THE LAST DAYS AT SANTA BARBARA.
Of all the beautiful places of the earth where it was Fanny
Stevenson's good fortune to set up her household gods at various
times, perhaps the loveliest of all was this spot on the peaceful
shore of the sunset sea, under the patronage of the noble lady, Saint
Barbara. In the Samoan gardens tropical flowers flamed under the hot
rays of the vertical sun; in San Francisco geraniums and fuchsias
rejoiced and grew prodigiously in the salt sea fog; but at Santa
Barbara, where north and south meet, the plants of every land thrive
as though native born. The scarlet hibiscus, child of the tropics,
grows side by side with the aster of northern climes; the
bougainvillæa flings out its purple sprays in close neighbourhood to
the roses of old England; the sweet-william, dear to the hearts of our
grandmothers, blooms in rich profusion in the shade of the
pomegranate; and in brotherly companionship with the Norwegian pine
the magnolia-tree unfolds its great creamy cups.
In her garden at Stonehedge, situated in lovely Montecito, about six
miles from Santa Barbara, Fanny Stevenson found the chief solace of
her declining years. Its extent of some seven acres gave her full
scope for the horticultural experiments in which she delighted. When
she took possession of the place it was in rather a neglected state,
but that was all the better, for it gave her a free field to develop
it according to her own tastes. The house was a well-built but
old-fashioned affair of an unattractive type, with imitation towers
and gingerbread trimmings, and at first sight her friends assured her
that nothing could be done with it. Architects, when asked for advice,
said the only thing was to tear it down and build a new house. But,
instead, she called in a carpenter from the town and set to work on
alterations. When all was done the house had a pleasant southern look
that fitted in well with the luxuriant growth of flowers and trees in
which it stood, and its red roof made a cheerful note in the
landscape.
In the grounds she worked out her plans, leisurely adding something
year by year, a little Dutch garden, sweeping walks and lawns, a
wonderful terraced rose-garden with a stone pergola at the upper end,
where the creepers were never trimmed into smug stiffness, but grew in
wild luxuriance at their own sweet will, and soon they made a glorious
tangle of sweet-smelling blooms and glossy green leaves. From the
living-room windows one looked out over a broad expanse of mossy lawn;
groups of vermilion-coloured hibiscus and poinsettias kept harmonious
company; dahlias made great masses of gorgeous colour among the green;
tall hollyhocks were ranged along the veranda in old-fashioned
formalism; indeed, it would be like quoting from a florist's catalogue
to mention all the plants to be found in this garden.
[Illustration: Stonehedge at Santa Barbara.]
Nor did she neglect the purely useful, for the most delicious fruits
and vegetables--from the lemons, oranges, and loquats of the south
to the apricots, apples, and pears of the north--grew to perfection
under her fostering care. She was always on the lookout for new
varieties, and I find among her correspondence a letter from the
distinguished horticulturist, Luther Burbank, in answer to her request
for strawberry plants:
"Santa Rosa, California, Feb. 21, 1911.
"Dear Mrs. Stevenson:
"I feel most highly honored and pleased with your kind order of the
15th instant for 25 Patagonian strawberry plants, which were sent out
yesterday.... You can never know the regard and love in which Mr.
Stevenson is held in thousands of hearts who have never expressed
themselves to you.
"Sincerely yours,
"Luther Burbank."
The story of Fanny Stevenson's life at Stonehedge is one of the still
peace that she loved more and more as time went on, almost its only
excitements being the blooming of a new flower, the digging of a well,
or perhaps the trying out of an electric pump. The hurly-burly of the
world was far away from that quiet spot, and only the arrival of the
daily mail by rural carrier, or an infrequent visitor from some one of
the country houses in the neighbourhood, broke the sweet monotony of
existence. Of the simple pleasures of her life here she writes to her
husband's cousin, Graham Balfour, in these words:
"As I write, my delightful Japanese boy, Yonida, brings me in a great
bunch of violets in one hand and quantities of yellow poppies in the
other, while in front of me stands an immense vase of sweet peas--all
just plucked from my garden. I wish that you might share them with me,
and that you might hear the mocking-bird that is singing by my window.
A mocking-bird is not a night-in-gale, to be sure, but he has a fine
song of his own. I have such a nice little household; my two Japanese
young men, who do gardening and such things; a most excellent, very
handsome, middle-aged cook named Kate Romero, who, in spite of her
name is half Irish and half English; and Mary Boyle, altogether Irish
and altogether a most delightful creature. The most important member
of the family, however, is my cat; Kitson is a full-bred Siamese royal
temple cat, and is quite aware of his exalted pedigree. He exacts all
and gives nothing. There are times when I should prefer more affection
and less _hauteur_. He's a proud cat, and loves no one but Kitson."
This cat, a strange creature coloured like a tawny lion, with face,
tail, and paws a chocolate brown, and large bright-blue eyes staring
uncannily from his dark countenance, possibly had more affection than
his haughty manner indicated, for, after his mistress's death, he
refused food and soon followed her into the other world, if so be that
cats are admitted there.
In this house were gathered all the heirlooms, books, old furniture,
pictures, and other interesting objects which had been brought down
from San Francisco. The St. Gaudens medallion of Stevenson was fitted
into a niche over the mantelpiece in the living-room, where Mrs.
Stevenson spent much of her time seated before the great fireplace
with the haughty Kitson on her lap. On the mantelshelf there was a
curious collection of photographs--one of Ah Fu, the Chinese cook of
South Sea memory, side by side with that of Sir Arthur Pinero, famous
playwright--silent witnesses to the wide extent of her acquaintance
and the broad democracy of her ideas.
At Stonehedge her life ran on almost undisturbed in the calm stillness
that she loved so much. Now and then she went for a day's fishing at
Serena, a place on the shore a few miles from Stonehedge. With its
background of high, rugged hills and the calm summer sea at its feet
it has a serene beauty that well befits its name.
At infrequent intervals people of note arriving in Santa Barbara
sought her out, and though she received them graciously she was
equally interested in the visit of an Italian gardener and his wife,
who came to bring her a present of some rare plant, and with whom she
had most delightful talks about the flowers of the tropics. She was
much pleased, too, when one day a Scotch couple, plain, kindly people,
came merely to look at the house where the widow of their great
countryman lived. When they came she happened to be in the garden and
they apologized for the intrusion and were about to withdraw, but the
moment she recognized the accent she welcomed them with outstretched
hands. When they left their carriage was loaded with flowers, and she
stood on the veranda waving her hand in farewell.
