CHAPTER VIII

THE HAPPY YEARS IN SAMOA.

It was in Samoa that the word "home" first began to have a real

meaning for these gypsy wanderers, lured on as they had been half

round the world in their quest of the will-o'-the-wisp, health. Having

bought the land, which lay on rising ground about three miles from the

town of Apia, it was then necessary to find the money to build a house

on it. After some thought, Mrs. Stevenson suggested that they might

sell Skerryvore in England, and thus turn the one house directly into

the other. As Skerryvore had been a gift to her from her

father-in-law, Louis said, "But this money is yours," and he then said

he would make it all right by leaving her the Samoan place in his

will, which he did, "with all that it contained."

The next thing was to choose a name, and they finally decided upon the

native word Vailima,[34] meaning "five waters," in reference to a

stream fed by four tributaries that ran through the place.

[Footnote 34: Pronounced Vyleéma.]

Without more ado they plunged eagerly into the business of clearing

the forest and building their house--a task for which Fanny Stevenson,

by taste and early training, was supremely fitted. She wrote at once

to her mother-in-law in Scotland, saying: "Come when you like. Even

if we make a temporary shelter you need not be so very uncomfortable.

The only question is the food problem, and if in six months I cannot

have a garden producing and fowls and pigs and cows it will be strange

to me." In all this she took a high delight, for, like a true pioneer,

she found more pleasure in the _doing_ of a task than in the thing

finished. When the house or garden or what-not was done, and there was

nothing left but to admire, a great part of the interest in it was

gone for her. At Vailima she had almost a virgin field for her

gardening activities, and her "Dutch blood" rejoiced within her. In

the old California days her husband, in his humorous way, had called

her "the forty-niner," but now, as he watched her, flitting in her

blue dress, like a witch, in all parts of the plantation, directing,

expostulating, and working with her hands when words failed, he called

her "my little blue bogie planter." Writing to Miss Taylor, he says:

"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...."

The place they had bought was not precisely in the "bush," as the

unbroken forest is called in those lands, for it had once been partly

under cultivation; but it needs only a short season of neglect for the

devouring jungle to sweep over and obliterate all traces of the

handiwork of man. To all intents they began anew to clear out a place

for their house and garden, in the midst of the great silent forest,

"where one might hear the babbling of a burn close by, and the

birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six

hundred feet below." The days were "fine like heaven; such a blue of

the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the hibiscus

flowers were never dreamed of; and the air as mild and gentle as a

baby's breath--and yet not hot."

"The scenery," writes Mrs. Stevenson to Miss Boodle, "is simply

enchanting; here a cliff, there a dashing little river, yonder a

waterfall, here a great gorge slashed through the hillside, and

everywhere a vegetation that baffles description. Our only workmen are

cannibals from other islands and so-called savages--though I have

never yet met one man whom that word described accurately. I have with

me [on the steamer _Lubeck_, on the way from Sydney to Samoa] a

cageful of beautiful yellow fowls, a big black mother sow is to

follow, and soon I mean to have some pretty Jersey cows and some

gentle horses. I have packages of garden seeds to experiment with, and

it is odd indeed if I am not able soon to provision a garrison. One of

the first things I shall plunge into is an ice-house run by cascade

power."

At first they lived in a two-room cottage, designed to serve later as

a gate lodge, where comfort was at a minimum. The road to Apia was

scarcely more than a footpath, and it was difficult to bring up

supplies in any quantity. At times provisions ran low, and the story

of the occasion when they were reduced to dining on a single

avocado[35] pear was told so often, in print and otherwise, that

during all the following time of plenty they had to keep explaining

that they really had enough to eat. Of course the famine was more

apparent than real, for there was enough food at the town only three

miles away, and the occasional dearth in those first days was merely a

matter of the inconvenience of bringing it up.

[Footnote 35: Commonly called "alligator" pear.]

It was in the hurricane season, too, and there were days when they sat

in momentary fear lest their frail dwelling should be carried away by

the fury of the storm or crushed beneath some falling giant of the

forest.

From the day of their arrival at Vailima, in September, 1890, Mrs.

Stevenson began to keep a diary--a record which has proved to be one

of the most valuable sources of material in writing her biography, and

which itself has a curious history. When, after her husband's death,

she finally left Vailima, the diary was inadvertently left behind,

eventually making its way to London and falling into the hands of an

English lady, Miss Gladys Peacock, who, thinking it might be of some

use to the family, sent it to Lloyd Osbourne, with a note saying that

"of course she had not read it." It is to the courtesy of this

Englishwoman that I am indebted for the extracts from the diary, of

which I shall make free use.

In their temporary lodge in the wilderness, where they were encamped

while the big house was building, furniture and other comforts of

civilization were decidedly lacking, but they had brought beds with

them, and Mrs. Stevenson at once set the carpenter to putting them up.

For help about the house and premises they had to depend on Paul

Einfürer, the German pantryman from the _Lubeck_, who had come up and

asked for work. He was good-natured but clumsy, and spoke so little

English that it was difficult to communicate with him. The natives

employed in clearing and planting knew only Samoan, and Mrs. Stevenson

often found it necessary to instruct them by doing the work with her

own hands. Writing humorously of her troubles to Sir Sidney Colvin,

her husband says: "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 be again, and he made a stair by which the pigs will probably

escape this evening, and she was near weeping.... 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." Again he writes:

"The guid wife had bread to bake, and she baked it in a pan, O! But

between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive[36] in the

paddock. Our dinner--the lowest we have ever been--consisted of an

avocado pear between Fanny and me, a ship's biscuit for the guid man,

white bread for the missis, and red wine for the twa; no salt horse,

even, in all Vailima!"

[Footnote 36: They had a terrible time with the

sensitive plant, which had become a pest there and grew

almost faster than they could weed it out.]

On the last trip from Sydney Mrs. Stevenson had brought all sorts of

seeds with her--tomatoes, beans, alfalfa, melons, and a dozen

others--and she went about the place dropping them in wherever she

thought they would grow. Some difficulties peculiar to the tropics had

to be met and conquered. For instance, rats ate out the inside of the

melons as soon as they were ripe, and it became necessary to put out

poison. A beginning had been made in the way of live stock, of which

she says: "We have three pigs--one fine imported boar and two

slab-sided sows. They dwell in a large circular enclosure, which, with

its stone walls, looks like an ancient fortification."

These same swine became the torment of their lives, for some of the

devils said to haunt Vailima seemed to have entered into them, and no

sty could be made strong enough to restrain them.

In clearing away the dense growth on the site of their projected house

they were careful to preserve the best of the native plants. "The

trees that have been left standing in the clearing," says the diary,

"are of immense size, really majestic, with creepers winding about

their trunks and orchids growing in the forks of their branches. These

great trees are alive with birds, which chatter at certain hours of

the night and morning with rich, throaty voices. Though they do not

exactly sing, the sound they make is very musical and pretty.

Yesterday Ben [the man of all work] took his gun and went into the

bush to shoot. He returned with some small birds like parrots, which

were almost bursting with fat. I felt some compunction about eating

birds that suggested cages and swings and stands, but as we had

nothing else to eat was fain to cook them, and a very excellent dish

they made. I have read somewhere that the dodo and a relative of his

called the 'tooth-billed pigeon' are still to be found on this

island. It would be delightful to possess a pet dodo."[37]

[Footnote 37: "The one surviving species of dodo, the

manume'a, a bird about the size of a small moor-hen,

exists in Samoa. It has only recovered its present

feeble powers of flight since cats were introduced in

the island. Its dark flesh is extremely

delicious."--From Balfour's _Life of Robert Louis

Stevenson_.]

Although their stay in the little lodge was to be but temporary, it

was like her to set to work to make it a pleasant abode even for the

short time that they were to be there. "What we most dislike about our

house," she says, "is the chilly, death-like aspect of the colors in

which it is painted--black and white and lead-color. So we unearthed

from our boxes some pieces of _tapa_[38] in rich shades of brown and

nailed them on the walls, using pieces of another pattern for

bordering, and at once the whole appearance of the room was changed.

Over the door connecting the two rooms we fastened a large flat piece

of pink coral, a present given me by Captain Reid when we were on the

_Equator_. We have had the carpenter put up shelves in one corner of

the room and on two sides of one of the windows. I also had him nail

some boards together in the form of a couch, upon which I have laid a

mattress covered by a shawl. On the table an old pink cloth is spread,

and when we light the lamp and set the little Japanese burner to

smoking buhach--for, alas, there are mosquitoes--we feel quite snug

and homelike.

[Footnote 38: Tapa is a cloth made of vegetable fibre

and stained in various striking patterns. It is used by

the natives for clothing, curtains, beds, and many other

purposes.]

"The pig house, a most unsightly thing, is finished, and a creeper or

two will soon disguise its ugliness. There seem to be a great number

of mummy apples[39] springing up through the clearing, of which I am

glad for the sake of the prospective cow. Paul and I have planted out

a lot of kidney potatoes, which is an experiment only, as they are not

supposed to grow in Samoa. We have sowed tomato seeds, also artichokes

and eggplants, in boxes. A few days ago Mr. Caruthers sent us half a

dozen very fine pineapples, and as fast as we eat them we plant the

tops.

[Footnote 39: The papaw.]

"_October 6._ I have been too busy to write before. Much has been

accomplished. A good lot of sweet corn is planted, besides peas,

onions, lettuce, and radishes. Lima beans are coming up, and some of

the cantaloupes. Mr. Caruthers has brought a root of mint and some

cuttings of granadilla,[40] which have been set out along the arbor.

