On Saturday I went down to the town, and fetched up Captain Gibson to
dinner; Sunday I was all day at Samoa, and had a pile of visitors.
Yesterday got my mail, including your despicable sheet; was fooled with
a visit from the high chief Asi, went down at 4 P.M. to my Samoan lesson
from Whitmee--I think I shall learn from him, he does not fool me with
cockshot rules that are demolished next day, but professes ignorance
like a man; the truth is, the grammar has still to be expiscated--dined
with Haggard, and got home about nine.
_Wednesday._--The excellent Clarke up here almost all day yesterday, a
man I esteem and like to the soles of his boots; I prefer him to any one
in Samoa, and to most people in the world; a real good missionary, with
the inestimable advantage of having grown up a layman. Pity they all
can't get that! It recalls my old proposal, which delighted Lady Taylor
so much, that every divinity student should be thirty years old at least
before he was admitted. Boys switched out of college into a pulpit, what
chance have they? That any should do well amazes me, and the most are
just what was to be expected.
_Saturday._--I must tell you of our feast. It was long promised to the
boys, and came off yesterday in one of their new houses. My good Simele
arrived from Savaii that morning asking for political advice; then we
had Tauilo; Elena's father, a talking man of Tauilo's family; Talolo's
cousin; and a boy of Simele's family, who attended on his dignity; then
Metu, the meat-man--you have never heard of him, but he is a great
person in our household--brought a lady and a boy--and there was another
infant--eight guests in all. And we sat down thirty strong. You should
have seen our procession, going (about two o'clock), all in our best
clothes, to the hall of feasting! All in our Sunday's best. The new
house had been hurriedly finished; the rafters decorated with flowers;
the floor spread, native style, with green leaves; we had given a big
porker, twenty-five pounds of fresh beef, a tin of biscuit, cocoanuts,
etc. Our places were all arranged with much care; the native ladies of
the house facing our party; the sides filled up by the men; the guests,
please observe: the two chief people, male and female, were placed with
our family, the rest between S. and the native ladies. After the feast
was over, we had kava, and the calling of the kava was a very elaborate
affair, and I thought had like to have made Simele very angry; he is
really a considerable chief, but he and Tauilo were not called till
after all our family, _and the guests_, I suppose the principle being
that he was still regarded as one of the household. I forgot to say that
our black boy did not turn up when the feast was ready. Off went the two
cooks, found him, decorated him with huge red hibiscus flowers--he was
in a very dirty undershirt--brought him back between them like a
reluctant maid, and thrust him into a place between Faauma and Elena,
where he was petted and ministered to. When his turn came in the kava
drinking--and you may be sure, in their contemptuous, affectionate
kindness for him, as for a good dog, it came rather earlier than it
ought--he was cried under a new name. _Aleki_ is what they make of his
own name Arrick; but instead of {the cup of / "le ipu a} Aleki!" it was
called "le ipu a _Vailima_," and it was explained that he had "taken his
chief-name"! a jest at which the plantation still laughs. Kava done, I
made a little speech, Henry translating. If I had been well, I should
have alluded to all, but I was scarce able to sit up; so only alluded to
my guest of all this month, the Tongan, Tomas, and to Simele, partly for
the jest of making him translate compliments to himself. The talking man
replied with many handsome compliments to me, in the usual flood of
Samoan fluent neatness; and we left them to an afternoon of singing and
dancing. Must stop now, as my right hand is very bad again. I am trying
to write with my left.
_Sunday._--About half-past eight last night, I had gone to my own room,
Fanny and Lloyd were in Fanny's, every one else in bed, only two boys on
the premises--the two little brown boys Mitaiele (Michael), age I
suppose 11 or 12, and the new steward, a Wallis islander, speaking no
English and about fifty words of Samoan, recently promoted from the bush
work, and a most good, anxious, timid lad of 15 or 16--looks like 17 or
18, of course--they grow fast here. In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told
some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and
see his family in the bush.--"But he has no family in the bush," said
Lloyd. "No," said Mitaiele. They went to the boy's bed (they sleep in
the walled-in compartment of the verandah, once my dressing-room) and
called at once for me. He lay like one asleep, talking in drowsy tones
but without excitement, and at times "cheeping" like a frightened mouse;
he was quite cool to the touch, and his pulse not fast; his breathing
seemed wholly ventral; the bust still, the belly moving strongly.
