About _Davie_ I elaborately wrote last time, but still _Davie_ is not

done; I am grinding singly at _The Ebb Tide_, as we now call the

_Farallone_; the most of it will go this mail. About the following, let

there be no mistake: I will not write the abstract of _Kidnapped_; write

it who will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a clever fellow to

write both argument and story; I am not, _et je me recuse_.

We call it _The Ebb Tide: a Trio and Quartette_; but that secondary name

you may strike out if it seems dull to you. The book, however, falls in

two halves, when the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want

to know, and expect to finish on I suppose 110 or so; but it goes

slowly, as you may judge from the fact that this three weeks past, I

have only struggled from p. 58 to p. 82: twenty-four pages, _et encore_

sure to be re-written, in twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; not

much Waverley Novels about this!

_May 16th._--I believe it will be ten chapters of _The Ebb Tide_ that go

to you; the whole thing should be completed in I fancy twelve; and the

end will follow punctually next mail. It is my great wish that this

might get into The Illustrated London News for Gordon Browne to

illustrate. For whom, in case he should get the job, I give you a few

notes. A purao is a tree giving something like a fig with flowers. He

will find some photographs of an old marine curiosity shop in my

collection, which may help him. Attwater's settlement is to be entirely

overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see photographs of Fakarava: the

verandahs of the house are 12 ft. wide. Don't let him forget the Figure

Head, for which I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands just

clear of the palms on the crest of the beach at the head of the pier;

the flag-staff not far off; the pier he will understand is perhaps three

feet above high water, not more at any price. The sailors of the

_Farallone_ are to be dressed like white sailors of course. For other

things, I remit this excellent artist to my photographs.

I can't think what to say about the tale, but it seems to me to go off

with a considerable bang; in fact, to be an extraordinary work: but

whether popular! Attwater is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think

you will admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island ain't

a thing of beauty, I'll be damned. Please observe Wiseman and Wishart;

for incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe

the Captain and _Adar_; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see,

I'm a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil

himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And

indeed I'm only bragging for a change before I return to the darned

thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down. I break

down at every paragraph, I may observe; and lie here and sweat, till I

can get one sentence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after having

worked so easily for so long! Did ever anybody see such a story of four

characters?

_Later, 2.30._--It may interest you to know that I am entirely _tapu_,

and live apart in my chambers like a caged beast. Lloyd has a bad cold,

and Graham and Belle are getting it. Accordingly, I dwell here without

the light of any human countenance or voice, and strap away at _The Ebb

Tide_ until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can still come, but is gone to

glory now, or to her garden. Page 88 is done, and must be done over

again to-morrow, and I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can't

work on along when he has nothing else on earth to do! But I have

ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the bush presently to refresh

the machine; then back to a lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce

in this hand of fate; for I think another cold just now would just about

do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two last.

_May 18th._--My progress is crabwise, and I fear only IX. chapters will

be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88 again, and with half an idea of

going back again to 85. We shall see when we come to read: I used to

regard reading as a pleasure in my old light days. All the house are

down with the iffluenza in a body, except Fanny and me. The Iffluenza

appears to become endemic here, but it has always been a scourge in the

islands. Witness the beginning of _The Ebb Tide_, which was observed

long before the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by such

Napoleonic conquests. I am now of course "quite a recluse," and it is

very stale, and there is no amanuensis to carry me over my mail, to

which I shall have to devote many hours that would have been more

usefully devoted to _The Ebb Tide_. For you know you can dictate at all

hours of the day and at any odd moment; but to sit down and write with

your red right hand is a very different matter.

_May 20th._--Well, I believe I've about finished the thing, I mean as

far as the mail is to take it. Chapter X. is now in Lloyd's hands for

remarks, and extends in its present form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of

May, I see by looking back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time; so

that I have made 11 pages in nine livelong days. Well! up a high hill he

heaved a huge round stone. But this Flaubert business must be resisted

in the premises. Or is it the result of iffluenza God forbid. Fanny is

down now, and the last link that bound me to my fellow men is severed. I

sit up here, and write, and read Renan's _Origines_, which is certainly

devilish interesting; I read his Nero yesterday, it is very good, O,

very good! But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a

piece of character painting, excellent; but his method sheer lunacy. You

can see him take up the block which he had just rejected, and make of it

the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and the

result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wasting

time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus is always good, and the

blur that remains on the mind is probably just enough. I have been

enchanted with the unveiling of Revelations. Grigsby! what a lark! And

how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The Apostle John is

rather discredited. And to think how one had read the thing so often,

and never understood the attacks upon St. Paul! I remember when I was a

child, and we came to the Four Beasts that were all over eyes, the

sickening terror with which I was filled. If that was Heaven, what, in

the name of Davy Jones and the aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be?

Take it for all in all, _L'Antechrist_ is worth reading. The _Histoire

d' Israel_ did not surprise me much; I had read those Hebrew sources

with more intelligence than the New Testament, and was quite prepared to

admire Ahab and Jezebel, etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been rather a hero

of mine; I mean since the years of discretion.

_May 21st._--And here I am back again on p. 85! the last chapter

demanding an entire revision, which accordingly it is to get. And where

my mail is to come in, God knows! This forced, violent, alembicated

style is most abhorrent to me; it can't be helped; the note was struck

years ago on the _Janet Nicoll_, and has to be maintained somehow; and

I can only hope the intrinsic horror and pathos, and a kind of fierce

glow of colour there is to it, and the surely remarkable wealth of

striking incident, may guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon

Browne is to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs of Papeete.

But mind, the three waifs were never in the town; only on the beach and

in the calaboose. By George, but it's a good thing to illustrate for a

man like that! Fanny is all right again. False alarm! I was down

yesterday afternoon at Papauta, and heard much growling of war, and the

delightful news that the C. J. and the President are going to run away

from Mulinuu and take refuge in the Tivoli hotel.

_23rd. Mail day._--_The Ebb Tide_, all but (I take it) fifteen pages, is

now in your hands--possibly only about eleven pp. It is hard to say. But

there it is, and you can do your best with it. Personally, I believe I

would in this case make even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne and

copious illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have finished with it;

then I go next to _D. Balfour_, and get the proofs ready: a nasty job

for me, as you know. And then? Well, perhaps I'll take a go at the

family history. I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And

then, I suppose, _Weir of Hermiston_, but it may be anything. I am

discontented with _The Ebb Tide_, naturally; there seems such a veil of

words over it; and I like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes

one has a longing for full colour and there comes the veil again. _The

Young Chevalier_ is in very full colour, and I fear it for that

reason.--Ever,

R. L. S.

TO S. R. CROCKETT

Glencorse Church in the Pentlands, mentioned by Stevenson with so

much emotion in the course of this letter, served him for the scene

of Chapter VI. in _Weir of Hermiston_, where his old associations and

feelings in connection with the place have so admirably inspired him.

_Vailima, Samoa, May 17th, 1893._

DEAR MR. CROCKETT,--I do not owe you two letters, nor yet nearly one,

sir! The last time I heard of you, you wrote about an accident, and I

sent you a letter to my lawyer, Charles Baxter, which does not seem to

have been presented, as I see nothing of it in his accounts. Query, was

that lost? I should not like you to think I had been so unmannerly and

so inhuman. If you have written since, your letter also has miscarried,

as is much the rule in this part of the world, unless you register.

Your book is not yet to hand, but will probably follow next month. I

detected you early in the Bookman, which I usually see, and noted you in

particular as displaying a monstrous ingratitude about the footnote.

Well, mankind is ungrateful; "Man's ingratitude to man makes countless

thousands mourn," quo' Rab--or words to that effect. By the way, an

anecdote of a cautious sailor: "Bill, Bill," says I to him, "_or words

to that effect_."

I shall never take that walk by the Fisher's Tryst and Glencorse. I

shall never see Auld Reekie. I shall never set my foot again upon the

heather. Here I am until I die, and here will I be buried. The word is

out and the doom written. Or, if I do come, it will be a voyage to a

further goal, and in fact a suicide; which, however, if I could get my

family all fixed up in the money way, I might, perhaps, perform, or

attempt. But there is a plaguey risk of breaking down by the way; and I

believe I shall stay here until the end comes like a good boy, as I am.

If I did it, I should put upon my trunks: "Passenger to--Hades."

How strangely wrong your information is! In the first place, I should

never carry a novel to Sydney; I should post it from here. In the second

place, _Weir of Hermiston_ is as yet scarce begun. It's going to be

excellent, no doubt; but it consists of about twenty pages. I have a

tale, a shortish tale in length, but it has proved long to do, _The Ebb

Tide_, some part of which goes home this mail. It is by me and Mr.

Osbourne, and is really a singular work. There are only four characters,

and three of them are bandits--well, two of them are, and the third is

their comrade and accomplice. It sounds cheering, doesn't it? Barratry,

and drunkenness, and vitriol, and I cannot tell you all what, are the

beams of the roof. And yet--I don't know--I sort of think there's

something in it. You'll see (which is more than I ever can) whether

Davis and Attwater come off or not.

_Weir of Hermiston_ is a much greater undertaking, and the plot is not

good, I fear; but Lord Justice-Clerk Hermiston ought to be a plum. Of

other schemes, more or less executed, it skills not to speak.

I am glad to hear so good an account of your activity and interests, and

shall always hear from you with pleasure; though I am, and must

continue, a mere sprite of the inkbottle, unseen in the flesh. Please

remember me to your wife and to the four-year-old sweetheart, if she be

not too engrossed with higher matters. Do you know where the road

crosses the burn under Glencorse Church? Go there, and say a prayer for

me: _moriturus salutat_. See that it's a sunny day; I would like it to

be a Sunday, but that's not possible in the premises; and stand on the

right-hand bank just where the road goes down into the water, and shut

your eyes, and if I don't appear to you! well, it can't be helped, and

will be extremely funny.

I have no concern here but to work and to keep an eye on this distracted

people. I live just now wholly alone in an upper room of my house,

because the whole family are down with influenza, bar my wife and

myself. I get my horse up sometimes in the afternoon and have a ride in

the woods; and I sit here and smoke and write, and rewrite, and destroy,

and rage at my own impotence, from six in the morning till eight at

night, with trifling and not always agreeable intervals for meals.

I am sure you chose wisely to keep your country charge. There a minister

can be something, not in a town. In a town, the most of them are empty

houses--and public speakers. Why should you suppose your book will be

slated because you have no friends? A new writer, if he is any good,

will be acclaimed generally with more noise than he deserves. But by

this time you will know for certain.--I am, yours sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--Be it known to this fluent generation that I, R. L. S., in the

forty-third of my age and the twentieth of my professional life, wrote

twenty-four pages in twenty-one days, working from six to eleven, and

again in the afternoon from two to four or so, without fail or

interruption. Such are the gifts the gods have endowed us withal: such

was the facility of this prolific writer!

R. L. S.

TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS

_Vailima, Samoa, May 29th, 1893._

MY DEAR GOD-LIKE SCULPTOR,--I wish in the most delicate manner in the

world to insinuate a few commissions:--

No. 1. Is for a couple of copies of my medallion, as gilt-edged and

high-toned as it is possible to make them. One is for our house here,

and should be addressed as above. The other is for my friend Sidney

Colvin, and should be addressed--Sidney Colvin, Esq., Keeper of the

Print Room, British Museum, London.

No. 2. This is a rather large order, and demands some explanation. Our

house is lined with varnished wood of a dark ruddy colour, very

beautiful to see; at the same time, it calls very much for gold; there

is a limit to picture frames, and really you know there has to be a

limit to the pictures you put inside of them. Accordingly, we have had

an idea of a certain kind of decoration, which, I think, you might help

us to make practical. What we want is an alphabet of gilt letters (very

much such as people play with), and all mounted on spikes like

drawing-pins; say two spikes to each letter, one at top, and I one at

bottom. Say that they were this height, I I and that you chose a model

of some really exquisitely fine, clear type from some Roman monument,

and that they were made either of metal or some composition gilt--the

point is, could not you, in your land of wooden houses, get a

manufacturer to take the idea and manufacture them at a venture, so that

I could get two or three hundred pieces or so at a moderate figure? You

see, suppose you entertain an honoured guest, when he goes he leaves his

name in gilt letters on your walls; an infinity of fun and decoration

can be got out of hospitable and festive mottoes; and the doors of every

room can be beautified by the legend of their names. I really think

there is something in the idea, and you might be able to push it with

the brutal and licentious manufacturer, using my name if necessary,

though I should think the name of the god-like sculptor would be more

germane. In case you should get it started, I should tell you that we

should require commas in order to write the Samoan language, which is

full of words written thus: la'u, ti'e ti'e. As the Samoan language uses

but a very small proportion of the consonants, we should require a

double or treble stock of all vowels, and of F, G, L, U, N, P, S, T, and

V.

The other day in Sydney, I think you might be interested to hear, I was

sculpt a second time by a man called ----, as well as I can remember and

read. I mustn't criticise a present, and he had very little time to do

it in. It is thought by my family to be an excellent likeness of Mark

Twain. This poor fellow, by the by, met with the devil of an accident. A

model of a statue which he had just finished with a desperate effort was

smashed to smithereens on its way to exhibition.

Please be sure and let me know if anything is likely to come of this

letter business, and the exact cost of each letter, so that I may count

the cost before ordering.--Yours sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Relating the toilsome completion of _The Ebb Tide_, and beginning

of the account of his grandfather, Robert Stevenson, in _History of a

Family of Engineers_.

