well, it'll be a big
smash if I fail in it; but a gallant attempt. All my weary reading as a
boy, which you remember well enough, will come to bear on it; and if my
mind will keep up to the point it was in a while back, perhaps I can
pull it through.
For two months past, Fanny, Belle, Austin (her child), and I have been
alone; but yesterday, as I mentioned, Graham Balfour arrived, and on
Wednesday my mother and Lloyd will make up the party to its full
strength. I wish you could drop in for a month or a week, or two hours.
That is my chief want. On the whole, it is an unexpectedly pleasant
corner I have dropped into for an end of it, which I could scarcely have
foreseen from Wilson's shop, or the Princes Street Gardens, or the
Portobello Road. Still, I would like to hear what my _alter ego_ thought
of it; and I would sometimes like to have my old _maître-ès-arts_
express an opinion on what I do. I put this very tamely, being on the
whole a quiet elderly man; but it is a strong passion with me, though
intermittent. Now, try to follow my example and tell me something about
yourself, Louisa, the Bab, and your work; and kindly send me some
specimens of what you're about. I have only seen one thing by you, about
Notre Dame in the Westminster or St. James's, since I left England, now
I suppose six years ago.
I have looked this trash over, and it is not at all the letter I wanted
to write--not truck about officials, ancestors, and the like
rancidness--but you have to let your pen go in its own broken-down gait,
like an old butcher's pony, stop when it pleases, and go on again as it
will.--Ever, my dear Bob, your affectionate cousin,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima, June 18th, '94._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You are to please understand that my last letter is
withdrawn unconditionally. You and Baxter are having all the trouble of
this Edition, and I simply put myself in your hands for you to do what
you like with me, and I am sure that will be the best, at any rate.
Hence you are to conceive me withdrawing all objections to your printing
anything you please. After all, it is a sort of family affair. About the
Miscellany Section, both plans seem to me quite good. Toss up. I think
the _Old Gardener_ has to stay where I put him last. It would not do to
separate John and Robert.
In short, I am only sorry I ever uttered a word about the edition, and
leave you to be the judge. I have had a vile cold which has prostrated
me for more than a fortnight, and even now tears me nightly with
spasmodic coughs; but it has been a great victory. I have never borne a
cold with so little hurt; wait till the clouds blow by, before you begin
to boast! I have had no fever; and though I've been very unhappy, it is
nigh over, I think. Of course, _St. Ives_ has paid the penalty. I must
not let you be disappointed in _St. I._ It is a mere tissue of
adventures; the central figure not very well or very sharply drawn; no
philosophy, no destiny, to it; some of the happenings very good in
themselves, I believe, but none of them _bildende_, none of them
constructive, except in so far perhaps as they make up a kind of sham
picture of the time, all in italics and all out of drawing. Here and
there, I think, it is well written; and here and there it's not. Some of
the episodic characters are amusing, I do believe; others not, I
suppose. However, they are the best of the thing such as it is. If it
has a merit to it, I should say it was a sort of deliberation and swing
to the style, which seems to me to suit the mail-coaches and
post-chaises with which it sounds all through. 'Tis my most prosaic
book.
I called on the two German ships now in port, and we are quite friendly
with them, and intensely friendly of course with our own _Curaçoas_. But
it is other guess work on the beach. Some one has employed, or
subsidised, one of the local editors to attack me once a week. He is
pretty scurrilous and pretty false. The first effect of the perusal of
the weekly Beast is to make me angry; the second is a kind of deep,
golden content and glory, when I seem to say to people: "See! this is my
position--I am a plain man dwelling in the bush in a house, and behold
they have to get up this kind of truck against me--and I have so much
influence that they are obliged to write a weekly article to say I have
none."
By this time you must have seen Lysaght and forgiven me the letter that
came not at all. He was really so nice a fellow--he had so much to tell
me of Meredith--and the time was so short--that I gave up the
intervening days between mails entirely to entertain him.
We go on pretty nicely. Fanny, Belle, and I have had two months alone,
and it has been very pleasant. But by to-morrow or next day noon, we
shall see the whole clan assembled again about Vailima table, which will
be pleasant too; seven persons in all, and the Babel of voices will be
heard again in the big hall so long empty and silent. Good-bye. Love to
all. Time to close.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Vailima, July 7th, 1894._
DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I am going to try and dictate to you a letter or a
note, and begin the same without any spark of hope, my mind being
entirely in abeyance. This malady is very bitter on the literary man. I
have had it now coming on for a month, and it seems to get worse instead
of better. If it should prove to be softening of the brain, a melancholy
interest will attach to the present document. I heard a great deal about
you from my mother and Graham Balfour; the latter declares that you
could take a First in any Samoan subject. If that be so, I should like
to hear you on the theory of the constitution. Also to consult you on
the force of the particles _o lo'o_ and _ua_, which are the subject of a
dispute among local pundits. You might, if you ever answer this, give me
your opinion on the origin of the Samoan race, just to complete the
favour.
They both say that you are looking well, and I suppose I may conclude
from that that you are feeling passably. I wish I was. Do not suppose
from this that I am ill in body; it is the numskull that I complain of.
And when that is wrong, as you must be very keenly aware, you begin
every day with a smarting disappointment, which is not good for the
temper. I am in one of the humours when a man wonders how any one can be
such an ass as to embrace the profession of letters, and not get
apprenticed to a barber or keep a baked-potato stall. But I have no
doubt in the course of a week, or perhaps to-morrow, things will look
better.
We have at present in port the model warship of Great Britain. She is
called the _Curaçoa_, and has the nicest set of officers and men
conceivable. They, the officers, are all very intimate with us, and the
front verandah is known as the Curaçoa Club, and the road up to Vailima
is known as the Curaçoa Track. It was rather a surprise to me; many
naval officers have I known, and somehow had not learned to think
entirely well of them, and perhaps sometimes ask myself a little
uneasily how that kind of men could do great actions? and behold! the
answer comes to me, and I see a ship that I would guarantee to go
anywhere it was possible for men to go, and accomplish anything it was
permitted man to attempt. I had a cruise on board of her not long ago to
Manu'a, and was delighted. The goodwill of all on board; the grim
playfulness of[77] quarters, with the wounded falling down at the
word; the ambulances hastening up and carrying them away; the Captain
suddenly crying, "Fire in the ward-room!" and the squad hastening
forward with the hose; and, last and most curious spectacle of all, all
the men in their dust-coloured fatigue clothes, at a note of the bugle,
falling simultaneously flat on deck, and the ship proceeding with its
prostrate crew--_quasi_ to ram an enemy; our dinner at night in a wild
open anchorage, the ship rolling almost to her gunwales, and showing us
alternately her bulwarks up in the sky, and then the wild broken cliffy
palm-crested shores of the island with the surf thundering and leaping
close aboard. We had the ward-room mess on deck, lit by pink wax tapers,
everybody, of course, in uniform but myself, and the first lieutenant
(who is a rheumaticky body) wrapped in a boat cloak. Gradually the
sunset faded out, the island disappeared from the eye, though it
remained menacingly present to the ear with the voice of the surf; and
then the captain turned on the searchlight and gave us the coast, the
beach, the trees, the native houses, and the cliffs by glimpses of
daylight, a kind of deliberate lightning. About which time, I suppose,
we must have come as far as the dessert, and were probably drinking our
first glass of port to Her Majesty. We stayed two days at the island,
and had, in addition, a very picturesque snapshot at the native life.
The three islands of Manu'a are independent, and are ruled over by a
little slip of a half-caste girl about twenty, who sits all day in a
pink gown, in a little white European house with about a quarter of an
acre of roses in front of it, looking at the palm-trees on the village
street, and listening to the surf. This, so far as I could discover, was
all she had to do. "This is a very dull place," she said. It appears she
could go to no other village for fear of raising the jealousy of her own
people in the capital. And as for going about "tafatafaoing," as we say
here, its cost was too enormous. A strong able-bodied native must walk
in front of her and blow the conch shell continuously from the moment
she leaves one house until the moment she enters another. Did you ever
blow the conch shell? I presume not; but the sweat literally hailed off
that man, and I expected every moment to see him burst a blood-vessel.
We were entertained to kava in the guest-house with some very original
features. The young men who run for the _kava_ have a right to
misconduct themselves _ad libitum_ on the way back; and though they were
told to restrain themselves on the occasion of our visit, there was a
strange hurly-burly at their return, when they came beating the trees
and the posts of the houses, leaping, shouting, and yelling like
Bacchants.
I tasted on that occasion what it is to be great. My name was called
next after the captain's, and several chiefs (a thing quite new to me,
and not at all Samoan practice) drank to me by name.
And now, if you are not sick of the _Curaçoa_ and Manu'a, I am, at least
on paper. And I decline any longer to give you examples of how not to
write.
By the by, you sent me long ago a work by Anatole France, which I
confess I did not _taste_. Since then I have made the acquaintance of
the _Abbé Coignard_, and have become a faithful adorer. I don't think a
better book was ever written.
And I have no idea what I have said, and I have no idea what I ought to
have said, and I am a total ass, but my heart is in the right place, and
I am, my dear Henry James, yours,
R. L. S.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
_Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, July 7, 1894._
DEAR MR. MARCEL SCHWOB,--Thank you for having remembered me in my exile.
I have read _Mimes_ twice as a whole; and now, as I write, I am reading
it again as it were by accident, and a piece at a time, my eye catching
a word and travelling obediently on through the whole number. It is a
graceful book, essentially graceful, with its haunting agreeable
melancholy, its pleasing savoury of antiquity. At the same time, by its
merits, it shows itself rather as the promise of something else to come
than a thing final in itself. You have yet to give us--and I am
expecting it with impatience--something of a larger gait; something
daylit, not twilit; something with the colours of life, not the flat
tints of a temple illumination; something that shall be _said_ with all
the clearnesses and the trivialities of speech, not _sung_ like a
semi-articulate lullaby. It will not please yourself as well, when you
come to give it us, but it will please others better. It will be more of
a whole, more worldly, more nourished, more commonplace--and not so
pretty, perhaps not even so beautiful. No man knows better than I that,
as we go on in life, we must part from prettiness and the graces. We
but attain qualities to lose them; life is a series of farewells, even
in art; even our proficiencies are deciduous and evanescent. So here
with these exquisite pieces the XVIIth, XVIIIth, and IVth of the present
collection. You will perhaps never excel them; I should think the
"Hermes," never. Well, you will do something else, and of that I am in
expectation.--Yours cordially,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO A. ST. GAUDENS
_Vailima, Samoa, July 8, 1894._
MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--This is to tell you that the medallion has been at
last triumphantly transported up the hill and placed over my
smoking-room mantelpiece. It is considered by everybody a first-rate but
flattering portrait. We have it in a very good light, which brings out
the artistic merits of the god-like sculptor to great advantage. As for
my own opinion, I believe it to be a speaking likeness, and not
flattered at all; possibly a little the reverse. The verses (curse the
rhyme) look remarkably well.
Please do not longer delay, but send me an account for the expense of
the gilt letters. I was sorry indeed that they proved beyond the means
of a small farmer.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Vailima, July 14, 1894._
MY DEAR ADELAIDE,--... So, at last, you are going into mission work?
where I think your heart always was. You will like it in a way, but
remember it is dreary long. Do you know the story of the American tramp
who was offered meals and a day's wage to chop with the back of an axe
on a fallen trunk. "Damned if I can go on chopping when I can't see the
chips fly!" You will never see the chips fly in mission work, never; and
be sure you know it beforehand. The work is one long dull
disappointment, varied by acute revulsions; and those who are by nature
courageous and cheerful, and have grown old in experience, learn to rub
their hands over infinitesimal successes. However, as I really believe
there is some good done in the long run--_gutta cavat lapidem non vi_ in
this business--it is a useful and honourable career in which no one
should be ashamed to embark. Always remember the fable of the sun, the
storm, and the traveller's cloak. Forget wholly and for ever all small
pruderies, and remember that _you cannot change ancestral feelings of
right and wrong without what is practically soul-murder_. Barbarous as
the customs may seem, always hear them with patience, always judge them
with gentleness, always find in them some seed of good; see that you
always develop them; remember that all you can do is to civilise the man
in the line of his own civilisation, such as it is. And never expect,
never believe in, thaumaturgic conversions. They may do very well for
St. Paul; in the case of an Andaman islander they mean less than
nothing. In fact, what you have to do is to teach the parents in the
interests of their great-grandchildren.
Now, my dear Adelaide, dismiss from your mind the least idea of fault
upon your side; nothing is further from the fact. I cannot forgive you,
for I do not know your fault. My own is plain enough, and the name of it
is cold-hearted neglect; and you may busy yourself more usefully in
trying to forgive me. But ugly as my fault is, you must not suppose it
to mean more than it does; it does not mean that we have at all
forgotten you, that we have become at all indifferent to the thought of
you. See, in my life of Jenkin, a remark of his, very well expressed, on
the friendships of men who do not write to each other. I can honestly
say that I have not changed to you in any way; though I have behaved
thus ill, thus cruelly. Evil is done by want of--well, principally by
want of industry. You can imagine what I would say (in a novel) of any
one who had behaved as I have done. _Deteriora sequor_. And you must
somehow manage to forgive your old friend; and if you will be so very
good, continue to give us news of you, and let us share the knowledge of
your adventures, sure that it will be always followed with
interest--even if it is answered with the silence of ingratitude. For I
am not a fool; I know my faults, I know they are ineluctable, I know
they are growing on me. I know I may offend again, and I warn you of it.
But the next time I offend, tell me so plainly and frankly like a lady,
and don't lacerate my heart and bludgeon my vanity with imaginary faults
of your own and purely gratuitous penance. I might suspect you of irony!
We are all fairly well, though I have been off work and off--as you know
very well--letter-writing. Yet I have sometimes more than twenty
letters, and sometimes more than thirty, going out each mail. And Fanny
has had a most distressing bronchitis for some time, which she is only
now beginning to get over. I have just been to see her; she is
lying--though she had breakfast an hour ago, about seven--in her big
cool, mosquito-proof room, ingloriously asleep. As for me, you see that
a doom has come upon me: I cannot make marks with a pen--witness
"ingloriously" above; and my amanuensis not appearing so early in the
day, for she is then immersed in household affairs, and I can hear her
"steering the boys" up and down the verandahs--you must decipher this
unhappy letter for yourself and, I fully admit, with everything against
you. A letter should be always well written; how much more a letter of
apology! Legibility is the politeness of men of letters, as punctuality
of kings and beggars. By the punctuality of my replies, and the beauty
of my hand-writing, judge what a fine conscience I must have!
Now, my dear gamekeeper, I must really draw to a close. For I have much
else to write before the mail goes out three days hence. Fanny being
asleep, it would not be conscientious to invent a message from her, so
you must just imagine her sentiments. I find I have not the heart to
speak of your recent loss. You remember perhaps, when my father died,
you told me those ugly images of sickness, decline, and impaired reason,
which then haunted me day and night, would pass away and be succeeded by
things more happily characteristic. I have found it so. He now haunts
me, strangely enough, in two guises; as a man of fifty, lying on a
hillside and carving mottoes on a stick, strong and well; and as a
younger man, running down the sands into the sea near North Berwick,
myself--_ætat. 11_--somewhat horrified at finding him so beautiful when
stripped! I hand on your own advice to you in case you have forgotten
it, as I know one is apt to do in seasons of bereavement.--Ever yours,
with much love and sympathy,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MRS. A. BAKER
This refers again to the printing of some of his books in Braille
type for the blind.
_Vailima, Samoa, July 16, 1894._
DEAR MRS. BAKER,--I am very much obliged to you for your letter and the
enclosure from Mr. Skinner. Mr. Skinner says he "thinks Mr. Stevenson
must be a very kind man"; he little knows me. But I am very sure of one
thing, that you are a very kind woman. I envy you--my amanuensis being
called away, I continue in my own hand, or what is left of it--unusually
legible, I am thankful to see--I envy you your beautiful choice of an
employment. There must be no regrets at least for a day so spent; and
when the night falls you need ask no blessing on your work. "Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of these."--Yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_July, 1894._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I have to thank you this time for a very good letter,
and will announce for the future, though I cannot now begin to put in
practice, good intentions for our correspondence. I will try to return
to the old system and write from time to time during the month; but
truly you did not much encourage me to continue! However, that is all
by-past. I do not know that there is much in your letter that calls for
answer. Your questions about _St. Ives_ were practically answered in my
last; so were your wails about the edition, _Amateur Emigrant_, etc. By
the end of the year _St. I._ will be practically finished, whatever it
be worth, and that I know not. When shall I receive proofs of the Magnum
Opus? or shall I receive them at all?
The return of the Amanuensis feebly lightens my heart. You can see the
heavy weather I was making of it with my unaided pen. The last month has
been particularly cheery largely owing to the presence of our good
friends the Curaçoas. She is really a model ship, charming officers and
charming seamen. They gave a ball last month, which was very rackety and
joyous and naval....
On the following day, about one o'clock, three horsemen might have been
observed approaching Vailima, who gradually resolved themselves into two
petty officers and a native guide. Drawing himself up and saluting, the
spokesman (a corporal of Marines) addressed me thus. "Me and my
shipmates inwites Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, Mrs. Strong, Mr. Austin, and Mr.
Balfour to a ball to be given to-night in the self-same 'all." It was of
course impossible to refuse, though I contented myself with putting in a
very brief appearance. One glance was sufficient; the ball went off like
a rocket from the start. I had only time to watch Belle careering around
with a gallant bluejacket of exactly her own height--the standard of
the British navy--an excellent dancer and conspicuously full of
small-talk--and to hear a remark from a beach-comber, "It's a nice sight
this some way, to see the officers dancing like this with the men, but I
tell you, sir, these are the men that'll fight together!"
I tell you, Colvin, the acquaintance of the men--and boys--makes me feel
patriotic. Eeles in particular is a man whom I respect. I am half in a
mind to give him a letter of introduction to you when he goes home. In
case you feel inclined to make a little of him, give him a dinner, ask
Henry James to come to meet him, etc.--you might let me know. I don't
know that he would show his best, but he is a remarkably fine fellow, in
every department of life.
We have other visitors in port. A Count Festetics de Tolna, an Austrian
officer, a very pleasant, simple, boyish creature, with his young wife,
daughter of an American millionaire; he is a friend of our own Captain
Wurmbrand, and it is a great pity Wurmbrand is away.
Glad you saw and liked Lysaght. He has left in our house a most cheerful
and pleasing memory, as a good, pleasant, brisk fellow with good health
and brains, and who enjoys himself and makes other people happy. I am
glad he gave you a good report of our surroundings and way of life; but
I knew he would, for I believe he had a glorious time--and gave one.[78]
I am on fair terms with the two Treaty officials, though all such
intimacies are precarious; with the consuls, I need not say, my position
is deplorable. The President (Herr Emil Schmidt) is a rather dreamy man,
whom I like. Lloyd, Graham and I go to breakfast with him to-morrow; the
next day the whole party of us lunch on the _Curaçoa_ and go in the
evening to a _Bierabend_ at Dr. Funk's. We are getting up a paper-chase
for the following week with some of the young German clerks, and have in
view a sort of child's party for grown-up persons with kissing games,
etc., here at Vailima. Such is the gay scene in which we move. Now I
have done something, though not as much as I wanted, to give you an idea
of how we are getting on, and I am keenly conscious that there are other
letters to do before the mail goes.--Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima, July 13, 1894._
MY DEAR BARRIE,--This is the last effort of an ulcerated conscience. I
have been so long owing you a letter, I have heard so much of you, fresh
from the press, from my mother and Graham Balfour, that I have to write
a letter no later than to-day, or perish in my shame. But the deuce of
it is, my dear fellow, that you write such a very good letter that I am
ashamed to exhibit myself before my junior (which you are, after all) in
the light of the dreary idiot I feel. Understand that there will be
nothing funny in the following pages. If I can manage to be rationally
coherent, I shall be more than satisfied.
In the first place, I have had the extreme satisfaction to be shown that
photograph of your mother. It bears evident traces of the hand of an
amateur. How is it that amateurs invariably take better photographs than
professionals? I must qualify invariably. My own negatives have always
represented a province of chaos and old night in which you might dimly
perceive fleecy spots of twilight, representing nothing; so that, if I
am right in supposing the portrait of your mother to be yours, I must
salute you as my superior. Is that your mother's breakfast? Or is it
only afternoon tea? If the first, do let me recommend to Mrs. Barrie to
add an egg to her ordinary. Which, if you please, I will ask her to eat
to the honour of her son, and I am sure she will live much longer for
it, to enjoy his fresh successes. I never in my life saw anything more
deliciously characteristic. I declare I can hear her speak. I wonder my
mother could resist the temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir,
which it was like your kindness to propose. By the way, I was twice in
Kirriemuir, I believe in the year '71, when I was going on a visit to
Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir, was it not? I have a distinct recollection
of an inn at the end--I think the upper end--of an irregular open place
or square, in which I always see your characters evolve. But, indeed, I
did not pay much attention; being all bent upon my visit to a
shooting-box, where I should fish a real trout-stream, and I believe
preserved. I did, too, and it was a charming stream, clear as crystal,
without a trace of peat--a strange thing in Scotland--and alive with
trout; the name of it I cannot remember, it was something like the
Queen's River, and in some hazy way connected with memories of Mary
Queen of Scots. It formed an epoch in my life, being the end of all my
trout-fishing. I had always been accustomed to pause and very
laboriously to kill every fish as I took it. But in the Queen's River I
took so good a basket that I forgot these niceties; and when I sat down,
in a hard rain shower, under a bank, to take my sandwiches and sherry,
lo! and behold, there was the basketful of trouts still kicking in their
agony.
I had a very unpleasant conversation with my conscience. All that
afternoon I persevered in fishing, brought home my basket in triumph,
and sometime that night, "in the wee sma' hours ayont the twal," I
finally forswore the gentle craft of fishing. I dare say your local
knowledge may identify this historic river; I wish it could go farther
and identify also that particular Free kirk in which I sat and groaned
on Sunday. While my hand is in I must tell you a story. At that antique
epoch you must not fall into the vulgar error that I was myself ancient.
I was, on the contrary, very young, very green, and (what you will
appreciate, Mr. Barrie) very shy. There came one day to lunch at the
house two very formidable old ladies--or one very formidable, and the
other what you please--answering to the honoured and historic name of
the Miss C---- A----'s of Balnamoon. At table I was exceedingly funny,
and entertained the company with tales of geese and bubbly-jocks. I was
great in the expression of my terror for these bipeds, and suddenly this
horrid, severe, and eminently matronly old lady put up a pair of gold
eye-glasses, looked at me awhile in silence, and pronounced in a
clangorous voice her verdict. "You give me very much the effect of a
coward, Mr. Stevenson!" I had very nearly left two vices behind me at
Glenogil--fishing and jesting at table. And of one thing you may be very
sure, my lips were no more opened at that meal.
_July 29th._--No, Barrie, 'tis in vain they try to alarm me with their
bulletins. No doubt, you're ill, and unco ill, I believe; but I have
been so often in the same case that I know pleurisy and pneumonia are in
vain against Scotsmen who can write. (I once could.) You cannot imagine
probably how near me this common calamity brings you. _Ce que j'ai
toussé dans ma vie!_ How often and how long have I been on the rack at
night and learned to appreciate that noble passage in the Psalms when
somebody or other is said to be more set on something than they "who dig
for hid treasures--yea, than those who long for the morning"--for all
the world, as you have been racked and you have longed. Keep your heart
up, and you'll do. Tell that to your mother, if you are still in any
danger or suffering. And by the way, if you are at all like me--and I
tell myself you are very like me--be sure there is only one thing good
for you, and that is the sea in hot climates. Mount, sir, into "a little
frigot" of 5000 tons or so, and steer peremptorily for the tropics; and
what if the ancient mariner, who guides your frigot, should startle the
silence of the ocean with the cry of land ho!--say, when the day is
dawning--and you should see the turquoise mountain tops of Upolu coming
hand over fist above the horizon? Mr. Barrie, sir, 'tis then there would
be larks! And though I cannot be certain that our climate would suit you
(for it does not suit some), I am sure as death the voyage would do you
good--would do you _Best_--and if Samoa didn't do, you needn't stay
beyond the month, and I should have had another pleasure in my life,
which is a serious consideration for me. I take this as the hand of the
Lord preparing your way to Vailima--in the desert, certainly--in the
desert of Cough and by the ghoul-haunted woodland of Fever--but whither
that way points there can be no question--and there will be a meeting of
the twa Hoasting Scots Makers in spite of fate, fortune and the Devil.
_Absit omen!_
My dear Barrie, I am a little in the dark about this new work of yours:[79]
what is to become of me afterwards? You say carefully--methought
anxiously--that I was no longer me when I grew up? I cannot bear this
suspense: what is it? It's no forgery? And AM I HANGIT? These are the
elements of a very pretty lawsuit which you had better come to Samoa to
compromise. I am enjoying a great pleasure that I had long looked
forward to, reading Orme's _History of Indostan_; I had been looking out
for it everywhere; but at last, in four volumes, large quarto,
beautiful type and page, and with a delectable set of maps and plans,
and all the names of the places wrongly spelled--it came to Samoa,
little Barrie. I tell you frankly, you had better come soon. I am sair
failed a'ready; and what I may be if you continue to dally, I dread to
conceive. I may be speechless; already, or at least for a month or so,
I'm little better than a teetoller--I beg pardon, a teetotaller. It is
not exactly physical, for I am in good health, working four or five
hours a day in my plantation, and intending to ride a paper-chase next
Sunday--ay, man, that's a fact, and I havena had the hert to breathe it
to my mother yet--the obligation's poleetical, for I am trying every
means to live well with my German neighbours--and, O Barrie, but it's no
easy!... To be sure, there are many exceptions. And the whole of the
above must be regarded as private--strictly private. Breathe it not in
Kirriemuir: tell it not to the daughters of Dundee! What a nice extract
this would make for the daily papers! and how it would facilitate my
position here!
_August 5th._--This is Sunday, the Lord's Day. "The hour of attack
approaches." And it is a singular consideration what I risk; I may yet
be the subject of a tract, and a good tract too--such as one which I
remember reading with recreant awe and rising hair in my youth, of a boy
who was a very good boy, and went to Sunday Schule, and one day kipped
from it, and went and actually bathed, and was dashed over a waterfall,
and he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A dangerous
trade, that, and one that I have to practise. I'll put in a word when I
get home again, to tell you whether I'm killed or not. "Accident in the
(Paper) Hunting Field: death of a notorious author. We deeply regret to
announce the death of the most unpopular man in Samoa, who broke his
neck, at the descent of Magiagi, from the misconduct of his little
raving lunatic of an old beast of a pony. It is proposed to commemorate
the incident by the erection of a suitable pile. The design (by our
local architect, Mr. Walker) is highly artificial, with a rich and
voluminous Crockett at each corner, a small but impervious Barrièer at
the entrance, an arch at the top, an Archer of a pleasing but solid
character at the bottom; the colour will be genuine William-Black; and
Lang, lang may the ladies sit wi' their fans in their hands." Well,
well, they may sit as they sat for me, and little they'll reck, the
ungrateful jauds! Muckle they cared about Tusitala when they had him!
But now ye can see the difference; now leddies, ye can repent, when ower
late, o' your former cauldness and what ye'll perhaps allow me to ca'
your _tepeedity_! He was beautiful as the day, but his day is done! And
perhaps, as he was maybe gettin' a wee thing fly-blown, it's nane too
shüne.
_Monday, August 6th._--Well, sir, I have escaped the dangerous
conjunction of the widow's only son and the Sabbath Day. We had a most
enjoyable time, and Lloyd and I were 3 and 4 to arrive; I will not tell
here what interval had elapsed between our arrival and the arrival of 1
and 2; the question, sir, is otiose and malign; it deserves, it shall
have no answer. And now without further delay to the main purpose of
this hasty note. We received and we have already in fact distributed the
gorgeous fahbrics of Kirriemuir. Whether from the splendour of the robes
themselves, or from the direct nature of the compliments with which you
had directed us to accompany the presentations, one young lady blushed
as she received the proofs of your munificence.... Bad ink, and the
dregs of it at that, but the heart in the right place. Still very
cordially interested in my Barrie and wishing him well through his
sickness, which is of the body, and long defended from mine, which is of
the head, and by the impolite might be described as idiocy. The whole
head is useless, and the whole sitting part painful: reason, the recent
Paper Chase.
There was racing and chasing in Vailele plantation,
And vastly we enjoyed it,
But, alas! for the state of my foundation,
For it wholly has destroyed it.
Come, my mind is looking up. The above is wholly impromptu.--On oath,
TUSITALA.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The missionary view of the Sunday paper-chase, with an account of
Stevenson's apologies to the ladies and gentlemen of the mission,
have been printed by Mr. W. E. Clarke in the Chronicle of the London
Missionary Society for April and May 1908.
_[Vailima] Aug. 7th, 1894._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is to inform you, sir, that on Sunday last (and
this is Tuesday) I attained my ideal here, and we had a paper-chase in
Vailele Plantation, about 15 miles, I take it, from us; and it was all
that could be wished. It is really better fun than following the hounds,
since you have to be your own hound, and a precious bad hound I was,
following every false scent on the whole course to the bitter end; but I
came in 3rd at the last on my little Jack, who stuck to it gallantly,
and awoke the praises of some discriminating persons. (5 + 7 + 2-1/2 =
14-1/2 miles; yes, that is the count.) We had quite the old sensations
of exhilaration, discovery, an appeal to a savage instinct; and I felt
myself about 17 again, a pleasant experience. However, it was on the
Sabbath Day, and I am now a pariah among the English, as if I needed any
increment of unpopularity. I must not go again; it gives so much
unnecessary tribulation to poor people, and, sure, we don't want to make
tribulation. I have been forbidden to work, and have been instead doing
my two or three hours in the plantation every morning. I only wish
somebody would pay me £10 a day for taking care of cacao, and I could
leave literature to others. Certainly, if I have plenty of exercise, and
no work, I feel much better; but there is Biles the butcher! him we
have always with us.
I do not much like novels, I begin to think, but I am enjoying
exceedingly Orme's _History of Hindostan_, a lovely book in its way, in
large quarto, with a quantity of maps, and written in a very lively and
solid eighteenth century way, never picturesque except by accident and
from a kind of conviction, and a fine sense of order. No historian I
have ever read is so minute; yet he never gives you a word about the
people; his interest is entirely limited in the concatenation of events,
into which he goes with a lucid, almost superhuman, and wholly ghostly
gusto. "By the ghost of a mathematician" the book might be announced. A
very brave, honest book.
Your letter to hand.
Fact is, I don't like the picter.[80] O, it's a good picture, but if you
_ask_ me, you know, I believe, stoutly believe, that mankind, including
you, are going mad. I am not in the midst with the other frenzy dancers,
so I don't catch it wholly; and when you show me a thing--and ask me,
don't you know--Well, well! Glad to get so good an account of the
_Amateur Emigrant_. Talking of which, I am strong for making a volume
out of selections from the South Sea letters; I read over again the King
of Apemama, and it is good in spite of your teeth, and a real curiosity,
a thing that can never be seen again, and the group is annexed and
Tembinoka dead. I wonder, couldn't you send out to me the _first_ five
Butaritari letters and the Low Archipelago ones (both of which I have
lost or mislaid) and I can chop out a perfectly fair volume of what I
wish to be preserved. It can keep for the last of the series.
_Travels and Excursions_, vol. II. Should it not include a paper on S. F.
from the Mag. of Art? The A. E., the New Pacific capital, the Old ditto.
_Silver._ _Squat._ This would give all my works on the States; and though
it ain't very good, it's not so very bad. _Travels and Excursions_, vol.