Presently he got from his bed, and ran for the door, with his head down
not three feet from the floor and his body all on a stretch forward,
like a striking snake: I say "ran," but this strange movement was not
swift. Lloyd and I mastered him and got him back in bed. Soon there was
another and more desperate attempt to escape, in which Lloyd had his
ring broken. Then we bound him to the bed humanely with sheets, ropes,
boards, and pillows. He lay there and sometimes talked, sometimes
whispered, sometimes wept like an angry child; his principal word was
"Faamolemole"--"Please"--and he kept telling us at intervals that his
family were calling him. During this interval, by the special grace of
God, my boys came home; we had already called in Arrick, the black boy;
now we had that Hercules, Lafaele, and a man Savea, who comes from
Paatalise's own island and can alone communicate with him freely. Lloyd
went to bed, I took the first watch, and sat in my room reading, while
Lafaele and Arrick watched the madman. Suddenly Arrick called me; I ran
into the verandah; there was Paatalise free of all his bonds and Lafaele
holding him. To tell what followed is impossible. We were five people at
him--Lafaele and Savea, very strong men, Lloyd, I and Arrick, and the
struggle lasted until 1 A.M. before we had him bound. One detail for a
specimen: Lloyd and I had charge of one leg, we were both sitting on it
and lo! we were both tossed into the air--I, I dare say, a couple of
feet. At last we had him spread-eagled to the iron bedstead, by his
wrists and ankles, with matted rope; a most inhumane business, but what
could we do? it was all we could do to manage it even so. The strength
of the paroxysms had been steadily increasing, and we trembled for the
next. And now I come to pure Rider Haggard. Lafaele announced that the
boy was very bad, and he would get "some medicine" which was a family
secret of his own. Some leaves were brought mysteriously in; chewed,
placed on the boy's eyes, dropped in his ears (see _Hamlet_) and stuck
up his nostrils; as he did this, the weird doctor partly smothered the
patient with his hand; and by about 2 A.M. he was in a deep sleep, and
from that time he showed no symptom of dementia whatever. The medicine
(says Lafaele) is principally used for the wholesale slaughter of
families; he himself feared last night that his dose was fatal; only one
other person, on this island, knows the secret; and she, Lafaele darkly
whispers, has abused it. This remarkable tree we must try to identify.
The man-of-war doctor came up to-day, gave us a strait-waistcoat, taught
us to bandage, examined the boy and saw he was apparently well--he
insisted on doing his work all morning, poor lad, and when he first came
down kissed all the family at breakfast! The doctor was greatly excited,
as may be supposed, about Lafaele's medicine.
_Tuesday._--All yesterday writing my mail by the hand of Belle, to save
my wrist. This is a great invention, to which I shall stick, if it can
be managed. We had some alarm about Paatalise, but he slept well all
night for a benediction. This lunatic asylum exercise has no attractions
for any of us.
I don't know if I remembered to say how much pleased I was with _Across
the Plains_ in every way, inside and out, and you and me. The critics
seem to taste it, too, as well as could be hoped, and I believe it will
continue to bring me in a few shillings a year for a while. But such
books pay only indirectly.
To understand the full horror of the mad scene, and how well my boys
behaved, remember that they _believed P.'s ravings_, they _knew_ that
his dead family, thirty strong, crowded the front verandah and called on
him to come to the other world. They _knew_ that his dead brother had
met him that afternoon in the bush and struck him on both temples. And
remember! we are fighting the dead, and they had to go out again in the
black night, which is the dead man's empire. Yet last evening, when I
thought P. was going to repeat the performance, I sent down for Lafaele,
who had leave of absence, and he and his wife came up about eight
o'clock with a lighted brand. These are the things for which I have to
forgive my old cattle-man his manifold shortcomings; they are heroic--so
are the shortcomings, to be sure.
It came over me the other day suddenly that this diary of mine to you
would make good pickings after I am dead, and a man could make some kind
of a book out of it without much trouble. So, for God's sake, don't lose
them, and they will prove a piece of provision for my "poor old family,"
as Simele calls it.
About my coming to Europe, I get more and more doubtful, and rather
incline to Ceylon again as place of meeting. I am so absurdly well here
in the tropics, that it seems like affectation. Yet remember I have
never once stood Sydney. Anyway, I shall have the money for it all
ahead, before I think of such a thing.