_[Vailima] 29th May [1893]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still grinding at Chap. XI. I began many days ago on p.

93, and am still on p. 93, which is exhilarating, but the thing takes

shape all the same and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of

it. For XIII. is only a footnote _ad explicandum_.

_June the 1st._--Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it over

and condemned it.

_10 a.m._--I have worked up again to 97, but how? The deuce fly away

with literature, for the basest sport in creation. But it's got to come

straight! and if possible, so that I may finish _D. Balfour_ in time for

the same mail. What a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert out-done.

Belle, Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga down the coast; to be

absent a week or so: this leaves Fanny, me, and ----, who seems a nice,

kindly fellow.

_June 2nd._--I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, over-smoking, and

unremunerative overwork. Last night, I went to bed by seven; woke up

again about ten for a minute to find myself light-headed and altogether

off my legs; went to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly fit. I

have crippled on to p. 101, but I haven't read it yet, so do not boast.

What kills me is the frame of mind of one of the characters; I cannot

get it through. Of course that does not interfere with my total

inability to write; so that yesterday I was a living half-hour upon a

single clause and have a gallery of variants that would surprise you.

And this sort of trouble (which I cannot avoid) unfortunately produces

nothing when done but alembication and the far-fetched. Well, read it

with mercy!

_8 a.m._--Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the chapter

practically done at last. But Lord! it has been a business.

_June 3rd_, 8.15.--The draft is finished, the end of Chapter XII. and

the tale, and I have only eight pages _wiederzuarbeiten_. This is just a

cry of joy in passing.

10.30.--Knocked out of time. Did 101 and 102. Alas, no more to-day, as I

have to go down town to a meeting. Just as well though, as my thumb is

about done up.

_Sunday, June 4th._--Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday,

12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse and set

off. A boy opens my gate for me. "Sleep and long life! A blessing on

your journey," says he. And I reply "Sleep, long life! A blessing on the

house!" Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, narrow, winding way, that

seems almost as if it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see

the head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the road

I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic interview with him;

he wants me to pay taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not

till next year; and we part, _re infecta_, he promising to bring me

decisions, I assuring him that, if I find any favouritism, he will find

me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the island. Then I have a talk

with an old servant by the wayside. A little further I pass two children

coming up. "Love!" say I; "are you two chiefly-proceeding inland?" and

they say, "Love! yes!" and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to

the post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the

White Book, just arrived per _Upolu_, having gone the wrong way round,

by Australia; also six copies of _Island Nights' Entertainments_. Some

of Weatherall's illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! I

did say it was "shallow," but, O dear, not so shallow as that a man

could stand up in it! I had still an hour to wait for my meeting, so

Postmaster Davis let me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer

in, and read _A Gentleman of France_. Have you seen it coming out in

Longman's? My dear Colvin! 'tis the most exquisite pleasure; a real

chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas' and yet unlike. Thereafter to the

meeting of the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I have

to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.

_Monday, 5th._--Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Brown, secretary to the

Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made the war in the Western Islands

and was tried for his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long,

important talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home men! But

what would it matter? none of them know, none of them care. If we could

only have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more

troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the

natives, _qui paye de sa personne_, and is not afraid of hanging when

necessary. We don't want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, footering

German barons. That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be in it.

I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong, and shall have

to rewrite them. This tale is devilish, and Chapter XI. the worst of the

lot. The truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; but it's nearly

done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go against all my

gods, and say it is _not worth while_ to massacre yourself over the last

few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to

bits. As for _D. B._, no hope, I fear, this mail, but we'll see what the

afternoon does for me.

4.15.--Well, it's done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last finished, and I

have put away thirty-two pages of chips, and have spent thirteen days

about as nearly in Hell as a man could expect to live through. It's

done, and of course it ain't worth while, and who cares? There it is,

and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as grimy, and as

hateful.

_______________________________________

| |

| SACRED |

| |

| TO THE MEMORY |

| |

| OF |

| |

| J. L. HUISH, |

| |

| BORN 1856, AT HACKNEY, LONDON |

| |

| Accidentally killed upon this Island, |

| |

| 10th September 1889. |

|_______________________________________|

_Tuesday, 6th._--I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from

the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was standing out on the

little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through

me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I

literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew I had

found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and

particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these

identities of sensation, and the world of connotations implied;

highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet

clothes, and whisky, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable

bite of the whole thing at a man's heart, which is--or rather lies at

the bottom of--a story.

I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurevilly-an. I am. I have a great

delight in his Norman stories. Do you know the _Chevalier des Touches_

and _L'Ensorcelee_? They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the

past. But I was rather thinking just now of _Le Rideau Cramoisi_, and

its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the

home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without

doubt, _there_ was an identity of sensation; one of those conjunctions

in life that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent

his memory.

I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all good; and who can

tell me? and why should I wish to know? In so little a while, I, and the

English language, and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to

be a memory! And yet--and yet--one would like to leave an image for a

few years upon men's minds--for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind,

consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the excruciating _Ebb

Tide_. Adieu.

What do you suppose should be done with _The Ebb Tide_? It would make a

volume of 200 pp.; on the other hand, I might likely have some more

stories soon: _The Owl_, _Death in the Pot_, _The Sleeper Awakened_; all

these are possible. _The Owl_ might be half as long; _The Sleeper

Awakened_, ditto; _Death in the Pot_ a deal shorter, I believe. Then

there's the _Go-Between_, which is not impossible altogether. _The Owl_,

_The Sleeper Awakened_, and the _Go-Between_ end reasonably well; _Death

in the Pot_ is an ungodly massacre. O, well, _The Owl_ only ends well in

so far as some lovers come together, and nobody is killed at the

moment, but you know they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.[61]

_Friday, 9th._--Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book, depressing letter

from C.; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast masses of Romeike;

they _are_ going to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has

driven them to it but the persistent misconduct of these two officials?

I know I ought to rewrite the end of this bloody _Ebb Tide_: well, I

can't. _C'est plus fort que moi_; it has to go the way it is, and be

jowned to it! From what I make out of the reviews,[62] I think it would

be better not to republish _The Ebb Tide_: but keep it for other tales,

if they should turn up. Very amusing how the reviews pick out one story

and damn the rest! and it is always a different one. Be sure you send me

the article from Le Temps. Talking of which, ain't it manners in France

to acknowledge a dedication? I have never heard a word from Le Sieur

Bourget.

_Saturday, 17th._--Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole

chapter of my Grandfather, and read it to-night; it was on the whole

much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain't bad myself. 'Tis a third

writing, but it wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send you

3 chapters. That is to say _Family Annals_, _The Service of the Northern

Lights_, and _The Building of the Bell Rock._ Possibly even 4--_A

Houseful of Boys_. I could finish my Grandfather very easy now; my

father and Uncle Alan stop the way. I propose to call the book:

_Northern Lights: Memoirs of a Family of Engineers_. I tell you, it is

going to be a good book. My idea in sending MS. would be to get it set

up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan, Ardchapel,

Helensburgh--mark it private and confidential--one to yourself; and

come on with criticisms! But I'll have to see. The total plan of the

book is this--

I. Domestic Annals.

II. The Service of the Northern Lights.

III. The Building of the Bell Rock.

IV. A Houseful of Boys (or the Family in Baxter's Place).

V. Education of an Engineer.

VI. The Grandfather.

VII. Alan Stevenson.

VIII. Thomas Stevenson.

There will be an Introduction 'The Surname of Stevenson' which has

proved a mighty queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among

libraries.

_Sunday, 18th._--I shall put in this envelope the end of the

ever-to-be-execrated _Ebb Tide_, or Stevenson's Blooming Error. Also, a

paper apart for _David Balfour_. The slips must go in another enclosure,

I suspect, owing to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of

work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little more

of _David_, yet it was plainly to be seen it was impossible. All the

points indicated by you have been brought out; but to rewrite the end,

in my present state of over-exhaustion and fiction-phobia, would have

been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather is good enough

for me, these days. I do not work any less; on the whole, if anything, a

little more. But it is different.

The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what they should

be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of discontent with fiction in

all its form--or _my_ forms--that prevents me being able to be even

interested. I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop

also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take a glass of claret, I

have a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of your

trifles.

Well, sir, here's to you, and farewell.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO EDMUND GOSSE

_June 10th, 1893._

MY DEAR GOSSE,--My mother tells me you never received the very long and

careful letter that I sent you more than a year ago; or is it two years?

I was indeed so much surprised at your silence that I wrote to Henry

James and begged him to inquire if you had received it; his reply was an

(if possible) higher power of the same silence; whereupon I bowed my

head and acquiesced. But there is no doubt the letter was written and

sent; and I am sorry it was lost, for it contained, among other things,

an irrecoverable criticism of your father's _Life_, with a number of

suggestions for another edition, which struck me at the time as

excellent.

Well, suppose we call that cried off, and begin as before? It is

fortunate indeed that we can do so, being both for a while longer in the

day. But, alas! when I see "works of the late J. A. S.,"[63] I can see

no help and no reconciliation possible. I wrote him a letter, I think,

three years ago, heard in some roundabout way that he had received it,

waited in vain for an answer (which had probably miscarried), and in a

humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the

strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night,

and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I

am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light

lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I

thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write

an _In Memoriam_, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to

do it? I very much admire your efforts that way; you are our only

academician.

So you have tried fiction? I will tell you the truth: when I saw it

announced, I was so sure you would send it to me, that I did not order

it! But the order goes this mail, and I will give you news of it. Yes,

honestly, fiction is very difficult; it is a terrible strain to _carry_

your characters all that time. And the difficulty of according the

narrative and the dialogue (in a work in the third person) is extreme.

That is one reason out of half a dozen why I so often prefer the first.

It is much in my mind just now, because of my last work, just off the

stocks three days ago, _The Ebb Tide_: a dreadful, grimy business in the

third person, where the strain between a vilely realistic dialogue and a

narrative style pitched about (in phrase) 'four notes higher' than it

should have been, has sown my head with grey hairs; or I believe so--if

my head escaped, my heart has them.

The truth is, I have a little lost my way, and stand bemused at the

cross-roads. A subject? Ay, I have dozens; I have at least four novels

begun, they are none good enough; and the mill waits, and I'll have to

take second best. _The Ebb Tide_ I make the world a present of; I

expect, and, I suppose, deserve to be torn to pieces; but there was all

that good work lying useless, and I had to finish it!

All your news of your family is pleasant to hear. My wife has been very

ill, but is now better; I may say I am ditto, _The Ebb Tide_ having left

me high and dry, which is a good example of the mixed metaphor. Our

home, and estate, and our boys, and the politics of the island, keep us

perpetually amused and busy; and I grind away with an odd, dogged, down

sensation--and an idea _in petto_ that the game is about played out. I

have got too realistic, and I must break the trammels--I mean I would if

I could; but the yoke is heavy. I saw with amusement that Zola says the

same thing; and truly the _Debacle_ was a mighty big book, I have no

need for a bigger, though the last part is a mere mistake in my opinion.

But the Emperor, and Sedan, and the doctor at the ambulance, and the

horses in the field of battle, Lord, how gripped it is! What an epical

performance! According to my usual opinion, I believe I could go over

that book and leave a masterpiece by blotting and no ulterior art. But

that is an old story, ever new with me. Taine gone, and Renan, and

Symonds, and Tennyson, and Browning; the suns go swiftly out, and I see

no suns to follow, nothing but a universal twilight of the

demi-divinities, with parties like you and me and Lang beating on toy

drums and playing on penny whistles about glow-worms. But Zola is big

anyway; he has plenty in his belly; too much, that is all; he wrote the

_Debacle_ and he wrote _La Bete humaine_, perhaps the most

excruciatingly silly book that I ever read to an end. And why did I read

it to an end, W. E. G.? Because the animal in me was interested in the

lewdness. Not sincerely, of course, my mind refusing to partake in it;

but the flesh was slightly pleased. And when it was done, I cast it from

me with a peal of laughter, and forgot it, as I would forget a Montepin.

Taine is to me perhaps the chief of these losses; I did luxuriate in his

_Origines_; it was something beyond literature, not quite so good, if

you please, but so much more systematic, and the pages that had to be

"written" always so adequate. Robespierre, Napoleon, were both excellent

good.

_June 18th, '93._--Well, I have left fiction wholly, and gone to my

Grandfather, and on the whole found peace. By next month my Grandfather

will begin to be quite grown up. I have already three chapters about as

good as done; by which, of course, as you know, I mean till further

notice or the next discovery. I like biography far better than fiction

myself: fiction is too free. In biography you have your little handful

of facts, little bits of a puzzle, and you sit and think, and fit 'em

together this way and that, and get up and throw 'em down, and say damn,

and go out for a walk. And it's real soothing; and when done, gives an

idea of finish to the writer that is very peaceful. Of course, it's not

really so finished as quite a rotten novel; it always has and always

must have the incurable illogicalities of life about it, the fathoms of

slack and the miles of tedium. Still, that's where the fun comes in; and

when you have at last managed to shut up the castle spectre (dulness),

the very outside of his door looks beautiful by contrast. There are

pages in these books that may seem nothing to the reader; but you

_remember what they were, you know what they might have been_, and they

seem to you witty beyond comparison. In my Grandfather I've had (for

instance) to give up the temporal order almost entirely; doubtless the

temporal order is the great foe of the biographer; it is so tempting, so

easy, and lo! there you are in the bog!--Ever yours,

R. L. STEVENSON.

With all kind messages from self and wife to you and yours. My wife is

very much better, having been the early part of this year alarmingly

ill. She is now all right, only complaining of trifles, annoying to her,

but happily not interesting to her friends. I am in a hideous state,

having stopped drink and smoking; yes, both. No wine, no tobacco; and

the dreadful part of it is that--looking forward--I have--what shall I

say?--nauseating intimations that it ought to be for ever.