III., to be these resuscitated letters--_Miscellanies_, vol. II.--_comme
vous voudrez, cher monsieur!_
_Monday, Aug. 13th._--I have a sudden call to go up the coast and must
hurry up with my information. There has suddenly come to our naval
commanders the need of action, they're away up the coast bombarding the
Atua rebels. All morning on Saturday the sound of the bombardment of
Luatuanu'u kept us uneasy. To-day again the big guns have been sounding
further along the coast. One delicious circumstance must not be
forgotten. Our blessed President of the Council--a kind of hoary-headed
urchin, with the dim, timid eyes of extreme childhood and a kind of
beautiful simplicity that endears him to me beyond words--has taken the
head of the army--honour to him for it, for his place is really
there--and gone up the coast in the congenial company of his
housekeeper, a woman coming on for sixty with whom he takes his walks
abroad in the morning in his shirt-sleeves, whom he reads to at night
(in a kind of Popular History of Germany) in the silence of the
Presidential mansion, and with whom (and a couple of camp stools) he
walked out last Sunday to behold the paper-chase. I cannot tell you how
taken I am with this exploit of the President's and the housekeeper's.
It is like Don Quixote, but infinitely superior. If I could only do it
without offence, what a subject it would make!
To-morrow morning early I am off up the coast myself. Therefore you must
allow me to break off here without further ceremony.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO DR. BAKEWELL
The following is to a physician in Australia.
_Vailima, August 7, 1894._
DEAR DR. BAKEWELL,--I am not more than human. I am more human than is
wholly convenient, and your anecdote was welcome. What you say about
_unwilling work_, my dear sir, is a consideration always present with
me, and yet not easy to give its due weight to. You grow gradually into
a certain income; without spending a penny more, with the same sense of
restriction as before when you painfully scraped two hundred a year
together, you find you have spent, and you cannot well stop spending, a
far larger sum; and this expense can only be supported by a certain
production. However, I am off work this month, and occupy myself instead
in weeding my cacao, paper-chases, and the like. I may tell you, my
average of work in favourable circumstances is far greater than you
suppose: from six o'clock till eleven at latest,[81] and often till
twelve, and again in the afternoon from two to four. My hand is quite
destroyed, as you may perceive, to-day to a really unusual extent. I can
sometimes write a decent fist still; but I have just returned with my
arms all stung from three hours' work in the cacao.--Yours, etc.,
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
_Vailima, Upolu, Samoa [August 11, 1894]._
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I hear from Lang that you are unwell, and it
reminds me of two circumstances: First, that it is a very long time
since you had the exquisite pleasure of hearing from me; and second,
that I have been very often unwell myself and sometimes had to thank you
for a grateful anodyne.
They are not good, the circumstances, to write an anodyne letter. The
hills and my house at less than (boom) a minute's interval quake with
thunder; and though I cannot hear that part of it, shells are falling
thick into the fort of Luatuanu'u (boom). It is my friends of the
_Curaçoa_, the _Falke_, and the _Bussard_ bombarding (after all
these--boom--months) the rebels of Atua. (Boom-boom.) It is most
distracting in itself; and the thought of the poor devils in their fort
(boom) with their bits of rifles far from pleasant. (Boom-boom.) You can
see how quick it goes, and I'll say no more about Mr. Bow-wow, only you
must understand the perpetual accompaniment of this discomfortable
sound, and make allowances for the value of my copy. It is odd, though,
I can well remember, when the Franco-Prussian war began, and I was in
Eilean Earraid, far enough from the sound of the loudest cannonade, I
could _hear_ the shots fired, and I felt the pang in my breast of a man
struck. It was sometimes so distressing, so instant, that I lay in the
heather on the top of the island, with my face hid, kicking my heels for
agony. And now, when I can hear the actual concussion of the air and
hills, when I _know_ personally the people who stand exposed to it, I am
able to go on _taut bien que mal_ with a letter to James Payn! The
blessings of age, though mighty small, are tangible. I have heard a
great deal of them since I came into the world, and now that I begin to
taste of them--Well! But this is one, that people do get cured of the
excess of sensibility; and I had as lief these people were shot at as
myself--or almost, for then I should have some of the fun, such as it
is.
You are to conceive me, then, sitting in my little gallery room, shaken
by these continual spasms of cannon, and with my eye more or less singly
fixed on the imaginary figure of my dear James Payn. I try to see him in
bed; no go. I see him instead jumping up in his room in Waterloo Place
(where _ex hypothesi_ he is not), sitting on the table, drawing out a
very black briar-root pipe, and beginning to talk to a slim and
ill-dressed visitor in a voice that is good to hear and with a smile
that is pleasant to see. (After a little more than half an hour, the
voice that was ill to hear has ceased, the cannonade is over.) And I am
thinking how I can get an answering smile wafted over so many leagues
of land and water, and can find no way.
I have always been a great visitor of the sick; and one of the sick I
visited was W. E. Henley, which did not make very tedious visits, so
I'll not get off much purgatory for them. That was in the Edinburgh
Infirmary, the old one, the true one, with Georgius Secundus standing
and pointing his toe in a niche of the façade; and a mighty fine
building it was! And I remember one winter's afternoon, in that place of
misery, that Henley and I chanced to fall in talk about James Payn
himself. I am wishing you could have heard that talk! I think that would
make you smile. We had mixed you up with John Payne, for one thing, and
stood amazed at your extraordinary, even painful, versatility; and for
another, we found ourselves each students so well prepared for
examinations on the novels of the real Mackay. Perhaps, after all, this
is worth something in life--to have given so much pleasure to a pair so
different in every way as were Henley and I, and to be talked of with so
much interest by two such (beg pardon) clever lads!
The cheerful Lang has neglected to tell me what is the matter with you;
so, I'm sorry to say, I am cut off from all the customary consolations.
I can't say, "Think how much worse it would be if you had a broken leg!"
when you may have the crushing repartee up your sleeve, "But it is my
leg that is broken." This is a pity. But there are consolations. You are
an Englishman (I believe); you are a man of letters; you have never been
made C.B.; you hair was not red; you have played cribbage and whist; you
did not play either the fiddle or the banjo; you were never an æsthete;
you never contributed to ----'s Journal; your name is not Jabez Balfour;
you are totally unconnected with the Army and Navy departments; I
understand you to have lived within your income--why, cheer up! here are
many legitimate causes of congratulation. I seem to be writing an
obituary notice. _Absit omen!_ But I feel very sure that these
considerations will have done you more good than medicine.
By the by, did you ever play piquet? I have fallen a victim to this
debilitating game. It is supposed to be scientific; God save the mark,
what self-deceivers men are! It is distinctly less so than cribbage. But
how fascinating! There is such material opulence about it, such vast
ambitions may be realised--and are not; it may be called the Monte
Cristo of games. And the thrill with which you take five cards partakes
of the nature of lust--and you draw four sevens and a nine, and the
seven and nine of a suit that you discarded, and O! but the world is a
desert! You may see traces of discouragement in my letter: all due to
piquet! There has been a disastrous turn of the luck against me; a month
or two ago I was two thousand ahead; now, and for a week back, I have
been anything from four thousand eight hundred to five thousand two
hundred astern. I have a sixième, my beast of a partner has a septième;
and if I have three aces, three kings, three queens, and three knaves
(excuse the slight exaggeration), the devil holds quatorze of tens!--I
remain, my dear James Payn, your sincere and obliged friend--old friend
let me say,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MIDDLETON
A letter from the lady to whom this is addressed, and who had been a
friend of the Stevenson family in Edinburgh, had called up some
memories of a Skye terrier, Jura, of whom readers have heard
something already.
_Vailima, Samoa, September 9, 1894._
DEAR MISS MIDDLETON,--Your letter has been like the drawing up of a
curtain. Of course I remember you very well, and the Skye terrier to
which you refer--a heavy, dull, fatted, graceless creature he grew up to
be--was my own particular pet. It may amuse you, perhaps, as much as
"The Inn" amused me, if I tell you what made this dog particularly mine.
My father was the natural god of all the dogs in our house, and poor
Jura took to him of course. Jura was stolen, and kept in prison
somewhere for more than a week, as I remember. When he came back
Smeoroch had come and taken my father's heart from him. He took his
stand like a man, and positively never spoke to my father again from
that day until the day of his death. It was the only sign of character
he ever showed. I took him up to my room and to be my dog in
consequence, partly because I was sorry for him, and partly because I
admired his dignity in misfortune.
With best regards and thanks for having reminded me of so many pleasant
days, old acquaintances, dead friends, and--what is perhaps as pathetic
as any of them--dead dogs, I remain, yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
The following refers to the papers originally contributed by various
writers to Mr. Jerome's periodical The Idler, under the title _My
First Book_, and afterwards republished in a volume. The references
towards the end are to the illustrations in the pages of The Idler.
_Vailima, Samoa, September 9, 1894._
MY DEAR CONAN DOYLE,--If you found anything to entertain you in my
_Treasure Island_ article, it may amuse you to know that you owe it
entirely to yourself. _Your_ "First Book" was by some accident read
aloud one night in my Baronial 'All. I was consumedly amused by it, so
was the whole family, and we proceeded to hunt up back Idlers and read
the whole series. It is a rattling good series, even people whom you
would not expect came in quite the proper tone--Miss Braddon, for
instance, who was really one of the best where all are good--or all but
one!... In short, I fell in love with "The First Book" series, and
determined that it should be all our first books, and that I could not
hold back where the white plume of Conan Doyle waved gallantly in the
front. I hope they will republish them, though it's a grievous thought
to me that that effigy in the German cap--likewise the other effigy of
the noisome old man with the long hair, telling indelicate stories to a
couple of deformed negresses in a rancid shanty full of wreckage--should
be perpetuated. I may seem to speak in pleasantry--it is only a
seeming--that German cap, sir, would be found, when I come to die,
imprinted on my heart. Enough--my heart is too full. Adieu.--Yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
(in a German cap, damn 'em!).
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Vailima, September 1894._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This must be a very measly letter. I have been trying
hard to get along with _St. Ives_. I should now lay it aside for a year
and I dare say I should make something of it after all. Instead of that,
I have to kick against the pricks, and break myself, and spoil the book,
if there were anything to spoil, which I am far from saying. I'm as sick
of the thing as ever any one can be; it's a rudderless hulk; it's a
pagoda, and you can just feel--or I can feel--that it might have been a
pleasant story, if it had been only blessed at baptism.
Our politics have gone on fairly well, but the result is still doubtful.
_Sept. 10th._--I know I have something else to say to you, but
unfortunately I awoke this morning with colly-wobbles, and had to take a
small dose of laudanum with the usual consequences of dry throat,
intoxicated legs, partial madness and total imbecility; and for the
life of me I cannot remember what it is. I have likewise mislaid your
letter amongst the accumulations on my table, not that there was
anything in it. Altogether I am in a poor state. I forgot to tell Baxter
that the dummy had turned up and is a fine, personable-looking volume
and very good reading. Please communicate this to him.
I have just remembered an incident that I really must not let pass. You
have heard a great deal more than you wanted about our political
prisoners. Well, one day, about a fortnight ago, the last of them was
set free--Old Poè, whom I think I must have mentioned to you, the
father-in-law of my cook, was one that I had had a great deal of trouble
with. I had taken the doctor to see him, got him out on sick leave, and
when he was put back again gave bail for him. I must not forget that my
wife ran away with him out of the prison on the doctor's orders and with
the complicity of our friend the gaoler, who really and truly got the
sack for the exploit. As soon as he was finally liberated, Poè called a
meeting of his fellow-prisoners. All Sunday they were debating what they
were to do, and on Monday morning I got an obscure hint from Talolo that
I must expect visitors during the day who were coming to consult me.
These consultations I am now very well used to, and seeing first, that I
generally don't know what to advise, and second that they sometimes
don't take my advice--though in some notable cases they have taken it,
generally to my own wonder with pretty good results--I am not very fond
of these calls. They minister to a sense of dignity, but not peace of
mind, and consume interminable time, always in the morning too, when I
can't afford it. However, this was to be a new sort of consultation. Up
came Poè and some eight other chiefs, squatted in a big circle around
the old dining-room floor, now the smoking-room. And the family, being
represented by Lloyd, Graham, Belle, Austin and myself, proceeded to
exchange the necessary courtesies. Then their talking man began. He
said that they had been in prison, that I had always taken an interest
in them, that they had now been set at liberty without condition,
whereas some of the other chiefs who had been liberated before them were
still under bond to work upon the roads, and that this had set them
considering what they might do to testify their gratitude. They had
therefore agreed to work upon my road as a free gift. They went on to
explain that it was only to be on my road, on the branch that joins my
house with the public way.
Now I was very much gratified at this compliment, although (to one used
to natives) it seemed rather a hollow one. It meant only that I should
have to lay out a good deal of money on tools and food and to give wages
under the guise of presents to some workmen who were most of them old
and in ill-health. Conceive how much I was surprised and touched when I
heard the whole scheme explained to me. They were to return to their
provinces, and collect their families; some of the young men were to
live in Apia with a boat, and ply up and down the coast to A'ana and
Atua (our own Tuamasaga being quite drained of resources) in order to
supply the working squad with food. Tools they did ask for, but it was
especially mentioned that I was to make no presents. In short, the whole
of this little "presentation" to me had been planned with a good deal
more consideration than goes usually with a native campaign.
[I sat on the opposite side of the circle to the talking man. His face
was quite calm and high-bred as he went through the usual Samoan
expressions of politeness and compliment, but when he came on to the
object of their visit, on their love and gratitude to Tusitala, how his
name was always in their prayers, and his goodness to them when they had
no other friend, was their most cherished memory, he warmed up to real,
burning, genuine feeling. I had never seen the Samoan mask of reserve
laid aside before, and it touched me more than anything else. A.M.]
This morning as ever was, bright and early up came the whole gang of
them, a lot of sturdy, common-looking lads they seemed to be for the
most part, and fell to on my new road. Old Poè was in the highest of
good spirits, and looked better in health than he has done any time in
two years, being positively rejuvenated by the success of his scheme. He
jested as he served out the new tools, and I am sorry to say damned the
Government up hill and down dale, probably with a view to show off his
position as a friend of the family before his workboys. Now, whether or
not their impulse will last them through the road does not matter to me
one hair. It is the fact that they have attempted it, that they have
volunteered and are now really trying to execute a thing that was never
before heard of in Samoa. Think of it! It is road-making--the most
fruitful cause (after taxes) of all rebellions in Samoa, a thing to
which they could not be wiled with money nor driven by punishment. It
does give me a sense of having done something in Samoa after all.
Now there's one long story for you about "my blacks."--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following was written on hearing of the death of his friend's
father.
[_Vailima, September 1894._]
MY DEAR CHARLES,--... Well, there is no more Edmund Baxter now; and I
think I may say I know how you feel. He was one of the best, the
kindest, and the most genial men I ever knew. I shall always remember
his brisk, cordial ways and the essential goodness which he showed me
whenever we met with gratitude. And the always is such a little while
now! He is another of the landmarks gone; when it comes to my own turn
to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue; and
whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my
fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine. And these deaths
make me think of it with an ever greater readiness. Strange that you
should be beginning a new life, when I, who am a little your junior, am
thinking of the end of mine. But I have had hard lines; I have been so
long waiting for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about life so
long, that I have not a filament left to hold by; I have done my
fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I have almost forgotten to play,
and can only wait for the eruption, and think it long of coming.
Literally, no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's
good fun.
R. L. S.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
Stevenson had received from his cousin a letter announcing, among
other things, the birth of a son to the writer, and rambling
suggestively, as may be guessed from the following reply, over many
disconnected themes: the ethnology of Scotland, paternity and
heredity, civilisation _versus_ primitive customs and instincts, the
story of their own descent, the method of writing in collaboration,
education, Christianity and sex, the religion of conduct, anarchism,
etc.; all which matters are here discursively touched on. "Old Skene"
is, of course, the distinguished Scottish antiquarian and historian,
William Forbes Skene, in whose firm (Skene & Edwards, W.S.) Stevenson
had for a time served irregularly enough as an unpaid clerk.
[_Vailima, September 1894._]
DEAR BOB,--You are in error about the Picts. They were a Gaelic race,
spoke a Celtic tongue, and we have no evidence that I know of that they
were blacker than other Celts. The Balfours, I take it, were plainly
Celts; their name shows it--the "cold croft," it means; so does their
country. Where the _black_ Scotch come from nobody knows; but I
recognise with you the fact that the whole of Britain is rapidly and
progressively becoming more pigmented; already in one man's life I can
decidedly trace a difference in the children about a school door. But
colour is not an essential part of a man or a race. Take my Polynesians,
an Asiatic people probably from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf.
They range through any amount of shades, from the burnt hue of the Low
Archipelago islander, which seems half negro, to the "bleached" pretty
women of the Marquesas (close by on the map), who come out for a
festival no darker than an Italian; their colour seems to vary directly
with the degree of exposure to the sun. And, as with negroes, the babes
are born white; only it should seem a _little sack_ of pigment at the
lower part of the spine, which presently spreads over the whole field.
Very puzzling. But to return. The Picts furnish to-day perhaps a third
of the population of Scotland, say another third for Scots and Britons,
and the third for Norse and Angles is a bad third. Edinburgh was a
Pictish place. But the fact is, we don't know their frontiers. Tell some
of your journalist friends with a good style to popularise old Skene; or
say your prayers, and read him for yourself; he was a Great Historian,
and I was his blessed clerk, and did not know it; and you will not be in
a state of grace about the Picts till you have studied him. J. Horne
Stevenson (do you know him?) is working this up with me, and the fact
is--it's not interesting to the public--but it's interesting, and very
interesting, in itself, and just now very embarrassing--this rural
parish supplied Glasgow with such a quantity of Stevensons in the
beginning of last century! There is just a link wanting; and we might be
able to go back to the eleventh century, always undistinguished, but
clearly traceable. When I say just a link, I guess I may be taken to
mean a dozen. What a singular thing is this undistinguished perpetuation
of a family throughout the centuries, and the sudden bursting forth of
character and capacity that began with our grandfather! But as I go on
in life, day by day, I become more of a bewildered child; I cannot get
used to this world, to procreation, to heredity, to sight, to hearing;
the commonest things are a burthen. The prim obliterated polite face of
life, and the broad, bawdy, and orgiastic--or mænadic--foundations, form
a spectacle to which no habit reconciles me; and "I could wish my days
to be bound each to each" by the same open-mouthed wonder. They _are_
anyway, and whether I wish it or not.
I remember very well your attitude to life, this conventional surface of
it. You had none of that curiosity for the social stage directions, the
trivial _ficelles_ of the business; it is simian, but that is how the
wild youth of man is captured; you wouldn't imitate, hence you kept
free--a wild dog, outside the kennel--and came dam near starving for
your pains. The key to the business is of course the belly; difficult as
it is to keep that in view in the zone of three miraculous meals a day
in which we were brought up. Civilisation has become reflex with us; you
might think that hunger was the name of the best sauce; but hunger to
the cold solitary under a bush of a rainy night is the name of something
quite different. I defend civilisation for the thing it is, for the
thing it has _come_ to be, the standpoint of a real old Tory. My ideal
would be the Female Clan. But how can you turn these crowding dumb
multitudes _back?_ They don't do anything _because_; they do things,
write able articles, stitch shoes, dig, from the purely simian impulse.
Go and reason with monkeys!
No, I am right about Jean Lillie. Jean Lillie, our double
great-grandmother, the daughter of David Lillie, sometime Deacon of the
Wrights, married, first, Alan Stevenson, who died May 26, 1774, "at
Santt Kittes of a fiver," by whom she had Robert Stevenson, born 8th
June 1772; and, second, in May or June 1787, Thomas Smith, a widower,
and already the father of our grandmother. This improbable double
connection always tends to confuse a student of the family, Thomas Smith
being doubly our great-grandfather.
I looked on the perpetuation of our honoured name with veneration. My
mother collared one of the photos, of course; the other is stuck up on
my wall as the chief of our sept. Do you know any of the Gaelic-Celtic
sharps? you might ask what the name means. It puzzles me. I find a
_M'Stein_ and a _MacStephane_; and our own great-grandfather always
called himself Steenson, though he wrote it Stevenson. There are at
least three _places_ called Stevenson--_Stevenson_ in Cunningham,
_Stevenson_ in Peebles, and _Stevenson_ in Haddington. And it was not
the Celtic trick, I understand, to call places after people. I am going
to write to Sir Herbert Maxwell about the name, but you might find some
one.
Get the Anglo-Saxon heresy out of your head; they superimposed their
language, they scarce modified the race; only in Berwickshire and
Roxburgh have they very largely affected the place names. The
Scandinavians did much more to Scotland than the Angles. The Saxons
didn't come.
Enough of this sham antiquarianism. Yes, it is in the matter of the
book[82] of course, that collaboration shows; as for the manner, it is
superficially all mine in the sense that the last copy is all in my
hand. Lloyd did not even put pen to paper in the Paris scenes or the
Barbizon scene; it was no good; he wrote and often rewrote all the rest;
I had the best service from him on the character of Nares. You see, we
had been just meeting the man, and his memory was full of the man's
words and ways. And Lloyd is an impressionist, pure and simple. The
great difficulty of collaboration is that you can't explain what you
mean. I know what kind of effect I mean a character to give--what kind
of _tache_ he is to make; but how am I to tell my collaborator in words?
Hence it was necessary to say, "Make him So-and-so"; and this was all
right for Nares and Pinkerton and Loudon Dodd, whom we both knew, but
for Bellairs, for instance--a man with whom I passed ten minutes fifteen
years ago--what was I to say? and what could Lloyd do? I, as a personal
artist, can begin a character with only a haze in my head, but how if I
have to translate the haze into words before I begin? In our manner of
collaboration (which I think the only possible--I mean that of one
person being responsible, and giving the _coup de pouce_ to every part
of the work) I was spared the obviously hopeless business of trying to
explain to my collaborator what _style_ I wished a passage to be treated
in. These are the times that illustrate to a man the inadequacy of
spoken language. Now--to be just to written language--I can (or could)
find a language for my every mood, but how could I _tell_ any one
beforehand what this effect was to be, which it would take every art
that I possessed, and hours and hours of deliberate labour and selection
and rejection, to produce? These are the impossibilities of
collaboration. Its immediate advantage is to focus two minds together on
the stuff, and to produce in consequence an extraordinarily greater
richness of purview, consideration, and invention. The hardest chapter
of all was "Cross Questions and Crooked Answers." You would not believe
what that cost us before it assumed the least unity and colour. Lloyd
wrote it at least thrice, and I at least five times--this is from
memory. And was that last chapter worth the trouble it cost? Alas, that
I should ask the question! Two classes of men--the artist and the
educationalist--are sworn, on soul and conscience, not to ask it. You
get an ordinary, grinning, red-headed boy, and you have to educate him.
Faith supports you; you give your valuable hours, the boy does not seem
to profit, but that way your duty lies, for which you are paid, and you
must persevere. Education has always seemed to me one of the few
possible and dignified ways of life. A sailor, a shepherd, a
schoolmaster--to a less degree, a soldier--and (I don't know why, upon
my soul, except as a sort of schoolmaster's unofficial assistant, and a
kind of acrobat in tights) an artist, almost exhaust the category.
If I had to begin again--I know not--_si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse
pouvait_ ... I know not at all--I believe I should try to honour Sex
more religiously. The worst of our education is that Christianity does
not recognise and hallow Sex. It looks askance at it, over its shoulder,
oppressed as it is by reminiscences of hermits and Asiatic
self-tortures. It is a terrible hiatus in our modern religions that they
cannot see and make venerable that which they ought to see first and
hallow most. Well, it is so; I cannot be wiser than my generation.
But no doubt there is something great in the half-success that has
attended the effort of turning into an emotional religion, Bald Conduct,
without any appeal, or almost none, to the figurative, mysterious, and
constitutive facts of life. Not that conduct is not constitutive, but
dear! it's dreary! On the whole, conduct is better dealt with on the
cast-iron "gentleman" and duty formula, with as little fervour and
poetry as possible; stoical and short.... There is a new something or
other in the wind, which exercises me hugely: anarchy,--I mean,
anarchism. People who (for pity's sake) commit dastardly murders very
basely, die like saints, and leave beautiful letters behind 'em (did you
see Vaillant to his daughter? it was the New Testament over again);
people whose conduct is inexplicable to me, and yet their spiritual life
higher than that of most. This is just what the early Christians must
have seemed to the Romans. Is this, then, a new _drive_[83] among the
monkeys? Mind you, Bob, if they go on being martyred a few years more,
the gross, dull, not unkindly bourgeois may get tired or ashamed or
afraid of going on martyring; and the anarchists come out at the top
just like the early Christians. That is, of course, they will step into
power as a _personnel_, but God knows what they may believe when they
come to do so; it can't be stranger or more improbable than what
Christianity had come to be by the same time.
Your letter was easily read, the pagination presented no difficulty, and
I read it with much edification and gusto. To look back, and to
stereotype one bygone humour--what a hopeless thing! The mind runs ever
in a thousand eddies like a river between cliffs. You (the ego) are
always spinning round in it, east, west, north, and south. You are
twenty years old, and forty, and five, and the next moment you are
freezing at an imaginary eighty; you are never the plain forty-four that
you should be by dates. (The most philosophical language is the Gaelic,
which has _no present tense_--and the most useless.) How, then, to
choose some former age, and stick there?
R. L. S.
TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
_Vailima, Samoa, September 10, 1894._
DEAR SIR HERBERT MAXWELL,--I am emboldened by reading your very
interesting Rhind Lectures to put to you a question: What is my name,
Stevenson?
I find it in the forms Stevinetoun, Stevensoune, Stevensonne, Stenesone,
Stewinsoune, M'Stein, and MacStephane. My family, and (as far as I can
gather) the majority of the inglorious clan, hailed from the borders of
Cunningham and Renfrew, and the upper waters of the Clyde. In the Barony
of Bothwell was the seat of the laird Stevenson of Stevenson; but, as of
course you know, there is a parish in Cunningham and places in Peebles
and Haddington bearing the same name.
If you can at all help me, you will render me a real service which I
wish I could think of some manner to repay.--Believe me, yours truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--I should have added that I have perfect evidence before me that
(for some obscure reason) Stevenson was a favourite alias with the
M'Gregors.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima, Samoa, October 6th, 1894._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--We have had quite an interesting month and mostly in
consideration of that road which I think I told you was about to be
made. It was made without a hitch, though I confess I was considerably
surprised. When they got through, I wrote a speech to them, sent it down
to a Missionary to be translated, and invited the lot to a feast. I
thought a good deal of this feast. The occasion was really interesting.
I wanted to pitch it in hot. And I wished to have as many influential
witnesses present as possible. Well, as it drew towards the day I had
nothing but refusals. Everybody supposed it was to be a political
occasion, that I had made a hive of rebels up here, and was going to
push for new hostilities.
The Amanuensis has been ill, and after the above trial petered out. I
must return to my own, lone Waverley. The captain refused, telling me
why; and at last I had to beat up for people almost with prayers.
However, I got a good lot, as you will see by the accompanying newspaper
report. The road contained this inscription, drawn up by the chiefs
themselves:
"THE ROAD OF GRATITUDE
"Considering the great love of Tusitala in his loving care of us in our
distress in the prison, we have therefore prepared a splendid gift. It
shall never be muddy, it shall endure for ever, this road that we have
dug."
This the newspaper reporter could not give, not knowing any Samoan. The
same reason explains his references to Seumanutafa's speech, which was
not long and _was_ important, for it was a speech of courtesy and
forgiveness to his former enemies. It was very much applauded. Secondly,
it was not Poè, it was Mataaf[=a] (don't confuse with Mataafa) who spoke
for the prisoners. Otherwise it is extremely correct.
I beg your pardon for so much upon my aboriginals. Even you must
sympathise with me in this unheard-of compliment, and my having been
able to deliver so severe a sermon with acceptance. It remains a nice
point of conscience what I should wish done in the matter. I think this
meeting, its immediate results, and the terms of what I said to them,
desirable to be known. It will do a little justice to me, who have not
had too much justice done me. At the same time, to send this report to
the papers is truly an act of self-advertisement, and I dislike the
thought. Query, in a man who has been so much calumniated, is that not
justifiable? I do not know; be my judge. Mankind is too complicated for
me; even myself. Do I wish to advertise? I think I do, God help me! I
have had hard times here, as every man must have who mixes up with
public business; and I bemoan myself, knowing that all I have done has
been in the interest of peace and good government; and having once
delivered my mind, I would like it, I think, to be made public. But the
other part of me _regimbs_.[84]
I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by their wits, so I do
not despair. But the truth is I am pretty nearly useless at literature,
and I will ask you to spare _St. Ives_ when it goes to you; it is a sort
of _Count Robert of Paris_. But I hope rather a _Dombey and Son_, to be
succeeded by _Our Mutual Friend_ and _Great Expectations_ and _A Tale of
Two Cities_. No toil has been spared over the ungrateful canvas; and it
_will not_ come together, and I must live, and my family. Were it not
for my health, which made it impossible, I could not find it in my heart
to forgive myself that I did not stick to an honest, commonplace trade
when I was young, which might have now supported me during these ill
years. But do not suppose me to be down in anything else; only, for the
nonce, my skill deserts me, such as it is, or was. It was a very little
dose of inspiration, and a pretty little trick of style, long lost,
improved by the most heroic industry. So far, I have managed to please
the journalists. But I am a fictitious article and have long known it. I
am read by journalists, by my fellow-novelists, and by boys; with these,
_incipit et explicit_ my vogue. Good thing anyway! for it seems to have
sold the Edition. And I look forward confidently to an aftermath; I do
not think my health can be so hugely improved, without some subsequent
improvement in my brains. Though, of course, there is the possibility
that literature is a morbid secretion, and abhors health! I do not think
it is possible to have fewer illusions than I. I sometimes wish I had
more. They are amusing. But I cannot take myself seriously as an artist;
the limitations are so obvious. I did take myself seriously as a workman
of old, but my practice has fallen off. I am now an idler and cumberer
of the ground; it may be excused to me perhaps by twenty years of
industry and ill-health, which have taken the cream off the milk.
As I was writing this last sentence, I heard the strident rain drawing
near across the forest, and by the time I was come to the word "cream"
it burst upon my roof, and has since redoubled, and roared upon it. A
very welcome change. All smells of the good wet earth, sweetly, with a
kind of Highland touch; the crystal rods of the shower, as I look up,
have drawn their criss-cross over everything; and a gentle and very
welcome coolness comes up around me in little draughts, blessed
draughts, not chilling, only equalising the temperature. Now the rain
is off in this spot, but I hear it roaring still in the nigh
neighbourhood--and that moment, I was driven from the verandah by random
raindrops, spitting at me through the Japanese blinds. These are not
tears with which the page is spotted! Now the windows stream, the roof
reverberates. It is good; it answers something which is in my heart; I
know not what; old memories of the wet moorland belike.
Well, it has blown by again, and I am in my place once more, with an
accompaniment of perpetual dripping on the verandah--and very much
inclined for a chat. The exact subject I do not know! It will be bitter
at least, and that is strange, for my attitude is essentially _not_
bitter, but I have come into these days when a man sees above all the
seamy side, and I have dwelt some time in a small place where he has an
opportunity of reading little motives that he would miss in the great
world, and indeed, to-day, I am almost ready to call the world an error.
Because? Because I have not drugged myself with successful work, and
there are all kinds of trifles buzzing in my ear, unfriendly trifles,
from the least to the--well, to the pretty big. All these that touch me
are Pretty Big; and yet none touch me in the least, if rightly looked
at, except the one eternal burthen to go on making an income for my
family. That is rightly the root and ground of my ill. The jingling,
tingling, damned mint sauce is the trouble always; and if I could find a
place where I could lie down and give up for (say) two years, and allow
the sainted public to support me, if it were a lunatic asylum, wouldn't
I go, just! But we can't have both extremes at once, worse luck! I
should like to put my savings into a proprietarian investment, and
retire in the meanwhile into a communistic retreat, which is
double-dealing. But you men with aries don't know how alas family weighs
on a fellow's mind.