It seems absolutely impossible to get anything sent up to us from

Apia. Lists and notes go flying, but, except from Krause the butcher,

with no results. It seems an odd thing that there should not be a

spade or a rake for sale in a town where there would be no difficulty

in finding the best quality of champagne, to say nothing of all the

materials for mixed drinks. We have almost starved for want of

provisions until yesterday, when Ben killed a couple of fowls, a large

piece of meat came from town, Paul shot two pigeons, and Mr. Blacklock

came with fresh tomatoes. Afterwards Ben came with palusami,[41] and

now to-day comes a young native girl from Mrs. Blacklock with enormous

bananas, long green beans, a dozen eggs, and a bunch of flowers, and

Ben has come in with eight little parrots. It seems either a feast or

a famine with us.

[Footnote 40: A tropical fruit.]

[Footnote 41: A native dish of taro tops and cocoanut.]

"_October 7._ Last night it rained heavily, which was good for my

plants, but, as our kitchen is some six or eight yards from the house,

cooking became a series of adventures. I had set a sponge for bread

last night, and was most anxious to bake the dough early in the day. A

black boy was sent to the carpenter for a moulding board, and, placing

it on a chair on the back veranda, I knelt on the floor with a shawl

over my head to keep the rain off and made up the loaves. In making

the dough I was successful, but the attempt to bake it almost sent me

into hysterics. With an umbrella over my head I ran to the kitchen,

but found, to my dismay, that all the wood was soaked, and the wind

drove the smoke back into the stove, which thereupon belched forth

acrid clouds from every opening. Paul ran down to where the carpenter

had been working, and returned with a boxful of chips which we dried

on top of the stove, swallowing volumes of smoke as we did so. Then I

called Ben and showed him how to nail up the half of a tin kerosene

can over the opening of the pipe to screen it from the wind. That

helped a little, but the rain beat in on the stove, and, though we

consumed immense quantities of chips, it still remained cold. Finally

I made a barrier of boxes around the stove, and that brought a measure

of success, so that in about a couple of hours I was able to half

bake, half dry a fowl for luncheon. By that time the bread was done

for, and I very nearly so. Paul and I held a council of war, and

decided to send the boys down to the pavilion to live, while we took

their room for a kitchen and dining-room, one end serving for the one

and the other end for the other, somewhat after the fashion of Mr. and

Mrs. Boffin's room in _Our Mutual Friend_.

"There were two mango trees among the plants sent up by Mr. Caruthers,

and I was surprised to see among them also a shrub that is the pest of

Tahiti and will become so here if it is planted. In the afternoon, the

rain being then only a high mist, Simile and I began to set out the

things. While busy at this I saw three or four beautiful young men,

followed by a troop of dogs, pass along our road towards the bush. I

have seldom seen more graceful, elegant creatures than these fellows.

They carried large knives and axes, wore hats of fresh green banana

leaves, and also carried large banana leaves as umbrellas to keep off

the rain. With a friendly _tofa_ [farewell] on either side, they went

their way. After we had planted all the roots and taken a little rest,

Simile and I took a hoe and pickaxe and finished the afternoon sowing

Indian corn. I asked Simile while we were planting which was the best

season for such work, meaning the wet, dry, or intermediate time. 'We

Samoans,' he answered, 'always go by the moon. Unless we plant in the

time of the big round moon we expect no fruit.'

"I thought one of my yellow hens wanted to sit, and that it would be

the proper thing to provide her with eggs. To identify the eggs from

fresh ones I made a black pencil mark around each one. After all was

finished I retired from the henhouse and peeped through the palings.

Madam hen clucked up to the nest, as I had always seen hens do, but at

the sight of the marked eggs she started back in a sort of surprise

and alarm. 'What's the matter?' cried the two cocks, stretching wide

legs as they hastened to the spot. They, too, started back, just as

the hen had done, held a hurried consultation and finally ventured to

touch the eggs with their beaks. By this time all the five yellow hens

had gathered round the nest, and pretty soon all the others were

craning their necks to gaze at the marvel. After the cocks had poked

the eggs about a little with their beaks the hens went nearer and

tried to peck off the black marks. All the time there was a great

hubbub of anxious conversation. The next morning more than half the

eggs had been destroyed, and to save those that were left I had to

remove them."

Exploring their new estate was one of their most exciting and at the

same time laborious occupations, for most of the land was so densely

overgrown that it was necessary to carry a bush knife with which to

cut a path as they went, and, moreover, unexpected dangers lurked in

the beautiful ferny depths. "Louis and I went up to see the banana

patch," says the diary, "Louis carrying a knife to clear the road. For

a little way we followed a fairly open path that had previously been

cleared by Louis, but by and by it began to close up and become

treacherously boggy underfoot. Several times we were ankle-deep in mud

and water, and Louis had to slash down the tall vegetation that

obstructed our way. Before long he cried out: 'Behold your banana

patch!' And there it was, sure enough--a great number of sturdy,

thickset young plants, many with bunches of fruit hanging above the

strange purple flower of the plant, choked with a rank undergrowth and

set with the roots in sluggishly running water. Here and there the

gigantic leaves of the great _taro_[42] spread out--a dark, shining

green. It was too much for Louis, who fell to clearing on the spot,

while I went on to the end of the plantation. Once or twice I was

nearly stuck in the bog, but managed to drag myself from the ooze by

clinging to a strong plant. After a while Louis called out to me as

though in answer, and I hurried back to him. When I came up he said he

had mistaken the cry of a bird for my voice and supposed I had lost

the path. I helped him a little while pulling up the smaller weeds,

but was in mortal terror of touching a poisonous creeper whose

acquaintance I had already made and whose marks I still bear. It went

to my heart to dig up and destroy the most lovely specimens of ferns I

have ever seen, but I did it bravely, though I determined to return

some day and make a collection of them. Some of the more delicate

climbing ferns were magnificent. Occasionally as I drew out a plant

the air around me was filled with the perfume of its bruised leaves.

It was entrancing work, though we were soaked with mud and water, but

before very long my head began to swim, and I proposed to go back to

the house and see about some sort of food. I just managed to get a

meal prepared and then gave out utterly, for my beautiful banana swamp

had given me a fever with a most alarming promptitude. I could not

sleep all night, but kept waking with a start, my heart and pulses

bounding, and my head aching miserably. This morning Louis gave me a

dose of quinine, which soon helped me.

[Footnote 42: A tropical plant with an edible root.]

"The pigs had to be watered when we came back from the perfidious

swamp, but how to manage it I could not see. Paul was ill, Simile was

gone, and I feared it might be dangerous for Louis to lift pails of

water. I walked round and round the stone wall of their fortification,

but it seemed unclimbable and impenetrable. I might have got over

myself, but could not manage the pailful, also. Finally I thought of a

boy, the son of a neighbor, who had come to visit Paul, and persuaded

him to undertake the task of watering the pigs. The next day I

discovered that he had simply poured the water over the wall upon the

ground, and my poor pigs had gone thirsty all night. I cannot think

that is the sort of son to help a pioneer.

"In the midst of all this Louis wished to go down to Apia. It took all

six of the boys to catch the pony, and in the meantime Louis was

having a desperate struggle to find his clothes and dress. I was in a

dazed state with fever and quinine and could not help him at all. At

last he got away, in what sort of garb I tremble to think, and he was

hardly out of sight before I discovered all the things he had been in

search of--in their right places, naturally."

Eternal vigilance was the price of any progress made in her gardening,

for the moment her eyes were taken off the workmen they committed some

provoking blunder that often undid the work of weeks. "As all the men

were off with the cart," she writes, "I thought I might as well let

Ben plant corn, which he assured me he understood perfectly, for had

he not planted all the first lot which had failed through the

depredations of the rats? At about three Simile and I went down to put

in some pumpkin seeds among the corn, and, to my disgust, I saw why

the first lot of corn had failed. Ben's idea of planting was to scrape

a couple of inches off the ground, drop in a handful of corn, and then

kick a few leaves over the grains. It is really wonderful that any at

all should have germinated.

"While we were working Sitioni[43] came up with some pineapple plants.

He said the people were fighting in Tutuila, but he did not think it

would come to war here. He showed me a large pistol fastened round his

waist by a cartridge belt, and tried to shoot a flying bat with it,

but failed. Simile told me that the vampire bat, or flying fox, as

they call it here, is good to eat, but I do not think I could eat bat.

My lady pig from Sydney is at Apia, but as she only cost thirty-seven

shillings I feel doubts as to her quality. Still, in Samoa a pig's a

pig.

[Footnote 43: Sitioni was a chief, later known as

Amatua, a name of higher rank. We shall hear of Amatua

again at the very end of the story.]

"_Next day._ The pig is a very small, very common pig, but

nevertheless I had the boys make a special sty for her. The old cock

is really too bad. Every time an egg is laid he strikes his bill into

it, and, throwing it on the ground, calls his harem to a cannibal

feast. Something, either the rats or a wild hen, has destroyed all our

corn."

Perhaps no other part of their life in Samoa was so full of happiness

for them as these first days--just those two alone, for the presence

of their childlike native helpers counted as naught--with all the

surroundings yet in a primitive state and little to remind them of the

sophisticated world from which they had been glad to escape. Both were

natural-born children of the wild. In the brief tropical twilight they

often walked together and talked of the beautiful future they thought

they saw stretching out before them.

"Last night," so runs the diary, "Louis and I walked up and down the

path behind the house. The air was soft and warm, but not too warm,

and filled with the most delicious fragrance. These perfumes of the

tropic forest are wonderful. When I am pulling weeds it often happens

that a puff of the sweetest scent blows back to me as I cast away a

handful of wild plants. I believe I have discovered the ylang-ylang

tree, about which there has been so much mystery. Simile tells me that

one of the priests distils perfume from the same tree. It does not

grow very large and has a delicate leaf of a tender shade of green,

with the flowers, of a greenish white, in racemes. The natives often

use these flowers to mix in their wreaths."

