[_Vailima_, _March_ 1892.]
MY DEAR MRS. FAIRCHILD,—I am guilty in your sight, but my affairs besiege
me. The chief-justiceship of a family of nineteen persons is in
itself no sinecure, and sometimes occupies me for days: two weeks ago for
four days almost entirely, and for two days entirely. Besides which, I
have in the last few months written all but one chapter of a _History of
Samoa_ for the last eight or nine years; and while I was unavoidably
delayed in the writing of this, awaiting material, put in one-half of
_David Balfour_, the sequel to _Kidnapped_. Add the ordinary impediments
of life, and admire my busyness. I am now an old, but healthy skeleton,
and degenerate much towards the machine. By six at work: stopped at
half-past ten to give a history lesson to a step-grandson; eleven, lunch;
after lunch we have a musical performance till two; then to work again;
bath, 4.40, dinner, five; cards in the evening till eight; and then to
bed—only I have no bed, only a chest with a mat and blankets—and read
myself to sleep. This is the routine, but often sadly interrupted. Then
you may see me sitting on the floor of my verandah haranguing and being
harangued by squatting chiefs on a question of a road; or more privately
holding an inquiry into some dispute among our familiars, myself on my
bed, the boys on the floor—for when it comes to the judicial I play
dignity—or else going down to Apia on some more or less unsatisfactory
errand. Altogether it is a life that suits me, but it absorbs me like an
ocean. That is what I have always envied and admired in Scott; with all
that immensity of work and study, his mind kept flexible, glancing to all
points of natural interest. But the lean hot spirits, such as mine,
become hypnotised with their bit occupations—if I may use Scotch to
you—it is so far more scornful than any English idiom. Well, I can’t
help being a skeleton, and you are to take this devious passage for an
apology.
I thought _Aladdin_ capital fun; but why, in fortune, did he pretend it
was moral at the end? The so-called nineteenth century, _où va-t-il se
nicher_? ’Tis a trifle, but Pyle would do well to knock the passage out,
and leave his boguey tale a boguey tale, and a good one at that.
The arrival of your box was altogether a great success to the castaways.
You have no idea where we live. Do you know, in all these islands there
are not five hundred whites, and no postal delivery, and only one
village—it is no more—and would be a mean enough village in Europe? We
were asked the other day if Vailima were the name of our post town, and
we laughed. Do you know, though we are but three miles from the village
metropolis, we have no road to it, and our goods are brought on the
pack-saddle? And do you know—or I should rather say, can you believe—or
(in the famous old Tichborne trial phrase) would you be surprised to
learn, that all you have read of Vailima—or Subpriorsford, as I call
it—is entirely false, and we have no ice-machine, and no electric light,
and no water supply but the cistern of the heavens, and but one public
room, and scarce a bedroom apiece? But, of course, it is well known that
I have made enormous sums by my evanescent literature, and you will smile
at my false humility. The point, however, is much on our minds just now.
We are expecting an invasion of Kiplings; very glad we shall be to see
them; but two of the party are ladies, and I tell you we had to hold a
council of war to stow them. You European ladies are so particular; with
all of mine, sleeping has long become a public function, as with natives
and those who go down much into the sea in ships.
Dear Mrs. Fairchild, I must go to my work. I have but two words to say
in conclusion.
First, civilisation is rot.
Second, console a savage with more of the milk of that over civilised
being, your adorable schoolboy.
As I wrote these remarkable words, I was called down to eight o’clock
prayers, and have just worked through a chapter of Joshua and five
verses, with five treble choruses of a Samoan hymn; but the music was
good, our boys and precentress (’tis always a woman that leads) did
better than I ever heard them, and to my great pleasure I understood it
all except one verse. This gave me the more time to try and identify
what the parts were doing, and further convict my dull ear. Beyond the
fact that the soprano rose to the tonic above, on one occasion I could
recognise nothing. This is sickening, but I mean to teach my ear better
before I am done with it or this vile carcase.
I think it will amuse you (for a last word) to hear that our
precentress—she is the washerwoman—is our shame. She is a good, healthy,
comely, strapping young wench, full of energy and seriousness, a splendid
workwoman, delighting to train our chorus, delighting in the poetry of
the hymns, which she reads aloud (on the least provocation) with a great
sentiment of rhythm. Well, then, what is curious? Ah, we did not know!
but it was told us in a whisper from the cook-house—she is not of good
family. Don’t let it get out, please; everybody knows it, of course,
here; there is no reason why Europe and the States should have the
advantage of me also. And the rest of my housefolk are all chief-people,
I assure you. And my late overseer (far the best of his race) is a
really serious chief with a good ‘name.’ Tina is the name; it is not in
the Almanach de Gotha, it must have got dropped at press. The odd thing
is, we rather share the prejudice. I have almost always—though not quite
always—found the higher the chief the better the man through all the
islands; or, at least, that the best man came always from a highish rank.
I hope Helen will continue to prove a bright exception.
With love to Fairchild and the Huge Schoolboy, I am, my dear Mrs.
Fairchild, yours very sincerely,