in the lower floor of Belle's--I beg your pardon--the _parrot's_--house.
The first morning I was to wake Belle early so that breakfast should be
seen to for our guest. It was a mighty pretty dawn, the birds were
singing extraordinary strong, all was peace, and there was the damned
parrot hanging to the knob of Belle's door. Courage, my heart! On I went
and Cockie buried her bill in the joint of my thumb. I believe that Job
would have killed that bird; but I was more happily inspired--I caught
it up and flung it over the verandah as far as I could throw. I must say
it was violently done, and I looked with some anxiety to see in what
state of preservation it would alight. Down it came however on its two
feet, uttered a few oaths in a very modified tone of voice, and set
forth on the return journey to its mansion. Its wings being cut and its
gait in walking having been a circumstance apparently not thoroughly
calculated by its maker, it took about twenty-five minutes to get home
again. Now here is this remarkable point--that bird has never bitten me
since. When I have early breakfast she and the cat come down and join
me, and she sits on the back of my chair. When I am at work with the
door shut she sits outside and demolishes the door with that same beak
which was so recently reddened with my heart's blood--and in the evening
she does her business all over my clothes in the most friendly manner
in the world. I ought to add a word about the parrot and the cat. Three
cats were brought by Belle from Sydney. This one alone remains faithful
and domestic. One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Polly and
Maud over a piece of bacon. Polly stood on one leg, held the bacon in
the other, regarded Maudie with a secret and sinister look and very
slowly and quietly--far too quietly for the word I have to use--gnashed
her bill at her. Maudie came up quite close; there she stuck--she was
afraid to come nearer, to go away she was ashamed; and she assisted at
the final and very deliberate consumption of the bacon, making about as
poor a figure as a cat can make.
_Next day._--Date totally unknown, or rather it is now known but is
reserved because it would certainly prove inconsistent with dates
previously given. I went down about two o'clock in company with a couple
of chance visitors to Apia. It was smoking hot, not a sign of any wind
and the sun scorching your face. I found the great Haggard in hourly
expectation of Lady Jersey, surrounded by crowds of very indifferent
assistants, and I must honestly say--the only time I ever saw him
so--cross. He directed my attention to all the new paint, his own
handiwork he said, and made me visit the bathroom which he has just
fixed up. I think I never saw a man more miserable and happy at the same
time. Had some hock and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle,
and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of prawns and an eel cooked
in oil, both from our own river.
This morning the overseer--the new overseer Mr. Austin Strong--went down
in charge of the pack-horses and a squad of men, himself riding a white
horse with extreme dignity and what seemed to onlookers a perhaps
somewhat theatrical air of command. He returned triumphantly, all his
commissions apparently executed with success, bringing us a mail--not
your mail, Colonial ways--and the news of Lady Jersey's arrival and
reception among flying flags and banging guns.
As soon as I had concluded my flattering description of Polly she bit
one of my toes to the blood. But put not your trust in shemales, though
to say the truth she looks more like a Russian colonel.
_Aug. 15th._--On the Saturday night Fanny and I went down to Haggard's
to dine and be introduced to Lady Jersey. She is there with her daughter
Lady Margaret and her brother Captain Leigh, a very nice kind of
glass-in-his-eye kind of fellow. It is to be presumed I made a good
impression; for the meeting has had a most extraordinary sequel. Fanny
and I slept in Haggard's billiard room, which happens to be Lloyd's
bungalow. In the morning she and I breakfasted in the back parts with
Haggard and Captain Leigh, and it was then arranged that the Captain
should go with us to Malie on the Tuesday under a false name; so that
Government House at Sydney might by no possibility be connected with a
rebel camp. On Sunday afternoon up comes Haggard in a state of huge
excitement: Lady J. insists on going too, in the character of my cousin;
I write her a letter under the name of Miss Amelia Balfour, proposing
the excursion; and this morning up comes a copy of verses from Amelia. I
wrote to Mataafa announcing that I should bring two cousins instead of
one, that the second was a lady, unused to Samoan manners, and it would
be a good thing if she could sleep in another house with Ralala. Sent a
copy of this to Amelia, and at the same time made all arrangements,
dating my letter 1745. We shall go on ahead on the Malie Road; she is to
follow with Haggard and Captain Leigh, and overtake us at the ford of
the Gasi-gasi, whence Haggard will return and the rest of us pursue our
way to the rebeldom.
This lark is certainly huge. It is all nonsense that it can be
concealed; Miss Amelia Balfour will be at once identified with the Queen
of Sydney, as they call her; and I would not in the least wonder if the
visit proved the signal of war. With this I have no concern, and the
thing wholly suits my book and fits my predilections for Samoa. What a
pity the mail leaves, and I must leave this adventure to be continued in
our next! But I need scarcely say that all this is deadly private--I
expect it all to come out, not without explosion; only it must not be
through me or you. We had a visit yesterday from a person by the name of
Count Nerli, who is said to be a good painter. Altogether the
aristocracy clusters thick about us. In which radiant light, as the mail
must now be really put up, I leave myself until next month,--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
Following up the last letter, Stevenson here tells the story of the
visit paid to Apia by the Countess of Jersey, who had come over from
Sydney with her brother Captain Leigh and her young daughter Lady
Margaret Villiers. "A warm friendship," writes Lady Jersey, "was the
immediate result; we constantly met, either in the hospitable abode
of our host Mr. Bazett Haggard, or in Mr. Stevenson's delightful
mountain home, and passed many happy hours in riding, walking, and
conversation." The previous letter has shown how it was arranged that
the party should pay a visit of curiosity to the "rebel king," or
more properly the rival claimant to the kingly power, Mataafa, in his
camp at Malie, and how Stevenson at once treated the adventure as a
chapter out of a Waverley novel. "The wife of the new Governor of New
South Wales," writes Lady Jersey on her part, "could not pay such a
visit in her own name, so Mr. Stevenson adopted me as his cousin,
'Amelia Balfour.' This transparent disguise was congenial to his
romantic instincts, and he writes concerning the arrangements made
for the expedition, carefully dating his letter 'Aug. 14, 1745.'"
_August 14, 1745._
To MISS AMELIA BALFOUR--MY DEAR COUSIN,--We are going an expedition to
leeward on Tuesday morning. If a lady were perhaps to be encountered on
horseback--say, towards the Gasi-gasi river--about six A.M., I think we
should have an episode somewhat after the style of the '45. What a
misfortune, my dear cousin, that you should have arrived while your
cousin Graham was occupying my only guest-chamber--for Osterley Park is
not so large in Samoa as it was at home--but happily our friend Haggard
has found a corner for you!
The King over the Water--the Gasi-gasi water--will be pleased to see the
clan of Balfour mustering so thick around his standard.
I have (one serious word) been so lucky as to get a really secret
interpreter, so all is for the best in our little adventure into the
Waverley Novels.--I am, your affectionate cousin,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Observe the stealth with which I have blotted my signature, but we must
be political _a outrance_.
TO THE COUNTESS OF JERSEY
MY DEAR COUSIN,--I send for your information a copy of my last letter to
the gentleman in question. 'Tis thought more wise, in consideration of
the difficulty and peril of the enterprise, that we should leave the
town in the afternoon, and by several detachments. If you would start
for a ride with the Master of Haggard and Captain Lockhart of Lee, say
at three o'clock of the afternoon, you would make some rencounters by
the wayside which might be agreeable to your political opinions. All
present will be staunch.
The Master of Haggard might extend his ride a little, and return through
the marsh and by the nuns' house (I trust that has the proper flavour),
so as a little to diminish the effect of separation.--I remain your
affectionate cousin to command,
O TUSITALA.
_P.S._--It is to be thought this present year of grace will be
historical.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter tells without preface the story of the expedition planned
in the preceding.
[_Vailima, August 1892._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is Friday night, the (I believe) 18th or 20th
August or September. I shall probably regret to-morrow having written
you with my own hand like the Apostle Paul. But I am alone over here in
the workman's house, where I and Belle and Lloyd and Austin are pigging;
the rest are at cards in the main residence. I have not joined them
because "belly belong me" has been kicking up, and I have just taken 15
drops of laudanum.
On Tuesday, the party set out--self in white cap, velvet coat, cords and
yellow half boots, Belle in a white kind of suit and white cap to match
mine, Lloyd in white clothes and long yellow boots and a straw hat,
Graham in khakis and gaiters, Henry (my old overseer) in blue coat and
black kilt, and the great Lafaele with a big ship-bag on his saddle-bow.
We left the mail at the P.O., had lunch at the hotel, and about 1.50 set
out westward to the place of tryst. This was by a little shrunken brook
in a deep channel of mud, on the far side of which, in a thicket of low
trees, all full of moths of shadow and butterflies of sun, we lay down
to await her ladyship. Whisky and water, then a sketch of the encampment
for which we all posed to Belle, passed off the time until 3.30. Then I
could hold on no longer. 30 minutes late. Had the secret oozed out? Were
they arrested? I got my horse, crossed the brook again, and rode hard
back to the Vaea cross roads, whence I was aware of white clothes
glancing in the other long straight radius of the quadrant. I turned at
once to return to the place of tryst; but D. overtook me, and almost
bore me down, shouting "Ride, ride!" like a hero in a ballad. Lady
Margaret and he were only come to shew the place; they returned, and the
rest of our party, reinforced by Captain Leigh and Lady Jersey, set on
for Malie. The delay was due to D.'s infinite precautions, leading them
up lanes, by back ways, and then down again to the beach road a hundred
yards further on.
It was agreed that Lady Jersey existed no more; she was now my cousin
Amelia Balfour. That relative and I headed the march; she is a charming
woman, all of us like her extremely after trial on this somewhat rude
and absurd excursion. And we Amelia'd or Miss Balfour'd her with great
but intermittent fidelity. When we came to the last village, I sent
Henry on ahead to warn the King of our approach and amend his
discretion, if that might be. As he left I heard the villagers asking
_which was the great lady_? And a little further, at the borders of
Malie itself, we found the guard making a music of bugles and conches.
Then I knew the game was up and the secret out. A considerable guard of
honour, mostly children, accompanied us; but, for our good fortune, we
had been looked for earlier, and the crowd was gone.
Dinner at the king's; he asked me to say grace, I could think of
none--never could; Graham suggested _Benedictus Benedicat_, at which I
leaped. We were nearly done, when old Popo inflicted the Atua howl (of
which you have heard already) right at Lady Jersey's shoulder. She
started in fine style.--"There," I said, "we have been giving you a
chapter of Scott, but this goes beyond the Waverley Novels." After
dinner, kava. Lady J. was served before me, and the king _drank last_;
it was the least formal kava I ever saw in that house,--no names called,
no show of ceremony. All my ladies are well trained, and when Belle
drained her bowl, the King was pleased to clap his hands. Then he and I
must retire for our private interview, to another house. He gave me his
own staff and made me pass before him; and in the interview, which was
long and delicate, he twice called me _afioga_. Ah, that leaves you
cold, but I am Samoan enough to have been moved. _Susuga_ is my
accepted rank; to be called _afioga_--Heavens! what an advance--and it
leaves Europe cold. But it staggered my Henry. The first time it was
complicated "lana susuga _ma_ lana afioga--his excellency _and_ his
majesty" the next time plain Majesty. Henry then begged to interrupt the
interview and tell who he was--he is a small family chief in Savaii, not
very small--"I do not wish the king," says he, "to think me a boy from
Apia." On our return to the palace, we separated. I had asked for the
ladies to sleep alone--that was understood; but that Tusitala--his
afioga Tusitala--should go out with the other young men, and not sleep
with the highborn females of his family--was a doctrine received with
difficulty. Lloyd and I had one screen, Graham and Leigh another, and we
slept well.
In the morning I was first abroad before dawn; not very long, already
there was a stir of birds. A little after, I heard singing from the
King's chapel--exceeding good--and went across in the hour when the east
is yellow and the morning bank is breaking up, to hear it nearer. All
about the chapel, the guards were posted, and all saluted Tusitala. I
could not refrain from smiling: "So there is a place too," I thought,
"where sentinels salute me." Mine has been a queer life.
[Illustration]
Breakfast was rather a protracted business. And that was scarce over
when we were called to the great house (now finished--recall your
earlier letters) to see a royal kava. This function is of rare use; I
know grown Samoans who have never witnessed it. It is, besides, as you
are to hear, a piece of prehistoric history, crystallised in figures,
and the facts largely forgotten; an acted hieroglyph. The house is
really splendid; in the rafters in the midst, two carved and coloured
model birds are posted; the only thing of the sort I have ever remarked
in Samoa, the Samoans being literal observers of the second commandment.