TO HENRY JAMES

_Vailima Plantation, Samoan Islands, June 17th, 1893._

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--I believe I have neglected a mail in answering

yours. You will be very sorry to hear that my wife was exceedingly ill,

and very glad to hear that she is better. I cannot say that I feel any

more anxiety about her. We shall send you a photograph of her taken in

Sydney in her customary island habit as she walks and gardens and

shrilly drills her brown assistants. She was very ill when she sat for

it, which may a little explain the appearance of the photograph. It

reminds me of a friend of my grandmother's who used to say when talking

to younger women, "Aweel, when I was young, I wasnae just exactly what

ye wad call _bonny_, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'." I

would not venture to hint that Fanny is "no bonny," but there is no

doubt but that in this presentment she is "pale, penetratin', and

interestin'."

As you are aware, I have been wading deep waters and contending with the

great ones of the earth, not wholly without success. It is, you may be

interested to hear, a dreary and infuriating business. If you can get

the fools to admit one thing, they will always save their face by

denying another. If you can induce them to take a step to the right

hand, they generally indemnify themselves by cutting a caper to the

left. I always held (upon no evidence whatever, from a mere sentiment or

intuition) that politics was the dirtiest, the most foolish, and the

most random of human employments. I always held, but now I know it!

Fortunately, you have nothing to do with anything of the kind, and I may

spare you the horror of further details.

I received from you a book by a man by the name of Anatole France. Why

should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. He writes very

prettily, and then afterwards? Baron Marbot was a different pair of

shoes. So likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I am now perusing

with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best pages I remember

anywhere to have read. But Marbot and Vitrolles are dead, and what has

become of the living? It seems as if literature were coming to a stand.

I am sure it is with me; and I am sure everybody will say so when they

have the privilege of reading _The Ebb Tide_. My dear man, the grimness

of that story is not to be depicted in words. There are only four

characters, to be sure, but they are such a troop of swine! And their

behaviour is really so deeply beneath any possible standard, that on a

retrospect I wonder I have been able to endure them myself until the

yarn was finished. Well, there is always one thing; it will serve as a

touchstone. If the admirers of Zola admire him for his pertinent

ugliness and pessimism, I think they should admire this; but if, as I

have long suspected, they neither admire nor understand the man's art,

and only wallow in his rancidness like a hound in offal, then they will

certainly be disappointed in _The Ebb Tide_. Alas! poor little tale, it

is not _even_ rancid.

By way of an antidote or febrifuge, I am going on at a great rate with

my History of the Stevensons, which I hope may prove rather amusing, in

some parts at least. The excess of materials weighs upon me. My

grandfather is a delightful comedy part; and I have to treat him besides

as a serious and (in his way) a heroic figure, and at times I lose my

way, and I fear in the end will blur the effect. However, _a la grace de

Dieu!_ I'll make a spoon or spoil a horn. You see, I have to do the

Building of the Bell Rock by cutting down and packing my grand-sire's

book, which I rather hope I have done, but do not know. And it makes a

huge chunk of a very different style and quality between Chapters II.

and IV. And it can't be helped! It is just a delightful and exasperating

necessity. You know, the stuff is really excellent narrative: only,

perhaps there's too much of it! There is the rub. Well, well, it will be

plain to you that my mind is affected; it might be with less. _The Ebb

Tide_ and _Northern Lights_ are a full meal for any plain man.

I have written and ordered your last book, _The Real Thing_, so be sure

and don't send it. What else are you doing or thinking of doing? News I

have none, and don't want any. I have had to stop all strong drink and

all tobacco, and am now in a transition state between the two, which

seems to be near madness. You never smoked, I think, so you can never

taste the joys of stopping it. But at least you have drunk, and you can

enter perhaps into my annoyance when I suddenly find a glass of claret

or a brandy-and-water give me a splitting headache the next morning. No

mistake about it; drink anything, and there's your headache. Tobacco

just as bad for me. If I live through this breach of habit, I shall be a

white-livered puppy indeed. Actually I am so made, or so twisted, that I

do not like to think of a life without the red wine on the table and the

tobacco with its lovely little coal of fire. It doesn't amuse me from a

distance. I may find it the Garden of Eden when I go in, but I don't

like the colour of the gate-posts. Suppose somebody said to you, you are

to leave your home, and your books, and your clubs, and go out and camp

in mid-Africa, and command an expedition, you would howl, and kick, and

flee. I think the same of a life without wine and tobacco; and if this

goes on, I've got to go and do it, sir, in the living flesh!

I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought the French were a

polite race? He has taken my dedication with a stately silence that has

surprised me into apoplexy. Did I go and dedicate my book[64] to the

nasty alien, and the 'norrid Frenchman, and the Bloody Furrineer? Well,

I wouldn't do it again; and unless his case is susceptible of

explanation, you might perhaps tell him so over the walnuts and the

wine, by way of speeding the gay hours. Sincerely, I thought my

dedication worth a letter.

If anything be worth anything here below! Do you know the story of the

man who found a button in his hash, and called the waiter? "What do you

call that?" says he. "Well," said the waiter, "what d'you expect? Expect

to find a gold watch and chain?" Heavenly apologue, is it not? I

expected (rather) to find a gold watch and chain; I expected to be able

to smoke to excess and drink to comfort all the days of my life; and I

am still indignantly staring on this button! It's not even a button;

it's a teetotal badge!--Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_Saturday, 24th (?) June [1893]._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Yesterday morning, after a day of absolute temperance,

I awoke to the worst headache I had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was

said farewell to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to

be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for war to be

declared, or to blow finally off, living in the meanwhile in a kind of

children's hour of firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king

seen at night galloping up our road upon unknown errands and covering

his face as he passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded (when he

awakes) with fresh "white man's boxes" (query, ammunition?) and

professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of

bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the

coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and

rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind.

_Wednesday, 28 June._--Yesterday it rained with but little intermission,

but I was jealous of news. Graham and I got into the saddle about 1

o'clock and off down to town. In town, there was nothing but rumours

going; in the night drums had been beat, the men had run to arms on

Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm proved false. There were no

signs of any gathering in Apia proper, and the Secretary of State had no

news to give. I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then the

temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford and see the Mataafa

villages, where we heard there was more afoot. Off we rode. When we came

to Vaimusu, the houses were very full of men, but all seemingly unarmed.

Immediately beyond is that river over which we passed in our scamper

with Lady Jersey; it was all solitary. Three hundred yards beyond is a

second ford; and there--I came face to face with war. Under the trees on

the further bank sat a picket of seven men with Winchesters; their faces

bright, their eyes ardent. As we came up, they did not speak or move;

only their eyes followed us. The horses drank, and we passed the ford.

"Talofa!" I said, and the commandant of the picket said "Talofa"; and

then, when we were almost by, remembered himself and asked where we were

going. "To Faamuina," I said, and we rode on. Every house by the wayside

was crowded with armed men. There was the European house of a Chinaman

on the right-hand side: a flag of truce flying over the gate--indeed we

saw three of these in what little way we penetrated into Mataafa's

lines--all the foreigners trying to protect their goods; and the

Chinaman's verandah overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. By

the way we met a party of about ten or a dozen marching with their guns

and cartridge-belts, and the cheerful alacrity and brightness of their

looks set my head turning with envy and sympathy. Arrived at Vaiusu, the

houses about the _malae_ (village green) were thronged with men, all

armed. On the outside of the council-house (which was all full within)

there stood an orator; he had his back turned to his audience, and

seemed to address the world at large; all the time we were there his

strong voice continued unabated, and I heard snatches of political

wisdom rising and falling.

The house of Faamuina stands on a knoll in the _malae_. Thither we

mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, and we went in. Faamuina was

there himself, his wife Palepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants;

and here again was this exulting spectacle as of people on their

marriage day. Faamuina (when I last saw him) was an elderly, limping

gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright-eyed boy

that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts.

We stayed but a little while to smoke a selui; I would not have kava

made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous (perhaps even

blameworthy) enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, and on

coming to the ford, the commandant came and asked me if there were many

on the other side. "Very many," said I; not that I knew, but I would not

lead them on the ice. "That is well!" said he, and the little picket

laughed aloud as we splashed into the river. We returned to Apia,

through Apia, and out to windward as far as Vaiala, where the word went

that the men of the Vaimauga had assembled. We met two boys carrying

pigs, and saw six young men busy cooking in a cook-house; but no sign of

an assembly; no arms, no blackened faces. (I forgot! As we turned to

leave Faamuina's, there ran forward a man with his face blackened, and

the back of his lava-lava girded up so as to show his tattooed hips

naked; he leaped before us, cut a wonderful caper, and flung his knife

high in the air, and caught it. It was strangely savage and fantastic

and high-spirited. I have seen a child doing the same antics long before

in a dance, so that it is plainly an _accepted solemnity_. I should say

that for weeks the children have been playing with spears.) Up by the

plantation I took a short cut, which shall never be repeated, through

grass and weeds over the horses' heads and among rolling stones; I

thought we should have left a horse there, but fortune favoured us. So

home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a bowl of

kava and dinner. But the impression on our minds was extraordinary; the

sight of that picket at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls

in my head; the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered like a

stallion.

It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and do nothing; I do

not know if I can stand it out. But you see, I may be of use to these

poor people, if I keep quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a

bad job of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you; and it

is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about one hour up; can I

go back to my old grandpapa, and men sitting with Winchesters in my

mind's eye? No; war is a huge _entrainement_; there is no other

temptation to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had been

about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home

like schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a

brightness of eye, as you could have lit a candle at!

Do you appreciate the height and depth of my temptation? that I have

about nine miles to ride, and I can become a general officer? and

to-night I might seize Mulinuu and have the C. J. under arrest? And yet

I stay here! It seems incredible, so huge is the empire of prudence and

the second thought.

_Thursday, 29th._--I had two priests to luncheon yesterday: the Bishop

and Pere Remy. They were very pleasant, and quite clean too, which has

been known sometimes not to be--even with bishops. Monseigneur is not

unimposing; with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks

splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads came up one after

another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it

did me good for a piece of pageantry. Remy is very engaging; he is a

little, nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful of laughter

and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and our luncheon party went

off merrily--far more merrily than many a German spread, though with so

much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance of

the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined, he related to us (as

news) little stories from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His

comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought irreverent. "_Ah! il

connaissait son monde, allez!_" "_Il etait fin, notre Seigneur!_" etc.

_Friday._--Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the International.

Heard there about the huge folly of the hour, all the Mulinuu

ammunition having been yesterday marched openly to vaults in Matafele;

and this morning, on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and

humiliatingly disinterred and marched back again. People spoke of it

with a kind of shrill note that did not quite satisfy me. They seemed

not quite well at ease. Luncheon over, we rode out on the Malie road.

All was quiet in Vaiusu, and when we got to the second ford, alas! there

was no picket--which was just what Belle had come to sketch. On through

quite empty roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to be seen; and at

last a drum and a penny whistle playing in Vaiusu, and a cricket match

on the _malae_! Went up to Faamuina's; he is a trifle uneasy, though he

gives us kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that he has

an engagement with the Chief Justice at half-past two to sell a piece of

land. Is this the reason why war has disappeared? We ride back, stopping

to sketch here and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I ride on to

Public Hall Committee and pass an hour with my committees very heavily.

To the hotel to dinner, then to the ball, and home by eleven, very

tired. At the ball I heard some news, of how the chief of Letonu said

that I was the source of all this trouble, and should be punished, and

my family as well. This, and the rudeness of the man at the ford of the

Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that Faamuina, as he

approached the first ford, was spoken to by a girl, and immediately said

good-bye and plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there was a

war party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we stopped to

sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums and the sound of a bugle

from that direction startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe

Mulinuu is (at least at present) incapable of any act of offence. One

good job, these threats to my home and family take away all my childish

temptation to go out and fight. Our force must be here, to protect

ourselves. I see panic rising among the whites; I hear the shrill note

of it in their voices, and they talk already about a refuge on the war

ships. There are two here, both German; and the _Orlando_ is expected

presently.

_Sunday, 9th July._--Well, the war has at last begun. For four or five

days, Apia has been filled by these poor children with their faces

blacked, and the red handkerchief about their brows, that makes the

Malietoa uniform, and the boats have been coming in from the windward,

some of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board--the bugle

always ill-played--and a sort of jester leaping and capering on the

sparred nose of the boat, and the whole crew uttering from time to time

a kind of menacing ululation. Friday they marched out to the bush; and

yesterday morning we heard that some had returned to their houses for

the night, as they found it "so uncomfortable." After dinner a messenger

came up to me with a note, that the wounded were arriving at the Mission

House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and rode off with a lantern; it was a

fine starry night, though pretty cold. We left the lantern at

Tanugamanono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, and myself,

in a strange state of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I

may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some sullen. The best

place in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame-house it was,

with a big table in the middle for operations, and ten Samoans, each

with an average of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke

was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled angel, showed

herself a real trump; the nice, clean, German orderlies in their white

uniforms looked and meant business. (I hear a fine story of Miss

Large--a cast-iron teetotaller--going to the public-house for a bottle

of brandy.)

