_January_ 1893.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—You are properly paid at last, and it is like you will
have but a shadow of a letter. I have been pretty thoroughly out of
kilter; first a fever that would neither come on nor go off, then acute
dyspepsia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between the
waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil does no one send me
_Atalanta_? And why are there no proofs of D. Balfour? Sure I should
have had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and it would be
all for the advantage of the Atalantans. I have written to Cassell & Co.
(matter of _Falesá_) ‘you will please arrange with him’ (meaning you).
‘What he may decide I shall abide.’ So consider your hand free, and act
for me without fear or favour. I am greatly pleased with the
illustrations. It is very strange to a South-Seayer to see Hawaiian
women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that’s all one to you in
Middlesex. It’s about the same as if London city men were shown going to
the Stock Exchange as _pifferari_; but no matter, none will sleep worse
for it. I have accepted Cassell’s proposal as an amendment to one of
mine; that _D. B._ is to be brought out first under the title _Catriona_
without pictures; and, when the hour strikes, _Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_
are to form vols. I. and II. of the heavily illustrated ‘Adventures of
David Balfour’ at 7s. 6d. each, sold separately.
—’s letter was vastly sly and dry and shy. I am not afraid now. Two
attempts have been made, both have failed, and I imagine these failures
strengthen me. Above all this is true of the last, where my weak point
was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only force can dislodge me,
for public opinion is wholly on my side. All races and degrees are
united in heartfelt opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The news of the
fighting was of no concern to mortal man; it was made much of because men
love talk of battles, and because the Government pray God daily for some
scandal not their own; but it was only a brisk episode in a clan fight
which has grown apparently endemic in the west of Tutuila. At the best
it was a twopenny affair, and never occupied my mind five minutes.
I am so weary of reports that are without foundation and threats that go
without fulfilment, and so much occupied besides by the raging troubles
of my own wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been
in literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the First
Chapter of the Justice Clerk; it took me about ten days, and requires
another athletic dressing after all. And that is my story for the month.
The rest is grunting and grutching.
Consideranda for _The Beach_:—
I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you?
II. Whether to call the whole volume ‘Island Nights Entertainments’?
III. Whether, having waited so long, it would not be better to give me
another mail, in case I could add another member to the volume and a
little better justify the name?
If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What annoyed me about
the use of _The Bottle Imp_ was that I had always meant it for the
centre-piece of a volume of _Märchen_ which I was slowly to elaborate.
You always had an idea that I depreciated the B. I; I can’t think
wherefore; I always particularly liked it—one of my best works, and ill
to equal; and that was why I loved to keep it in portfolio till I had
time to grow up to some other fruit of the same _venue_. However, that
is disposed of now, and we must just do the best we can.
I am not aware that there is anything to add; the weather is hellish,
waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul fiend’s own weather, following on a
week of expurgated heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. I
write in the upper floor of my new house, of which I will send you some
day a plan to measure. ’Tis an elegant structure, surely, and the proid
of me oi. Was asked to pay for it just now, and genteelly refused, and
then agreed, in view of general good-will, to pay a half of what is still
due.
* * * * *
24_th_ _January_ 1893.
This ought to have gone last mail and was forgotten. My best excuse is
that I was engaged in starting an influenza, to which class of exploit
our household has been since then entirely dedicated. We had eight
cases, one of them very bad, and one—mine—complicated with my old friend
Bluidy Jack. Luckily neither Fanny, Lloyd or Belle took the confounded
thing, and they were able to run the household and nurse the sick to
admiration.
Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps the prettiest
performance was that of our excellent Henry Simelé, or, as we sometimes
call him, Davy Balfour. Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest
Samoan recoils from emptying slops as you would from cheating at cards;
now the last nights of our bad time when we had seven down together, it
was enough to have made anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going the
rounds with a slop-bucket and going inside the mosquito net of each of
the sick, Protestant and Catholic alike, to pray with them.
I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alleviation and began a
new story. This I am writing by dictation, and really think it is an art
I can manage to acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just
like a school-treat to me and the amanuensis bears up extraordinar’. The
story is to be called _St. Ives_; I give you your choice whether or not
it should bear the subtitle, ‘Experiences of a French prisoner in
England.’ We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this cursed
mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It looks to me very like as
if St. Ives would be ready before any of the others, but you know me and
how impossible it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her head quite
turned and believes herself to be the author of this novel (and is to
some extent)—and as the creature (!) has not been wholly useless in the
matter (I told you so! A.M.) I propose to foster her vanity by a little
commemoration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves—he
Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is my idea to get a
ring made which shall either represent _Anne_ or A. S. Y. A., of course,
would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway and
was my father’s before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do
about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he
meet the case, the two N.’s? These things are beyond my knowledge, which
it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the
matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to hear your
views. I shall tell you on some other occasion and when the A.M. is out
of hearing how _very_ much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but I
may as well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir, damned
cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by praise, not pudding, flattery
and not coins! I shall send you when the time is ripe a ring to measure
by.
To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were almost wholly
recovered Henry lay down to influenza on his own account. He is but just
better and it looks as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As
for me, I am all right, though I _was_ reduced to dictating _Anne_ in the
deaf and dumb alphabet, which I think you will admit is a _comble_.
Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so much of my
purpose has come off, and Cedarcrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest
of it has all gone to water. The triple-headed ass at home, in his
plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the
Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose
it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and
unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject
and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field
appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of
character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true
phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and
my hot water with a dose of good Glenlivat.
Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our
new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the
hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent
visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get the
furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more decorative,
the picture frames, will look sublime.
* * * * *
_Jan._ 30_th_.
I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson’s Syntax and Dance of
Death out of our house, and begging for anything about fashions and
manners (fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help? Both the
Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I got into
St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for the other. There is a
kind of fancy list of Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in Edinburgh
Castle.) I. Story of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made, and
given to a girl visitor). II. Story of a pair of scissors. III. St.
Ives receives a bundle of money. IV. St. Ives is shown a house. V. The
Escape. VI. The Cottage (Swanston College). VII. The Hen-house. VIII.
Three is company and four none. IX. The Drovers. X. The Great North
Road. XI. Burchell Fenn. XII. The covered cart. XIII. The doctor.
XIV. The Luddites. V. Set a thief to catch a thief. XXVI. M. le Comte
de Kéroualle (his uncle, the rich _émigré_, whom he finds murdered).
XVII. The cousins. XVIII. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. XIX. A meeting at the
Ship, Dover. XX. Diane. XXI. The Duke’s Prejudices. XXII. The False
Messenger. XXIII. The gardener’s ladder. XXIV. The officers. XXV.
Trouble with the Duke. XXVI. Fouquet again. XXVII. The Aeronaut.
XXVIII. The True-Blooded Yankee. XXIX. In France. I don’t know where to
stop. Apropos, I want a book about Paris, and the _first return_ of the
_émigrés_ and all up to the _Cent Jours_: d’ye ken anything in my way? I
want in particular to know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries
and officers, and to get the colour and some vital details of the
business of exchange of departments from one side to the other. Ten
chapters are drafted, and VIII. re-copied by me, but will want another
dressing for luck. It is merely a story of adventure, rambling along;
but that is perhaps the guard that ‘sets my genius best,’ as Alan might
have said. I wish I could feel as easy about the other! But there, all
novels are a heavy burthen while they are doing, and a sensible
disappointment when they are done.
For God’s sake, let me have a copy of the new German Samoa White book.
R. L. S.