At one side of the egg our party sat. a=Mataafa, b = Lady J., c =
Belle, d = Tusitala, e =Graham, f = Lloyd, g = Captain Leigh, h = Henry,
i = Popo. The x's round are the high chiefs, each man in his historical
position. One side of the house is set apart for the king alone; we were
allowed there as his guests and Henry as our interpreter. It was a huge
trial to the lad, when a speech was made to me which he must translate,
and I made a speech in answer which he had to orate, full-breathed, to
that big circle; he blushed through his dark skin, but looked and acted
like a gentleman and a young fellow of sense; then the kava came to the
king; he poured one drop in libation, drank another, and flung the
remainder outside the house behind him. Next came the turn of the old
shapeless stone marked T. It stands for one of the king's titles,
Tamasoalii; Mataafa is Tamasoalii this day, but cannot drink for it; and
the stone must first be washed with water, and then have the bowl
emptied on it. Then--the order I cannot recall--came the turn of y and
z, two orators of the name of Malietoa; the first took his kava down
plain, like an ordinary man; the second must be packed to bed under a
big sheet of tapa, and be massaged by anxious assistants and rise on his
elbow groaning to drink his cup. W., a great hereditary war man, came
next; five times the cup-bearers marched up and down the house and
passed the cup on, five times it was filled and the general's name and
titles heralded at the bowl, and five times he refused it (after
examination) as too small. It is said this commemorates a time when
Malietoa at the head of his army suffered much for want of supplies.
Then this same military gentleman must _drink_ five cups, one from each
of the great names: all which took a precious long time. He acted very
well, haughtily and in a society tone _outlining_ the part. The
difference was marked when he subsequently made a speech in his own
character as a plain God-fearing chief. A few more high chiefs, then
Tusitala; one more, and then Lady Jersey; one more, and then Captain
Leigh, and so on with the rest of our party--Henry of course excepted.
You see in public, Lady Jersey followed me--just so far was the secret
kept.
Then we came home; Belle, Graham, and Lloyd to the Chinaman's, I with
Lady Jersey, to lunch; so, severally home. Thursday I have forgotten:
Saturday, I began again on Davie; on Sunday, the Jersey party came up to
call and carried me to dinner. As I came out, to ride home, the
search-lights of the _Curacoa_ were lightening on the horizon from many
miles away, and next morning she came in. Tuesday was huge fun: a
reception at Haggard's. All our party dined there; Lloyd and I, in the
absence of Haggard and Leigh, had to play aide-de-camp and host for
about twenty minutes, and I presented the population of Apia at random
but (luck helping) without one mistake. Wednesday we had two middies to
lunch. Thursday we had Eeles and Hoskyn (lieutenant and doctor--very,
very nice fellows--simple, good and not the least dull) to dinner.
Saturday, Graham and I lunched on board; Graham, Belle, Lloyd dined at
the G.'s; and Austin and the _whole_ of our servants went with them to
an evening entertainment; the more bold returning by lantern-light.
Yesterday, Sunday, Belle and I were off by about half past eight, left
our horses at a public house, and went on board the _Curacoa_, in the
wardroom skiff; were entertained in the wardroom; thence on deck to the
service, which was a great treat; three fiddles and a harmonium and
excellent choir, and the great ship's company joining: on shore in
Haggard's big boat to lunch with the party. Thence all together to
Vailima, where we read aloud a Ouida Romance we have been secretly
writing; in which Haggard was the hero, and each one of the authors had
to draw a portrait of him or herself in a Ouida light. Leigh, Lady J.,
Fanny, R. L. S., Belle and Graham were the authors.
In the midst of this gay life, I have finally recopied two chapters, and
drafted for the first time three of Davie Balfour. But it is not a life
that would continue to suit me, and if I have not continued to write to
you, you will scarce wonder. And to-day we all go down again to dinner,
and to-morrow they all come up to lunch! The world is too much with us.
But it now nears an end, to-day already the _Curacoa_ has sailed; and on
Saturday or Sunday Lady Jersey will follow them in the mail steamer. I
am sending you a wire by her hands as far as Sydney, that is to say
either you or Cassell, about _Falesa_: I will not allow it to be called
_Uma_ in book form, that is not the logical name of the story. Nor can I
have the marriage contract omitted; and the thing is full of misprints
abominable. In the picture, Uma is rot; so is the old man and the negro;
but Wiltshire is splendid, and Case will do. It seems badly illuminated,
but this may be printing. How have I seen this first number? Not through
your attention, guilty one! Lady Jersey had it, and only mentioned it
yesterday.[45]
I ought to say how much we all like the Jersey party. Leigh is very
amusing in his way. Lady Margaret is a charming girl. And Lady Jersey is
in all ways admirable, so unfussy, so plucky, so very kind and gracious.
My boy Henry was enraptured with the manners of the _Tamaitai Sili_
(chief lady). Among our other occupations, I did a bit of a supposed
epic describing our tryst at the ford of the Gasegase; and Belle and I
made a little book of caricatures and verses about incidents on the
visit.
_Tuesday._--The wild round of gaiety continues. After I had written to
you yesterday, the brain being wholly extinct, I played piquet all
morning with Graham. After lunch down to call on the U.S. consul, hurt
in a steeplechase; thence back to the new girls' school which Lady J.
was to open, and where my ladies met me. Lady J. is really an orator,
with a voice of gold; the rest of us played our unremarked parts;
missionaries, Haggard, myself, a Samoan chief, holding forth in turn;
myself with (at least) a golden brevity. Thence, Fanny, Belle, and I to
town, to our billiard room in Haggard's back garden, where we found
Lloyd and where Graham joined us. The three men first dressed, with the
ladies in a corner; and then, to leave them a free field, we went off to
Haggard and Leigh's quarters, whereafter all to dinner, where our two
parties, a brother of Colonel Kitchener's, a passing globe-trotter, and
Clarke the missionary. A very gay evening, with all sorts of chaff and
mirth, and a moonlit ride home, and to bed before 12.30. And now to-day,
we have the Jersey-Haggard troupe to lunch, and I must pass the morning
dressing ship.
_Thursday, Sept. 1st._--I sit to write to you now, 7.15, all the world
in bed except myself, accounted for, and Belle and Graham, down at
Haggard's at dinner. Not a leaf is stirring here; but the moon overhead
(now of a good bigness) is obscured and partly revealed in a whirling
covey of thin storm-clouds. By Jove, it blows above.
From 8 till 11.15 on Tuesday, I dressed ship, and in particular cleaned
crystal, my specialty. About 11.30 the guests began to arrive before I
was dressed, and between while I had written a parody for Lloyd to sing.
Yesterday, Wednesday, I had to start out about 3 for town, had a long
interview with the head of the German Firm about some work in my new
house, got over to Lloyd's billiard-room about six, on the way whither I
met Fanny and Belle coming down with one Kitchener, a brother of the
Colonel's. Dined in the billiard-room, discovered we had forgot to order
oatmeal; whereupon in the moonlit evening, I set forth in my tropical
array, mess jacket and such, to get the oatmeal, and meet a young fellow
C.--and not a bad young fellow either, only an idiot--as drunk as
Croesus. He wept with me, he wept for me; he talked like a bad
character in an impudently bad farce; I could have laughed aloud to
hear, and could make you laugh by repeating, but laughter was not
uppermost.
This morning at about seven, I set off after the lost sheep. I could
have no horse; all that could be mounted--we have one girth-sore and one
dead-lame in the establishment--were due at a picnic about 10.30. The
morning was very wet, and I set off barefoot, with my trousers over my
knees, and a macintosh. Presently I had to take a side path in the bush;
missed it; came forth in a great oblong patch of taro solemnly
surrounded by forest--no soul, no sign, no sound--and as I stood there
at a loss, suddenly between the showers out broke the note of a
harmonium and a woman's voice singing an air that I know very well, but
have (as usual) forgot the name of. 'Twas from a great way off, but
seemed to fill the world. It was strongly romantic, and gave me a point
which brought me, by all sorts of forest wading, to an open space of
palms. These were of all ages, but mostly at that age when the branches
arch from the ground level, range themselves, with leaves exquisitely
green. The whole interspace was overgrown with convolvulus, purple,
yellow and white, often as deep as to my waist, in which I floundered
aimlessly. The very mountain was invisible from here. The rain came and
went; now in sunlit April showers, now with the proper tramp and rattle
of the tropics. All this while I met no sight or sound of man, except
the voice which was now silent, and a damned pig-fence that headed me
off at every corner. Do you know barbed wire? Think of a fence of it on
rotten posts, and you barefoot. But I crossed it at last with my heart
in my mouth and no harm done. Thence at last to C.'s.: no C. Next place
I came to was in the zone of woods. They offered me a buggy and set a
black boy to wash my legs and feet. "Washum legs belong that fellow
whiteman" was the command. So at last I ran down my son of a gun in the
hotel, sober, and with no story to tell; penitent, I think. As I sat and
looked at him, I knew from my inside the biggest truth in life: there is
only one thing that we cannot forgive, and that is ugliness--_our_
ugliness. There is no ugliness, no beauty; only that which makes me
(_ipse_) sicken or rejoice. And poor C. makes me sicken. Yet, according
to canons, he is not amiss. Home, by buggy and my poor feet, up three
miles of root, boulder, gravel, and liquid mud, slipping back at every
step.
_Sunday, Sept. 4th._--Hope you will be able to read a word of the last,
no joke writing by a bad lantern with a groggy hand and your glasses
mislaid. Not that the hand is not better, as you see by the absence of
the amanuensis hitherto. Mail came Friday, and a communication from
yourself much more decent than usual, for which I thank you. Glad the
_Wrecker_ should so hum; but Lord, what fools these mortals be!
So far yesterday, the citation being wrung from me by remembrance of
many reviews. I have now received all _Falesa_, and my admiration for
that tale rises; I believe it is in some ways my best work; I am pretty
sure, at least, I have never done anything better than Wiltshire.
_Monday, 13th September 1892._--On Wednesday the Spinsters of Apia gave
a ball to a select crowd. Fanny, Belle, Lloyd, and I rode down, met
Haggard by the way and joined company with him. Dinner with Haggard, and
thence to the ball. The Chief Justice appeared; it was immediately
remarked, and whispered from one to another, that he and I had the only
red sashes in the room,--and they were both of the hue of blood, sir,
blood. He shook hands with myself and all the members of my family. Then
the cream came, and I found myself in the same set of a quadrille with
his honour. We dance here in Apia a most fearful and wonderful
quadrille, I don't know where the devil they fished it from; but it is
rackety and prancing and embraceatory beyond words; perhaps it is best
defined in Haggard's expression of a gambado. When I and my great enemy
found ourselves involved in this gambol, and crossing hands, and kicking
up, and being embraced almost in common by large and quite respectable
females, we--or I--tried to preserve some rags of dignity, but not for
long. The deuce of it is that, personally, I love this man; his eye
speaks to me, I am pleased in his society. We exchanged a glance, and
then a grin; the man took me in his confidence; and through the
remainder of that prance we pranced for each other. Hard to imagine any
position more ridiculous; a week before he had been trying to rake up
evidence against me by brow-beating and threatening a half-white
interpreter; that very morning I had been writing most villainous
attacks upon him for the Times; and we meet and smile, and--damn
it!--like each other. I do my best to damn the man and drive him from
these islands; but the weakness endures--I love him. This is a thing I
would despise in anybody else; but he is so jolly insidious and
ingratiating! No, sir, I can't dislike him; but if I don't make hay of
him, it shall not be for want of trying.
Yesterday, we had two Germans and a young American boy at lunch; and in
the afternoon, Vailima was in a state of siege; ten white people on the
front verandah, at least as many brown in the cook-house, and countless
blacks to see the black boy Arrick.
Which reminds me, Arrick was sent Friday was a week to the German Firm
with a note, and was not home on time. Lloyd and I were going bedward,
it was late with a bright moon--ah, poor dog, you know no such moons as
these!--when home came Arrick with his head in a white bandage and his
eyes shining. He had had a fight with other blacks, Malaita boys; many
against one, and one with a knife: "I KNICKED 'EM DOWN, three four!" he
cried; and had himself to be taken to the doctor's and bandaged. Next
day, he could not work, glory of battle swelled too high in his
threadpaper breast; he had made a one-stringed harp for Austin, borrowed
it, came to Fanny's room, and sang war-songs and danced a war dance in
honour of his victory. And it appears, by subsequent advices, that it
was a serious victory enough; four of his assailants went to hospital,
and one is thought in danger. All Vailima rejoiced at this news.
Five more chapters of David, 22 to 27, go to Baxter. All love affair;
seems pretty good to me. Will it do for the young person? I don't know:
since the Beach, I know nothing, except that men are fools and
hypocrites, and I know less of them than I was fond enough to fancy.
