Mrs Strong, in her chapter of _Table Talk in Memories of Vailima_, tells
a story of the natives' love for Stevenson. "The other day the cook was
away," she writes, "and Louis, who was busy writing, took his meals in
his room. Knowing there was no one to cook his lunch, he told Sosimo to
bring him some bread and cheese. To his surprise he was served with an
excellent meal--an omelette, a good salad, and perfect coffee. 'Who
cooked this?' asked Louis in Samoan. 'I did,' said Sosimo. 'Well,' said
Louis, 'great is your wisdom.' Sosimo bowed and corrected him--'Great is
my love!'"
Miss Stubbs, in her _Stevenson's Shrine_; _the Record of a Pilgrimage_,
illustrates the same devotion. On the top of Mount Vaea, she writes, is
the massive sarcophagus, "not an ideal structure by any means, not even
beautiful, and yet in its massive ruggedness it somehow suited the man
and the place."
"The wind sighed softly in the branches of the 'Tavau' trees, from out
the green recesses of the 'Toi' came the plaintive coo of the
wood-pigeon. In and out of the branches of the magnificent 'Fau' tree,
which overhangs the grave, a king-fisher, sea-blue, iridescent, flitted
to and fro, whilst a scarlet hibiscus, in full flower, showed up royally
against the gray lichened cement. All around was light and life and
colour, and I said to myself, 'He is made one with nature'; he is now,
body and soul and spirit, commingled with the loveliness around. He who
longed in life to scale the height, he who attained his wish only in
death, has become in himself a parable of fulfilment. No need now for
that heart-sick cry:--
"'Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?'
No need now for the despairing finality of:
"'I have trod the upward and the downward slope,
I have endured and done in the days of yore,
I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope,
And I have lived, and loved, and closed the door.'
"Death has set his seal of peace on the unequal conflict of mind and
matter; the All-Mother has gathered him to herself.
"In years to come, when his grave is perchance forgotten, a rugged
ruin, home of the lizard and the bat, Tusitala--the story-teller--'the
man with a heart of gold' (as I so often heard him designated in the
Islands), will live, when it may be his tales have ceased to interest,
in the tender remembrance of those whose lives he beautified, and
whose hearts he warmed into gratitude."
The chiefs have prohibited the use of firearms or other weapons on Mount
Vaea, "in order that the birds may live there undisturbed and unafraid,
and build their nests in the trees around Tusitala's grave."
Miss Stubbs has many records of the impression produced on those he came
in contact with in Samoa--white men and women as well as natives. She
met a certain Austrian Count, who adored Stevenson's memory. Over his
camp bed was a framed photograph of R. L. Stevenson.
"So," he said, "I keep him there, for he was my saviour, and I wish
'good-night' and 'good-morning,' every day, both to himself and to his
old home." The Count then told us that when he was stopping at
Vailima he used to have his bath daily on the verandah below his room.
One lovely morning he got up very early, got into the bath, and
splashed and sang, feeling very well and very happy, and at last
beginning to sing very loudly, he forgot Mr Stevenson altogether. All
at once there was Stevenson himself, his hair all ruffled up, his eyes
full of anger. "Man," he said, "you and your infernal row have cost
me more than two hundred pounds in ideas," and with that he was gone,
but he did not address the Count again the whole of that day. Next
morning he had forgotten the Count's offence and was just as friendly
as ever, but--the noise was never repeated!
Another of the Count's stories greatly amused the visitors:
"An English lord came all the way to Samoa in his yacht to see Mr
Stevenson, and found him in his cool Kimino sitting with the ladies,
and drinking tea on his verandah; the whole party had their feet bare.
The English lord thought that he must have called at the wrong time,
and offered to go away, but Mr Stevenson called out to him, and
brought him back, and made him stay to dinner. They all went away to
dress, and the guest was left sitting alone in the verandah. Soon
they came back, Mr Osbourne and Mr Stevenson wearing the form of dress
most usual in that hot climate a white mess jacket, and white
trousers, but their feet were still bare. The guest put up his
eyeglass and stared for a bit, then he looked down upon his own
beautifully shod feet, and sighed. They all talked and laughed until
the ladies came in, the ladies in silk dresses, befrilled with lace,
but still with bare feet, and the guest took a covert look through his
eyeglass and gasped, but when he noticed that there were gold bangles
on Mrs Strong's ankles and rings upon her toes, he could bear no more
and dropped his eyeglass on the ground of the verandah breaking it all
to bits."
Miss Stubbs met on the other side of the island a photographer who told
her this:
"I had but recently come to Samoa," he said, "and was standing one day
in my shop when Mr Stevenson came in and spoke. 'Man,' he said, 'I
tak ye to be a Scotsman like mysel'.'
"I would I could have claimed a kinship," deplored the photographer,
"but, alas! I am English to the backbone, with never a drop of Scotch
blood in my veins, and I told him this, regretting the absence of the
blood tie."
"'I could have sworn your back was the back of a Scotsman,' was his
comment, 'but,' and he held out his hand, 'you look sick, and there is
a fellowship in sickness not to be denied.' I said I was not strong,
and had come to the Island on account of my health. 'Well, then,'
replied Mr Stevenson, 'it shall be my business to help you to get
well; come to Vailima whenever you like, and if I am out, ask for
refreshment, and wait until I come in, you will always find a welcome
there.'"
At this point my informant turned away, and there was a break in his
voice as he exclaimed, "Ah, the years go on, and I don't miss him
less, but more; next to my mother he was the best friend I ever had: a
man with a heart of gold; his house was a second home to me."
Stevenson's experience shows how easy it is with a certain type of man,
to restore the old feudal conditions of service and relationship.
Stevenson did this in essentials in Samoa. He tells us how he managed to
get good service out of the Samoans (who are accredited with great
unwillingness to work); and this he _did_ by firm, but generous, kindly,
almost brotherly treatment, reviving, as it were, a kind of clan
life--giving a livery of certain colours--symbol of all this. A little
fellow of eight, he tells, had been taken into the household, made a pet
of by Mrs Strong, his stepdaughter, and had had a dress given to him,
like that of the men; and, when one day he had strolled down by himself
as far as the hotel, and the master of it, seeing him, called out in
Samoan, "Hi, youngster, who are you?" The eight-year-old replied, "Why,
don't you see for yourself? I am one of the Vailima men!"
The story of the _Road of the Loving Heart_ was but another fine
attestation of it.