We had a bowl of punch on your birthday, which my incredible mother
somehow knew and remembered.
By the time you receive this, my Samoan book will I suppose be out and
the worst known. If I am burned in effigy for it no more need be said;
if on the other hand I get off cheap with the authorities, this is to
say that, supposing a vacancy to occur, I would condescend to accept the
office of H.B.M.'s consul with parts, pendicles and appurtenances. There
is a very little work to do except some little entertaining, to which I
am bound to say my family and in particular the amanuensis who now
guides the pen look forward with delight; I with manly resignation. The
real reasons for the step would be three: 1st, possibility of being able
to do some good, or at least certainty of not being obliged to stand
always looking on helplessly at what is bad: 2nd, larks for the family:
3rd, and perhaps not altogether least, a house in town and a boat and a
boat's crew.[44]
But I find I have left out another reason: 4th, growing desire on the
part of the old man virulent for anything in the nature of a
salary--years seem to invest that idea with new beauty.
I sometimes sit and yearn for anything in the nature of an income that
would come in--mine has all got to be gone and fished for with the
immortal mind of man. What I want is the income that really comes in of
itself while all you have to do is just to blossom and exist and sit on
chairs. Think how beautiful it would be not to have to mind the critics,
and not even the darkest of the crowd--Sidney Colvin. I should probably
amuse myself with works that would make your hair curl, if you had any
left.
R. L. S.
TO T. W. DOVER
Stevenson's correspondent in this case is an artisan, who had been
struck by the truth of a remark in his essay on _Beggars_ that it is
only or mainly the poor who habitually give to the poor; and who
wrote to ask whether it was from experience that Stevenson knew this.
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, June 20th, 1892._
SIR,--In reply to your very interesting letter, I cannot fairly say that
I have ever been poor, or known what it was to want a meal. I have been
reduced, however, to a very small sum of money, with no apparent
prospect of increasing it; and at that time I reduced myself to
practically one meal a day, with the most disgusting consequences to my
health. At this time I lodged in the house of a working-man, and
associated much with others. At the same time, from my youth up, I have
always been a good deal and rather intimately thrown among the
working-classes, partly as a civil engineer in out-of-the-way places,
partly from a strong and, I hope, not ill-favoured sentiment of
curiosity. But the place where, perhaps, I was most struck with the fact
upon which you comment was the house of a friend, who was exceedingly
poor, in fact, I may say destitute, and who lived in the attic of a very
tall house entirely inhabited by persons in varying stages of poverty.
As he was also in ill-health, I made a habit of passing my afternoon
with him, and when there it was my part to answer the door. The steady
procession of people begging, and the expectant and confident manner in
which they presented themselves, struck me more and more daily; and I
could not but remember with surprise that though my father lived but a
few streets away in a fine house, beggars scarce came to the door once a
fortnight or a month. From that time forward I made it my business to
inquire, and in the stories which I am very fond of hearing from all
sorts and conditions of men, learned that in the time of their distress
it was always from the poor they sought assistance, and almost always
from the poor they got it.
Trusting I have now satisfactorily answered your question, which I thank
you for asking, I remain, with sincere compliments,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima, Summer 1892._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--First of all, _you have all the corrections on The
Wrecker_. I found I had made what I meant and forgotten it, and was so
careless as not to tell you.
Second, of course, and by all means, charge corrections on the Samoa
book to me; but there are not near so many as I feared. The Lord hath
dealt bountifully with me, and I believe all my advisers were amazed to
see how nearly correct I had got the truck, at least I was. With this
you will receive the whole revise and a type-written copy of the last
chapter. And the thing now is Speed, to catch a possible revision of the
treaty. I believe Cassells are to bring it out, but Baxter knows, and
the thing has to be crammed through _prestissimo, a la chasseur_.
You mention the belated Barbeys; what about the equally belated Pineros?
And I hope you will keep your bookshop alive to supplying me
continuously with the _Saga Library_. I cannot get enough of _Sagas_; I
wish there were nine thousand; talk about realism!
All seems to flourish with you; I also prosper; none the less for being
quit of that abhorred task, Samoa. I could give a supper party here were
there any one to sup. Never was such a disagreeable task, but the thing
had to be told....
