_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _September_ 9, 1894.
MY DEAR CONAN DOYLE,—If you found anything to entertain you in my
_Treasure Island_ article, it may amuse you to know that you owe it
entirely to yourself. _Your_ ‘First Book’ was by some accident read
aloud one night in my Baronial ’All. I was consumedly amused by it, so
was the whole family, and we proceeded to hunt up back _Idlers_ and read
the whole series. It is a rattling good series, even people whom you
would not expect came in quite the proper tone—Miss Braddon, for
instance, who was really one of the best where all are good—or all but
one! . . . In short, I fell in love with ‘The First Book’ series, and
determined that it should be all our first books, and that I could not
hold back where the white plume of Conan Doyle waved gallantly in the
front. I hope they will republish them, though it’s a grievous thought
to me that that effigy in the German cap—likewise the other effigy of the
noisome old man with the long hair, telling indelicate stories to a
couple of deformed negresses in a rancid shanty full of wreckage—should
be perpetuated. I may seem to speak in pleasantry—it is only a
seeming—that German cap, sir, would be found, when I come to die,
imprinted on my heart. Enough—my heart is too full. Adieu.—Yours very
truly,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
(in a German cap, damn ’em!)