I hear the article in next week's _Herald_ is to be a great affair, and
all the officials who came to me the other day are to be attacked! This
is the unpleasant side of being (without a salary) in public life; I
will leave any one to judge if my speech was well intended, and
calculated to do good. It was even daring--I assure you one of the
chiefs looked like a fiend at my description of Samoan warfare. Your
warning was not needed; we are all determined to _keep the peace_ and to
_hold our peace_. I know, my dear fellow, how remote all this sounds!
Kindly pardon your friend. I have my life to live here; these interests
are for me immediate; and if I do not write of them, I might as soon not
write at all. There is the difficulty in a distant correspondence. It is
perhaps easy for me to enter into and understand your interests; I own
it is difficult for you; but you must just wade through them for
friendship's sake, and try to find tolerable what is vital for your
friend. I cannot forbear challenging you to it, as to intellectual
lists. It is the proof of intelligence, the proof of not being a
barbarian, to be able to enter into something outside of oneself,
something that does not touch one's next neighbour in the city omnibus.
Good-bye, my lord. May your race continue and you flourish.--Yours ever,
TUSITALA.
TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM
For a fuller account of the road-making affair here mentioned, see
pp. 431, 462.
_[Vailima] October 8th, 1894._
MY DEAR CUMMY,--So I hear you are ailing? Think shame to yoursell! So
you think there is nothing better to be done with time than that? and be
sure we can all do much ourselves to decide whether we are to be ill or
well! like a man on the gymnastic bars. We are all pretty well. As for
me, there is nothing the matter with me in the world, beyond the
disgusting circumstance that I am not so young as once I was. Lloyd has
a gymnastic machine, and practises upon it every morning for an hour:
he is beginning to be a kind of young Samson. Austin grows fat and
brown, and gets on not so ill with his lessons, and my mother is in
great price. We are having knock-me-down weather for heat; I never
remember it so hot before, and I fancy it means we are to have a
hurricane again this year, I think; since we came here, we have not had
a single gale of wind! The Pacific is but a child to the North Sea; but
when she does get excited, and gets up and girds herself, she can do
something good. We have had a very interesting business here. I helped
the chiefs who were in prison; and when they were set free, what should
they do but offer to make a part of my road for me out of gratitude?
Well, I was ashamed to refuse, and the trumps dug my road for me, and
put up this inscription on a board:--
"_Considering the great love of His Excellency Tusitala in his loving
care for us in our tribulation in the prison we have made this great
gift; it shall never be muddy, it shall go on for ever, this road that
we have dug!_" We had a great feast when it was done, and I read them a
kind of lecture, which I dare say Auntie will have, and can let you see.
Weel, guid bye to ye, and joy be wi' ye! I hae nae time to say mair.
They say I'm gettin' _fat_--a fact!--Your laddie, with all love,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO JAMES PAYN
_Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 4, 1894._
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I am asked to relate to you a little incident of
domestic life at Vailima. I had read your _Gleams of Memory_, No. 1; it
then went to my wife, to Osbourne, to the cousin that is within my
gates, and to my respected amanuensis, Mrs. Strong. Sunday approached.
In the course of the afternoon I was attracted to the great 'all--the
winders is by Vanderputty, which upon entering I beheld a memorable
scene. The floor was bestrewn with the forms of midshipmen from the
_Curaçoa_--"boldly say a wilderness of gunroom"--and in the midst of
this sat Mrs. Strong throned on the sofa and reading aloud _Gleams of
Memory_. They had just come the length of your immortal definition of
boyhood in the concrete, and I had the pleasure to see the whole party
dissolve under its influence with inextinguishable laughter. I thought
this was not half bad for arthritic gout! Depend upon it, sir, when I go
into the arthritic gout business, I shall be done with literature, or at
least with the funny business. It is quite true I have my battlefields
behind me. I have done perhaps as much work as anybody else under the
most deplorable conditions. But two things fall to be noticed: In the
first place, I never was in actual pain; and in the second, I was never
funny. I'll tell you the worst day that I remember. I had a hemorrhage,
and was not allowed to speak; then, induced by the devil, or an errant
doctor, I was led to partake of that bowl which neither cheers nor
inebriates--the castor-oil bowl. Now, when castor-oil goes right, it is
one thing; but when it goes wrong, it is another. And it went wrong with
me that day. The waves of faintness and nausea succeeded each other for
twelve hours, and I do feel a legitimate pride in thinking that I stuck
to my work all through and wrote a good deal of _Admiral Guinea_ (which
I might just as well not have written for all the reward it ever brought
me) in spite of the barbarous bad conditions. I think that is my great
boast; and it seems a little thing alongside of your _Gleams of Memory_
illustrated by spasms of arthritic gout. We really should have an order
of merit in the trade of letters. For valour, Scott would have had it;
Pope too; myself on the strength of that castor-oil; and James Payn
would be a Knight Commander. The worst of it is, though Lang tells me
you exhibit the courage of Huish, that not even an order can alleviate
the wretched annoyance of the business. I have always said that there
is nothing like pain; toothache, dumb-ague, arthritic gout, it does not
matter what you call it, if the screw is put upon the nerves
sufficiently strong, there is nothing left in heaven or in earth that
can interest the sufferer. Still, even to this there is the consolation
that it cannot last for ever. Either you will be relieved and have a
good hour again before the sun goes down, or else you will be liberated.
It is something after all (although not much) to think that you are
leaving a brave example; that other literary men love to remember, as I
am sure they will love to remember, everything about you--your
sweetness, your brightness, your helpfulness to all of us, and in
particular those one or two really adequate and noble papers which you
have been privileged to write during these last years.--With the
heartiest and kindest good-will, I remain, yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This was the last letter I received from my friend. On the morning of
his death the following month he spoke of being behindhand with his
December letter and of his intention to write it next day.
[_Vailima, November 1894._]
DEAR COLVIN,--Saturday there was a ball to the ship, and on Sunday Gurr
had a child to be baptized. Belle was to be godmother and had to be got
down; which was impossible, as the jester Euclid says. However, we had
four men of very different heights take the poles of a sort of bier and
carry her shoulder high down the road, till we met a trap. On the return
journey on Sunday, they were led by Austin playing (?) on a bugle, and
you have no idea how picturesque a business it was; the four half-naked
bearers, the cane lounge at that height from the ground, and Belle in
black and pretty pale reclining very like a dead warrior of yore.
However she wasn't dead yet. All the rest of the afternoon we hung
about and had consultations about the baptism. Just as we went in to
dinner, I saw the moon rise accurately full, looking five times greater
than nature, and the face that we try to decipher in its silver disk
wearing an obliterated but benignant expression. The ball followed;
bluejackets and officers danced indiscriminately, after their pleasant
fashion; and Belle, who lay in the hotel verandah, and held a sort of
reception all night, had her longest visit from one of the blue-jackets,
her partner in the last ball. About one on the Sunday morning all was
over, and we went to bed--I, alas! only to get up again, my room being
in the verandah, where a certain solemnly absurd family conclave (all
drunk) was being held until (I suppose) three. By six, I was awake, and
went out on the verandah. On the east the dawn had broken, cold and pink
and rust colour, and the marshes were all smoking whitely and blowing
into the bay like smoke, but on the west, all was golden. The street was
empty, and right over it hung the setting moon, accurately round, yellow
as an apricot, but slumberous, with an effect of afternoon you would not
believe if you had not seen it. Then followed a couple of hours on the
verandah I would be glad to forget. By seven X. Y. had joined me, as
drunk as they make 'em. As he sat and talked to me, he smelt of the
charnel house, methought. He looked so old (he is one month my senior);
he spoke so silly; his poor leg is again covered with boils, which will
spell death to him; and--enough. That interview has made me a
teetotaller. O, it is bad to grow old. For me, it is practically hell. I
do not like the consolations of age. I was born a young man; I have
continued so; and before I end, a pantaloon, a driveller--enough again.
But I don't enjoy getting elderly. Belle and I got home about three in
the afternoon, she having in the meantime renounced all that makes life
worth living in the name of little Miss Gurr, and I seriously reflecting
on renouncing the kindly bowl in earnest! Presently after arrived the
news of Margery Ide (the C.J.'s daughter) being seriously ill,
alarmingly ill. Fanny wanted to go down; it was a difficult choice; she
was not fit for it; on the other hand (and by all accounts) the patient
would die if she did not get better nursing. So we made up our own
minds, and F. and I set out about dusk, came to the C.J.'s in the middle
of dinner, and announced our errand. I am glad to say the C.J. received
her very willingly; and I came home again, leaving her behind, where she
was certainly much wanted.
_Nov. 4th._--You ask about _St. Ives_. No, there is no Burford Bridge in
it, and no Boney. He is a squire of dames, and there are petticoats in
the story, and damned bad ones too, and it is of a tolerable length, a
hundred thousand, I believe, at least. Also, since you are curious on
the point, St. Ives learned his English from a Mr. Vicary, an English
lawyer, a prisoner in France. He must have had a fine gift of languages!
Things are going on here in their usual gently disheartening gait. The
Treaty Officials are both good fellows whom I can't help liking, but who
will never make a hand of Samoa.--Yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO PROFESSOR MEIKLEJOHN
Congratulating an old friend of Savile Club days (see vol. xxiii. p.
263) on his sailor son.
_Vailima, Samoa, Nov. 6th, 1894._
MY DEAR MEIKLEJOHN,--Greeting! This is but a word to say how much we
felicitate ourselves on having made the acquaintance of Hughie. He is
having a famous good chance on board the _Curaçoa_, which is the best
ship I have ever seen. And as for himself, he is a most engaging boy, of
whom you may very well be proud, and I have no mortal manner of doubt
but what you are. He comes up here very often, where he is a great
favourite with my ladies, and sings me "the melancholy airs of my
native land" with much acceptancy. His name has recently become changed
in Vailima. Beginning with the courteous "Mr. Meiklejohn," it shaded off
into the familiar "Hughie," and finally degenerated into "the
Whitrett."[85] I hear good reports of him abroad and ashore, and I
scarce need to add my own testimony.
Hughie tells me you have gone into the publishing business, whereat I
was much shocked. My own affairs with publishers are now in the most
flourishing state, owing to my ingenuity in leaving them to be dealt
with by a Scotch Writer to the Signet. It has produced revolutions in
the book trade and my banking account. I tackled the Whitrett severely
on a grammar you had published, which I had not seen and condemned out
of hand and in the broadest Lallan. I even condescended on the part of
that grammar which I thought to be the worst and condemned your
presentation of the English verb unmercifully. It occurs to me, since
you are a publisher, that the least thing you could do would be to send
me a copy of that grammar to correct my estimate. But I fear I am
talking too long to one of the enemy. I begin to hear in fancy the voice
of Meiklejohn upraised in the Savile Club: "No quarter to publishers!"
So I will ask you to present my compliments to Mrs. Meiklejohn upon her
son, and to accept for yourself the warmest reminiscences of auld lang
syne.--Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO LIEUTENANT EELES
_Vailima, Samoa, November 24, 1894._
MY DEAR EELES,--The hand, as you will perceive (and also the spelling!),
is Teuila's, but the scrannel voice is what remains of Tusitala's.
First of all, for business. When you go to London you are to charter a
hansom cab and proceed to the Museum. It is particular fun to do this on
Sundays when the Monument is shut up. Your cabman expostulates with you,
you persist. The cabman drives up in front of the closed gates and says,
"I told you so, sir." You breathe in the porter's ears the mystic name
of _Colvin_, and he immediately unfolds the iron barrier. You drive in,
and doesn't your cabman think you're a swell. A lord mayor is nothing to
it. Colvin's door is the only one in the eastern gable of the building.
Send in your card to him with "From R. L. S." in the corner, and the
machinery will do the rest. Henry James's address is 34 De Vere Mansions
West. I cannot remember where the place is; I cannot even remember on
which side of the park. But it's one of those big Cromwell Road-looking
deserted thoroughfares out west in Kensington or Bayswater, or between
the two; and anyway Colvin will be able to put you on the direct track
for Henry James. I do not send formal introductions, as I have taken the
liberty to prepare both of them for seeing you already.
Hoskyn is staying with us.
It is raining dismally. The Curaçoa track is hardly passable, but it
must be trod to-morrow by the degenerate feet of their successor the
Wallaroos. I think it a very good account of these last that we don't
think them either deformed or habitual criminals--they seem to be a
kindly lot.
The doctor will give you all the gossip. I have preferred in this letter
to stick to the strictly solid and necessary. With kind messages from
all in the house to all in the wardroom, all in the gunroom, and (may we
dare to breathe it) to him who walks abaft, believe me, my dear Eeles,
yours ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIR HERBERT MAXWELL
_Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
DEAR SIR HERBERT,--Thank you very much for your long and kind letter. I
shall certainly take your advice and call my cousin, the Lyon King, into
council. It is certainly a very interesting subject, though I don't
suppose it can possibly lead to anything, this connection between the
Stevensons and M'Gregors. Alas! your invitation is to me a mere
derision. My chances of visiting Heaven are about as valid as my chances
of visiting Monreith. Though I should like well to see you, shrunken
into a cottage, a literary Lord of Ravenscraig. I suppose it is the
inevitable doom of all those who dabble in Scotch soil; but really your
fate is the more blessed. I cannot conceive anything more grateful to
me, or more amusing or more picturesque, than to live in a cottage
outside your own park-walls.--With renewed thanks, believe me, dear Sir
Herbert, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO ANDREW LANG
The following refers of course to _Weir of Hermiston_, the chief
character of which was studied from the traditions of Lord Braxfield,
and on which Stevenson was working at the full height of his powers
when death overtook him two days later.
_Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
MY DEAR LANG,--For the portrait of Braxfield, much thanks! It is
engraved from the same Raeburn portrait that I saw in '76 or '77 with so
extreme a gusto that I have ever since been Braxfield's humble servant,
and am now trying, as you know, to stick him into a novel. Alas! one
might as well try to stick in Napoleon. The picture shall be framed and
hung up in my study. Not only as a memento of you, but as a perpetual
encouragement to do better with his Lordship. I have not yet received
the transcripts. They must be very interesting. Do you know I picked up
the other day an old Longman's where I found an article of yours that I
had missed, about Christie's? I read it with great delight. The year
ends with us pretty much as it began, among wars and rumours of wars,
and a vast and splendid exhibition of official incompetence.--Yours
ever,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO EDMUND GOSSE
The next, and last, letter is to Mr. Gosse, dated also only two days
before the writer's death. It acknowledges the dedication "To
Tusitala" of that gentleman's volume of poems, _In Russet and
Silver_, just received.
_Vailima, Samoa, December 1, 1894._
I AM afraid, my dear Weg, that this must be the result of bribery and
corruption! The volume to which the dedication stands as preface seems
to me to stand alone in your work; it is so natural, so personal, so
sincere, so articulate in substance, and what you always were sure
of--so rich in adornment.
Let me speak first of the dedication. I thank you for it from the heart.
It is beautifully said, beautifully and kindly felt; and I should be a
churl indeed if I were not grateful, and an ass if I were not proud. I
remember when Symonds dedicated a book to me; I wrote and told him of
"the pang of gratified vanity" with which I had read it. The pang was
present again, but how much more sober and autumnal--like your volume.
Let me tell you a story, or remind you of a story. In the year of grace
something or other, anything between '76 and '78, I mentioned to you in
my usual autobiographical and inconsiderate manner that I was hard up.
You said promptly that you had a balance at your banker's, and could
make it convenient to let me have a cheque, and I accepted and got the
money--how much was it?--twenty or perhaps thirty pounds? I know
not--but it was a great convenience. The same evening, or the next day,
I fell in conversation (in my usual autobiographical and ... see above)
with a denizen of the Savile Club, name now gone from me, only his
figure and a dim three-quarter view of his face remaining. To him I
mentioned that you had given me a loan, remarking easily that of course
it didn't matter to you. Whereupon he read me a lecture, and told me how
it really stood with you financially. He was pretty serious; fearing, as
I could not help perceiving, that I should take too light a view of the
responsibility and the service (I was always thought too light--the
irresponsible jester--you remember. O, _quantum mutatus ab illo_!) If I
remember rightly, the money was repaid before the end of the week--or,
to be more exact and a trifle pedantic, the se'nnight--but the service
has never been forgotten; and I send you back this piece of ancient
history, _consule Planco_, as a salute for your dedication, and propose
that we should drink the health of the nameless one, who opened my eyes
as to the true nature of what you did for me on that occasion.
But here comes my Amanuensis, so we'll get on more swimmingly now. You
will understand perhaps that what so particularly pleased me in the new
volume, what seems to me to have so personal and original a note, are
the middle-aged pieces in the beginning. The whole of them, I may say,
though I must own an especial liking to--
"I yearn not for the fighting fate,
That holds and hath achieved;
I live to watch and meditate
And dream--and be deceived."
You take the change gallantly. Not I, I must confess. It is all very
well to talk of renunciation, and of course it has to be done. But, for
my part, give me a roaring toothache! I do like to be deceived and to
dream, but I have very little use for either watching or meditation. I
was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary
drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are
going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with
the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true
course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but love-stories.
This must repose upon some curious distinction of temperaments. I gather
from a phrase, boldly autobiographical, that you are--well, not
precisely growing thin. Can that be the difference?
It is rather funny that this matter should come up just now, as I am at
present engaged in treating a severe case of middle age in one of my
stories--"The Justice-Clerk." The case is that of a woman, and I think
that I am doing her justice. You will be interested, I believe, to see
the difference in our treatments. _Secreta Vitæ_ comes nearer to the
case of my poor Kirstie. Come to think of it, Gosse, I believe the main
distinction is that you have a family growing up around you, and I am a
childless, rather bitter, very clear-eyed, blighted youth. I have, in
fact, lost the path that makes it easy and natural for you to descend
the hill. I am going at it straight. And where I have to go down it is a
precipice.
I must not forget to give you a word of thanks for _An English Village_.
It reminds me strongly of Keats, which is enough to say; and I was
particularly pleased with the petulant sincerity of the concluding
sentiment.
Well, my dear Gosse, here's wishing you all health and prosperity, as
well as to the mistress and the bairns. May you live long, since it
seems as if you would continue to enjoy life. May you write many more
books as good as this one--only there's one thing impossible, you can
never write another dedication that can give the same pleasure to the
vanished
TUSITALA.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] This question is with a view to the adventures of the hero in
_St. Ives_, who according to Stevenson's original plan was to have
been picked up from his foundered balloon by an American privateer.
[75] As to admire _The Black Arrow_.
[76] The suppressed first part of the _Amateur Emigrant_, written in
San Francisco in 1879, which it was proposed now to condense and to
some extent recast for the Edinburgh Edition.
[77] Word omitted in MS.
[78] I may be allowed to quote the following sentence from a letter
of this gentleman written when the news of our friend's death
reached England:--"So great was his power of winning love that
though I knew him for less than a week I could have borne the loss
of many a more intimate friend with less sorrow than Stevenson's.
When I saw him, last Easter, there was no suggestion of failure of
strength. After all I had heard of his delicacy I was astonished at
his vigour. He was up at five, and at work soon after, and at eleven
o'clock at night he was dancing on the floor of the big room while I
played Scotch and Irish reels on the rickety piano. He would talk to
me for hours of home and old friends, but with a wonderful
cheerfulness, knowing himself banished from them for life and yet
brought close to them by love. I confidently counted on his living;
he took keen interest in my own poor work, and it was one of my
ambitions to send him a book some day which would better deserve his
attention."
[79] _Sentimental Tommy_: whose chief likeness to R. L. S. was meant
to be in the literary temperament and passion for the _mot propre_.
[80] A proposed frontispiece for one of the volumes of the Edinburgh
Edition.
[81] _Sic_: query "least"?
[82] Of _The Wrecker_.
[83] _Trieb_, impulse.
[84] It seemed an obvious duty to publish the speech in question
through the English press, as the best proof both of Stevenson's
wise and understanding methods of dealing with his native friends,
and of the affection and authority which he enjoyed among them. I
have reprinted it, as a necessary supplement to this letter, in
Appendix II. at end of the present volume.
[85] Whitrett or Whitrack is Scots for a weasel: why applied to Mr.
Meiklejohn I know not.
APPENDIX I
ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF R. L. STEVENSON, BY LLOYD OSBOURNE
He wrote hard all that morning of the last day; his half-finished book,
_Hermiston_, he judged the best he had ever written, and the sense of
successful effort made him buoyant and happy as nothing else could. In
the afternoon the mail fell to be answered; not business
correspondence--for this was left till later--but replies to the long,
kindly letters of distant friends, received but two days since, and
still bright in memory.
At sunset he came downstairs; rallied his wife about the forebodings she
could not shake off; talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was
eager to make, "as he was now so well," and played a game at cards with
her to drive away her melancholy. He said he was hungry; begged her
assistance to help him make a salad for the evening meal; and to enhance
the little feast, he brought up a bottle of old Burgundy from the
cellar. He was helping his wife on the verandah, and gaily talking, when
suddenly he put both hands to his head, and cried out, "What's that?"
Then he asked quickly, "Do I look strange?" Even as he did so he fell on
his knees beside her. He was helped into the great hall, between his
wife and his body-servant, Sosimo, losing consciousness instantly as he
lay back in the arm-chair that had once been his grandfather's. Little
time was lost in bringing the doctors--Anderson, of the man-of-war, and
his friend Dr. Funk. They looked at him and shook their heads; they
laboured strenuously, and left nothing undone; but he had passed the
bounds of human skill.
The dying man lay back in the chair, breathing heavily, his family about
him frenzied with grief, as they realised all hope was past. The dozen
and more Samoans that formed part of the little clan of which he was
chief sat in a wide semicircle on the floor, their reverent, troubled,
sorrow-stricken faces all fixed upon their dying master. Some knelt on
one knee, to be instantly ready for any command that might be laid upon
them. A narrow bed was brought into the centre of the room, the Master
was gently laid upon it, his head supported by a rest, the gift of
Shelley's son. Slower and slower grew his respiration, wider the
interval between the long, deep breaths. The Rev. Mr. Clarke was now
come, an old and valued friend; he knelt and prayed as the life ebbed
away.
He died at ten minutes past eight on Monday evening the 3rd of December,
in the forty-fifth year of his age.
The great Union Jack that flew over the house was hauled down, and laid
over the body, fit shroud for a loyal Scotsman. He lay in the hall which
was ever his pride, where he had passed the gayest and most delightful
hours of his life, a noble room with open stairway and mullioned
windows. In it were the treasures of his far-off Scottish home: the old
carved furniture, the paintings and busts that had been in his father's
house before him. The Samoans passed in procession beside his bed,
kneeling and kissing his hand, each in turn, before taking their places
for the long night watch beside him. No entreaty could induce them to
retire, to rest themselves for the painful and arduous duties of the
morrow. It would show little love for Tusitala, they said, if they did
not spend their last night beside him. Mournful and silent, they sat in
deep dejection, poor, simple, loyal folk, fulfilling the duty they owed
their chief.
A messenger was despatched to the few chiefs connected with the family,
to announce the tidings and bid them assemble their men on the morrow
for the work there was to do.
Sosimo asked on behalf of the Roman Catholics that they might be allowed
to recite the prayers for the dead. Till midnight the solemn chants
continued, the prolonged, sonorous prayers of the Church of Rome, in
commingled Latin and Samoan. Later still, a chief arrived with his
retainers, bringing a precious mat to wrap about the dead.
He too knelt and kissed the hand of Tusitala, and took his place amid
the sleepless watchers. Another arrived with a fine mat, a man of higher
rank, whose incipient consumption had often troubled the Master.
"Talofa Tusitala!" he said as he drew nigh, and took a long, mournful
look at the face he knew so well. When, later on, he was momentarily
required on some business of the morrow, he bowed reverently before
retiring. "Tofa Tusitala!" he said, "Sleep, Tusitala!"
The morning of the 4th of December broke cool and sunny, a beautiful
day, rare at this season of the year. More fine mats were brought, until
the Union Jack lay nigh concealed beneath them. Among the new-comers was
an old Mataafa chief, one of the builders of the "Road of the Loving
Hearts," a man who had spent many days in prison for participation in
the rebellion. "I am only a poor Samoan, and ignorant," said he, as he
crouched beside the body; "others are rich, and can give Tusitala the
parting presents of rich fine mats; I am poor, and can give nothing this
last day he receives his friends. Yet I am not afraid to come and look
the last time in my friend's face, never to see him more till we meet
with God. Behold! Tusitala is dead; Mataafa is also dead to us. These
two great friends have been taken by God. When Mataafa was taken, who
was our support but Tusitala? We were in prison, and he cared for us. We
were sick, and he made us well. We were hungry, and he fed us. The day
was no longer than his kindness. You are great people and full of love.
Yet who among you is so great as Tusitala? What is your love to his
love? Our clan was Mataafa's clan, for whom I speak this day; therein
was Tusitala also. We mourn them both."
A meeting of chiefs was held to apportion the work and divide the men
into parties. Forty were sent with knives and axes to cut a path up the
steep face of the mountain, and the writer himself led another party to
the summit--men chosen from the immediate family--to dig the grave on a
spot where it was Mr. Stevenson's wish that he should lie. Nothing more
picturesque can be imagined than the narrow ledge that forms the summit
of Vaea, a place no wider than a room, and flat as a table. On either
side the land descends precipitously; in front lies the vast ocean and
the surf-swept reefs; to the right and left green mountains rise,
densely covered with the primeval forest. Two hundred years ago the eyes
of another man turned towards that same peak of Vaea as the spot that
should ultimately receive his war-worn body: Soalu, a famous chief.
All the morning, Samoans were arriving with flowers; few of these were
white, for they have not learned our foreign custom, and the room glowed
with the many colours. There were no strangers on that day, no
acquaintances; those only were called who would deeply feel the loss. At
one o'clock a body of powerful Samoans bore away the coffin, hid beneath
a tattered red ensign that had flown above his vessel in many a corner
of the South Seas. A path so steep and rugged taxed their strength to
the utmost; for not only was the journey difficult in itself, but
extreme care was requisite to carry the coffin shoulder-high.
Half an hour later, the rest of his friends followed. It was a
formidable ascent, and tried them hard. Nineteen Europeans, and some
sixty Samoans, reached the summit. After a short rest, the Rev. W. E.
Clarke read the burial service of the Church of England, interposing a
prayer that Mr. Stevenson had written and had read aloud to his family
only the evening before his death:--
We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many
families and nations, gathered together in the peace of this roof;
weak men and women, subsisting under the covert of Thy patience.
Be patient still; suffer us yet a while longer--with our broken
purposes of good, and our idle endeavours against evil--suffer us a
while longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better.
Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these
must be taken, have us play the man under affliction. Be with our
friends; be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any awake,
temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day returns
to us, our sun and comforter, call us up with morning faces and with
morning hearts--eager to labour--eager to be happy, if happiness
shall be our portion--and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to
endure it.
We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of Him to whom this
day is sacred, close our oblation.
APPENDIX II
ADDRESS OF R. L. STEVENSON TO THE CHIEFS ON THE OPENING OF THE ROAD OF
GRATITUDE, OCTOBER 1894
Mr. Stevenson said, "We are met together to-day to celebrate an event
and to do honour to certain chiefs, my friends,--Lelei, Mataafa,
Salevao, Poè, Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuola Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo,
and Fatialofa. You are all aware in some degree of what has happened.
You know these chiefs to have been prisoners; you perhaps know that
during the term of their confinement I had it in my power to do them
certain favours. One thing some of you cannot know, that they were
immediately repaid by answering attentions. They were liberated by the
new administration; by the King, and the Chief Justice, and the
Ta'its'ifono, who are here amongst us to-day, and to whom we all desire
to tender our renewed and perpetual gratitude for that favour. As soon
as they were free men--owing no man anything--instead of going home to
their own places and families, they came to me; they offered to do this
work for me as a free gift, without hire, without supplies, and I was
tempted at first to refuse their offer. I knew the country to be poor, I
knew famine threatening; I knew their families long disorganised for
want of supervision. Yet I accepted, because I thought the lesson of
that road might be more useful to Samoa than a thousand breadfruit
trees; and because to myself it was an exquisite pleasure to receive
that which was so handsomely offered. It is now done; you have trod it
to-day in coming hither. It has been made for me by chiefs; some of them
old, some sick, all newly delivered from a harassing confinement, and in
spite of weather unusually hot and insalubrious. I have seen these
chiefs labour valiantly with their own hands upon the work, and I have
set up over it, now that it is finished, the name of 'The Road of
Gratitude' (the road of loving hearts) and the names of those that built
it. 'In perpetuam memoriam,' we say, and speak idly. At least so long as
my own life shall be spared, it shall be here perpetuated; partly for my
pleasure and in my gratitude; partly for others; to continually publish
the lesson of this road."
Addressing himself to the chiefs, Mr. Stevenson then said:--
"I will tell you, Chiefs, that, when I saw you working on that road, my
heart grew warm; not with gratitude only, but with hope. It seemed to me
that I read the promise of something good for Samoa: it seemed to me, as
I looked at you, that you were a company of warriors in a battle,
fighting for the defence of our common country against all aggression.
For there is a time to fight, and a time to dig. You Samoans may fight,
you may conquer twenty times, and thirty times, and all will be in vain.
There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it is too late. It
is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell their
produce wisely, and, in one word, to occupy and use your country. If you
do not, others will."
The speaker then referred to the Parable of the Talents, Matt. xxv.
14-30, and continuing, impressively asked: "What are you doing with your
talent, Samoa? Your three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila? Have you
buried it in a napkin? Not Upolu at least. You have rather given it out
to be trodden under feet of swine: and the swine cut down food trees and
burn houses, according to the nature of swine, or of that much worse
animal, foolish man, acting according to his folly. 'Thou knewest that I
reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed.' But God
has both sown and strawed for you here in Samoa; He has given you a rich
soil, a splendid sun, copious rain; all is ready to your hand, half
done. And I repeat to you that thing which is sure: if you do not occupy
and use your country, others will. It will not continue to be yours or
your children's, if you occupy it for nothing. You and your children
will in that case be cast out into outer darkness, where shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth; for that is the law of God which passeth
not away. I who speak to you have seen these things. I have seen them
with my eyes--these judgments of God. I have seen them in Ireland, and I
have seen them in the mountains of my own country--Scotland--and my
heart was sad. These were a fine people in the past--brave, gay,
faithful, and very much like Samoans, except in one particular, that
they were much wiser and better at that business of fighting of which
you think so much. But the time came to them as it now comes to you, and
it did not find them ready. The messenger came into their villages, and
they did not know him; they were told, as you are told, to use and
occupy their country, and they would not hear. And now you may go
through great tracts of the land and scarce meet a man or a smoking
house, and see nothing but sheep feeding. The other people that I tell
you of have come upon them like a foe in the night, and these are the
other people's sheep who browse upon the foundation of their houses. To
come nearer; and I have seen this judgment in Oahu also. I have ridden
there the whole day along the coast of an island. Hour after hour went
by and I saw the face of no living man except that of the guide who rode
with me. All along that desolate coast, in one bay after another, we
saw, still standing, the churches that have been built by the Hawaiians
of old. There must have been many hundreds, many thousands, dwelling
there in old times, and worshipping God in these now empty churches. For
to-day they were empty; the doors were closed, the villages had
disappeared, the people were dead and gone; only the church stood on
like a tombstone over a grave, in the midst of the white men's sugar
fields. The other people had come and used that country, and the
Hawaiians who occupied it for nothing had been swept away, 'where is
weeping and gnashing of teeth.'
"I do not speak of this lightly, because I love Samoa and her people. I
love the land, I have chosen it to be my home while I live, and my grave
after I am dead; and I love the people, and have chosen them to be my
people to live and die with. And I see that the day is come now of the
great battle; of the great and the last opportunity by which it shall be
decided whether you are to pass away like these other races of which I
have been speaking, or to stand fast and have your children living on
and honouring your memory in the land you received of your fathers.
"The Land Commission and the Chief Justice will soon have ended their
labours. Much of your land will be restored to you, to do what you can
with. Now is the time the messenger is come into your villages to summon
you; the man is come with the measuring rod; the fire is lighted in
which you shall be tried, whether you are gold or dross. Now is the time
for the true champions of Samoa to stand forth. And who is the true
champion of Samoa? It is not the man who blackens his face, and cuts
down trees, and kills pigs and wounded men. It is the man who makes
roads, who plants food trees, who gathers harvests, and is a profitable
servant before the Lord, using and improving that great talent that has
been given him in trust. That is the brave soldier; that is the true
champion; because all things in a country hang together like the links
of the anchor cable, one by another: but the anchor itself is industry.