TO MRS. CHARLES FAIRCHILD
[_Vailima, August 1892._]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,--Thank you a thousand times for your letter. You
are the Angel of (the sort of) Information (that I care about): I
appoint you successor to the newspaper press; and I beg of you,
whenever you wish to gird at the age, or think the bugs out of
proportion to the roses, or despair, or enjoy any cosmic or epochal
emotion, to sit down again and write to the Hermit of Samoa. What do I
think of it all? Well, I love the romantic solemnity of youth; and even
in this form, although not without laughter, I have to love it still.
They are such ducks! But what are they made of? We were just as solemn
as that about atheism and the stars and humanity; but we were all for
belief anyway--we held atheism and sociology (of which none of us, nor
indeed anybody, knew anything) for a gospel and an iron rule of life;
and it was lucky enough, or there would have been more windows broken.
What is apt to puzzle one at first sight in the New Youth is that, with
such rickety and risky problems always at heart, they should not plunge
down a Niagara of Dissolution. But let us remember the high practical
timidity of youth. I was a particularly brave boy--this I think of
myself, looking back--and plunged into adventures and experiments, and
ran risks that it still surprises me to recall. But, dear me, what a
fear I was in of that strange blind machinery in the midst of which I
stood; and with what a compressed heart and what empty lungs I would
touch a new crank and await developments! I do not mean to say I do not
fear life still; I do; and that terror (for an adventurer like myself)
is still one of the chief joys of living.
But it was different indeed while I was yet girt with the priceless
robes of inexperience; then the fear was exquisite and infinite. And so,
when you see all these little Ibsens, who seem at once so dry and so
excitable, and faint in swathes over a play (I suppose--for a wager)
that would seem to me merely tedious, smile behind your hand, and
remember the little dears are all in a blue funk. It must be very funny,
and to a spectator like yourself I almost envy it. But never get
desperate; human nature is human nature; and the Roman Empire, since the
Romans founded it and made our European human nature what it is, bids
fair to go on and to be true to itself. These little bodies will all
grow up and become men and women, and have heaps of fun; nay, and are
having it now; and whatever happens to the fashion of the age, it makes
no difference--there are always high and brave and amusing lives to be
lived; and a change of key, however exotic, does not exclude melody.
Even Chinamen, hard as we find it to believe, enjoy being Chinese. And
the Chinaman stands alone to be unthinkable; natural enough, as the
representative of the only other great civilisation. Take my people here
at my doors; their life is a very good one; it is quite thinkable, quite
acceptable to us. And the little dears will be soon skating on the other
foot; sooner or later, in each generation, the one-half of them at least
begin to remember all the material they had rejected when first they
made and nailed up their little theory of life; and these become
reactionaries or conservatives, and the ship of man begins to fill upon
the other tack.
Here is a sermon, by your leave! It is your own fault, you have amused
and interested me so much by your breath of the New Youth, which comes
to me from so far away, where I live up here in my mountain, and secret
messengers bring me letters from rebels, and the government sometimes
seizes them, and generally grumbles in its beard that Stevenson should
really be deported. O my life is the more lively, never fear!
It has recently been most amusingly varied by a visit from Lady Jersey.
I took her over mysteriously (under the pseudonym of my cousin, Miss
Amelia Balfour) to visit Mataafa, our rebel; and we had great fun, and
wrote a Ouida novel on our life here, in which every author had to
describe himself in the Ouida glamour, and of which--for the Jerseys
intend printing it--I must let you have a copy. My wife's chapter, and
my description of myself, should, I think, amuse you. But there were
finer touches still; as when Belle and Lady Jersey came out to brush
their teeth in front of the rebel King's palace, and the night guard
squatted opposite on the grass and watched the process; or when I and my
interpreter, and the King with his secretary, mysteriously disappeared
to conspire.--Ever yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO THE CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR
This time the children in the Kilburn cellar are addressed direct,
with only a brief word at the end to their instructress.
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, September 4th, 1892._
DEAR CHILDREN IN THE CELLAR,--I told you before something of the black
boys who come here for work on the plantations, and some of whom run
away and live a wild life in the forests of the islands. Now I want to
tell you of one who lived in the house of the lean man. Like the rest of
them here, he is a little fellow, and when he goes about in old,
battered, cheap European clothes, looks very small and shabby. When
first he came he was as lean as a tobacco-pipe, and his smile (like that
of almost all the others) was the sort that makes you half wish to smile
yourself, and half wish to cry. However, the boys in the kitchen took
him in hand and fed him up. They would set him down alone to table and
wait upon him till he had his fill, which was a good long time to wait;
and the first thing we noticed was that his little stomach began to
stick out like a pigeon's breast; and then the food got a little wider
spread and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all he
began to get quite saucy and impudent, so that we could know what sort
of a fellow he really was when he was no longer afraid of being
thrashed. He is really what you ought to call a young man, though I
suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and, as
far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little
child with a good deal of sense. When Austin built his fort against the
Indians, Arick (for that is the black boy's name) liked nothing so much
as to help him. And this is very funny, when you think that of all the
dangerous savages in this island Arick is one of the most dangerous. The
other day, besides, he made Austin a musical instrument of the sort they
use in his own country, a harp with only one string. He took a stick
about three feet long, and perhaps four inches round. The under side he
hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding box; the two ends of
the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and
between these he stretched the single string. He plays upon it with a
match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it songs of his own
country, of which no person here can understand a single word, and which
are very likely all about fighting with his enemies in battle, and
killing them, and I am sorry to say cooking them in a ground oven and
eating them for supper when the fight is over.
For Arick is really what you might call a savage, though a savage is a
very different person in reality, and a very much nicer, from what he is
made to appear in little books. He is the sort of person that everybody
smiles to, or makes faces at, or gives a smack to as he goes by; the
sort of person that all the girls on the plantation give the best seat
to, and help first, and love to decorate with flowers and ribbons, and
yet all the while are laughing at him; the sort of person who likes best
to play with Austin, and whom Austin perhaps (when he is allowed) likes
best to play with. He is all grins and giggles, and little steps out of
dances, and little droll ways, to attract people's attention and set
them laughing. And yet when you come to look at him closer, you will
find that his body is all covered with scars. This was when he was a
child. There was a war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his
village and the next, much as if there were war in London between one
street and another; and all the children ran about playing in the
middle of the trouble, and I dare say took no more notice of the war
than you children in London do of a general election. But sometimes, at
general elections, English children may get run over by processions in
the street; and it chanced that as little Arick was running about in the
bush, and very busy about his playing, he ran into the midst of the
warriors on the other side. These speared him with a poisoned spear; and
his own people, when they had found him lying for dead, and in order to
cure him of the poison, cut him up with knives that were probably made
of fish-bones.
This is a very savage piece of child-life, and Arick, for all his
good-nature, is still a very savage person. I have told you how the
black boys sometimes run away from the plantations, and live behind
alone in the forest, building little sheds to protect them from the
rain, and sometimes planting little gardens of food, but for the most
part living the best they can upon the nuts of the trees and yams that
they dig with their hands out of the earth. I do not think there can be
anywhere in the world people more wretched than these runaways. They
cannot return, for they would only return to be punished. They can never
hope to see again their own land or their own people--indeed, I do not
know what they can hope, but just to find enough yams every day to keep
them from starvation. And in the wet season of the year, which is our
summer and your winter, and the rain falls day after day far harder and
louder than the loudest thunder-plump that ever fell in England, and the
noon is sometimes so dark that the lean man is glad to light his lamp to
write by, I can think of nothing so dreary as the state of these poor
runaway slaves in the houseless bush. You are to remember, besides, that
the people of this island hate and fear them because they are cannibals,
sit and tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own
comfortable houses, and are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if
they think there is a lurking black boy in the neighbourhood. Well now,
Arick is of their own race and language, only he is a little more lucky
because he has not run away; and how do you think that he proposed to
help them? He asked if he might not have a gun. "What do you want with a
gun, Arick?" was asked. And he said quite simply, and with his nice
good-natured smile, that if he had a gun he would go up into the high
bush and shoot black boys as men shoot pigeons. He said nothing about
eating them, nor do I think he really meant to. I think all he wanted
was to clear the property of vermin as gamekeepers at home kill weasels,
or housewives mice.
The other day he was sent down on an errand to the German Firm where
many of the black boys live. It was very late when he came home on a
bright moonlight night. He had a white bandage round his head, his eyes
shone, and he could scarcely speak for excitement. It seems some of the
black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him, and one with a
knife. By his own account he had fought very well, but the odds were
heavy; the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and back, he
had been struck down, and if some of the black boys of his own side had
not come to the rescue, he must certainly have been killed. I am sure no
Christmas-box could make any of you children so happy as this fight made
Arick. A great part of the next day he neglected his work to play upon
the one-stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory. And
to-day, when he is gone upon his holiday, he has announced that he is
going back to the German Firm to have another battle and another
triumph. I do not think he will go all the same, or I should be more
uneasy, for I do not want to have my Arick killed; and there is no doubt
that if he begins to fight again, he will be likely to go on with it
very far. For I have seen him once when he saw, or thought he saw, an
enemy. It was one of our dreadful days of rain, the sound of it like a
great waterfall or like a tempest of wind blowing in the forest; and
there came to our door two runaway black boys seeking work. In such
weather as that my enemy's dog (as Shakespeare says) should have had a
right to shelter. But when Arick saw these two poor rogues coming with
their empty bellies and drenched clothes, and one of them with a stolen
cutlass in his hand, through that world of falling water, he had no
thought of pity in his heart. Crouching behind one of the pillars of the
verandah, which he held in his two hands, his mouth drew back into a
strange sort of smile, his eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his whole
face was just like the one word Murder in big capitals.
Now I have told you a great deal too much about poor Arick's savage
nature, and now I must tell you about a great amusement he had the other
day. There came an English ship of war in the harbour, and the officers
very good naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances and a
magic-lantern, to which Arick and Austin were allowed to go. At the door
of the hall there were crowds of black boys waiting and trying to peep
in, the way children at home lie about and peep under the tent of a
circus; and you may be sure Arick was a very proud person when he passed
them all by and entered the hall with his ticket. I wish I knew what he
thought of the whole performance; but the housekeeper of the lean man,
who sat just in front of him, tells me what seemed to startle him the
most. The first thing was when two of the officers came out with
blackened faces like Christy minstrel boys and began to dance. Arick was
sure that they were really black and his own people, and he was
wonderfully surprised to see them dance this new European style of
dance. But the great affair was the magic-lantern. The hall was made
quite dark, which was very little to Arick's taste. He sat there behind
the housekeeper, nothing to be seen of him but eyes and teeth, and his
heart beating finely in his little scarred breast. And presently there
came out on the white sheet that great bright eye of light that I am
sure all you children must have often seen. It was quite new to Arick,
he had no idea what would happen next; and in his fear and excitement,
he laid hold with his little slim black fingers like a bird's claws on
the neck of the housekeeper in front of him. All through the rest of the
show, as one picture followed another on the white sheet, he sat there
gasping and clutching at the housekeeper's neck, and goodness knows
whether he were more pleased or frightened. Doubtless it was a very fine
thing to see all these bright pictures coming out and dying away again
one after another; but doubtless it was rather alarming also, for how
was it done? And at last, when there appeared upon the screen the head
of a black woman (as it might be his own mother or sister), and the
black woman of a sudden began to roll her eyes, the fear or the
excitement, whichever it was, wrung out of him a loud shuddering sob.
And I think we all ought to admire his courage when, after an evening
spent in looking on at such wonderful miracles, he and Austin set out
alone through the forest to the lean man's house. It was late at night
and pitch dark when some of the party overtook the little white boy and
the big black boy marching among the trees with their lantern. I have
told you the wood has an ill name, and all the people of the island
believe it to be full of devils; but even if you do not believe in the
devils, it is a pretty dreadful place to walk in by the moving light of
a lantern, with nothing about you but a curious whirl of shadows and the
black night above and beyond. But Arick kept his courage up, and I dare
say Austin's too, with a perpetual chatter, so that the people coming
after heard his voice long before they saw the shining of the lantern.
My dear Miss Boodle,--will I be asking too much that you should send me
back my letters to the Children, or copies, if you prefer; I have an
idea that they may perhaps help in time to make up a book on the South
Seas for children. I have addressed the Cellar so long this time that
you must take this note for yourself and excuse, yours most sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Thursday, 15th September [1892]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--On Tuesday, we had our young adventurer[46] ready, and
Fanny, Belle, he and I set out about three of a dark, deadly hot, and
deeply unwholesome afternoon. Belle had the lad behind her; I had a pint
of champagne in either pocket, a parcel in my hands, and as Jack had a
girth sore and I rode without a girth, I might be said to occupy a very
unstrategic position. On the way down, a little dreary, beastly drizzle
beginning to come out of the darkness, Fanny put up an umbrella, her
horse bounded, reared, cannoned into me, cannoned into Belle and the
lad, and bolted for home. It really might and ought to have been an A1
catastrophe; but nothing happened beyond Fanny's nerves being a good
deal shattered; of course, she could not tell what had happened to us
until she got her horse mastered.