In August, 1909, accompanied by her daughter, Mr. Field, her nephew
Louis Sanchez, and the maid Mary Boyle, she went on a motor trip to
Sausal in Lower California, where they found that the house had been
broken into by duck hunters, and presented a forlorn appearance.
Coming from the comfort of Stonehedge to this deserted cabin was
something of a shock to the rest of the party, and but for Mrs.
Stevenson they would have left at once. "Mrs. Robinson Crusoe,"
however, justified her name with such enthusiasm that the others
caught fire. Louis Sanchez lent a ready hand to repairs and under his
magic fingers doors swung upon their hinges, tables ceased to wabble,
door-knobs turned, and even a comfortable rocking-chair "for Tamaitai"
emerged from a hopeless wreck. Mrs. Strong and Mary Boyle assaulted
the little cabin with soap and water and disinfectants, and with much
courage and laughter routed two swarms of bees which had taken
possession of the ceiling. Mr. Field supplied the larder with game and
fish, and ran the automobile to town for supplies. Mrs. Stevenson,
who, at Stonehedge, was always somewhat dismayed by the morning
demands of the cook for the day's orders, delighted in surprising the
party with unexpected good dishes which she cooked with her own hands.
As the years passed her health began to show distinct signs of
breaking, and when she proposed another trip to Mexico in the spring
of 1910, her family feared she was not strong enough to endure the
fatigue, but as she herself said she "would rather go to the well and
be broken than be preserved on a dusty shelf," they finally agreed.
She had had a great admiration for Mexico ever since her first visit,
and wanted to show her daughter the land she said was "older and more
interesting" than any country she had ever seen. Then, as her nephew
was a mining engineer recently graduated from the University of
California, she hoped to find a good opening for him in that land of
gold and silver. The three set off in high spirits, for there was
nothing Mrs. Stevenson liked better than change of scene.
Although during this time in Mexico City she found the altitude very
trying in its effect on her heart, and was in consequence obliged to
keep rather quiet, yet she was able to move about to a certain extent
and to see some of the sights of the place. She loved to sit by the
Viga Canal and watch the life of the people ebb and flow along its
tree-lined stretches--the queer old flat-bottomed and square-ended
boats coming in on work days with vegetables and flowers from the
so-called "floating gardens," and on days of _fiesta_ transformed into
pleasure craft with gay streamers and flags. On moonlight nights the
tinkle of guitars sounded everywhere on the still waters of the canal
and far out on the lake, for it is the custom of well-to-do people to
hire these boats and with their musicians spend the evening _à la_
Venice.
In the city the travellers were much interested in the Monte de
Piedad, the pawn shop which is run under State control. Here great
bargains may sometimes be picked up in jewels left there by ladies of
good family in reduced circumstances. Mrs. Stevenson had a very
feminine liking for jewels, but they had to be different from the
ordinary sort to attract her, and she was much pleased to pick up in
Mexico some pieces of the odd and barbaric designs that she especially
liked.
Delightful days were spent in the city prowling about the queer old
shops and buying curious things that are not to be found in other
parts of the world. This was the kind of shopping that she really
enjoyed--this poking about in strange, romantic places.
Among the very few people that Mrs. Stevenson met in Mexico in a
social way was the well-known historian and archaeologist, Mrs. Zelia
Nuttall, whom she considered a most charming and interesting woman.
Together with her daughter she lunched with Mrs. Nuttall at her
picturesque house, once the home of Alvarado, in the outskirts of
Mexico City. It was the oldest house they had ever seen, and, with its
inner _patio_, outside stairways and balconies, and large collection
of rare idols, pots, and weapons that Mrs. Nuttall had herself
unearthed from old Indian ruins, was intensely interesting.
Hearing of an opening in the mining business at Oaxaca for her nephew,
she decided to go there and look into the matter. Conditions at Oaxaca
were found to be even more primitive than at the capital. One time
they asked for hot water, but the American landlady threw up her hands
and cried, "Oh, my dears! There is a water famine in Oaxaca. It is
terrible. We can get you a very small jug to wash with, but it isn't
clear enough to drink."
"What are we to drink?"
In answer to this she brought a large jug of bottled water that
tasted strongly of sulphur. This they mixed with malted milk bought at
a grocery, making a beverage of which they said that though they had
tasted better in their time, they certainly never had tasted worse.
Notwithstanding all these inconveniences Mrs. Stevenson was in the
best of tempers and keenly interested in seeing places and things, and
when she tired was happy with a magazine or sitting at a window
watching the street life. The first evening, while they were sitting
in the _patio_, there was a violent earthquake, which seemed to them
worse than the famous shake of 1906 in San Francisco, but it did no
damage and the hotel people made nothing of it.
After seeing her nephew off to the mines at Taviche, and taking a side
trip to see the ancient buried city of Mitla, Mrs. Stevenson and her
daughter returned to the capital, where they took train for
California, and were soon at home again amid the sweet flowers of
Stonehedge. There Mrs. Stevenson once more took up the writing of the
introductions to her husband's books, for which she had contracted
with Charles Scribner's Sons. As I have already said, it was only
after much urging that she consented to do this work, and her almost
painful shrinking from it appears in a letter of March 25, 1911, to
Mr. Charles Scribner: "With this note I send the introduction to
Father Damien. I didn't see how to touch upon the others when I know
so little about them. I know this thing is about as bad as anything
can be. I cringe whenever I think of it, but I seem incapable of doing
better. If, however, it is beyond the pale, write and tell me,
please, and I will try once again. Louis's work was so mixed up with
his home life that it is hard to see just where to draw the line
between telling enough and yet not too much. I dislike extremely
drawing aside the veil to let the public gaze intimately where they
have no right to look at all. I think it is the consciousness of this
feeling that gives an extra woodenness to my style--style is a big
word--I should have put it 'bad style.'"
It was during this time that news came of a severe accident to Alison
Cunningham, Louis's old nurse--a misfortune which resulted in her
death within a few weeks. Mrs. Stevenson always felt an especial
tenderness for "Cummy," as the one whose kind hand had tended her
beloved husband in his infancy, and she very gladly aided in the old
lady's support during her last years. Lord Guthrie, Louis's longtime
friend and schoolmate, says in his booklet on the story of Cummy:
[Illustration: The last portrait of Mrs. Stevenson.]
