" II. Contraband (smuggling, barratry, labour traffic).
" III. The Beachcomber.
" IV. Beachcomber stories, i. The Murder of the Chinaman, ii.
Death of a Beachcomber. iii. A Character, iv. The Apia
Blacksmith.
_Part II. The Marquesas_
" V. Anaho. i. Arrival, ii. Death, iii. The Tapu. iv. Morals, v.
Hoka.
" VI. Tai-o-hae. i. Arrival. ii. The French. iii. The Royal Family.
iv. Chiefless Folk. v. The Catholics. vi. Hawaiian
Missionaries
" VII. Observations of a Long Pig. i. Cannibalism, ii. Hatiheu. iii.
Frere Michel, iv. Taa-hauku and Atuona. v. The Vale of
Atuona. vi. Moipu. vii. Captain Hati.
_Part III. The Dangerous Archipelago_
" VIII. The Group.
" IX. A House to let in a Low Island.
" X. A Paumotuan Funeral, i. The Funeral, ii. Tales of the Dead.
_Part IV. Tahiti_
" XI. Tautira.
" XII. Village Government in Tahiti.
" XIII. A Journey in Quest of Legends.
" XIV. Legends and Songs.
" XV. Life in Eden.
" XVI. Note on the French Regimen.
_Part V. The Eight Islands_
" XVII. A Note on Missions.
" XVIII. The Kona Coast of Hawaii. i. Hookena. ii. A Ride in the
Forest. iii. A Law Case. iv. The City of Refuge. v. The
Lepers.
" XIX. Molokai. i. A Week in the Precinct. ii. History of the Leper
Settlement, iii. The Mokolii. iv. The Free Island.
_Part VI. The Gilberts_
" XX. The Group, ii. Position of Woman, iii. The Missions. iv.
Devilwork. v. Republics.
" XXI. Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari, its King and Court.
ii. History of Three Kings. iii. The Drink Question.
" XXII. A Butaritarian Festival.
" XXIII. The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions. ii. Equator Town
and the Palace. iii. The Three Corselets.
_Part VII. Samoa_
which I have not yet reached.
Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than 300 Cornhill
pages; and I suspect not much under 500. Samoa has yet to be accounted
for: I think it will be all history, and I shall work in observations on
Samoan manners, under the similar heads in other Polynesian islands. It
is still possible, though unlikely, that I may add a passing visit to
Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I am growing impatient to see yourself,
and I do not want to be later than June of coming to England. Anyway,
you see it will be a large work, and as it will be copiously
illustrated, the Lord knows what it will cost. We shall return, God
willing, by Sydney, Ceylon, Suez and, I guess, Marseilles the
many-masted (copyright epithet). I shall likely pause a day or two in
Paris, but all that is too far ahead--although now it begins to look
near--so near, and I can hear the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street,
and see the gates swing back, and feel myself jump out upon the Monument
steps--Hosanna!--home again. My dear fellow, now that my father is done
with his troubles, and 17 Heriot Row no more than a mere shell, you and
that gaunt old Monument in Bloomsbury are all that I have in view when I
use the word home; some passing thoughts there may be of the rooms at
Skerryvore, and the blackbirds in the chine on a May morning; but the
essence is S.C. and the Museum. Suppose, by some damned accident, you
were no more; well, I should return just the same, because of my mother
and Lloyd, whom I now think to send to Cambridge; but all the spring
would have gone out of me, and ninety per cent. of the attraction lost.
I will copy for you here a copy of verses made in Apemama.
I heard the pulse of the besieging sea
Throb far away all night. I heard the wind
Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms.
I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand,
And flailing fans and shadows of the palm:
The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault--
The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept.
The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives,
Slept in the precinct of the palisade:
Where single, in the wind, under the moon,
Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire,
Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel.
To other lands and nights my fancy turned.
To London first, and chiefly to your house,
The many-pillared and the well-beloved.
There yearning fancy lighted; there again
In the upper room I lay and heard far off
The unsleeping city murmur like a shell;
The muffled tramp of the Museum guard
Once more went by me; I beheld again
Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street;
Again I longed for the returning morn,
The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds,
The consentancous trill of tiny song
That weaves round monumental cornices
A passing charm of beauty: most of all,
For your light foot I wearied, and your knock
That was the glad reveille of my day.
Lo, now, when to your task in the great house
At morning through the portico you pass,
One moment glance where, by the pillared wall,
Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke,
Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument
Of faiths forgot and races undivined;
Sit now disconsolate, remembering well
The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd,
The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice
Incessant, of the breakers on the shore.
As far as these from their ancestral shrine,
So far, so foreign, your divided friends
Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Schooner Equator, at sea, Wednesday, 4th December 1889._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--We are now about to rise, like whales, from this
long dive, and I make ready a communication which is to go to you by the
first mail from Samoa. How long we shall stay in that group I cannot
forecast; but it will be best still to address at Sydney, where I trust,
when I shall arrive, perhaps in one month from now, more probably in two
or three, to find all news.
_Business._--Will you be likely to have a space in the Magazine for a
serial story, which should be ready, I believe, by April, at latest by
autumn? It is called _The Wrecker_; and in book form will appear as
number 1 of _South Sea Yarns_ by R. L. S. and Lloyd Osbourne. Here is
the table as far as fully conceived, and indeed executed.[33]...
The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really believe to be
insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has never been handled before, no
more has San Francisco. These seem all elements of success. There is,
besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, on
whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of the American merchant
marine, opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three
hundred pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles upon
you, if you will have a vacancy, and what you will be willing to pay. It
will of course be copyright in both the States and England. I am a
little anxious to have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of
the mystery.
_Pleasure._--We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though four
months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largeish order; and
my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health,
though our long and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain,
sails carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets made on
the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me of salt brine, and
filled me with a longing for beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted.
The interest has been immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the
Napoleon of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me
the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and,
what pleased me more, told me their singular story, then all manner of
strange tales, facts, and experiences for my South Sea book, which
should be a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff.
We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the heat is cruel--it is
the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but a pair of
serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze--O, yes,
and a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, sweat
streams from me. The rest are on deck under a bit of awning; we are not
much above a hundred miles from port, and we might as well be in
Kamschatka. However, I should be honest: this is the first calm I have
endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated
blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the helpless ship.
I wonder how you liked the end of _The Master_; that was the hardest job
I ever had to do; did I do it?
My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame. Remember
all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I don't get a word
through for him.--I am, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following was written soon after the termination of the voyage of
the _Equator_ and Stevenson's first landing in Samoa, where he was
engaged in collecting materials for the account (then intended to be
the concluding part of his great projected South Sea book) of the war
and hurricane of the previous year.
_Samoa [December 1889]._
MY DEAR BAXTER,-- ... I cannot return until I have seen either Tonga or
Fiji or both: and I must not leave here till I have finished my
collections on the war--a very interesting bit of history, the truth
often very hard to come at, and the search (for me) much complicated by
the German tongue, from the use of which I have desisted (I suppose)
these fifteen years. The last two days I have been mugging with a
dictionary from five to six hours a day; besides this, I have to call
upon, keep sweet, and judiciously interview all sorts of
persons--English, American, German, and Samoan. It makes a hard life;
above all, as after every interview I have to come and get my notes
straight on the nail. I believe I should have got my facts before the
end of January, when I shall make for Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in
the hurricane season; but they had so bad a one last year, I don't
imagine there will be much of an edition this. Say that I get to Sydney
some time in April, and I shall have done well, and be in a position to
write a very singular and interesting book, or rather two; for I shall
begin, I think, with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about
as long as _Kidnapped_, not very interesting, but valuable--and a thing
proper to be done. And then, hey! for the big South Sea Book: a devil of
a big one, and full of the finest sport.