Next day, Haggard went off to the Commission and left us in charge of
his house; all our people came down in wreaths of flowers; we had a boat
for them; Haggard had a flag in the Commission boat for us; and when at
last the steamer turned up, the young adventurer was carried on board in
great style, with a new watch and chain, and about three pound ten of
tips, and five big baskets of fruit as free-will offerings to the
captain. Captain Morse had us all to lunch; champagne flowed, so did
compliments; and I did the affable celebrity life-sized. It made a great
send-off for the young adventurer. As the boat drew off, he was standing
at the head of the gangway, supported by three handsome ladies--one of
them a real full-blown beauty, Madame Green, the singer--and looking
very engaging himself, between smiles and tears. Not that he cried in
public. My, but we were a tired crowd! However, it is always a blessing
to get home, and this time it was a sort of wonder to ourselves that we
got back alive. Casualties: Fanny's back jarred, horse incident; Belle,
bad headache, tears, and champagne; self, idiocy, champagne, fatigue;
Lloyd, ditto, ditto. As for the adventurer, I believe he will have a
delightful voyage for his little start in life. But there is always
something touching in a mite's first launch.
_Date unknown._--I am now well on with the third part of the
_Debacle_.[47] The two first I liked much; the second completely
knocking me; so far as it has gone, this third part appears the
ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten what he has to say--he reminds
me of an M.P. But Sedan was really great, and I will pick no holes. The
batteries under fire, the red-cross folk, the county charge--perhaps,
above all, Major Bouroche and the operations, all beyond discussion; and
every word about the Emperor splendid.
_September 30th._--_David Balfour_ done, and its author along with it,
or nearly so. Strange to think of even our doctor here repeating his
nonsense about debilitating climate. Why, the work I have been doing the
last twelve months, in one continuous spate, mostly with annoying
interruptions and without any collapse to mention, would be incredible
in Norway. But I _have_ broken down now, and will do nothing as long as
I possibly can. With _David Balfour_ I am very well pleased; in fact
these labours of the last year--I mean _Falesa_ and _D. B._, not Samoa,
of course--seem to me to be nearer what I mean than anything I have ever
done; nearer what I mean by fiction; the nearest thing before was
_Kidnapped_. I am not forgetting the _Master of Ballantrae_, but that
lacked all pleasurableness, and hence was imperfect in essence. So you
see, if I am a little tired, I do not repent.
The third part of the _Debacle_ may be all very fine; but I cannot read
it. It suffers from _impaired vitality_, and _uncertain aim_; two deadly
sicknesses. Vital--that's what I am at, first: wholly vital, with a
buoyancy of life. Then lyrical, if it may be, and picturesque, always
with an epic value of scenes, so that the figures remain in the mind's
eye for ever.
_October 8th._--Suppose you sent us some of the catalogues of the
parties what vends statutes? I don't want colossal Herculeses, but about
quarter size and less. If the catalogues were illustrated it would
probably be found a help to weak memories. These may be found to
alleviate spare moments, when we sometimes amuse ourselves by thinking
how fine we shall make the palace if we do not go pop. Perhaps in the
same way it might amuse you to send us any pattern of wall paper that
might strike you as cheap, pretty, and suitable for a room in a hot and
extremely bright climate. It should be borne in mind that our climate
can be extremely dark too. Our sitting-room is to be in varnished wood.
The room I have particularly in mind is a sort of bed and sitting-room,
pretty large, lit on three sides, and the colour in favour of its
proprietor at present is a topazy yellow. But then with what colour to
relieve it? For a little work-room of my own at the back, I should
rather like to see some patterns of unglossy--well, I'll be hanged if I
can describe this red--it's not Turkish and it's not Roman and it's not
Indian, but it seems to partake of the two last, and yet it can't be
either of them, because it ought to be able to go with vermillion. Ah,
what a tangled web we weave--anyway, with what brains you have left
choose me and send me some--many--patterns of this exact shade.
A few days ago it was Haggard's birthday and we had him and his cousin
to dinner--bless me if I ever told you of his cousin!--he is here
anyway, and a fine, pleasing specimen, so that we have concluded (after
our own happy experience) that the climate of Samoa must be favourable
to cousins.[48] Then we went out on the verandah in a lovely moonlight,
drinking port, hearing the cousin play and sing, till presently we were
informed that our boys had got up a siva in Lafaele's house to which we
were invited. It was entirely their own idea. The house, you must
understand, is one-half floored, and one-half bare earth, and the dais
stands a little over knee high above the level of the soil. The dais was
the stage, with three footlights. We audience sat on mats on the floor,
and the cook and three of our work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two
ladies, took their places behind the footlights and began a topical
Vailima song. The burden was of course that of a Samoan popular song
about a white man who objects to all that he sees in Samoa. And there
was of course a special verse for each one of the party--Lloyd was
called the dancing man (practically the Chief's handsome son) of
Vailima; he was also, in his character I suppose of overseer, compared
to a policeman--Belle had that day been the almoner in a semi-comic
distribution of wedding rings and thimbles (bought cheap at an auction)
to the whole plantation company, fitting a ring on every man's finger,
and a ring and a thimble on both the women's. This was very much in
character with her native name _Teuila_, the adorner of the ugly--so of
course this was the point of her verse and at a given moment all the
performers displayed the rings upon their fingers. Pelema (the
cousin--our cousin) was described as watching from the house and
whenever he saw any boy not doing anything, running and doing it
himself. Fanny's verse was less intelligible, but it was accompanied in
the dance with a pantomime of terror well-fitted to call up her
haunting, indefatigable and diminutive presence in a blue gown.
TO GORDON BROWNE
_Vailima, Samoa [Autumn 1892]._
_To the Artist who did the illustrations to "Uma."_
DEAR SIR,--I only know you under the initials G. B., but you have done
some exceedingly spirited and satisfactory illustrations to my story
_The Beach of Falesa_, and I wish to write and thank you expressly for
the care and talent shown. Such numbers of people can do good black and
whites! So few can illustrate a story, or apparently read it. You have
shown that you can do both, and your creation of Wiltshire is a real
illumination of the text. It was exactly so that Wiltshire dressed and
looked, and you have the line of his nose to a nicety. His nose is an
inspiration. Nor should I forget to thank you for Case, particularly in
his last appearance. It is a singular fact--which seems to point still
more directly to inspiration in your case--that your missionary actually
resembles the flesh-and-blood person from whom Mr. Tarleton was drawn.
The general effect of the islands is all that could be wished; indeed I
have but one criticism to make, that in the background of Case taking
the dollar from Mr. Tarleton's head--head--not hand, as the fools have
printed it--the natives have a little too much the look of Africans.
But the great affair is that you have been to the pains to illustrate my
story instead of making conscientious black and whites of people sitting
talking. I doubt if you have left unrepresented a single pictorial
incident. I am writing by this mail to the editor in the hopes that I
may buy from him the originals, and I am, dear sir, your very much
obliged,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS MORSE
The next is an answer to an acknowledgment from a lady in the United
States, one of many similar which he from time to time received, of
help and encouragement derived from his writings.
_Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
DEAR MADAM,--I have a great diffidence in answering your valued letter.
It would be difficult for me to express the feelings with which I read
it--and am now trying to re-read it as I dictate this.
You ask me to forgive what you say "must seem a liberty," and I find
that I cannot thank you sufficiently or even find a word with which to
qualify your letter. Dear Madam, such a communication even the vainest
man would think a sufficient reward for a lifetime of labour. That I
should have been able to give so much help and pleasure to your sister
is the subject of my grateful wonder.
That she, being dead, and speaking with your pen, should be able to
repay the debt with such a liberal interest, is one of those things that
reconcile us with the world and make us take hope again. I do not know
what I have done to deserve so beautiful and touching a compliment; and
I feel there is but one thing fit for me to say here, that I will try
with renewed courage to go on in the same path, and to deserve, if not
to receive, a similar return from others.
You apologise for speaking so much about yourselves. Dear Madam, I
thought you did so too little. I should have wished to have known more
of those who were so sympathetic as to find a consolation in my work,
and so graceful and so tactful as to acknowledge it in such a letter as
was yours.
Will you offer to your mother the expression of a sympathy which (coming
from a stranger) must seem very airy, but which yet is genuine; and
accept for yourself my gratitude for the thought which inspired you to
write to me and the words which you found to express it.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS TAYLOR
Lady Taylor had died soon after the settlement of the Stevenson
family at Vailima. The second paragraph refers to a test which had
been set before an expert in the reading of character by handwriting.
_Vailima, Samoan Islands, October 7th, 1892._
MY DEAR IDA,--I feel very much the implied reproof in yours just
received; but I assure you there is no fear of our forgetting either
Una or yourself, or your dear mother, who was one of the women I have
most admired and loved in the whole of my way through life. The truth is
that Fanny writes to nobody and that I am on the whole rather
overworked. I compose lots of letters to lots of unforgotten friends,
but when it comes to taking the pen between my fingers there are many
impediments. Hence it comes that I am now writing to you by an
amanuensis, at which I know you will be very angry. Well, it was
Hobson's choice. A little while ago I had very bad threatenings of
scrivener's cramp; and if Belle (Fanny's daughter, of whom you remember
to have heard) had not taken up the pen for my correspondence, I doubt
you would never have heard from me again except in the way of books. I
wish you and Una would be so good as to write to us now and then even
without encouragement. An unsolicited letter would be almost certain
(sooner or later, depending on the activity of the conscience) to
produce some sort of an apology for an answer.
All this upon one condition: that you send me your friend's description
of my looks, age and character. The character of my work I am not so
careful about. But did you ever hear of anything so tantalizing as for
you to tell me the story and not send me your notes? I expect it was a
device to extract an answer; and, as you see, it has succeeded. Let me
suggest (if your friend be handy) that the present letter would be a
very delicate test. It is in one person's handwriting, it expresses the
ideas of another, of the writer herself you know nothing. I should be
very curious to know what the sibyl will make of such a problem.
If you carry out your design of settling in London you must be sure and
let us have the new address. I swear we shall write some time--and if
the interval be long you must just take it on your own head for
prophesying horrors. You remember how you always said we were but an
encampment of Bedouins, and that you would awake some morning to find
us fled for ever. Nothing unsettled me more than these ill-judged
remarks. I was doing my best to be a sedentary semi-respectable man in a
suburban villa; and you were always shaking your head at me and assuring
me (what I knew to be partly true) that it was all a farce. Even here,
when I have sunk practically all that I possess, and have good health
and my fill of congenial fighting, and could not possibly get away if I
wanted ever so--even here and now the recollection of these infidel
prophesies rings in my ears like an invitation to the sea. _Tu l'as
voulu!_
I know you want some of our news, and it is all so far away that I know
not when to begin. We have a big house and we are building another--pray
God that we can pay for it. I am just reminded that we have no less than
eight several places of habitation in this place, which was a piece of
uncleared forest some three years ago. I think there are on my pay rolls
at the present moment thirteen human souls, not counting two washerwomen
who come and go. In addition to this I am at daggers drawn with the
Government, have had my correspondence stopped and opened by the Chief
Justice--it was correspondence with the so-called Rebel King,--and have
had boys examined and threatened with deportation to betray the secrets
of my relations with the same person. In addition to this I might direct
attention to those trifling exercises of the fancy, my literary works,
and I hope you won't think that I am likely to suffer from ennui. Nor is
Fanny any less active. Ill or well, rain or shine, a little blue
indefatigable figure is to be observed howking about certain patches of
garden. She comes in heated and bemired up to the eyebrows, late for
every meal. She has reached a sort of tragic placidity. Whenever she
plants anything new the boys weed it up. Whenever she tries to keep
anything for seed the house-boys throw it away. And she has reached that
pitch of a kind of noble dejection that she would almost say she did not
mind. Anyway, her cabbages have succeeded. Talolo (our native cook, and
a very good one too) likened them the other day to the head of a German;
and even this hyperbolical image was grudging. I remember all the
trouble you had with servants at the Roost. The most of them were
nothing to the trances that we have to go through here at times, when I
have to hold a bed of justice, and take evidence which is never twice
the same, and decide, practically blindfold, and after I have decided
have the accuser take back the accusation in block and beg for mercy for
the culprit. Conceive the annoyance of all this when you are very fond
of both.--Your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, Oct. 10th, 1892._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--It is now, as you see, the 10th of October, and
there has not reached the Island of Upolu one single copy, or rag of a
copy, of the Samoa book. I lie; there has come one, and that in the
pocket of a missionary man who is at daggers drawn with me, who lends it
to all my enemies, conceals it from all my friends, and is bringing a
lawsuit against me on the strength of expressions in the same which I
have forgotten, and now cannot see. This is pretty tragic, I think you
will allow; and I was inclined to fancy it was the fault of the Post
Office. But I hear from my sister-in-law Mrs. Sanchez that she is in the
same case, and has received no _Footnote_. I have also to consider that
I had no letter from you last mail, although you ought to have received
by that time "My Grandfather and Scott," and "Me and my Grandfather."