"From the novelist's widow she always received most delicate and
thoughtful kindness. Mrs. Stevenson often wrote to her and she amply
supplemented the original pension settled on her by Mr. Thomas
Stevenson, Louis's father. A few months before Cummy's death (at the
age of ninety-two), she cordially agreed, on condition that Cummy
should not know of it, to make a special additional annual payment
which I had ascertained, from an outside source, would add to the old
lady's happiness. And as soon as she received my letter telling her of
Cummy's accident (a fall causing a broken hip), I had a
characteristically generous message from her, sent by wire from
San Francisco, giving me carte-blanche for Cummy's benefit. I call
this message characteristic, because I find in her letters such
passages as this: 'Please, dear Cummy, always let me know instantly
when there is anything in the world I can do to add to your comfort,
your happiness, or your pleasure. There is so little I can do for you,
and I wish to do so much. You and I are the last; and we must help
each other all we can, until we, too, follow.'"[74]
[Footnote 74: Quoted by courtesy of Lord Guthrie.]
When Cummy died Mrs. Stevenson was represented at the funeral by Mr.
A. P. Melville, W. S., and a wreath ordered by her was placed on the
coffin. She also bore the expense of Cummy's last illness and funeral
and had a handsome tombstone put up in her memory.
In these days the sands began to run low in the hour-glass of the life
of Fanny Stevenson, and a great weariness seemed to be settling upon
her. Writing to Mr. Scribner in June, 1913, she says: "All my life I
have taken care of others, and yet I have always wanted to be taken
care of, for naturally I belong to the clinging vine sort of woman;
but fate seems still against me." Nevertheless, I truly believe she
enjoyed being the head of her clan, the fairy godmother, the
chieftainess of her family, to whom all came for help and counsel. But
now the shadows of evening were growing long, and she was getting
very, very tired.
But, world-weary as she was, she consented at this time to prepare for
publication in book form the notes which she had taken, primarily for
her husband's use, of one of their voyages in the South Seas. As it
happened, he made little use of the notes, so that most of it was new
material. In this work, for dear memory's sake, she took a real
pleasure, of which she speaks in the preface in these words: "The
little book, however dull it may seem to others, can boast of at least
one reader, for I have gone over this record of perhaps the happiest
period of my life with thrilling interest." The book was brought out
by Charles Scribner's Sons, under the title of _The Cruise of the
"Janet Nichol"_, and it has a melancholy interest, apart from its
contents, as the last work done by her in this life. She had only
finished the reading of the proofs a few days before her death, and
the book did not appear until some months afterwards.
In November, 1913, she was threatened with asthma, and in consequence
went to spend some time at Palm Springs, a health resort on the desert
in southeastern California. In the dry, clear air of that place her
health improved so wonderfully that all her friends and family
believed that a crisis had passed, and that she had fortunately sailed
into one of those calm havens which so often come to people in their
later years. She returned to Stonehedge seemingly well. All their
fears were lulled, and the blow was all the more crushing when, on the
18th of February, 1914, silently and without warning, she passed from
this life. In the manner of her death and that of her husband there
was a striking coincidence; each passed away suddenly, after only a
few hours of unconsciousness, from the breaking of an artery in the
brain. The story of her last moments may best be told in the words of
a letter from her devoted maid, Agnes Crowley,[75] which is so sincere
and touching that I quote it without eliminations:
[Footnote 75: Her former maid, Mary Boyle, had married
and left her service.]
"My dear Mrs. Sanchez:
"We are a very sad little household--we are all heart-broken, to think
our dear little Madam has gone away never to return. It seems too
awful, and just when she was enjoying everything. We were home from
Palm Springs just one week when she was taken away from us--but you
can console yourself by thinking that she was surrounded by love and
devotion. She was not sick and did not suffer. Tuesday evening,
February 17, she felt well and read her magazines until nine o'clock,
and Mr. Field played cards with her till 10.30. Then she retired. The
next morning I went in to attend to her as usual, and there was my
dear little Madam lying unconscious. I thought at first she was in a
faint, and I quickly ran for Mr. Field; he jumped up and put on his
bathrobe and went to her while I called Dr. Hurst. It took the doctor
about seven minutes to get here, and as soon as he saw her he said it
was a stroke, but he seemed to be hopeful and thought he could pull
her through. He put an ice pack on her head and gave her an injection
in the arm and oxygen to inhale, and she seemed to begin to breathe
natural, and we all hoped, but it was in vain. She never regained
consciousness, and at two o'clock she just stopped breathing, so you
see she did not suffer. But oh Mrs. Sanchez, we all seemed so
helpless--we all loved her so and yet could do nothing. Dr. Hurst
worked hard from 8.30 till two o'clock, and when the end came he cried
like a little child, for he loved Mrs. Stevenson very much. It was an
awful blow to us all--it was so sudden. This place will never seem the
same to William and me, for we loved our little Madam dearly, and it
was a pleasure to do anything for her--for she was always so gentle
and sweet. I adored her from the first time I ever saw her, and will
always consider it the greatest pleasure of my life to have had the
privilege of waiting upon her.
"I remain very affectionately,
"Agnes Crowley."
When the angel of death stooped to take her he came on the wings of a
wild storm, which raged that week all through the Southwest--fitting
weather for the passing of the "Stormy Petrel." Railroads were flooded
all over the country, and her son, Lloyd Osbourne, was delayed by
washouts for some days on the way out from New York. On his arrival
the body was removed to San Francisco, where a simple funeral ceremony
was held in the presence of a few sorrowing friends and relatives. On
her bier red roses, typical of her own warm nature, were heaped in
masses. A touching incident, one that it would have pleased her to
know, was the appearance of Fuzisaki, her Japanese gardener at
Stonehedge, with a wreath of beautiful flowers. It was in accordance
with her own wish, several times expressed to those nearest her, that
her body was cremated and the ashes later removed to Samoa, there to
lie beside her beloved on the lonely mountain top.
To her own family the sense of loss was overwhelming, and I cannot
perhaps express it better than in the words of her grandson, Austin
Strong: "To say that I miss her means nothing. Why, it is as if an Era
had passed into oblivion. She was so much the Chief of us all, the
Ruling Power. God rest her soul!"
* * * * *
When Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson passed from this earth the news of
her death carried a pang of grief to many a heart in far distant
lands. One who knew her well, her husband's cousin, Graham Balfour,
writes his estimate of her character in these words:
"Although I had met Fanny Stevenson twice in England, I first came to
know her on my arrival at Vailima in August, 1892, when within a
single day we established a firm friendship that only grew closer
until her death. The three stanzas by Louis so completely expressed
her that it seems useless for a man to add anything or to refine upon
it:
'Steel-true and blade-straight
. . . . . . . .
Honor, anger, valor, fire,
A love that life could never tire,
. . . . . . . .
Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life.'
"These were all the essentials, and if we add her devotion to her
children and her loyalty to her friends, we have the fabric of which
her life was woven. Her integrity and her directness were such that
one could, and frequently did, differ from her and express the
difference in the strongest terms without leaving a trace of
bitterness.