There, I trust I am done with this cursed chapter of my career, bar the
rotten eggs and broken bottles that may follow, of course. Pray
remember, speed is now all that can be asked, hoped, or wished. I give
up all hope of proofs, revises, proof of the map, or sic like; and you
on your side will try to get it out as reasonably seemly as may be.
Whole Samoa book herewith. Glory be to God.--Yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The following consists of scraps merely, taken from a letter almost
entirely occupied with private family affairs.
_[Vailima] Saturday, 2nd July 1892._
The character of my handwriting is explained, alas! by scrivener's
cramp. This also explains how long I have let the paper lie plain.
1 P.M.--I was busy copying _David Balfour_ with my left hand--a most
laborious task--Fanny was down at the native house superintending the
floor, Lloyd down in Apia, and Belle in her own house cleaning, when I
heard the latter calling on my name. I ran out on the verandah; and
there on the lawn beheld my crazy boy with an axe in his hand and
dressed out in green ferns, dancing. I ran downstairs and found all my
house boys on the back verandah, watching him through the dining-room. I
asked what it meant?--"Dance belong his place," they said.--"I think
this no time to dance," said I. "Has he done his work?"--"No," they told
me, "away bush all morning." But there they all stayed on the back
verandah. I went on alone through the dining-room, and bade him stop. He
did so, shouldered the axe, and began to walk away; but I called him
back, walked up to him, and took the axe out of his unresisting hands.
The boy is in all things so good, that I can scarce say I was afraid;
only I felt it had to be stopped ere he could work himself up by dancing
to some craziness. Our house boys protested they were not afraid; all I
know is they were all watching him round the back door and did not
follow me till I had the axe. As for the out boys, who were working with
Fanny in the native house, they thought it a very bad business, and made
no secret of their fears.
_Wednesday, 6th._--I have no account to give of my stewardship these
days, and there's a day more to account for than mere arithmetic would
tell you. For we have had two Monday Fourths, to bring us at last on the
right side of the meridian, having hitherto been an exception in the
world and kept our private date. Business has filled my hours sans
intermission.
_Tuesday, 12th._--I am doing no work and my mind is in abeyance. Fanny
and Belle are sewing-machining in the next room; I have been pulling
down their hair, and Fanny has been kicking me, and now I am driven out.
Austin I have been chasing about the verandah; now he has gone to his
lessons, and I make believe to write to you in despair. But there is
nothing in my mind; I swim in mere vacancy, my head is like a rotten
nut; I shall soon have to begin to work again or I shall carry away some
part of the machinery. I have got your insufficient letter, for which I
scorn to thank you. I have had no review by Gosse, none by Birrell;
another time, if I have a letter in the Times, you might send me the
text as well; also please send me a cricket bat and a cake, and when I
come home for the holidays, I should like to have a pony.--I am, sir,
your obedient servant,
JACOB TONSON.
_P.S._--I am quite well; I hope you are quite well. The world is too
much with us, and my mother bids me bind my hair and lace my bodice
blue.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, 18th July 1892._
MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... I have been now for some time contending with
powers and principalities, and I have never once seen one of my own
letters to the Times. So when you see something in the papers that you
think might interest the exiles of Upolu, do not think twice, out with
your saxpence, and send it flying to Vailima. Of what you say of the
past, eh, man, it was a queer time, and awful miserable, but there's no
sense in denying it was awful fun. Do you mind the youth in highland
garb and the tableful of coppers? Do you mind the SIGNAL of Waterloo
Place?--Hey, how the blood stands to the heart at such a memory!--Hae ye
the notes o't? Gie's them.--Gude's sake, man, gie's the notes o't; I
mind ye made a tuene o't an' played it on your pinanny; gie's the notes.
Dear Lord, that past.
Glad to hear Henley's prospects are fair: his new volume is the work of
a real poet. He is one of those who can make a noise of his own with
words, and in whom experience strikes an individual note. There is
perhaps no more genuine poet living, bar the Big Guns. In case I cannot
overtake an acknowledgment to himself by this mail, please let him hear
of my pleasure and admiration. How poorly Kipling compares! He is all
smart journalism and cleverness: it is all bright and shallow and
limpid, like a business paper--a good one, _s'entend_; but there is no
blot of heart's blood and the Old Night: there are no harmonics, there
is scarce harmony to his music; and in Henley--all of these; a touch, a
sense within sense, a sound outside the sound, the shadow of the
inscrutable, eloquent beyond all definition. The First London Voluntary
knocked me wholly.--Ever yours affectionately, my dear Charles,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Kind memories to your father and all friends.
