_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 7_th_, 1893.
MY DEAR BARRIE,—I have received duly the _magnum opus_, and it really is
a _magnum opus_. {311} 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.