This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before seven,
reading a number of Blackwood's Magazine, I was startled by a soft
_talofa, alii_ (note for my mother: they are quite courteous here in the
European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa
coming from early mass in his white coat and white linen kilt, with
three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest thing to a hero in my
history, and really a fine fellow; plenty sense, and the most dignified,
quiet, gentle manners. Talking of Blackwood--a file of which I was lucky
enough to find here in the lawyer's--Mrs. Oliphant seems in a staggering
state: from the _Wrong Box_ to _The Master_ I scarce recognise either my
critic or myself. I gather that _The Master_ should do well, and at
least that notice is agreeable reading. I expect to be home in June: you
will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to my labours, I
suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and almost every day I ride up
and see Fanny and Lloyd, who are in a house in the bush with Ah Fu. I
live in Apia for history's sake with Moors, an American trader. Day
before yesterday I was arrested and fined for riding fast in the street,
which made my blood bitter, as the wife of the manager of the German
Firm has twice almost ridden me down, and there seems none to say her
nay. The Germans have behaved pretty badly here, but not in all ways so
ill as you may have gathered: they were doubtless much provoked; and if
the insane Knappe had not appeared upon the scene, might have got out of
the muddle with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as
things occur to me.
I hope from my outcries about printing you do not think I want you to
keep my news or letters in a Blue Beard closet. I like all friends to
hear of me; they all should if I had ninety hours in the day, and
strength for all of them; but you must have gathered how hard worked I
am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty tired man.
_29th December [1889]._
To-morrow (Monday, I won't swear to my day of the month; this is the
Sunday between Christmas and New Year) I go up the coast with Mr.
Clarke, one of the London Society missionaries, in a boat to examine
schools, see Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph. Pray Heaven we
have good weather; this is the rainy season; we shall be gone four or
five days; and if the rain keep off, I shall be glad of the change; if
it rain, it will be beastly. This explains still further how hard
pressed I am, as the mail will be gone ere I return, and I have thus
lost the days I meant to write in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets
and copies for me, and is a great nuisance. He said he wished to come to
me in order to learn "long explessions." Henry goes up along with us;
and as I am not fond of him, he may before the trip is over hear some
"stlong explessions." I am writing this on the back balcony at Moors',
palms and a hill like the hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; myself
lying on the floor, and (like the parties in Handel's song) "clad in
robes of virgin white"; the ink is dreadful, the heat delicious, a fine
going breeze in the palms, and from the other side of the house the
sudden angry splash and roar of the Pacific on the reef, where the
warships are still piled from last year's hurricane, some under water,
one high and dry upon her side, the strangest figure of a ship was ever
witnessed; the narrow bay there is full of ships; the men-of-war covered
with sail after the rains, and (especially the German ship, which is
fearfully and awfully top heavy) rolling almost yards in, in what
appears to be calm water.
Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the Marquesas or
Tahiti: a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of
nature; and this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great German
plantations with their countless regular avenues of palms. The island
has beautiful rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in the
Lothians, with pleasant pools and waterfalls and overhanging verdure,
and often a great volume of sound, so that once I thought I was passing
near a mill, and it was only the voice of the river. I am not specially
attracted by the people; but they are courteous; the women very
attractive, and dress lovely; the men purposelike, well set up, tall,
lean, and dignified. As I write, the breeze is brisking up, doors are
beginning to slam, and shutters; a strong draught sweeps round the
balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow. Here I shut up.--Ever your
affectionate
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO LADY TAYLOR
This letter contains the first announcement of the purchase of the
Vailima estate (not yet so named). Sir Percy Shelley had died in the
previous December.
_Apia, Samoa, Jan. 20th, 1890._
MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--I shall hope to see you in some months from now,
when I come home--to break up my establishment--I know no diminutive of
the word. Your daughters cast a spell upon me; they were always
declaring I was a winged creature and would vanish into the uttermost
isle; and they were right, and I have made my preparations. I am now the
owner of an estate upon Upolu, some two or three miles behind and above
Apia; three streams, two waterfalls, a great cliff, an ancient native
fort, a view of the sea and lowlands, or (to be more precise) several
views of them in various directions, are now mine. It would be
affectation to omit a good many head of cattle; above all as it required
much diplomacy to have them thrown in, for the gentleman who sold to me
was staunch. Besides all this, there is a great deal more forest than I
have any need for; or to be plain the whole estate is one impassable
jungle, which must be cut down and through at considerable expense. Then
the house has to be built; and then (as a climax) we may have to stand a
siege in it in the next native war.
I do feel as if I was a coward and a traitor to desert my friends; only,
my dear lady, you know what a miserable corrhyzal (is that how it is
spelt?) creature I was at home: and here I have some real health, I can
walk, I can ride, I can stand some exposure, I am up with the sun, I
have a real enjoyment of the world and of myself; it would be hard to go
back again to England and to bed; and I think it would be very silly. I
am sure it would; and yet I feel shame, and I know I am not writing like
myself. I wish you knew how much I admired you, and when I think of
those I must leave, how early a place your name occupies. I have not had
the pleasure to know you very long; and yet I feel as if my leaving
England were a special treachery to you, and my leaving you a treachery
to myself. I will only ask you to try to forgive me: for I am sure I
will never quite forgive myself. Somebody might write to me in the care
of R. Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, to tell me if you can
forgive. But you will do quite right if you cannot. Only let me come and
see you when we do return, or it will be a lame home-coming.
My wife suffered a good deal in our last, somewhat arduous voyage; all
our party indeed suffered except myself. Fanny is now better but she is
still no very famous success in the way of health.
All the while I have been writing, I have had another matter in my eye;
of which I scarce like to speak: You know of course that I am thinking
of Sir Percy and his widow. The news has reached me in the shape of a
newspaper cutting, I have no particulars. He had a sweet, original
nature; I think I liked him better than ever I should have liked his
father; I am sorry he was always a little afraid of me; if I had had
more chance, he would have liked me too, we had so much in common, and
I valued so much his fine soul, as honest as a dog's, and the romance of
him, which was like a dog's too, and like a poet's at the same time. If
he had not been Shelley's son, people would have thought more of him;
and yet he was the better of the two, bar verses.
Please tell my dear Ida and Una that we think much of them, as well as
of your dear self, and believe me, in words which you once allowed me to
use (and I was very much affected when you did so), your affectionate
friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO DR. SCOTT
This gentleman is the physician to whose assiduous care and kindness,
as recorded in the dedication to _Underwoods_, Stevenson owed so much
during his invalid years at Bournemouth.
_Apia, Samoa, January 20th, 1890._
MY DEAR SCOTT,--Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of me
before! I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up
to date) a person whom you would scarce know. I think nothing of long
walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone the other day, partly
riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine. I have stood a six months'
voyage on a copra schooner with about three months ashore on coral
atolls, which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever
from ship's food. My wife suffered badly--it was too rough a business
altogether--Lloyd suffered--and, in short, I was the only one of the
party who "kept my end up."
I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle; have
even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred acres, I know
not which till the survey is completed, and shall only return next
summer to wind up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a
subject of the High Commissioner.
Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant patient,
but that I have a medical discovery to communicate. I find I can (almost
immediately) fight off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if
obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from
one to five days sees the cold generally to the door. I find it at once
produces a glow, stops rigour, and though it makes one very
uncomfortable, prevents the advance of the disease. Hearing of this
influenza, it occurred to me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps
a stronger exhibition--injections of cocaine, for instance--still
better.
If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems
highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much inclined
to make the experiment. See what a gulf you may save me from if you
shall have previously made it on _anima vili_, on some less important
sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless.
How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your brother and all
friends in Bournemouth.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
After a stay of four or five weeks at Apia, during which he had
fallen more and more in love with Samoa and the Samoans, Stevenson
took steamer again, this time for Sydney, where he had ordered his
letters to await him. This and the two following letters were written
during the passage. I again print in their original place a set of
verses separately published in _Songs of Travel_.
