_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _May_ 17_th_, 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,