Every paradise has its drawbacks, and though ferocious wild beasts and

poisonous snakes are absent from that fortunate island, yet there were

many small creatures dwelling in the neighbouring jungle that

sometimes made their presence known in disconcerting ways. Of one of

these she writes: "We were driven out of the house by a tree frog of

stentorian voice, which was hidden in a tree near the front veranda

and made a noise like a saw being filed, only fifty times louder. It

actually shook the drums of my ears.... I had to stop just here to

show Paul how to tie a knot that would not slip. The last time Mr.

Caruthers was here he found his horse at the point of strangulation

from a slip noose round its neck as Paul had tethered it out in the

grass.... To return to the tree frog. When we settled ourselves at the

table for the evening what was our horror to hear a second tree frog

piping up just over our heads in the eaves of the house. We poked at

him for some time with sticks and brooms, and I had a guilty feeling

that I had done him a mortal injury; but when, after we were in bed

and half asleep, he started saw-filing again, I wished I had."

The hurricane season now came on, and wild tropic storms, of a

violence of which they had never before dreamed, beat on the little

house in the clearing with terrifying fury. "We had a very heavy

rainstorm," the diary records, "with thunder and lightning. At night

the rain fell so noisily that we could not hear each other speak, and

it seemed as though the house must be crushed in by the weight of

water falling on it. In the middle of the night Louis arose, made a

light, and fell to writing verses. I was troubled about the taller

corn--lest it be broken down and spoiled. Yet all went well, for the

verses turned out not badly and the corn stood as straight as I could

have wished it to do.

"The banana patch is pretty well cleared, but it is difficult to keep

men at work there. 'Too many devils, me 'fraid,' explained Lafaele

when he came back sooner than I had anticipated. There are devils

everywhere in the bush, it is said; creatures that take on the

semblance of man and kill those with whom they converse, but our

banana patch seems to be exceptionally cursed with the presence of

these demons."

Indeed, to be alone in the jungle is a solemn thing, even for people

of stronger mentality than the superstitious natives. The vegetation

is so dense that there are no shadows, and, the location of the sun

being an unsolvable mystery, one becomes affected by a strange lost

feeling. The loneliness, the silence, the impossibility of seeing far

into the surrounding wall of foliage, all oppress the soul, and

strange alarms attack the most hardy. Then at night, when there is no

moon and the darkness is thick, a phosphorescent light, due to

decaying wood, shines fearsomely all about on the ground, so that it

seems, as Louis said, "like picking one's way over the mouth of hell."

"We ourselves," writes Mrs. Stevenson, "have become infected with the

native fear of the spirits. Louis has been cutting a path in the bush,

and he confesses that the sight of anything like a human figure would

send him flying like the wind with his heart in his mouth. One night

the world seemed full of strange supernatural noises. When Louis

whispered 'Listen! What's that?' I felt as though cold water had been

poured down my back, but it was only the hissing of a fire in the

clearing. The same night we were waked by sounds of terror in the

henhouse. Paul, Louis, and I ran out with one accord, but could see

nothing. In the morning we found the body of a pullet with its heart

torn out. Simile says that the murderer is a certain small and

beautiful bird, but we were quite in the mood to believe it an

_aitu_."

Notwithstanding the slow progress caused by inefficient help and the

difficulty of getting materials up the steep road to their plantation,

they could see their home gradually growing around them. Mr.

Stevenson's health was better than it had been since their marriage,

and a deep content settled gently upon their long-harassed spirits.

Something of this is reflected in an entry made in her diary on a

certain beautiful, still evening: "It is now half-past eight and very

dark, for the moon is not yet up and the sky is overcast. The air is

fresh and sweetly damp and redolent of many scented leaves and

flowers. I can hear the sea on Apia beach; the sound of it is regular,

like hoarse breathing, or even more like the rhythmic purring of a

gigantic cat. Crickets and tree frogs and innumerable other insects

and small beasts are chirping and pecking with various noises that

mingle harmoniously. Occasionally a bird calls with a startling

cry--perhaps the very bird that murdered my poor pullet. When I stood

in the doorway and looked in, the room seemed to be glowing with

color, glowing and melting, and yet there is nothing to go upon but

the _tapa_ on the walls, the coral, the pink and maroon window

curtains of the coarsest cotton print, a ragged old ink-spotted

table-cover, a few print-covered pillows, and the pandanus mats on the

floor. Louis's books, with their bindings of blue and green, to say

nothing of gold lettering, help greatly on the six shelves, and the

two _kava_ bowls that I have worked as hard to color as a young man

with his first meerschaum have taken on a fine opalescent coating."

This, of course, was when they were living in the temporary quarters

while the main house was being built.

The entry of November 15 gives us an amusing tale of the horses: "The

cart horses, a couple of large, mild-eyed, gentle, dappled grays, have

arrived from Auckland. It was pleasant to see them fall upon the grass

after their tedious sea voyage. Just as we were thinking about going

to bed, an alarming noise was heard from the direction of the stable.

It had been raining hard all day and was still drizzling. The weeds on

the way to the stable were up to my waist and dripping with water. The

prospect was not inviting, but we nobly marched out with the lantern

and an umbrella. As we entered the enclosure where the stable stands,

or rather stood, we became aware of two large white objects showing

indistinctly through the darkness. A little nearer and our two horses

were looking us in the face. They had eaten the sides and ends of

their house quite away. They must have thought it odd to be housed in

an edible stable.[44] When we entered they received us with every sign

of welcome, but we were dismayed to find them tangled with each other

and the wreck of the partition. Louis crawled in under the big hairy

feet, and, after much labor, got one wet knot untangled, the horses

meanwhile smelling and nosing about the top of his head. He said he

expected at every moment to have it bitten off, for, he argued, if the

horses found a stable edible, in these outlandish parts, they might

easily conceive the idea of sampling the hostler.... I am interrupted

at this moment by Simile at the door to ask a question. I wish I could

take a photograph as he stands at the door, with the steady eyes of a

capable man of affairs, but the dress of a houri; about his loins he

has twisted a piece of white cotton; a broad garland of drooping ferns

passes over his forehead, crosses at the back of his head, and coming

forward round his neck is fastened in a knot of greenery on his

breast. He is rather a plain young man, but he looks really lovely

just now, and the incongruous expression of his eyes heightens the

effect.

[Footnote 44: The stable was probably made of pandanus

leaves, like the native houses.]

"Yesterday we had a terrific storm, quite alarming to people living in

such a vulnerable abode. Even when the weather is fair the house

shakes as though it would fall if any one comes upstairs rapidly, and

the slight iron roof is entirely open at the eaves to catch any wind

that blows. We could not keep a lamp burning, and the lantern kept for

such emergencies having been broken by Paul, we were in semi-darkness.

Late in the afternoon a cloud enveloped us so that we could see no

farther than in a London fog. From that time the gale increased,

lashing the branches of the trees together, and sometimes twisting

their trunks and throwing them to the ground. We could see the rain

through the windows driving in layers, one sheet above another.

Occasionally there was an ominous thrashing on the iron roof as

though the great hardwood tree alongside of the house meant to do us

an injury. Water poured in under our ill-fitting doors, the matches

were too damp to light, and the general discomfort and sloppiness gave

one quite the feeling of being at sea. I wished we might reef in some

of our green tree sails, which reminded me of Ah Fu's terror of the

land and longing to be at sea in bad weather. Simile and his boys are

building or, rather, excavating, a hurricane refuge. I went to see it

yesterday and found it a big mudhole with immense boulders heaving up

from the bottom. I advised the instant digging of a ditch unless they

wished to use it for a bathing pool. The hole must be pretty well

filled up by to-day, for last night the rain came down in awful

torrents. For the last two days the evening light has been very

strange and disquieting--a whitish glare in the sky, the trees and

bare ground a burnt-sienna red, and the vegetation a strong crude

green with a delicate white bloom. The rain is still pouring and the

whole world is damp and uncomfortable."

The hurricanes were varied now and then by earthquakes, of which they

felt two distinct shocks on January 13. To add to these discomforts,

tiny visitors from the jungle gave them many pin-pricks of annoyance.

"It is strange," says the diary, "that each night has its separate

plague of insects. The mosquitoes, of course, are always with us, and

Simile's hurricane cellar has become a fine breeding place for them.

But on one night moths are our torment, while perhaps the very next

night it will be myriads of small black beetles. At another time the

creatures may be of a large cockshafer sort, or a dreadful

square-tailed thing that is especially ominous. To-night I have had

for the first time two sets of tormentors, the first being small

burnished beetles of the most lovely colors imaginable. A

pinkish-bronze fellow lies on my paper as I write; he kept standing on

his head until he died in a fit. It seems a color night, for I now

have small silver moths, all of a size but with different beautiful

markings. There are also large salmon-colored moths that Louis cannot

bear the sight of because they are marked like a skeleton. Perhaps

they are a variety of the death's head moth. They are almost as large

as a humming-bird, and have beautiful eyes that glow in the dark like

fire."