_Februar den 3en 1890
Dampfer Luebeck, zwischen Apia und Sydney._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have got one delightful letter from you, and heard
from my mother of your kindness in going to see her. Thank you for that:
you can in no way more touch and serve me.... Ay, ay, it is sad to sell
17; sad and fine were the old days: when I was away in Apemama, I wrote
two copies of verse about Edinburgh and the past, so ink black, so
golden bright. I will send them, if I can find them, for they will say
something to you, and indeed one is more than half addressed to you.
This is it--
TO MY OLD COMRADES
Do you remember--can we e'er forget?--
How, in the coiled perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain,
The rare and welcome silence of the snows,
The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,
The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,
Do you remember?--Ah, could one forget!
As when the fevered sick that all night long
Listed the wind intone, and hear at last
The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer
Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn,--
With sudden ardour, these desire the day:
(Here a squall sends all flying.)
So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;
So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.
For lo! as in the palace porch of life
We huddled with chimeras, from within--
How sweet to hear!--the music swelled and fell,
And through the breach of the revolving doors
What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!
I have since then contended and rejoiced;
Amid the glories of the house of life
Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:
Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes
Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love
Fall insignificant on my closing ears,
What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind
In our inclement city? what return
But the image of the emptiness of youth,
Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice
Of discontent and rapture and despair?
So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp,
The momentary pictures gleam and fade
And perish, and the night resurges--these
Shall I remember, and then all forget.
They're pretty second-rate, but felt. I can't be bothered to copy the
other.
I have bought 314-1/2 acres of beautiful land in the bush behind Apia;
when we get the house built, the garden laid, and cattle in the place,
it will be something to fall back on for shelter and food; and if the
island could stumble into political quiet, it is conceivable it might
even bring a little income.... We range from 600 to 1500 feet, have five
streams, waterfalls, precipices, profound ravines, rich tablelands,
fifty head of cattle on the ground (if any one could catch them), a
great view of forest, sea, mountains, the warships in the haven: really
a noble place. Some day you are to take a long holiday and come and see
us: it has been all planned.
With all these irons in the fire, and cloudy prospects, you may be sure
I was pleased to hear a good account of business. I believed _The
Master_ was a sure card: I wonder why Henley thinks it grimy; grim it
is, God knows, but sure not grimy, else I am the more deceived. I am
sorry he did not care for it; I place it on the line with _Kidnapped_
myself. We'll see as time goes on whether it goes above or falls below.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
The Editor of Scribner's Magazine had written asking him for fresh
contributions, and he sends the set of verses addressed to
Tembinoka, the king at Butaritari, and afterwards reprinted in
_Songs of Travel_, beginning "Let us who part like brothers part like
bards."
_S.S. _Luebeck_ [between Apia and Sydney, February] 1890_
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I desire nothing better than to continue my
relation with the Magazine, to which it pleases me to hear I have been
useful. The only thing I have ready is the enclosed barbaric piece. As
soon as I have arrived in Sydney I shall send you some photographs, a
portrait of Tembinoka, perhaps a view of the palace or of the "matted
men" at their singing; also T.'s flag, which my wife designed for him:
in a word, what I can do best for you. It will be thus a foretaste of my
book of travels. I shall ask you to let me have, if I wish it, the use
of the plates made, and to make up a little tract of the verses and
illustrations, of which you might send six copies to H.M. Tembinoka,
King of Apemama, via Butaritari, Gilbert Islands. It might be best to
send it by Crawford & Co., S.F. There is no postal service; and
schooners must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps some such note as
this might be prefixed:
_At my departure from the island of Apemama, for which you will look in
vain in most atlases, the king and I agreed, since we both set up to be
in the poetical way, that we should celebrate our separation in verse.
Whether or not his majesty has been true to his bargain, the laggard
posts of the Pacific may perhaps inform me in six months, perhaps not
before a year. The following lines represent my part of the contract,
and it is hoped, by their pictures of strange manners, they may
entertain a civilised audience. Nothing throughout has been invented or
exaggerated; the lady herein referred to as the author's Muse, has
confined herself to stringing into rhyme facts and legends that I saw or
heard during two months' residence upon the island._
R. L. S.
You will have received from me a letter about _The Wrecker_. No doubt
it is a new experiment for me, being disguised so much as a study of
manners, and the interest turning on a mystery of the detective sort. I
think there need be no hesitation about beginning it in the fall of the
year. Lloyd has nearly finished his part, and I shall hope to send you
very soon the MS. of about the first four-sevenths. At the same time, I
have been employing myself in Samoa, collecting facts about the recent
war; and I propose to write almost at once and to publish shortly a
small volume, called I know not what--the War in Samoa, the Samoa
Trouble, an Island War, the War of the Three Consuls, I know
not--perhaps you can suggest. It was meant to be a part of my travel
book; but material has accumulated on my hands until I see myself forced
into volume form, and I hope it may be of use, if it come soon. I have a
few photographs of the war, which will do for illustrations. It is
conceivable you might wish to handle this in the Magazine, although I am
inclined to think you won't, and to agree with you. But if you think
otherwise, there it is. The travel letters (fifty of them) are already
contracted for in papers; these I was quite bound to let M'Clure handle,
as the idea was of his suggestion, and I always felt a little sore as to
one trick I played him in the matter of the end-papers. The war-volume
will contain some very interesting and picturesque details: more I can't
promise for it. Of course the fifty newspaper letters will be simply
patches chosen from the travel volume (or volumes) as it gets written,
But you see I have in hand:--
Say half done. 1. _The Wrecker_.
Lloyd's copy half done, mine 2. _The Pearl Fisher_ (a novel promised
not touched. to the Ledger, and which will form,
when it comes in book form, No. 2
of our _South Sea Yarns_).
Not begun, but all material 3. The War volume.
ready.
Ditto. 4. The Big Travel Book, which includes
the letters.
You know how they stand. 5. The _Ballads_.
_Excusez du peu!_ And you see what madness it would be to make any fresh
engagements. At the same time, you have _The Wrecker_ and the War
volume, if you like either--or both--to keep my name in the Magazine.
It begins to look as if I should not be able to get any more ballads
done this somewhile. I know the book would sell better if it were all
ballads; and yet I am growing half tempted to fill up with some other
verses. A good few are connected with my voyage, such as the "Home of
Tembinoka" sent herewith, and would have a sort of slight affinity to
the _South Sea Ballads_. You might tell me how that strikes a stranger.
In all this, my real interest is with the travel volume, which ought to
be of a really extraordinary interest.
I am sending you "Tembinoka" as he stands; but there are parts of him
that I hope to better, particularly in stanzas III. and II. I scarce
feel intelligent enough to try just now; and I thought at any rate you
had better see it, set it up if you think well, and let me have a proof;
so, at least, we shall get the bulk of it straight. I have spared you
Tenkoruti, Tembaitake, Tembinatake, and other barbarous names, because I
thought the dentists in the States had work enough without my
assistance; but my chief's name is TEMBINOKA, pronounced, according to
the present quite modern habit in the Gilberts, Tembinok'. Compare in
the margin Tengkorootch; a singular new trick, setting at defiance all
South Sea analogy, for nowhere else do they show even the ability, far
less the will, to end a word upon a consonant. Loia is Lloyd's name,
ship becomes shipe, teapot tipote, etc. Our admirable friend Herman
Melville, of whom, since I could judge, I have thought more than ever,
had no ear for languages whatever: his Hapar tribe should be Hapaa, etc.
But this is of no interest to you: suffice it, you see how I am as usual
up to the neck in projects, and really all likely bairns this time. When
will this activity cease? Too soon for me, I dare to say.
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
_February 4th, 1890_, S.S. Luebeck.
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--In virtue of confessions in your last, you would at
the present moment, if you were along of me, be sick; and I will ask you
to receive that as an excuse for my hand of write. Excuse a plain seaman
if he regards with scorn the likes of you pore land-lubbers ashore now.