"I remember in particular a scheme which she wished to set on foot for
releasing Mataafa and other Samoan chiefs from their exile in the
German island of Jaluit and carrying them off to Australia. The
project was a wild one and would only have led to their return and
disgrace, and in these terms and much stronger expressions we
discussed it, without ever abating one jot from our personal
friendship.
"And in the long years that followed absence made no difference. Every
letter, when it came, was as full of affection and of confidence as
its predecessors--full of loyalty and tenderness.
"To her enemies, of course, she showed another side. Opposition she
did not mind, but dishonesty and deceit were unforgivable.
"The news of her death reached me in St. Helena, as the announcement
of Louis's death found me on another far-off island in the Carolinas;
and both times the world became a colder, greyer, more monotonous
place."
These pages have been written in vain if I have not made clear what
the world owes this rare woman, not only for the sedulous care which
kept the invalid genius alive long after the time allotted to him in
the book of fate, but for the intellectual sympathy and keen
discernment with which she stood beside him and
"Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal,
Held still the target higher, chary of praise
And prodigal of counsel."
In speaking of literature's great debt to her, Lord Guthrie says:
"Without her Louis's best work neither could nor would have existed.
In studying the life and works of Thomas Carlyle I often had occasion
to contrast his wife and Louis's. With all Mrs. Carlyle's great and
attractive qualities and her undoubted influence on her husband, she
made his work difficult by her want of perspective, magnifying
molehills into mountains. It could not be said that any of his great
writings owed their existence to her."
An article appearing in the _Literary Digest_ shortly after her death
touches upon this point:
"Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was content to remain in the background
and let her husband reap all the glory for his literary achievements,
and the result was that her part in his career had probably been
minimized in the public mind. She was a great deal more than a mere
domestic help meet."
From her old and attached friend, Mr. S. S. McClure, comes this
sincere tribute:
"The more I saw of the Stevensons the more I became convinced that
Mrs. Stevenson was the unique woman in the world to be Stevenson's
wife.... When he met her her exotic beauty was at its height, and with
this beauty she had a wealth of experience, a reach of imagination, a
sense of humor, which he had never found in any other woman. Mrs.
Stevenson had many of the fine qualities that we usually attribute to
men rather than to women; a fair-mindedness, a large judgment, a
robust, inconsequential philosophy of life, without which she could
not have borne, much less shared with a relish equal to his own, his
wandering, unsettled life, his vagaries, his gipsy passion for
freedom. She had a really creative imagination, which she expressed in
living. She always lived with great intensity, had come more into
contact with the real world than Stevenson had done at the time when
they met, had tried more kinds of life, known more kinds of people.
When he married her, he married a woman rich in knowledge of life and
the world.
"She had the kind of pluck that Stevenson particularly admired. He was
best when he was at sea, and although Mrs. Stevenson was a poor sailor
and often suffered greatly from seasickness, she accompanied him on
all his wanderings in the South Seas and on rougher waters, with the
greatest spirit. A woman who was rigid in small matters of domestic
economy, who insisted on a planned and ordered life, would have
worried Stevenson terribly.
"A sick man of letters never married into a family so well fitted to
help him make the most of his powers. Mrs. Stevenson and both of her
children were gifted; the whole family could write. When Stevenson was
ill, one of them could always lend a hand and help him out. Without
such an amanuensis as Mrs. Strong,[76] Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, he
could not have got through anything like the amount of work he turned
off. Whenever he had a new idea for a story, it met, at his own
fireside, with the immediate recognition, appreciation, and enthusiasm
so necessary to an artist, and which he so seldom finds among his own
blood or in his own family.
[Footnote 76: Now Mrs. Salisbury Field.]
"After Stevenson disappeared in the South Seas, many of us had a new
feeling about that part of the world. I remember that on my next trip
to California I looked at the Pacific with new eyes; there was a
glamour of romance over it. I always intended to go to Samoa to visit
him; it was one of those splendid adventures that one might have had
and did not.
"One afternoon in August, 1896, I went with Sidney Colvin and Mrs.
Sitwell (now Lady Colvin) to Paddington Station to meet Mrs.
Stevenson, when, after Stevenson's death she at last returned to
Europe after her world-wide wanderings--after nine years of exile.
When she alighted from the boat train I felt Stevenson's death as if
it had happened only the day before, and I have no doubt that she did.
As she came up the platform in black, with so much that was strange
and wonderful behind her, his companion of so many years, through
uncharted seas and distant lands, I could only say to myself:
'Hector's Andromache!'"[77]
[Footnote 77: Quoted from _McClure's Magazine_.]
She had one of those unusual personalities that attract other women as
well as men, and one of them, Lady Balfour, writes of her from the
point of view of her own sex:
"When Mrs. Stevenson heard of my engagement to Graham Balfour she
wrote me the kindest and tenderest of letters, telling me not to have
any fears in the new path that lay before me. She added: 'I who tell
you so have trodden it from end to end.' This sympathy meant much to
me, for it could only have come from such a generous heart as hers.
She had hoped that Palema[78] would continue to make his home with
them, and she had great confidence in and love for him. He would have
been a link between her and the old associations of the Vailima life,
and his engagement to an English girl proved to her that this would no
longer be possible. Yet where a less fine nature would have contented
itself with the mere formal congratulations as all that could be
possible under the circumstances, she gave generous sympathy to a
stranger, who caused her fresh loss, from her generous 'steel-true'
heart.
[Footnote 78: Sir Graham Balfour's Samoan name.]
"I had been married about two years when Mrs. Stevenson came to
England in 1898, and we were living at Oxford. I was naturally a
little nervous as to my first introduction to her. My husband wanted
to take me up to London to see her, but I asked to go alone, feeling
somehow that it would be easier. To this day I remember the
trepidation with which I followed the parlor maid upstairs in Oxford
Terrace, and was ushered into the room where a lady of infinite
dignity was lying on a sofa. It seems to me now that after one steady
look from those searching 'eyes of gold and bramble dew' (which had
rather the effect of a sort of spiritual X-ray), I lost my feeling of
being on approval, and in ten minutes I was sitting on the floor
beside the sofa, pouring out my own past history in remarkable detail,
and feeling as if I had known Tamaitai for years.
"In the following summer, 1899, she came to stay with us at Oxford,
to give Palema all the help she could about the life of Robert Louis
Stevenson he had just undertaken at her urgent request. Incidentally,
she was to be introduced to her godson, our eldest boy Gilbert, who
was then about six months old. She gave him a christening present of a
silver bowl for his bread and milk, upon a silver saucer which could
be reversed and used also as a cover. On the covering side were the
words from the Child's Garden:
'It is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink
With little children saying grace
In every Christian kind of place.'