Taking one consideration with another, therefore, I prefer to conceive
that No. 743 Broadway has fallen upon gentle and continuous slumber, and
is become an enchanted palace among publishing houses. If it be not so,
if the _Footnotes_ were really sent, I hope you will fall upon the Post
Office with all the vigour you possess. How does _The Wrecker_ go in the
States? It seems to be doing exceptionally well in England.--Yours
sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter contains the first announcement of the scheme of _Weir of
Hermiston_.
_Vailima, October 28th, 1892._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is very late to begin the monthly budget, but I
have a good excuse this time, for I have had a very annoying fever with
symptoms of sore arm, and in the midst of it a very annoying piece of
business which suffered no delay or idleness....
The consequence of all this was that my fever got very much worse and
your letter has not been hitherto written. But, my dear fellow, do
compare these little larky fevers with the fine, healthy, prostrating
colds of the dear old dead days at home. Here was I, in the middle of a
pretty bad one, and I was able to put it in my pocket, and go down day
after day, and attend to and put my strength into this beastly business.
Do you see me doing that with a catarrh? And if I had done so, what
would have been the result?
Last night, about four o'clock, Belle and I set off to Apia, whither my
mother had preceded us. She was at the Mission; we went to Haggard's.
There we had to wait the most unconscionable time for dinner. I do not
wish to speak lightly of the Amanuensis, who is unavoidably present, but
I may at least say for myself that I was as cross as two sticks. Dinner
came at last, we had the tinned soup which is usually the _piece de
resistance_ in the halls of Haggard, and we pitched into it. Followed an
excellent salad of tomatoes and crayfish, a good Indian curry, a tender
joint of beef, a dish of pigeons, a pudding, cheese and coffee. I was so
over-eaten after this "hunger and burst" that I could scarcely move; and
it was my sad fate that night in the character of the local author to
eloquute before the public--"Mr. Stevenson will read a selection from
his own works"--a degrading picture. I had determined to read them the
account of the hurricane; I do not know if I told you that my book has
never turned up here, or rather only one copy has, and that in the
unfriendly hands of ----. It has therefore only been seen by enemies;
and this combination of mystery and evil report has been greatly
envenomed by some ill-judged newspaper articles from the States.
Altogether this specimen was listened to with a good deal of
uncomfortable expectation on the part of the Germans, and when it was
over was applauded with unmistakable relief. The public hall where these
revels came off seems to be unlucky for me; I never go there but to some
stone-breaking job. Last time it was the public meeting of which I must
have written you; this time it was this uneasy but not on the whole
unsuccessful experiment. Belle, my mother, and I rode home about
midnight in a fine display of lightning and witch-fires. My mother is
absent, so that I may dare to say that she struck me as voluble. The
Amanuensis did not strike me the same way; she was probably thinking,
but it was really rather a weird business, and I saw what I have never
seen before, the witch-fires gathered into little bright blue points
almost as bright as a night-light.
_Saturday._--This is the day that should bring your letter; it is gray
and cloudy and windless; thunder rolls in the mountain; it is a quarter
past six, and I am alone, sir, alone in this workman's house, Belle and
Lloyd having been down all yesterday to meet the steamer; they were
scarce gone with most of the horses and all the saddles, than there
began a perfect picnic of the sick and maim; Iopu with a bad foot,
Faauma with a bad shoulder, Fanny with yellow spots. It was at first
proposed to carry all these to the doctor, particularly Faauma, whose
shoulder bore an appearance of erysipelas, that sent the amateur below.
No horses, no saddle. Now I had my horse and I could borrow Lafaele's
saddle; and if I went alone I could do a job that had long been waiting;
and that was to interview the doctor on another matter. Off I set in a
hazy moonlight night; windless, like to-day; the thunder rolling in the
mountain, as to-day; in the still groves, these little mushroom lamps
glowing blue and steady, singly or in pairs. Well, I had my interview,
said everything as I had meant, and with just the result I hoped for.
The doctor and I drank beer together and discussed German literature
until nine, and we parted the best of friends. I got home to a silent
house of sleepers, only Fanny awaiting me; we talked awhile, in
whispers, on the interview; then, I got a lantern and went across to the
workman's house, now empty and silent, myself sole occupant. So to bed,
prodigious tired but mighty content with my night's work, and to-day,
with a headache and a chill, have written you this page, while my new
novel waits. Of this I will tell you nothing, except the various names
under consideration. First, it ought to be called--but of course that is
impossible--
_Braxfield._[49]
Then it _is_ to be called either
_Weir of Hermiston,
The Lord-Justice Clerk,
The Two Kirsties of the Cauldstaneslap_,
or
_The Four Black Brothers_.
Characters:
Adam Weir, Lord-Justice Clerk, called Lord Hermiston.
Archie, his son.
Aunt Kirstie Elliott, his housekeeper at Hermiston.
Elliott of the Cauldstaneslap, her brother.
Kirstie Elliott, his daughter.
Jim, \
Gib, |
Hob > his sons.
& |
Dandie, /
Patrick Innes, a young advocate.
The Lord-Justice General.
Scene, about Hermiston in the Lammermuirs and in Edinburgh. Temp. 1812.
So you see you are to have another holiday from copra! The rain begins
softly on the iron roof, and I will do the reverse and--dry up.
_Sunday._--Yours with the diplomatic private opinion received. It is
just what I should have supposed. _Ca m'est bien egal._--The name is to
be
_The Lord-Justice Clerk._
None others are genuine. Unless it be
_Lord-Justice Clerk Hermiston._
_Nov. 2nd._--On Saturday we expected Captain Morse of the _Alameda_ to
come up to lunch, and on Friday with genuine South Sea hospitality had a
pig killed. On the Saturday morning no pig. Some of the boys seemed to
give a doubtful account of themselves; our next neighbour below in the
wood is a bad fellow and very intimate with some of our boys, for whom
his confounded house is like a fly-paper for flies. To add to all this,
there was on the Saturday a great public presentation of food to the
king and parliament men, an occasion on which it is almost dignified for
a Samoan to steal anything, and entirely dignified for him to steal a
pig.
(The Amanuensis went to the _talolo_, as it is called, and saw something
so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the letter to tell it. The
different villagers came in in bands--led by the maid of the village,
followed by the young warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some three
thousand people are said to have assembled. The men wore nothing but
magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of leaves, and were oiled and
glistening in the sunlight. One band had no maid but was led by a tiny
child of about five--a serious little creature clad in a ribbon of grass
and a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps in front of the
warriors, like a little kid leading a band of lions. A.M.)
The A.M. being done, I go on again. All this made it very possible that
even if none of our boys had stolen the pig, some of them might know the
thief. Besides, the theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a
guest, had something of the nature of an insult, and "my face," in
native phrase, "was ashamed." Accordingly, we determined to hold a bed
of justice. It was done last night after dinner. I sat at the head of
the table, Graham on my right hand, Henry Simele at my left, Lloyd
behind him. The house company sat on the floor around the walls--twelve
all told. I am described as looking as like Braxfield as I could manage
with my appearance; Graham, who is of a severe countenance, looked like
Rhadamanthus; Lloyd was hideous to the view; and Simele had all the fine
solemnity of a Samoan chief. The proceedings opened by my delivering a
Samoan prayer, which may be translated thus--"Our God, look down upon us
and shine into our hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that each
one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity."--Then, beginning
with Simele, every one came up to the table, laid his hand on the Bible,
and repeated clause by clause after me the following oath--I fear it may
sound even comic in English, but it is a very pretty piece of Samoan,
and struck direct at the most lively superstitions of the race. "This is
the Holy Bible here that I am touching. Behold me, O God! If I know who
it was that took away the pig, or the place to which it was taken, or
have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare the same--be
made an end of by God this life of mine!" They all took it with so much
seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if they were not innocent
they would make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by their
bearing that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely solemn
scene came to an end.
_Sunday, Nov. 6th._--Here is a long story to go back upon, and I wonder
if I have either time or patience for the task?
Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and proposed to Henry that
Faale would make a good wife for him. I wish I had put this down when it
was fresher in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. My gentleman
would not tell if I were on or not. "I do not know yet; I will tell you
next week. May I tell the sister of my father? No, better not, tell her
when it is done."--"But will not your family be angry if you marry
without asking them?"--"My village? What does my village want? Mats!" I
said I thought the girl would grow up to have a great deal of sense, and
my gentleman flew out upon me; she had sense now, he said.
Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and presently after
heard it was an English warship. Graham and I set off at once, and as
soon as we met any towns-folk they began crying to me that I was to be
arrested. It was the _Vossische Zeitung_ article which had been quoted
in a paper. Went on board and saw Captain Bourke; he did not even
know--not even guess--why he was here; having been sent off by cablegram
from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards
may bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be? Heads or
tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I should
prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a German officialdom, and
should probably have to leave _sponte mea_, which is only less
picturesque and more expensive.
_8th._--Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever may be in
store for me. No time even to sign this lame letter.
To J. M. BARRIE
_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, November 1st, 1892._
DEAR MR. BARRIE,--I can scarce thank you sufficiently for your extremely
amusing letter. No, _The Auld Licht Idyls_ never reached me--I wish it
had, and I wonder extremely whether it would not be good for me to have
a pennyworth of the Auld Licht pulpit. It is a singular thing that I
should live here in the South Seas under conditions so new and so
striking, and yet my imagination so continually inhabit that cold old
huddle of grey hills from which we come. I have just finished _David
Balfour_; I have another book on the stocks, _The Young Chevalier_,
which is to be part in France and part in Scotland, and to deal with
Prince Charlie about the year 1749; and now what have I done but begun a
third which is to be all moorland together, and is to have for a
centre-piece a figure that I think you will appreciate--that of the
immortal Braxfield--Braxfield himself is my _grand premier_, or, since
you are so much involved in the British drama, let me say my heavy
lead....
Your descriptions of your dealings with Lord Rintoul are frightfully
unconscientious. You should never write about anybody until you persuade
yourself at least for the moment that you love him, above all anybody on
whom your plot revolves. It will always make a hole in the book; and, if
he has anything to do with the mechanism, prove a stick in your
machinery. But you know all this better than I do, and it is one of your
most promising traits that you do not take your powers too seriously.
_The Little Minister_ ought to have ended badly; we all know it did; and
we are infinitely grateful to you for the grace and good feeling with
which you lied about it. If you had told the truth, I for one could
never have forgiven you. As you had conceived and written the earlier
parts, the truth about the end, though indisputably true to fact, would
have been a lie, or what is worse, a discord in art. If you are going to
make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning. Now your
book began to end well. You let yourself fall in love with, and fondle,
and smile at your puppets. Once you had done that, your honour was
committed--at the cost of truth to life you were bound to save them. It
is the blot on _Richard Feverel_, for instance, that it begins to end
well; and then tricks you and ends ill. But in that case there is worse
behind, for the ill-ending does not inherently issue from the plot--the
story _had_, in fact, _ended well_ after the great last interview
between Richard and Lucy--and the blind, illogical bullet which smashes
all has no more to do between the boards than a fly has to do with the
room into whose open window it comes buzzing. It _might_ have so
happened; it needed not; and unless needs must, we have no right to pain
our readers. I have had a heavy case of conscience of the same kind
about my Braxfield story. Braxfield--only his name is Hermiston--has a
son who is condemned to death; plainly, there is a fine tempting fitness
about this; and I meant he was to hang. But now on considering my minor
characters, I saw there were five people who would--in a sense who
must--break prison and attempt his rescue. They were capable, hardy
folks, too, who might very well succeed. Why should they not then? Why
should not young Hermiston escape clear out of the country? and be
happy, if he could, with his----. But soft! I will not betray my secret
or my heroine. Suffice it to breathe in your ear that she was what
Hardy calls (and others in their plain way don't) a Pure Woman.[50] Much
virtue in a capital letter, such as yours was.
Write to me again in my infinite distance. Tell me about your new book.
No harm in telling _me_; I am too far off to be indiscreet; there are
too few near me who would care to hear. I am rushes by the riverside,
and the stream is in Babylon: breathe your secrets to me fearlessly; and
if the Trade Wind caught and carried them away, there are none to catch
them nearer than Australia, unless it were the Tropic Birds. In the
unavoidable absence of my amanuensis, who is buying eels for dinner, I
have thus concluded my dispatch, like St. Paul, with my own hand.