Enough order had now come out of the first chaos to encourage them to

write for the elder Mrs. Stevenson. Her son went to Sydney to meet

her, but was there taken very ill and returned in that condition with

his mother as nurse. During his absence his wife remained in sole

charge, and, judging by the entries in her diary, she had her hands

full every moment of the time. Everybody--white, brown, or black--went

to her with apparently full confidence that she was able to cure any

wound or disease. "One day," she says, "I heard a loud weeping as of

some one in great pain; a man had just had two fingers dreadfully

crushed. I really didn't know what to do except to go to a doctor, but

as the wound was bleeding a good deal I mixed up some crystals of iron

in water and washed his hand in that. To my surprise his cries

instantly ceased, and he declares he has had no pain since. It was

only for the effect on his mind that I gave the iron, which so far as

I know is a styptic only; I always think it best to give

something--perhaps on the principle of the doctors when they give

bread pills. I have cured both Paul and the carpenter of violent

lumbago, but there I had a little knowledge to go upon. To-day a man

came to us with the sole of his foot very much inflamed from having

run a nail into it the day before yesterday. I bound a bit of fat

bacon on the foot--an old Negro remedy which was the only one I could

think of. It is even more difficult when they bring me their domestic

troubles to settle, in which they seem to think I am as great an

expert as in curing their physical ills."

In the effort to keep things from being lost or improperly used she

fell into the habit of storing them in her bedroom, so that in time it

became a veritable junk-shop. "Among my dresses," she writes, "hang

bridle straps and horse robes. On the camphor-wood trunk which serves

as my dressing-table, beside my comb and toothbrush, a collection of

tools--chisels, pincers, and the like--is spread out. Leather straps

and parts of harness hang from the walls, as well as a long carved

spear, a pistol, strings of teeth--of fish, beasts, and human

beings--necklaces of shells, and several hats. Fine mats and _tapas_

are piled up in heaps. My little cot bed seems to have got into its

place by mistake. Besides the above mentioned articles there are an

easel and two cameras stowed in one corner. A strange lady's chamber

indeed."

On March 28 there was a stiff blow, during which the little cottage

rocked and groaned in the most alarming way, and with one gust of wind

it swung over so far that its terrified occupants thought it was gone.

All, including Mrs. Stevenson, then took refuge in the stable, which

was rather more solidly constructed. The hurricane, the most violent

they had yet experienced, lasted several days, during which they

remained in the stable, sleeping in the stalls in wet beds, having to

sweep out the water without ceasing and suffering severely from clouds

of mosquitoes. When at last the storm abated and they could return to

the house, they found everything wet and mildewed and the cottage

leaning with a decided cant to one side. Worst of all, one of the

horses had become entangled in the barbed-wire fence that had been

blown down by the wind, and was dreadfully injured. Thus they

discovered that life in the tropics has its drawbacks as well as its

delights.

These were the primitive conditions that greeted the elder Mrs.

Stevenson on her arrival, and the poor lady's surprise and

consternation were increased by the appearance of the good-hearted

Paul while waiting on table--a plump little German with a bald head,

clothed in a flannel shirt open at the neck, a pair of ragged

trousers, particularly dilapidated in the seat and held up by a

leather strap round the waist, a sheath-knife stuck in the belt,

barefoot, and most likely offering the information that "the meat is

tough, by God." Having no pioneer ancestry to sustain her she was

unable to endure the discomforts of the place and only remained over

the stay of the _Lubeck_, after which she fled to Sydney, there to

await the time when civilization should have been established on the

plantation.

By the end of April the new house was ready for them to move in, and

by July the whole family, including the Strongs,[45] were established

on the place.

[Footnote 45: Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, Isobel Strong,

with her husband and son.]

The conditions of their lives were now vastly more comfortable. Mrs.

Stevenson no longer had to share the evening lamp with death's-head

moths and piping tree-frogs, for gauze doors and windows had been put

in to keep out the flying things. Nor did she have to take refuge in

the stable when the hurricane season came around, for the new house

was staunchly built and stout storm-shutters stood against the fury of

the wind and rain.

Of Vailima in its finished aspect I need not speak in detail, since it

has been fully and elaborately described by Graham Balfour in his

_Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_. With its band of "house boys" and

"out boys"--a fine-looking lot of fellows of whom their master was

very proud--the household grew to be almost like that of a feudal

chief, or Scotch laird of the old days, and Mrs. Stevenson took her

place as its mistress as though "to the manner born." The place became

the centre of social life in the island and was the scene of frequent

balls and parties, dinners with twenty-five or thirty guests,

Christmas parties with the guests staying for three days, and tennis

nearly every day with officers from the men-of-war in the harbour and

ladies from the mission. Over these entertainments Mrs. Stevenson

presided--a gracious and beautiful hostess. Once when her grandson,

Austin Strong, came home for a holiday from school, she gave a ball in

his honour. There were torches all along the road to light the way up,

boys in uniform to receive and take care of the guests and their

horses, and a band to play for dancing. For weeks beforehand the

dressmakers of Apia had to work overtime. But it is not to be supposed

that this comfortable state was brought about without great efforts on

the part of the whole family. Mrs. Strong took over the housekeeping,

management of supplies and training of servants, leaving her mother

free to devote her energies to the outdoor work she loved best.

Writing to Miss Jane Balfour, Mrs. Stevenson says: "Never were people

so full of affairs. We have to start a plantation in the solid bush,

manage all our complicated business, receive furniture and guests--and

all the while trying madly to get the house in order and feed our

family. We must have horses to ride or we can go nowhere. The land

must be cleared and grass to feed horses and cows must be planted. Men

have to be taught, also, how to take care of the animals and must be

watched every moment. I am glad to say that the gossip among the

natives is that I have eyes all around my head and am in fifty places

at once, and that I am a person to be feared and obeyed."

The fertile soil and kindly climate of the island encouraged her to

experiment, not only with the plants native to the place, but also

with exotics brought from other lands. In importing these foreign

plants she exercised the greatest care not to introduce any pest, for

she knew that when the lantana was taken to Hawaii and the sweetbrier

to New Zealand these foreigners showed such a destructive fondness for

their adopted homes that they came near choking out everything else.

Before introducing any plant she consulted the heads of the botanical

gardens at Kew and Colombo and the grass expert at Washington, D. C.

She even had the soil that came around her plants burned, for fear it

might bring in insects or disease. The lawn was an accomplishment in

itself, for after she had had the soil sifted to a depth of eighteen

inches to clear it of roots and stones, she levelled it herself by the

simple means of a spirit-level and a string.

It is not to be supposed that all these things grew without immense

difficulty. As an instance, after she had carefully instructed

Lafaele, her gardener, how to plant a patch of vanilla, she was

disgusted to find that he had planted them all upside down. After

giving him a thorough scolding, she dismissed him and replanted them

all herself, right side up. What were her feelings to find the next

day that Lafaele, chagrined by his stupidity, had risen in the night

and planted them all upside down again! This Lafaele was a huge

mutton-headed Hercules, an out-islander, who spoke no English, and as

Mrs. Stevenson never learned Samoan, the two had perforce to invent a

sort of pidgin dialect of their own, in which they jabbered away

successfully but which no one else could understand. She later found

an intelligent Samoan named Leuelu who understood her pidgin Samoan

perfectly and learned to carry out all her orders. He was small and

not strong, but with the help of the dull but faithful Lafaele he

soon had a wonderful garden.

One week her special task was to superintend the boys in putting a

culvert into the new road to carry off the rain in the wet season. She

also devised and carried out a scheme of water-works for the place

which was a great boon and comfort to all the family, and enabled them

to sprinkle their lawn in civilized fashion. A large cemented

reservoir was built at a spring on the mountain and the water carried

down from it in pipes and distributed through the house and grounds.

One of her few failures was trying to make beer out of bananas. The

stuff, after being bottled, blew up with a great noise and a

dissemination of the astonishingly offensive odour of the fermented

fruit that seemed to spread for acres about. On the other hand, her

attempt at making perfume from the moso'oi flower (said to be the real

ylang-ylang) was a distinct success. She had to get permission from

the government to import the small still she set up in a corner of the

garden. The flowers were boiled and distilled, and as the oil rose to

the top of the water it was removed with a medicine-dropper. It was a

charming sight to see her working in her little distillery, while

processions of pretty Samoan girls came with their huge baskets of

flowers and scattered them in piles around her. Long afterwards when

she was in New York she took a sample of the perfume to Colgates, who

pronounced it the best they had ever seen.

[Illustration: The house at Vailima with the additions made to the

first structure.]

In the midst of all these labours there were a thousand other troubles

to be met and conquered--servants' quarrels in the kitchen, for

Samoans are not a whit different in such respects from domestics all

the world over, jealousy between the house boys and the out boys,

constant alarms about devils and bewitchments, and, above all,

sickness of all sorts to be sympathized with and cured. For help in

all these derangements every one went to the mistress, for all had a

simple faith in her ability to relieve them of all their sorrows. At

one time she and her daughter nursed twenty-two men through the

measles--a very serious disease among the islanders. At another time

the large hall at Vailima was entirely filled with the beds of

influenza patients, Mr. Stevenson being isolated upstairs. In the

performance of the plantation work accidents sometimes happened to the

men, and she was often called upon to bind up dreadful wounds that

would have made many women faint. From her earliest youth she had

always been the kind of person to whom every one instinctively turns

in an emergency. When Mr. Stevenson was ill she understood what he

wanted by the merest gesture, and was always calm, reassuring, and

self-reliant, never breaking down until after the crisis was past. She

was a most delightful nurse otherwise, too, for when her children were

sick in bed she entertained them with cheerful stories to divert their

minds, and when they were convalescent made tempting dishes for them

to eat. One of my own dear memories is of a time when, as a little

child, I lay dangerously and painfully ill, unable to move even a

hand, and she lightened my sufferings immeasurably by buying a Noah's

ark and arranging the animals on a little table by my bedside where

I could look at them. When her husband was having one of his

speechless illnesses at Vailima she allowed only one at a time to go

in to him, under orders to be entertaining and to recount amusing

little adventures of the household. She herself was an adept at this,

though when she came out she left her smile at the bedroom door. For

his amusement she would sit by his bedside and play her famous game of

solitaire, learned so long ago from Prince Kropotkin, the Russian

revolutionist. He would make signs when she went wrong and point at

cards for her to take up. Sometimes she read trashy novels to him, for

they both liked such reading when it was bad enough to be funny.