TO W. E. HENLEY
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa, August 1st, 1892._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--It is impossible to let your new volume pass in
silence. I have not received the same thrill of poetry since G. M.'s
_Joy of Earth_ volume and _Love in a Valley_; and I do not know that
even that was so intimate and deep. Again and again, I take the book
down, and read, and my blood is fired as it used to be in youth.
_Andante con moto_ in the _Voluntaries_, and the thing about the trees
at night (No. XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not
guess you were so great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an
undertone of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are
poetry--inventions, creations, in language. I thank you for the joy you
have given me, and remain your old friend and present huge admirer,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The hand is really the hand of Esau, but under a course of threatened
scrivener's cramp.
For the next edition of the Book of Verses, pray accept an emendation.
Last three lines of Echoes No. XLIV. read--
"But life in act? How should the grave
Be victor over these,
Mother, a mother of men?"
The two vocatives scatter the effect of this inimitable close. If you
insist on the longer line, equip "grave" with an epithet.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
Accompanying the MS. of the article giving extracts from the record
kept by Robert Stevenson the elder of the trip on which Sir Walter
Scott sailed in his company on board the Northern Lights yacht:
printed in Scribner's Magazine, 1893.
_Vailima, Upolu, August 1st, '92._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Herewith _My Grandfather_. I have had rather a bad
time suppressing the old gentleman, who was really in a very garrulous
stage; as for getting him _in order_, I could do but little towards
that; however, there are one or two points of interest which may justify
us in printing. The swinging of his stick and not knowing the sailor of
Coruiskin, in particular, and the account of how he wrote the lives in
the Bell Book particularly please me. I hope my own little introduction
is not egoistic; or rather I do not care if it is. It was that old
gentleman's blood that brought me to Samoa.
By the by, vols. vii., viii., and ix. of Adams's _History_ have never
come to hand; no more have the dictionaries.
Please send me _Stonehenge on the Horse_, _Stories and Interludes_ by
Barry Pain, and _Edinburgh Sketches and Memoirs_ by David Masson. _The
Wrecker_ has turned up. So far as I have seen, it is very satisfactory,
but on pp. 548, 549, there has been a devil of a miscarriage. The two
Latin quotations instead of following each other being separated
(doubtless for printing considerations) by a line of prose. My
compliments to the printers; there is doubtless such a thing as good
printing, but there is such a thing as good sense.
The sequel to _Kidnapped_, _David Balfour_ by name, is about
three-quarters done and gone to press for serial publication. By what I
can find out it ought to be through hand with that and ready for volume
form early next spring.--Yours very sincerely,
R. L. S.
TO ANDREW LANG
Mr. Andrew Lang had been supplying Stevenson with some books and
historical references for his proposed novel _The Young Chevalier_.
[_Vailima, August 1892._]
MY DEAR LANG,--I knew you would prove a trusty purveyor. The books you
have sent are admirable. I got the name of my hero out of Brown--Blair
of Balmyle--Francie Blair. But whether to call the story _Blair of
Balmyle_, or whether to call it _The Young Chevalier_, I have not yet
decided. The admirable Cameronian tract--perhaps you will think this a
cheat--is to be boned into _David Balfour_, where it will fit better,
and really furnishes me with a desired foothold over a boggy place.
_Later_; no, it won't go in, and I fear I must give up "the idolatrous
occupant upon the throne," a phrase that overjoyed me beyond expression.
I am in a deuce of a flutter with politics, which I hate, and in which I
certainly do not shine; but a fellow cannot stand aside and look on at
such an exhibition as our government. 'Tain't decent; no gent can hold a
candle to it. But it's a grind to be interrupted by midnight messengers
and pass your days writing proclamations (which are never proclaimed)
and petitions (which ain't petited) and letters to the Times, which it
makes my jaw yawn to re-read, and all your time have your heart with
David Balfour; he has just left Glasgow this morning for Edinburgh,
James More has escaped from the castle; it is far more real to me than
the Behring Sea or the Baring brothers either--he got the news of James
More's escape from the Lord Advocate, and started off straight to
comfort Catriona. You don't know her; she's James More's daughter, and a
respectable young wumman; the Miss Grants think so--the Lord Advocate's
daughters--so there can't be anything really wrong. Pretty soon we all
go to Holland, and be hanged; thence to Dunkirk, and be damned; and the
tale concludes in Paris, and be Poll-parrotted. This is the last
authentic news. You are not a real hard-working novelist; not a
practical novelist; so you don't know the temptation to let your
characters maunder. Dumas did it, and lived. But it is not war; it ain't
sportsmanlike, and I have to be stopping their chatter all the time.
