23_rd_ _August_.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—Your pleasing letter _re The Ebb Tide_, to hand. I
propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd’s name. He has nothing
to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning
of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather
unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work.
Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me
the most ugly and cynical of all.
You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not
because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that
surround me and that I choose to say nothing of. Life is not all Beer
and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white
to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on.
Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an
ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still
believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the
missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy
devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is. . . .
Well, _il faut cultiver son jardin_. That last expression of poor,
unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to _St. Ives_.
* * * * *
24th _Aug._
And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep ultimately and ‘a’ the
clouds has blawn away.’ ‘Be sure we’ll have some pleisand weather, When
a’ the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away.’ Verses that have a
quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe had for Burns. They
have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a most excellent
humour.
I am deep in _St. Ives_ which, I believe, will be the next novel done.
But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw
in your face the very last thing you expect—or I expect. _St. Ives_ will
(to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny style; a
little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to some
extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. _St. Ives_ is unintellectual
and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the adventures seem to me
sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story. Speed his wings!
* * * * *
_Sunday night_.
_De cœur un peu plus dispos_, _monsieur et cher confrère_, _je me remets
à vous écrire_. _St. Ives_ is now in the 5th chapter copying; in the
14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not believe I shall end by
disliking it.
* * * * *
_Monday_.
Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is _very well_ indeed, and in
good spirits; I am in good spirits but not _very_ well; Lloyd is in good
spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever which has put her pipe
out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes with him three
chapters of _The Family_, and is to go to you as soon as he can. He
cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him when you can
and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six months with us
and he can tell you just what is true and what is not—and not the dreams
of dear old Ross. He is a good fellow, is he not?
Since you rather revise your views of _The Ebb Tide_, I think Lloyd’s
name might stick, but I’ll leave it to you. I’ll tell you just how it
stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned
between us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to
do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the
projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My
jmpression—(I beg your pardon—this is a local joke—a firm here had on its
beer labels, ‘sole jmporters’)—is that it will never be popular, but
might make a little _succès de scandale_. However, I’m done with it now,
and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what I
care.
Hole essential. I am sorry about the maps; but I want ’em for next
edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the
bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not
write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work
of _falsification_ which a play demands is of all tasks the most
ungrateful? And I have done it a long while—and nothing ever came of it.
Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic
and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less
sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I _would_ like you
to, for it’s beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it’s a
wrench not to be planted in Scotland—that I can never deny—if I could
only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone like
the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a man
who wrote the _Stickit Minister_, and dedicated it to me, in words that
brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them, ‘Where about
the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. _His_ heart remembers
how.’ Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots
destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my head filled
with the blessed, beastly place all the time!
And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers,
I believe, my letters and Fanny’s when we were first installed, and were
really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes,
asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape
gooseberries—galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a
week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the
gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful—for no one who has
not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As
for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a
month without leaving the verandah—for my sins, be it said! Doubtless,
when I go about and, as the Doctor says, ‘expose myself to malaria,’ I am
in far better health; and I would do so more too—for I do not mean to be
silly—but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much the dear
Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does not exist
in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really bothers us a
little is the mosquito affair—the so-called elephantiasis—ask Ross about
it. A real romance of natural history, _quoi_!
Hi! stop! you say _The Ebb Tide_ is the ‘working out of an artistic
problem of a kind.’ Well, I should just bet it was! You don’t like
Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they’re all there, I’ll go bail.
Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a
weakness, that are gone through and lived out.
Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and
angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot
bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in
Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips—and the
women’s heads taken—all under white auspices. And for upshot and result
of so much shame to the white powers—Tamasese already conspiring! as I
knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to
meddle in politics!
I suppose you’re right about Simon. But it is Symon throughout in that
blessed little volume my father bought for me in Inverness in the year of
grace ’81, I believe—the trial of James Stewart, with the Jacobite
pamphlet and the dying speech appended—out of which the whole of Davie
has already been begotten, and which I felt it a kind of loyalty to
follow. I really ought to have it bound in velvet and gold, if I had any
gratitude! and the best of the lark is, that the name of David Balfour is
not anywhere within the bounds of it.
A pretty curious instance of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at
your good word for _David_; I believe the two together make up much the
best of my work and perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of them,
at least. There is one hitch; instead of three hours between the two
parts, I fear there have passed three years over Davie’s character; but
do not tell anybody; see if they can find it out for themselves; and no
doubt his experiences in _Kidnapped_ would go far to form him. I would
like a copy to go to G. Meredith.
* * * * *
_Wednesday_.
Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start with Graham next week
and go to Honolulu to meet the other steamer and return: I do believe a
fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not yet certain. The crowded
_up_-steamer sticks in my throat.
* * * * *
_Tuesday_, 12_th_ _Sept._
Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals of Vailima. I got
leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the _Katoomba_ come up,
and they came, fourteen of ’em, with drum, fife, cymbals and bugles, blue
jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The house was all decorated with
scented greenery above and below. We had not only our own nine out-door
workers, but a contract party that we took on in charity to pay their
war-fine; the band besides, as it came up the mountain, had collected a
following of children by the way, and we had a picking of Samoan ladies
to receive them. Chicken, ham, cake, and fruits were served out with
coffee and lemonade, and all the afternoon we had rounds of claret negus
flavoured with rum and limes. They played to us, they danced, they sang,
they tumbled. Our boys came in the end of the verandah and gave _them_ a
dance for a while. It was anxious work getting this stopped once it had
begun, but I knew the band was going on a programme. Finally they gave
three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched
off playing—till a kicking horse in the paddock put their pipes out
something of the suddenest—we thought the big drum was gone, but Simelé
flew to the rescue. And so they wound away down the hill with ever
another call of the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps
the most contented hosts that ever watched the departure of successful
guests. Simply impossible to tell how well these blue-jackets behaved; a
most interesting lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is
making a class, wholly apart—how shall I call them?—a kind of lower-class
public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent, sentimental as a
sailor. What is more shall be writ on board ship if anywhere.
Please send _Catriona_ to G. Meredith.
* * * * *
_S. S. Mariposa_.
To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to your honour. R. L. S.