With the childlike Samoans she found sympathy to be as necessary as

medical treatment for their ails. An interesting example of this was

the case of Eliga, who was afflicted with an unsightly tumour on his

back. This, in a land where any sort of deformity is looked upon with

horror, caused the unfortunate man great unhappiness, besides

depriving him of his titles and estates. His kind master and mistress

had him examined by the surgeon of an English man-of-war that was in

the harbour, and the opinion was given that an operation was quite

feasible. Poor Eliga, however, was stricken with terror at the thought

and carefully explained that there were strings in the wen that were

tied about his heart, and if they were severed he would die. Besides,

he said, as his skin was different from the white man's, his insides

were probably different also. In the end, more to please them than

through any faith in it, he consented to the operation, although so

certain was he of a fatal ending that he had his house swept and

garnished, ready for the funeral. To comfort and cheer him through the

ordeal, both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson went to his house and remained

with him until all was done. The result was most happy, and the

grateful man, now proudly holding up his head among his fellows,

composed in honour of the event "The Song of the Wen":

"O Tusitala, when you first came here I was ugly and poor and

deformed. I was jeered at and scorned by the unthinking. I ate grass;

a bunch of leaves was my sole garment, and I had nothing to hide my

ugliness. But now, O Tusitala, now I am beautiful; my body is sound

and handsome; I bear a great name; I am rich and powerful and

unashamed, and I owe it all to you, Tusitala. I have come to tell your

highness that I will not forget. Tusitala, I will work for you all my

life, and my family shall work for your family, and there shall be no

question of wage between us, only loving-kindness. My life is yours,

and I will be your servant till I die."[46]

[Footnote 46: The complete story of Eliga, most

agreeably told, may be found in _Vailima Memories_, by

Lloyd Osbourne and Isobel Strong.]

It was in Samoa that Mrs. Stevenson acquired the name of Tamaitai,[47]

by which she was known thenceforth to her family and intimate friends

until the day of her death. English words do not come easily from the

tongues of the natives, and so they obviate the difficulty by

bestowing names of their own upon strangers who come to dwell among

them. It was as Tusitala, the writer of tales, that Louis was best

known, his wife was called Aolele,[48] flying cloud, and her daughter,

because of her kindness in giving ribbons and other little trinkets to

the girls, was named Teuila, the decorator. Tamaitai is a general

title, meaning "Madam," and is used in reference to the lady of the

house. Mr. Stevenson himself started the custom by calling his wife

Tamaitai, and it was finally adopted by everybody and grew to be her

name--the complete title being Tamaitai Aolele (Madam Aolele). These

Samoan names were adopted partly as a convenience, to escape the

embarrassment that sometimes arose from the habit among the natives of

calling the different members of the family by their first names. It

was felt to be rather undignified, for instance, that the mistress of

the house should be called "Fanny" by her servants.

[Footnote 47: Pronounced Tahmyty, with the accent on the

"my."]

[Footnote 48: Translated in an old missionary notebook

as "beautiful as a flying cloud."]

Mrs. Stevenson, as I have said before, was a famous cook, and had

learned how to make at least some of the characteristic dishes of each

of the many countries where she had sojourned awhile in her long

wanderings. From her mother she had inherited many an old Dutch

receipt--peppery pot, noodle soup, etc.; in France she acquired the

secret of preparing a _bouillabaise_,[49] sole _à la marguery_, and

many others; from Abdul, an East Indian cook she brought from Fiji,

she learned how to make a wonderful mutton curry which contained more

ingredients than perhaps any other dish on earth; in the South Seas

she picked up the art of making raw-fish salad; and now at Vailima

she lost no time in adding Samoan receipts to her list. She soon knew

how to prepare to perfection a pig roasted underground and eaten with

Miti sauce,[50] besides dozens of other dishes, including _ava_ for

drinking.

[Footnote 49: A Provençal fish-chowder.]

[Footnote 50: Miti sauce is made of grated kukui nuts

mixed with lime-juice and sea-water.]

It was not the least of her duties to play the hostess to a remarkable

assortment of guests--the Chief Justice, officers from the men-of-war

that frequently came into the harbour, Protestant, Catholic, and

Mormon missionaries, all kinds of visitors to the islands, including

an English duchess, and native kings and chiefs. Once a high chief,

one of the highest, bearing the somewhat lengthy name of

Tuimalealiifono, came on a visit to Vailima. He was quite unacquainted

with white ways of living, and, when shown to his bedroom, looked

askance at the neat, comfortable bed that had been prepared for him.

In the morning it was found that he had scorned the bed, and, retiring

to the piazza, had rolled himself up in his mat and lain down to

pleasant dreams. At table, although he had never before seen knives

and forks, he picked up their use instantly by quietly observing the

manners of the others.

A curious episode, which might have turned out to be dangerous,

happened during the war troubles, when King Malietoa went up to

Vailima secretly to have a talk with Tusitala. After the talk Louis

offered him a present, asking what he preferred. Malietoa said he

would like a revolver, and Louis took one from the safe and handed it

to his wife, who happened to be sitting next the king. She emptied the

chambers, as she thought, and then, not noticing that the thing was

pointing straight at the king's heart, she clicked it five times. By a

lucky chance, before clicking it the sixth time she looked in, and

behold, there was the last cartridge! If she had given the last click

she certainly would have killed the king, and one can imagine the

complications that would have resulted in those uneasy times. Of

course the episode, with all the dramatic possibilities attached to

it, appealed to the romantic imaginations of the two Stevensons, and,

after the king's departure, they spent the evening in making up a

harrowing tale about what would have happened if she had killed him.

Among the notable visitors to Vailima was the Italian artist Pieri

Nerli, who came to paint Mr. Stevenson's portrait--the one that now

hangs in Swanson Cottage in Scotland. This portrait pleased his wife

as little as did the Sargent picture, and, in a letter to Lord Guthrie

of Edinburgh, she makes what Lord Guthrie calls "an acute criticism of

this overdramatized likeness." She says: "It would have been all right

if Nerli had only been content to paint just Louis, and had not

insisted on representing instead the author of _Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde_."

It was not all work at Vailima by any means. "Socially," she writes,

"Samoa was not dull. There were many entertainments given by diplomats

and officials in Apia. Besides native feasts there were afternoon

teas, evening receptions, dinner parties, private and public balls,

paper chases on horseback, polo, tennis parties, and picnics.

Sometimes a party of flower-wreathed natives might come dancing over

the lawn at Vailima, or a band of sailors from a man-of-war would be

seen gathered in an embarrassed knot at the front gate." She herself

cared little for these entertainments, and usually busied herself in

helping others with the preparations for them. Her mother-in-law

writes: "A fancy dress ball has been held in honor of the birthday of

the Prince of Wales. Fanny designed a costume for Mrs. Gurr (a pretty

Samoan girl) as Zenobia, Empress of the East. She wore a Greek dress,

made in part of cotton stuff with a gold pattern stamped on it; over

this a crimson chuddah was correctly draped, with a gold belt, many

beads, and an elaborate gold crown."

From the busy round of her many-sided activities she took time now and

then to do a little writing, though in truth she had little liking for

it nor any high regard for her own literary style, in which she

complained of a certain "dry nippedness" that she detested but could

not get rid of. It was only when she wanted some extra money for her

water-works at Vailima that she "took her pen in hand" and wrote a

story for Scribners.

All this sounds hurried and breathless, but in reality these

activities were spread out over far more time than appears in the

telling of them, and there were peaceful intervals of rest and

happiness in seeing Louis well and able for the first time to bear his

share in hospitality.

Always, high above every other purpose, was her unfailing devotion to

her husband and his work, and no other task ever interfered with her

careful watch over his health and her keen interest in his writing. He

appreciated her aid from the bottom of his heart, and in the

dedication to his last unfinished novel, _Weir of Hermiston_, he

endeavours to express in some degree his profound sense of obligation:

"I saw the rain falling and the rainbow drawn

On Lammermuir. Hearkening, I heard again

In my precipitous city beaten bells

Winnow the keen sea wind. And here afar,

Intent on my own race and place I wrote.

Take thou the writing; thine it is. For who

Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal,

Held still the target higher; chary of praise

And prodigal of counsel--who but thou?

So now in the end; if this the least be good,

If any deed be done, if any fire

Burn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine."

This was to the critic; to the wife he wrote:

"Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,

With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,

Steel true and blade straight

The great Artificer made my mate.

Honor, anger, valor, fire,

A love that life could never tire,

Death quench, or evil stir,

The mighty Master gave to her.

Teacher, tender comrade, wife,

A fellow-farer true through life,

Heart whole and soul free,

The August Father gave to me."

As the years passed, their comradeship grew closer, and, indeed, their

relationship can perhaps be expressed in no better way than to call

them "comrades," with all that the word implies. In writing to her he

usually called her "My dear fellow," and in speaking often addressed

her in the same way. His attachment and admiration for her steadily

increased in proportion to his longer acquaintance with her. Once at

Vailima they were all playing a game called "Truth," in which each

person writes a list of the qualities--courage, humour, beauty,

etc.--supposed to be possessed by the others, with the corresponding

ratio in numbers, ten being the maximum. Louis put his wife down as

ten for beauty. She argued with him that he must be perfectly honest

and not complimentary; he looked at her in amazement and said: "I am

honest; I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world."