The doctors were not there when I arrived; but presently it was observed

that one of the men was going cold. He was a magnificent Samoan, very

dark, with a noble aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, and

was surrounded by seven people, fondling his limbs as he lay: he was

shot through both lungs. And an orderly was sent to the town for the

(German naval) doctors, who were dining there. Meantime I found an

errand of my own. Both Clarke and Miss Large expressed a wish to have

the public hall, of which I am chairman, and I set off down town, and

woke people out of their beds, and got a committee together, and (with a

great deal of difficulty from one man, whom we finally overwhelmed) got

the public hall for them. Bar the one man, the committee was splendid,

and agreed in a moment to share the expense if the shareholders object.

Back to the hospital about 11.30; found the German doctors there. Two

men were going now, one that was shot in the bowels--he was dying rather

hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum, silent, with contorted

face. The chief, shot through the lungs, was lying on one side, awaiting

the last angel; his family held his hands and legs: they were all

speechless, only one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and "keened" for

the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went home, and to bed

about two A.M. What actually passed seems undiscoverable; but the

Mataafas were surely driven back out of Vaitele; that is a blow to them,

and the resistance was far greater than had been anticipated--which is a

blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indicate a long and bloody war.

Frank's house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with wounded; many dead

bodies were brought in; I hear with certainty of five, wrapped in mats;

and a pastor goes to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Laupepas

brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the great horror and

consternation of the native mind, one proved to be a girl, and was

identified as that of a Taupou--or Maid of the Village--from Savaii. I

hear this morning, with great relief, that it has been returned to

Malie, wrapped in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, and with an

apologetic embassy. This could easily happen. The girl was of course

attending on her father with ammunition, and got shot; her hair was cut

short to make her father's war head-dress--even as our own Sina's is at

this moment; and the decollator was probably, in his red flurry of

fight, wholly unconscious of her sex. I am sorry for him in the future;

he must make up his mind to many bitter jests--perhaps to vengeance. But

what an end to one chosen for her beauty and, in the time of peace,

watched over by trusty crones and hunchbacks!

_Evening._--Can I write or not? I played lawn tennis in the morning, and

after lunch down with Graham to Apia. Ulu, he that was shot in the

lungs, still lives; he that was shot in the bowels is gone to his

fathers, poor, fierce child! I was able to be of some very small help,

and in the way of helping myself to information, to prove myself a mere

gazer at meteors. But there seems no doubt the Mataafas for the time are

scattered; the most of our friends are involved in this disaster, and

Mataafa himself--who might have swept the islands a few months ago--for

him to fall so poorly, doubles my regret. They say the Taupou had a gun

and fired; probably an excuse manufactured _ex post facto_. I go down

to-morrow at 12, to stay the afternoon, and help Miss Large. In the

hospital to-day, when I first entered it, there were no attendants; only

the wounded and their friends, all equally sleeping and their heads

poised upon the wooden pillows. There is a pretty enough boy there,

slightly wounded, whose fate is to be envied: two girls, and one of the

most beautiful, with beaming eyes, tend him and sleep upon his pillow.

In the other corner, another young man, very patient and brave, lies

wholly deserted. Yet he seems to me far the better of the two; but not

so pretty! Heavens, what a difference that makes; in our not very well

proportioned bodies and our finely hideous faces, the 1-32nd--rather the

1-64th--this way or that! Sixteen heads in all at Mulinuu. I am so stiff

I can scarce move without a howl.

_Monday, 10th._--Some news that Mataafa is gone to Savaii by way of

Manono: this may mean a great deal more warfaring, and no great issue.

(When Sosimo came in this morning with my breakfast he had to lift me

up. It is no joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right arm in a

sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust business this is! On the 28th,

if Mataafa had moved, he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and

I fear he is now only the stick of a rocket.

_Wednesday, 12th._--No more political news; but many rumours. The

government troops are off to Manono; no word of Mataafa. O, there is a

passage in my mother's letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next

Christmas you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most

important, and must be understood at once. If it is next Christmas, I

could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold, and you would have to adopt

one of the following alternatives: 1st, either come straight on here and

pass a month with us; 'tis the rainy season, but we have often lovely

weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will meet you there. Hawaii is

only a week's sail from S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on

the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you

could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States--a

fortnight even--and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further

excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon

and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at

once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to

come on here. I'll tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet

you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea-sickness, I could

just come on board and we could return together to Samoa, and you could

have a month of our life here, which I believe you could not help

liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and some

of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright--the passage in my

mother's letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much

the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan.

I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we

could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and

you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life,

native foods, native houses--and perhaps be in time to see the German

flag raised, who knows?--and we could generally yarn for all we were

worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious to know

how the climate affected you. It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it

suits Graham, it suits all our family; others it does not suit at all.

It is either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is

at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to roost

early.

A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory; they washed the black

paint off, and behold! it was his brother. When I last heard he was

sitting in his house, with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous

war is an ugly business; but I believe the civilised is fully uglier;

but Lord! what fun!

I should say we now have definite news that there are _three_ women's

heads; it was difficult to get it out of the natives, who are all

ashamed, and the women all in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done

to punish or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false report

that the head had been returned.

_Thursday, 13th._--Maatafa driven away from Savaii. I cannot write about

this, and do not know what should be the end of it.

_Monday, 17th._--Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk) to lunch yesterday.

There is no real certain news yet: I must say, no man could _swear_ to

any result; but the sky looks horribly black for Mataafa and so many of

our friends along with him. The thing has an abominable, a beastly,

nightmare interest. But it's wonderful generally how little one cares

about the wounded; hospital sights, etc.; things that used to murder me.

I was far more struck with the excellent way in which things were

managed; as if it had been a peep-show; I held some of the things at an

operation, and did not care a dump.

_Tuesday, 18th._--Sunday came the _Katoomba_, Captain Bickford, C.M.G.

Yesterday, Graham and I went down to call, and find he has orders to

suppress Mataafa at once, and has to go down to-day before daybreak to

Manono. He is a very capable, energetic man; if he had only come ten

days ago, all this would have gone by; but now the questions are thick

and difficult. (1) Will Mataafa surrender? (2) Will his people allow

themselves to be disarmed? (3) What will happen to them if they do? (4)

What will any of them believe after former deceptions? The three consuls

were scampering on horseback to Leulumoega to the king; no Cusack-Smith,

without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up

here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the

able-bodied help of Lloyd--and dined. Then down in continual showers and

pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith's; not returned. Back to the inn

for my horse, and to C.-S.'s, when I find him just returned and he

accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And

to-day have been in a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my

wretched mail together. It is a hateful business, waiting for the news;

it may come to a fearful massacre yet.--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO JAMES S. STEVENSON

This is addressed to a very remote cousin in quest of information

about the origins of the family.

_Vailima, Samoa, June 19th, 1893._

DEAR MR. STEVENSON,--I am reminded by coming across some record of

relations between my grandfather, Robert Stevenson, C.E., Edinburgh,

and Robert Stevenson, Esq., Secretary to the Royal Exchange, Glasgow,

and I presume a son of Hugh Stevenson who died in Tobago 16th April

1774, that I have not yet consulted my cousins in Glasgow.

I am engaged in writing a Life of my grandfather, my uncle Alan, and my

father, Thomas, and I find almost inconceivable difficulty in placing

and understanding their (and my) descent.

Might I ask if you have any material to go upon? The smallest notes

would be like found gold to me; and an old letter invaluable.

I have not got beyond James Stevenson and Jean Keir his spouse, to whom

Robert the First (?) was born in 1675. Could you get me further back?

Have you any old notes of the trouble in the West Indian business which

took Hugh and Alan to their deaths? How had they acquired so

considerable a business at an age so early? You see how the queries pour

from me; but I will ask nothing more in words. Suffice it to say that

any information, however insignificant, as to our common forbears, will

be very gratefully received. In case you should have any original

documents, it would be better to have copies sent to me in this

outlandish place, for the expense of which I will account to you as soon

as you let me know the amount, and it will be wise to register your

letter.--Believe me, in the old, honoured Scottish phrase, your

affectionate cousin,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO HENRY JAMES

_Apia, July 1893._

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--Yes. _Les Trophees_ is, on the whole, a book.[65]

It is excellent; but is it a life's work? I always suspect _you_ of a

volume of sonnets up your sleeve; when is it coming down? I am in one of

my moods of wholesale impatience with all fiction and all verging on it,

reading instead, with rapture, _Fountainhall's Decisions_. You never

read it: well, it hasn't much form, and is inexpressibly dreary, I

should suppose, to others--and even to me for pages. It's like walking

in a mine underground, and with a damned bad lantern, and picking out

pieces of ore. This, and war, will be my excuse for not having read your

(doubtless) charming work of fiction. The revolving year will bring me

round to it; and I know, when fiction shall begin to feel a little

_solid_ to me again, that I shall love it, because it's James. Do you

know, when I am in this mood, I would rather try to read a bad book?

It's not so disappointing, anyway. And _Fountainhall_ is prime, two big

folio volumes, and all dreary, and all true, and all as terse as an

obituary; and about one interesting fact on an average in twenty pages,

and ten of them unintelligible for technicalities. There's literature,

if you like! It feeds; it falls about you genuine like rain. Rain:

nobody has done justice to rain in literature yet: surely a subject for

a Scot. But then you can't do rain in that ledger-book style that I am

trying for--or between a ledger-book and an old ballad. How to get over,

how to escape from, the besotting _particularity_ of fiction. "Roland

approached the house; it had green doors and window blinds; and there

was a scraper on the upper step." To hell with Roland and the

scraper!--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO A. CONAN DOYLE

_Vailima, July 12, 1893._

MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--The _White Company_ has not yet turned up; but

when it does--which I suppose will be next mail--you shall hear news of

me. I have a great talent for compliment, accompanied by a hateful,

even a diabolic frankness.

Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and Mrs. Doyle; Mrs.

Stevenson bids me say (what is too true) that our rations are often

spare. Are you Great Eaters? Please reply.

As to ways and means, here is what you will have to do. Leave San

Francisco by the down mail, get off at Samoa, and twelve days or a

fortnight later, you can continue your journey to Auckland per Upolu,

which will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the way. Make

this a _first part of your plans_. A fortnight, even of Vailima diet,

could kill nobody.

We are in the midst of war here; rather a nasty business, with the

head-taking; and there seems signs of other trouble. But I believe you

need make no change in your design to visit us. All should be well over;

and if it were not, why! you need not leave the steamer.--Yours very

truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

_19th July '93._

... We are in the thick of war--see Illustrated London News--we have

only two outside boys left to us. Nothing is doing, and _per contra_

little paying.... My life here is dear; but I can live within my income

for a time at least--so long as my prices keep up--and it seems a clear

duty to waste none of it on gadding about. ... My Life of my family

fills up intervals, and should be an excellent book when it is done, but

big, damnably big.

My dear old man, I perceive by a thousand signs that we grow old, and

are soon to pass away; I hope with dignity; if not, with courage at

least. I am myself very ready; or would be--will be--when I have made a

little money for my folks. The blows that have fallen upon you are

truly terrifying; I wish you strength to bear them. It is strange, I

must seem to you to blaze in a Birmingham prosperity and happiness; and

to myself I seem a failure. The truth is, I have never got over the last

influenza yet, and am miserably out of heart and out of kilter. Lungs

pretty right, stomach nowhere, spirits a good deal overshadowed; but

we'll come through it yet, and cock our bonnets. (I confess with sorrow

that I am not yet quite sure about the _intellects_; but I hope it is

only one of my usual periods of non-work. They are more unbearable now,

because I cannot rest. _No rest but the grave for Sir Walter!_ O the

words ring in a man's head.)

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

_[Vailima] August 1893._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Quite impossible to write. Your letter is due to-day; a

nasty, rainy-like morning with huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo

shadow on the sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly

give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or the only, powerful

member of the family; for some days she has been the Flower of the

Flock. Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been

down with "belly belong him" (Black Boy speech). As for me, I have to

lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be expected) had a smart but

eminently brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I have been

re-casting the beginning of the _Hanging Judge_ or _Weir of Hermiston_;

then I have been cobbling on my Grandfather, whose last chapter (there

are only to be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter of

inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) which one learns at

this trade, that somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and

glowering and re-writing, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope;

there is one piece for instance that I want in--I cannot put it one

place for a good reason--I cannot put it another for a better--and every

time I look at it, I turn sick and put the MS. away.

Well, your letter hasn't come, and a number of others are missing. It

looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so I'll blame nobody, and proceed to

business.

It looks as if I was going to send you the first three chapters of my

Grandfather.... If they were set up, it would be that much anxiety off

my mind. I have a strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my

ancestors' _souls_ in my charge, and might miscarry with them.

There's a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is needed. Still

Chapter I. seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III.

I know nothing of, as I told you. And Chapter IV. is at present all ends

and beginnings; but it can be pulled together.

This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this month, and I

may add that it is not only more than you deserve, but just about more

than I was equal to. I have been and am entirely useless; just able to

tinker at my Grandfather. The three chapters--perhaps also a little of

the fourth--will come home to you next mail by the hand of my cousin

Graham Balfour, a very nice fellow whom I recommend to you warmly--and

whom I think you will like. This will give you time to consider my

various and distracted schemes.