And in the inimitable words of Lord Kames, Faur ye weel, ye
bitch.--Yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Vailima Plantation, Nov. 2nd, 1892._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--In the first place, I have to acknowledge receipt
of your munificent cheque for three hundred and fifty dollars. Glad you
liked the Scott voyage; rather more than I did upon the whole. As the
proofs have not turned up at all, there can be no question of returning
them, and I am therefore very much pleased to think you have arranged
not to wait. The volumes of Adams arrived along with yours of October
6th. One of the dictionaries has also blundered home, apparently from
the Colonies; the other is still to seek. I note and sympathise with
your bewilderment as to _Falesa_. My own direct correspondence with Mr.
Baxter is now about three months in abeyance. Altogether you see how
well it would be if you could do anything to wake up the Post Office.
Not a single copy of the _Footnote_ has yet reached Samoa, but I hear of
one having come to its address in Hawaii. Glad to hear good news of
Stoddard.--Yours sincerely,
R. L. STEVENSON.
_P.S._--Since the above was written an aftermath of post matter came in,
among which were the proofs of _My Grandfather_. I shall correct and
return them, but as I have lost all confidence in the Post Office, I
shall mention here: first galley, 4th line from the bottom, for "AS"
read "OR."
Should I ever again have to use my work without waiting for proofs, bear
in mind this golden principle. From a congenital defect, I must suppose,
I am unable to write the word OR--wherever I write it the printer
unerringly puts AS--and those who read for me had better, wherever it is
possible, substitute _or_ for _as_. This the more so since many writers
have a habit of using as which is death to my temper and confusion to my
face.
R. L. S.
TO LIEUTENANT EELES
The following is addressed to one of Stevenson's best friends among
the officers of H.M.S. the Curacoa, which had been for some time on
the South Pacific station.
_Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoan Islands, November 15th, 1892._
DEAR EELES,--In the first place, excuse me writing to you by another
hand, as that is the way in which alone all my correspondence gets
effected. Before I took to this method, or rather before I found a
victim, it simply didn't get effected.
Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought of writing to me,
and second for your extremely amusing and interesting letter. You can
have no guess how immediately interesting it was to our family. First of
all, the poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we have
actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to the island. I don't
know if Hoskin would approve of our treatment; it consisted, I believe,
mostly in a present of stout and a recommendation to put nails in his
watertank. We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to leave
the island; and I remember very well how wise and kind we thought his
answer. He had half-caste children (he said) who would suffer and
perhaps be despised if he carried them elsewhere; if he left them there
alone, they would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing was that
he should stay and die with them. But the cream of the fun was your
meeting with Buckland. We not only know him, but (as the French say) we
don't know anybody else; he is our intimate and adored original;
and--prepare your mind--he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON![51]
As I don't believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
Tommy is really "a good chap," though about as comic as they make them.
I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
in your capital account of the _Curacoa's_ misadventure. Alas! we have
nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
mis-government, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the _Ringarooma_ instead
of the _Curacoa_. The former ship burst upon us by the run--she had been
sent off by despatch and without orders--and to make me a little more
easy in my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration.
Since then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he
had read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must
regard it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the
same time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for
them here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
being on the way--I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
is pretty sure--_if_ that issue prove to be a German protectorate, I
shall have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of
energy? We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill
the bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
hundred black boys and about a score draught oxen perished, or at least
barely escaped with their lives, from the mud holes on our road,
bringing up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.'s
protectorate, and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country
house.[51] The Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked
Stansfield particularly.
Our middy[53] has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit of the phantom
Education. We have good word of him, and I hope he will not be in
disgrace again, as he was when the hope of the British Navy--need I say
that I refer to Admiral Burney?--honoured us last. The next time you
come, as the new house will be finished, we shall be able to offer you a
bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may like to hear that our new room is to be
big enough to dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
_Curacoa_ in port again and at least a proper contingent of her officers
"skipping in my 'all."
We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the
Ringaroomas, and I wish they had been three Curacoas--say yourself,
Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our
boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows--O,
brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab--four smaller
pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat
down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the
kitchen that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was
blue. Then we had about half an hour's holiday with some beer and sherry
and brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to
the old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed
off in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted
for the _Curacoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not
know the draught of the _Curacoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be
particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward,
as I do myself, in the hope of your return.--Yours sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
And let me hear from you again!
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The following extract gives a hint of Stevenson's intended management
of one of the most difficult points in the plot of _Weir of
Hermiston_.
_1st Dec. '92._
... I have a novel on the stocks to be called _The Justice-Clerk_. It is
pretty Scotch, the Grand Premier is taken from Braxfield--(Oh, by the
by, send me Cockburn's _Memorials_)--and some of the story
is--well--queer. The heroine is seduced by one man, and finally
disappears with the other man who shot him.... Mind you, I expect _The
Justice-Clerk_ to be my masterpiece. My Braxfield is already a thing of
beauty and a joy for ever, and so far as he has gone _far_ my best
character.
[_Later._]--Second thought. I wish Pitcairn's _Criminal Trials quam
primum_. Also, an absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath.
Also, in case Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a
report as possible of a Scotch murder trial between 1790-1820.
Understand, _the fullest possible_.
Is there any book which would guide me as to the following facts?
The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on circuit. Certain
evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the J.-C.'s own son.
Of course, in the next trial the J.-C. is excluded, and the case is
called before the Lord-Justice General.
Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not
suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
[_Nov. 30, 1892._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which
you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well
right.... This is a strange life I live, always on the brink of
deportation, men's lives in the scale--and, well, you know my character:
if I were to pretend to you that I was not amused, you would justly
scorn me. The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is
better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all
which mercies, etc. I must have made close on L4,000 this year all told;
but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them.
I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the cards, all
summer, and came very near to taking in sail, but I live here so
entirely on credit, that I determined to hang on.
_Dec. 1st._--I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and did not
think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I was briefed to defend a
political prisoner before the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of
that for a vicissitude?
_Dec. 3rd._--Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cassells had
decided to print _The Bottle Imp_ along with _Falesa_, I was too much
disappointed to answer. _The Bottle Imp_ was the _piece de resistance_
for my volume, _Island Nights' Entertainments_. However, that volume
might have never got done; and I send you two others in case they should
be in time.
First have _The Beach of Falesa_.
Then a fresh false title: ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS; and then
_The Bottle Imp_: a cue from an old melodrama.
_The Isle of Voices._
_The Waif Woman_; a cue from a _saga_.
Of course these two others are not up to the mark of _The Bottle Imp_;
but they each have a certain merit, and they fit in style. By saying "a
cue from an old melodrama" after the _B. I._, you can get rid of my
note. If this is in time, it will be splendid, and will make quite a
volume.
Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the whole volume _I. N.
E._--though the _Beach of Falesa_ is the child of a quite different
inspiration. They all have a queer realism, even the most extravagant,
even the _Isle of Voices_; the manners are exact.
Should they come too late, have them type-written and return to me here
the type-written copies.
_Sunday, Dec 4th._--3rd start,--But now more humbly and with the aid of
an Amanuensis. First one word about page 2. My wife protests against
_The Waif Woman_ and I am instructed to report the same to you.[54]...
_Dec. 5th._--A horrid alarm rises that our October mail was burned
crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful long letter--I am sure
it was beautiful though I remember nothing about it--and I must say I
think it serves you properly well. That I should continue writing to you
at such length is simply a vicious habit for which I blush. At the same
time, please communicate at once with Charles Baxter whether you have or
have not received a letter posted here Oct. 12th, as he is going to
cable me the fate of my mail.
Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have taken my book like angels,
and the result is that Lloyd and I were down there at dinner on
Saturday, where we partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct
forms of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, I must say there
was not a shadow of a headache the next morning. I seem to have done as
well as my neighbours, for I hear one of the clerks expressed the next
morning a gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson stood his drink so well.
It is a strange thing that any race can still find joy in such athletic
exercises. I may remark in passing that the mail is due and you have had
far more than you deserve.
R. L. S.
TO MRS. FLEEMING JENKIN
_December 5th, 1892._
MY DEAR MRS. JENKIN,--... So much said, I come with guilty speed to
what more immediately concerns myself. Spare us a month or two for old
sake's sake, and make my wife and me happy and proud. We are only
fourteen days from San Francisco, just about a month from Liverpool; we
have our new house almost finished. The thing _can_ be done; I believe
we can make you almost comfortable. It is the loveliest climate in the
world, our political troubles seem near an end. It can be done, _it
must_! Do, please, make a virtuous effort, come and take a glimpse of a
new world I am sure you do not dream of, and some old friends who do
often dream of your arrival.
Alas, I was just beginning to get eloquent, and there goes the lunch
bell, and after lunch I must make up the mail.
Do come. You must not come in February or March--bad months. From April
on it is delightful.--Your sincere friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO HENRY JAMES
_December 5th, 1892._
MY DEAR JAMES,--How comes it so great a silence has fallen? The still
small voice of self-approval whispers me it is not from me. I have
looked up my register, and find I have neither written to you nor heard
from you since June 22nd, on which day of grace that invaluable work
began. This is not as it should be. How to get back? I remember
acknowledging with rapture _The Lesson of the Master_, and I remember
receiving _Marbot_: was that our last relation?
Hey, well! anyway, as you may have probably gathered from the papers, I
have been in devilish hot water, and (what may be new to you) devilish
hard at work. In twelve calendar months I finished _The Wrecker_, wrote
all of _Falesa_ but the first chapter, (well, much of) _The History of
Samoa_, did something here and there to my Life of my Grandfather, and
began And Finished _David Balfour_. What do you think of it for a year?
Since then I may say I have done nothing beyond draft three chapters of
another novel, _The Justice-Clerk_, which ought to be a snorter and a
blower--at least if it don't make a spoon, it will spoil the horn of an
Aurochs (if that's how it should be spelt).
On the hot water side it may entertain you to know that I have been
actually sentenced to deportation by my friends on Mulinuu, C.J.
Cedercrantz, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach. The awful doom, however,
declined to fall, owing to Circumstances over Which. I only heard of it
(so to speak) last night. I mean officially, but I had walked among
rumours. The whole tale will be some day put into my hand, and I shall
share it with humorous friends.
It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in
Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat
no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask
ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a
disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow over the
stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it has been a deeply
interesting time. You don't know what news is, nor what politics, nor
what the life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with your
own liberty on the board for stake. I would not have missed it for much.
And anxious friends beg me to stay at home and study human nature in
Brompton drawing-rooms! _Farceurs!_ And anyway you know that such is not
my talent. I could never be induced to take the faintest interest in
Brompton _qua_ Brompton or a drawing-room _qua_ a drawing-room. I am an
Epick Writer with a k to it, but without the necessary genius.
Hurry up with another book of stories. I am now reduced to two of my
contemporaries, you and Barrie--O, and Kipling--you and Barrie and
Kipling are now my Muses Three. And with Kipling, as you know, there are
reservations to be made. And you and Barrie don't write enough. I should
say I also read Anstey when he is serious, and can almost always get a
happy day out of Marion Crawford--_ce n'est pas toujours la guerre_, but
it's got life to it and guts, and it moves. Did you read the _Witch of
Prague_? Nobody could read it twice, of course; and the first time even
it was necessary to skip. _E pur si muove._ But Barrie is a beauty, the
_Little Minister_ and the _Window in Thrums_, eh? Stuff in that young
man; but he must see and not be too funny. Genius in him, but there's a
journalist at his elbow--there's the risk. Look, what a page is the
glove business in the _Window_! knocks a man flat; that's guts, if you
please.
Why have I wasted the little time that is left with a sort of naked
review article? I don't know, I'm sure. I suppose a mere ebullition of
congested literary talk. I am beginning to think a visit from friends
would be due. Wish you could come!
Let us have your news anyway, and forgive this silly stale
effusion.--Yours ever,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
To J. M. BARRIE
[_Vailima, December 1892._]
DEAR J. M. BARRIE,--You will be sick of me soon; I cannot help it. I
have been off my work for some time, and re-read the _Edinburgh Eleven_,
and had a great mind to write a parody and give you all your sauce back
again, and see how you would like it yourself. And then I read (for the
first time--I know not how) the _Window in Thrums_; I don't say that it
is better than the _Minister_; it's less of a tale--and there is a
beauty, a material beauty, of the tale _ipse_, which clever critics
nowadays long and love to forget; it has more real flaws; but somehow it
is--well, I read it last anyway, and it's by Barrie. And he's the man
for my money. The glove is a great page; it is startlingly original, and
as true as death and judgment. Tibbie Birse in the Burial is great, but
I think it was a journalist that got in the word "official." The same
character plainly had a word to say to Thomas Haggard. Thomas affects me
as a lie--I beg your pardon; doubtless he was somebody you knew; that
leads people so far astray. The actual is not the true.