"There is a friend of most of us, who is far away; not to be forgotten
where I am, where Tupuola is, where Poè Lelei, Mataafa, Solevao, Poè
Teleso, Tupuola Lotofaga, Tupuolo Amaile, Muliaiga, Ifopo, Fatialofa,
Lemusu are. He knew what I am telling you; no man better. He saw the day
was come when Samoa had to walk in a new path, and to be defended not
only with guns and blackened faces, and the noise of men shouting, but
by digging and planting, reaping and sowing. When he was still here
amongst us, he busied himself planting cacao; he was anxious and eager
about agriculture and commerce, and spoke and wrote continually; so that
when we turn our minds to the same matters, we may tell ourselves that
we are still obeying Mataafa. Ua tautala mai pea o ia ua mamao.
"I know that I do not speak to idle or foolish hearers. I speak to those
who are not too proud to work for gratitude. Chiefs! You have worked for
Tusitala, and he thanks you from his heart. In this, I could wish you
could be an example to all Samoa--I wish every chief in these islands
would turn to, and work, and build roads, and sow fields, and plant food
trees, and educate his children and improve his talents--not for love of
Tusitala, but for the love of his brothers, and his children, and the
whole body of generations yet unborn.
"Chiefs! On this road that you have made many feet shall follow. The
Romans were the bravest and greatest of people! mighty men of their
hands, glorious fighters and conquerors. To this day in Europe you may
go through parts of the country where all is marsh and bush, and perhaps
after struggling through a thicket, you shall come forth upon an ancient
road, solid and useful as the day it was made. You shall see men and
women bearing their burdens along that even way, and you may tell
yourself that it was built for them perhaps fifteen hundred years
before,--perhaps before the coming of Christ,--by the Romans. And the
people still remember and bless them for that convenience, and say to
one another, that as the Romans were the bravest men to fight, so they
were the best at building roads.
"Chiefs! Our road is not built to last a thousand years, yet in a sense
it is. When a road is once built, it is a strange thing how it collects
traffic, how every year, as it goes on, more and more people are found
to walk thereon and others are raised up to repair and perpetuate it and
keep it alive; so that perhaps even this road of ours may, from
reparation to reparation, continue to exist and be useful hundreds and
hundreds of years after we are mingled in the dust. And it is my hope
that our far-away descendants may remember and bless those who laboured
for them to-day."
INDEX TO THE LETTERS
[_For short Index to VOLS. I.-XXII., see pp. 509-519._]
"Abbé Coignard" (France), xxv. 409, 410
_Academy, The_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 166; contributions to, xxiii.
184, xxv. 364
"Across the Plains," xxv. 123 & _n._ 1, xxv. 207, 224, 301 _n._ 1;
dedication, xxv. 127 & _n._ 1, xxv. 323 & _n._ 1; inception, xxv. 97 &
_n._ 1
"Actor's Wife," projected, xxiii. 308
Adams, Henry, historian, xxv. 4, 29, 41, 43, 45
"Address to the Unco Guid" (Burns), xxiii. 225
"Adela Chart" ("The Marriages," H. James), xxv. 108-9, 110
"Adelaïde," song (Beethoven), xxiii. 64
Adirondack Mountains, stay in, xxiv. 234, 306 _et seq._
Admiral Benbow inn (Treasure Island), xxiii. 327
"Admiral Guinea," play (with Henley), xxiii. 327; xxiv. 106, 119, 120,
146, 147; xxv. 447
"Admiral," the (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 248, 249; xxiv. 90
"Adventures of David Balfour," proposed double volume of, xxv. 283,
357, 366
"Æneid," reading of, xxiv. 186, 265, 306
"Æsthetic Letters" (Schiller), xxiv. 71
Ahab, King, xxv. 304
"Ah perfido spergiuro," song, xxiii. 166
_Aitu fafine_, an, xxv. 41, 135
Alabama case, xxiii. 110
"Aladdin" (Pyle), xxv. 164
Alais, visit to, xxiii. 216
"Alan Breck Stewart," ("Catriona" and "Kidnapped"), xxiv. 201, 203,
xxv. 46, 142; letter as from, xxv. 46-8
Alexander, J. W., xxiv. 249, 250; drawing by, of R. L. S., xxiv. 199
Allan Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns, essay on, projected, xxiii. 191,
192, 193
Allen, Grant, ballade by, xxiv. 248
"Amateur Emigrant," xxiii. 235, 237, 239, 240, 244, 252, 254, 255,
259, 260, 265, 266, 267, 277, 352; xxv. 396-7 & _n._ 1, 398, 414, 423
"Amazing Marriage" (Meredith), R. L. S. drawn in, xxv. 344, 390-1
"Amelia Balfour," _see_ Jersey, Countess of
American politics, xxiii. 112
Anderson, Dr., xxv. 457-8
Andrews, Mrs., xxiii. 113
Angelo, Michael, xxiii. 32
Angus, W. Craibe, letters to, xxv. 69, 87, 118
"Annals of the Persecutions in Scotland" (Aikman), xxiii. 18
Anser, xxiii. 22
Anstey, F., xxv. 275
Anstruther, at, xxiii. 12
"Antichrist, L'" (Renan), xxv. 304
"Antiquary, The" (Scott), xxiv. 91
Antwerp, xxiii. 185
Apemama, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358
Apia, at, xxiv. 293, 370, 375; xxv. 226; famous hurricane at, xxiv.
345, 346, 369, 371; xxv. 147, 172-3, 174; prisoners at, gratitude
shown by, to R. L. S., xxv. 367 _et seq._
Apiang, Island, xxiv. 358
Apology, difficulty of, xxiii. 133, 134
"Apology for Idlers," xxiii. 203, 204, 205, 207, 210
"Appeal to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland," xxiii. 141, 142
Appin case (Catriona), xxv. 161, 351
Appin country, in, xxiii. 284
Appin Murder, xxiii. 284, 331, 332; xxv. 161, 351
Appleton, Dr., xxiii. _intro._ xvii. 143, 144, 168, 178
"Arblaster" (Black Arrow), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
Arbroath, Abbot of, xxiii. 29
Archer, Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 305
Archer, William, xxiv. 105, 161, 214; letters to, xxiv. 147, 156, 161,
163, 247, 270, 272, 273, xxv. 384
Archer, William and Thomas, letter to, xxiv. 300
Areia, chief, xxiv. 315
Arnold, Matthew, xxiii. 15
Arthur's Seat, xxiii. 71
Artist, the, problem of, xxv. 378-9
"Art of Literature," projected, xxiii. 342
"Art of Virtue," xxiii. 265
Asceticism and Christianity, xxiii. 213
Assurance of Faith, xxiii. 299,300
"As You Like It" (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96
_Atalanta_, magazine, contributions to, xxv. 279 & _n._ 1, 283
_Athenæum_, xxiii. 239
"At Last" (Kingsley), xxiv. 101
"Attwater" (Ebb Tide), xxv. 301, 307, 350, 382
Atua, bombardment of, xxv. 424, 426
Auckland, visits to, xxv. 30, 34; xxv. 290, 291, 292
"Auld Licht Idylls" (Barrie), xxv. 264
"Auntie's Skirts" (Child's Garden of Verse), xxiii. 223
Aurévilly, Barbey d', works of, xxiv. 83; xxv. 174, 314, 379
"Ausfürliche Erklarung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche" (Lichtenberg),
xxiii. 178
"Autolycus at Court," xxiii. 170
"Autumn Effect, An," xxiii. 155, 166; xxv. 397-8
Autun, xxiii. 216, 219
Avignon, at, xxiii. 77
Ayrshire and Galloway, walking tour in, xxiii. 182, 202
Babington, Mrs. Churchill, xxiii. 54; letter to, xxiii. 30
Babington, Professor Churchill, xxiii. 30, 54; xxiv. 130
Bacon, Sir F., on Time, xxiii. 81
Baildon, H. B., xxv. 56; letters to, xxv. 56, 377, 381
Baker, Mrs. A., letters to, xxv. 366, 413
Baker, Shirley, of Tonga, xxv. 40, 44
Baker, Sir Samuel, xxv. 175
Bakewell, Dr., letter to, xxv. 424
Balfour, Dr. George, xxiii. 330
Balfour, Graham, xxv. 221, 251 & _n._ 1, 292, 339, 348, 351, 355, 363,
406, 416; "Life" of R. L. S., by, xxiii. _intro._ xix.; at Vailima,
xxv. 144, 374, 401, 403
Balfour, James, xxiii. 4
Balfour, Miss Jane, letter to, xxiii. 223
Balfour, Mr., of the Shaws, xxv. 47
Balfour, Mrs. Lewis, xxiii. 4, 5
Balfour of Burley (Old Mortality), xxiii. 130
Balfour, Rev. Lewis, xxiii. 4
"Balfour's Letters," xxv. 293
"Ballade in Hot Weather" (Henley), xxiv. 248
"Ballades, Rondeaus, etc." (collected by Gleeson White), xxiv. 248
"Ballads," xxiv. 380; xxv. 34, 53, 57, 73
Ballantyne, R., xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
Balzac, xxv. 154; on literary frenzy, xxiii. 173; style of, xxiv. 60
Bamford, Dr. W., xxiii. 271; letter to, xxiii. 272
"Barbara" (Catriona), xxv. 294-5
Barbizon, visits to, xxiii. 174 _et seq._, 183
Barmouth, visits to, xxiii. 124, 146
"Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities" (Billing), xxiv. 270
"Barrack Room Ballads" (Kipling), xxv. 48
"Barrel Organ," xxiii. 171
Barrie, J. M., appreciation, xxv. 276-7: letters to, xxv. 154, 264,
276, 362, 416
Barrie, Mrs. (Margaret Ogilvie), xxv. 417
Bartholomew, Messrs., xxv. 177
Basin, Thomas, xxiii. 203 & _n._ 1
Basselin, Olivier, poems by, xxiii. 193
Bass Rock, xxiii. 207
Bates, --, xxiii. 89
Bates, Edward Hugh Higlee, xxv. 384
Bates, E. M. G., xxv. 384
Bates, J. H., letter to, xxv. 384
Bathgate, the inn maid at, xxiii. 226, 227
"Bauble Shop," play (H. A. Jones), xxv. 385
Baudelaire, --, xxiii. 160, 195
Baxter, Charles, xxiii. 3, 159, 174, 285, 336, 341, 353, 356; xxiv.
14, 47, 79; xxv. 174, 240, 266, 273, 306, 357; letters to, xxiii. 33,
34, 46, 49, 52, 92, 193, 217, 262, 285, 336, 341; xxiv. 14, 121, 122,
200, 251, 260, 268, 286, 294, 296, 301, 303, 322, 327, 343, 344, 369,
375, 384, 392; xxv. 53, 82, 120, 177. 213, 270, 278, 288, 292, 337,
345, 360, 376, 392, 394, 433; literary agency of, xxiv. 252; scheme
of, for "Edinburgh Edition," xxv. 372 & _n._ 1, 373
Baxter, Edmund, xxiv. 394; xxv. 54; death of, xxv. 433
Baynes, Professor Spencer, editor "Encyclopædia Britannica," xxiii,
202
"Beachcombers" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361
"Beach de Mar," projected xxv. 187
"Beach of Falesá," xxv. 5, 20, 25, 76, 97, 102, 103 & _n._ 1, 120,
122, 131, 138, 147, 152, 221, 224, 235-6, & _n._ 1, 239, 240, 250,
266, 272, 274, 284; illustrations to, xxv. 253-4, 288; marriage
contract in, xxv. 187 & _n._ 1; publication, xxv. 1.
"Beau Austin," play (with Henley), xxiv. 106
Becker, Consul, xxv. 139, 141, 268
"Becket" (Tennyson), xxv. 385
"Bedtime" projected, xxiv. 99
"Beggars" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 253; xxv. 97, 209, 301
Bell Rock, book on, xxiv. 78; xxv. 322; controversy on, xxiv. 121
Bell, the, in the Vailima woods, xxv. 277
Ben More, xxiii. 318
Bennet, Dr., xxiii. 84, 101
Bentley, publisher, xxiii. 336, 339, 346
Béranger, article on, xxiii. 186, 191, 193
Bereavement, xxiv. 52
Berlin Convention, xxv. 6
Berlioz, paper on (Henley), xxiii. 318
"Bête Humaine" (Zola), xxiv. 396; xxv. 319
"Betteredge" (Moonstone), xxiii. 18
Bickford, Captain, R.N., C.M.G., xxv. 334, 351
Bitter Creek, xxiii. 234
_Black and White_, contributions to, xxiii. 286, 337, 341
"Black Arrow," xxiv. 5, 31, 56, 247, 376, 385 & _n._ 1; serial issue,
xxiv. 55; success, xxiv. 68; suggested French version, xxiv. 398
"Black Canyon" (L. Osbourne), xxiii. 347, 348, 349
Blackie, Professor, xxiii. 28, 30, 306
Blacklock, Consul, xxv. 142
"Black Man," xxiii. 308
_Blackwood's Magazine_, xxiv. 370
Blair of Blairmyle (_see_ "Young Chevalier"), xxv. 216
"Blanche Amory" (Thackeray), xxiv. 212
"Bloody Wedding," projected, xxv. 66, 97
Board of Trade Offices, xxiv. 87
Boccaccio, xxv. 301
"Body Snatchers," xxiii. 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 125, 130; xxv. 397
"Bondage of Brandon" (Hemming), xxiii. 333
"Bondman, The" (Hall Caine), xxiv. 396-7
Boodle, Miss Adelaide, xxiv. 375; letters to, xxiv. 231, 259, 267,
284, 297, 339, 401; xxv. 80, 147, 217, 243, 248, 410
"Book, A, of Stories," projected contents, xxiii. 171
"Book of Verses" (Henley), xxv. 121
_Book Reader_, notice of "Prince Otto," xxiv. 195
Books wanted, xxiii. 36, 332; xxiv. 78, 101, 130, 134, 270, 274, 338;
xxv. 111, 112, 174, 215, 271, 287, 293, 346, 361, 392
Boswell, James, xxiii. 193, 203, 295
"Bottle Imp," xxiv. 292; xxv. 272, 284, 340; Samoan translation, xxv.
64 & _n._ 1
Bough, Sam, painter, xxiii. 24, 26-30; xxiv. 60
Bourget, Paul, xxv. 130-2, 315, 323
Bourke, Captain, R.N., xxv. 263
Bournemouth, at, xxiv. 104 _et seq._; xxv. 111
"Bouroche, Major" (Débâcle), xxv. 250
Braemar, at, xxiii. 282, 313, 320
Braille, books by R. L. S., to be issued in, xxv. 366, 413
Brandeis, xxv. 141
"Brashiana," burlesque sonnets, xxiii. 283; xxiv. 14, 38, 39
Brash, the publican, xxiii. 336; xxiv. 14
Braxfield (Weir of Hermiston), xxv. 260 & _n._ 1, 264-5; portrait of,
xxv. 453
Bridge of Allan, at, xxiii. 33, 174
British Museum, visits to, xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 202, 229, 365
Bronson, --, editor, xxiii. 240
Brooke, Rajah, xxv. 129
Brown, --, xxiv. 230
Brown, Dr. John, verses to, xxiii. 296, 297
Brown, Horatio F., xxiii. 303, 304; letters to, xxiii. 303, 304
Brown, Mrs., xxiii. 13
Brown, Rev. Dr., xxv. 312
Brown R. Glasgow (editor of _London_), xxiii. 184, 251; illness,
xxiii. 214 & _n._ 1
Browne, Gordon, xxv. 301, 305; letter to, xxv. 252
Browning, Robert, xxiv. 107, 202; book on, by Gosse, xxv. 74
Bruce, Michael, xxiii. 71
Bruno, Father, xxiv. 312, 334
Brussels, at, xxiii. 36
Buckinghamshire, walking tour in, xxiii. 124, 155
Buckle, Mrs., xxiv. 176
"Bucolics" (Virgil), xxiii. 18
"Bummkopf" (typical pedant), xxiii. 225
Bunner, --, xxiv. 64, 154
Bunting, --, xxiv. 227
Bunyan, John, xxiv. 29; essay on, xxiii. 334; xxv. 398
Burford Bridge, visit to, xxiii. 183
Burial customs, Gilbert Islanders', xxiv. 400-1
Burke, Edmund, xxiii. 71
Burlingame, E. L., editor of _Scribner's Magazine_, xxiv. 233; xxv. 6,
138; letters to, xxiv. 253-4, 269, 273-4, 319, 338, 367, 376, 387,
394, xxv. 24, 32, 86, 110, 128, 145, 174, 210, 215, 257, 266
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, xxiii. 224; xxiv. 101, 107, 202; xxv. 394
Burney, "Admiral," R.N., xxv. 394
Burn, Miss, xxiv. 89
Burns Exhibition, Glasgow, xxv. 69, 87 _et seq._
Burns, Robert, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxv. 69, 70, 88, 395-6;
articles and writings on, xxiii. 111, 151, 179, 191, 192, 193, 202,
203, 224, 226, 237, 241, 245, 250, 263, 273, 358, xxiv. 63; house of,
Dumfries, xxiii. 66; judgment on, xxiii. 224; poems of, xxiii. 4,
xxiv. 256
Burt, xxiii. 298
_Bussard_, the ship, xxv. 425
Butaritari, Gilbert Islands, xxiv. 358
"But still our hearts are true" (Eglinton), xxv. 69, 70
"But yet the Lord that is on high" (Scotch Psalter), xxiii. 23
"By Proxy" (Payn), xxiv. 7
Byron, Lord, xxiii. 132; essay on (Henley), xxiii. 318; xxiv. 7
Caldecott, Randolph, xxiii. 248, 267
California, visit to, xxiii. 228
Calistoga, at, xxiii. 277
Calton Hill (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
Calvin, John, studies in, xxiii. 126
Cambridge, visits to, xxiii. 219; xxiv. 105
Cameron, Captain, xxiv. 349, 350
Campagne Defli, at, xxiv. 4, 8 _et seq._
Campbell of Glenure, murder of, xxiii. 284, 331, 332
Campbell, Rev. Professor Lewis, xxiii. 278, 316; letter to, xxiv. 113
"Canadian Boat Song" (Earl of Eglinton), xxv. 69, 70
Candlish, Dr., xxiv. 63
"Cannon Mills," projected, xxiv. 403
Canoe Journey in France (_see_ Inland Voyage), xxiii. 204
"Canoe, The, Speaks" (Underwoods), xxiv. 89, 231
"Canterbury Pilgrimage" (Chaucer), illustrated, gift of, xxiv. 149
"Capitaine Fracasse, Le" (Théophile Gautier), xxiii. 75
Cap Martin, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv., 93, 114
"Captain Singleton" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 102
Carlyle, Thomas, xxiii. 302; xxiv. 135; appreciation of, xxiii. 301,
302; on Coleridge, xxiii. 220
"Carmosine" (Musset), xxiv. 97
Carrington, C. Howard, letter to, xxiv. 152
Carr, T. Comyns, xxiv. 68
Carruthers, --, xxv. 40
Carson, Mrs., xxiii. 252
"Carthew" (Wrecker), xxv. 112 & _n._ 1
"Casamassima" (H. James), xxiv. 263
_Casco_, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 234, 287 _et seq._, 290-1, 300,
305, 310, 312-3, 316 _et seq._, 325 _et seq._
"Case Bottle," xxiii. 281
"Cashel Byron's Profession" (Shaw), xxiv. 270-1
"Casparidea," unpublished, xxiii. 283
"Cassandra" (Mrs. R. L. Stevenson), xxiv. 22
Cassell and Co., xxiv. 110, 127; xxv. 57, 110, 124, 272, 283
"Catriona" (at first called "David Balfour," _q.v._), xxiii. _intro._
xxiii., 331; xxiv. 190, 402; xxv. 108, 144, 155, 158 & _n._ 1, 160-1,
163, 166-7, 172, 187, 192, 201-2, 211, 215, 240, 250, 264, 274, 283,
290, 298, 301, 305, 310, 316, 344, 351 & _n._ 1, 352, 378; in Braille,
xxv. 366; characters in, xxv. 216; draft of, xxv. 162; maps for, xxv.
177-8; "my high-water mark," xxv. 393 (but _see_ 379); projected
illustrations, xxv. 349 _n._ 1; replies to remarks on, xxv. 294 _et
seq._; restraint of description in, xxv. 367
Cavalier (de Sonne), xxiii. 307
Cavalier, Jean, xxiii. 306, 307
"Cavalier," The (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 274
Cedercrantz, Conrad, Chief Justice of Samoa, xxv. 7, 13, 48-9, 67,
95-6, 98-100, 102, 124-5, 175, 188, 239, 256, 275, 278, 281, 286, 305,
364, 376, 380-1
Celtic blood in Britain, xxv. 379
_Century Magazine_, xxiv. 26, 30, 55, 90, 171; article in, by H.
James, on R. L. S., xxiv. 250-1; contributions to, xxiii. 338, xxiv.
55, 170, 171, 185; critical notice in, of R. L. S., xxiv. 63, 64
Cévennes, the tramp in (_see_ "Travels with a Donkey"), xxiii. 183
Ceylon, projected visit, xxv. 98
Chair of History and Constitutional Law, Edinburgh University,
candidature for, xxiii. 282, 309 _et seq._, 331, 335, 336
Chalmers, Rev. J., xxv. 30, 33, 39, 56-7
"Chapter of Artistic History," suggested title for proposed book by
Henley, xxiii. 318
"Chapter on Dreams" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235; xxv. 97
"Character of Dogs" (_English Illustrated_), xxiv. 67; xxv. 41 _n._ 2
"Charity Bazaar," xxv. 398
Charles of Orleans, paper on, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 202, 203, 204
"Charlotte" (Sorrows of Werther), xxiii. 60, 61
Charteris, Rev. Dr., xxiv. 276; letters to, xxiv. 276, 279
Chastity, xxiii. 338, 360
Chateaubriand (Sainte-Beuve), xxiii. 78
Chatto, Andrew, letter to, xxiv. 110
Chatto and Windus, publishers, xxiii. 335; xxiv. 110; xxv. 395; letter
to, xxiv. 231
Chepmell, Dr., xxiv. 242
Chester visited, xxiii. 145, 146
"Chevalier Des Touches" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 174, 314, 380
Chicago Exhibition, xxv. 379
Children, feelings towards, xxiii. 99, 101, 147, 171
Children in the [Kilburn] Cellar (_see also_ Boodle), letter to, xxv.
243
"Child's Garden of Verse," xxiii. 282; xxiv. 5, 17 _et seq._, 24, 54,
55, 70, 99 _et seq._, 106, 116, 154; xxv. 385; dedication, xxiv. 16,
19, 27, 92; illustrations, xxiv. 18 _et seq._, 32, 115; publication,
xxiv. 138, 140; reviews, xxiv. 147
"Child's Play," xxiv. 70; xxv. 301
Chiltern Hills, visited, xxiii. 155
"Choice of Books" (F. Harrison), xxv. 113
Christianity and Asceticism, xxiii. 213
Christmas Books (Dickens), xxiii. 148
Christmas Day at Vailima, xxv. 40-1
"Christmas Sermon," xxv. 123 _n._ 1
Christ's Hospital, xxiv. 206, 207
Chrystal, Professor, xxiv. 118
"Cimourdain" (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
"Clarissa Harlowe" (Richardson), xxiii. 210
Clarke, Mrs. W. E., xxv. 26
Clark, R. & R., printers, xxv. 124
Clark, Rev. W. E., missionary, xxiv. 371; xxv. 10, 11 & _n._ 1, 26,
30, 64 _n._ 1, 101; xxv. 203, 236, 329, 330, 422, 458, 460
Clark, Sir Andrew, xxiii. 55, 77, 84
Claxton, missionary, xxv. 64
Clinton, --, xxiii. 332, 333
Clouds, descriptions of, xxv. 178-9
Club, at Vailima, xxv. 168, 170, 176
Clytie, bust of, xxiii. 170
Cockfield Rectory, xxiii. 276; at, xxiii. 54, 56
"Coggie," _see_ Ferrier, Miss
Coleridge, S. T., xxiii. 220
Colinton, manse of, xxiii. 5
"Collected Essays" (Huxley), xxiv. 219
Collins, Wilkie, xxiii. 238
"Colonel Jack" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103
Colorado, xxiv. 110 _et seq._, 229 _et seq._, 234
Colvin, Lady (_see also_ Sitwell, Mrs.), xxiii. 54
Colvin, Sir Sidney, xxiii. 88, 91, 93, 94 _et seq._, 116, 117, 152;
xxiv. 13, 47, 133, 191, 210, 216, 278, 323, 343, 396; choice of, for
literary executor, xxiii. _intro._ xviii.; introduction of Eeles to,
xxv. 452; letters to (_see_ especially xxv. 5), xxiii. 75, 76, 105,
106, 108, 124, 127, 129, 140, 141, 143, 157, 167, 169, 173, 178, 186,
191, 195, 196, 201, 202, 206, 211, 212, 225, 230, 232, 234, 235, 241,
244, 247, 251, 253, 258, 267, 269, 272, 273, 274, 276, 284, 291, 297,
300, 308, 310, 316, 320, 339, 349; xxiv. 15, 33, 55, 69, 81, 98, 99,
101, 134, 136, 137, 186, 189, 192, 210, 219, 227, 235-6, 238, 264,
265, 275, 283, 285, 293, 295, 298, 316, 329, 336, 353, 357, 362, 385;
xxv. 9, 25, 34, 48, 54, 58, 66, 76, 83, 90, 94, 102, 112, 121, 132,
152, 156, 166, 178, 193, 211, 221, 230, 249, 258, 271, 282, 289, 291,
294, 299, 310, 324, 338, 347, 352, 367, 380, 382, 387, 396, 404, 414,
422, 430, 441 (the last), 448; letters to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson,
xxiv. 308, 347; portraits of, xxv. 78-9, 80 & _n._ 1, 83-5, 94, 100;
testimonial from, xxiii. 316
"Come back" (Clough), xxiii. 294
Comines, Philippe de, xxiii. 193
Commissioners of Northern Lights, yacht of, xxv. 98 & _n._ 1
"Comtesse d'Escarbaguas" (Molière), xxiv. 123
"Comtesse de Rudolstadt" (Sand), xxiii. 135
"Confessions" (St. Augustine), xxiv. 82-3
Congdon, L. C., xxv. 384
Conrad, Joseph, xxv. 76
"Consuelo" (Sand), xxiii. 87, 135
Consulship, xxv. 208 & _n._ 1
_Contemporary Review_, contributions to, xxiv. 143, 181, 227; xxv. 398
Cook's "Voyages," xxv. 346
"Coolin," Skye terrier, xxiv. 201
Coquelin, xxiii. 276
_Cornhill Magazine_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii.; xxiv. 355; contributions
to, xxiii. 56, 104, 125, 129, 180, 184, 191, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206,
208, 210, 211, 224, 237, 238, 256, 258, 264, 281, 341, 352, 355; xxiv.
90; xxv. 397; Henley's "Hospital" poems in, xxiii. 174 _n._ 1, 176
Cornwall, Barry, xxv. 29 _n._ 2
Cornwall, impressions of, xxiii. 207
"Correspondence" (Wodrow's), xxiii. 291
Corsica, glimpse of, xxiii. 108
"Country Dance," xxiii. 171, 172
"Country Wife" (Wycherley), Lamb's essay on, xxiv. 87
Covenanters, xxiii. 65, 67; rhyming by, xxv. 363
Craig, --, xxiii. 25
Cramond, xxiii. 61
"Cramond" and other cousins, xxiv. 44
Crane, Walter, xxiii. 212; xxiv. 32
"Crashaw," essay (Gosse), xxiii. 291
"Crime inconnu" (Méry), xxiii. 258
"Crime, Le, et le Châtiment" (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 182 _n._ 1, 183
"Criminal Trials" (Arnott), xxiii. 332
"Critical Kitcats" (Gosse), xxiv. 235
_Critic, The_, notice in, xxiv. 64
Crockett, S. R., xxv. 349 & _n._ 2, 403; letters to, xxiv. 280; xxv.
305
Crosse, Henry, sculptor, xxv. 383
Cumming, Miss Gordon, xxiv. 308
Cummy (_see_ Cunningham)
Cunningham, Alison, xxiii. 5, 69, xxiv. 100; letters to, xxiii. 32,
340; xxiv. 16, 17, 44, 167, 196, 200, 202, 204, 220; xxv. 359, 445
_Curaçoa_, H.M.S., xxv. 189, 202, 234, 267 _et seq._, 416, 425;
officers of, xxv. 374, 389, 405-9, 414, 447, 450; petty officers'
ball, xxv. 414-5
"Curate of Anstruther's Bottle," xxiii. 108, 109, 170
Curtin, Jeremiah, widow and daughters of, xxiv. 108, 222
Cusack-Smith, Sir Berry, xxv. 334
Dalgleish, Dr. Scott, and the Ballantyne Memorial, xxv. 393
Damien, Father, xxiv. 291-2, 349, 354, 356; letter on, xxiv. 383-4,
391 _n._ 1, 404; xxv. 124
"Damned Ones of the Indies" (Joseph Méry), xxiii. 258
Damon, Rev. F., xxiv. 383
"Dance of Death" (Rowlandson's), xxv. 292-3
Dancing Children (Notes on the Movements of Young Children), xxv.
397-8
"Daniel Deronda" (George Eliot), xxiii. 210
Darien affair, books on, wanted, xxv. 361
Darwin, Charles, xxiii. 57, 122
David Balfour, character, xxv. 155, 189-90
"David Balfour" (title first given both to "Kidnapped" and "Catriona,"
_q.v._), xxiv. 179, 190-1, 196, 201, 204; xxv. 108, 144, 158 & _n._ 1,
160, 161-2, 163, 167, 172, 177, 279, 283, 313, 316, 351, 366, 379;
"Catriona" issued as, in serial form, xxv. 294; historical
introduction planned, xxv. 376; unfinished, xxiv. 402
Davis, Dr., of Savaii, xxv. 32
Davos, visits to, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv., 280 _et seq._, 331 _et
seq._; papers on (_Pall Mall Gazette_), xxiii. 281, 347
"Dawn of the Century" (Ashton), xxv. 392
"Day after To-morrow" (_Contemporary_), xxv. 398
"Deacon Brodie," play (with Henley), xxiii. 185, 257; xxiv. 119, 230,
248; production, xxiv. 99, 102, 261
"Dead Man's Letter," projected, xxiii. 249, 308
Deans, Jeanie, xxiii. 65
"Death in the Pot," projected, xxv. 314 & _n._ 1
Death, thoughts on, xxiii. 136, 275, 276; xxiv. 58, 162, 183, 227
"Débâcle" (Zola), xxv. 250 & _n._ 1, 318, 319, 379
Deborah and Barak, fancies on, xxiii. 154, 155
"Decisions of the Lords of Council" (Fountainhall), xxv. 293, 336, 360
"Defence of Idlers" (_see_ "Apology for Idlers")
Defoe, Daniel, works of, xxiv. 101, 103
"Delafield," xxiii. 350; xxv. 55-6 _n._ 1
"Delhi," and other cousins, xxiv. 44
de Mattos, Mrs., letters to, xxiii. 199; xxiv. 152, 167
"Demi-Monde" (Dumas _fils_), scene in, xxiv. 273
Depression, xxiii. 199, 200
De Quincey, Thomas, biography of (Japp), xxiii. 321
"Dernière Aldini, La," xxiv. 97
Desborough, Mrs., xxiv. 177
Descamps, Maxime, xxiv. 405
"Descent of Man" (Darwin), xxiii. 57
des Ursins, Juvénal, xxiii. 192
"Devil on Cramond Sands," xxiii. 170, 249, 308
Dew-Smith, A. G., xxiv. 151; letter to, xxiii. 287
Dhu Heartach lighthouse, xxiii. 10
"Diaboliques, Les" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 174
"Dialogue of Character and Destiny," unfinished, xxiii. 257, 267
"Dialogue on Man, Woman, and 'Clarissa Harlowe,'" projected, xxiii.