"When the cover was taken off and used as a saucer it had on its
concave side:
'A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table,
At least as far as he is able.'
"Tamaitai had had a very critical operation during the previous
autumn, and was still comparatively invalided with the effects of it.
She spoke enthusiastically of Sir Frederick Treves, who had performed
it and had refused any fee, saying he counted it a privilege to attend
her. I have a clear picture of her in my mind, lying on the sofa in
our drawing-room. The door opened and the nurse carried in the baby,
barefooted. 'Ah,' she said to him, 'who's this coming in hanging out
ten pink rosebuds at the tail of his frock?' And the little pink toes
justified a description that only she would have so worded.
"We drove her round to a few of the most beautiful and characteristic
of the Oxford colleges. She was easily fatigued, but she delighted in
what she saw. I remember admiring her pretty feet, clad in quite
inadequate but most dainty black satin shoes, with very high heels,
and fine silk stockings. When I put my admiration into words she just
smiled upon me delightfully but said nothing.
"One evening we talked desultorily about the 'criminal instinct.'
'Well,' I said at last, 'there's one thing certain, I should never
commit a murder. I shouldn't have the courage when it came to the
point!' 'Oh,' said she, 'I could murder a person if I hated him enough
for anything he had done, but I should have to call upon him in the
morning and tell him I was going to murder him at five o'clock.'
"We dined out with some Oxford friends, among whom was a tall Scotch
professor who was a brilliant and quick talker. Tamaitai took no part
in the rapid thrust and parry of the talk, but sat silently looking
from one to another with her great dark eyes. Their comment on her
long afterwards was that she was the most inscrutable person they had
ever met. As we drove home after the party I asked Tamaitai: 'What did
you think of the talk?' There was a brief silence--then: 'I didn't
understand a single word of it, they talked so fast,' said she
frankly.
"I don't think I ever knew a woman who was a more perfect 'gentleman.'
Scorning all that was not direct, and true, and simple, she herself
hated disguise or casuistry in any form. Her eyes looked through your
soul and out at the other side, but you never felt that her judgment,
whatever it was, would be harsh. She was curiously detached, and yet
you always wanted her sympathy, and if she loved you it never failed
you. She was a strong partisan, which was perhaps the most feminine
part of her character. She was wholly un-English, but she made
allowances for every English tradition. My English maids loved her
without understanding her in the least. I never knew any one that had
such a way as she had of turning your little vagaries and habits and
fads to your notice with their funny side out, so that all the time
you were subtly flattered and secretly delighted."
I wish I had the power to describe that mysterious charm which drew to
her so many and such various people--the high and the low in
far-scattered places of the earth--but it was too elusive to put in
words. Perhaps a large part of it lay in her clear simplicity, her
utter lack of pretence or pose. I remember reading once in a San
Francisco newspaper a comment by a writer who seemed to touch nearly
upon the heart of the secret. The paragraph runs thus:
"Once a man told me that Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was the one woman
in the world he could imagine a man being willing to die for. Every
man I asked--every single man, rich and poor, young or old, clever or
stupid--all agreed about Mrs. Stevenson, that she was the most
fascinating woman he had ever seen. It was some years ago that I saw
her, but I would know her again if I saw her between flashes of
lightning in a stormy sea. Individuality--that was her charm. She
knew it and she had sense enough to be herself. Individuality and
simple unaffected honesty of speech and action and look are the most
potent charms and the most lasting that any woman can ever hope to
have."
Her broad sympathies, too, had much to do with it. If there is any
word in the English language that means the opposite of snob, it may
certainly be applied to her. She picked out her friends for the simple
and sufficient reason that she liked them, and they might and did
include a duchess, a Chinese, a great English playwright, a French
fisherman, a saloon-keeper who was once shipwrecked with her, a noted
actor--and so on through a long and varied list. Once in Sydney when
she was out walking with her daughter, both richly dressed, she
stopped suddenly to shake hands with a group of black-avised pirates
(to all appearances) with rings in their ears. She had met them
somewhere among the islands, and her little white-gloved hand grasped
their big brown ones with genuine and affectionate friendship. Wide
apart as she and her husband were in many things, in their utter lack
of snobbery they were as one. Once they were at a French
watering-place when from their room upstairs they heard a loud uproar
below. A voice cried: "I will see my Louis!" Going out to see what the
trouble was, Louis found four French fishermen in a _char-à-bancs_--all
in peasant blouses. The major-domo of the fashionable hotel was trying
to keep them out, but when Louis appeared he called out their names
joyfully, and they all cried: "Mon cher Louis!" After each had
embraced him, he asked them up to his rooms, and, despite the
ill-concealed scorn of the waiter, ordered up a grand dinner for them.
They were the French fishermen he had known at Monterey, California,
and one may be sure that they met with as cordial a welcome from his
wife as from himself. I know that in one of her letters she urges him
not to forget to write to François the baker, at Monterey, saying: "It
seems to me much more necessary to write some word to him than to Sir
Walter, or Baxter, or Henley, for they are your friends who know you
and will not be disappointed, either in a pleasure or in humanity, as
this poor baker will be. Indeed you must write and say something to
him."
As has been said, her dislike of deceit and treachery was one of the
most strongly marked traits in her character. Once when she had reason
to fear that a person whom she was befriending was deceiving her, and
she was told that a simple inquiry would settle the matter, she
replied: "But I couldn't bear to find out that he is lying to me."
Her charities were many, but they were always of the quiet,
unobtrusive sort, of which few heard except those most nearly
concerned. For instance, when she heard of a poor woman in her
neighbourhood whose life could only be saved by an expensive
operation, she paid to have it done. Her life was full of such acts,
and there are many, many people who have good reason to be grateful to
her memory.
But when all is said, it has always seemed to me that the bright star
of her character, shining above all other traits, was her
loyalty--that staunch fidelity that made her cling, through thick and
thin, through good or evil report, to those whom she loved. But as she
loved, so she hated, and as she endowed her friends with all the
virtues, so she could see no good at all in an enemy. Yet, just when
you thought you were beginning to understand her nature--with its love
and hate of the primal woman--her anger would suddenly soften, not
into tenderness, but into a sort of dispassionate wisdom, and she
would quote her favourite saying: "To know all is to forgive all."
