[_Honolulu_, _April_ 1889.]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,—This is to announce the most prodigious change of
programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I desire to see
more, and I get so much health here that I dread a return to our vile
climates. I have applied accordingly to the missionary folk to let me go
round in the _Morning Star_; and if the Boston Board should refuse, I
shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a trading schooner, and see the Fijis and
Friendlies and Samoa. He would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. Of
course, if I go in the _Morning Star_, I see all the eastern (or
western?) islands.
Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last of _The Master_:
though I tell you it sticks!—and I hope to have had some proofs forbye,
of the verses anyway. And now to business.
I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if not, in
some equally compact and portable shape—Seaside Library, for instance—the
Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can get ’em, and the
following of Marryat: _Phantom Ship_, _Peter Simple_, _Percival Keene_,
_Privateersman_, _Children of the New Forest_, _Frank Mildmay_, _Newton
Forster_, _Dog Fiend_ (_Snarleyyow_). Also _Midshipman Easy_,
_Kingsburn_, Carlyle’s _French Revolution_, Motley’s _Dutch Republic_,
Lang’s _Letters on Literature_, a complete set of my works, _Jenkin_, in
duplicate; also _Familiar Studies_, ditto.
I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory indeed, and
for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have come and gone before
I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite
worked out, and this cursed end of _The Master_ hangs over me like the
arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before dawn, and no doubt
the clouds will soon rise; but it is a difficult thing to write, above
all in Mackellarese; and I cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this
off, _The Master_ will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived;
and even if I don’t pull it off, it’ll still have some stuff in it.
We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother
leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to come
here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address, which will
probably be Sydney. If we get on the _Morning Star_, I propose at
present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of getting a
passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons mighty vague, and
the cruise is risky; but I shall know something of the South Seas when it
is done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. It
should give me a fine book of travels, anyway.
Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him have
them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my books should go
to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht _Casco_, Oakland, Cal.
In haste,