211
Diana of the Ephesians, play on, planned, xxiii. 124, 125
"Diary," suggested publication of, xxv. 208
Dick, Mr., xxiv. 135; letter to, xxiv. 83
"Dickon Crookback" (Black Arrow), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
"Dictionary of Music" (Grove), xxiii. 151
Didier, Father, xxv. 67
"Die Judin" at Frankfurt, xxiii. 44
Disappointment, xxiii. 295
Dobell, Dr., xxiv. 201, 230
Dobson, Austin, xxiii. 307; xxiv. 205; letter to, xxiv. 126
"Dr. Syntax's Tour," xxv. 292-3
"Dodd" (Wrecker), xxv. 378
"Dogs" (Mayhew), xxiii. 341
"Dolly" (Way of the World), xxiii. 215
Donadieu's restaurant, xxiii. 254
Donat, --, xxiv. 312
"Don Juan" (Byron), xxiii. 354
"Don Juan," unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257, 258
Dorchester, visited, xxiv. 153
Dostoieffsky's works, xxiv. 182-3
Dover, T. W., letter to, xxv. 209
Dowden, Professor, xxiv, 211-12
Dowdney, --, xxv. 138
Dowson, Mr., xxiii. 86, 88
Doyle, Sir A. Conan, letters to, xxv. 298, 336, 429
"Dreams," xxv. 97
Duddingston Loch, xxiii. 75, 164
"Du hast Diamanten und Perlen," song, xxiii. 58
Dumas, Alexandre (_pêre_), xxiii. 347; Henley's book on, xxiv. 54, 257
Dumas, novels of, xxiv. 398
Dumfries, at, xxiii. 64
Dunblane, at, xxiii. 33
Dunnet, --, xxv. 106
Dunoyer, Olympe, xxiii. 307
"Du schönes Fischermädchen," song (Schubert), xxiii. 139
Dutra, Augustin, xxiii. 240
Dutton, Mr., xxiv. 356
"Dyce of Ythan," projected (_see also_ "The Young Chevalier"), xxv. 172
"Dynamiter, The," xxiv. 114, 176
Dynamite, views on, xxiv. 108
Earraid, Isle of, xxiii. 10, 24, 318
"Earthly Paradise" (Morris), xxiii. 36
Easter Island, images from, xxiv. 362, 367
"Ebb Tide" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 361, 399 & _n._ 1, 402; xxv.
120, 172 & _n._ 1, 281, 288 _et seq._, 290 & _n._ 1, 301 _et seq._,
307, 310, 314 _et seq._, 318, 321, 325, 350, 353, 372; criticism, xxv.
347 _et seq._; illustrations for, notes on, xxv. 301
"Echoes" (Henley), xxv. 215
Eckenhelm, xxiii. 39
"Eclogues" (Virgil), xxiii. 34
Edinburgh Academy (school), old boys' dinner, xxiii. 168, 169
Edinburgh, at, xxiii. _passim_; homes in, xxiii. 5; life at, 1874-5,
xxiii. 123 _et seq._
Edinburgh Castle, xxiii. 69, 71
_Edinburgh Courant_, wanted, xxv. 392
Edinburgh Edition of works, xxv. 372-3, 394, 396, 404, 414;
illustrations in, xxv. 423 & _n._ 1; suggested prefaces, xxv. 376
"Edinburgh Eleven" (Barrie), xxv. 276
Edinburgh, influence of, xxv. 155
Edinburgh, "Picturesque Notes on," xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218
_Edinburgh Review_, article in, on Rembrandt, by Colvin, xxiii. 225
Edinburgh Society of Arts, medal awarded to R. L. S., xxiii. 10
Edinburgh streets, xxiv. 100
Edinburgh University, Speculative Society at, xxiii. 35, 64, 184;
xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178 studies at, xxiii. 8 _et seq._
Eeles, Lieutenant, R.N., xxv. 415; letters to, xxv. 267, 451
Effort, uses of, xxiv. 88
Eglinton, Hugh, 12th Earl of, xxv. 69
"Egoist, The" (Meredith), xxiii. 353
Eimeo, storm near, xxiv. 324
"Einst, O Wunder, einst," song, xxiii. 65
"Elements of Style" (_Contemporary Review_), xxiv. 181
Elgin marbles, the, xxiii. 158-60, 163-4
Eliot, George, works of, xxiii. 210
Elstree murder, xxiii. 338
"Emerson" (H. James), xxiv. 278
"Emigrant Train, The," xxv. 97
"Encyclopædia Britannica," contributions to, xxiii. 179, 186, 191,
202-3
"Endymion" (Keats), xxiv. 170
"Engineer's Thumb" (Doyle), xxv. 340
England and Samoa, xxv. 6 _et seq._
England and Scotland, contrasts between, xxiii. 56 _et seq._
_English Illustrated Magazine_, contributions to, xxiv. 68 & _n._ 1
"English Odes," edited by Gosse, xxiii. 292; suggestions concerning,
xxiii. 293-4
English, the, mock definition of, xxiii. 225
"English Village, An" (Gosse), xxv. 457
"English Worthies" Series, book for, xxiv. 134
"Ensorcelée, L'" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 314, 380
"Epilogue to an Inland Voyage," xxiv. 68
Epitaph for himself, by R. L. S., xxiii. 269; xxv. 375
Epitaph (mock) on himself, xxiv. 69
_Equator_, schooner, cruise in, xxiv. 291-2, 340, 343, 347, 357-8,
369, 390; xxv. 3
"Eroica" Symphony (Beethoven), xxiii. 166
"Escape at Bedtime" ("Child's Garden"), xxiv. 55
Essays, xxiii. 143; selected, projected volume and suggested contents,
xxv. 301 & _n._ 1
"Essays in Art" (Hamerton), xxiii. 242
"Essays in London" (H. James), xxv. 367
"Essays on the Art of Writing," xxiv. 265
"Essays on Travel," xxiii. 201, 281
"Etherege," essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45
"Evan Harrington" (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97
Evictions, Highland, xxiii. 298
"Evictions" (Miller), xxiii. 297
Ewing, Professor, xxiv. 226
Exeter, visited, xxiv. 105, 153
"Expansion of England" (Seeley), xxiv. 55, 56
"Fables in Song," xxiii. 127-8, 132, 141, 142
"Fables" (Lord Lytton), xxiii. 129
Fage, xxiii. 307
Fairchild, Blair, xxiv. 239, 405
Fairchild, Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; letter to, xxiv. 246
Fairchild, Mrs. Charles, xxiv. 233, 237, 239, 250; xxv. 379; letters
to, xxiv. 403; xxv. 163, 240
Fair Isle, visit to, xxiii. 24
Fakarava, at, xxiv. 295, 312
"Falconers, The Two, of Cairnstane," xxiii. 170
_Falke_, the, xxv. 425
Fall of Man, the, xxiii. 212
"Familiar Essays," xxiv. 230
"Familiar Studies of Men and Books," xxiii. 149, 224, 229, 351, 355;
publication, xxiii. 335.
"Family of Engineers" ("History of the Stevensons" or the "Northern
Lights"), unfinished; xxv. 120, 310, 315-6, 319-20, 322, 334, 339,
348, 357; germ of, xxiv. 279; xxv. 95
"Family of Love," xxiii. 170
"Fantasio" (de Musset), xxiv. 97
Farehau, xxiv. 310, 315
"F.A.S., In Memoriam" (Underwoods), xxiii. 300
Fast-day, xxiii. 153
"Fastidious Brisk," sobriquet, xxiv. 72
"Faust" (Goethe), xxiv. 71
Faxon, --, xxiv. 390
"Femmes Savantes" (Molière), xxiv. 123
Fenian dynamite outrages, xxiii. 320
Fergusson, Robert, poet, xxiv. 214, 215; xxv. 57, 70-1, 88; monument,
xxv. 395-6
Ferrier, James Walter, xxiii. 48, 223; xxiv. 46, 47, 63, 98;
appreciation of, xxiv. 46 _et seq._; collaboration with, xxv. 398;
death, xxiv. 6, 46 _et seq._, 59, 69, 71-2, 96 _n._ 1; letter to,
xxiii. 269
Ferrier, Miss, xxiv. 90; letters to, xxiv. 46, 52, 71, 88, 121, 132,
282
Festetics de Solna, Count, at Apia, xxv. 415
Fielding, Henry, xxiii. 129
Fiji, xxv. 50, 96, 102
Fiji, High Commissioner of, proclamation by, xxv. 280
"Finsbury Tontine, The" (_see_ "Wrong Box")
Flaubert, Gustave, on prose, xxv. 71-2
Fleming, Marjorie, xxiv. 245 _n._ 1; verses of, xxv. 385
"Flint, Captain" ("Treasure Island"), xxiii. 326
"Flowers of the Forest," air, xxiii. 113
Folau, --, Chief Judge, xxv. 30
"Folk Lore" (Lang), xxiv. 130
Folleté, M., xxiii. 100
"Fons Bandusiæ" (Macdonald), xxiv. 249
Fontainebleau (_see also_ Barbizon, _and_ "Forest Notes"), visits to,
xxiii. 124, 182, 183, 184, 189, 282, 305
"Footnote to History," xxiv. 362 _et seq._, 369 _et seq._, 386; xxv.
5, 41 _n._ 1, 117, 120, 122, 124, 126, 129-30, 138, 140-4, 146, 163,
172, 188, 192, 211, 250, 257, 267, 274; publication of, xxv. 146;
German reception of, xxv. 346
"Foreigner, The, at Home," essay, xxiii. 56
"Forester," unfinished paper (J. W. Ferrier), xxiii. 269
"Forest Notes," essay on Fontainebleau (_Magazine of Art_), xxiii.
180, 181, 186, 198, 201, 202; xxiv. 32, 57, 58, 67, 68 _n._ 1; xxv.
397-8
"Forest State, The: A Romance" (_see also_ "Prince Otto"), xxiii. 259,
265, 266
Forfeited Estates, tenants of, xxiii. 298
Forster, --, xxiii. 321
Forth, Firth of, xxiii. 61, 68, 69
_Fortnightly Review_, contributions to, xxiii. 127, 132, 281
"Fortune by Sea and Land" (Heywood), xxiii. 354
Fortune, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 15
"Fortunes of Nigel" (Scott), xxiv. 91
Foss, Captain, xxv. 106
"Four Great Scotsmen," project for, xxiii. 111
"Fra Diavolo," at Frankfurt, xxiii. 42
France, Anatole, xxv. 321, 409
Franchise for working men, xxiii. 97
François, a baker, xxiii. 240; xxiv. 42
François Villon, xxiii. 182, 191, 192, 207; xxiv. 397; Schwob's
writings on, xxv. 52
Frank, --, xxv. 330
Frankfurt, at, xxiii. 38
Franklin, Benjamin, article on, projected, xxiii. 253, 265, 266, 333
_Fraser's Magazine_, contribution to, xxv. 97, 123
French possessions in the Pacific, xxiv. 293
French translations, _see_ letters to Schwob
"Friend," the (S. T. Coleridge), xxiii. 221
Friends, the six, xxiv. 47
"Fruits of Solitude" (Penn), xxiii. 303
Funk, Dr., xxv. 416, 458
Galitzin, Prince Leon, xxiii. 119, 120, 121, 125, 155
Galpin, --, xxiv. 202
"Gamekeeper," sobriquet for Miss Boodle, xxiv. 259, 284
"Game of Bluff," _see_ "Wrong Box"
Garschine, Madame, xxiii. 98, 99, 102, 108, 115, 147; letter from,
xxiii. 128
"Gauvain" (Quatre-vingt Treize, by Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
"Gavin Ogilvy," character (Barrie), xxv. 277
"Gavottes Célèbres" (Litolf's edition), xxiv. 188
"Gebir," line from, quoted (Landor), xxiii. 329
"Genesis of the Master of Ballantrae," xxv. 33
"Gentleman of France" (Weyman), xxv. 312
"George the Pieman" (Deacon Brodie), xxiii. 257
German policy in Samoa, xxiv. 370; xxv. 6 _et seq._, 176 _et passim_
Gévaudan, xxiii. 218
"Giant Bunker," xxiv. 70
Gibson, Captain, xxv. 203
Gilbert Islands, burial customs in, xxiv. 399, 400; papers on, xxv.
84; suggested plan and title, 84; visited, xxiv. 291-2, 356-7 _et
seq._, 368
Gilder, R. W., editor _Century Magazine_, xxiii. 338; xxiv. 26, 29,
30, 64, 98, 149, 185, 250
Gilfillan, --, xxiv. 349, 352
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., xxiii. 113; xxiv. 136-7, 139, 192
Glasgow, Knox memorial at, xxv. 88
"Gleams of Memory" (Payn), xxv. 447
Glencorse Church, xxiii. 180; xxv. 305, 307
"Go Between," xxv. 314-5 & _n._ 1
"Goguclat" (St. Ives), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
"Good Boy, A" ("Child's Garden"), xxiv. 55, 170
"Gordon Darnaway" ("Merry Men"), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
Gordon, General C. G., xxiv. 107, 137, 139-40, 183; xxv. 57
Gosse, Edmund, xxiii. 311, 316, 328, 329, 341; xxiv. 36, 120, 244;
appointment to Clark Readership, xxiv. 99; letters to, xxiii. 219,
224, 226, 236, 243, 245, 260, 271, 292, 293, 306, 311, 313, 324, 325,
332, 338, 350, 359, 360; xxiv. 26, 29, 30, 45, 50, 87, 97, 125, 139,
173, 181, 244, 277; xxv. 71, 317, 454; "Life" by, of his father, xxv.
71, 130, 317
Gosse, Mrs. Edmund, xxiii. 225, 227; letter to, xxiii. 347
Gosse, P. H., "Life" of, by E. Gosse, xxv. 71, 130, 317
"Gossip, A, on Romance," xxiii. 283, 342, 349
Göttingen, xxiii. 118, 122, 125
"Gower Woodseer" ("Amazing Marriage," by Meredith), prototype of, xxv.
344, 390-1
Grange, Lady, xxiii. 298
Grant, --, xxiii. 316
Grant, Geordie, xxiii. 19
Grant, Lady, xxiv. 53, 72
Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, xxiii. 298
Granton, xxiii. 8
Grant, Sir Alexander, xxiv. 53, 72, 132
"Grape from a Thorn" (Payn), xxiv. 7
Graves, home and foreign, xxv. 349 & _n._ 1
"Gray, Thomas" ("English Men of Letters"), by Gosse, xxiii. 350, 351,
360; works of, edited by Gosse, xxiv. 140
"Great Expectations" (Dickens), xxiv. 22-3
"Great North Road," unfinished, xxiii. 328; xxiv. 106, 127, 139, 152,
402
Greenaway, Kate, xxiv. 32
Green, Madame, singer, xxv. 249
Grey, Sir George, xxv. 290, 298-9; visit to, xxv. 292
Grez, at, xxiii. 183, 185, 187; meeting with Mrs. Osbourne at, xxii.
183, 228
Grove, Sir George, xxiii. _intro._ xviii. 151, 178, 204
Guérin, Maurice de, xxiii. 165
Gurr, --, xxv. 48, 105, 116, 448
Gurr, Mrs., xxv. 107
Guthrie, Charles J., letters to, xxiii. 312; xxiv. 178
"Guy Mannering" (Scott), xxiv. 91; xxv. 167
Habakkuk, prophet, xxiii. 211
Haddon, Trevor, letters to, xxiii. 357, 360; xxiv. 10, 39, 93
Haggard, Bazett, xxv. 138, 161, 170-1, 193 _et passim_
Haggard, Rider, xxiv. 257; xxv. 86, 226-7
"Haggis, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
"Hair Trunk," xxiii. 205-6
Hake, Dr. Gordon, xxiv. 239
Hall, Basil, xxv. 111
Hallé, Sir Charles, xxiii. 169, 198
"Hall, Mr." (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 211
Hamerton, P. G., xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 58, 216, 218, 315 _n._ 1, 316,
336; letters to, xxiii. 242, 314, 335; xxiv. 143
"Hamerton, P. G., An Autobiography," xxiii. 216
Hamilton, Captain, death of, xxv. 65
"Hamlet" (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
Hammond, Basil, xxiv. 13 & _n._ 1
Hampstead, at, xxiii. 124, 133
Hand, Captain, R.N., xxv. 139
Handwriting, tests of, xxv. 254-5
Hansome, Rufe, xxiii. 278
Happiness, xxiv. 183-4
Hardy, Thomas, xxiv. 153; xxv. 266
Hargrove, Mr., xxiii. 25, 26
"Harry Richmond" (Meredith), characters in, xxiv. 97
Harte, Bret, xxiii. 210
"Hastie" (Kidnapped), xxiv. 196
Hawaiian Islands, stay in, xxiv. 291
"Hawthorne" (H. James), xxiii. 273, 277
Hayley, --, xxiii. 252
Hazlitt, William, xxv. 385
"Heart of Midlothian" (Scott), xxiii. 65; xxv. 154
"Heathercat," unfinished, xxv. 281, 360-1, 403
Hebrides, yachting trip in, xxiii. 124, 139, 140
Hecky, a dog, xxiv. 202
Hegel, --, xxiv. 75
Heintz, Dr., xxiii. 244
Henderson, Mr., xxiii. 6, 328; xxiv. 31
Henley, Anthony, xxiii. 238, 240
Henley, E. J., xxiv. 261
Henley, W. E., xxiii. 124, 171, 172, 177, 284, 285, 334, 352; xxiv.
29, 47, 52, 59, 67, 79, 99, 151, 155, 191, 202, 302, 377; xxv. 97,
121, 123, 174; appreciation of, xxv. 213; dramatic collaboration with,
xxiii. 185, 256, 257; xxiv. 99, 106, 119, 146; editor of _London_,
xxiii. 184; in hospital, xxv. 427; letters to, xxiii. 204, 217, 219,
221, 233, 238, 249, 255, 256, 265, 317, 319, 326, 328, 330, 334, 341,
342, 352, 362; xxiv. 17, 23, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 47, 54, 57, 65, 72,
79, 91, 96, 102, 111, 114, 120, 123, 127, 131, 133, 146, 147, 155,
229, 239, 248, 257; xxv. 214; poems by, xxv. 122, 214
"Henry Shovel," _see_ "Shovels of Newton French"
_Herald_, ship, xxv. 444
Herbert, George, poetry of, xxiii. 18
Herrick, Robert, xxiii. _intro._ xx.; xxiv. 36, 82
"Herrick, Robert," essay (Gosse), xxiv. 45
_Hester Noble_, unfinished play (with Henley), xxiii. 256, 257
"Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?" air, xxiii. 113
Highland History, projected, xxiii. 280, 290-1, 297; xxv. 117
"Highland Widow" (Scott), xxv. 24
"High Woods of Umfanua," _see_ "Beach of Falesá"
Hiroshigé, prints by, xxiii. 157
"Histoire d'Israël" (Renan), xxv. 304
"Histoire des Origines de Christianisme" (Renan), xxv. 304
"History of America" (Adams), xxv. 215, 266
"History of England" (Macaulay), xxiii. 70
"History of France" (Martin), xxiii. 193
"History of Indostani" (Orme), xxv. 419, 423
"History of Notorious Pirates" (Johnson), xxiv. 101
"History of the Great Storm" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
"History of the Rebellion" (Clarendon), xxiii. 31
"History of the Stevensons," _see_ "Family of Engineers"
"History of the United States" (Bancroft), xxiii. 246
Hogarth, William, xxiii. 69; Cambridge lectures on, by Colvin, xxiii.
178
Hokusai (_Magazine of Art_), xxiv. 32
Hole, W., illustrator, xxiv. 270, 319, 321-2, 346; xxv. 349 & _n._ 1,
362 _n._ 1
"Holy Fair" (Burns), xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 _n._ 1
Homburg, visit to, xxiii. 182
"Home is the Sailor," lines chosen for epitaph, xxiii. 269; xxv. 375
Home Rule Bill of 1885, xxiv. 192
"Homme, L', qui rit" (Hugo), xxiii. 125 & _n._ 1
Honolulu, visits to, xxiv. 291, 319 _et seq._, 329, 353; xxv. 281,
345, 349, 362
"Horatian Ode" (Marvell), xxiii. 293
Hoskin, Dr., xxv. 268, 270, 452
"House of Eld" Fables, xxiii. 12, 141
Houses, characteristics of, xxiii. 145, 146
Howard Place, 8, Edinburgh, birthplace, xxiii. 5
"Howe, Miss" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
"Huckleberry Finn" (Twain), xxiv. 139
"Huguenots, Les," opera, xxiii. 200
"Huish" (Ebb Tide), xxv. 313
"Human Compromise," xxiii. 267
Humble Apology (Longman's), xxiv. 181
Humble Remonstrance (Longman's), xxiv. 127
Hume, David, xxiii. 4, 72, 111, 145
"Humilies et offensés" (Dostoieffsky), xxiv. 183
Hunter, Robert, "portrait" of, xxv. 301
Hurricane at Apia, the great, xxiv. 345, 346, 369; xxv. 141, 172-4;
chapter on, in "Footnote," issued in _Scots Observer_, xxv. 174
Hutchinson, --, bust by, of R. L. S., xxv. 353 & _n._ 1
Hyde, Rev. Dr., and Father Damien, xxiv. 292; controversy with, xxiv.
383-4, 391 & _n._ 1, 402, 404
Hyéres, at, xxiv. 5, 21 _et seq._; xxv. 60
Hyndman, --, xxiv. 141
"Hyperion" (Keats), xxiv. 170
Iceland, book on, by Gosse suggested, xxiii. 333
"Ich unglückselige Atlas," song (Schubert), xxiii. 139
Ide, Annie H., and R. L. S.'s birthday, xxv. 89-90, 118-9; letter to,
xxv. 118
Ide, C. J., Land Commissioner and afterwards Chief Justice in Samoa,
xxv. 281, 298, 380-1, 450; letter to, xxv. 88
Ide, Margery, xxv. 450
_Idler, The_, xxv. 372, 429; contributions to, xxv. 376
_Illustrated London News_, xxv. 301
Inchcape bell, xxiii. 29
Income-tax, xxiii. 113, 114
Inglis, John, Justice-General, xxiii. 181
Ingram, John H., xxiii. 166
"Inland Voyage," xxiii. 183, 185, 204, 211, 212, 218, 229, 247; xxiv.
103; criticisms on, xxiii. 215-6
"Inn Album" (Robert Browning), review of, xxiii, 198, 199
"Inn, The," xxv. 429
"In Russet and Silver" (Gosse), dedication of, xxv. 454
"In the Garden," projected, xxiv. 99
"In the South Seas," first published as "The South Seas," xxiv. 290,
292, 297, 320-1, 358, 362, 399, 403; xxv. 5, 12, 16, 22, 26, 34, 45,
54, 61 & _nn._ 1 & 2, 68, 69, 77, 78, 80, 97, 100; criticisms, xxiv.
293, 348-9; xxv. 76; dedication proposed, xxiv. 304
Intimate Poems, suggested edition, xxv. 377
_Iona_, vessel, xxiii. 24
Ireland, Alexander, letter to, xxiii. 342
Ireland, plan for life in, xxiv. 108, 222
Irongray, tombs at, xxiii. 65
"Isabella and the Pot of Basil" (Keats), xxiv. 170
Isaiah, prophet, xxiii. 211
"Is it not verse except enchanted groves" (Herbert), xxiii. 18
"Island Nights' Entertainments," xxv. 64, 272, 284, 290;
illustrations, xxv. 312; length, xxv. 353 & _n._ 1; reviews xxv.
315 & _n._ 1
"Isle of Voices," xxv. 272
"Islet, The," xxv. 301
"Ivanhoe" (Scott), xxiv. 31
Jack, the island horse, xxv. 35-6, 41, 136, 142
James, G. P. R., novels by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 273
James, Henry, xxiv. 105, 127, 130, 133, 143, 154, 182, 235, 250, 359;
xxv. 29, 317, 415, 452; letters to, xxiv. 127, 160, 214, 215, 237,
249, 262, 278, 288, 334, 382, 396; xxv. 43, 108, 130, 274, 320, 335,
367, 406
"James More," xxv. 161, 216, 295
_Janet Nicoll_, ss., cruise in, xxiv. 292-3, 385 _et seq._, 392, 403;
xxv. 11, 54, 304
Japan and Japanese art, interest in, xxiii. 157, 158, 159; xxiv. 32,
57
Japp, Dr. Alexander, xxiii. 329; letters to, xxiii. 321, 327, 351
Jeafferson, --, xxiv. 178
"Jedidiah Cleishbotham" (Scott), xxiii. 65
Jenkin family, xxiii. 25, 100
Jenkin, Mrs. Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25; xxiv. 300; letters to, xxiv.
150, 151, 187, 221, 225, 258; xxv. 273
Jenkin, Professor Fleeming, xxiii. 10, 25, 118, 122, 175, 176, 183,
247, 311, 341, 353; xxiv. 48, 258, 272; death, xxiv. 106, 150, 151;
memoir of, by R. L. S. (_see_ "Memoir"); debt to, xxiv. 331
Jerome, Jerome K., xxv. 372, 429
"Jerry Abershaw," projected, xxiii. 328, 329; xxiv. 152
Jersey, Countess of, in Samoa, xxv. 145, 227, 228, 325; letters to,
xxv, 228-9; on her visit to R. L. S., xxv. 228
Jersey, Earl of, xxv. 288
"Jess" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 277
Jhering, Professor, xxiii. 118, 122
_J. L. Tiernan_, schooner, xxiv. 359
Joan of Arc, Byron's epithet for, xxiii. 354
"Jock o' Hazeldean," air, xxiii. 113
"John Peel" of the song, xxiii. 28
"John Silver" (Treasure Island), xxiv. 112, 123; genesis of, xxiv. 31
Johnson, --, an American, xxiii. 108, 110, 111, 112
"Johnson," or "Johnstone," pseudonym, xxiv. 14, 121
Johnson, Samuel, xxiii. 298; "Life" of, xxiii. 193, 203
Johnstone, Marie, Mary, or May, xxiii. 94, 95, 98, 99, 101
Johnstone, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 96, 99
_John Williams_, missionary barque, xxiv. 387
"Jolly Beggars" (Burns), sent for autograph, xxv. 69, 87, 118
Jones, Henry Arthur (_see also_ "Bauble Shop"), letter to, xxiv. 133
Jonson, Ben, xxiii. 294
Journalistic work, xxiii. 184
"Joy of Earth" (Meredith), xxv. 214
Jura, Skye terrier, xxv. 428-9
"Justice Clerk," _see_ Weir of Hermiston
"Juvenilia," xxv. 397-8
Kaiulani, Hawaiian Princess, xxiv. 345, 346
Kalakaua, King, xxiv. 320
Kalaupapa, Molokai, xxiv. 351 _et seq._
Kalawao, Molokai, xxiv. 353-4
_Katoomba_, H.M.S., xxv. 334; band of, xxv. 351
Kava, native beverage, xxv. 183 & _n._ 1
"Keats" ("English Men of Letters," by Colvin), xxiii. 349, 350-1;
xxiv. 210, 211
Keir, Jean, xxv. 335
Kelso, xxiii. 156
"Kenilworth" (Scott), xxiv. 91
"Kidnapped," xxiii. 24, 331; xxiv. 106, 146, 147, 179, 190, 195-6,
203, 233, 265, 317, 370, 377; xxv. 108, 160, 215, 250, 283, 301, 351;
in Braille, xxv. 366; projected illustrations, xxv. 349 _n._ 1;
reception, xxiv. 198; reviews, xxiv. 203; sequel (_see_ "Catriona"),
xxv. 144; suggested French translation, xxv. 52
Killigrew, Anne, xxiii. 293 _n._ 1
"King Lear" (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
"King Matthias's Hunting Horn" lost, xxiii. 158, 160, 170
Kinglake, W., xxiii. 70
"King's Horn, The," xxiii. 308
Kingston, W.G., xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
Kingussie, at, xxiii. 284, 357
Kipling, Rudyard, anticipated visit from, xxv. 105 & _n._ 1; xxv. 163,
165; appreciations of, xxiv. 396; xxv. 46, 213, 275; letter to, xxv.
46; writings of, xxv. 379
Kirriemuir, xxv. 417
"Kirstie Elliot" (Weir of Hermiston), xxiii. _intro._ xx.; xxv. 457
Kitchener, Colonel, _ib._
Kitchener, Viscount, xxv. 236-7
Knappe, Consul, xxiv. 370; xxv. 139, 141
"Knox, John, and his Relations with Women," xxiii. 141, 149, 150, 153,
155
Knox, John, "Works" of, xxiii. 117
Knox, John, writings on, xxiii. 55, 61, 111, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149,
150, 153, 155, 158, 159, 167, 170, 171, 173
Ko-o-amua, ex-cannibal chief, xxiv. 293
"Kubla Khan" (Coleridge), xxiii. 92, 220
Kuniyoshi, prints by, xxiii. 157
Labiche, --, xxiii. 239
Labour, imported, in Samoa, xxv. 159 & _n._ 1
Lacy, Mr., xxiii. 307
"Lady Barberina" (H. James), xxiv. 128
"Lady Carbury" ("Way of the World"), xxiii. 215
Lafarge, John, painter, xxv. 4, 29 & _n._ 1, 41, 43, 45
La Fontaine, "Fables" of, xxv. 49
"Lake Isle of Innisfree" (Yeats), xxv. 390
Lamb, Charles, xxiii. 209
"Lamia" (Keats), illustrated by Low, xxiv. 142, 166; dedication of,
xxiv. 169-71
Lampman, Archibald, sonnet by, xxiv. 321 & _n._ 1
Landor, W. S., xxiii. 302, 317, 320-1
"Landscape" (Hamerton), xxiv. 143-4
Land's End, visited, xxiii. 183, 209
Lang, Andrew, xxiii. 115, 117, 222, 311, 316; xxiv. 106, 134, 206,
257, 278, 381, 388; xxv. 357, 427; letters to, xxiv. 399; xxv. 216,
453; story suggested by, xxv. 141 & _n._ 1; on "Treasure Island,"
xxiv. 67
Lantenac, M. (Victor Hugo), xxiii. 130 _n._ 1
"Lantern Bearers, The" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 254; xxv. 97, 301
Large, Miss, xxv. 329-31
La Sale, Antoine, projected essay on, xxiii. 207
"Last Sinner, The," xxiii. 171
Laupepa, _see_ Malietoa
Lautreppe, Albert de, xxv. 383
Lavenham, xxiii. 56
Law examination passed, xxiii. 182
"Lay Morals," 86, 185; xxiv. 62 _et seq._
"Leading Light, The," projected, xxiii. 329
"Leaves of Grass" (Whitman), xxiii. 70
Le Gallienne, Richard, letter to, xxv. 364
Legal work, xxiii. 182, 184
Leigh, Hon. Capt., xxv. 227-8, 231, 233, 234, 235
Leith, xxiii. 159, 202
Lemon, --, picture by, xxiv. 167
Lenz, --, xxiv. 198
Le Puy, xxiii. 217
"Lesson, The, of the Master" (H. James), xxiv. 382; xxv. 108, 274
"Letter to the Church of Scotland," xxv. 398
"Letter to a Young Gentleman," xxv. 123 _n._ 1
"Letters and Memories of Jane Welsh Carlyle" (Froude), xxiii, 301, 302
Letters, desiderata in, xxiii. 259
"Letters" (Flaubert), xxiv. 405; xxv. 59
"Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to his Friend in
London" (Burt), xxiii. 291
"Letters to his Family and Friends," xxiii. _intro._ xix.