That she had infinite tenderness for the feelings of others, living or
dead, she proved every day. In a letter to Mr. Scribner asking advice
about the publication in London of certain letters of her husband, she
says:
"Some of the letters that are intended to go into the book should not,
in my judgment, appear at all. When my husband was a boy in his late
'teens' and early twenties he and his father--a rigid old
Calvinist--quarrelled on the subject of religion. Louis being young
enough to like the melodrama, it took on an undue importance, out of
all keeping with the real facts. During this turbulent period Louis
poured out his soul in letters, the publication of many of which would
give a false impression of the relations between the son and the
father. Louis was twenty-five when I first met him, and the period of
the religious discussion was long past. Mr. Thomas Stevenson loved me
and was as kind to me as though I were his own daughter. I cannot, for
the sake of an extra volume that would produce a certain amount of
money, do anything that in my heart would seem disloyal to the dear
old man's memory--all the more because he is dead."
In her character there were many strange contradictions, and I think
sometimes this was a part of her attraction, for even after knowing
her for years one could always count on some surprise, some unexpected
contrast which went far in making up her fascinating personality.
Notwithstanding the broad view that she took of life in most of its
aspects, in some things she was old-fashioned. She was never
reconciled, for instance, to female suffrage, and once when she was
persuaded to attend a political meeting at which her daughter was one
of the speakers, she sat looking on with mingled pride in her
daughter's eloquence and horror at her sentiments. Yet, after the
suffrage was granted to women in California, her family was amused to
see her go to the polls and vote and carefully advise the men employed
on her place concerning their ballots.
Some persons were repelled by what they considered Mrs. Stevenson's
cold and distant manner, but they were not aware of what it took her
own family a long time to discover--that this apparent detachment and
sphinxlike immobility covered a real and childlike shyness; yet it was
never apathy, but the stillness of a frightened wild creature that has
never been tamed. Though she said so little, she never failed to
create an impression. Some one once said of her that her silence was
more fascinating than the most brilliant conversation of other women,
and, indeed, "Where Macgregor sits is the head of the table" applied
very aptly to her. Her manner had nothing of the aggressive
self-confidence of the "capable woman." She seemed so essentially
feminine, low-voiced, quiet, even helplessly appealing, that it was
difficult to realize that she was a fair shot, a fearless horsewoman,
a first-rate cook, an expert seamstress, a really scientific gardener,
a most skillful nurse, and had, besides, some working acquaintance
with many trades and professions upon which she could draw in an
emergency.
Her physical courage was remarkable; she would get on any horse, jump
into a boat in any sea, face a burglar--do anything, in fact, that
circumstances seemed to require. But perhaps her moral courage, that
which gave her strength to face great crises--as when Louis was near
death--with a smile on her face, was even greater. This I know came to
her as a direct inheritance from our mother, Esther Van de Grift, who
was never known to give way under the stress of great need.
In her fondness for animals she reminds one of her maternal
ancestress, Elizabeth Knodle, who used to rush out and seize horses by
the bridle when she thought they were being driven too fast by their
cruel drivers. Nothing would more surely arouse her anger than the
sight of any unkindness to one of these "little brothers." Once at
Vailima a gentleman, who ought to have known better, came riding up on
a horse that showed signs of being in pain. "That horse has a sore
back," she cried. The rider angrily denied it, but she insisted on his
dismounting, and when the saddle was removed found that her suspicions
were but too well founded. She compelled him to leave the suffering
creature in her care until its back was entirely cured.
I have been surprised sometimes to hear people speak of her as
"bohemian." Simplicity and genuineness were the foundation-stones of
her character, and she certainly dispensed with many of the useless
conventions of society, but she was a serious-minded woman for whom
the cheap affectations generally labelled as "bohemianism" could have
no attractions.
She was entirely feminine in her love of pretty clothes. In choosing
her own attire, though she followed the fashions and never tried to be
extravagant or _outré_, she had a discriminating taste that made her
always seem to be dressed more attractively than other people. All who
think of her, even in her last days, must have a picture in their
minds of the dainty, lacy, silken prettiness in which she sat
enshrined.
She was pretty as a young woman, but as she grew older she was
beautiful--with that rare type of beauty that "age cannot wither nor
custom stale." With her clear-cut profile, like an exquisite cameo,
color like old ivory, delicate oval face, eyes dark, vivid, and
youthful, her appearance was most unusual. Louis used to say of her
eyes that her glance was like that of one aiming a pistol--direct,
steady, and to some persons rather alarming. Her voice, as I think I
have said somewhere else in these pages, was low, with few
inflections, and was compared by her husband to the murmur of a brook
running under ice. The poet Gosse said of her: "She is dark and
rich-hearted, like some wonderful wine-red jewel."
For years she had worn her hair short, not in the fashion of a
strong-minded female, but in a frame of soft grey curls which was
exceedingly becoming to her face.
Everywhere she went her appearance attracted attention. One evening at
Santa Barbara when David Bispham was giving a concert, she sat in a
box at the theatre, wearing a bandeau of pearls and diamonds round her
head and a collar and necklace of the same. Leaning over the edge of
the box, deeply interested in the singing, she didn't realize the
impression she was making or the fact that Bispham was singing "Oh,
the pretty, pretty creature" directly at her box. Suddenly she became
aware of his compliment, gave a startled, embarrassed look at the
audience, and retired behind her big ostrich-feather fan. People often
turned to look at her in the street, and at such times she would say
to her companions: "Is there anything wrong with my hat? The people
all seem to be smiling at me." They were, but it was with surprised
admiration. Saleswomen and shop-girls adored her, and at all the shops
they vied with each other in waiting on her. On the way home she would
say, with naïve surprise: "How nice all those young women were! There
were five of them all waiting on me at once."
One of her vanities was her small feet, on which she always wore the
daintiest of shoes, often totally unsuited to the occasion. Whenever I
looked at her feet I was reminded of our maternal grandmother, sweet
Kitty Weaver, and how she caught her death going to a ball in the red
satin slippers.
Her beauty was of the elusive type that is the despair of artists,
and of all the portraits painted of her none seemed to me to represent
her true self. I quote from _The Craftsman_ of May, 1912, a reference
to a reproduction of the portrait painted of her by Mrs. Will Low:
"We are sure that our readers the world over will enjoy the
opportunity of this glimpse of Mrs. Stevenson, however the limitations
imposed by black and white may prevent a full realization of the great
charm of this unusual woman, whose personality is so magnetic, so
serene in its poise, so richly intellectual, that those who have had
the opportunity of knowing her always remember her as one of the most
interesting and beautiful among women."
She kept her spirit young to the last, so that no one could ever think
of her as an old woman, and young people always enjoyed her company.
