A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.
[The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the _Feast of
Famine_ (published with others in the collection of 1890; "Ballads,"
Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his ballads for any quality
except their narrative vigor; thinking them unequal and uncertain both
in metre and style.]
TAITI, October 16th, 1888.
MY DEAR COLVIN,—The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning
bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet
will travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a
better ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will
wag your pow over it, and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has
it not spirit all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy
painted it, has it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing
has considerable merit! Read it, get a type-written copy taken, and send
me that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting
the most excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending
the thing is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much
MS. go down with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous;
but it has left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are
all for putting eggs in various baskets.
We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Reiatea, Bora-Bora, and the
Sandwiches.
O, how my spirit languishes
To step ashore on the Sanguishes;
For there my letters wait,
There shall I know my fate.
O, how my spirit languidges
To step ashore on the Sanguidges.
_18th._—I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am quite
recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these climates
and this voyage have given me more strength than I could have thought
possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the mind
and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of space, the
cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors, the captain,
the passengers—but you are amply repaid when you sight an island, and
drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble has attended this trip, but
I must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, as in the
last few weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that were
the bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and to
some degree from my temper. Do you know what they called the _Casco_ at
Fakarava? The _Silver Ship_. Is that not pretty? Pray tell Mrs. Jenkin,
_die silberne Frau_, as I only learned it since I wrote her. I think
of calling the book by that name: _The Cruise of the Silver Ship_—so
there will be one poetic page at least—the title. At the Sandwiches we
shall say farewell to the _S. S._ with mingled feelings. She is a lovely
creature: the most beautiful thing at this moment in Taiti.
Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to say.
You would think I was bursting: but the voyage is all stored up for the
book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the
time are not worth telling; and our news is little.
Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think) for we are now stored, and the Blue
Peter metaphorically flies.