I am proud to think you are a Scotchman--though to be sure I know
nothing of that country, being only an English tourist, quo' Gavin
Ogilvy. I commend the hard case of Mr. Gavin Ogilvy to J. M. Barrie,
whose work is to me a source of living pleasure and heartfelt national
pride. There are two of us now that the Shirra might have patted on the
head. And please do not think when I thus seem to bracket myself with
you, that I am wholly blinded with vanity. Jess is beyond my frontier
line; I could not touch her skirt; I have no such glamour of twilight on
my pen. I am a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you
were a man of genius. Take care of yourself for my sake. It's a devilish
hard thing for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should
get so few to read. And I can read yours, and I love them.
A pity for you that my amanuensis is not on stock to-day, and my own
hand perceptibly worse than usual.--Yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_December 5th, 1892._
_P.S._--They tell me your health is not strong. Man, come out here and
try the Prophet's chamber. There's only one bad point to us--we do rise
early. The Amanuensis states that you are a lover of silence--and that
ours is a noisy house--and she is a chatterbox--I am not answerable for
these statements, though I do think there is a touch of garrulity about
my premises. We have so little to talk about, you see. The house is
three miles from town, in the midst of great silent forests. There is a
burn close by, and when we are not talking you can hear the burn, and
the birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six
hundred feet below us, and about three times a month a bell--I don't
know where the bell is, nor who rings it; it may be the bell in Hans
Andersen's story for all I know. It is never hot here--86 in the shade
is about our hottest--and it is never cold except just in the early
mornings. Take it for all in all, I suppose this island climate to be by
far the healthiest in the world--even the influenza entirely lost its
sting. Only two patients died, and one was a man nearly eighty, and the
other a child below four months. I won't tell you if it is beautiful,
for I want you to come here and see for yourself. Everybody on the
premises except my wife has some Scotch blood in their veins--I beg your
pardon--except the natives--and then my wife is a Dutchwoman--and the
natives are the next thing conceivable to Highlanders before the
forty-five. We would have some grand cracks!
R. L. S.
Come, it will broaden your mind, and be the making of me.
To CHARLES BAXTER
This correspondent had lately been on a tour in Sweden.
_[Vailima] December 28th, 1892._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Your really decent letter to hand. And here I am
answering it, to the merry note of the carpenter's hammer, in an upper
room of the New House. This upper floor is almost done now, but the
Grrrrrreat 'All below is still unlined; it is all to be varnished
redwood. I paid a big figure but do not repent; the trouble has been so
minimised, the work has been so workmanlike, and all the parties have
been so obliging. What a pity when you met the Buried Majesty of
Sweden--the sovereign of my Cedercrantz--you did not breathe in his ear
a word of Samoa!
O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
Conceive how his plump carcase pants
To leave the spot he now is tree'd in,
And skip with all the dibbs to Sweden.
O Sovereign of my Cedercrantz,
The lowly plea I now advantz;
Remove this man of light and leadin'
From us to more congenial Sweden.
This kind of thing might be kept up a Lapland night. "Let us bury the
great joke"--Shade of Tennyson, forgive!
I am glad to say, you can scarce receive the second bill for the house
until next mail, which gives more room to turn round in. Yes, my rate of
expenditure is hellish. It is funny, it crept up and up; and when we sat
upon one vent another exploded. Lloyd and I grew grey over the monthly
returns; but every damned month, there is a new extra. However, we
always hope the next will prove less recalcitrant; in which faith we
advance trembling.
The desiderated advertisement, I think I have told you, was mighty near
supplied: that is, if deportation would suit your view: the ship was
actually sought to be hired. Yes, it would have been an advertisement,
and rather a lark, and yet a blooming nuisance. For my part, I shall try
to do without.
No one has thought fit to send me Atalanta[55]; and I have no proof at
all of _D. Balfour_, which is far more serious. How about the _D. B._
map? As soon as there is a proof it were well I should see it to accord
the text thereto--or t'other way about if needs must. Remember I had to
go much on memory in writing that work. Did you observe the dedication?
and how did you like it? If it don't suit you, I am to try my hand
again.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Editors and publishers (since those days we have been _deniaises_
with a vengeance) had actually been inclined to shy at the terms of
the fraudulent marriage contract, which is the pivot of the whole
story; see below, p. 187.
[33] For a lively account of this plantation and its history, see
Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_, chap. i.
[34] The native wife of a carpenter in Apia.
[35] The sequel to _Kidnapped_, published in the following year under
the title _Catriona_.
[36] Most of the work on the plantations in Samoa is done by "black
boys," _i.e._ imported labourers from other (Melanesian) islands.
[37] By Howard Pyle.
[38] In answer to the obvious remark that the length and style of
_The Wrecker_, then running in Scribner's Magazine, were out of
keeping with what professed at the outset to be a spoken yarn.
[39] Of Ballantrae: the story is the unfinished _Young Chevalier_.
[40] Afterwards changed into _The Ebb Tide_.
[41] Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_, a shade misquoted.
[42] "Kava, properly Ava, is a drink more or less intoxicating, made
from the root of the _Piper Methysticum_, a Pepper plant. The root
is grated: formerly it was chewed by fair damsels. The root thus
broken up is rubbed about in a great pail, with water slowly added.
A strainer of bark cloth is plunged into it at times, and wrung out
so as to carry away the small fragments of root. The drink is made
and used in ceremony. Every detail is regulated by rules, and the
manner of the mixture of the water, the straining, the handling of
the cup, the drinking out of it and returning, should all be done
according to a well-established manner and in certain cadences." I
borrow this explanation from the late Mr. Lafarge's notes to his
catalogue of South Sea Drawings. It may serve to make clearer
several passages in later letters of the present collection. Readers
of the late Lord Pembroke's _South Sea Bubbles_ will remember the
account of this beverage and its preparation in Chap. viii. of that
volume.
[43] Referring to the marriage contract in the _Beach of Falesa:_ see
above, p. 152.
[44] This about the consulship was only a passing notion on the part
of R. L. S. No vacancy occurred, and in his correspondence he does
not recur to the subject.
[45] I had not cared to send him the story as thus docked and
rechristened in its serial shape.
[46] Austin Strong, on his way to school in California.
[47] By Emile Zola.
[48] The reference is to the writer's maternal cousin, Mr. Graham
Balfour (_Samoice_, "Pelema"), who during these months and again
later was an inmate of the home at Vailima: see above, p. 223.
[49] Robert MacQueen, Lord Braxfield, the "Hanging Judge,"
(1722-1799). This historical personage furnished the conception of
the chief character, but by no means the details or incidents of the
story, which is indeed dated some years after his death.
[50] The allusion is to _Tess_: a book R. L. S. did not like.
[51] A character in _The Wrecker_.
[52] Exactly what in the end actually happened.
[53] Austin Strong.
[54] This tale was withheld from the volume accordingly.
[55] The magazine in which _Catriona_ first appeared in this
country, under the title _David Balfour_.
XIII
LIFE IN SAMOA--_Continued_
THIRD YEAR AT VAILIMA
JANUARY-DECEMBER 1893
By the New Year of 1893 the fine addition to the house at Vailima was
finished, and its pleasantness and comfort went far to console Stevenson
for the cost. But the year was on the whole a less fortunate one for the
inmates than the last. A proclamation concerning penalties for sedition
in the Samoan Islands, which from its tenor could have been aimed at no
one else but Stevenson, had been issued at the close of 1892 by the High
Commissioner at Fiji; and with its modification and practical
withdrawal, by order of the Foreign Office at home, the last threat of
unpleasant consequences in connection with his political action
disappeared. But a sharp second attack of influenza in January lowered
his vitality, and from a trip which the family took for the sake of
change to Sydney, in the month of February, they returned with health
unimproved. In April the illness of Mrs. Stevenson caused her husband
some weeks of acute distress and anxiety. In August he suffered the
chagrin of witnessing the outbreak of the war which he had vainly
striven to prevent between the two rival kings, and the defeat and
banishment of Mataafa, whom he knew to be the one man of governing
capacity among the native chiefs, and whom, in the interest alike of
whites and natives, he had desired to see the Powers not crush, but
conciliate. On the other hand, he had the satisfaction of seeing the
Chief Justice and President removed from the posts they had so
incompetently filled, and superseded by new and better men. The task
imposed by the three Powers upon these officials was in truth an
impossible one; but their characters and endeavours earned respect, and
with the American Chief Justice in particular, Mr. C. J. Ide (whom he
had already known as one of the Land Commissioners), and with his family
the Vailima household lived on terms of cordial friendship. In September
Stevenson took a health-trip to Honolulu, which again turned out
unsuccessful. For some weeks he was down with a renewed attack of fever
and prostration, and his wife had to come from Samoa to nurse and fetch
him home. Later in the autumn he mended again.
During no part of the year were Stevenson's working powers up to the
mark. In the early summer he finished _The Ebb Tide_, but on a plan much
abridged from its original intention, and with an unusual degree of
strain and effort. With _St. Ives_ and his own family history he made
fair progress, but both of these he regarded as in a manner holiday
tasks, not calling for any very serious exercise of his powers. In
connection with the latter, he took an eager interest, as his
correspondence will show, in the researches which friends and kinsmen
undertook for him in Scotland. He fell into arrears in regard to one or
two magazine stories for which he had contracted; and with none of his
more ambitious schemes of romance, _Sophia Scarlet_, _The Young
Chevalier_, _Heathercat_, and _Weir of Hermiston_, did he feel himself
well able to cope. This falling-off of his power of production brought
with it no small degree of inward strain and anxiety. He had not yet
put by any provision for his wife and step-family (the income from the
moderate fortune left by his father naturally going to his mother during
her life). His earnings had since 1887 been considerable, at the rate of
L4,000 a year or thereabouts; but his building expenses and large mode
of life at Vailima, together with his habitual generosity, which scarce
knew check or limit, towards the less fortunate of his friends and
acquaintances in various parts of the world, made his expenditure about
equal to his income. The idea originally entertained of turning part of
the Vailima estate into a profitable plantation turned out chimerical.
The thought began to haunt him, What if his power of earning were soon
to cease? And occasional signs of inward depression and life-weariness
began to appear in his correspondence. But it was only in writing, and
then but rarely, that he let such signs appear: to those about him he
retained the old affectionate charm and inspiring gaiety undiminished,
fulfilling without failure the words of his own prayer, "Give us to
awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling; as the sun lightens the
world, so let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our
habitation."
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_[Vailima] 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 _Falesa_) "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.[56] 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 _Maerchen_ 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.
_24th 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.[57] 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 Simele, 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 sub-title, "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 Cedercrantz 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. 30th._--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
Edin^b 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 Cottage). 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. XV. Set a thief to catch a thief. XVI. M. le Comte de
Kerouaille (his uncle, the rich _emigre_, 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 _emigres_ 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.[58] 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.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Telling how the projected tale, _The Pearl Fisher_, had been cut down
and in its new form was to be called _The Schooner Farallone_
(afterwards changed to _The Ebb Tide_).
[_Vailima, February 1893._]
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I have had the influenza, as I believe you know: this
has been followed by two goes of my old friend Bloodie Jacke, and I have
had fefe--the island complaint--for the second time in two months. All
this, and the fact that both my womenkind require to see a doctor: and
some wish to see Lord Jersey before he goes home: all send me off on a
month's holiday to Sydney. I may get my mail: or I may not: depends on
freight, weather, and the captain's good-nature--he is one of those who
most religiously fear Apia harbour: it is quite a superstition with
American captains. (Odd note: American sailors, who make British hair
grey by the way they carry canvas, appear to be actually _more_ nervous
when it comes to coast and harbour work.) This is the only holiday I
have had for more than 2 years; I dare say it will be as long again
before I take another. And I am going to spend a lot of money. Ahem!
On the other hand, you can prepare to dispose of the serial rights of
the _Schooner Farallone:_ a most grim and gloomy tale. It will run to
something between _Jekyll and Hyde_ and _Treasure Island_. I will not
commit myself beyond this, but I anticipate from 65 to 70,000 words,
could almost pledge myself not shorter than 65,000, but won't. The tale
can be sent as soon as you have made arrangements; I hope to finish it
in a month; six weeks, bar the worst accidents, for certain. I should
say this is the butt end of what was once _The Pearl Fisher_. There is a
peculiarity about this tale in its new form: it ends with a conversion!
We have been tempted rather to call it _The Schooner Farallone: a tract
by R. L. S._ and _L. O._ It would make a boss tract; the three main
characters--and there are only four--are barats, insurance frauds,
thieves and would-be murderers; so the company's good. Devil a woman
there, by good luck; so it's "pure." 'Tis a most--what's the
expression?--unconventional work.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_At Sea, s.s._ Mariposa, _Feb. 19th, '93_.
