_Vailima_, _Samoa_, _December_ 1, 1894.
DEAR SIR HERBERT,—Thank you very much for your long and kind letter. I
shall certainly take your advice and call my cousin, the Lyon King, into
council. It is certainly a very interesting subject, though I don’t
suppose it can possibly lead to anything, this connection between the
Stevensons and M’Gregors. Alas! your invitation is to me a mere
derision. My chances of visiting Heaven are about as valid as my chances
of visiting Monreith. Though I should like well to see you, shrunken
into a cottage, a literary Lord of Ravenscraig. I suppose it is the
inevitable doom of all those who dabble in Scotch soil; but really your
fate is the more blessed. I cannot conceive anything more grateful to
me, or more amusing or more picturesque, than to live in a cottage
outside your own park-walls.—With renewed thanks, believe me, dear Sir
Herbert, yours very truly,