All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again as soon as the

war-ships leave. Adieu.

R. L. S.

TO A. CONAN DOYLE

_Vailima, August 23rd, 1893._

MY DEAR DR. CONAN DOYLE,--I am reposing after a somewhat severe

experience upon which I think it my duty to report to you. Immediately

after dinner this evening it occurred to me to re-narrate to my native

overseer Simele your story of _The Engineer's Thumb_. And, sir, I have

done it. It was necessary, I need hardly say, to go somewhat farther

afield than you have done. To explain (for instance) what a railway is,

what a steam hammer, what a coach and horse, what coining, what a

criminal, and what the police. I pass over other and no less necessary

explanations. But I did actually succeed; and if you could have seen the

drawn, anxious features and the bright, feverish eyes of Simele, you

would have (for the moment at least) tasted glory. You might perhaps

think that, were you to come to Samoa, you might be introduced as the

Author of _The Engineer's Thumb_. Disabuse yourself. They do not know

what it is to make up a story. _The Engineer's Thumb_ (God forgive me)

was narrated as a piece of actual and factual history. Nay, and more, I

who write to you have had the indiscretion to perpetrate a trifling

piece of fiction entitled _The Bottle Imp_. Parties who come up to visit

my unpretentious mansion, after having admired the ceilings by

Vanderputty and the tapestry by Gobbling, manifest towards the end a

certain uneasiness which proves them to be fellows of an infinite

delicacy. They may be seen to shrug a brown shoulder, to roll up a

speaking eye, and at last secret burst from them: "Where is the bottle?"

Alas, my friends (I feel tempted to say), you will find it by the

Engineer's Thumb! Talofa-soifua.

O a'u, o lau uo moni, O Tusitala. More commonly known as

R. L. STEVENSON.

Have read the _Refugees_; Conde and old P. Murat very good; Louis xiv.

and Louvois with the letter bag very rich. You have reached a trifle

wide perhaps; too _many_ celebrities? Though I was delighted to

re-encounter my old friend Du Chaylu. Old Murat is perhaps your

high-water mark; 'tis excellently human, cheerful and real. Do it

again. Madame de Maintenon struck me as quite good. Have you any

document for the decapitation? It sounds steepish. The devil of all that

first part is that you see old Dumas; yet your Louis XIV. is _distinctly

good_. I am much interested with this book, which fulfils a good deal,

and promises more. Question: How far a Historical Novel should be wholly

episodic? I incline to that view, with trembling. I shake hands with you

on old Murat.

R. L. S.

TO AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS

Mr. St. Gaudens' large medallion portrait in bronze, executed from

sittings given in 1887, had at last found its way to Apia, but not

yet to Vailima.

_Vailima, September 1893._

MY DEAR ST. GAUDENS,--I had determined not to write to you till I had

seen the medallion, but it looks as if that might mean the Greek Kalends

or the day after to-morrow. Reassure yourself, your part is done, it is

ours that halts--the consideration of conveyance over our sweet little

road on boys' backs, for we cannot very well apply the horses to this

work; there is only one; you cannot put it in a panier; to put it on the

horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to

say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and

the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the

well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So

you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the

medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days

longer; and hear me meanwhile on the golden letters.

Alas! they are all my fancy painted, but the price is prohibitive. I

cannot do it. It is another day-dream burst. Another gable of Abbotsford

has gone down, fortunately before it was builded, so there's nobody

injured--except me. I had a strong conviction that I was a great hand

at writing inscriptions, and meant to exhibit and test my genius on the

walls of my house; and now I see I can't. It is generally thus. The

Battle of the Golden Letters will never be delivered. On making

preparation to open the campaign, the King found himself face to face

with invincible difficulties, in which the rapacity of a mercenary

soldiery and the complaints of an impoverished treasury played an equal

part.--Ever yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

I enclose a bill for the medallion; have been trying to find your

letter, quite in vain, and therefore must request you to pay for the

bronze letters yourself and let me know the damage.

R. L. S.

TO JAMES S. STEVENSON

_Vailima Plantation, Island of Upolu, Samoa, Sept. 4th, 1893._

MY DEAR COUSIN,--I thank you cordially for your kinsmanlike reply to my

appeal. Already the notes from the family Bible have spared me one

blunder, which I had from some notes in my grandfather's own hand; and

now, like the daughters of the horseleech, my voice is raised again to

put you to more trouble. "Nether Carsewell, Neilston," I read. My

knowledge of Scotland is fairly wide, but it does not include Neilston.

However, I find by the (original) Statistical Account, it is a parish in

Renfrew. Do you know anything of it? Have you identified Nether

Carsewell? Have the Neilston parish registers been searched? I see whole

vistas of questions arising, and here am I in Samoa!

I shall write by this mail to my lawyer to have the records searched,

and to my mother to go and inquire in the parish itself. But perhaps you

may have some further information, and if so I should be glad of it. If

you have not, pray do not trouble to answer. As to your father's blunder

of "Stevenson of Cauldwell," it is now explained: _Carse_well may have

been confounded with _Cauldwell_: and it seems likely our man may have

been a tenant or retainer of Mure of Cauldwell, a very ancient and

honourable family, who seems to have been at least a neighbouring laird

to the parish of Neilston. I was just about to close this, when I

observed again your obliging offer of service, and I take you promptly

at your word.

Do you think that you or your son could find a day to visit Neilston and

try to identify Nether Carsewell, find what size of a farm it is, to

whom it belonged, etc.? I shall be very much obliged. I am pleased

indeed to learn some of my books have given pleasure to your family; and

with all good wishes, I remain, your affectionate cousin,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

The registers I shall have seen to, through my lawyer.

TO GEORGE MEREDITH

_Sept. 5th,1893, Vailima Plantation, Upolu, Samoa._

MY DEAR MEREDITH,--I have again and again taken up the pen to write to

you, and many beginnings have gone into the waste paper basket (I have

one now--for the second time in my life--and feel a big man on the

strength of it). And no doubt it requires some decision to break so long

a silence. My health is vastly restored, and I am now living

patriarchally in this place six hundred feet above the sea on the

shoulder of a mountain of 1500. Behind me, the unbroken bush slopes up

to the backbone of the island (3 to 4000) without a house, with no

inhabitants save a few runaway black boys, wild pigs and cattle, and

wild doves and flying foxes, and many parti-coloured birds, and many

black, and many white: a very eerie, dim, strange place and hard to

travel. I am the head of a household of five whites, and of twelve

Samoans, to all of whom I am the chief and father: my cook comes to me

and asks leave to marry--and his mother, a fine old chief woman, who has

never lived here, does the same. You may be sure I granted the petition.

It is a life of great interest, complicated by the Tower of Babel, that

old enemy. And I have all the time on my hands for literary work.

My house is a great place; we have a hall fifty feet long with a great

redwood stair ascending from it, where we dine in state--myself usually

dressed in a singlet and a pair of trousers--and attended on by servants

in a single garment, a kind of kilt--also flowers and leaves--and their

hair often powdered with lime. The European who came upon it suddenly

would think it was a dream. We have prayers on Sunday night--I am a

perfect pariah in the island not to have them oftener, but the spirit is

unwilling and the flesh proud, and I cannot go it more. It is strange to

see the long line of the brown folk crouched along the wall with

lanterns at intervals before them in the big shadowy hall, with an oak

cabinet at one end of it and a group of Rodin's (which native taste

regards as _prodigieusement leste_) presiding over all from the top--and

to hear the long rambling Samoan hymn rolling up (God bless me, what

style)! But I am off business to-day, and this is not meant to be

literature.

I have asked Colvin to send you a copy of _Catriona_, which I am

sometimes tempted to think is about my best work. I hear word

occasionally of the _Amazing Marriage_. It will be a brave day for me

when I get hold of it. Gower Woodseer is now an ancient, lean, grim,

exiled Scot, living and labouring as for a wager in the tropics; still

active, still with lots of fire in him, but the youth--ah, the youth

where is it? For years after I came here, the critics (those genial

gentlemen) used to deplore the relaxation of my fibre and the idleness

to which I had succumbed. I hear less of this now; the next thing is

they will tell me I am writing myself out! and that my unconscientious

conduct is bringing their grey hairs with sorrow to the dust. I do not

know--I mean I do know one thing. For fourteen years I have not had a

day's real health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have

done my work unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of

it, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by

coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for so long, it

seems to me I have won my wager and recovered my glove. I am better now,

have been rightly speaking since first I came to the Pacific; and still,

few are the days when I am not in some physical distress. And the battle

goes on--ill or well, is a trifle; so as it goes. I was made for a

contest, and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be

this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. At least I

have not failed, but I would have preferred a place of trumpetings and

the open air over my head.

This is a devilish egotistical yarn. Will you try to imitate me in that

if the spirit ever moves you to reply? And meantime be sure that away in

the midst of the Pacific there is a house on a wooded island where the

name of George Meredith is very dear, and his memory (since it must be

no more) is continually honoured.--Ever your friend,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Remember me to Mariette, if you please; and my wife sends her most kind

remembrances to yourself.

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

Finished on the way to Honolulu for a health change which turned out

unfortunate. With the help of Mr. J.H. Stevenson and other

correspondents he had now, as we have seen, been able (regretfully

giving up the possibility of a Macgregor lineage) to identify his

forbears as having about 1670 been tenant farmers at Nether Carsewell

in Renfrewshire. The German government at home had taken his

_Footnote to History_ much less kindly than his German neighbours on

the spot, and the Tauchnitz edition had been confiscated and

destroyed and its publisher fined.

[_Vailima, and s.s. Mariposa, September 1893._]

MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here is a job for you. It appears that about 1665, or

earlier, James Stevenson {in / of} Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston,

flourished. Will you kindly send an able-bodied reader to compulse the

parish registers of Neilston, if they exist or go back as far? Also

could any trace be found through Nether-Carsewell? I expect it to have

belonged to Mure of Cauldwell. If this be so, might not the Cauldwell

charter chest contain some references to their Stevenson tenantry?

Perpend upon it. But clap me on the judicious, able-bodied reader on the

spot. Can I really have found the tap-root of my illustrious ancestry at

last? Souls of my fathers! What a giggle-iggle-orious moment! I have

drawn on you for L400. Also I have written to Tauchnitz announcing I

should bear one-half part of his fines and expenses, amounting to L62,

10s. The L400 includes L160 which I have laid out here in land. Vanu

Manutagi--the vale of crying birds (the wild dove)--is now mine: it was

Fanny's wish and she is to buy it from me again when she has made that

much money.

Will you please order for me through your bookseller the _Mabinogion_ of

Lady Charlotte Guest--if that be her name--and the original of Cook's

voyages lately published? Also, I see announced a map of the Great North

Road: you might see what it is like: if it is highly detailed, or has

any posting information, I should like it.

This is being finished on board the _Mariposa_ going north. I am making

the run to Honolulu and back for health's sake. No inclination to write

more.--As ever,

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of _The Ebb Tide_, without

its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the

three detestable--or rather two detestable and one

contemptible--chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative

force and vividness of the treatment.

_[Vailima] 23rd August._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--Your pleasing letter _re The Ebb Tide_, to hand. I

propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd's name. He has nothing

to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning

of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather

unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work.

Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me

the most ugly and cynical of all.

You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not

because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that

surround me and that I choose to say nothing of.... Life is not all Beer

and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white

to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on.

Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an

ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still

believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the

missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy

devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is....

Well, _il faut cultiver son jardin_. That last expression of poor,

unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to _St. Ives_.

_24th Aug._--And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep

ultimately and "a' the clouds has blawn away." "Be sure we'll have some

pleisand weather, When a' the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away."

Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe

had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a

most excellent humour.

I am deep in _St. Ives_ which, I believe, will be the next novel done.

But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw

in your face the very last thing you expect--or I expect. _St. Ives_

will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny

style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to

some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. _St. Ives_ is

unintellectual, and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the

adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story.

Speed his wings!

_Sunday night._--_De coeur un peu plus dispos, monsieur et cher

confrere, je me remets a vous ecrire._ _St. Ives_ is now in the 5th

chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not

believe I shall end by disliking it.

_Monday._--Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is _very well_

indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits, but not _very_ well;

Lloyd is in good spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever

which has put her pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes

with him three chapters of _The Family_, and is to go to you as soon as

he can. He cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him

when you can and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six

months with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is

not--and not the dreams of dear old Ross.[66] He is a good fellow, is he

not?

Since you rather revise your views of _The Ebb Tide_, I think Lloyd's

name might stick, but I'll leave it to you. I'll tell you just how it

stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned

between us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to

do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the

projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My

impression--(I beg your pardon--this is a local joke--a firm here had on

its beer labels, "sole importers")--is that it will never be popular,

but might make a little _succes de scandale_. However, I'm done with it

now, and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what

I care.

Hole essential.[67] I am sorry about the maps; but I want 'em for next

edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the

bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not

write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work

of _falsification_ which a play demands is of all tasks the most

ungrateful? And I have done it a long while--and nothing ever came of

it.

Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic

and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less

sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I _would_ like you

to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it's a

wrench not to be planted in Scotland--that I can never deny--if I could

only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone

like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a

man who wrote the _Stickit Minister_,[68] and dedicated it to me, in

words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them.

"Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. _His_

heart remembers how." Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil

the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my

head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!