Leven, xxiii. 61
"Library, The" (Lang), xxiii. 307
"Lieder und Balladen" (Burns), Silbergleit's translation, xxiii. 39
Life, two views on, xxiv. 158, 164, 165
"Life and Death," xxiii. 171
"Life of General Hutchinson" (Mrs. Hutchinson), xxiii. 30, 31, 32
"Life of Hazlitt," projected, xxiii. 283, 336, 339, 345
"Life of P. H. Gosse" (Edmund Gosse), xxv. 71, 130, 317
"Life of R. L. S." (Balfour), xxiii. _intro._ xix.; xxv. 4, 59
"Life of Robertson" (Dugald Stewart), xxiii. 119
"Life of Samuel Johnson" (Boswell), xxiii. 193, 203
"Life of Sir Walter Scott" (Lockhart), xxiv. 75, 84, 170, 171
"Life of Wellington" ("English Worthies"), unfinished, xxiv. 106, 134,
139
"Life on the Lagoons" (H. F. Brown), xxiii. 303
Lillie, Jean and David, connection of, with the Stevensons, xxv. 436
"Lion of the Nile," xxiv. 321
Lions, xxiii. 307
Lippincott, xxiv. 54-5, 90
"Literary Recollections" (Payn), xxiv. 381
"Little Minister" (Barrie), xxv. 265, 276
"Lives of the Admirals" (Southey), xxiii. 70
"Lives of the Stevensons," _see_ "Family of Engineers"
"L. J. R.," Essay Club, xxiii. 46, 48; xxv. 121
Llandudno, visited, xxiii. 124, 148
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, letters to, xxiv. 205, 206, 207, 208, 215
"Lodging for the Night," xxiii. 184, 191, 248
Logan, John, xxiii. 71, 72
_London_, contributions to, xxiii. 184
"London Life" (H. James), xxiv. 289
London, visits to (see _also_ British Museum), xxiii. 77, 155, 330;
xxiv. 105, 107, 186-7, 189, 202, 209, 229
"London Voluntaries" (Henley), xxv. 214
Longman, --, publisher, xxiv. 30, 66, 111, 134; xxv. 123, 125
_Longman's Magazine_, contributions to, xxiv. 127, 130, 134, 143, 181;
xxv. 454
"Lord Nidderdale" (Way of the World), xxiii. 215
"Lord Rintoul" (Little Minister), xxv. 265
"Lost Sir Massingberd" (Payn), xxiv. 7, 177
Loti, Pierre (M. Viaud), xxiv. 308
"Loudon Dodd" (Wrecker), xxv. 24, 172 & _n._1
"Louis XIV. et la Révocation de l'Édit de Nantes" (Michelet), xxiii.
69
"Louse, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
"Love in the Valley" (Meredith), xxiv. 54; xxv. 214, 390
"Lovelace" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
Love, young, advice on, xxiii. 358
Lowell, John Russell, xxiv. 107
Low, Mrs. W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217
Low, W. H., xxiv. 107, 202, 217, 234, 250, 251, 255, 288, 369, 390;
xxv. 25, 111; illustrated edition by, of "Lamia," xxiv. 142, 166;
dedication of, xxiv. 169-71; letters to, xxiv. 57, 63, 72, 89, 115,
142, 153, 166, 169, 172, 177, 185, 217, 230, 245, 346; xxv. 378
_Lübeck_, s.s., passage on, xxiv. 375 _et seq._; xxv. 48, 50, 53, 81
_Ludgate Hill_, s.s., passage in, xxiv. 110, 230, 232; xxiv. 235 _et
seq._
Lully, J.B., gavotte by, xxiv. 188-9
Lysaght, Sidney, xxv. 385-6, 388, 405, 415 & _n._ 1; books by, xxv.
390; visit from, xxv. 374
_Macaire_, play (with Henley), xxiv. 146, 147
_Macbeth_ (Shakespeare), xxiv. 57
M'Carthy, Justin, xxiv. 173
McClure, S. S., publisher, relations with, xxiv. 234, 252, 321, 379;
xxv. 120
McCrie, --, xxiii. 117
Macdonald, David, xxiii. 20
Macdonald, Flora, xxiii. 298
Macdonald, George, xxiv. 248
Macdonald, J. H. A., xxiii. 114
Macgregor, clan, xxv. 293, 346
M'Gregor-Stevenson connection, question of, xxv. 440
Mackay, Professor Æneas, xxiii. 282; letters to, xxiii. 309
Mackintosh family, xxiii. 169
M'Laren, Duncan, xxiii. 96, 97, 114
MacMahon, President, xxiii. 116
Macmillan, Alexander, xxiii. 151
_Macmillan's Magazine_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii. 204; contributions to,
xxiii. 125, 149, 151
Macpherson, Miss Fanny (Lady Holroyd), xxv. 83 & _n._ 1
Madeira, plan to visit, xxiv. 328
"Mademoiselle Merquem" (Sand), xxiii. 87
_Magazine of Art_, contributions to, xxiii. 333-4; xxiv. 54, 57, 115,
181; xxv. 97, 123, 398, 423
Majendie, Colonel, xxiv. 283
"Malade Imaginaire" (Molière), xxiv. 123
"Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre," xxiii. 102
Malie, abode and following of Malietoa, xxv. 6, 9 _et seq._
Malietoa Laupepa, xxv. 9, 176, 234, 466; friendliness with, xxv. 10;
and Mataafa, troubles concerning, xxv. 6-9 _et seq._
Manasquan, at, xxiv. 234, 286-8
Manchester Ship Canal, xxiv. 135
_Manhattan_, magazine, xxiv. 57, 90
"Manse, The," xxiii. 4; xxv. 301
Manu'a, islands of, "queen" of, xxv. 407-8
Marat, xxiv. 183
Marbot, "Memoires" of, xxv. 274, 321
"Marche funèbre" (Chopin), xxiii. 139
Marcus Aurelius, xxiv. 183
"Marden, Colonel" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
"Margery Bonthron," xxiii. 171
"Marion," xxiii. 307
_Mariposa_, s.s., xxv. 346
"Markheim," xxiii. _intro._ xx., xxiii.; xxiv. 125, 213
"Marmont's Memoirs," xxiv. 134
Marot, Clement, poems by, xxiii. 108
"Marplot, The" (Lysaght), xxv. 390
Marquesas Islands, visited, xxiv. 290, 293, 371
Marryat, Captain, works by, ordered by R. L. S., xxiv. 338
Marseilles, at, xxiv. 5, 12-14, 98
Marshall Islands, visited, xxiv. 292
Martial, xxiv. 82
Martin, A. Patchett, letters to, xxiii. 208, 209
"Martin's Madonna," xxiii. 171
Marvell, Andrew, xxv. 46
Mary, Queen of Scots, xxiii. 62
"Mary Wollstonecraft" (Mrs. Pennell), xxiv. 149
"Master of Ballantrae," xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxiv. 235, 265,
268-70, 274, 276, 278, 279, 291, 314, 317, 328, 338, 339, 346, 349,
360, 369, 370, 377, 398; xxv. 43, 171 & _n._ 2, 250, 357;
illustrations, xxiv. 319, 320; original plan of, xxv. 396; paper on,
xxv. 376; suggested French translation, xxv. 52
Mataafa, xxiv. 370; xxv. 176, 256; troubles concerning, xxv. 6-9 _et
seq._, 93 _et seq._, 280, 332-3, 350; visits to, xxv. 193 _et seq._,
242; with Lady Jersey, xxv. 228 _et seq._
Matlock, visited, xxiv. 105, 189
Maupassant, Guy de, xxiv. 383
Maxwell, Sir Herbert, xxv. 437; letters to, xxv. 440, 453
"Mazeppa" (Byron), xxiii. 132
Medallion portrait by St. Gaudens, xxv. 410
Medea (Ordered South), xxiii. 86 & _n._ 1
Mediterranean, impression of, xxiii. 104, 105
Meiklejohn, Hugh, xxv. 269, 450, 451
Meiklejohn, Professor John, xxiii. 263, 316; compliments on "Burns"
article, xxiii. 241; letters to, xxiii. 263; xxv. 450
"Mein Herz ist im Hochland," xxiii. 41
Melford, xxiii. 56
Melville, Herman, xxiv. 295, 348, 381
"Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin," xxiv. 106-7, 150, 169, 174, 187, 225
"Memoirs of a Cavalier" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
"Memoirs of an Islet," essay, xxiii. 23
"Memoirs of Henry Shovel," unfinished, xxiv. 402
"Memorials" (Laing), xxv. 293
"Memorials of a Scottish Family," projected (_see also_ "Family of
Engineers"), xxiv. 279
"Memories and Portraits," xxiii. 56, 318 _n._ 1; xxiv. 96 _n._ 1, 214,
215, 230, 231, 257; xxv. 51, 53, 301 & _n._ 1
"Men and Books," xxiii. 86
Menken, Adah, xxiii. 275
Mentone, at, xxiii. 55, 77, 81 _et seq._, 143-4
Meredith, George, xxiii. 183, 311; xxiv. 97, 278 & _n._ 1; xxv. 351-2;
letters to, xxv. 343, 390
"Merry Men, The," xxiii. 282, 316, 317, 321; xxiv. 35, 90, 125, 213,
215; xxv. 353; criticisms on, xxiii. 319; dedication, xxiv. 211; germ
of, xxiii. 308; places described in, xxiii. 317
Michaels, barber, xxiii. 244
Michelet, --, xxv. 304
Middleton, Miss, letter to, xxv. 428
Millais, Sir John E., xxiv. 139; on R. L. S., as artist, xxiii.
_intro._ xxx.
Milne, Mrs., letter to, xxiv. 70
Milson, John, xxiv. 130
"Mimes" (Schwob), xxv. 409
"Misadventure in France, A," essay, xxiv. 67-8
"Misadventures of John Nicholson" (_Yule-Tide_), xxiii. 12; xxiv. 211,
214; xxv. 57 & _n._ 1
"Miscellanies" (Edinburgh edition), xxv. 33, 376, 397 & _n._ 1, 424
"Misérables, Les" (V. Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
Missions and missionary work, xxv. 10, _n._ 1, 33, 56, 57, 203,
410-11, 422
Möe, Princess, xxiv. 308, 309, 313
"Mobray" (Clarissa Harlowe), xxiii. 210
Mödestine, the donkey of the Cévennes journey, xxiii. 218
Molière, xxiii. 69; plays, xxiv. 96, 123
"Moll Flanders" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
Molokai, visited, xxiv. 291, 345, 349 _et seq._, 356
Monaco, at, xxiii. 93
Monastier, visit to, xxiii. 217
Monkhouse, Cosmo, letters to, xxiv. 85, 95
Monroe, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 191, 193, 261
"Monsieur Auguste" (Méry), xxiii. 257, 258
Montagu, Basil, xxv. 29 _n._ 2
Montaigne, xxiv. 130, 144
Monterey, xxiv. 36; ranche life at, xxiii. 229, 234, 235, 236
"Monterey, California," xxiii. 241, 242
Montpellier, at, xxiv. 4
"Moonstone, The" (Wilkie Collins), xxiii. 18
Moors, H. J., xxiv. 292, 370, 371; xxv. 10, 28, 29, 30, 31, 40, 96,
107
"Morality, the, of the Profession of Letters" (_Fortnightly_), xxiii.
281
"More New Arabian Nights," xxiv. 106, 108, 114, 127, 139, 140, 142
Morley, Charles, of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, xxiv. 125
"Morley Ernstein" (G. P. R. James), xxiv. 75
Morley, John (Viscount Morley), xxiii. 127, 132, 226, 268
_Morning Star_, missionary ship, cruise in, projected, xxiv. 337,
338-9, 340, 343, 384
Morris, William, letter to, xxv. 162
Morse, Captain, xxv. 222
Morse, Miss, letter to, xxv. 253
Mount Chessie, xxiv. 44
Mount Saint Helena, xxiii. 277
Mount Vaea, burial-place of R. L. S., xxv. 9, 10, _n._ 1, 458 _et
seq._
Mulinuu, abode and party of Malietoa, xxv. 9 _et seq._, 107, 330, 332,
333, 370
"Mulvaney" (Soldiers Three), letter as from, xxv. 46
"Murder of Red Colin," projected, xxiii. 331
Murders, famous, volume on, projected by Gosse and R. L. S., xxiii.
338, 350
"Murders in the Rue Morgue" (Poe), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii
Mures, the, of Caldwell, xxv. 358
Murphy, Tommy, a lost child, story of, xxiii. 161, 162
Murrayfield, xxv. 57
Murray, Grahame, xxiii. 90
Murray, W. C., xxv. 69
Musset, Alfred de, comedies of, xxiii. 212
Mutiny, Indian, novel on, projected, xxiv. 283-4
"My Boy Tammie," air, xxiii. 113
"My First Book," series in _Idler_, xxv. 33, 376, 429
Myers, F. W. H., letter to, xxiv. 184
Napoleon III., xxv. 250, 319
Nares, Captain (The Wrecker), xxv. 269
Navigator Islands, xxiii. 180, 205; xxiv, 405
Navy, British, men of, xxv. 351-2
Nebraska, aspect of, xxiii. 233-4
Nerli, Count, xxv. 228
Neruda, Mme. Norman, xxiii. 169, 198
Nether Carsewell, xxv. 342, 346
"New Arabian Nights," xxiii. 185, 218; xxiv. 7, 256
New Caledonia, visited, xxiv. 293, 385, 392
"New Poems" (Edmund Gosse), xxiii. 245-6
Newport, U.S.A., at, xxiv. 233, 237-8, 255
_New Quarterly_, contributions to, xxiii. 237
_New Review_, contribution to, xxv. 18 _n._ 1
New Year's wish, a, xxiii. 212
New York, at, xxiv. 233-4, 238
_New York Ledger_, contribution to, xxiv. 361
_New York Tribune_, editor of, letter to, xxiv. 7
New Zealand, xxiv. 405
Nice, visits to, xxiii. 84; xxiv. 4, 6, 79, 92
Nile Campaigns, xxiv. 81
Noël-Pardon, M., xxiv. 394
"Noll and Nell," poem (Martin), xxiii. 210
"Norma," opera, xxiii. 252
"Northern Lights" (_see also_ "Family of Engineers"), xxiii. 4, 10;
xxv. 322
Norwood, at, xxiii. 57
"Note on Realism" (_Magazine of Art_), xxiv. 59, 62, 181
"Notes on the Movements of Young Children," xxiii. 133, 143 & _n._ 2
"Notre Dame" (Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
Noumea, visited, xxiv. 293, 392, 396
Nukahiva Island, at, xxiv. 290, 293
Nulivae Bridge, at, xxv. 223
"Ode to Duty" (Wordsworth), xxv. 173 & _n._ 1
"Ode to the Cuckoo," authorship of, xxiii. 71, 72
O'Donovan Rossa, xxiii. 321
"OEdipus King" (Sophocles), xxiv. 114
"Olalla," xxiv. 106
Old English History (Freeman's), xxv. 117
"Old Gardener," xxv. 404
"Old Mortality" (Scott), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1; essay on, xxiv. 6, 68, 96
"Old Pacific Capital" (_Fraser's Magazine_), xxv. 97
Oliphant, Mrs., xxiv. 370, 382
Omission, art of, xxiv. 60
Omond, --, xxiv. 178
"Omoo" (Melville), xxiv. 348
"One of the Grenvilles" (Lysaght), xxv. 390
"Only Child," projected, xxiv. 99
"On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places," xxiii. 15, 151-3
"On the Principal Causes of Silting in Estuaries" (T. Stevenson),
xxiv. 135
"On some Aspects of Burns" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 224, 227
"On some Ghostly Companions at a Spa," xxiii. 285
"Operations of War" (Hamley), xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv.
Orange, at, xxiii. 80
"Ordered South," xxiii. _intro._ xxvii., 56, 77, 83, 86, 87 & _n._
1, 116, 122, 126, 267; published, xxiii. 125
Organ-grinder episode, xxiii. 155-6
Ori a Ori, chief, xxiv. 291, 302, 304, 306-7, 309-10 _et seq._, 317,
334; letter from, xxiv. 332-3, 337
"Origines de la France Contemporaine" (Taine), xxiv. 258; xxv. 111-2,
319
"Origines" (Renan), xxv. 304
Orkneys and Shetlands, tour of, xxiii. 10, 24
_Orlando_, H.M.S., xxv. 329
Orr, Fred, letter to, xxv. 127
"Orsino" (_Twelfth Night_), R. L. S. as, xxiii. 175, 176
Osbourne, Lloyd, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 300, 348 _et seq._; xxiv. 28,
139, 178, 198, 199, 201, 290, 309, 323, 330, 341, 366, 392, 396, 399,
402; xxv. 3, 21 & _n._ 2, 50, 52, 67, 78, 96, 98, 99, 390, 445;
account by, of death of R. L. S., xxv. 457 _et seq._; collaboration
with (_see also_ "Wrecker"), xxiv. 235, 249, 250, 256, 283-4, 328,
361, 367, 379, 380, 389, 399, 402; xxv. 347-9, 437-8; illness, xxv.
152
Osbourne, Mrs., _see_ Stevenson, Mrs. R. L.
Ossianic controversy, xxiii. 298
_Othello_ (Shakespeare), xxv. 51
Otis, Captain, xxiv. 234, 290
Otway, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45
Our Lady of the Snows, monastery, poem on (Underwoods), xxiii. 221-2
"Owl, The," projected, xxv. 315 & _n._ 1
"Oxford Dictionary of the English Language" (Murray), xxiv. 37
P--N, John, letter to, xxv. 358
P--n, Russell, letter to, xxv. 359
Pacific Ocean, xxiii. 240
Pacific voyages, _see_ "In the South Seas"
Page, H. A., pseudonym for Dr. Japp, _q.v._
Pago-pago harbour, xxv. 8, 65
Painters and their art, xxiv. 60-1
"Painters' Camp, in the Highlands" (Hamerton), xxiii. 216
_Pall Mall Gazette_, contributions to, xxiii. 281, 346; xxiv. 120,
125, 130, 131, 227; xxv. 397; Henley's articles in, xxiii. 238
"Pan's Pipes," xxiii. 212; xxv. 301
Papeete (Tahitian Islands), xxiv. 291, 296, 308, 314
Paperchase, Sunday, xxv. 422
Paris Exhibition of 1878, xxiii. 183
Paris, visits to, xxiii. 183, 305; xxiv. 105, 107
Parker, Lieutenant and Mrs., xxv. 29
"Parliament Close" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
Parliament House, Edinburgh, verses on, xxiii. 193-4
Parnessiens, proposed paper on, xxiii. 168
"Paston Letters," xxiii. 203
"Pastoral" (Longman's), xxiv. 221; xxv. 301
Paton, John, and Co., xxiv. 252
Paul, C. Kegan, xxiii. 212
Paumotus atolls, visited, xxiv. 290, 293-4
"Pavilion, The, on the Links," xxiii. 229, 238, 249, 256, 259, 262,
267
Payne, John, xxv. 427
Payn, James, xxiv. 355; handwriting of, xxv. 365; letters to, xxiv.
176, 355, 381; xxv. 425, 446; novel by, xxv. 171; works of, xxiv. 7-9
"Pearl Fisher" (with Lloyd Osbourne, _see_ "Ebb Tide"), changes of
name for story, xxv. 288 _et seq._
"Pegfurth Bannatyne," xxiii. 361, 362
Pella, letter from, xxiii. 115, 128
Pembroke, Earl of, xxv. 290
"Penn" (H. Dixon), xxiii. 277
Pennell, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph, xxiv. 149; letter to, xxiv. 149
Penn, William, article on, projected, xxiii. 265
"Penny plain and Twopence coloured," essay, xxiv. 93
"Penny Whistles," _see_ "Child's Garden of Verse"
"Pentland Hills" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
"Pentland Rising," xxv. 397
Penzance, visit to, xxiii. 206
Pepys, Samuel, xxiv. 29, 183; essay on, xxiii. 281
"Petit Jehan de Saintre" (La Sale), essay on projected, xxiii. 267
"Petits Poèmes en Prose," xxiii. 195, 196, 197
"Petronius Arbiter," xxiv. 83
"Pew" (_Admiral Guinea_), xxiv. 119, 120
Peyrat, Napoleon, xxiii. 307
_Pharos_, s.y., xxv. 98 & _n._ 1
"Phasellulus loquitur," xxiv. 116
Pheidias, xxiii. 159
"Philosophy of Umbrellas" (with Ferrier), xxv. 398
Picts, the, xxv. 434-6
"Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh," xxiii. 185, 211, 216, 218
"Pilgrim's Progress" (Bunyan), xxiii. 203; Bagster's edition, essay on
cuts in, xxiii. 334
Pilsach, Baron Senfft von, President of the Council, Samoa, xxv. 7, 95
_et seq._, 100-1, 275, 281, 286, 305, 364, 376
"Pinkerton" (Wrecker), xxiv. 368; xxv. 141 & _n._ 1, 146, 378
"Pioneering in New Guinea" (Chalmers), xxv. 39
Piquet, xxv. 428
"Pirate, The" (Marryat), xxiii. 329
"Pirate, The" (Scott), xxiii. 318
"Pirbright Smith," xxiii. 361
"Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of Scotland," xxv. 271, 293
Pitlochry, at, xxiii. 282, 306
"Plain Speaker" (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130
Platz, Herr, xxiv. 194
Poe, Edgar, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii., 166; xxiv. 83
Poems by Baildon, technique discussed, xxv. 377
Poepoe, Joseph, xxiv. 330
Poland, projected visit to, xxiii. 151, 152, 155
Pollington, Lord, xxiv. 260
Pollock, ----, xxiv. 36
Pomaré V., King, xxiv. 309
Poor folk, charity of, xxv. 209-10
"Poor Thing, The," xxiii. 141
Poquelin, ----, xxiv. 123
_Portfolio, The_, xxiii. _intro._ xvii.; contributions to, xxiii. 58,
77, 141, 146, 151, 152, 153, 164, 166, 168, 185, 216; xxv. 397-8;
Colvin's work for, xxiii. 178
Portobello, beach incident, xxiii. 73; train incident, xxiii. 63
"Portrait of a Lady" (H. James), xxiv. 263
Positivism, studies in, xxiii. 159
Pratt, ----, fables by, xxv. 49
"Prince de Galles," xxiii., 356
"Prince of Grünewald," _see_ "Prince Otto"
"Prince Otto" (Forest State _q.v._), xxiii. 229, 265, 266, 267, 278,
353; xxiv. 5, 23, 24, 34, 35, 36, 54, 66, 68, 73, 81, 106, 110, 142,
154, 173, 181; xxv. 53, 376; criticisms, xxiv. 191; publication,
xxiv. 138; reviews, xxiv. 155-6
"Princess Casamassima" (H. James), xxiv. 160 _n._ 1
Princes Street, Edinburgh, xxiii. 72, 74
Pringle, Janet, xxv. 361
"Printemps, Le," group (Rodin), xxiv. 202, 209
Prisoners, Samoan, gratitude of, _see_ "Road of Loving Hearts"
Privateers, enquiry on, xxv. 380 & _n._ 1
Proctor, Mr. B. W., xxv. 29 & _n._ 2
"Professor Rensselaer," xxiii. 249
Pronouns, "direct and indirect," quip on, xxv. 174
"Providence and the Guitar," xxiii. _intro._ xx., 185, 219, 248, 268
Publishers, xxv. 123-5
"Pulvis et Umbra" (_Scribner's_), xxiv. 235, 253, 264, 274,284, 384;
xxv. 123 & _n._ 1
"Pupil, The" (H. James), xxv. 132
Purcell, Rev. ----, xxiii. 332-3; xxiv. 159
Purple passages in literature, xxv. 72-3
"Pye," ----, xxv. 30
Pyle, Howard, xxv. 164 _n._ 1
_Queen_, ship, xxv. 353
Queensferry, xxiii. 68, 69
Queen's River, xxv. 417
"Quentin Durward" (Scott), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1; xxiv. 91
"RAB and his Friends" (Brown) xxiii. 296
Raiatea, xxiv. 308 _et seq._
Raleigh, Walter, on restrained egoism in literature, xxiii. _intro._
xxvi., xxvii.
"Randal" (The Ebb Tide), xxv. 187
"Random Memories: the Coast of Fife" (_Scribner's_), xxiii. 12, 15;
xxiv. 235, 387; xxv. 97, 301
Rarotonga, xxv. 269
"Raskolnikoff" (Le Crime et le Châtiment), xxiv. 182
Rawlinson, Miss, letters to, xxiv. 227; xxv. 274; verses to, xxiv. 227
Rawlinson, Mrs., xxiv. 227
Reade, Charles, xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
"Real Thing" (H. James), xxv. 322
"Redgauntlet" (Scott), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii., 287 _n._ 1
Reformation, studies in, xxiii. 159
"Refugees" (Doyle), xxv. 340
Reid, Captain Mayne, works of, xxv. 13
"Reign of Law" (Duke of Argyll), xxiii. 67 & _n._ 1
"Rembrandt," article on, by Colvin (_Edinburgh Review_), xxiii. 225
"Reminiscences" (Carlyle), xxiii. 301
Rémy, Père, xxv. 327
Renaissance story, projected, xxiii. 167, 168
Renan, Ernest, works, xxv. 304
Rennie, John, xxiv. 121
Resignation, xxiv. 62, 76 _et seq._
"Restoration Dramatists," essay on (Lamb), xxiv. 85
Retrospective musings, xxv. 437-8
Revenge, Christian doctrine of, xxiii. 214
Rhone, the, xxiii. 79
"Richard Feverel" (Meredith), xxv. 265
_Richard III._ (Shakespeare), xxiv. 398; xxv. 51
Richardson, Samuel, novelist, xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
Richmond, Sir W. B., xxiv. 107; portrait by, xxiv. 202
_Richmond_, s.s., xxiv. 337, 343
Richmond, stay at, xxiv. 104
"Rideau Cramoisi, Le" (d'Aurévilly), xxv. 314, 380
_Ringarooma_, ship, xxv. 268-9
"Rising Sun," projected, xxiv. 403
"Ritter von dem heiligen Geist" (Heine), xxiii. 88 & _n._ 1
R. L. S. Society, Cincinnati, xxv. 384
"R. L. Stevenson in Wick" (Margaret H. Roberton), xxiii. 15 _n._ 1
"Roads," paper on, xxiii. 55, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 67, 76, 77, 117,
119, 121, 141, 143, 201; xxv. 397-8
"Road, the, of Loving Hearts," xxv. 374, 431 _et seq_., 441, 442, 446,
459 _et seq._; inscription on, xxv. 441, 446; speech by R. L. S. at
opening of, xxv. 441, 446, 462 _et seq._
Robert, Louis, xxiv. 28
Roberts, Earl, xxiv. 81
Robertson, --, xxiii. 117
Robertson's Sermons, xxiv, 268
Robinet, --, painter, xxiii. 98, 99
"Robin Run-the-Hedge," unfinished, xxiv. 402
"Robinson Crusoe" (Defoe), xxiv. 101, 103
Rob Roy, xxv. 293
"Rob Roy" (Scott), xxiv. 91
"Rocambole" (Ponson du Terrail), xxiii. 254
Roch, Valentine, xxiv. 110, 238 _et passim_
"Roderick Hudson" (H. James), xxiv. 262-3, 265
Rodin, Auguste, sculptor, xxiv. 107, 202; letters to, xxiv. 209, 216
Rodriguez Albano, xxiii. 244
"Rois en Exil" (Daudet), xxiii. 346
"Romance" (Longman's), xxiv. 181
Roman Law, studies in, xxiii. 126
Rondeaux, xxiii. 188-9
"Rosa Quo Locorum," xxv. 33
"Rose," character of (Meredith), xxiv. 97
"Rosen, Countess von" (Forest State), xxiii. 266
Ross, Dr. Fairfax, xxv. 348 & _n._ 1, 350
Ross family, xxiii. 28
Ross of Mull, used in "The Merry Men," xxiii. 41
Rossetti, D. G., xxiv. 239
Ross, Rev. Alexander and Mrs., xxiii. 27
Rothschild, Baron, xxiii. 195
"Rover," verses (Gosse), xxiv. 27
Rowfant, xxiv. 215
"Rowfant Rhymes" (Locker-Lampson), xxiv. 205
Royal Society of Edinburgh, xxiv. 118, 135
Royat, visits to, actual and projected, xxiv. 39, 98, 99 _et seq._;
xxv. 105, 131
Ruedi, Dr., xxiii. 297
Rui = Louis, in Samoan pronunciation, xxiv. 307, 310 _et alibi_
Ruskin, John, xxiii. 117; xxv. 397
Russel family, xxiii. 21, 22
Russel, Miss Sara, xxiii. 21, 22
Russel, Mrs., xxiii. 22
Russel, Sheriff, xxiii. 21, 22
Ruysdael, --, painting by, xxiii. 178
Sachsenhausen, xxiii. 43
Sagas, love of, xxiii. 332; xxiv. 207; xxv. 162, 211
"St. Agnes' Eve" (Keats), xxiv. 170
St. Augustine, xxiii. _intro._ xxiv.
St. Gaudens, Augustus, sculptor, xxiv. 170, 234, 238, 390; xxv. 25;
letters to, xxv. 308, 341, 410; medallion portrait by, xxiv. 238-9,
250, 255
St. Gaudens, Homer, letters to, xxiv. 287
St. Germain, at, xxiii. 305
"St. Ives," xxv. 281, 347-8, 371, 375, 380 & _n._ 1, 387, 392, 403,
405, 414, 430, 450; inception of, xxv. 285-6; parallel to, xxv. 442;
scheme for, xxv. 287
St. John, apostle, and the Revelation (in Renan's book), xxv. 304
St. Paul, xxv. 304; teaching of, xxiii. 214
Saintsbury, Professor G., xxiii. 307
Salvini, T., article on, xxiv. 72
Samoa and the Samoans for children (letters to Miss Boodle on), xxv.
147, 217, 243
Samoa, climate of, xxv. 250, 278, 333, 348 _n._ 1, 350, 419 contrasted
with Europe, xxv. 355 exile in, xxv. 349 letters from, xxv. 9 _et
seq._ missionary work, in, interest in, xxv. 10 & _n._ 1; xxv. 33, 56,
57 rain in, xxv. 443-4 rivers of, xxv. 132-3 _et seq._ visit to, and
settlement in, xxiv. 290 _et seq._ war trouble in, projected work on,
xxiv. 370, 379, 380
Samoan character, xxv. 381, 432 chiefs, road made by, _see_ "Road of
Loving Hearts" history, _see_ "Footnote to History" language, xxv. 49;
study of, xxv. 181, 203 politics, apologies for dwelling on, xxv. 388,
445; interest in. xxv. 4 _et passim_ prisoners (chiefs), _see_ "Road
of Loving Hearts"
_Samoa Times_, xxiv. 392
"Samuel Pepys," essay (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 281
Sanchez, Adolpho, xxiii. 240
Sanchez, Mrs., xxv. 257
Sand, George, writings of, xxiii. 87
Sandwich Islands, xxiv. 292, 340
"San Francisco," xxiii. 342
San Francisco, stay at, and visits to, xxiii. 229, 230; xxiv. 234,
283, 286, 289, 290
"Sannazzaro," xxiii. 167
Saône and Rhone, projected journey down and book on, xxiv. 98, 99
Saranac Lake, at, xxiv. 233-4, 240 _et seq._; xxv. 123 _n._ 1
Sargent, John S., artist, xxiv. 105, 167; portrait by, xxiv. 117, 155
_Saturday Review_, xxiii. 58, 69, 77
Savage Island, at, xxiv. 387
Savile Club, the, xxiii. 124, 127, 133, 186, 263; xxiv. 187
Schmidt, Emil, President of Council, Samoa, xxv. 416, 424
"Schooner Farallone," _see_ "Ebb Tide"
Schopenhauer, studies in, xxiii. 159
Schwob, Marcel, letters to, xxiv. 327, 397; xxv. 51, 409
Sciatica, xxiv. 92
"Scotch Church and Union" (Defoe), xxiv. 101
Scotch labourer and politics, xxiii. 61
Scotch murder trials, books on, asked for, xxv. 271
Scotch songs, Russian pleasure in, xxiii. 113
"Scotland and the Union," projected, xxiii. 297
Scotland, last visit, xxiv. 227
Scotland, whisky, etc., of, xxiii. 41
_Scotsman_, xxv. 398
_Scots Observer_, contribution to, xxv. 174
"Scots wha hae," air, xxiii. 113
Scott, Dr., letter to, xxiv. 374
Scott, Sir Walter (_see also_ Waverley Novels), xxiii. 65 & _n._ 1,
111, 130 _n._ 1, 264, 333; xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91, 382; xxv. 86, 110,
154, 164, 167,371; love of action, xxiii. _intro._ xxxiv.; nobility of
character, xxiii. _intro._ xxxv.; novels, xxv. 24; novels contrasted
with R. L. S.'s, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
Scribner, C., xxiv. 233, 253-4, 390; xxv. 25, 380, 392; letters to,
xxiv. 252
Scribner, Messrs., verse published by, xxiv. 395
_Scribner's Magazine_, xxiv. 110, 142, 253, 258; contributions, actual
and suggested, xxiv. 233, 235, 239, 240, 247, 252, 268, 277, 287, 367,
377 _et seq._, 387, 393; xxv. 86, 97, 110, 115, 171 _n._ 1
"Sea-Cook, The" (_see also_ "Treasure Island"), xxiii. 326-7
Sedan, xxv. 250, 318
Seed, Hon. J., xxiii. 179; xxiv. 405
Seeley, Professor, style of, xxiv. 55-6
Seeley, Richmond, publisher and editor (_see also_ "Portfolio"),
xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 141, 142, 143, 148, 398
Sellar, Mrs., xxiii. 115
"Sensations d'Italie" (Bourget), xxv. 127, 130-1
"Sentimental Journey" (Sterne), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
"Sentimental Tommy" (Barrie), xxv. 419 & _n._ 1
Seraphina (_see also_ "Prince Otto"), xxiii. _intro._ xx.