Brown's appendix is great reading.
My only grief is that I can't
Use the idolatrous occupant.
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
Blessing and praising you for a useful (though idolatrous) occupant of
Kensington.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
Samoa and the Samoans for children, continued after an eight months'
pause.
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, August 14th, 1892._
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--The lean man is exceedingly ashamed of himself,
and offers his apologies to the little girls in the cellar just above.
If they will be so good as to knock three times upon the floor, he will
hear it on the other side of his floor, and will understand that he is
forgiven. I believe I got you and the children--or rather left you and
the children--still on the road to the lean man's house. When you get up
there a great part of the forest has been cleared away. It comes back
again pretty quick, though not quite so high; but everywhere, except
where the weeders have been kept busy, young trees have sprouted up, and
the cattle and the horses cannot be seen as they feed. In this clearing
there are two or three houses scattered about, and between the two
biggest I think the little girls in the cellar would first notice a sort
of thing like a gridiron on legs made of logs and wood. Sometimes it
has a flag flying on it made of rags of old clothes. It is a fort (so I
am told) built by the person here who would be much the most interesting
to the girls in the cellar. This is a young gentleman of eleven years of
age answering to the name of Austin. It was after reading a book about
the Red Indians that he thought it more prudent to create this place of
strength. As the Red Indians are in North America, and this fort seems
to me a very useless kind of building, I am anxious to hope that the two
may never be brought together. When Austin is not engaged in building
forts, nor on his lessons, which are just as annoying to him as other
children's lessons are to them, he walks sometimes in the bush, and if
anybody is with him, talks all the time. When he is alone I don't think
he says anything, and I dare say he feels very lonely and frightened,
just as the lean man does, at the queer noises and the endless lines of
the trees. He finds the strangest kinds of seeds, some of them bright
coloured like lollipops, or really like precious stones; some of them in
odd cases like tobacco-pouches. He finds and collects all kinds of
little shells with which the whole ground is scattered, and which,
though they are the shells of land animals like our snails, are nearly
of as many shapes and colours as the shells on our sea-beaches. In the
streams that come running down out of the mountains, and which are all
as clear and bright as mirror glass, he sees eels and little bright fish
that sometimes jump together out of the surface of the brook in a little
knot of silver, and fresh-water prawns which lie close under the stones,
and can be seen looking up at him with eyes of the colour of a jewel. He
sees all kinds of beautiful birds, some of them blue and white, some of
them blue and white and red, and some of them coloured like our pigeons
at home, and these last the little girls in the cellar may like to know
live almost entirely on nutmegs as they fall ripe off the trees. Another
little bird he may sometimes see, as the lean man saw him only this
morning, a little fellow not so big as a man's hand, exquisitely neat,
of a pretty bronze black like ladies' shoes, and who sticks up behind
him (much as a peacock does) his little tail shaped and fluted like a
scallop shell.
Here are a lot of curious and interesting things that Austin sees round
him every day; and when I was a child at home in the old country I used
to play and pretend to myself that I saw things of the same kind. That
the rooms were full of orange and nutmeg trees, and the cold town
gardens outside the windows were alive with parrots and with lions. What
do the little girls in the cellar think that Austin does? He makes
believe just the other way: he pretends that the strange great trees
with their broad leaves and slab-sided roots are European oaks; and the
places on the road up (where you and I and the little girls in the
cellar have already gone) he calls by old-fashioned, far-away European
names, just as if you were to call the cellar stair and the corner of
the next street--if you could only manage to pronounce the names--Upolu
and Savaii. And so it is with all of us, with Austin and the lean man
and the little girls in the cellar; wherever we are it is but a stage on
the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it
is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.