And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers,

I believe, my letters and Fanny's when we were first installed, and were

really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes,

asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape

gooseberries--galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a

week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the

gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful--for no one who has

not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As

for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a

month without leaving the verandah--for my sins, be it said! Doubtless,

when I go about and, as the Doctor says, "expose myself to malaria," I

am in far better health; and I would do so more too--for I do not mean

to be silly--but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much

the dear Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does

not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really

bothers us a little is the mosquito affair--the so-called

elephantiasis--ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural history,

_quoi_!

Hi! stop! you say _The Ebb Tide_ is the "working out of an artistic

problem of a kind." Well, I should just bet it was! You don't like

Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they're all there, I'll go bail.

Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a

weakness, that are gone through and lived out.

Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and

angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot

bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in

Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips--and the

women's heads taken--all under white auspices. And for upshot and result

of so much shame to the white powers--Tamasese already conspiring! as I

knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to

meddle in politics!

I suppose you're right about Simon.[69] But it is Symon throughout in

that blessed little volume my father bought for me in Inverness in the

year of grace '81, I believe--the trial of James Stewart, with the

Jacobite pamphlet and the dying speech appended--out of which the whole

of _Davie_ has already been begotten, and which I felt it a kind of

loyalty to follow. I really ought to have it bound in velvet and gold,

if I had any gratitude! and the best of the lark is, that the name of

David Balfour is not anywhere within the bounds of it. A pretty curious

instance of the genesis of a book. I am delighted at your good word for

_David_; I believe the two together make up much the best of my work and

perhaps of what is in me. I am not ashamed of them, at least. There is

one hitch; instead of three hours between the two parts, I fear there

have passed three years over Davie's character; but do not tell anybody;

see if they can find it out for themselves; and no doubt his experiences

in _Kidnapped_ would go far to form him. I would like a copy to go to G.

Meredith.

_Wednesday._--Well, here is a new move. It is likely I may start with

Graham next week and go to Honolulu to meet the other steamer and

return: I do believe a fortnight at sea would do me good; yet I am not

yet certain. The crowded _up_-steamer sticks in my throat.

_Tuesday, 12th Sept._--Yesterday was perhaps the brightest in the annals

of Vailima. I got leave from Captain Bickford to have the band of the

_Katoomba_ come up, and they came, fourteen of 'em, with drum, fife,

cymbals and bugles, blue jackets, white caps, and smiling faces. The

house was all decorated with scented greenery above and below. We had

not only our own nine out-door workers, but a contract party that we

took on in charity to pay their war-fine; the band besides, as it came

up the mountain, had collected a following of children by the way, and

we had a picking of Samoan ladies to receive them. Chicken, ham, cake

and fruits were served out with coffee and lemonade, and all the

afternoon we had rounds of claret negus flavoured with rum and limes.

They played to us, they danced, they sang, they tumbled. Our boys came

in the end of the verandah and gave _them_ a dance for a while. It was

anxious work getting this stopped once it had begun, but I knew the band

was going on a programme. Finally they gave three cheers for Mr. and

Mrs. Stevens, shook hands, formed up and marched off playing--till a

kicking horse in the paddock put their pipes out something of the

suddenest--we thought the big drum was gone, but Simele flew to the

rescue. And so they wound away down the hill with ever another call of

the bugle, leaving us extinct with fatigue, but perhaps the most

contented hosts that ever watched the departure of successful guests.

Simply impossible to tell how well these blue-jackets behaved; a most

interesting lot of men; this education of boys for the navy is making a

class, wholly apart--how shall I call them?--a kind of lower-class

public school boy, well-mannered, fairly intelligent, sentimental as a

sailor. What is more shall be writ on board ship if anywhere.

Please send _Catriona_ to G. Meredith.

_S.S. Mariposa._--To-morrow I reach Honolulu. Good-morning to your

honour.

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

In the interval between the last letter and this, the writer had been

down with a sharp and prolonged attack of fever at Honolulu, and Mrs.

Stevenson had come from Samoa to nurse and take him home.

_Waikiki, Honolulu, H. I., Oct. 23rd, 1893._

DEAR COLVIN,--My wife came up on the steamer and we go home together in

2 days. I am practically all right, only sleepy and tired easily, slept

yesterday from 11 to 11.45, from 1 to 2.50, went to bed at 8 P.M., and

with an hour's interval slept till 6 A.M., close upon 14 hours out of

the 24. We sail to-morrow. I am anxious to get home, though this has

been an interesting visit, and politics have been curious indeed to

study. We go to P.P.C. on the "Queen" this morning; poor, recluse lady,

_abreuvee d'injures qu'elle est_. Had a rather annoying lunch on board

the American man-of-war, with a member of the P.G. (provisional

government); and a good deal of anti-royalist talk, which I had to sit

out--not only for my host's sake, but my fellow guests. At last, I took

the lead and changed the conversation.

R. L. S.

I am being busted here by party named Hutchinson.[70] Seems good.

[_Vailima--November._]--Home again, and found all well, thank God. I am

perfectly well again and ruddier than the cherry. Please note that 8000

is not bad for a volume of short stories;[71] the _Merry Men_ did a good

deal worse; the short story never sells. I hope _Catriona_ will do; that

is the important. The reviews seem mixed and perplexed, and one had the

peculiar virtue to make me angry. I am in a fair way to expiscate my

family history. Fanny and I had a lovely voyage down, with our new C.J.

and the American Land Commissioner, and on the whole, and for these

disgusting steamers, a pleasant ship's company. I cannot understand why

you don't take to the Hawaii scheme. Do you understand? You cross the

Atlantic in six days, and go from 'Frisco to Honolulu in seven. Thirteen

days at sea _in all_.--I have no wish to publish _The Ebb Tide_ as a

book, let it wait. It will look well in the portfolio. I would like a

copy, of course, for that end; and to "look upon't again"--which I

scarce dare.

[_Later._]--This is disgraceful. I have done nothing; neither work nor

letters. On the Me (May) day, we had a great triumph; our Protestant

boys, instead of going with their own villages and families, went of

their own accord in the Vailima uniform; Belle made coats for them on

purpose to complete the uniform, they having bought the stuff; and they

were hailed as they marched in as the Tama-ona--the rich man's children.

This is really a score; it means that Vailima is publicly taken as a

family. Then we had my birthday feast a week late, owing to diarrhoea

on the proper occasion. The feast was laid in the Hall, and was a

singular mass of food: 15 pigs, 100 lbs. beef, 100 lbs. pork, and the

fruit and filigree in a proportion. We had sixty horse-posts driven in

the gate paddock; how many guests I cannot guess, perhaps 150. They came

between three and four and left about seven. Seumanu gave me one of his

names; and when my name was called at the ava drinking, behold, it was

_Au mai taua ma manu-vao!_ You would scarce recognise me, if you heard

me thus referred to!

Two days after, we hired a carriage in Apia, Fanny, Belle, Lloyd and I,

and drove in great style, with a native outrider, to the prison; a huge

gift of ava and tobacco under the seats. The prison is now under the

_pule_ of an Austrian, Captain Wurmbrand, a soldier of fortune in Servia

and Turkey, a charming, clever, kindly creature, who is adored "by _his_

chiefs" (as he calls them) meaning _our_ political prisoners. And we

came into the yard, walled about with tinned iron, and drank ava with

the prisoners and the captain. It may amuse you to hear how it is proper

to drink ava. When the cup is handed you, you reach your arm out

somewhat behind you, and slowly pour a libation, saying with somewhat

the manner of prayer, "_Ia taumafa e le atua. Ua matagofie le fesilafaga

nei._" "Be it (high-chief) partaken of by the God. How (high chief)

beautiful to view is this (high chief) gathering." This pagan practice

is very queer. I should say that the prison ava was of that not very

welcome form that we elegantly call spit-ava, but of course there was no

escape, and it had to be drunk. Fanny and I rode home, and I moralised

by the way. Could we ever stand Europe again? did she appreciate that if

we were in London, we should be _actually jostled_ in the street? and

there was nobody in the whole of Britain who knew how to take ava like a

gentleman? 'Tis funny to be thus of two civilisations--or, if you like,

of one civilisation and one barbarism. And, as usual, the barbarism is

the more engaging.

Colvin, you have to come here and see us in our {native / mortal} spot.

I just don't seem to be able to make up my mind to your not coming. By

this time, you will have seen Graham, I hope, and he will be able to

tell you something about us, and something reliable. I shall feel for

the first time as if you knew a little about Samoa after that. Fanny

seems to be in the right way now. I must say she is very, very well for

her, and complains scarce at all. Yesterday, she went down _sola_(at

least accompanied by a groom) to pay a visit; Belle, Lloyd and I went a

walk up the mountain road--the great public highway of the island, where

you have to go single file. The object was to show Belle that gaudy

valley of the Vaisigano which the road follows. If the road is to be

made and opened, as our new Chief Justice promises, it will be one of

the most beautiful roads in the world. But the point is this: I forgot I

had been three months in civilisation, wearing shoes and stockings, and

I tell you I suffered on my soft feet; coming home, down hill, on that

stairway of loose stones, I could have cried. O yes, another story, I

knew I had. The house boys had not been behaving well, so the other

night I announced a _fono_, and Lloyd and I went into the boys'

quarters, and I talked to them I suppose for half an hour, and Talolo

translated; Lloyd was there principally to keep another ear on the

interpreter; else there may be dreadful misconceptions. I rubbed all

their ears, except two whom I particularly praised; and one man's wages

I announced I had cut down by one half. Imagine his taking this smiling!

Ever since, he has been specially attentive and greets me with a face of

really heavenly brightness. This is another good sign of their really

and fairly accepting me as a chief. When I first came here, if I had

fined a man a sixpence, he would have quit work that hour, and now I

remove half his income, and he is glad to stay on--nay, does not seem to

entertain the possibility of leaving. And this in the face of one

particular difficulty--I mean our house in the bush, and no society, and

no women society within decent reach.

I think I must give you our staff in a tabular form.

HOUSE KITCHEN OUTSIDE

+ o _Sosimo_, provost + o _Talolo_, provost + o _Henry Simele_,

and butler, and my and chief cook. provost and overseer

valet. of outside

+ o _Iopu_, second cook. boys.

o _Misifolo_, who

is Fanny and _Tali_, his wife, no _L[=u]_.

Belle's chamberlain. wages.

_Tasi Sele_.

_Ti'a_, Samoan cook.

_Maiele_.

_Feiloa'i_, his child,

no wages, likewise no _Pulu_, who is also

work--Belle's pet. our talking man

and cries the ava.

+ o _Leuelu_, Fanny's

boy, gardener, odd jobs.

IN APIA

+ _Eliga_, washman and

daily errand man.

The crosses mark out the really excellent boys. Ti'a is the man who has

just been fined 1/2 his wages; he is a beautiful old man, the living

image of "Fighting Gladiator," my favourite statue--but a dreadful

humbug. I think we keep him on a little on account of his looks. This

sign o marks those who have been two years or upwards in the family. I

note all my old boys have the cross of honour, except Misifolo; well,

poor dog, he does his best, I suppose. You should see him scour. It is a

remark that has often been made by visitors: you never see a Samoan run,

except at Vailima. Do you not suppose that makes me proud?

I am pleased to see what a success _The Wrecker_ was, having already in

little more than a year outstripped _The Master of Ballantrae_.

About _David Balfour_ in two volumes, do see that they make it a

decent-looking book, and tell me, do you think a little historical

appendix would be of service? Lang bleats for one, and I thought I might

address it to him as a kind of open letter.

_Dec. 4th._--No time after all. Good-bye.

R. L. S.

TO J. HORNE STEVENSON

The following refers again to the introduction to the history of his

own family which Stevenson was then preparing under the title _A

Family of Engineers_. The correspondent was a specialist in

genealogical research. I give this letter as a sample of many which

passed between these two namesakes on this subject; omitting the

remainder as too technical to be of general interest.

_Vailima, Samoa, November 5th, 1893._

MY DEAR STEVENSON,--A thousand thanks for your voluminous and delightful

collections. Baxter--so soon as it is ready--will let you see a proof of

my introduction, which is only sent out as a sprat to catch whales. And

you will find I have a good deal of what you have, only mine in a

perfectly desultory manner, as is necessary to an exile. My uncle's

pedigree is wrong; there was never a Stevenson of Caldwell, of course,

but they were tenants of the Mures; the farm held by them is in my

introduction; and I have already written to Charles Baxter to have a

search made in the Register House. I hope he will have had the

inspiration to put it under your surveillance. Your information as to

your own family is intensely interesting, and I should not wonder but

what you and we and old John Stevenson, "land labourer in the parish of

Dailly," came all of the same stock. Ayrshire--and probably

Cunningham--seems to be the home of the race--our part of it. From the

distribution of the name--which your collections have so much extended

without essentially changing my knowledge of--we seem rather pointed to

a British origin. What you say of the Engineers is fresh to me, and must

be well thrashed out. This introduction of it will take a long while to

walk about!--as perhaps I may be tempted to let it become long; after

all, I am writing _this_ for my own pleasure solely. Greetings to you

and other Speculatives of our date, long bygone, alas!--Yours very

sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--I have a different version of my grandfather's arms--or my

father had if I could find it.

R. L. S.

TO JOHN P----N

The next two numbers are in answer to letters of appreciation

received from two small boys in England, whose mother desires that

they should remain nameless.

_Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._

DEAR JOHNNIE,--Well, I must say you seem to be a tremendous fellow!