Once when her birthday, the 10th of March, came around, she found on

waking these verses pinned to the netting of her bed:

"To the Stormy Petrel

"Ever perilous

And precious, like an ember from the fire

Or gem from a volcano, we to-day

When drums of war reverberate in the land

And every face is for the battle blacked--

No less the sky, that over sodden woods

Menaces now in the disconsolate calm

The hurly-burly of the hurricane--

Do now most fitly celebrate your day.

Yet amid turmoil, keep for me, my dear,

The kind domestic fagot. Let the hearth

Shine ever as (I praise my honest gods)

In peace and tempest it has ever shone."

She said these verses were the best of all her birthday presents. He

called her the "stormy petrel" in reference to her birth in the wild

month of March, and because she was such a fiery little person. When

she took sides in an argument he would say, in mild irony: "The shouts

of the women in the opposite camp were heard demanding the heads of

the prisoners."

All through the daily entries in her diary, mingled with the incidents

of the household, runs the talk of impending war:

"War news continues exciting, and there are threats of a massacre of

all the whites. Although nothing of the kind is really anticipated, I

think it would be better to look up our cartridges. Lafaele has

blacked his face in the fashion of a warrior, saying he must be

prepared to protect the place. He has a very sore toe, which he thinks

is bewitched. He sent for the Samoan doctor, a grave middle-aged man,

who announced that a devil, instigated by some enemy, has entered the

toe and is now on the point of travelling up the leg, and unless it is

checked in time will soon have possession of Lafaele's entire body.

"_March 22._ This entry is written in Suva, Fiji. For a long time I

had not been well, and so I was sent off in the steamer to this place,

though I went with a heavy heart, for I thought Louis did not look

well. I have been to the botanical gardens, which are in charge of a

pleasant young man from Kew, and have secured four boxes of plants for

Vailima. The young man told me, as a trade secret, that if

cauliflowers get an occasional watering of sea water they will head up

in any climate. I have also secured an East Indian cook named Abdul.

"_September 23._ At home again. I find that Lloyd and the Strongs have

been teaching a native boy named Talolo to cook, with the best

results, so my fine Indian cook is a fifth wheel. However, Mr. Haggard

has agreed to take him--though he seems very reluctant to leave

Vailima.

"_October 28._ Paul left us some time ago to be overseer on a German

plantation. Before he left, in his blundering desire to do all he

could for me, he transplanted a lot of my plants, all wrong, and in

fact did all the damage he well could in so short a time. I felt sorry

to see the last of him, for with all his mistakes his heart was in the

right place. Much more distressing is it that our dear Simile is gone.

He wept very much in leaving, saying that 'his poor old family' needed

him. I was told afterwards that he had in reality eloped with a young

lady, which may be the truth of the matter. Talolo, our new cook,

amuses me very much. He was greatly shocked at hearing of the scalping

of victims by American Indians, but thought the taking of heads in the

Samoan fashion perfectly right, as the victim was then dead and felt

nothing.

"_November 2._ Talolo's mother, a very respectable woman indeed, came

to see us, bringing with her a relative who is almost blind from

cataract. They were shown over the house and could be heard at every

moment crying out in Samoan 'How extremely beautiful!' Even when shown

into the cellar, where it was quite dark, they were heard to make the

same remark.... Last Saturday Lloyd marshalled up all the men before

they left for their Sunday at home and administered to each a blue

pill. One fellow was caught hiding his in his cheek and was made to

swallow it amid shouts of laughter. I feared they would never come

back, but all returned on Monday morning declaring they were much

improved in health.

"We are all blazing with cacao-planting zeal, and we already have over

six hundred plants set out. The method of planting them is very

laborious, for the seeds must first be set in baskets made of plaited

cocoanut leaves, and when the sprouts come up they are put in the

earth, basket and all; in this way the roots are not disturbed and in

time the basket decays in the damp soil and drops off. The whole

family has been infected with the planting fever, and even Mrs.

Stevenson works away at it most gallantly. To-day is Sunday, but we

must all, the family and the house boys, plant the seeds that are

left.

"_November 30._ Simile has come back in a sad condition from a wound

with a spear or club in the back of his head, and much distressed over

the state of his 'poor old family'.... We have now set out 1,200 cacao

plants. All yesterday Joe[51] and I were superintending the building

of a bridge over the river. We had two trees cut down for the purpose;

one of them was of the most lovely pinkish wood, with salmon pink

bark, and emitted a perfume like a mixture of sassafras and

wintergreen.... Last night we were somewhat alarmed by earthquake

shocks and rifle shots. Yesterday three of the chairs made by the

carpenter out of our own wood, mahogany, and designed from an antique

model, came up. They are very satisfactory--a beautiful shape and

comfortable to sit in."

[Footnote 51: Her son-in law, Mr. Strong.]

So the weeks rolled swiftly by, filled with an infinitude of duties

and much happiness, until the bright tropic sun broke on Christmas

morning, 1893. The day was always celebrated at Vailima with much

ceremony, and a gigantic tree, covered with carefully chosen presents

for everybody, from the head of the family down to the humblest Samoan

retainer, was set up in the large hall. Months before Mr. Stevenson

had sent to the army and navy stores in London and had a large boxful

of presents for the tree sent out. The diary gives us some account of

this, the last Christmas spent on earth by Robert Louis Stevenson:

"Our washerwomen," so it runs, "came with presents--_tapa_ and fans,

and Simile brought baskets and _tapa_. Our people were wild with

delight over their presents. Christmas we spent with friends in Apia,

where we had a most delightful evening. Each gave some performance to

add to the gaiety. Louis and Lloyd played, very badly indeed, on their

pipes. Teuila recited one of Louis's poems, and Austin poured out with

much dramatic fire _Lochinvar_. There was some very pretty Samoan

dancing by Mrs. Gurr and Mrs. Willis, who gave a sitting dance and

one with clubs. The next day we rode home, dashing at full speed

through mud and water, and reached there drenched to the skin by a

sudden shower. I was alarmed about Louis, but it did him no harm

whatever. We were happy to be at pleasant Vailima again.

"_January 3._ There has been a terrific storm, lasting three days, but

the hurricane shutters were put up, and proved a great protection,

though the house was dark and airless. Trees went crashing all around

us. There was a curious exhilaration in the air, and the natives

shouted with glee whenever anything came down. The road was filled

with débris from the storm, which had to be cleared away before any

one could pass. In the evening I was told that both the Fiji man and

Simi had been spitting blood. The Fiji man seems to have a touch of

pneumonia. Much to Simi's alarm we put the cupping glass on him, and

the whole party of house servants escorted him to bed, shouting and

laughing and dancing as they went.

"_January 7._ Lloyd sailed to-day for San Francisco, intending to make

the round trip only, for a change of air. In the afternoon Joe and I

jumped on one horse and galloped as fast as we could down to the

landing, only to find that all the boats were out. Just then the

American consul's boat returned to the landing. We sprang into it, and

with the American flag flying over us, went speeding over the water,

in spite of the fact that the German man-of-war was having target

practice (a most dangerous proceeding) right across the harbor. As we

drew near the ship we suddenly realized that they were holding it in

the supposition that we were bringing a consular message. We saw Lloyd

running on deck to see us, but, alarmed at the situation, we took a

hasty departure. In the evening we heard very sweet and mournful

singing in the servants' quarters, and on asking what it was were told

by Talolo that it was a farewell to Loia (Lloyd). It was explained

that the song was told to go to France, to Tonga, and other places to

look for Lloyd, and, in case of not finding him there, to search all

over the world for him and carry pleasant dreams to him.

"_January 11._ To-day the Fiji man appeared in war paint--his nose

blackened and black stripes under his eyes. Lafaele says the war is

soon going to begin, adding 'Please, Tamaitai, you look out; when

Samoa man fight he all same devil.' While we were talking low, dull

thunder was rolling around the horizon, sounding, as we thought, very

like the noise of battle. Strange to say there was not a cloud in the

sky nor a flash of lightning to be seen.

"All the Samoan women married to white men wish to express their

gratitude to me for making it possible for them to return to their

native dress or, rather, the dress introduced among them by the

missionaries. Before we came, all such women were expected to dress in

European fashion, for otherwise they were not considered respectable,

and they were delighted and surprised when I and all the other women

at Vailima appeared in the missionary dress. This dress, called the

_holaku_, is nothing more than the old-fashioned sacque (known in

America as the 'Mother Hubbard'), which fortunately happened to be

the mode in England when the missionaries first came to the South

Seas. It was loose, cool, modest, and graceful, and so well suited to

the natives and the hot climate of the islands that it became the

regulation garment of the South Pacific. The climax seemed to be my

going to a party in a very handsome black silk _holaku_ with

embroidered yoke and sleeves. The husbands have removed the taboo and

several of the native ladies are to have fine silk gowns made in their

own pretty, graceful fashion. Corsets must be agony to the poor

creatures, and most of them are only the more clumsy and awkward for

these European barbarities. I am very glad I have inadvertently done

so much good."

The political pot was now boiling fiercely, but as the trouble in

Samoa has been discussed in detail in other books, it is not my

purpose to touch upon it here except in so far as any phase of it

directly concerned Mrs. Stevenson herself. It is enough to say that

the family espoused the cause of Mataafa, and in the diary Mrs.

Stevenson describes a visit made by them to that monarch for the

purpose of attempting to reconcile the two parties.