But you must not suppose that Austin does nothing but build forts and
walk among the woods and swim in the rivers. On the contrary, he is
sometimes a very busy and useful fellow; and I think the little girls in
the cellar would have admired him very nearly as much as he admired
himself if they had seen him setting off on horseback with his hand on
his hip and his pockets full of letters and orders, at the head of quite
a procession of huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big brown
native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. Mighty well he managed all
his commissions; and those who saw him ordering and eating his
single-handed luncheon in the queer little Chinese restaurant on the
beach declare he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole
archipelago belonged to him. But I am not going to let you suppose that
this great gentleman at the head of all his horses and his men, like the
King of France in the old rhyme, would be thought much of a dandy on the
streets of London. On the contrary, if he could be seen there with his
dirty white cap, and his faded purple shirt, and his little brown breeks
that do not reach his knees, and the bare shanks below, and the bare
feet stuck in the stirrup leathers, for he is not quite long enough to
reach the irons, I am afraid the little boys and girls in your part of
the town might feel very much inclined to give him a penny in charity.
So you see that a very, very big man in one place might seem very small
potatoes in another, just as the king's palace here (of which I told you
in my last) would be thought rather a poor place of residence by a
Surrey gipsy. And if you come to that, even the lean man himself, who is
no end of an important person, if he were picked up from the chair where
he is now sitting, and slung down, feet foremost, in the neighbourhood
of Charing Cross, would probably have to escape into the nearest shop,
or take the consequences of being mobbed. And the ladies of his family,
who are very pretty ladies, and think themselves uncommonly well-dressed
for Samoa, would (if the same thing were done to them) be extremely glad
to get into a cab.
I write to you by the hands of another, because I am threatened again
with scrivener's cramp. My health is beyond reproach; I wish I could say
as much for my wife's, which is far from the thing. Give us some news of
yours, and even when none of us write, do not suppose for a moment that
we are forgetful of our old gamekeeper. Our prettiest walk, an alley of
really beautiful green sward which leads through Fanny's garden to the
river and the bridge and the beginning of the high woods on the
mountain-side, where the Tapu a fafine (or spirit of the land) has her
dwelling, and the work-boys fear to go alone, is called by a name that I
think our gamekeeper has heard before--Adelaide Road.
With much love from all of us to yourself, and all good wishes for your
future, and the future of the children in the cellar, believe me your
affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Vailima [August 1892]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will have no letter at all this month and it is
really not my fault. I have been saving my hand as much as possible for
Davy Balfour; only this morning I was getting on first rate with him,
when about half-past nine there came a prick in the middle of the ball
of my thumb, and I had to take to the left hand and two words a minute.
I fear I slightly exaggerate the speed of my left hand; about a word and
a half in the minute--which is dispiriting to the last degree. Your last
letter with the four excellent reviews and the good news about _The
Wrecker_ was particularly welcome. I have already written to Charles
Baxter about the volume form appearance of _The Beach of Falesa_. In
spite of bad thumbs and other interruptions I hope to send to Baxter by
this mail the whole first part (a good deal more than half) of David
Balfour ready for press. This is pretty satisfactory, and I think ought
to put us beyond the reach of financial catastrophe for the year.
A cousin of mine, Graham Balfour, arrived along with your last. It was
rather a lark. Fanny, Belle and I stayed down at the hotel two nights
expecting the steamer, and we had seven horses down daily for the party
and the baggage. These were on one occasion bossed by Austin, age
eleven. "I'm afraid I cannot do that now," said he in answer to some
communication, "as I am taking charge of the men here." In the course of
the forenoon he took "his" men to get their lunch, and had his own by
himself at the Chinese restaurant. What a day for a boy. The steamer
came in at last on Saturday morning after breakfast. We three were out
at the place of anchorage in the hotel boat as she came up, spotting
rather anxiously for our guest, whom none of us had ever seen. We chose
out some rather awful cads and tried to make up our mind to them; they
were the least offensive yet observed among an awful crew of cabin
passengers; but when the Simon Pure appeared at last upon the scene he
was as nice a young fellow as you would want. Followed a time of giddy
glory--one crowded hour of glorious life--when I figured about the deck
with attendant shemales in the character of _the_ local celebrity, was
introduced to the least unpresentable of the ruffians on board, dogged
about the deck by a diminutive Hebrew with a Kodak, the click of which
kept time to my progress like a pair of castanets, and filled up in the
Captain's room on iced champagne at 8.30 of God's morning. The Captain
in question, Cap. Morse, is a great South Sea character, like the side
of a house and the green-room of a music-hall, but with all the saving
qualities of the seaman. The celebrity was a great success with this
untutored observer. He was kind enough to announce that he expected
(rather with awe) a much more "thoughtful" person; and I think I pleased
him much with my parting salutation, "Well, Captain, I suppose you and I
are the two most notorious men in the Pacific." I think it will enable
you to see the Captain if I tell you that he recited to us in cold blood
the _words_ of a new comic song; doubtless a tribute to my literary
character. I had often heard of Captain Morse and always had detested
all that I was told, and detested the man in confidence, just as you are
doing; but really he has a wonderful charm of strength, loyalty, and
simplicity. The whole celebrity business was particularly
characteristic; the Captain has certainly never read a word of mine; and
as for the Jew with the Kodak, he had never heard of me till he came on
board. There was a third admirer who sent messages in to the Captain's
cabin asking if the Lion would accept a gift of Webster's _Unabridged_.