(Reference to nautical ditty.) Which I may however be allowed to add
that when eight months' mail was laid by my side one evening in Apia,
and my wife and I sat up the most of the night to peruse the
same--(precious indisposed we were next day in consequence)--no letter,
out of so many, more appealed to our hearts than one from the pore,
stick-in-the-mud, land-lubbering, common (or garden) Londoner, James
Payn. Thank you for it; my wife says, "Can't I see him when we get back
to London?" I have told her the thing appeared to me within the spear of
practical politix. (Why can't I spell and write like an honest, sober,
god-fearing litry gent? I think it's the motion of the ship.) Here I was
interrupted to play chess with the chief engineer; as I grow old, I
prefer the "athletic sport of cribbage," of which (I am sure I misquote)
I have just been reading in your delightful _Literary Recollections_.
How you skim along, you and Andrew Lang (different as you are), and yet
the only two who can keep a fellow smiling every page, and ever and
again laughing out loud. I joke wi' deeficulty, I believe; I am not
funny; and when I am, Mrs. Oliphant says I'm vulgar, and somebody else
says (in Latin) that I'm a whore, which seems harsh and even uncalled
for: I shall stick to weepers; a 5s. weeper, 2s. 6d. laugher, 1s.
shocker.
My dear sir, I grow more and more idiotic; I cannot even feign sanity.
Some time in the month of June a stalwart weather-beaten man, evidently
of seafaring antecedents, shall be observed wending his way between the
Athenaeum Club and Waterloo Place. Arrived off No. 17, he shall be
observed to bring his head sharply to the wind, and tack into the outer
haven. "Captain Payn in the harbour?"--"Ay, ay, sir. What
ship?"--"Barquentin R. L. S., nine hundred and odd days out from the port
of Bournemouth, homeward bound, with yarns and curiosities."
Who was it said, "For God's sake, don't speak of it!" about Scott and
his tears? He knew what he was saying. The fear of that hour is the
skeleton in all our cupboards; that hour when the pastime and the
livelihood go together; and--I am getting hard of hearing myself; a pore
young child of forty, but new come frae my Mammy, O!
Excuse these follies, and accept the expression of all my
regards.--Yours affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
The _Solution_ is a short story of Mr. Henry James, first published
in a periodical and reprinted in the collection called _The Lesson of
the Master_ (Macmillans).
_Union Club, Sydney, February 19, 1890._
HERE--in this excellent civilised, antipodal club smoking-room, I have
just read the first part of your _Solution_. Dear Henry James, it is an
exquisite art; do not be troubled by the shadows of your French
competitors: not one, not de Maupassant, could have done a thing more
clean and fine; dry in touch, but the atmosphere (as in a fine summer
sunset) rich with colour and with perfume. I shall say no more; this
note is De Solutione; except that I--that we--are all your sincere
friends and hope to shake you by the hand in June.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
signed, sealed and
delivered as his act
and deed
and very thought of very thought,
this nineteenth of February in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred ninety and
nothing.
TO MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
Written while he was still in a white heat of indignation on behalf
of Father Damien. He was not aware that Dr. Hyde's letter had been a
private one not meant for publicity, and later came to think he might
have struck as effectively on behalf of Damien without striking so
fiercely against Dr. Hyde (see below, p. 404). "Damon" is the Rev. F.
Damon, a missionary in Hawaii.
_Union Club, Sydney, March 5, 1890._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I understand the family keeps you somewhat informed.
For myself I am in such a whirl of work and society, I can ill spare a
moment. My health is excellent and has been here tried by abominable wet
weather, and (what's waur) dinners and lunches. As this is like to be
our metropolis, I have tried to lay myself out to be sociable with an
eye to yoursel'. Several niceish people have turned up: Fanny has an
evening, but she is about at the end of the virtuous effort, and shrinks
from the approach of any fellow creature.
Have you seen Hyde's (Dr. not Mr.) letter about Damien? That has been
one of my concerns; I have an answer in the press; and have just written
a difficult letter to Damon trying to prepare him for what (I fear)
must be to him extremely painful. The answer is to come out as a
pamphlet; of which I make of course a present to the publisher. I am not
a cannibal, I would not eat the flesh of Dr. Hyde,--and it is
conceivable it will make a noise in Honolulu. I have struck as hard as I
knew how; nor do I think my answer can fail to do away (in the minds of
all who see it) with the effect of Hyde's incredible and really
villainous production. What a mercy I wasn't this man's _guest_ in the
_Morning Star_! I think it would have broke my heart.
Time for me to go!--I remain, with love,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Stevenson had not been long at Sydney--just long enough to write and
print the famous _Letter to Dr. Hyde_ in defence of Father
Damien--when, to his heavy disappointment, he fell ill again with one
of his old bad attacks of fever and hemorrhage from the lungs. It was
this experience which finally determined him to settle for good on
his new island property in Samoa, which at first he had thought of
rather as an occasional refuge and resting-place in the intervals
between future projected yachting voyages.
_Union Club, Sydney, March 7th, 1890._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I did not send off the enclosed before from laziness;
having gone quite sick, and being a blooming prisoner here in the club,
and indeed in my bedroom. I was in receipt of your letters and your
ornamental photo, and was delighted to see how well you looked, and how
reasonably well I stood.... I am sure I shall never come back home
except to die; I may do it, but shall always think of the move as
suicidal, unless a great change comes over me, of which as yet I see no
symptom. This visit to Sydney has smashed me handsomely; and yet I made
myself a prisoner here in the club upon my first arrival. This is not
encouraging for further ventures; Sydney winter--or, I might almost say,
Sydney spring, for I came when the worst was over--is so small an
affair, comparable to our June depression at home in Scotland.... The
pipe is right again; it was the springs that had rusted, and ought to
have been oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but, Lord! here in
the club I dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience to be in my own
backwoods and raise the sound of minstrelsy. What pleasures are to be
compared with those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso.--Yours ever
affectionately, the Unvirtuous Virtuoso,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
To try and recover from the effects of his illness at Sydney,
Stevenson determined to take another voyage; and started accordingly
in April with his party on a trading steamer, the _Janet Nicoll_,
which took him by a long and devious course among many groups of
islands that he had not yet visited, returning to Sydney in August by
way of New Caledonia. On the first night out of Auckland harbour the
voyage nearly came to a premature end through the blowing up of some
trade fireworks, or materials for fireworks, which had been packed in
the stateroom.
_S.S. Janet Nicoll, off Upolu [Spring 1890]._
MY DEAREST COLVIN,--I was sharply ill at Sydney, cut off, right out of
bed, in this steamer on a fresh island cruise, and have already reaped
the benefit. We are excellently found this time, on a spacious vessel,
with an excellent table; the captain, supercargo, our one
fellow-passenger, etc., very nice; and the charterer, Mr. Henderson, the
very man I could have chosen. The truth is, I fear, this life is the
only one that suits me; so long as I cruise in the South Seas, I shall
be well and happy--alas, no, I do not mean that, and _absit omen_!--I
mean that, so soon as I cease from cruising, the nerves are strained,
the decline commences, and I steer slowly but surely back to bedward. We
left Sydney, had a cruel rough passage to Auckland, for the _Janet_ is
the worst roller I was ever aboard of. I was confined to my cabin,
ports closed, self shied out of the berth, stomach (pampered till the
day I left on a diet of perpetual egg-nogg) revolted at ship's food and
ship eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging with one hand to the plate, with
the other to the glass, and using the knife and fork (except at
intervals) with the eyelid. No matter: I picked up hand over hand. After
a day in Auckland, we set sail again; were blown up in the main cabin
with calcium fires, as we left the bay. Let no man say I am
unscientific: when I ran, on the alert, out of my stateroom, and found
the main cabin incarnadined with the glow of the last scene of a
pantomime, I stopped dead: "What is this?" said I. "This ship is on
fire, I see that; but why a pantomime?" And I stood and reasoned the
point, until my head was so muddled with the fumes that I could not find
the companion. A few seconds later, the captain had to enter crawling on
his belly, and took days to recover (if he has recovered) from the
fumes. By singular good fortune, we got the hose down in time and saved
the ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes and a great part of our
photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw the native sailors tossing
overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it
contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days fine
weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a vexatious sea. As
we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage Island, a man ashore
told me afterwards the sight of the _Janet Nicoll_ made him sick; and
indeed it was rough play, though nothing to the night before. All
through this gale I worked four to six hours per diem spearing the
ink-bottle like a flying fish, and holding my papers together as I
might. For, of all things, what I was at was history--the Samoan
business--and I had to turn from one to another of these piles of
manuscript notes, and from one page to another in each, until I should
have found employment for the hands of Briareus. All the same, this
history is a godsend for a voyage; I can put in time, getting events
co-ordinated and the narrative distributed, when my much-heaving
numskull would be incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met
the missionary barque _John Williams_. I tell you it was a great day for
Savage Island: the path up the cliffs was crowded with gay islandresses
(I like that feminine plural) who wrapped me in their embraces, and
picked my pockets of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch would
have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, like the Golden
Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, with a red flower behind her
ear, had searched me with extraordinary zeal; and when, soon after, I
missed my matches, I accused her (she still following us) of being the
thief. After some delay, and with a subtle smile, she produced the box,
gave me _one match_, and put the rest away again. Too tired to add
more.--Your most affectionate
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
The idea here discussed of a further series of essays to be
contributed to Scribner's Magazine was never carried out.