As to her literary accomplishments, had she chosen to devote her time
and strength to the development of her own talents, instead of using
them, as has been the wont of women since the world began, in the
support and encouragement of others, there is no saying how far she
might have gone, for she had an active, creative imagination, and a
discriminating, critical judgment of style. As it was, her writings
were not extensive, and were almost all produced under the spur of
some particular need. They consist of:
Several fairy stories published years ago in _Our Young Folks_ and
_St. Nicholas_, magazines for young people.
_The Dynamiter_, written in collaboration with her husband.
Introductions to her husband's works.
A number of short stories in _Scribner's_ and _McClure's_ magazines,
among which "Anne" and "The Half-White" attracted the most attention.
_The Cruise of the Janet Nichol_, a posthumous work.
Her own estimate of her talents and achievements was extremely modest,
and it was always with the greatest reluctance that she put pen to
paper. Yet she was intensely proud of the work of any member of her
family--whether it might be sister, daughter, son, nephew, or
grandson--and seemed to get more happiness out of anything we did than
from her own work.
She was appalled at the great flood of mediocre writing that has been
pouring over the United States in the last decade or two, and speaks
of it thus in a letter written to Mr. Scribner from her quiet haven at
Sausal:
"If I had a magazine of my own I should bar from its pages any story
in which a young woman urges a young man to 'do things' when he
doesn't have to. There would also be a list of words and phrases that
I would not have within my covers. But, if I had a magazine what would
become of my peace and quiet that I care so much for? No--no such
strenuous life for me! They may call houses 'homes' and spell words so
that children and foreigners must be unable to find out how to
pronounce them--I need not know of such annoyances in El Sausal unless
I choose. I have before me a great pile of magazines--hence these
cries. I read them with wonder and interest. There seems to be such an
extraordinary quantity of clever, talented, ignorant, unliterary
literature let loose in them. Where does it all come from? And why
isn't it better done--or worse done? I suppose we might call it 'near
literature.' Sometimes, indeed, it is very near. I suppose it is the
public school system that is accountable. Well, I never believed in
general education, and here's a justification of my attitude."
When one casts a backward glance over the life of Fanny Van de Grift
Stevenson, it cannot be said that she knew much of that for which she
had always longed--peace. Her girlhood was cut short by a too early
marriage. Her first romance was soon wrecked, and her second was
constantly overshadowed by fear for the loved one. Storm and stress,
varied by some peaceful intervals, filled the larger portion of her
days, and at their end it was in storm and flood that her spirit took
its flight. But it was a full, rich life, and had she had the
choosing, I believe she would have elected no other.
* * * * *
After something more than a year had elapsed from the time of her
death, Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, who had now become the wife of Mr.
Field, sailed with her husband in the spring of 1915 for Samoa,
bearing with them the sacred ashes to be placed within the tomb on
Mount Vaea.
Early in the war the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces had taken
possession of German Samoa, so that when Mr. and Mrs. Field arrived
they found the Union Jack flying over Vailima, now used as Government
House by the Administrator, Colonel Logan, and his staff. The natives,
interested spectators of these stirring events, remarked among
themselves that Tusitala, not going back to his own country, had drawn
his country out to him.
Two friends of the old Vailima days were a great help in making the
arrangements for the funeral--Amatua, often referred to in the
Stevenson letters as Sitione, now a serious elderly chief, and Laulii,
a charming Samoan lady of rank, and a warm and attached friend of the
Stevenson family. Of the Vailima household time and wars had
eliminated all but the youngest--Mitaele, who looked much the same in
spite of grey hair and a family of nine children.
It was Amatua who saw to it that those who remained of the builders of
the "Road of the Loving Hearts" and the chiefs who had cut the path up
the mountain for Tusitala's funeral were included in the list of
guests, and it was he who took personal charge of all the arrangements
for the native ceremonies, which were conducted in the elaborate
Samoan fashion as for a chief of the highest rank.
Colonel and Mrs. Logan very graciously invited the Fields to Vailima
and placed the house and grounds at their disposal.
"It is strange," wrote Mrs. Field, "being here at Vailima. I was so
afraid to come, but mercifully it is not the same. Rooms have been
added, the polished redwood panels in the large hall are painted over
in white; the lawn where the tennis courts were is cut up into flower
beds; many of the great trees have gone; and the atmosphere of the
place has changed so utterly that I have to say to myself 'This is
Vailima' to believe that I am here after so many years. Mrs. Logan
and the Governor came out to meet us when we arrived, and as we turned
into the road and I saw the house for the first time it was the Union
Jack flying from the flag-staff that affected me most. I felt like a
person in a dream as we walked over the house--the same and yet
changed out of all recognition. We had tea, and then in the soft
sunset we went down to the waterfall, no longer a fairy dell of
loveliness but improved with a dam, cement flooring, and a row of neat
bathrooms. In the evening we sat on the upper veranda looking out over
the moonlit tree-tops; the scene was very beautiful, with the view of
the sea and Vaea mountain so green and so close. 'Here we wrote _St.
Ives_ and _Hermiston_,' I tell myself, but I don't believe it."
It had been their intention to have their old missionary friend, Dr.
Brown, conduct the services, but at the last moment word was brought
that he was detained on one of the other islands by storms. For a time
they were much troubled, but at last Colonel Logan lifted a load off
their hearts by offering to read the Church of England service
himself.
The day before that set for the funeral, June 22, it blew and rained,
and there was much anxious foreboding about the weather. In the night,
however, the wind blew away the clouds and rain, and morning broke,
still, sunny, but cool--a perfect day.
The small bronze case containing the ashes, wrapped in a fine mat, had
been laid on a table in one of the rooms that had wide doors opening
on the veranda. The guests began to arrive early, in Samoan fashion,
bringing flowers and wreaths, and soon the table was a mass of lovely
blooms--all colours, for the Samoans do not adhere to white for
funerals. The high chief Tamasese, with his wife Vaaiga, both wearing
mourning bands on their arms, were the first to arrive. Then came
Malietoa Tanu, who was a prominent figure in the war in which the
United States and England joined to fight against Samoa. Following
them came a long concourse of the old friends of Mr. and Mrs.
Stevenson--natives, half-castes, and whites, and last of all, in a
little carriage, three sweet sisters from the Sacred Heart Convent.
The sisters could not stay for the ceremony on the hill, but begged to
be allowed to say a little prayer, and the three knelt before the
table and said an _ave_ for one who had always been their friend.
At nine o'clock they started on the steep climb up the mountain, the
path having been cleared the day before by men sent up through the
thoughtful kindness of the Administrator. Mr. Field led the way with
the casket wrapped in a fine mat, then came Mrs. Field and Laulii,
each carrying one of the mats used in Samoan funeral ceremonies, these
being the same that had been carried at Mr. Stevenson's burial.