I went out to him and signified a manly willingness to accept a gift of
anything. He stood and bowed before me, his eyes danced with excitement.
"Mr. Stevenson," he said and his voice trembled, "your name is very well
known to me. I have been in the publishing line in Canada and I have
handled many of your works for the trade." "Come," I said, "here's
genuine appreciation."
From this gaudy scene we descended into the hotel boat with our new
second cousin, got to horse and returned to Vailima, passing shot of
Kodak once more on the Nulivae bridge, where the little Jew was posted
with his little Jew wife, each about three feet six in stature and as
vulgar as a lodging house clock.
We were just writing this when another passenger from the ship arrived
up here at Vailima. This is a nice quiet simple blue-eyed little boy of
Pennsylvania Quaker folk. Threatened with consumption of my sort, he has
been sent here by his doctor on the strength of my case. I am sure if
the case be really parallel he could not have been better done by. As we
had a roast pig for dinner we kept him for that meal; and the rain
coming on just when the moon should have risen kept him again for the
night. So you see it is now to-morrow.
Graham Balfour the new cousin and Lloyd are away with Clark the
Missionary on a school inspecting _malaga_, really perhaps the prettiest
little bit of opera in real life that can be seen, and made all the
prettier by the actors being children. I have come to a collapse this
morning on D.B.: wrote a chapter one way, half re-copied it in another,
and now stand halting between the two like Buridan's donkey. These sorts
of cruces always are to me the most insoluble, and I should not wonder
if D.B. stuck there for a week or two. This is a bother, for I
understand McClure talks of beginning serial publication in December. If
this could be managed, what with D.B., the apparent success of _The
Wrecker_, _Falesa_, and some little pickings from _Across the
Plains_--not to mention, as quite hopeless, _The History of Samoa_--this
should be rather a profitable year, as it must be owned it has been
rather a busy one. The trouble is, if I miss the December publication,
it may take the devil and all of a time to start another syndicate. I am
really tempted to curse my conscientiousness. If I hadn't recopied Davie
he would now be done and dead and buried; and here I am stuck about the
middle, with an immediate publication threatened and the fear before me
of having after all to scamp the essential business of the end. At the
same time, though I love my Davy, I am a little anxious to get on again
on _The Young Chevalier_. I have in nearly all my works been trying one
racket: to get out the facts of life as clean and naked and sharp as I
could manage it. In this other book I want to try and megilp them
together in an atmosphere of sentiment, and I wonder whether twenty-five
years of life spent in trying this one thing will not make it impossible
for me to succeed in the other. However it is the only way to attempt a
love story. You can't tell any of the facts, and the only chance is to
paint an atmosphere.
It is a very warm morning--the parrot is asleep on the door (she heard
her name, and immediately awakened)--and my brains are completely addled
by having come to grief over Davy.
Hurray! a subject discovered! The parrot is a little white cockatoo of
the small variety. It belongs to Belle, whom it guards like a watch dog.
It chanced that when she was sick some months ago I came over and
administered some medicine. Unnecessary to say Belle bleated, whereupon
the parrot bounded upon me and buried his neb in my backside. From that
day on the little wretch attacked me on every possible occasion, usually
from the rear, though she would also follow me along the verandah and as
I went downstairs attack my face. This was far from funny. I am a person
of average courage, but I don't think I was ever more cordially afraid
of anything than of this miserable atomy, and the deuce of it was that I
could not but admire her appalling courage and there was no means of
punishing such a thread-paper creature without destroying it entirely.