_S.S. Janet Nicoll, off Peru Island, Kingsmills
Group, July 13th, '90._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--I am moved to write to you in the matter of the end
papers. I am somewhat tempted to begin them again. Follow the reasons
_pro_ and _con_:--
1st. I must say I feel as if something in the nature of the end paper
were a desirable finish to the number, and that the substitutes of
occasional essays by occasional contributors somehow fail to fill the
bill. Should you differ with me on this point, no more is to be said.
And what follows must be regarded as lost words.
2nd. I am rather taken with the idea of continuing the work. For
instance, should you have no distaste for papers of the class called
_Random Memories_, I should enjoy continuing them (of course at
intervals), and when they were done I have an idea they might make a
readable book. On the other hand, I believe a greater freedom of choice
might be taken, the subjects more varied and more briefly treated, in
somewhat approaching the manner of Andrew Lang in the _Sign of the
Ship_; it being well understood that the broken sticks[34] method is one
not very suitable (as Colonel Burke would say) to my genius, and not
very likely to be pushed far in my practice. Upon this point I wish you
to condense your massive brain. In the last lot I was promised, and I
fondly expected to receive, a vast amount of assistance from intelligent
and genial correspondents. I assure you, I never had a scratch of a pen
from any one above the level of a village idiot, except once, when a
lady sowed my head full of grey hairs by announcing that she was going
to direct her life in future by my counsels. Will the correspondents be
more copious and less irrelevant in the future? Suppose that to be the
case, will they be of any use to me in my place of exile? Is it possible
for a man in Samoa to be in touch with the great heart of the People?
And is it not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so hopeless a
distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers? Upon these points,
perpend, and give me the results of your perpensions.
3rd. The emolument would be agreeable to your humble servant.
I have now stated all the _pros_, and the most of the _cons_ are come in
by the way. There follows, however, one immense Con (with a capital
"C"), which I beg you to consider particularly. I fear that, to be of
any use for your magazine, these papers should begin with the beginning
of a volume. Even supposing my hands were free, this would be now
impossible for next year. You have to consider whether, supposing you
have no other objection, it would be worth while to begin the series in
the middle of a volume, or desirable to delay the whole matter until
the beginning of another year.
Now supposing that the _cons_ have it, and you refuse my offer, let me
make another proposal, which you will be very inclined to refuse at the
first off-go, but which I really believe might in time come to
something. You know how the penny papers have their answers to
correspondents. Why not do something of the same kind for the
"culchawed"? Why not get men like Stimson, Brownell, Professor James,
Goldwin Smith, and others who will occur to you more readily than to me,
to put and to answer a series of questions of intellectual and general
interest, until at last you should have established a certain standard
of matter to be discussed in this part of the Magazine?
I want you to get me bound volumes of the Magazine from its start. The
Lord knows I have had enough copies; where they are I know not. A
wandering author gathers no magazines.
_The Wrecker_ is in no forrader state than in last reports. I have
indeed got to a period when I cannot well go on until I can refresh
myself on the proofs of the beginning. My respected collaborator, who
handles the machine which is now addressing you, has indeed carried his
labours farther, but not, I am led to understand, with what we used to
call a blessing; at least, I have been refused a sight of his latest
labours. However, there is plenty of time ahead, and I feel no anxiety
about the tale, except that it may meet with your approval.
All this voyage I have been busy over my _Travels_, which, given a very
high temperature and the saloon of a steamer usually going before the
wind, and with the cabins in front of the engines, has come very near to
prostrating me altogether. You will therefore understand that there are
no more poems. I wonder whether there are already enough, and whether
you think that such a volume would be worth the publishing? I shall hope
to find in Sydney some expression of your opinion on this point. Living
as I do among--not the most cultured of mankind ("splendidly educated
and perfect gentlemen when sober")--I attach a growing importance to
friendly criticisms from yourself.
I believe that this is the most of our business. As for my health, I got
over my cold in a fine style, but have not been very well of late. To my
unaffected annoyance, the blood-spitting has started again. I find the
heat of a steamer decidedly wearing and trying in these latitudes, and I
am inclined to think the superior expedition rather dearly paid for.
Still, the fact that one does not even remark the coming of a squall,
nor feel relief on its departure, is a mercy not to be acknowledged
without gratitude. The rest of the family seem to be doing fairly well;
both seem less run down than they were on the _Equator_, and Mrs.
Stevenson very much less so. We have now been three months away, have
visited about thirty-five islands, many of which were novel to us, and
some extremely entertaining; some also were old acquaintances, and
pleasant to revisit. In the meantime, we have really a capital time
aboard ship, in the most pleasant and interesting society, and with
(considering the length and nature of the voyage) an excellent table.
Please remember us all to Mr. Scribner, the young chieftain of the
house, and the lady, whose health I trust is better. To Mrs. Burlingame
we all desire to be remembered, and I hope you will give our news to
Low, St. Gaudens, Faxon, and others of the faithful in the city. I shall
probably return to Samoa direct, having given up all idea of returning
to civilisation in the meanwhile. There, on my ancestral acres, which I
purchased six months ago from a blind Scots blacksmith, you will please
address me until further notice. The name of the ancestral acres is
going to be Vailima; but as at the present moment nobody else knows the
name, except myself and the co-patentees, it will be safer, if less
ambitious, to address R. L. S., Apia, Samoa. The ancestral acres run to
upwards of three hundred; they enjoy the ministrations of five streams,
whence the name. They are all at the present moment under a trackless
covering of magnificent forest, which would be worth a great deal if it
grew beside a railway terminus. To me, as it stands, it represents a
handsome deficit. Obliging natives from the Cannibal Islands are now
cutting it down at my expense. You would be able to run your magazine to
much greater advantage if the terms of authors were on the same scale
with those of my cannibals. We have also a house about the size of a
manufacturer's lodge. 'Tis but the egg of the future palace, over the
details of which on paper Mrs. Stevenson and I have already shed real
tears; what it will be when it comes to paying for it, I leave you to
imagine. But if it can only be built as now intended, it will be with
genuine satisfaction and a growunded pride that I shall welcome you at
the steps of my Old Colonial Home, when you land from the steamer on a
long-merited holiday. I speak much at my ease; yet I do not know, I may
be now an outlaw, a bankrupt, the abhorred of all good men. I do not
know, you probably do. Has Hyde[35] turned upon me? Have I fallen, like
Danvers Carew?