"Service of Man" (Cotter Morison), xxiv. 219-20
Seumanutafa, Chief, of Apia, xxv. 26, 48-9, 105
"Seventeenth Century Studies" (Gosse), xxiv. 45
Sewall, Mr., American Consul at Samoa, xxv. 4, 29, 58, 65-6
"Shadow, The, on the Bed" (Mrs. R. L. S.), xxiii. 308, 316, 321
Shairp, Professor, xxiii. 191, 263
Shaltigoe, wreck at, xxiii. 22
Shannon, W. J., xxiii. 332-3
Shaw, Bernard, appreciation of, xxiv. 270-1
Shelley, Lady, xxiv. 105, 149, 177, 179, 211; xxv. 131
"Shelley Papers" (Dowden), xxiv. 211, 212
Shelley, P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 212; 372, 373-4; and Keats, xxiv. 211
Shelley, Sir P. B., xxiv. 177-8, 211, 373; xxv. 458
"Sherlock Holmes" (Doyle), xxv. 299
Shetland, visited, xxiii. 10, 24
"Shovels of Newton French," projected, xxv. 5, 55-6, 82-3, 172
Sick child, episode of, xxiii. 230, 269
"Sign of the ship" causerie (Lang), xxiv. 278, 388
"Sigurd" (W. Morris), xxiii. 334; xxv. 162
Silverado, life at, xxiii. 278
"Silverado Squatters," xxiii. 230, 279, 283, 352, 355; xxiv. 5, 26,
27, 30 & _n._ 1, 34, 56, 66, 67, 73, 92; xxv. 423; serial issue of,
xxiv. 55
"Silver Ship," _see_ "Casco"
Simoneau, Jules, xxiii. 239, 240, 244; xxiv. 423; letters to, xxiv.
36, 41
Simoneau, Mrs., xxiv. 42
"Simon Fraser" (Catriona), xxv. 351 & _n._ 1
Simpson, Sir Walter, xxiii. 36,43, 46, 49, 69, 89, 124, 159, 174, 182,
187, 259, 341, 353; xxiv. 47; letter to, xxiv. 117, 229, 242; yachting
trip with, xxiii. 124, 139, 140
Simson, Dr., xxiv. 91
Sinclair, Miss Amy, xxiii. 24, 27-8
Sinclair, Sir Tollemache, xxiii. 27
Sinico, --, singer, xxiii. 166
"Sire de Malétroit's Door," xiii. 184, 206, 207, 211, 248
Siron, aubergiste, Barbizon, xxiii. 187
Sitwell, Mrs. (_see also_ Colvin, Lady), xxiii. 54, 300; xxiv. 335;
xxv. 85; letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 331; letters to,
from R. L. S., xxiii. 57, 58, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 74, 77, 83, 86, 91,
93, 101, 103, 104, 110, 115, 121, 125, 127, 131, 133, 137, 139, 140,
144, 148, 149, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 168, 171, 174,
175, 177, 180 _bis_, 181, 187, 189, 197, 198, 200, 203, 205, 207, 323;
xxiv. 24; xxv. 393
Skelt, xxiv. 57, 93
Skene, William Forbes, xxv. 434-5
Skerryvore, article on (Archer), xxiv. 305
"Skerryvore" (house), xxiv. 105, 109, 141, 196, 252; xxv. 31 _n._ 2,
75
Skinner, Mr., xxv. 413
Slade School, xxiv. 39
"Sleeper Awakened," xxv. 314 & _n._ 1
Smeoroch, Skye terrier, xxiv. 77 & _n._ 1; xxv. 429
Smiles, Samuel, xxiv. 121
Smith, Adam, xxiii. 72
Smith, Captain, xxiii. 235
Smith, Rev. George, xxiii. 4; xxiv. 265 _n._ 1
Soalu, Chief, xxv. 460
Society for Psychical Research, Journals of, xxv. 299
"Soldiers Three" (Kipling), xxv. 46
"Solemn Music" (Milton), xxiii. 294
"Solomon Crabb," xxiii. 343-4
"Solution, The" (Lesson of the Master, H. James), xxiv. 382
"Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle" (Wordsworth), xxiii. 315 & _n._ 1
"Song of To-morrow," xxiii. 141
"Songs of Scotland without words, for the Pianoforte" (Surrenne),
xxiii. 113
"Songs of Travel," xxiv. 190, 239, 337, 362, 375, 378, 395; xxv. 349 &
_n._ 1
"Sonnet to England" (Martin), xxiii. 210
"Sophia Scarlett," proposed, xxv. 144, 152-3, 172, 187, 281
Sophocles, translation (Campbell), xxiv. 113
Sorrow, discipline of, xxiv. 163
Soudan affairs, xxiv. 107
Southey, R., xxiii. 302
"South Sea Ballads," xxiv. 298-9, 317, 321, 380, 395, 399
"South Sea Bubble" (Earl of Pembroke), xxv. 153 _n._ 1; on Kava, xxv.
183 _n._ 1; on Samoan streams, xxiv. 133 _n._ 1
"South Sea Idylls" (Stoddard), xxiv. 180
South Sea Islands, call of, xxiii. 180, 205
"South Sea Letters," published first as "The South Seas," later as "In
the South Seas," _q.v._; selection from, projected, xxv. 423
South Seas, cruises in, xxiv. 233 _et seq._, 286 _et seq._
"South Sea Yarns" (with Lloyd Osbourne), projected, xxiv. 361, 367,
379; xxv. 397
Spain, xxiii. 119
_Spectator_, xxiii. 239, 264; xxv. 58
"Spectator" (Addison's), style of, xxiii. 252
Speculative Society, Edinburgh University, xxiii. 35, 64, 184, 312;
xxiv. 178
Speed, --, xxv. 210
Spencer, --, xxv. 74-5
Spencer, Herbert, xxiii. 169
_Sperber_, German warship, xxv. 29
Speyside, in, xxiii. 284
"Spring Sorrow" (Henley), xxiii. 186
"Spring time," xxiii. 191, 193, 196, 197, 202
"Squaw Men," projected, xxiii. 329
"Squire" (Story of a Lie), xxiii. 249
"Squire Trelawney" (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326-7
Stansfield, --, xxv. 269
"Stepfather's Story," projected, xxiii. 207
Stephen, Leslie, xxiii. _intro._ xvii., 174, 184, 205, 206, 207, 241,
256, 257, 264, 267, 302, 311; xxiv. 47; letter from with appreciation
of "Victor Hugo," xxiii. 129 _et seq._ & _n._ 1; introduction by, of
R. L. S. and Henley, xxiii. 172; on "Forest Notes," xxiii. 201, 202;
testimonial from, xxiii. 316
Stephenson, --, xxiii. 25
Sterne, Laurence, xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
Stevenson, Alan, xxv. 335, 401, 436
Stevenson family, inquiries concerning, xxv. 293, 335, 342, 357, 399,
435-7
Stevenson, Hugh, xxv. 335
Stevenson, James, xxv. 334
Stevenson, James S., letter to, xxv. 334, 342
Stevenson, J. Horne, xxv. 293, 345, 435; letter to, xxv. 357
Stevenson, John, xxv. 358
Stevenson, Katharine (_see also_ de Mattos), xxiii. 138
Stevenson, Macgregor, xxv. 293
Stevenson, Mrs. Alan, xxv. 110, 436
Stevenson, Mrs. R. L., xxiv. 234, 247-8, 251, 256, 258-9, 275, 282,
291-2, 323, 330-1, 341-2, 390; xxv. 29, 30, 31, 38, 249-50, 371, 377;
character, xxiii. 279-80; first meeting, xxiii. 183, 228; marriage,
xxiii. 228 _et seq._, 260, 262, 268, 270, 272, 274; xxiv. 105;
collaboration with R. L. S., xxiii. 282; letter to, on avoiding the
infliction of pain in literary work, xxiii. _intro._ xxvi.; story by
(_see_ "Shadow on the Bed"); ill health and illness of, xxiii. 280,
283-4, 320-1,355; xxv. 146, 280, 297 _et seq._, 320-1 _et alibi_;
letter to, xxiv. 349; letters from, to S. Colvin, xxiv. 309, 347, to
Mrs. Sitwell, xxiv. 331, to J. A. Symonds, xxiv. 11
Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas (_née_ Balfour), xxiii. 4, 6, 148; xxiv. 39,
147, 199, 216, 220, 234, 248, 251, 258, 276, 280, 290, 291, 309, 310,
314, 323, 331, 336, 341, 343, 366, 375, 405; xxv. 3, 31, 50, 53, 193
_et seq._, 259, 282, 403, 406, 416; letters to, xxiii. 14, 15, 17, 19,
21, 24, 36, 38, 39, 44, 56, 81, 94, 96, 97, 99, 107, 112, 116, 117,
118, 120, 187, 215, 216, 218, 298, 337, 354; xxiv. 9, 21, 66, 76, 202,
383; settled in Samoa, xxv. 76, 78
Stevenson, Mrs. Thomas, and Thomas Stevenson, letters to (jointly),
_see_ Stevenson, Thomas, _infra_
Stevenson, name, query on to Sir H. Maxwell, xxv. 440
Stevenson, Robert, xxiii. 4, 13, 160, 200; xxiv. 359; xxv. 87, 95, 98,
120, 310, 315, 401, and _see_ "Family of Engineers"
Stevenson, Robert (the first), xxv. 335
Stevenson, Robert Alan Mowbray (Bob), xxiii. 49, 57, 58, 83, 103,
105, 109, 110, 124, 133, 135, 137, 138, 140, 149, 174, 183, 187, 239,
308, 341; xxiv. 3, 69, 89, 124, 167, 196, 328 & _n._ 1; letters to,
xxiii. 356; xxiv. 8, 59, 196, 198, 240, 323; xxv. 398, 401, 434
Stevenson, Robert Louis Balfour ("R. L. S."), ancestry, xxiii. 4, 5;
appearance, xxiii. _intro._ xxxviii.; appreciation of, by Lysaght,
xxv. 415 _n._ 1; appreciation of his own literary skill, xxv. 443;
characteristics and habitudes, xxiii. _intro._ xxii., xxvi. _et seq._,
8-12, 186; xxiv. 296; xxv. 33, 415, _n._ 1; charm, xxiii. _intro._
xxiii., xxvi., xxvii.-ix., xxxi., 55; xxv. 415; conversation, xxiii.
_intro._ xxxi., 9. 123; help derived from writings of, xxii., _intro._
xxix., 253-4; interest in missionary work, xxv. 10 & _n._ 1, 33, 56,
57; interest in music, xxiv. 188-9, 196 _et seq._, 285, 302; xxv. 85,
92, 125, 185; literary style and methods, xxiii. _intro._ xix. _et
seq._; xxv. 173; political views, xxiv. 107-8; portraits, busts,
photographs of, xxiv. 117, 154, 170, 177, 199, 202, 238-9, 250, 255;
xxv. 309, 310, 341, 353 & _n._ 1; relations with his father, xxiv. 5,
6 _et alibi_; religious views, xxiii. _intro._ xxxii., 11, 12, 53-4,
67
Life, 1850-57, Birth and Early delicacy, xxiii. 5
1858-67, Education and home life and early travels, xxiii. 6-8
1868-70, Engineering studies, xxiii. 10
1871-4, Law studies, religious differences with parents, xxiii.
10-12
1874-5 (May to June), Law studies, home life, experimental
literature, travels, home and foreign, and friendships, xxiii. 123-4
1875-79 (July to July), Bar studies concluded, travels in France and
Germany, life at the bar abandoned for literature; Fontainebleau
again, xxiii. 182-3; early journalistic and other writing, xxiii.
184-5
1879-1880 (July to July), Californian visit, hardships, illness,
marriage, xxiii. 228-30
1880, Aug.-1882, Oct., Home from California, xxiii. 279; summers in
Scotland, xxiii. 279-80; winters at Davos, and literary work, xxiii.
280, 283
1882, Oct.-1884, Aug., The Riviera again, Montpellier and
Marseilles, Nice, xxiv. 5; Hyères home life, happier relations with
parents, illness and literary work, letters, xxiv. 3-5
1874, Sept.-1887, Aug., Bournemouth homes--"Skerryvore," invalid
life, friendships, and literary work, xxiv. 104-9; visit to Paris,
schemes for life in Ireland, xxiv. 108; death of his father, and
departure for Colorado, xxiv. 110
1887, Aug.-1888, June, Voyage to New York and reception there,
friends new and old, stay in the Adirondacks, journey to San
Francisco, xxiv. 233-4
1888, June-1890, Oct., Voyages in the Pacific, xxiv. 290-3;
settlement at Vailima, xxiv. 291-2; controversy about Father Damien,
xxiv. 292
1890, Nov.-1891, Dec., First year at Vailima, Samoan politics,
letters on, to _The Times_--building of the first Vailima house,
xxv. 3-8
1892, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, second year, visitors,
enlargement of the house, Samoan politics, threatened deportation,
xxv. 144-6
1893, Jan. to Dec., Life at Vailima, third year, the addition to the
house completed, Samoan politics, proclamation aimed at him, illness
of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, trips to Sydney, to Honolulu, to New
Zealand, outbreak of war, financial anxieties, signs of
life-weariness, xxv. 280-2
1894, Jan. to Dec., fourth year at Vailima, illness and recovery,
loss of literary facility, financial position, visitors, xxv. 373-5;
the making of the Road of Gratitude, xxv. 374, 432 _et seq._, 441,
446; speech and feast to the chiefs, xxv. 441, 446, 462 _et seq._;
sudden death and burial, xxv. 8, 10 _n._ 1, 375; account of, by
Lloyd Osbourne, xxv. 457 _et seq._; epitaph, xxiii. 268; xxv. 375
Stevenson, Thomas, xxii. 4, 5, 11, 12, 20, 24, 146, 148, 180, 260, 261
& _n._ 1, 279, 285, 298, 328, 347, 353; xxiv. 5, 6, 39, 58, 105, 107,
108, 118, 119, 135, 138, 147, 161, 187, 188, 189, 196, 199, 210, 216,
220, 234, 276, 280, 365, 405; xxv. 335, 382, 401; affection for Mrs.
R. L. S., xxiii. 279; gift to her of a Bournemouth house, xxiv. 105;
biographical essay on, xxiii. 21; letters to, xxiii. 13, 42, 111, 113,
213, 290, 330; xxiv. 9, 22, 62, 74, 90, 118, 119, 137, 159, 179, 190,
201; Memories of, xxv. 413; misunderstandings with, xxiii. _intro._
xvii., 11, 12, 55, 67; religious views, xxiii. 11, 12, 52, 67; death,
xxiii. 5; xxiv. 109, 227
and Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, joint letters to, xxiii. 215, 296, 305;
xxiv. 27, 75, 76, 78, 100, 110, 130, 168, 199
"Stewart, Alan Breck," xxv. 46-8
Stewart, James (_see_ Appin murder)
Stewart, Miss (Bathgate), xxiii. 227
Stewart, Sir Herbert, xxiv. 81
Stewart's plantation, Tahiti, xxv. 153 & _n._ 1
"Stickit Minister" (Crockett), dedication of, xxv. 349 & _n._ 1
Stobo Manse, at, xxiii. 284, 357
Stockton, F. R., verse to, xxiv. 125
Stoddard, Charles Warren, xxv. 267; letters to, xxiii. 275, 294; xxiv,
180
"Stories and Interludes" (Barry Pain), xxv. 215
"Stories," or "A Story Book," projected, xxiii. 249
Storm, ideas on, xxiii. 150
"Story of a Lie," xxiii. 12, 229, 230, 235, 237, 247, 249; xxiv. 90
"Strange Adventures of Mr. Nehemiah Solny," projected, xxiii. 170
"Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.;
xxiv. 106, 169, 171, 182, 233, 253, 398; xxv. 289; publication, xxiv.
166; dedication, xxiv. 167; criticisms, xxiv. 184
Strathpeffer, at, xxiii. 280, 284, 285
Streams, Samoan, peculiarities of, xxv. 36
Strong, Austin, xxiv. 151, 341; xxv. 92, 117, 249 & _n._ 1, 269 & _n._
1, 389, 403, 446
Strong, Mrs., xxiv. 325 & _n._ 1, 341; xxv. _passim_; letter to,
xxiii. 286
Stuebel, Dr., German Consul, xxv. 35, 41 & _n._ 1, 141
Sturgis, Mrs., xxv. 391
"Subpriorsford," nickname for Vailima, xxv. 165, 170
"Such is Life," poem (Martin), xxiii. 209
Sudbury, Suffolk, at, xxiii. 56
Suffering, value of, xxiii. 251
Suffolk, peasantry, xxiii. 61
"Suicide Club," xxiii. _intro._ xx., 356
Sullivan, Russell, xxv. 25
Sunrise, tonic of, xxv. 401
Sutherland, Mr., xxiii. 15
Sutherland, Mrs., xxiii. 22
Swan, Professor, xxiii. 193; xxiv. 143; xxv. 315
Swanston Cottage, Lothianburn, xxiii. 8, 123, 126 _et seq._, 312
"Sweet Girl Graduate, A," and other poems (Martin), xxiii. 208-9
Swift, Dr. and Mrs., of Molokai, xxiv. 351-2
Swinburne, A. C., poems, xxv. 390
Sydney, N.S.W., visits to, and illnesses at, xxiv. 292-3, 325, 375,
382 _et seq._, 394; xxv. 4, 38, _n._ 1, 53 _et seq._, 61, 77, 81, 208,
288-9, 296
Symonds, J. A., xxiii. 281, 304, 311, 317, 334, 341, 351, 361; xxiv.
142; dedication of book by, xxv. 454; epithet of, for R. L. S., xxiii.
_intro._ xxvi.; letter to, from Mrs. R. L. Stevenson, xxiv. 11;
letters to, xxiv. 182, 254, 304; on Southey, xxiii. 302; death of,
xxv. 317 & _n._ 1
"Table Talk" (Hazlitt), xxiv. 130
Tacitus, xxiv. 83
Tahiti, xxiv. 291, 371
Tahitian Islands, xxiv. 293; stay in, xxiv. 291, 296 _et seq._
Tait, Professor, xxiv. 118
"Tales and Fantasies," xxv. 397.
"Tales for Winter Nights," projected title, xxiii. 316, 318
"Tales of a Grandfather" (Scott), xxv. 117
"Tales of my Grandfather" (_see also_ "Family of Engineers"), xxv. 110
"Talk and Talkers" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 283, 341, 349; xxiv. 138
Tamasese, xxiv. 371; xxv. 67, 351
Tamate, _see_ Chalmers
Tati, high chief of the Tevas, xxiv. 317
Tauchnitz, Baron, and "Footnote," xxv. 346
Tautira, at, xxiv. 291, 302 _et seq._, 317
Taylor, Ida and Una, xxiv. 105, 372, 374
Taylor, Lady, xxiv. 105, 180; xxv. 203; death of, xxv. 254; letters
to, xxiv. 211, 212, 286, 357, 372
Taylor, Miss, xxv. 364; letter to, xxv. 254
Taylor, Sir Henry, xxiv. 145, 180
Tembinoka, King of Apemama, xxiv. 358-9, 368, 400; verses to, xxiv.
378, 380
_Temple Bar_, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 206, 207, 211
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (_see also_ "Becket"), xxiv. 205
"Tentation de St. Antoine" (Flaubert), xxiii. 150
Teriitera, Samoan name of R. L. S., xxiv. 308, 310, 317, 321
"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (Hardy), xxv. 266 _n._ 1, 296
Thackeray, W. M., xxv. 154
"Theatrical World" (Archer), xxv. 384
"Thérèse Raquin" (Zola), xxiv. 57
"The Tempest" (Shakespeare), xxiv. 96
"Thomas Haggard" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 276
Thomson, Maggie, xxiii. 25
Thomson, Mr., xxiii. 8
"Thomson," pseudonym, letters in character of and as to, xxiv. 14,
121, 122
Thoreau, Henry David, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 226, 229,
252, 255, 262, 263, 265, 273; xxiv. 149, 158; criticisms on, xxiii.
322
"Thoughts on Literature as an Art," xxiii. 266
"Thrawn Janet" (_Cornhill_), xxiii. 282, 308, 316, 321; xxiv. 90; xxv.
295
"Tibby Birse" (Window in Thrums), xxv. 276, 362 _n._ 1
Time, Archer's criticisms in, xxiv. 156, 159, 160, 161
"Time" (Milton), xxiii. 294
_Times, The_, letters to, on Samoan affairs, xxv. 7, 94, 98, 119, 137,
145, 212, 376, 386, 387
Todd, John, xxiv. 221
Todd, Mrs., xxiv. 221
"Tod Lapraik" (Catriona), xxv. 294-5
"Tommy Haddon" (Wrecker), xxv. 268 & _n._ 1
"Toothache, The" (Burns), xxiv. 256
"Torn Surplice, The," suggested title, xxiii. 321
Torquay, at, xxiv. 109
Torrence, Rev. ----, xxiii. 181
"Touchstone, The," xxiii. 141
Tourgenieff, ----, xxiii. 222
"Tourgue, la" ("Quatre-vingt Treize," Hugo), xxiii. 130
Trades Unions, xxiii. 97
"Tragedies of the Wilderness" (Drake), xxiv. 270
"Tragic Comedians" (Meredith), xxiii. 224
"Tragic Muse, The" (H. James), xxiv. 397; xxv. 44, 130-1
"Transformation of the Scottish Highlands," projected, xxiii. 297
Traquair, Willie, xxiii. 20, xxiv. 70
"Travailleurs de la Mer" (Hugo), xxiii. 129 _n._ 1
Travel-books, cheap edition projected, xxiii. 294
"Travelling Companion, The," projected, xxiii. 321; xxiv. 68, 149
"Travels and Excursions," Vols. II. and III. discussed, xxv. 423
"Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes," xxiii. 183, 184, 185, 216,
217, 219, 225, 229, 248, 250, 257
"Treasure Island," xxiii. _intro._ xxxv., 282, 283, 326, 334, 352,
355; xxiv. 31, 93, 101, 112, 179, 233; xxv. 76, 124, 289, 429;
publication as serial, xxiii. 328; in book form, xxiv. 6, 27, 35, 67;
criticisms, xxiv. 66; genesis of, xxiv. 101; illustrated edition,
xxiv. 159; paper on, xxv. 376
"Treasure of Franchard," xxiv. 4, 398; xxv. 153
"Trial of Joan of Arc," xxiii. 203
"Trials of the Sons of Rob Roy, with Anecdotes," xxiii. 332
"Tricoche et Cacolet," xxiii. 219
"Tristram Shandy" (Sterne), xxiii. 118
Trollope, Anthony, novels of, xxiii. 215
"Trophées, Les" (Hérédia), xxv. 331 & _n._ 1
Trudeau, Dr., xxiv. 234
Tulloch, Principal, xxiii. 280, 290, 297, 316; xxv. 97, 123
Tupper, Martin, xxiii. 348
"Tushery," xxiv. 6, 31, 32
Tusitala, xxv. 196 _et aliter_
Tutuila, visited, xxv. 4, 8, 58, 65
"Twa Dogs" (Burns), xxiii. 225
Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), xxiii. 276
_Twelfth Night_ (Shakespeare) at the Jenkins', xxiii. 175, 176, 178
"Two Falconers, The, of Cairnstane," xxiii. 170
"Two St. Michael's Mounts," essay, projected, xxiii. 207
"Two Years before the Mast" (Dana), xxiv. 297
"Typee" (Melville), xxiv. 348
Ulufanua, island, xxv. 97
"Underwoods," collected verses, xxiii. 222, 271, 281, 296, 300; xxiv.
36, 89, 107, 170, 173 _n._ 1, 189-90, 214, 215, 229-30, 231, 395; xxv.
376, 398; dedication of, xxiv. 374; review by Gosse, xxiv. 244;
success of, xxiv. 239, 255-6
United States, the, and Samoa, xxv. 6 _et seq._
Upolu and Savaii, xxv. 8
Vacquerie, ----, xxiii. 307
Vaea, Mount, xxv. 9, 135, 388; burial-place, xxv. 10 _n._ 1, 460
Vaea river, xxv. 132 _et seq._
Vailima, home at, xxiv. 291; purchase of, xxiv. 292, 372-3, 374, 377,
390; life at, xxv. 3 _et seq._, 148-51, 156 _et seq._, 280 _et seq._;
visitors to, xxv. 228; expenses, xxv. 282; household staff, xxv.
356-7; joy of colour at, xxv. 378; new house, xxv. 145-6, 251, 269,
271, 278-9, 284, 287; decorations for, xxv. 308-9; feeling about, xxv.
349
"Vailima Letters," xxiii. _intro._ xviii., xxix.; xxv. 5
_Vanity Fair_, magazine, contributions to, xxiii. 184, 198, 199
"Vanity Fair" (Thackeray), xxv. 154
Vedder, Elihu, illustrator of "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám," xxiv. 116
"Velasquez" (R. A. M. Stevenson), xxiii. 57
"Vendetta, in the West," unfinished, xxiii. 229, 238-9, 241, 244, 255,
256, 259, 266
Verses, Miscellaneous and Impromptu--
"Adela, Adela, Adela Chart," xxv. 109
"Bells upon the City are ringing in the night," xxiv. 167
"Blame me not that this Epistle," letter in verse to Baxter, xxiii.
46
"Brave lads in olden musical centuries," xxiii. 304
"Dear Henley, with a pig's snout on," xxiii. 330
"Do you remember--can we e'er forget?--," xxiv. 376
"Far have you come, my lady, from the town," rondel, xxiii. 188
"Feast of Famine" (Ballads, 1890), xxiv. 298-9, 321, 330, 395
"Figure me to yourself, I pray," xxiii. 287
"He may have been this and that," xxiv. 190
"Here's breid an' wine an' kebbuck," xxiii. 257
"Home no more home to me, where must I wander?" (Songs of Travel),
xxiv. 303
"I heard the pulse of the besieging sea" (to Colvin), xxiv. 366;
xxv. 23 & _n._ 1
"In the beloved hour that ushers day" (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 240
"I was a barren tree before," xxv. 366
"I would shoot you, but I have no bow," xxiii. 360
"Let us who part like brothers part like bards" (Songs of Travel),
xxiv. 378, 380
"My Stockton if I failed to like," xxiv. 125
"Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green," xxiii. 193
"Nor you, O Penny Whistler, grudge," xxiv. 20
"Not roses to the rose, I trow," xxiv. 205
"Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," xxiii. 271
"Nous n'irons plus au bois," rondel, xxiii. 188-9
"Of the many flowers you brought me" (to Miss Rawlinson), xxiv. 227
"Of where or how, I nothing know," xxiii. 232
"O Henley, in my hours of ease," xxiii. 222
"O, how my spirit languishes," xxiv. 299
"O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz," xxv. 278
"Priests' Drought, The," ballad, xxiv. 321
"Song of Rahero," ballad, xxiv. 317, 321, 330, 395; xxv. 58
"Tandem Desino," xxiv. 79 _et seq._ "The pleasant river gushes,"
xxiv. 32
"There was racing and chasing in Vailima plantation," xxv. 422
"Though I've often been touched with the volatile dart," xxv. 109
"Ticonderoga," ballad, xxiv. 321, 395
"To Felix," xxiv. 189, 190 "We're quarrelling, the villages," xxv. 50
"When from her land to mine she goes" (Songs of Travel), xxiv. 345
"Woodman, The" _(New Review)_, xxv. 18 & _n._ 1, 20
"Youth now flees on feathered foot," xxiv. 172, 181
"Vicar of Wakefield," xxv. 14 _n._ 1
"Vicomte de Bragelonne" (Dumas), xxiv. 398; xxv. 51
Victor Hugo's romances, essay on, xxiii. 56, 124-5, 126, 127, 135
Victoria, Queen, xxiii. 323
Villiers, Lady Margaret, xxv. 228, 236
"Viol and Flute" (Gosse), xxiv. 98
"Virginibus Puerisque," xxiii. 184, 185, 203, 204, 208, 212, 284, 294;
xxv. 301 _n._ 1; publication, xxiii. 281; new edition, xxiv. 195, 216;
reprint, xxiv. 230
Vitrolles, Baron de, xxv. 288 _n._ 1, 321
Viviani, Emillia, xxiv. 212
Vogelweide, Walther von der (Studies in the Literature of Modern
Europe), Gosse's introduction to, xxiii. 221
"Volsungs" (Morris), xxiii. 334
Voltaire, xxiii. 297; on OEdipus, xxiv. 114
_Vossische Zeitung_, xxv. 263
Wachtmeister, Count, xxv. 96
"Waif Woman, The," xxv. 272 & _n._ 1
Walker, Patrick, xxiv. 91
"Walking Tours," xxiii. 202
_Wallaroo_, H.M.S., officers, xxv. 452
Walter, the Skye terrier, and his sobriquets, xxiii. 280, 281, 318;
xxv. 41 & _n._ 2, _et alibi_
"Wandering Willie," air, xxiii. 113
"Wandering Willie's Tale" (Redgauntlet), xxiii. 287
"Washington" (Irving), xxv. 30
Watts-Dunton, T., letter to, xxiv. 203
Waverley Novels (Scott), xxiv. 75, 76, 84, 91; xxv. 228
"Waverley" (Scott), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.; xxiv. 91
"Way of the World" (Trollope), xxiii. 215
Weather and the old woman, xxiii. 175
Webster, essay on (Gosse), xxiv. 45
Week, The, xxiv. 45
"Wegg, Silas," (Our Mutual Friend), xxiii. 226
"Weg," nickname for Gosse, xxiii. 224, 226, 227
"Weir of Hermiston," unfinished, xxiii. _intro._ xx., 12; xxv. 144,
170, 264-5, 274, 281, 284, 287, 293, 306-7, 338, 350, 375, 383, 392,
403, 453, 456-7; scheme for, xxv. 258, 260-1, 270-1
Wellington, Duke of (_see also_ "Life" of), xxiv. 34 _n._ 1;
Tennyson's "Ode" on, xxiii. 293
Went, George, xxv. 23 & _n._ 1, 100
"Werther" (Goethe's "Sorrows of Werther"), xxiii. 60
Western Islands, trip among, xxiii. 124
West Highlands, visit to, xxiii. 183
"What was on the Slate," xxiii. 222, 267
"When the Devil was well," xxiii. 167, 168, 186
"Where" and "Whereas," use discussed, xxv. 163
"White Company" (Doyle), xxv. 336
Whitman, Walt, essays on, xxiii. 55, 70, 72, 86, 89, 103, 104, 139,
140; works of, xxiii. 70, 72, 357-8; xxiv. 183
Whitmee, Rev. S. J., missionary xxv. 174, 180, 202, 203; letter to,
xxv. 174
Wick, at, xxiii. 12, 15
"Widdicombe Fair," song, xxv. 391
Wiesbaden, visit to, xxiii. 182
"Wild Man of the Woods," xxiii. 249
"Will o' the Mill," xxiii. 184, 207, 248, 268
Williams, Dr., of Nice, xxiv. 59
Williams, Mr. and Mrs., xxiii. 353
"William Wilson" (Poe), xxiii. _intro._ xxiii.