"On the second of May," she writes, "Louis, Teuila[52] and I, taking

Talolo with us, went in a boat to Malie to visit King Mataafa. I took

a dark red silk _holaku_, trimmed with Persian embroidery, and Teuila

took a green silk one, in which to appear before royalty. Long before

we got to the village we could see the middle part of an immense

native house rising up like a church spire. Mataafa's own house was

the largest and finest I had ever seen, and there were others as

large. Louis tried in vain to get an interpreter, but was fain to put

up with Talolo, who nearly expired with fright and misery, for he

could not speak the high chief language and felt that every word he

uttered was an insult to Mataafa. We have been in the habit of

referring to the king as 'Charley over the water,' and toasting him by

waving our glasses over the water bottle. Talolo had some vague notion

of what this meant and now thought it a good time to do the same. To

our great amusement, he took his glass, waved it in the air, and cried

'Charley in the water!' which we felt to be a rather ominous toast.

His translations of 'Charley's' words came to little more than

'Mataafa very much surprised (pleased),' but Louis knew enough Samoan

to make a little guess at what was going on. The _kava_ bowl was in

the centre of the group, with the king's talking men beside it. _Kava_

was first given to the king and Louis simultaneously--a great honor

for Louis--then to Teuila and me. The king evidently supposed us both

to be wives of Louis, and was much puzzled as to which was the

superior in station, a dilemma which was finally neatly solved by

serving us both at the same moment. I had seen that it was chewed

_kava_,[53] but in my weariness after the long journey I forgot that

fact before it came my turn to drink. Before the bowl was offered to

the king a libation was poured out and fresh water from a cocoanut

shell was sprinkled first to the right and then to the left. The

talking man and the others made polite orations, one of them likening

Louis to Jesus Christ, at which Talolo manifested sighs of acute

embarrassment. We were then offered a little refreshment before

dinner. The king, who was a Catholic, crossed himself and said grace.

A folded leaf containing a quantity of arrowroot cooked in cocoanut

milk by dropping in hot stones was placed before each of us, and each

had the milk of a fresh young nut to drink. The arrowroot was grateful

but difficult to manage, on account of the stickiness, and a little

gritty with sand from the stones. We were then invited to take a

siesta behind an immense curtain of _tapa_ that had been hung across

one end of the room. There mats and pillows were laid for Teuila and

me, and in a few seconds we were fast asleep. In an hour and a half we

waked simultaneously and found dinner waiting for us. Louis then

offered his present--a hundred-pound keg of beef--and the talking man

went outside and informed the populace, in stentorian tones, of the

nature and amount of the present received. We ate of pig, fowl, and

_taro_, in civilized fashion, sitting on chairs and using plates,

tumblers, spoons, knives, and forks. After a walk about the village we

all sat on mats under the eaves and conversed. A distant sound of

singing was heard, and soon a procession of young men in wreaths,

walking two by two, came up to us and each deposited a root of _taro_,

to which the king added a couple of young fowls, and an immense root

of fresh _kava_. Speeches were made, after which mats were spread out

for the dancers, who had been called by the sound of a bugle. There

were two long rows of them, with two comic men and a hunchback,

apparently the king's jester. They first sang a song of welcome to us,

and then sang, danced, and acted several pieces--all well done and

some very droll indeed. The hunchback excelled particularly in an

imitation of a circus that was here not long since. Louis could not

speak successfully through Talolo, as he had more to say than 'much

surprised,' so we then took our departure. We returned by moonlight,

all ardent admirers of Mataafa. About a week later Louis went again,

this time with an interpreter named Charley Taylor, and had a more

satisfactory interview. In the early morning, at about four, he was

awakened by the sound of some sort of pipe playing a curious air. When

he inquired about this Mataafa told him that he always had this

performance at the time of the singing of the early birds, as it

conduced to pleasant dreams. His father, he added, would never allow a

bird or animal to be injured, and, in consequence, was called the

'king of the birds.'"

[Footnote 52: It will be remembered that Teuila was the

native name of Mrs. Stevenson's daughter.]

[Footnote 53: In the old times _kava_, or _ava_, as it

is sometimes spelled, was prepared by being chewed by

young girls especially chosen for the purpose, and then

made into a brew.]

As the war-cloud grew blacker, the superstitious fears of Lafaele

increased, and every day some new portent was reported. "On May 16,"

says the diary, "Lafaele and Araki reported that while walking on the

road they met Louis riding on my horse Musu. What was their surprise

and terror when they reached home to find that he had not left the

house all day. Great anxiety and alarm are felt all over the place,

for it is supposed that Louis sent his other self to see what Lafaele

and Araki were about." Araki was a runaway "black boy," or Solomon

Islander, from the German plantations, who became a member of the

Vailima household in a rather dramatic way. One day a strange figure

was seen flitting about the lawn behind the trees. The servants ran

out and dragged in a thin, terrified black boy, who fell on his face

before the master and begged for protection. Such a plea could not be

refused, and Mr. Stevenson went down to the German firm and made

arrangements to keep him. He soon began to fill out, and grew to be a

saucy, lively fellow. Although the natives of Samoa look upon the

Solomon Islanders as cannibals and savages, at Vailima they made a pet

of Araki and dyed his bushy hair red and hung wreaths round his neck.

"_May 19._ This is the twelfth anniversary of our marriage. It seems

impossible. Also impossible that two years ago (or a little more) we

came up to live in the bush. Everything looks settled and as though we

had lived here for many years.

"_May 22._ Saturday the captain of the _Upolu_ came up and had

luncheon with us. We had nothing but vegetables, curried and cooked in

various ways, but no meat. Sunday there came a German vegetarian when

there were no vegetables and nothing but meat.... We are having a

great deal of trouble with the servants, as Tomasi, the Fiji man, says

his wife, Elena, is too good to associate with the other women, and

Lafaele's little girl is terribly afraid of Araki, the black boy,

although he speaks of her most tenderly as 'that little girlie.' When

the last litter of pigs was born, each family on the place was given a

pig. Elena chose a spotted boar, which she named Salé Taylor, and

Lafaele took what he calls a 'mare pig,' that is, a little sow. Both

pigs have been tamed and trot around after Elena and Fanua like pug

dogs. They go to bed with their mistresses every night like babies,

and must also be fed once in the night with milk like babies. Both

pigs came to prayers this morning.... Talolo's brother, a beautiful

young boy, has elephantiasis.[54] He has had it for a long time--about

a year--but was afraid to tell. Worse than that has happened; one of

our boys had a fit of insanity, during which it required the exertions

of the entire household to restrain him from running off into the bush

and losing himself. It became necessary to tie him down to the bed

with strips of sheeting and ropes. The strangest thing about this

occurrence is that Lafaele restored him to his senses in a short time

by chewing up certain leaves that he brought from the bush and then

putting them into the sick boy's ears and nostrils. I had a talk with

Lafaele about his remedy. He told me that in case of lockjaw, if these

chewed leaves are forced up the nostrils, first the jaw, then the

muscles, will soon relax and the cure is accomplished. For some reason

he seems unwilling to point out the tree to me.... Talolo affords us

much amusement with his naïve ideas. I said to him, 'It seems to me

that you Samoans do not feel badly about anything very long.' 'Yes, we

do,' said Talolo, seeming much hurt by the accusation. 'When a man's

wife runs away he feels badly for two or three days.'

[Footnote 54: A disease of the tropics, said to be

transmitted by the bite of mosquitoes, which causes

enormous enlargement of the parts affected. Mrs.

Stevenson cured this boy, Mitaele, of elephantiasis by

Dr. Funk's remedy of rubbing the diseased vein with blue

ointment and giving him a certain prescribed drug.]

"_July 3, 1893._ Nothing is talked of or thought of but the impending

war. One of our former men came up yesterday to draw out his wages. I

asked him if he meant to act like a coward and take heads of wounded

men. He said he meant to take all the heads he could get. I reasoned

with him, as did Lloyd, but he stood respectfully firm, saying that

each people had its own customs. I am afraid the government has not

thought to forbid this abomination, or has not dared.

"_July 8._ News comes that the fighting has begun, and that eleven

heads have been taken to Mulinuu,[55] and, worst of all, that one of

the heads is that of a village maid, a thing before unheard-of among

Samoans.

[Footnote 55: Mulinuu was the seat of government. King

Malietoa lived there.]

"_July 10._ Mataafa is routed, and, after burning Malie, has fled to

Manono. His son was killed with a hatchet and his head taken. In all

we hear of three heads of women being brought in to Mulinuu. When

Mataafa was the man before whom all trembled we offered him our

friendship and broke bread with him. If I gave him loyalty then, fifty

thousand times more do I give it now."

At last the smoke and thunder of war rolled away, and peace and

security came once more to dwell at Vailima. Entertainments and

gaieties again made the place lively. Mrs. Strong[56] describes one of

these affairs in a letter to Mr. Stevenson's mother:

[Footnote 56: Now Mrs. Salisbury Field.]

"I suppose Louis will write and tell you of the grand day we had here

when the sailors of the _Katoomba_ were invited up here to play. We

had twenty-four people on the place--natives, house boys, outside

boys, and contractors--and the house was gorgeously decorated with

ferns and moso'oi flowers. One large table was piled high with

cocoanuts, oranges, lemons, passion fruit, pineapples, mangoes, and

even a large pumpkin and some ripe tomatoes, besides three huge bowls

of lemonade. The other table had seven baked chickens, ham sandwiches,

cakes and coffee--lots of all. At half-past twelve we saw the white

caps bobbing at the gate, and sent Simile down to meet them. He was

dressed in a dark coat and _lavalava_ and white shirt, and looked very

swagger indeed. The sailors all saluted Simile as he appeared, and in

another moment--boom, bang, and the band burst out with the big drum

in full swing, with the men, fourteen of them, all marching in time.