It is suggested to me that you might like to know what will be my future
society. Three consuls, all at loggerheads with one another, or at the
best in a clique of two against one; three different sects of
missionaries, not upon the best of terms; and the Catholics and
Protestants in a condition of unhealable ill-feeling as to whether a
wooden drum ought or ought not to be beaten to announce the time of
school. The native population, very genteel, very songful, very
agreeable, very good-looking, chronically spoiling for a fight (a
circumstance not to be entirely neglected in the design of the palace).
As for the white population of (technically, "The Beach"), I don't
suppose it is possible for any person not thoroughly conversant with the
South Seas to form the smallest conception of such a society, with its
grog-shops, its apparently unemployed hangers-on, its merchants of all
degrees of respectability and the reverse. The paper, of which I must
really send you a copy--if yours were really a live magazine, you would
have an exchange with the editor: I assure you, it has of late contained
a great deal of matter about one of your contributors--rejoices in the
name of Samoa Times and South Sea Advertiser. The advertisements in the
Advertiser are permanent, being simply subsidies for its existence. A
dashing warfare of newspaper correspondence goes on between the various
residents, who are rather fond of recurring to one another's
antecedents. But when all is said, there are a lot of very nice,
pleasant people, and I don't know that Apia is very much worse than half
a hundred towns that I could name.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
As above indicated, on the way between Samoa and Sydney Stevenson
left the _Janet Nicoll_ for a week's stay in New Caledonia, during
which he was hospitably received by the French officials.
_Hotel Sebastopol, Noumea, August 1890._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have stayed here a week while Lloyd and my wife
continue to voyage in the _Janet Nicoll_; this I did, partly to see the
convict system, partly to shorten my stay in the extreme cold--hear me
with my extreme! _moi qui suis originaire d'Edimbourg_--of Sydney at
this season. I am feeling very seedy, utterly fatigued and overborne
with sleep. I have a fine old gentleman of a doctor, who attends and
cheers and entertains, if he does not cure me; but even with his
ministrations I am almost incapable of the exertion sufficient for this
letter; and I am really, as I write, falling down with sleep. What is
necessary to say, I must try to say shortly. Lloyd goes to clear out our
establishments: pray keep him in funds, if I have any; if I have not,
pray try to raise them. Here is the idea: to install ourselves, at the
risk of bankruptcy, in Samoa. It is not the least likely it will pay
(although it may); but it is almost certain it will support life, with
very few external expenses. If I die, it will be an endowment for the
survivors, at least for my wife and Lloyd; and my mother, who might
prefer to go home, has her own. Hence I believe I shall do well to hurry
my installation. The letters are already in part done; in part done is a
novel for Scribner; in the course of the next twelve months I should
receive a considerable amount of money. I am aware I had intended to pay
back to my capital some of this. I am now of opinion I should act
foolishly. Better to build the house and have a roof and farm of my own;
and thereafter, with a livelihood assured, save and repay.... There is
my livelihood, all but books and wine, ready in a nutshell; and it ought
to be more easy to save and to repay afterwards. Excellent, say you, but
will you save and will you repay? I do not know, said the Bell of Old
Bow.... It seems clear to me.... The deuce of the affair is that I do
not know when I shall see you and Colvin. I guess you will have to come
and see me: many a time already we have arranged the details of your
visit in the yet unbuilt house on the mountain. I shall be able to get
decent wine from Noumea. We shall be able to give you a decent welcome,
and talk of old days. _Apropos_ of old days, do you remember still the
phrase we heard in Waterloo Place? I believe you made a piece for the
piano on that phrase. Pray, if you remember it, send it me in your next.
If you find it impossible to write correctly, send it me _a la
recitative_, and indicate the accents. Do you feel (you must) how
strangely heavy and stupid I am? I must at last give up and go sleep; I
am simply a rag.
_The morrow._--I feel better, but still dim and groggy. To-night I go to
the governor's; such a lark--no dress clothes--twenty-four hours'
notice--able-bodied Polish tailor--suit made for a man with the figure
of a puncheon--same hastily altered for self with the figure of a
bodkin--sight inconceivable. Never mind; dress clothes, "which nobody
can deny"; and the officials have been all so civil that I liked neither
to refuse nor to appear in mufti. Bad dress clothes only prove you are a
grisly ass; no dress clothes, even when explained, indicate a want of
respect. I wish you were here with me to help me dress in this wild
raiment, and to accompany me to M. Noel-Pardon's. I cannot say what I
would give if there came a knock now at the door and you came in. I
guess Noel-Pardon would go begging, and we might burn the fr. 200 dress
clothes in the back garden for a bonfire; or what would be yet more
expensive and more humorous, get them once more expanded to fit you, and
when that was done, a second time cut down for my gossamer dimensions.
I hope you never forget to remember me to your father, who has always a
place in my heart, as I hope I have a little in his. His kindness helped
me infinitely when you and I were young; I recall it with gratitude and
affection in this town of convicts at the world's end. There are very
few things, my dear Charles, worth mention: on a retrospect of life, the
day's flash and colour, one day with another, flames, dazzles, and puts
to sleep; and when the days are gone, like a fast-flying thaumatrope,
they make but a single pattern. Only a few things stand out; and among
these--most plainly to me--Rutland Square.--Ever, my dear Charles, your
affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Just returned from trying on the dress clo'. Lord, you should
see the coat! It stands out at the waist like a bustle, the flaps cross
in front, the sleeves are like bags.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
Proceeding from New Caledonia to Sydney, Stevenson again made a stay
there of about a month, before going to settle in his new island home
and superintend the operations of planting and building. The next
letter is in acknowledgment of proofs received from Messrs. Scribner
of a proposed volume of verse to contain, besides _Ticonderoga_ and
the two ballads on Marquesan and Tahitian legends, a number of the
other miscellaneous verses which he had written in the course of his
travels. In the end, the ballads only stood for publication at this
time; the other verses were reserved, and have been posthumously
published under the title _Songs of Travel_.
_Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--
_Ballads._
The deuce is in this volume. It has cost me more botheration and dubiety
than any other I ever took in hand. On one thing my mind is made up: the
verses at the end have no business there, and throw them down. Many of
them are bad, many of the rest want nine years' keeping, and the
remainder are not relevant--throw them down; some I never want to hear
of more, others will grow in time towards decent items in a second
_Underwoods_--and in the meanwhile, down with them! At the same time, I
have a sneaking idea the ballads are not altogether without merit--I
don't know if they're poetry, but they're good narrative, or I'm
deceived. (You've never said one word about them, from which I astutely
gather you are dead set against: "he was a diplomatic man"--extract from
epitaph of E. L. B.--"and remained on good terms with Minor Poets.") You
will have to judge: one of the Gladstonian trinity of paths must be
chosen. (1st) Either publish the five ballads, such as they are, in a
volume called _Ballads_; in which case pray send sheets at once to
Chatto and Windus. Or (2nd) write and tell me you think the book too
small, and I'll try and get into the mood to do some more. Or (3rd)
write and tell me the whole thing is a blooming illusion; in which case
draw off some twenty copies for my private entertainment, and charge me
with the expense of the whole dream.
In the matter of rhyme no man can judge himself; I am at the world's
end, have no one to consult, and my publisher holds his tongue. I call
it unfair and almost unmanly. I do indeed begin to be filled with
animosity; Lord, wait till you see the continuation of _The Wrecker_,
when I introduce some New York publishers.... It's a good scene; the
quantities you drink and the really hideous language you are represented
as employing may perhaps cause you one tithe of the pain you have
inflicted by your silence on, sir, The Poetaster,
R. L. S.
Lloyd is off home; my wife and I dwell sundered: she in lodgings,
preparing for the move; I here in the club, and at my old
trade--bedridden. Naturally, the visit home is given up; we only wait
our opportunity to get to Samoa, where, please, address me.
Have I yet asked you to despatch the books and papers left in your care
to me at Apia, Samoa? I wish you would, _quam primum_.