"Wiltshire" (Beach of Falesá), xxv. 187
"Window in Thrums" (Barrie), xxv. 276, 362 & _n._ 1
Winslow Reef, xxiv. 362
"Winter and New Year" (Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh), xxiii. 216
"Winter's Walk, The," unfinished, xxiii. 201, 202
Wise, ----, xxv. 55
"Witch of Prague" (Crawford), xxv. 275
"Wogg" (_see_ Walter), other names for, xxiii. 280-1, 318
Wolseley, Viscount, xxiv. 81
"Woman killed with Kindness" (Heywood), xxiii. 354
Women characters, dissatisfaction with, xxiv. 398
Women, thoughts on (_see also_ Elgin marbles), xxiii. 162-4, 358
Wood, Sir Evelyn, xxiv. 81
"Wrecker" (with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiii. 12, 275; xxiv. 362, 367-8,
379, 380, 389, 396, 399, 402; xxv. 5, 11, 24, 33, 84, 87, 108, 110,
115, 128, 138,141, 152, 171, 210, 215, 221, 224, 274, 376, 378;
finished, xxv. 111-2 & _n._ 1, 113, 115, 120, 122; comments, xxv. 146;
discussed, xxv. 437 & _n._ 1; publication of, xxv. 87, 144; success
of, xxv. 238, 258, 357
Wreck of the _Susannah_, xxiii. 308
"Wrong Box, The," or "The Finsbury Tontine," or "The Game of Bluff"
(with Lloyd Osbourne), xxiv. 235, 249-50, 256, 258, 282, 291, 320,
322, 328, 360, 370
Wurmbrand, Captain Count, xxv. 354, 369, 370, 383, 415
Wyatt, Mr., xxiii. 6
Yeats, W. B., letter to, xxv. 390
"Yellow Paint," xxiii. 141
Yelverton, ----, xxiii. 275
"Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" (Treasure Island), xxiii. 326
Yoshida Torajiro, essay on (Familiar Studies), xxiii. 229, 262, 264,
265
"Young Chevalier," unfinished, xxv. 144, 171 _n._ 1, 187-8, 189, 192,
216-7, 264, 281, 305; characters in, xxv. 190-1
_Young Folks_, contributions to, xxiii. 328, 329, 332, 339; xxiv. 31,
55, 148
_Yule-Tide_, contribution to, xxv. 57
Zassetsky, Madame, xxiii. 97, 99, 102, 105, 108, 110, 113, 114, 115,
118, 122
Zassetsky, Nelitchka, xxiii. 98, 102, 104, 107, 108, 112, 114, 115,
116
Zola, Emile, xxiii. 346-7; xxiv. 396; xxv. 250 _n._ 1, 318, 319, 379
INDEX TO VOLUMES I-XXII
[_For Index to the_ LETTERS, _see pp. 469-507 of this Volume._]
"A birdie with a yellow bill," xiv. 23
"A child should always say what's true," xiv. 5
Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi. 155
Additional Poems, xiv. 259
"Adela, Adela, Adela Chart," xiv. 276
Admiral Guinea, xv. 145
Advertisement of "Moral Emblems," Edition de Luxe, xxii. (end)
Advertisement of "Moral Emblems," Second Collection, xxii. (end)
Advertisement of "The Graver and the Pen," xxii. (end)
Æs Triplex, ii. 358
"All night long, and every night," xiv. 4
"All round the house is the jet-black night," xiv. 28
"All the names I know from nurse," xiv. 46
"A lover of the moorland bare," xiv. 74
Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248
Alps, The Stimulation of the, xxii., 252
Amateur Emigrant, The: Part I., From the Clyde to Sandy Hook: The
Second Cabin, ii. 7; Early Impressions, ii. 15; Steerage Scenes, ii.
24; Steerage Types, ii. 32; The Sick Man, ii. 43; The Stowaways, ii.
53; Personal Experiences and Review, ii. 66; New York, ii. 77. Part
II., Across the Plains: Notes by the Way to Council Bluffs, ii. 93;
The Emigrant Train, ii. 107; The Plain of Nebraska, ii. 115; The
Desert of Wyoming, ii. 119; Fellow Passengers, ii. 124; Despised
Races, ii. 129; To the Golden Gates, ii. 133
"A mile an' a bittock, a mile or twa," xiv. 110
"_A naked house, a naked moor_," xiv. 71
Antwerp to Boom, i. 7
"A picture-frame for you to fill," xiv. 74
Apology, An, for Idlers, ii. 334
Appeal, An, to the Clergy of the Church of Scotland, xxii. 199
"As from the house your mother sees," xiv. 59
"As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well," xiv.
254
"At evening when the lamp is lit," xiv. 36
Autumn Effect, An, xxii. 112
Back to the World, i. 120
Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress," xxii. 186
Balfour, David, xi. 1
Ballads, xiv. 139
Ballantrae, The Master of, xii. 5; its genesis, xvi. 341
Beach, The, of Falesá: A South Sea Bridal, xvii. 193; The Ban, xvii.
206; The Missionary, xvii. 228; Devil-work, xvii. 240; Night in the
Bush, xvii. 258; The Bottle Imp, xvii. 277; The Isle of Voices, xvii.
311
Beau Austin, xv. 91
Beggars, xvi. 190
"Berried brake and reedy island," xiv. 226
"Birds all the sunny day," xiv. 44
Black Arrow, The: Prologue, viii. 7; Book I. The Two Lads, viii. 25;
Book II. The Moat House, viii. 83; Book III. My Lord Foxham, viii.
123; Book IV. The Disguise, viii. 165; Book V. Crookback, viii. 217
Black Canyon, Advertisement of, xxii. (end)
Black Canyon or Wild Adventures in the Far West, xxii. (end)
"Blame me not that this epistle," xiv. 261
"Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying," xiv. 257
Boarders, The, i. 195
Body-snatcher, The, iii. 277
Books which have Influenced Me, xvi. 272
Bottle Imp, The, xvii. 275
"Brave lads in olden musical centuries," xiv. 270
"Bright is the ring of words," xiv. 227
"Bring the comb and play upon it," xiv. 15
Builder's Doom, The, xxii. (end)
Burns, Robert, Some Aspects of, iii. 43
"By Lyne and Tyne, by Thames and Tees," xiv. 133
Calton Hill, Edinburgh, i. 314
Camisards, The Country of the, i. 211
Camp, A, in the Dark, i. 167
Catriona: Part I. The Lord Advocate, xi. 7; Part II. Father and
Daughter, xi. 203
Changed Times, i. 99
Character, A, xxii. 37
Character, The, of Dogs, ix. 105
Charity Bazaar, The, xxii. 213
Charles of Orleans, iii. 171
Cheylard and Luc, i. 177
"_Chief of our aunts_, not only I," xiv. 56
"Children, you are very little," xiv. 18
Child's Garden, A, of Verses, xiv. 1
Child's Play, ii. 394
Christmas at Sea, xiv. 207
Christmas Sermon, A, xvi. 306
Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80
College Magazine, A, ix. 36
College Memories, Some, ix. 19
College Papers: Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41; The Modern
Student considered generally, xxii. 45; Debating Societies, xxii. 53;
The Philosophy of Umbrellas, xxii. 58; The Philosophy of Nomenclature,
xxii. 63
"Come up here, O dusty feet," xiv. 24
Compiègne, At, i. 94
Crabbed Age and Youth, ii. 321
Criticisms: Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song," xxii. 171; Salvini's
"Macbeth," xxii. 180; Bagster's "Pilgrim's Progress," xxii. 186
"Dark brown is the river," xiv. 10
Davos in Winter, xxii. 241
Davos Press, The, xxii. (end)
Day, The, after To-morrow, xvi. 279
Deacon Brodie, or the Double Life, xv. 1
"Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair," xiv. 79
"Dear Thamson class, whaure'er I gang," xiv. 121
"Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground," xiv. 50
Debating Societies, xxii. 53
"Do you remember--can we e'er forget?" xiv. 242
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Strange Case of, v. 227
Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack Saddle, i. 143
"Down by a shining water well," xiv. 32
Dreams, A Chapter on, xvi. 177
Dynamiter, The: Prologue of the Cigar Divan, v. 7; Challoner's
Adventure, v. 15; Somerset's Adventure, v. 73; Desborough's
Adventure, v. 149; Epilogue of the Cigar Divan, v. 212
Ebb-Tide, The: Note by Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, xix. 3; Part I. The Trio,
xix. 7; Part II. The Quartette, xix. 81
Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, i. 269; Introductory, i. 271
Edinburgh Students in 1824, xxii. 41
Education, The, of an Engineer, xvi. 167
El Dorado, ii. 368
Engineers, Records of a Family of, xvi. 3
English Admirals, The, ii. 372
Enjoyment, The, of Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103
Epilogue to An Inland Voyage, i. 122
Episodes in the Story of a Mine, ii. 254
Essays of Travel: Davos in Winter, xxii. 241; Health and Mountains,
xxii. 244; Alpine Diversions, xxii. 248; The Stimulation of the
Alps, xxii. 252
"Even in the bluest noonday of July," xiv. 77
"Every night my prayers I say," xiv. 13
Fables: The Persons of the Tale, xxi. 269; The Sinking Ship, xxi.
272; The Two Matches, xxi. 274; The Sick Man and the Fireman, xxi.
275; The Devil and the Inn-keeper, xxi. 276; The Penitent, xxi. 277;
The Yellow Paint, xxi. 277; The House of Eld, xxi. 280; The Four
Reformers, xxi. 286; The Man and His Friend, xxi. 287; The Reader,
xxi. 287; The Citizen and the Traveller, xxi. 288; The Distinguished
Stranger, xxi. 289; The Cart-horses and the Saddle-horse, xxi. 290;
The Tadpole and the Frog, xxi. 291; Something in it, xxi. 291;
Faith, Half-faith, and No Faith at all, xxi. 295; The Touchstone,
xxi. 297; The Poor Thing, xxi. 304; The Song of the Morrow, xxi. 310
Falling in Love, On, ii. 302
Familiar Studies of Men and Books: Preface by Way of Criticism, iii.
5; Victor Hugo's Romances, iii. 19; Some Aspects of Robert Burns,
iii. 43; Walt Whitman, iii. 77; Henry David Thoreau: His Character
and Opinions, iii. 101; Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129; François Villon,
Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142; Charles of Orleans, iii.
171; Samuel Pepys, iii. 206; John Knox and his Relations to Women,
iii. 230
"Far from the loud sea beaches," xiv. 72
"Far have you come, my lady, from the town," xiv. 263
"Farewell, fair day and fading light," xiv. 233
Farewell, Modestine! i. 253
"Far 'yont amang the years to be," xiv. 105
"Faster than fairies, faster than witches," xiv. 24
Father Apollinaris, i. 183
Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde of Honolulu, xvi.
315
Feast, The, of Famine; Marquesan Manners, xiv. 167; The Priest's
Vigil, xiv. 169; The Lovers, xiv. 172; The Feast, xiv. 176; The
Raid, xiv. 182; Notes, xiv. 213
Fife, The Coast of, xvi. 155
"Figure me to yourself, I pray," xiv. 268
Fleeming Jenkin, Memoir of, ix. 165
Florac, i. 234
Fontainebleau: Village Communities of Painters, xvi. 215
Footnote, A, to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa: The
Elements of Discord, I. Native, xvii. 5; II. Foreign, xvii. 15; The
Sorrows of Laupepa, xvii. 27; Brandeis, xvii. 53; The Battle of
Matautu, xvii. 70; Last Exploits of Becker, xvii. 83; The Samoan
Camps, xvii. 103; Affairs of Laulii and Fangalii, xvii. 112; "Furor
Consularis," xvii. 128; The Hurricane, xvii. 142; Laupepa and
Mataafa, xvii. 156
Foreigner, The, at Home, ix. 7
Forest Notes, xxii. 142
"For love of lovely words, and for the sake," xiv. 97
"Forth from her land to mine she goes," xiv. 239
"Frae nirly, nippin', Eas'lan' breeze," xiv. 106
"Friend, in my mountain-side demesne," xiv. 73
"From breakfast on all through the day," xiv. 12
Genesis, The, of "The Master of Ballantrae," xvi. 341
"Give to me the life I love," xiv. 219
"God, if this were enough," xiv. 234
"Go, little book, and wish to all," xiv. 67
Gossip, A, on a Novel of Dumas's, ix. 124
Gossip, A, on Romance, ix. 134
Goulet, Across the, i. 203
Graver, The, and the Pen, xxii. (end)
"Great is the sun, and wide he goes," xiv. 46
Great North Road, The, xxi. 203
Green Donkey Driver, The, i. 149
Greyfriars, Edinburgh, i. 298
Health and Mountains, xxii. 244
Heart of the Country, The, i. 7
Heather Ale: A Galloway Legend, xiv. 201; Notes, xiv. 215
Heathercat, xxi. 177
"He hears with gladdened heart the thunder," xiv. 233
"Here all is sunny, and when the truant gull," xiv. 97
"Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea," xiv. 273
"Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?" xiv. 229
"How do you like to go up in a swing?" xiv. 22
Hugo's, Victor, Romances, iii. 19
Human Life, Reflections and Remarks on, xvi. 354
Humble Remonstrance, A, ix. 148
Hunter's Family, The, ii. 230
"I am a kind of farthing dip," xiv. 95
Ideal House, The, xvi. 370
"If I have faltered more or less," xiv. 86
"If two may read aright," xiv. 55
"I have a goad," i. 158
"I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me," xiv. 12
"I have trod the upward and the downward slope," xiv. 233
"I heard the pulse of the besieging sea," xiv. 244
"I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare," xiv. 240
"I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills," xiv. 232
"I know not how it is with you," xiv. 225
"In all the grove, nor stream nor bird," xiv. 249
"In ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt," xiv. 80
"In dreams unhappy I behold you stand," xiv. 221
Inland Voyage, An, i. 7; Epilogue to, i. 122
"In mony a foreign pairt I've been," xiv. 125
"In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane," xiv. 230
"In the belovèd hour that ushers day," xiv. 231
"In the highlands, in the country places," xiv. 228
"In the other gardens," xiv. 49
Introduction, by Andrew Lang, to the Swanston Edition, i. ix.
"In winter I get up at night," xiv. 3
"I read, dear friend, in your dear face," xiv. 85
"I saw you toss the kites on high," xiv. 16
"I should like to rise and go," xiv. 7
"I sit and wait a pair of oars," xiv. 78
Island Nights' Entertainments, xvii. 193
Isle, The, of Voices, xvii. 311
"It is not yours, O mother, to complain," xiv. 90
"It is the season now to go," xiv. 70
"It is very nice to think," xiv. 4
"It's an owercome sooth for age an' youth," xiv. 135
"It's rainin'. Weet's the gairden sod," xiv. 116
"It's strange that God should fash to frame," xiv. 120
"I was a barren tree before," xiv. 276
"I will make you brooches and toys for your delight," xiv. 225
"I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day," xiv. 14
Juvenilia, and other Papers, xxii. 3
Kidnapped, x. 77
Knox, John, and his Relations to Women, iii. 230
La Fère, of Cursed Memory, i. 79
Landrecies, At, i. 46
Lantern-Bearers, The, xvi. 200
Last Day, The, i. 248
"Last, to the chamber where I lie," xiv. 28
"Late in the nicht in bed I lay," xiv. 129
"Late lies the wintry sun a-bed," xiv. 25
Later Essays, xvi. 215
Lay Morals, xvi. 379
Legends, Edinburgh, i. 291
"Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams," xiv. 224
"Let now your soul in this substantial world," xiv. 255
Letter to a Young Gentleman who proposes to embrace the Career of Art,
xvi. 290
Letters from Samoa, xviii. 351
"Let us, who part like brothers part like bards," xvi. 245
"Light foot and tight foot," xiv. 277
Light-keeper, The, xxii. 217
"Little Indian, Sioux or Crow," xiv. 19
Lodging, A, for the Night, iv. 227
"Long must elapse ere you behold again," xiv. 241
Lord Lytton's "Fables in Song," xxii. 171
Lozère, Across the, i. 213
Macaire, xv. 205
Manse, The, ix. 61
Markheim, viii. 273
Martial Elegy, A, for some Lead Soldiers, xxii. (end)
Master, The, of Ballantrae, xii. 5; its genesis, xvi. 341
Maubeuge, At, i. 21
Memoirs of an Islet, ix. 68
Memories and Portraits, ix. 7; Additional Memories and Portraits, xvi.
155
Merry Men, The, xxi. 69
Mimente, In the Valley of the, i. 237
Monks, The, i. 188
Montvert, Pont de, i. 218
Moral Emblems, xxii. (end)
Moral Emblems: Second Collection, xxii. (end)
Morality, The, of the Profession of Letters, xvi. 260
More New Arabian Nights, v. 7
Mountain Town, A, in France, i. 257
Movements of Young Children, Notes on the, xxii. 97
Moy, Down the Oise to, i. 74
"My bed is like a little boat," xiv. 21
"My body which my dungeon is," xiv. 98
"My bonny man, the warld, it's true," xiv. 118
My First Book, "Treasure Island," xvi. 331
"'_My house_,' I say. But hark to the sunny doves," xiv. 98
"My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky," xiv. 2
New Arabian Nights, iv. 3; More New Arabian Nights, v. 7
New Form of Intermittent Light for Lighthouses, xxii. 220
New Town, Edinburgh: Town and Country, i. 305
Nicholson, John, The Misadventures of, x. 3
Nomenclature, The Philosophy of, xxii. 63
"Noo lyart leaves blaw ower the green," xiv. 265
Note, A, on Realism, xvi. 234
Notes and Essays, chiefly of the Road: A Retrospect, xxii. 71;
Cockermouth and Keswick, xxii. 80; Roads, xxii. 90; Notes on the
Movements of Young Children, xxii. 97; On the Enjoyment of
Unpleasant Places, xxii. 103; An Autumn Effect, xxii. 112; A
Winter's Walk in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132; Forest Notes,
xxii. 142
Not I, and other Poems, xxii. (end)
"Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert," xiv. 89
"Nous n'irons plus au bois," xiv. 263
Noyon Cathedral, i. 86
Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27
Nurses, xxii. 34
"Of a' the ills that flesh can fear," xiv. 131
"Of his pitiable transformation," xiv. 263
"Of speckled eggs, the birdie sings," xiv. 9
"Of where or how, I nothing know," xiv. 267
Oise, The, in Flood, i. 55; Down the Oise to Moy, i. 74; Through the
Golden Valley, i. 84; To Compiègne, i. 91 Church Interiors, i. 105
"O it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship," xiv. 32
"O, I wad like to ken--to the beggar-wife says I," xiv. 116
"O mother, lay your hand on my brow," xiv. 92
Olalla, xxi. 127
Old Mortality, ix. 26
Old Scots Gardener, An, ix. 46
Old Town, Edinburgh: The Lands, i. 278
"Once only by the garden gate," xiv. 220
"On the great streams the ships may go," xiv. 68
Ordered South, ii. 345
Origny Sainte-Benoîte: A By-Day, i. 62; The Company at Table, i. 68
Our Lady of the Snows, i. 181
"Out of the sun, out of the blast," xiv. 87
"Over the borders, a sin without pardon," xiv. 17
Pacific Capitals, The Old and New: Monterey, ii. 141; San Francisco,
ii. 159
Pan's Pipes, ii. 415
Parliament Close, Edinburgh, i. 285
Pastoral, ix. 53
Pavilion on the Links, The: Tells how I camped in Graden Sea-wood,
and beheld a Light in the Pavilion, iv. 167; Tells of the Nocturnal
Landing from the Yacht, iv. 174; Tells how I became Acquainted with
my Wife, iv. 180; Tells in what a Startling Manner I learned that I
was not alone in Graden Sea-wood, iv. 189; Tells of an Interview
between Northmour, Clara, and myself, iv. 197; Tells of my
Introduction to the Tall Man, iv. 202; Tells how a Word was cried
through the Pavilion Window, iv. 208; Tells the last of the Tall
Man, iv. 214; Tells how Northmour carried out his Threat, iv. 221
"Peace and her huge invasion to these shores," xiv. 93
Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, xi. 116
Pentland Hills, To the, Edinburgh, i. 327
Pentland Rising, The: The Causes of the Revolt, xxii. 3; The
Beginning, xxii. 6; The March of the Rebels, xxii. 8; Rullion Green,
xxii. 13; A Record of Blood, xxii. 17
Pepys, Samuel, iii. 206
Pines, A Night among the, i. 206
"Plain as the glistering planets shine," xiv. 223
Plea, A, for Gas Lamps, ii. 420
Pont-sur-Sambre: We are Pedlars, i. 31; The Travelling Merchant, i. 36
Portraits, Some, by Raeburn, ii. 385
Prayers written for Family Use at Vailima, xvi. 431
Précy and the Marionnettes, i. 111
Prince Otto: Book I. Prince Errant, vii. 7; Book II. Of Love and
Politics, vii. 49; Book III. Fortunate Misfortune, vii. 171
Providence and the Guitar, iv. 273
Pulvis et Umbra, xvi. 299
Raeburn, Some Portraits, by, ii. 385
Rajah's Diamond, The: Story of the Bandbox, iv. 86; Story of the
Young Man in Holy Orders, iv. 111; The Story of the House with the
Green Blinds, iv. 127; The Adventure of Prince Florizel and a
Detective, iv. 159
Random Memories: I. The Coast of Fife, xvi. 155; II. The Education
of an Engineer, xvi. 167; _Rosa quo Locorum_, xvi. 345
Realism, A Note on, xvi. 234
Records of a Family of Engineers, xvi. 3
Reflections and Remarks on Human Life, xvi. 354
"Resign the rhapsody, the dream," xiv. 236
Retrospect, A, xxii. 71
Roads, xxii. 90
Robin and Ben, or the Pirate and the Apothecary, xxii. (end)
_Rosa quo Locorum_, xvi. 345
Royal Sport Nautique, The, i. 16
St. Ives, xx. 3
Salvini's "Macbeth," xxii. 180
Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats, i. 50
Sambre Canalised, On the: To Quartes, i. 26; To Landrecies, i. 41
Satirist, The, xxii. 25
"Say not of me that weakly I declined," xiv. 99
Scots Gardener, An old, ix. 46
Sea-Fogs, The, ii. 239
"She rested by the Broken Brook," xiv. 222
Silverado Squatters, The, ii. 173; In the Valley: 1, Calistoga, ii.
179; 2, The Petrified Forest, ii. 184; 3, Napa Wine, ii. 188; 4, The
Scot Abroad, ii. 194. --With the Children of Israel: 1, To Introduce
Mr. Kelmar, ii. 201; 2, First Impressions of Silverado, ii. 205; 3,
The Return, ii. 215
"Since I am sworn to live my life," xiv. 263
"Since long ago, a child at home," xiv. 237
"Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still," xiv. 96
"Sing me a song of a lad that is gone," xiv. 256
Sire de Malétroit's Door, The, iv. 250
Sketches: The Satirist, xxii. 25; Nuits Blanches, xxii. 27; The Wreath
of Immortelles, xxii. 30; Nurses, xxii. 34; A Character, xxii. 37
"Smooth it slides upon its travel," xiv. 23
"Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,"
xiv. 58
Songs of Travel, xiv. 217
Song, The, of Rahéro: A Legend of Tahiti, xiv. 139; The Slaying of
Támatéa, xiv. 139; The Venging of Támatéa, xiv. 148; Rahéro, xiv.
159; Notes, xiv. 211
"Son of my woman's body, you go, to the drum and fife," xiv. 227
South Seas, In the: Part I. The Marquesas.--An Island Landfall,
xviii. 5; Making Friends, xviii. 12; The Maroon, xviii. 21; Death,
xviii. 28; Depopulation, xviii. 36; Chiefs and Tapus, xviii. 44;
Hatiheu, xviii. 53; The Port of Entry, xviii. 61; The House of
Temoana, xviii. 69; A Portrait and a Story, xviii. 77; Long Pig--A
Cannibal High Place, xviii. 85; The Story of a Plantation, xviii.
95; Characters, xviii. 105; In a Cannibal Valley, xviii. 112; The
Two Chiefs of Atuona, xviii, 119. Part II. The Paumotus.--The
Dangerous Archipelago--Atolls at a Distance, xviii. 129; Fakarava:
An Atoll at Hand, xviii. 137; A House to Let in a Low Island, xviii.
146; Traits and Sects in the Paumotus, xviii. 155; A Paumotuan
Funeral, xviii. 165; Graveyard Stories, xviii. 170. Part III. The
Eight Islands.--The Kona Coast, xviii. 187; A Ride in the Forest,
xviii. 197; The City of Refuge, xviii. 203; Koahumanu, xviii. 209;
The Lepers of Kona, xviii. 215. Part IV. The Gilberts.--Butaritari,
xviii. 223; The Four Brothers, xviii. 229; Around Our House, xviii.
237; A Tale of a Tapu, xviii. 247, 255; The Five Days' Festival,
xviii. 265; Husband and Wife, xviii. 278. Part V. The
Gilberts--Apemama.--The King of Apemama: The Royal Trader, xviii.
289; Foundation of Equator Town, xviii. 298; The Palace of Many
Women, xviii. 306; Equator Town and the Palace, xviii. 313; King and
Commons, xviii. 321; Devil-work, xviii. 320; The King of Apemama,
xviii. 342
Squatting, The Act of, ii. 221
Starry Drive, A, ii. 250
Stevenson at Play: Introduction by Lloyd Osbourne, xxii. 259; War
Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-book, xxii. 263
Stevenson, Thomas, ix. 75
Story, The, of a Lie, xxi. 3
Student, The Modern, considered generally, xxii. 45
Suicide Club, The, iv. 3; Story of the Young Man with the Cream
Tarts, iv. 5; The Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk, iv.
37; The Adventure of the Hansom Cabs, iv. 65
"Summer fading, winter comes," xiv. 33
Talk and Talkers: I., ix. 81; II., ix. 94
Tarn, In the Valley of the, i. 224
Technical Elements, Some, of Style in Literature, xvi. 241
"The bed was made, the room was fit," xiv. 96
"The clinkum-clank o' Sabbath bells," xiv. 111
"The coach is at the door at last," xiv. 26
"Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light," xiv. 273
"The embers of the day are red," xiv. 257
"The friendly cow, all red and white," xiv. 16
"The ganger walked with willing foot," xiv. 67
"The gardener does not love to talk," xiv. 49
"The infinite shining heavens," xiv. 222
"The jolly English Yellowboy," xiv. 274
"The lamps now glitter down the street," xiv. 37
"The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out," xiv. 14
"The Lord Himsel' in former days," xiv. 123
"The moon has a face like the clock in the hall," xiv. 22
"The morning drum-call on my eager ear," xiv. 233
"The pleasant river gushes," xiv. 272
"The rain is raining all around," xiv. 5
"The red room with the giant bed," xiv. 56
Thermal Influence of Forests, xxii. 225
"The Silver Ship, my King--that was her name," xiv. 238
"The stormy evening closes now in vain," xiv. 230
"The sun is not a-bed when I," xiv. 20
"The tropics vanish, and meseems that I," xiv. 243
"The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears," xiv. 75
"These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest," xiv. 34
"The world is so full of a number of things," xiv. 16
"The year runs through her phases; rain and sun," xiv. 82
Thoreau, Henry David: His Character and Opinions, iii. 101
Thrawn Janet, v. 305
"Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing," xiv. 6
"Through all the pleasant meadow side," xiv. 26
Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Islands, xiv. 187; The Saying of
the Name, xiv. 189; The Seeking of the Name, xiv. 194; The Place of
the Name, xiv. 196; Notes, xiv. 214
Toils and Pleasures, ii. 264
Toll House, The, ii. 245
"To see the infinite pity of this place," xiv. 240
"To the heart of youth the world is a highway side," xiv. 221
"To you, let snow and roses," xiv. 224
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, i. 141
Treasure Island-- Part I. The Old Buccaneer, vi. 9; Part II. The
Sea-Cook, vi. 49; Part III. My Shore Adventure, vi. 87; Part IV. The
Stockade, vi. 109; Part V. My Sea Adventure, vi. 145; Part VI.
Captain Silver, vi. 185; My First Book, xvi. 331
Treasure, The, of Franchard, vi. 267
"Trusty, dusky, vivid, true," xiv. 235
Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311
Umbrellas, The Philosophy of, xxii. 58
"Under the wide and starry sky," xiv. 86
Underwoods: I. In English, xiv. 67; II. In Scots, xiv. 105
"Up into the cherry-tree," xiv. 6
Upper Gévaudan, i. 165, 201
Velay, i. 141
Villa Quarters, Edinburgh, i. 311
Villon, François: Student, Poet, and Housebreaker, iii. 142
Virginibus Puerisque, I., ii. 281; II., ii. 292; On Falling in Love,
ii. 302; Truth of Intercourse, ii. 311; Crabbed Age and Youth, ii.
321; An Apology for Idlers, ii. 334; Ordered South, ii. 345; Æs
Triplex, ii. 358; El Dorado, ii. 368; The English Admirals, ii. 372;
Some Portraits by Raeburn, ii. 385; Child's Play, ii. 394; Walking
Tours, ii. 406; Pan's Pipes, ii. 415; A Plea for Gas Lamps, ii. 420
Walking Tours, ii. 406
Walt Whitman, iii. 77
War Correspondence from Stevenson's Note-book, xxii. 263
"We built a ship upon the stairs," xiv. 9
Weir of Hermiston, xix. 159; Sir Sidney Colvin's Note, xix. 284;
Glossary of Scots Words, xix. 297
"We see you as we see a face," xiv. 85
"We travelled in the print of olden wars," xiv. 96
"We uncommiserate pass into the night," xiv. 255
"What are you able to build with your blocks?" xiv. 35
"When aince Aprile has fairly come," xiv. 109
"When at home alone I sit," xiv. 38
"When children are playing alone on the green," xiv. 31
"When chitterin' cauld the day sail daw," xiv. 275
"Whenever Auntie moves around," xiv. 11
"Whenever the moon and stars are set," xiv. 7
"When I am grown to man's estate," xiv. 9
"When I was sick and lay a-bed," xiv. 11
"When the bright lamp is carried in," xiv. 27
"When the golden day is done," xiv. 43
"When the grass was closely mown," xiv. 47
"Where the bells peal far at sea," xiv. 84
"Who comes to-night? We ope the doors in vain," xiv. 83
Willebrock Canal, On the, i. 11
Will o' the Mill, vi. 235
Winter and New Year, Edinburgh, i. 320
Winter's Walk, A, in Carrick and Galloway, xxii. 132
"With half a heart I wander here," xiv. 94
Wreath, The, of Immortelles, xxii. 30
Wrecker, The: Prologue, xiii. 5; The Yarn, xiii. 19; Epilogue, xiii.
427
Wrong Box, The, vii. 219
"Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O remember," xiv. 93
Yoshida-Torajiro, iii. 129
Young Chevalier, The, xxi. 253
"Youth now flees on feathered foot," xiv. 76
"You, too, my mother, read my rhymes," xiv. 55
THE END.
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