MY DEAR COLVIN,--You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet
nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is
indeed one reason why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month's
lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we
get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though
we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a
whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle
and I floored another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no
sooner done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put myself
outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying of
consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. In the matter of
_David_, I have never yet received my proofs at all, but shall certainly
wait for your suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and
I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. This is doubtless
what you complain of. Indeed, I placed my single reliance on Miss Grant.
If she couldn't ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there.
About _Island Nights' Entertainments_ all you say is highly
satisfactory. Go in and win.
The extracts from the Times I really cannot trust myself to comment
upon. They were infernally satisfactory; so, and perhaps still more so,
was a letter I had at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time
as I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George Grey.
Now I really think that's all the business. I have been rather sick and
have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been
accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However,
you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appetite,
peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During
the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up,
pitched into, and about one half demolished another tale, once intended
to be called _The Pearl Fisher_, but now razeed and called _The Schooner
Farallone_.[59] We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at
sunrise, and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed
again. The manager of the German Firm (O strange, changed days!) danced
attendance upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and from the
steamer.
_Feb. 21st._--All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a day, but
afoot again and jolly; Fanny enormously bettered by the voyage; I have
been as jolly as a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits
opposite to me writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have just
supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and so left her in good
hands. You should hear me at table with the Ulster purser and a little
punning microscopist called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse
Boswell-ising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests
that would pay here, I observed, "Boswell is Barred during this cruise."
_23rd._--We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. All goes well
with the trio. Both the ladies are hanging round a beau--the same--that
I unearthed for them: I am general provider, and especially great in the
beaux business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny yesterday afternoon,
fell asleep over them in the saloon--and the whole ship seems to have
been down beholding me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whisky punch
and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; a
recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and had to go to the
saloon clock for the hour--no sign of dawn--all heaven grey rainy fog.
Have just had breakfast, written up one letter, register and close this.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Bad pen, bad ink, _S.S._ Mariposa, _at Sea_.
bad light, bad _Apia due by daybreak to-morrow,
blotting-paper. 9 p.m._ [_March 1st, 1893._]
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we
return in disarray. Fanny quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily
mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem
calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at
last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in
a perfectly airless state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy.
Poor Fanny had very little fun of her visit, having been most of the
time on a diet of maltine and slops--and this while the rest of us were
rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle's only devil in the hedge was
the dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches
at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like Saint Paul, all
things to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which I meant
to have enclosed in this.... Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a
medallion by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far
as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George Grey; what a
wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling
ancient events and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent
to which he approved what I had done--or rather have tried to
do--encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at least, he knows these
races: he is not a small employe with an ink-pot and a Whitaker.
Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even Fanny had some lively
sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through. We got Fanny a dress on
the sly, gaudy black velvet and Duchesse lace. And alas! she was only
able to wear it once. But we'll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it
really is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings,
etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am
now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I should change. Slovenly
youth, all right--not slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce;
always a white shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk socks, O a great
sight!--No more possible.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
Of the books mentioned below, _Dr. Syntax's Tour_ and Rowlandson's
_Dance of Death_ had been for use in furnishing customs and manners
in the English part of _St. Ives_; _Pitcairn_ is Pitcairn's _Criminal
Trials of Scotland from 1488 to 1624_. As to the name of Stevenson
and its adoption by some members of the proscribed clan of Macgregor,
Stevenson had been greatly interested by the facts laid before him by
his correspondent here mentioned, Mr. Macgregor Stevenson of New
York, and had at first delightedly welcomed the idea that his own
ancestors might have been fellow-clansmen of Rob Roy. But further
correspondence on the subject of his own descent held with a trained
genealogist, his namesake Mr. J. Horne Stevenson of Edinburgh,
convinced him that the notion must be abandoned.
[_April 1893._]
... About _The Justice-Clerk_, I long to go at it, but will first try to
get a short story done. Since January I have had two severe illnesses,
my boy, and some heartbreaking anxiety over Fanny; and am only now
convalescing. I came down to dinner last night for the first time, and
that only because the service had broken down, and to relieve an
inexperienced servant. Nearly four months now I have rested my brains;
and if it be true that rest is good for brains, I ought to be able to
pitch in like a giant refreshed. Before the autumn, I hope to send you
some _Justice-Clerk_, or _Weir of Hermiston_, as Colvin seems to prefer;
I own to indecision. Received _Syntax_, _Dance of Death_, and
_Pitcairn_, which last I have read from end to end since its arrival,
with vast improvement. What a pity it stops so soon! I wonder is there
nothing that seems to prolong the series? Why doesn't some young man
take it up? How about my old friend Fountainhall's _Decisions?_ I
remember as a boy that there was some good reading there. Perhaps you
could borrow me that, and send it on loan; and perhaps Laing's
_Memorials_ therewith; and a work I'm ashamed to say I have never read,
_Balfour's Letters_.... I have come by accident, through a
correspondent, on one very curious and interesting fact--namely, that
Stevenson was one of the names adopted by the Macgregors at the
proscription. The details supplied by my correspondent are both
convincing and amusing; but it would be highly interesting to find out
more of this.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
These notes are in reply to a set of queries and suggestions as to
points that seemed to need clearing in the tale of _Catriona_, as
first published in Atalanta under the title _David Balfour_.
_[Vailima] April 1893._
1. _Slip_ 3. Davie would be _attracted_ into a similar dialect, as he is
later--_e.g._ with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish.
4, _to lightly_; correct; "to lightly" is a good regular Scots verb.
15. See Allan Ramsay's works.
15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to
draw the character of Prestongrange. 'Tis a most curious thing to render
that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my
effect. And till the day he died, Davie was never sure of what P. was
after. Not only so; very often P. didn't know himself. There was an
element of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being
determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his
Barbara would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable.
That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot
_know_; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method condemns me to
give only the outside both of Prestongrange and his policy.
- -I'll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me they seem a part
of the story, which is historical, after all.
- -I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or where to say so? I
will try.
- -20, _Dean_. I'll try and make that plainer.
_Chap._ XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I could get the
pair--No, can't be.
- -XIV. All right, will abridge.
- -XV. I'd have to put a note to every word; and he who can't read Scots
can _never_ enjoy Tod Lapraik.
- -XVII. Quite right. I _can_ make this plainer, and will.
- -XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the broken back of
my story; some business briefly transacted, I am leaping for Barbara's
apron-strings.
_Slip_ 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.
_Chap._ XX. I shall make all these points clear. About Lady
Prestongrange (not _Lady_ Grant, only _Miss_ Grant, my dear, though
_Lady_ Prestongrange, quoth the dominie) I am taken with your idea of
her death, and have a good mind to substitute a featureless aunt.
_Slip_ 78. I don't see how to lessen this effect. There is really not
much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But I'll try.
- -89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.'s dialect is not
wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try for
another expression.
_The end._ I shall try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering
post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions
aroused by the letter, and careless gentleman, I told you so--or she did
at least.--Yes, the blood money.--I am bothered about the portmanteau;
it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape of the
pockmantie is historic....
To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece of workmanship.
David himself I refuse to discuss; he _is_. The Lord Advocate I think a
strong sketch of a very difficult character, James More, sufficient; and
the two girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came near losing
my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so constant as David, and even
he--well, he didn't know it, anyway! _Tod Lapraik_ is a piece of living
Scots: if I had never writ anything but that and _Thrawn Janet_, still
I'd have been a writer. The defects of _D. B._ are inherent, I fear. But
on the whole, I am far indeed from being displeased with the tailie. One
thing is sure, there has been no such drawing of Scots character since
Scott; and even he never drew a full length like Davie, with his
shrewdness and simplicity, and stockishness and charm. Yet, you'll see,
the public won't want it; they want more Alan! Well, they can't get it.
And readers of _Tess_ can have no use for my David, and his innocent but
real love affairs.
I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation. _Digito
monstrari_ is a new experience; people all looked at me in the streets
in Sydney; and it was very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white
chief in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an
ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters. If I lived in an
atmosphere of adulation, I should end by kicking against the pricks. O
my beautiful forest, O my beautiful shining, windy house, what a joy it
was to behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.
The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be attended to, and
the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan's danger of
arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.
_Easter Sunday._--I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the
chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of
the essence of the story, which is the story of a _cause celebre_;
moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went
so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much
further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to
carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with
cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left
all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what
I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked
you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a
chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also
would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in
doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.
_Thursday, April 5th._--Well, there's no disguise possible; Fanny is not
well, and we are miserably anxious....
_Friday, 7th._--I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at
once. A crape has been removed from the day for all of us. To make
things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen;
heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of
unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by
the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird.
You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has
such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am
as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank
God it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only
lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd:
Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and
bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad
leg. Eh, what a faim'ly!
_Sunday._--Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and
lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the
mend. The rain roars like the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange
and ominous suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless and
measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me cold, and yet is welcome.
I lie quiet in bed to-day, and think of the universe with a good deal of
equanimity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the
_fracas_ with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my
grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has
ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing
barefoot. No cars or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse's shoes
among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain
takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.
_April 16th._--Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn;
the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither you nor I can
take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I believe all right now; I too
am mending, though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is not
good for the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel to-night a baseless
anxiety to write a lovely poem _a propos des bottes de ma grand'mere,
qui etaient a revers_. I see I am idiotic. I'll try the poem.
_17th._--The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still,
however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage
her--but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox.
It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the
God-gifted organ voice's) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the
Antipodes. There is here some odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of
politics; we wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide
won't take the C. J. ship, unless the islands are disarmed; and that
England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly corroborated
by Sir George, I am writing no more letters. But I have put as many
irons in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. It did
not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an
expense to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the treachery of
it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used
to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!
_Thursday._--A general, steady advance; Fanny really quite chipper and
jolly--self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on _forests_ that are to
fall--and my finger on the axe, which wants stoning.
_Saturday_, 22.--Still all for the best; but I am having a heartbreaking
time over _David_. I have nearly all corrected. But have to consider
_The Heather on Fire_, _The Wood by Silvermills_, and the last chapter.
They all seem to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No
proof has been sent of the title, contents, or dedication.
TO A. CONAN DOYLE
The reference in the postscript here is, I believe, to the Journals
of the Society for Psychical Research.
_Vailima, Apia, Samoa, April 5th, 1893._
DEAR SIR,--You have taken many occasions to make yourself very agreeable
to me, for which I might in decency have thanked you earlier. It is now
my turn; and I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on
your very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
That is the class of literature that I like when I have the toothache.
As a matter of fact, it was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the
volume up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know that the
cure was for the moment effectual. Only the one thing troubles me; can
this be my old friend Joe Bell?--I am, yours very truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
_P.S._--And lo, here is your address supplied me here in Samoa! But do
not take mine, O frolic fellow Spookist, from the same source; mine is
wrong.
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The outbreak of hostilities was at this date imminent between Mulinuu
(the party of Laupepa, recognised and supported by the Three Powers)
and Malie (the party of Mataafa).
_[Vailima] 25th April [1893]._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State)
an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring
them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have
a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir
George Grey put me on my mettle; "Never despair," was his word; and "I
am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that
is." Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great harm,
but yet I do not think so--for I think jealousy will prevent the trial
being made. And at any rate it is another chance for this distracted
archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique of fools. If, by the gift
of God, I can do--I am allowed to try to do--and succeed: but no, the
prospect is too bright to be entertained.
To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then by the new wood
paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing, with four native houses;
taro, yams, and the like, excellently planted, and old Folau--"the
Samoan Jew"--sitting and whistling there in his new-found and
well-deserved well-being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan thus
before the world. Further up, on our way home, we saw the world clear,
and the wide die of the shadow lying broad; we came but a little
further, and found in the borders of the bush a banyan. It must have
been 150 feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great
space; above that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns
and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread of the boughs
rose against the bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the
eastward. I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this vast
vegetable.
_Sunday._--A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when,
from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the
little wooden drum that beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now
and again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and is
gone.--The king of Samoa has refused my intercession between him and
Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a good riddance to me of a difficult
business, in which I might very well have failed. What else is to be
done for these silly folks?
_May 12th._--And this is where I had got to, before the mail arrives
with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter from yourself. Sir, that is
the sort of letter I want! Now, I'll make my little proposal.[60] I will
accept _Child's Play_ and _Pan's Pipes_. Then I want _Pastoral_, _The
Manse_, _The Islet_, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter
and beginning at I. Then the portrait of Robert Hunter, beginning
"Whether he was originally big or little," and ending "fearless and
gentle." So much for _Mem. and Portraits_. _Beggars_, sections I. and
II., _Random Memories_ II., and _Lantern Bearers_; I'm agreeable. These
are my selections. I don't know about _Pulvis et Umbra_ either, but must
leave that to you. But just what you please.