The faces of our Samoans were stricken with amazement as the jackies

marched up to the lawn in the blazing sun and finished the piece. The

veranda was crowded with our people, all in wreaths of flowers, and a

number of guests were there to witness the festivities. Well, we fed

our sailors, who were all very red and hot and smiling, and the way

they dipped into the lemonade was a caution. Then, to a guitar

accompaniment, one of them sang a song with a melodramatic story

running through it about a poor fellow going to a house and sitting on

the door-step wan and weary, and seeing on the doorplate the name of

Jasper. Soon Jasper comes out, and though the poverty-stricken one

pleads for a bit of bread he's told to go to the workhouse. 'I pays my

taxes,' says the heartless Jasper, 'and to the workhouse you must go.'

'And who would have thought it,' goes the chorus, 'for we were

schoolmytes, schoolmytes!'"

A devastating epidemic of measles, much aggravated by the improper

treatment given to patients by the natives, now broke out. Even

Vailima did not escape its ravages, and Mrs. Strong writes of it on

October 8:

"Everybody is well of the measles by now and all are crawling out into

the sunshine. There have been a hundred and fifty deaths on this

island alone. Our Sosimo was taken ill down in the town. Tamaitai and

I went down to see him, and, finding him in a wretched state, had him

brought home in a native sling on a pole, the way they carry wounded

soldiers. None of our people died, for they willingly accepted our

rules for their care."

After the war was over, it was found that the stress and excitement of

it all had told on Mr. Stevenson's health, and in the early part of

September he went to Honolulu for a change. The trip was a

disappointment, for he was taken quite seriously ill there, and his

wife had to take steamer and go after him, arriving in a state of

great anxiety. Under her tender care he soon recovered and they

returned to Vailima.

In Samoa, Tusitala was not the only "teller of tales," for all sorts

of strange stories--some amusing, some scurrilous and malicious--were

invented about the family at Vailima and ran current in the gossip "on

the beach." One of the most fantastic of these inventions was that Mr.

Stevenson had been married before to a native woman, and that Mrs.

Strong[57] was his half-caste daughter by this marriage. The one

advantage about this peculiar story was the hilarious fun he was able

to get out of it. He made up all kinds of wonderful romances about the

supposititious first wife, who he said was a native of Morocco,

"black, but a damned fine woman." When Mrs. Stevenson scolded him for

not wearing his cloak in the rain he pretended to weep and said:

"Moroccy never spoke to me like that!" One evening Mrs. Strong heard

gay laughter in her mother's room, and, going in to see what it was

about, found her mother sitting up in bed laughing, while Louis walked

up and down the room gesticulating and telling her the "true story" of

his affair with Moroccy.

[Footnote 57: Mrs. Strong will be remembered as the

little Isobel Osbourne of the early pages of this book.]

So passed all too swiftly three full years--years crowded with work

and play and many rare experiences--and less darkly shadowed by the

spectre that had stalked beside them ever since their marriage. For

this short space he knew what it was to live like a man, not like a

"pallid weevil in a biscuit," and she, though her vigilance was never

relaxed for a moment, breathed somewhat more freely. The days sped

happily by, until Thanksgiving, November 29, 1894, which was

celebrated with an elaborate dinner at Vailima. Mrs. Stevenson was

anxious to have this a truly American feast, from the turkey to the

last detail, but cranberries were not to be had, so she produced a

satisfactory substitute from a native berry, and under her careful

supervision her native servants succeeded in setting out a dinner that

would have satisfied even an old Plymouth Rock Puritan. At the dinner,

the last entertainment taken part in by Mr. Stevenson, in enumerating

his reasons for thankfulness, he spoke of his wife, who had been all

in all to him when the days were very dark, and rejoiced in their

undiminished affection.

A day or two afterwards she was seized with a presentiment of

impending evil--a formless shadow that seemed to settle down upon her

spirit, and that no argument could relieve. Her mother-in-law writes:

"I must tell you a very strange thing that happened just before his

death. For a day or two Fanny had been telling us that she knew--that

she felt--something dreadful was going to happen to some one we cared

for; as she put it, to one of our friends. On Monday she was very low

and upset about it and dear Lou tried to cheer her. Strangely enough,

both of them had agreed that it could not be to either of _them_ that

the dreadful thing was to happen."

On the afternoon of December 3, 1894, according to their custom he

took his morning's work for her criticism. She quickly perceived that

in this, which neither dreamed was to be the last work of his pen, his

genius had risen to its highest level, and she poured out her praise

in a way that was unusual with her. It was almost with her words of

commendation still ringing in his ears that he passed to the great

beyond. In a letter addressed to his friends shortly afterwards,

Lloyd Osbourne gives us the details of these last moments:

"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 of 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 veranda, 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." Just as he had leaned upon her for

help, comfort, and advice for so many years of his life, so it was at

her feet that he sank in death when the last swift summons came. He

was helped into the great hall between his wife and his body servant,

Sosimo, and at ten minutes past eight the same evening, Monday,

December 3, 1894, he passed away.

Her great task was finished, and she sat with folded hands in the

quiet house from which the soul had fled; but, although the lightning

suddenness of the blow made it almost a crushing one, the bitterness

of her grief was greatly softened by her firm belief in a life beyond

the grave and the certainty of a reunion with him there.

She bore this supreme sorrow with the same silent fortitude with which

she had always met trouble, but a subtle change came over her. While

it could not be said that she looked exactly old, yet the youthfulness

for which she had been so remarkable seemed suddenly to vanish, and

her hair grew rapidly grey. A little child--Frank Norris's

daughter--said, with an acuteness beyond her years: "Tamaitai smiles

with her lips, but not with her eyes."

Among the hundreds of letters of condolence which she received from

all over the world, none, perhaps, came more directly from the heart

than that written by her old friend, Henry James from which I have

taken the following extracts:

"My dear Fanny Stevenson:

"What can I say to you that will not seem cruelly irrelevant or vain?

We have been sitting in darkness for nearly a fortnight, but what is

_our_ darkness to the extinction of your magnificent light? You will

probably know in some degree what has happened to us--how the hideous

news first came to us via Auckland, etc., and then how, in the

newspapers, a doubt was raised about its authenticity--just enough to

give one a flicker of hope; until your telegram to me via San

Francisco--repeated also from other sources--converted my pessimistic

convictions into the wretched knowledge. All this time my thoughts

have hovered round you all, around _you_ in particular, with a

tenderness of which I could have wished you might have, afar-off, the

divination. You are such a visible picture of desolation that I need

to remind myself that courage, and patience, and fortitude are also

abundantly with you. The devotion that Louis inspired--and of which

all the air about you must be full--must also be much to you. Yet as I

write the word, indeed, I am almost ashamed of it--as if anything

could be 'much' in the presence of such an abysmal void. To have lived

in the light of that splendid life, that beautiful, bountiful

being--only to see it, from one moment to the other, converted into a

fable as strange and romantic as one of his own, a thing that has been

and has ended, is an anguish into which no one can enter with you

fully and of which no one can drain the cup for you. You are nearest

to the pain, because you were nearest the joy and the pride. But if it

is anything to you to know that no woman was ever more felt _with_ and

that your personal grief is the intensely personal grief of

innumerable hearts--know it well, my dear Fanny Stevenson, for during

all these days there has been friendship for you in the very air. For

myself, how shall I tell you how much poorer and shabbier the whole

world seems, and how one of the closest and strongest reasons for

going on, for trying and doing, for planning and dreaming of the

future, has dropped in an instant out of life. I was haunted indeed

with a sense that I should never again see him--but it was one of the

best things in life that he was _there_, or that one had him--at any

rate one heard him, and felt him and awaited him and counted him into

everything one most loved and lived for. He lighted up one whole side

of the globe, and was in himself a whole province of one's

imagination. We are smaller fry and meaner people without him. I feel

as if there were a certain indelicacy in saying it to you, save that I

know that there is nothing narrow or selfish in your sense of

loss--for himself, however, for his happy name and his great visible

good fortune, it strikes one as another matter. I mean that I feel him

to have been as happy in his death (struck down that way, as by the

gods, in a clear, glorious hour) as he had been in his fame. And, with

all the sad allowances in his rich full life, he had the best of

it--the thick of the fray, the loudest of the music, the freshest and

finest of himself. It isn't as if there had been no full achievement

and no supreme thing. It was all intense, all gallant, all exquisite

from the first, and the experience, the fruition, had something

dramatically complete in them. He has gone in time not to be old,

early enough to be so generously young and late enough to have drunk

deep of the cup. There have been--I think--for men of letters few

deaths more romantically right. Forgive me, I beg you, what may sound

cold-blooded in such words--or as if I imagined there could be

anything for you 'right' in the rupture of such an affection and the

loss of such a presence. I have in my mind in that view only the

rounded career and the consecrated work. When I think of your own

situation I fall into a mere confusion of pity and wonder, with the

sole sense of your being as brave a spirit as he was (all of whose

bravery you shared) to hold on by. Of what solutions or decisions you

see before you we shall hear in time; meanwhile please believe that I

am most affectionately with you.... More than I can say, I hope your

first prostration and bewilderment are over, and that you are feeling

your way in feeling all sorts of encompassing arms--all sorts of

outstretched hands of friendship. Don't, my dear Fanny Stevenson, be

unconscious of _mine_, and believe me more than ever faithfully yours,

"Henry James."[58]

[Footnote 58: Quoted by courtesy of Henry James of New

York, nephew of the novelist.]

With this and the many other letters came one written in pencil on a

scrap of paper, unsigned:

"Mrs. Stevenson.

"Dear Madam:--All over the world people will be sorry for the death of

Robert Louis Stevenson, but none will mourn him more than the blind

white leper at Molokai."