R. L. S.
TO HENRY JAMES
_Union Club, Sydney, August 1890._
MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Kipling is too clever to live. The _Bete
Humaine_[36] I had already perused in Noumea, listening the while to the
strains of the convict band. He is a Beast; but not human, and, to be
frank, not very interesting. "Nervous maladies: the homicidal ward,"
would be the better name: O, this game gets very tedious.
Your two long and kind letters have helped to entertain the old familiar
sickbed. So has a book called _The Bondman_, by Hall Caine; I wish you
would look at it. I am not half-way through yet. Read the book, and
communicate your views. Hall Caine, by the way, appears to take Hugo's
view of History and Chronology (_Later_; the book doesn't keep up; it
gets very wild.)
I must tell you plainly--I can't tell Colvin--I do not think I shall
come to England more than once, and then it'll be to die. Health I enjoy
in the tropics; even here, which they call sub- or semi-tropical, I come
only to catch cold. I have not been out since my arrival; live here in
a nice bedroom by the fireside, and read books and letters from Henry
James, and send out to get his _Tragic Muse_, only to be told they can't
be had as yet in Sydney, and have altogether a placid time. But I can't
go out! The thermometer was nearly down to 50 deg. the other day--no
temperature for me, Mr. James: how should I do in England? I fear not at
all. Am I very sorry? I am sorry about seven or eight people in England,
and one or two in the States. And outside of that, I simply prefer
Samoa. These are the words of honesty and soberness. (I am fasting from
all but sin, coughing, _The Bondman_, a couple of eggs and a cup of
tea.) I was never fond of towns, houses, society, or (it seems)
civilisation. Nor yet it seems was I ever very fond of (what is
technically called) God's green earth. The sea, islands, the islanders,
the island life and climate, make and keep me truly happier. These last
two years I have been much at sea, and I have _never wearied_; sometimes
I have indeed grown impatient for some destination; more often I was
sorry that the voyage drew so early to an end; and never once did I lose
my fidelity to blue water and a ship. It is plain, then, that for me my
exile to the place of schooners and islands can be in no sense regarded
as a calamity.
Good-bye just now: I must take a turn at my proofs.
_N.B._--Even my wife has weakened about the sea. She wearied, the last
time we were ashore, to get afloat again.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
_Union Club, Sydney, August 19th, 1890._
MY DEAR MR. SCHWOB,--_Mais, alors, vous avez tous les bonheurs, vous!_
More about Villon; it seems incredible: when it is put in order, pray
send it me.
You wish to translate the _Black Arrow_: dear sir, you are hereby
authorised; but I warn you, I do not like the work. Ah, if you, who know
so well both tongues, and have taste and instruction--if you would but
take a fancy to translate a book of mine that I myself admired--for we
sometimes admire our own--or I do--with what satisfaction would the
authority be granted! But these things are too much to expect. _Vous ne
detestez pas alors mes bonnes femmes? moi, je les deteste._ I have never
pleased myself with any women of mine save two character parts, one of
only a few lines--the Countess of Rosen, and Madame Desprez in the
_Treasure of Franchard_.
I had indeed one moment of pride about my poor _Black Arrow_: Dickon
Crookback I did, and I do, think is a spirited and possible figure.
Shakespeare's--O, if we can call that cocoon Shakespeare!--Shakespeare's
is spirited--one likes to see the untaught athlete butting against the
adamantine ramparts of human nature, head down, breech up; it reminds us
how trivial we are to-day, and what safety resides in our triviality.
For spirited it may be, but O, sure not possible! I love Dumas and I
love Shakespeare: you will not mistake me when I say that the Richard of
the one reminds me of the Porthos of the other; and if by any sacrifice
of my own literary baggage I could clear the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_ of
Porthos, _Jekyll_ might go, and the _Master_, and the _Black Arrow_, you
may be sure, and I should think my life not lost for mankind if half a
dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in.
The tone of your pleasant letters makes me egotistical; you make me take
myself too gravely. Comprehend how I have lived much of my time in
France, and loved your country, and many of its people, and all the time
was learning that which your country has to teach--breathing in rather
that atmosphere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the
time knew--and raged to know--that I might write with the pen of angels
or of heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser! And now steps in
M. Marcel Schwob, writes me the most kind encouragement, and reads and
understands, and is kind enough to like my work.
I am just now overloaded with work. I have two huge novels on hand--_The
Wrecker_ and the _Pearl Fisher_,[37] in collaboration with my stepson:
the latter, the _Pearl Fisher_, I think highly of, for a black, ugly,
trampling, violent story, full of strange scenes and striking
characters. And then I am about waist-deep in my big book on the South
Seas: _the_ big book on the South Seas it ought to be, and shall. And
besides, I have some verses in the press, which, however, I hesitate to
publish. For I am no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so
facile. All this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa keep
me very busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed.
Alas, I shall not have the pleasure to see you yet awhile, if ever. You
must be content to take me as a wandering voice, and in the form of
occasional letters from recondite islands; and address me, if you will
be good enough to write, to Apia, Samoa. My stepson, Mr. Osbourne, goes
home meanwhile to arrange some affairs; it is not unlikely he may go to
Paris to arrange about the illustrations to my South Seas; in which case
I shall ask him to call upon you, and give you some word of our
outlandish destinies. You will find him intelligent, I think; and I am
sure, if (_par hasard_) you should take any interest in the islands, he
will have much to tell you.--Herewith I conclude, and am your obliged
and interested correspondent,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--The story you refer to has got lost in the post.
TO ANDREW LANG
_Union Club, Sydney [August 1890]._
MY DEAR LANG,--I observed with a great deal of surprise and interest
that a controversy in which you have been taking sides at home, in
yellow London, hinges in part at least on the Gilbert Islanders and
their customs in burial. Nearly six months of my life has been passed in
the group: I have revisited it but the other day; and I make haste to
tell you what I know. The upright stones--I enclose you a photograph of
one on Apemama--are certainly connected with religion; I do not think
they are adored. They stand usually on the windward shore of the
islands, that is to say, apart from habitation (on _enclosed islands_,
where the people live on the sea side, I do not know how it is, never
having lived on one). I gathered from Tembinoka, Rex Apemamae, that the
pillars were supposed to fortify the island from invasion: spiritual
martellos. I think he indicated they were connected with the cult of
Tenti--pronounce almost as chintz in English, the _t_ being explosive;
but you must take this with a grain of salt, for I knew no word of
Gilbert Island; and the King's English, although creditable, is rather
vigorous than exact. Now, here follows the point of interest to you:
such pillars, or standing stones, have no connection with graves. The
most elaborate grave that I have ever seen in the group--to be
certain--is in the form of a _raised border_ of gravel, usually strewn
with broken glass. One, of which I cannot be sure that it was a grave,
for I was told by one that it was, and by another that it was
not--consisted of a mound about breast high in an excavated taro swamp,
on the top of which was a child's house, or rather _maniapa_--that is to
say, shed, or open house, such as is used in the group for social or
political gatherings--so small that only a child could creep under its
eaves. I have heard of another great tomb on Apemama, which I did not
see; but here again, by all accounts, no sign of a standing stone. My
report would be--no connection between standing stones and sepulture. I
shall, however, send on the terms of the problem to a highly intelligent
resident trader, who knows more than perhaps any one living, white or
native, of the Gilbert group; and you shall have the result. In Samoa,
whither I return for good, I shall myself make inquiries; up to now, I
have neither seen nor heard of any standing stones in that
group.--Yours,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
Exactly what tale of doings in the garret at Skerryvore had been
related to Stevenson (in the character of Robin Lewison) by his
correspondent (in the character of Miss Green) cannot well be
gathered from this reply. But the letter is interesting as containing
the only mention of certain schemes of romance afterwards abandoned.