[Illustration: The funeral procession as it wound up the hill.]
After them came Colonel Logan and the two high chiefs, Tamasese and
Malietoa, followed by all the other guests, including forty chiefs of
the Tuamasaga. The procession, very picturesque in white clothing and
wreaths of flowers, wound slowly up the mountainside in a zigzag path
under the forest trees. Overhead the branches met in a leafy roof, and
on each side of the narrow path the jungle closed in, thick, lush, and
green. The lianas looped across from bough to bough, huge birds'
nest ferns lay tucked in the branches, on all sides big-leaved plants,
fronds of ferns, and tangled creepers crowded each other for space,
and through all the mass of wild tropic growth the hot sunlight
filtered in splashes of bright green.
When, after many breathless pauses, the top was at last reached, the
case was laid on the base of the tomb and covered with fine mats, with
flowers all about it. Among them were the Japanese imitation
cherry-blossoms sent by Yonida and Fuzisaki, the gardeners at
Stonehedge. The company then gathered around the tomb in a
semi-circle, and Colonel Logan read the Church of England service. It
was an impressive ceremony, and the hearts of all were deeply moved by
it. Filemoni, the Samoan pastor, followed with an eloquent speech in
the native language.
The mats were then removed from the small space that had been cut into
the base of the tomb, and the little case was fitted in and cemented
over. George Stowers, the original builder of the tomb, was there, and
his hand sealed the ashes in their last resting-place.
The ceremony now being over, the party went down the hill in little
groups, resting by the way on fallen logs. Crossing the river at the
bottom, they came into the Loto Alofa Road (Road of the Loving
Hearts), where Amatua had made all the preparations for the funeral
feast, which was to be given according to Samoan custom. A long
table-cloth, consisting of bright-green breadfruit and banana leaves
and ferns, stretched along the ground for sixty feet or more. The
feast was preceded by the ceremonious drinking of _kava_ and speeches
in Samoan. "I had expected the usual somewhat flowery eulogies," wrote
Mrs. Field, "but their speeches were sincere and some of them very
beautiful. They were translated by an interpreter, but fortunately my
memory of the language helped me to follow the meaning, even though
some of the 'high chief' expressions were beyond me. 'Many foreigners
had visited Samoa,' they said, 'but of all who had professed affection
and admiration for the land only one loved it so well that he chose it
for his last resting-place. Tusitala had been the true friend, the
dearly loved, the deeply mourned, and now when the wife of his heart
had joined him after many lonely years the occasion was one too tender
and too beautiful for sorrow.' They assured me that we might leave
Samoa with peaceful hearts, knowing that those we loved were in the
land--not of strangers, but of devoted friends, who would cherish the
tomb on Vaea as they cherished in their hearts the memory of Tusitala
and Aolele."
Amatua then announced that the feast was ready, and the Governor and
his wife were seated at the head at one end of the long table, with
Tamasese and Malietoa Tanu on either side. The board, figuratively
speaking, groaned under a great spread of native delicacies. It was
full noon by this time, and very hot, but Amatua had thoughtfully
placed little trees all along the side to keep off the sunshine. "At
the end of the feast," says Mrs. Field, "I made a little speech of
thanks, and it came straight from my heart, for I was deeply touched
by the kindness of them all and their loyalty to the memory of my
dear mother and Tusitala. We tried to thank Colonel Logan and his
wife, but words can never do that."
"Nothing more picturesque can be imagined than the narrow plateau that
forms the summit of Mount Vaea, a place no wider than a room and as
flat as a table. On either side the land descends precipitately; in
front lie the vast ocean and the surf-swept reefs; in the distance to
the right and left green mountains rise, densely covered with the
primeval forest."[79]
[Footnote 79: Lloyd Osbourne, in _A Letter to His
Friends_, written directly after the death of Mr.
Stevenson.]
Stevenson's tomb, with the tablet and lettering, was designed by
Gelett Burgess, and was built by native workmen under the direction of
a half-caste named George Stowers. The material was cement, run into
boxes and formed into large blocks, which were then carried to the
summit on the strong shoulders of Samoans, though each block was so
heavy that two white men could scarcely lift it from the ground.
Arrived at the summit the blocks were then welded into a plain and
dignified design, with two large bronze tablets let in on either side.
One bears the inscription in Samoan, "The resting-place of Tusitala,"
followed by the quotation in the same language of "Thy country shall
be my country and thy God my God." The other side bears the name and
dates and the requiem:
"Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
When Mr. and Mrs. Field arrived in Samoa they brought with them a
tablet which they carried to the summit of Mount Vaea and had cemented
in one end of the base of the tomb. It is of heavy bronze, and bears
the name Aolele, together with these lines:
"Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart whole and soul free,
The August Father gave to me."
On the tablet for Mr. Stevenson the thistle for Scotland had been
carved at one corner and the hibiscus for Samoa at the other. On his
wife's the hibiscus was placed at one corner, and after long
hesitation about the other, a sudden inspiration suggested to Mrs.
Field the tiger-lily--bright flower whose name had been given to
little Fanny Van de Grift by her mother in the old days in Indiana.
Before leaving the island Mr. and Mrs. Field endowed a scholarship for
three little girls at the convent school--one to be chosen by the
sisters, one by Tamasese, and one by Mitaele, the last of the Vailima
household. All they asked was that these little girls should go to the
tomb on the 10th of every March, the birthday of Aolele, and decorate
the grave. That they kept their promise is shown by the following
quotation from the Samoan _Times_:
[Illustration: The tomb, showing the bronze tablet with the verse from
Stevenson's poem to his wife.]
"On Friday morning, the 10th instant, the three pupils of the
convent school, Savalalo, whose scholarships were endowed by Mr. and
Mrs. Salisbury Field in memory of the late Mrs. Robert Louis
Stevenson, the mother of Mrs. Field, paid a visit to the Stevenson
tomb on Mount Vaea in honor of the anniversary of the birthday of the
deceased lady. The little party left at 7 A.M. and arrived at the
summit of the hill at about nine o'clock. Upon arrival at the top of
the hill the children lost no time in decorating the grave with
wreaths of flowers and greenery, a plentiful supply of which was taken
by them. After the decorating the party sat down to a small
_taumafataga_ (high chief lunch), after which they returned to town."
* * * * *
Tiger-lily and Scotch thistle--they sleep together under tropic stars,
far from the fields of waving corn and the purple moorlands, but each
year hands, alien to them both, tenderly lay flowers on their tomb.