Before I was eight I used to write stories--or dictate them at

least--and I had produced an excellent history of Moses, for which I got

L1 from an uncle; but I had never gone the length of a play, so you

have beaten me fairly on my own ground. I hope you may continue to do

so, and thanking you heartily for your nice letter, I shall beg you to

believe me yours truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO RUSSELL P----N

_Vailima, Samoa, December 3rd, 1893._

DEAR RUSSELL,--I have to thank you very much for your capital letter,

which came to hand here in Samoa along with your mother's. When you

"grow up and write stories like me," you will be able to understand that

there is scarce anything more painful than for an author to hold a pen;

he has to do it so much that his heart sickens and his fingers ache at

the sight or touch of it; so that you will excuse me if I do not write

much, but remain (with compliments and greetings from one Scot to

another--though I was not born in Ceylon--you're ahead of me

there).--Yours very truly,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

_Vailima, December 5, 1893._

MY DEAREST CUMMY,--This goes to you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy

New Year. The Happy New Year anyway, for I think it should reach you

about _Noor's Day_. I dare say it may be cold and frosty. Do you

remember when you used to take me out of bed in the early morning, carry

me to the back windows, show me the hills of Fife, and quote to me

"A' the hills are covered wi' snaw,

An' winter's noo come fairly"?

There is not much chance of that here! I wonder how my mother is going

to stand the winter. It she can, it will be a very good thing for her.

We are in that part of the year which I like the best--the Rainy or

Hurricane Season. "When it is good, it is very, very good; and when it

is bad, it is horrid," and our fine days are certainly fine like heaven;

such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the

hibiscus flowers, you never saw; and the air as mild and gentle as a

baby's breath, and yet not hot!

The mail is on the move, and I must let up.--With much love, I am, your

laddie,

R. L. S.

TO CHARLES BAXTER

The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall's "Decisions of

the Lords of Council, etc.," which suggested to Stevenson the romance

of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which, under the title

of _Heathercat_, he only lived to write the first few introductory

chapters (see vol. xxi. p. 177, of this edition).

_6th December 1893._

"_October 25, 1685._--At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the

King's Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a

clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet

Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the

way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle,

to produce her.... But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle's

son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen

years old." But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no

further.--FOUNTAINHALL, i. 320.

"_May 6, 1685._--Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all,

and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving

security for 7000 marks."--i. 372.

No, it seems to have been _her_ brother who had succeeded.

MY DEAR CHARLES.--The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can

be thrown on it. I prefer the girl's father dead; and the question is,

How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to

"apprehend" and his power to "sell" her in marriage?

Or--might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles,

and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?

A good legal note on these points is very ardently desired by me; it

will be the corner-stone of my novel.

This is for--I am quite wrong to tell you--for you will tell others--and

nothing will teach you that all my schemes are in the air, and vanish

and reappear again like shapes in the clouds--it is for _Heathercat_:

whereof the first volume will be called _The Killing Time_, and I

believe I have authorities ample for that. But the second volume is to

be called (I believe) _Darien_, and for that I want, I fear, a good deal

of truck:--

_Darien Papers_,

_Carstairs Papers_,

_Marchmont Papers_,

_Jerviswoode Correspondence_,

I hope may do me. Some sort of general history of the Darien affair (if

there is a decent one, which I misdoubt), it would also be well to

have--the one with most details, if possible. It is singular how obscure

to me this decade of Scots history remains, 1690-1700--a deuce of a want

of light and grouping to it! However, I believe I shall be mostly out of

Scotland in my tale; first in Carolina, next in Darien. I want also--I

am the daughter of the horseleech truly--"Black's new large map of

Scotland," sheets 3, 4, and 5, a 7s. 6d. touch. I believe, if you can

get the

_Caldwell Papers_,

they had better come also; and if there be any reasonable work--but no,

I must call a halt....

I fear the song looks doubtful, but I'll consider of it, and I can

promise you some reminiscences which it will amuse me to write, whether

or not it will amuse the public to read of them. But it's an unco

business to supply deid-heid coapy.

TO J. M. BARRIE

_Vailima, Samoa, December 7th, 1893._

MY DEAR BARRIE,--I have received duly the _magnum opus_, and it really

is a _magnum opus_.[72] It is a beautiful specimen of Clark's printing,

paper sufficient, and the illustrations all my fancy painted. But the

particular flower of the flock to whom I have hopelessly lost my heart

is Tibby Birse. I must have known Tibby Birse when she was a servant's

mantua-maker in Edinburgh and answered to the name of Miss _Broddie_.

She used to come and sew with my nurse, sitting with her legs crossed in

a masculine manner; and swinging her foot emphatically, she used to pour

forth a perfectly unbroken stream of gossip. I didn't hear it, I was

immersed in far more important business with a box of bricks, but the

recollection of that thin, perpetual, shrill sound of a voice has echoed

in my ears sinsyne. I am bound to say she was younger than Tibbie, but

there is no mistaking that and the indescribable and eminently Scottish

expression.

I have been very much prevented of late, having carried out thoroughly

to my own satisfaction two considerable illnesses, had a birthday, and

visited Honolulu, where politics are (if possible) a shade more

exasperating than they are with us. I am told that it was just when I

was on the point of leaving that I received your superlative epistle

about the cricket eleven. In that case it is impossible I should have

answered it, which is inconsistent with my own recollection of the

fact. What _I_ remember is, that I sat down under your immediate

inspiration and wrote an answer in every way worthy. If I didn't, as it

seems proved that I couldn't, it will never be done now. However, I did

the next best thing, I equipped my cousin Graham Balfour with a letter

of introduction, and from him, if you know how--for he is rather of the

Scottish character--you may elicit all the information you can possibly

wish to have as to us and ours. Do not be bluffed off by the somewhat

stern and monumental first impression that he may make upon you. He is

one of the best fellows in the world, and the same sort of fool that we

are, only better-looking, with all the faults of Vailimans and some of

his own--I say nothing about virtues.

I have lately been returning to my wallowing in the mire. When I was a

child, and indeed until I was nearly a man, I consistently read

Covenanting books. Now that I am a grey-beard--or would be, if I could

raise the beard--I have returned, and for weeks back have read little

else but Wodrow, Walker, Shields, etc. Of course this is with an idea of

a novel, but in the course of it I made a very curious discovery. I have

been accustomed to hear refined and intelligent critics--those who know

so much better what we are than we do ourselves,--trace down my literary

descent from all sorts of people, including Addison, of whom I could

never read a word. Well, laigh i' your lug, sir--the clue was found. My

style is from the Covenanting writers. Take a particular case--the

fondness for rhymes. I don't know of any English prose-writer who rhymes

except by accident, and then a stone had better be tied around his neck

and himself cast into the sea. But my Covenanting buckies rhyme all the

time--a beautiful example of the unconscious rhyme above referred to.

Do you know, and have you really tasted, these delightful works? If not,

it should be remedied; there is enough of the Auld Licht in you to be

ravished.

I suppose you know that success has so far attended my banners--my

political banners I mean, and not my literary. In conjunction with the

Three Great Powers I have succeeded in getting rid of My President and

My Chief-Justice. They've gone home, the one to Germany, the other to

Souwegia. I hear little echoes of footfalls of their departing footsteps

through the medium of the newspapers....

Whereupon I make you my salute with the firm remark that it is time to

be done with trifling and give us a great book, and my ladies fall into

line with me to pay you a most respectful courtesy, and we all join in

the cry, "Come to Vailima!"

My dear sir, your soul's health is in it--you will never do the great

book, you will never cease to work in L., etc., till you come to

Vailima.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO R. LE GALLIENNE

_Vailima, Samoa, December 28th, 1893._

DEAR MR. LE GALLIENNE,--I have received some time ago, through our

friend Miss Taylor, a book of yours. But that was by no means my first

introduction to your name. The same book had stood already on my

shelves; I had read articles of yours in the Academy; and by a piece of

constructive criticism (which I trust was sound) had arrived at the

conclusion that you were "Log-roller." Since then I have seen your

beautiful verses to your wife. You are to conceive me, then, as only

too ready to make the acquaintance of a man who loved good literature

and could make it. I had to thank you, besides, for a triumphant

exposure of a paradox of my own: the literary-prostitute disappeared

from view at a phrase of yours--"The essence is not in the pleasure but

the sale." True you are right, I was wrong; the author is not the whore

but the libertine; and yet I shall let the passage stand. It is an

error, but it illustrated the truth for which I was contending, that

literature--painting--all art , are no other than pleasures, which we

turn into trades.

And more than all this, I had, and I have to thank you for the intimate

loyalty you have shown to myself; for the eager welcome you give to what

is good--for the courtly tenderness with which you touch on my defects.

I begin to grow old; I have given my top note, I fancy;--and I have

written too many books. The world begins to be weary of the old booth;

and if not weary, familiar with the familiarity that breeds contempt. I

do not know that I am sensitive to criticism, if it be hostile; I am

sensitive indeed, when it is friendly; and when I read such criticism as

yours, I am emboldened to go on and praise God.

You are still young, and you may live to do much. The little artificial

popularity of style in England tends, I think, to die out; the British

pig returns to his true love, the love of the styleless, of the

shapeless, of the slapdash and the disorderly. There is trouble coming,

I think; and you may have to hold the fort for us in evil days.

Lastly, let me apologise for the crucifixion that I am inflicting on you

(_bien a contre-coeur_) by my bad writing. I was once the best of

writers; landladies, puzzled as to my "trade," used to have their honest

bosoms set at rest by a sight of a page of manuscript.--"Ah," they would

say, "no wonder they pay you for that";--and when I sent it in to the

printers, it was given to the boys! I was about thirty-nine, I think,

when I had a turn of scrivener's palsy; my hand got worse; and for the

first time, I received clean proofs. But it has gone beyond that now. I

know I am like my old friend James Payn, a terror to correspondents; and

you would not believe the care with which this has been

written.--Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

TO MRS. A. BAKER

The next is in answer to a request for permission to print some of

the writings of R. L. S. in Braille type for the use of the blind.

_December 1893._

DEAR MADAM,--There is no trouble, and I wish I could help instead. As it

is, I fear I am only going to put you to trouble and vexation. This

Braille writing is a kind of consecration, and I would like if I could

to have your copy perfect. The two volumes are to be published as Vols.

I. and II. of _The Adventures of David Balfour_. 1st, _Kidnapped_; 2nd,

_Catriona_. I am just sending home a corrected _Kidnapped_ for this

purpose to Messrs. Cassell, and in order that I may if possible be in

time, I send it to you first of all. Please, as soon as you have noted

the changes, forward the same to Cassell and Co., La Belle Sauvage Yard,

Ludgate Hill.

I am writing to them by this mail to send you _Catriona_.

You say, dear madam, you are good enough to say, it is "a keen pleasure"

to you to bring my book within the reach of the blind.

Conceive then what it is to me! and believe me, sincerely yours,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

I was a barren tree before,

I blew a quenched coal,

I could not, on their midnight shore,

The lonely blind console.

A moment, lend your hand, I bring

My sheaf for you to bind,

And you can teach my words to sing

In the darkness of the blind.

R. L. S.

TO HENRY JAMES

_Apia, December, 1893._

MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,--The mail has come upon me like an armed man three

days earlier than was expected; and the Lord help me! It is impossible I

should answer anybody the way they should be. Your jubilation over

_Catriona_ did me good, and still more the subtlety and truth of your

remark on the starving of the visual sense in that book. 'Tis true, and

unless I make the greater effort--and am, as a step to that, convinced

of its necessity--it will be more true I fear in the future. I _hear_

people talking, and I _feel_ them acting, and that seems to me to be

fiction. My two aims may be described as--

_1st._ War to the adjective.

_2nd._ Death to the optic nerve.

Admitted we live in an age of the optic nerve in literature. For how

many centuries did literature get along without a sign of it? However,

I'll consider your letter.

How exquisite is your character of the critic in _Essays in London_! I

doubt if you have done any single thing so satisfying as a piece of

style and of insight--Yours ever,

R. L. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

Recounting a scene of gratitude for bounty shown by him to the

prisoners in Apia gaol.

[_Vailima, December 1893._]

MY DEAR COLVIN,--One page out of my picture book I must give you. Fine

burning day; 1/2 past two P.M. We four begin to rouse up from reparatory

slumbers, yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably dress: we

have had a party the day before, X'mas Day, with all the boys absent

but one, and latterly two; we had cooked all day long, a cold dinner,

and lo! at two our guests began to arrive, though dinner was not till

six; they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted.

Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on our horses and start off in

the hottest part of the afternoon to ride 4 1/2 miles, attend a native

feast in the gaol, and ride four and a half miles back. But there is no

help for it. I am a sort of father of the political prisoners, and have

_charge d'ames_ in that riotously absurd establishment, Apia Gaol. The

twenty-three (I think it is) chiefs act as under gaolers. The other day

they told the Captain of an attempt to escape. One of the lesser

political prisoners the other day effected a swift capture, while the

Captain was trailing about with the warrant; the man came to see what

was wanted; came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my prisoner offers

to show him the dark cell, shoves him in, and locks the door. "Why do

you do that?" cries the former gaoler. "A warrant," says he. Finally,

the chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them!

The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a little room, and

three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a

fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable

end with the inscription _O le Fale Puipui_. It is on the edge of the

mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we

drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd

outside--I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people.