_Union Club, Sydney, 1st September 1890._
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--I find you have been behaving very ill: _been_
very ill, in fact. I find this hard to forgive; probably should not
forgive it at all if Robin Lewison had not been sick himself and a
wretched sick-room prisoner in this club for near a month. Well, the
best and bravest sometimes fail. But who is Miss Green? Don't know her!
I knew a lady of an exceedingly generous and perfervid nature--worthy to
be suspected of Scotch blood for the pertervidness--equipped with a
couple--perhaps a brace sounds better English--of perfervid eyes--with a
certain graceful gaucherie of manner, almost like a child's, and that is
at once the highest point of gaucherie and grace--a friend everybody I
ever saw was delighted to see come and sorry to see go. Yes, I knew that
lady, and can see her now. But who was Miss Green? There is something
amiss here. Either the Robin Lewisons have been very shabbily treated,
or--and this is the serious part of the affair--somebody unknown to me
has been entrusted with the key of the Skerryvore garret. This may go as
far as the Old Bailey, ma'am.
But why should I gird at you or anybody, when the truth is we are the
most miserable sinners in the world? For we are not coming home, I dare
not. Even coming to Sydney has made me quite ill, and back I go to
Samoa, whither please address--Apia, Samoa--(and remember it is Samo-a,
a spondee to begin with, or Sahmoa, if you prefer that writing)--back I
and my wife go to Samoa to live on our landed estate with four black
labour boys in a kind of a sort of house, which Lloyd will describe to
you. For he has gone to England: receive him like a favour and a piece
of cake; he is our greeting to friends.
I paused here to put in the date on the first page. I am precious nearly
through my fortieth year, thinks I to myself. Must be nearly as old as
Miss Green, thinks I. O, come! I exclaimed, not as bad as that! Some
lees of youth about the old remnant yet.
My amiable Miss Green, I beg you to give me news of your health, and if
it may be good news. And when you shall have seen Lloyd, to tell me how
his reports of the South Seas and our new circumstances strike such an
awfully old person as yourself, and to tell me if you ever received a
letter I sent you from Hawaii. I remember thinking--or remember
remembering rather--it was (for me) quite a long respectable
communication. Also, you might tell me if you got my war-whoop and
scalping-knife assault on _le nomme_ Hyde.
I ought not to forget to say your tale fetched me (Miss Green) by its
really vile probability. If we had met that man in Honolulu he would
have done it, and Miss Green would have done it. Only, alas! there is no
completed novel lying in the garret: would there were! It should be out
to-morrow with the name to it, and relieve a kind of tightness in the
money market much deplored in our immediate circle. To be sure (now I
come to think of it) there are some seven chapters of _The Great North
Road_; three, I think, of _Robin Run the Hedge_, given up when some
nefarious person pre-empted the name; and either there--or somewhere
else--likely New York--one chapter of _David Balfour_, and five or six
of the _Memoirs of Henry Shovel_. That's all. But Lloyd and I have
one-half of The Wrecker in type, and a good part of _The Pearl Fisher_
(O, a great and grisly tale that!) in MS. And I have a projected,
entirely planned love-story--everybody will think it dreadfully
improper, I'm afraid--called _Cannonmills_. And I've a vague, rosy haze
before me--a love-story too, but not improper--called _The Rising Sun_.
(It's the name of the wayside inn where the story, or much of the story,
runs; but it's a kind of a pun: it means the stirring up of a boy by
falling in love, and how he rises in the estimation of a girl who
despised him, though she liked him, and had befriended him; I really
scarce see beyond their childhood yet, but I want to go beyond, and make
each out-top the other by successions: it should be pretty and true if I
could do it.) Also I have my big book, _The South Seas_, always with me,
and a sair handfu'--if I may be allowed to speak Scotch to Miss Green--a
sair handfu' it is likely to be. All this literary gossip I bestow upon
you _entre confreres_, Miss Green, which is little more than fair, Miss
Green.
Allow me to remark that it is now half-past twelve o'clock of the living
night; I should certainly be ashamed of myself, and you also; for this
is no time of the night for Miss Green to be colloguing with a
comparatively young gentleman of forty. So with all the kindest wishes
to yourself, and all at Lostock, and all friends in Hants, or over the
borders in Dorset, I bring my folly to an end. Please believe, even when
I am silent, in my real affection; I need not say the same for Fanny,
more obdurately silent, not less affectionate than I.--Your friend,
ROBERT--ROBIN LEWISON.
(Nearly had it wrong--force of habit.)
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
_Union Club, Sydney [September 1890]._
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--I began a letter to you on board the _Janet
Nicoll_ on my last cruise, wrote, I believe, two sheets, and ruthlessly
destroyed the flippant trash. Your last has given me great pleasure and
some pain, for it increased the consciousness of my neglect. Now, this
must go to you, whatever it is like.
... It is always harshness that one regrets.... I regret also my letter
to Dr. Hyde. Yes, I do; I think it was barbarously harsh; if I did it
now, I would defend Damien no less well, and give less pain to those who
are alive. These promptings of good-humour are not all sound; the three
times three, cheer boys cheer, and general amiability business rests on
a sneaking love of popularity, the most insidious enemy of virtue. On
the whole, it was virtuous to defend Damien; but it was harsh to strike
so hard at Dr. Hyde. When I wrote the letter, I believed he would bring
an action, in which case I knew I could be beggared. And as yet there
has come no action; the injured Doctor has contented himself up to now
with the (truly innocuous) vengeance of calling me a "Bohemian Crank,"
and I have deeply wounded one of his colleagues whom I esteemed and
liked.
Well, such is life. You are quite right; our civilisation is a hollow
fraud, all the fun of life is lost by it; all it gains is that a larger
number of persons can continue to be contemporaneously unhappy on the
surface of the globe. O, unhappy!--there is a big word and a
false--continue to be not nearly--by about twenty per cent.--so happy as
they might be: that would be nearer the mark.
When--observe that word, which I will write again and larger--WHEN you
come to see us in Samoa, you will see for yourself a healthy and happy
people.
You see, you are one of the very few of our friends rich enough to come
and see us; and when my house is built, and the road is made, and we
have enough fruit planted and poultry and pigs raised, it is undeniable
that you must come--must is the word; that is the way in which I speak
to ladies. You and Fairchild, anyway--perhaps my friend Blair--we'll
arrange details in good time. It will be the salvation of your souls,
and make you willing to die.
Let me tell you this: In '74 or 5 there came to stay with my father and
mother a certain Mr. Seed, a prime minister or something of New Zealand.
He spotted what my complaint was; told me that I had no business to stay
in Europe; that I should find all I cared for, and all that was good for
me, in the Navigator Islands; sat up till four in the morning persuading
me, demolishing my scruples. And I resisted: I refused to go so far from
my father and mother. O, it was virtuous, and O, wasn't it silly! But my
father, who was always my dearest, got to his grave without that pang;
and now in 1890, I (or what is left of me) go at last to the Navigator
Islands. God go with us! It is but a Pisgah sight when all is said; I go
there only to grow old and die; but when you come, you will see it is a
fair place for the purpose.
Flaubert[38] has not turned up; I hope he will soon; I knew of him only
through Maxime Descamps.--With kindest messages to yourself and all of
yours, I remain
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] King Kalakaua.
[28] This is the Canadian poet Archibald Lampman (d. 1899).
[29] Stevenson's stepdaughter, Mrs. Strong, who was at this time
living at Honolulu, and joined his party and family for good after
they arrived at Sydney in the following autumn.
[30] R. A. M. Stevenson was at this time professor of Fine Art in the
University of Liverpool.
[31] The Hawaiian name for white men.
[32] The writer has omitted something here.
[33] Table of chapter headings follows.
[34] French _batons rompus_: disconnected thoughts or studies.
[35] The Rev. Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu: in reference to Stevenson's
letter on Father Damien.
[36] By Emile Zola.
[37] Afterwards re-named _The Ebb-Tide_.
[38] His _Letters_.
END OF VOL. XXIV
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