The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there seemed

to be a continuous circulation inside and out. The captain came to meet

us; our boy, who had been sent ahead was there to take the horses; and

we passed inside the court which was full of food, and rang continuously

to the voice of the caller of gifts; I had to blush a little later when

my own present came, and I heard my one pig and eight miserable

pine-apples being counted out like guineas. In the four corners of the

yard and along one wall, there are make-shift, dwarfish, Samoan houses

or huts, which have been run up since Captain Wurmbrand came to

accommodate the chiefs. Before that they were all crammed into the six

cells, and locked in for the night, some of them with dysentery. They

are wretched constructions enough, but sanctified by the presence of

chiefs. We heard a man corrected loudly to-day for saying "_Fale_" of

one of them; "_Maota_," roared the highest chief present--"palace."

About eighteen chiefs, gorgeously arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led

us into one of these _maotas_, where you may be sure we had to crouch,

almost to kneel, to enter, and where a row of pretty girls occupied one

side to make the ava (kava). The highest chief present was a magnificent

man, as high chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his face

is full of shrewdness and authority; his figure like Ajax; his name

Auilua. He took the head of the building and put Belle on his right

hand. Fanny was called first for the ava (kava). Our names were called

in English style, the high-chief wife of Mr. St--(an unpronounceable

something); Mrs. Straw, and the like. And when we went into the other

house to eat, we found we were seated alternately with chiefs about

the--table, I was about to say, but rather floor. Everything was to be

done European style with a vengeance! We were the only whites present,

except Wurmbrand, and still I had no suspicion of the truth. They began

to take off their ulas (necklaces of scarlet seeds) and hang them about

our necks; we politely resisted, and were told that the king (who had

stopped off their _siva_) had sent down to the prison a message to the

effect that he was to give a dinner to-morrow, and wished their

second-hand ulas for it. Some of them were content; others not. There

was a ring of anger in the boy's voice, as he told us we were to wear

them past the king's house. Dinner over, I must say they are moderate

eaters at a feast, we returned to the ava house; and then the curtain

drew suddenly up upon the set scene. We took our seats, and Auilua began

to give me a present, recapitulating each article as he gave it out,

with some appropriate comment. He called me several times "their only

friend," said they were all in slavery, had no money, and these things

were all made by the hands of their families--nothing bought; he had one

phrase, in which I heard his voice rise up to a note of triumph: "This

is a present from the poor prisoners to the rich man." Thirteen pieces

of tapa, some of them surprisingly fine, one I think unique; thirty fans

of every shape and colour; a kava cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua

conducted the business with weighty gravity; but before the end of the

thirty fans, his comments began to be humorous. When it came to a little

basket, he said: "Here was a little basket for Tusitala to put sixpence

in, when he could get hold of one"--with a delicious grimace. I answered

as best as I was able through a miserable interpreter; and all the

while, as I went on, I heard the crier outside in the court calling my

gift of food, which I perceived was to be Gargantuan. I had brought but

three boys with me. It was plain that they were wholly overpowered. We

proposed to send for our gifts on the morrow; but no, said the

interpreter, that would never do; they must go away to-day, Mulinuu must

see my porters taking away the gifts,--"make 'em jella," quoth the

interpreter. And I began to see the reason of this really splendid gift;

one half, gratitude to me--one half, a wipe at the king.

And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know this visit of mine

to the gaol was just a little bit risky; we had several causes for

anxiety; it _might_ have been put up, to connect with a Tamasese rising.

Tusitala and his family would be good hostages. On the other hand, there

were the Mulinuu people all about. We could see the anxiety of Captain

Wurmbrand, no less anxious to have us go, than he had been to see us

come; he was deadly white and plainly had a bad headache, in the noisy

scene. Presently, the noise grew uproarious; there was a rush at the

gate--a rush _in_, not a rush _out_--where the two sentries still stood

passive; Auilua leaped from his place (it was then that I got the name

of Ajax for him) and the next moment we heard his voice roaring and saw

his mighty figure swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the deuce

would have it, we could not understand a word of what was going on. It

might be nothing more than the ordinary "grab racket" with which a feast

commonly concludes; it might be something worse. We made what

arrangements we could for my tapa, fans, etc., as well as for my five

pigs, my masses of fish, taro, etc., and with great dignity, and

ourselves laden with ulas and other decorations, passed between the

sentries among the howling mob to our horses. All's well that ends well.

Owing to Fanny and Belle, we had to walk; and, as Lloyd said, "he had at

last ridden in a circus." The whole length of Apia we paced our

triumphal progress, past the king's palace, past the German firm at

Sogi--you can follow it on the map--amidst admiring exclamations of

"_Mawaia_"--beautiful--it may be rendered "O my! ain't they

dandy"--until we turned up at last into our road as the dusk deepened

into night. It was really exciting. And there is one thing sure: no such

feast was ever made for a single family, and no such present ever given

to a single white man. It is something to have been the hero of it. And

whatever other ingredients there were, undoubtedly gratitude was

present. As money value I have actually gained on the transaction!

Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott has already put his

nose in, in _St. Ives_, sir; but his appearance is not yet complete;

nothing is in that romance, except the story. I have to announce that I

am off work, probably for six months. I must own that I have overworked

bitterly--overworked--there, that's legible. My hand is a thing that

was, and in the meanwhile so are my brains. And here, in the very midst,

comes a plausible scheme to make Vailima pay, which will perhaps let me

into considerable expense just when I don't want it. You know the vast

cynicism of my view of affairs, and how readily and (as some people say)

with how much gusto I take the darker view?

Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome's paper, and let me see _The Ebb

Tide_ as a serial? It is always very important to see a thing in

different presentments. I want every number. Politically we begin the

new year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust which

may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to Baxter about his

proposal.[73]

FOOTNOTES:

[56] The correspondent whose letter I had sent on was a high official

at the Foreign Office: the subject, Stevenson and Samoa.

[57] Hemorrhage from the lungs.

[58] Vitrolle's _Memoires_ and the "1814" and "1815" of M. Henri

Houssaye were sent accordingly.

[59] Ultimately _The Ebb Tide_.

[60] For a volume of selected _Essays_, containing the pick of

_Virginibus Puerisque_, _Memories and Portraits_, and _Across the

Plains_.

[61] _The Owl_ was to be a Breton story of the Revolution; _Death in

the Pot_, a tale of the Sta. Lucia mountains in California; the

scene of _The Go-Between_ was laid in the Pacific Islands; of _The

Sleeper Awakened_ I know nothing.

[62] Of _Island Nights' Entertainments_.

[63] John Addington Symonds.

[64] _Across the Plains._

[65] Volume of sonnets by Jose Maria de Heredia.

[66] Dr. Fairfax Ross, a distinguished physician of Sydney, and

friend of the Stevenson family, who during a visit to England this

summer had conveyed to me no very reassuring impression as to the

healthfulness of the island life and climate.

[67] W. Hole, R.S.A.: essential for the projected illustrations to

_Kidnapped_ and _Catriona_.

[68] Mr. S. R. Crockett. The words quoted from this gentleman's

dedication were worked by Stevenson into a very moving and

metrically original set of verses, addressed to him in

acknowledgment (_Songs of Travel_, xlii.).

[69] Simon Fraser, the Master of Lovat, in _Catriona_: the spelling

of his name.

[70] The bust was exhibited in the New Gallery Summer Exhibition, 1895.

[71] _Island Nights' Entertainments._

[72] _The Window in Thrums_, with illustrations by W. Hole, R.S.A.

Hodder and Stoughton. 1892.

[73] The scheme of the Edinburgh Edition.

XIV

LIFE IN SAMOA--_Concluded_

FOURTH YEAR AT VAILIMA--THE END

JANUARY-DECEMBER 1894

This new year began for Stevenson with an illness which seemed to leave

none of the usual lowering consequences, and for Samoa with fresh

rumours of war, which were not realised until the autumn, and then--at

least in the shape of serious hostilities--in the district of Atua only

and not in his own. On the whole Stevenson's bodily health and vigour

kept at a higher level than during the previous year. But for serious

imaginative writing he found himself still unfit, and the sense that his

old facility had for the time being failed him caused him much inward

misgiving. In his correspondence the misgiving mood was allowed to

appear pretty freely; but in personal intercourse his high spirits

seemed to his family and visitors as unfailing as ever. Several things

happened during the year to give him peculiar pleasure: first, at the

beginning of the year, the news of Mr. Baxter's carefully prepared

scheme of the Edinburgh Edition, and of its acceptance by the publishers

concerned. On this subject much correspondence naturally passed between

him and Mr. Baxter and myself, over and above that which is here

published; and finally he resolved to leave all the details of the

execution to us. By the early autumn the financial success of the scheme

was fully assured and made known to him by cable; but he did not seem

altogether to realise the full measure of relief from money anxieties

which the assurance was meant to convey to him. Other pleasurable

circumstances were the return of Mr. Graham Balfour after a prolonged

absence; the visit of a spirited and accomplished young English man of

business and of letters, Mr. Sidney Lysaght (see below, pp. 385, 388,

etc.); and the frequent society of the officers of H.M.S. _Curacoa_,

with whom he was on terms of particular regard and cordiality. Lastly,

he was very deeply touched and gratified by the action of the native

political prisoners, towards whom he had shown much thoughtful kindness

during their months of detention, in volunteering as a testimony of

gratitude after their release to re-make with their own hands the branch

road leading to his house: "the Road of Loving Hearts," as it came to be

christened. Soon afterwards, the anniversaries of his own birthday and

of the American Thanks-giving feast brought evidences hardly less

welcome, after so much contention and annoyance as the island affairs

and politics had involved him in, of the honour and affection in which

he was held by all that was best in the white community. By each

succeeding mail came stronger proofs from home of the manner in which

men of letters of the younger generation had come to regard him as a

master, an example, and a friend.

But in spite of all these causes of pleasure, his letters showed that

his old invincible spirit of inward cheerfulness was beginning not

infrequently to give way to moods of depression and overstrained

feeling. The importunity of these moods was no doubt due to some

physical premonition that his vital powers, so frail from the cradle and

always with so cheerful a courage overtaxed, were near exhaustion.

During the first months of the year he attempted little writing; in the

late spring and early summer his work was chiefly on the annals of his

family and on the tale _St. Ives_. The latter he found uphill work:

after the first ten or twelve chapters, which are in his happiest vein,

the narrative, as he himself was painfully aware, began to flag. Towards

the end of October he gave it up for the time being and turned to a more

arduous task, the tragic _Weir of Hermiston_. On this theme he felt his

inspiration return, and during the month of November and the first days

of December wrought once more at the full pitch of his powers and in the

conscious delight of their exercise. On the third of December, after a

morning of happy work and pleasant correspondence, he was seen gazing

long and wistfully toward the forest-clad mountain, on a ledge of which

he had desired that he should be buried. In the afternoon he brought his

morning's work to his wife, the most exacting of his critics; asked her

whether it was not well done; and in her glow of admiring assent found

his confirmation and his reward. Nevertheless she could not throw off an

oppressive sense of coming calamity. He was reassuring her with gay and

laughing talk when the sudden rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain

laid him almost in a moment unconscious at her feet; and before two

hours were over he had passed away. All the world knows how his body was

carried by the loving hands of his native servants to the burial-place

of his choice, and rests there with the words of his own requiem

engraved on his tomb--the words which we have seen him putting on paper

when he was at grips with death fifteen years before in California--

"Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill."

TO CHARLES BAXTER

Mr. Baxter, after much preliminary consideration and inquiry, had

matured and submitted to Stevenson the scheme of the Edinburgh

edition, to which this letter is his reply. The paper on _Treasure

Island_ appeared in the Idler for August 1889, and was afterwards

reprinted in the miscellany _My First Book_ (Chatto and Windus,

1894). See Edinburgh edition, _Miscellanies_, vol. iv. p. 285.

_1st January '94._

MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am delighted with your idea, and first, I will here

give an amended plan and afterwards give you a note of some of the

difficulties.

[Plan of the Edinburgh edition--14 vols.]

... It may be a question whether my Times letters might not be appended

to the _Footnote_ with a note of the dates of discharge of Cedercrantz

and Pilsach.

I am particularly pleased with this idea of yours, because I am come to

a dead stop. I never can remember how bad I have been before, but at any

rate I am bad enough just now, I mean as to literature; in health I am

well and strong. I take it I shall be six months before I'm heard of

again, and this time I could put in to some advantage in revising the

text and (if it were thought desirable) writing prefaces. I do not know

how many of them might be thought desirable. I have written a paper on

_Treasure Island_, which is to appear shortly. _Master of Ballantrae_--I

have one drafted. _The Wrecker_ is quite sufficiently done already with

the last chapter, but I suppose an historic introduction to _David

Balfour_ is quite unavoidable. _Prince Otto_ I don't think I could say

anything about, and _Black Arrow_ don't want to. But it is probable I

could say something to the volume of _Travels_. In the verse business I

can do just what I like better than anything else, and extend

_Underwoods_ with a lot of unpublished stuff. _A propos_, if I were to

get printed off a very few poems which are somewhat too intimate for the

public, could you get them run up in some luxuous manner, so that fools

might be induced to buy them in just a sufficient quantity to pay

expenses and the thing remain still in a manner private? We could supply

photographs of the illustrations--and the poems are of Vailima and the

family--I should much like to get this done as a surprise for Fanny.

R. L. S.

TO H. B. BAILDON

_Vailima, January 15th, 1894._